#for the sake of posterity: i am not six years old

[toyotacorolla2008]

Can we see the Brainstorm cake? ovO

cakestorm

we didn't have a knife so we tried using satay sticks (thin wooden sticks pretty much) to slice him up

LENGTHWAYS!

but the cake was really thick so we ended up using cups

so that was the fate of cakestorm (cookies and cream flavoured). he was very yummy. and yes that is perceptor at the side.

#bonposting #tw food #cakestorm #brainstorm #ask #frootertooter #for the sake of posterity: i am not six years old

[doonarose]

Right, so, Good Omens. Legit my favorite book, number one, since I was about 12 or 13 which was… some several years ago (I have tumblr Good Omens posts over ten years old! Gather round wee youngins). Loved the first season, did the book justice, love the actors, love neil, blah blah (a scattering of posts for this from four years ago). Closed circuit for me, though, no work to do, enjoyed, rewatched, enjoyed, left it be, waiting for season two (which I was reasonably convinced was an entirely bad idea, just like I’d been reasonably convinced a TV adaptation of the book was an entirely bad idea, and been happily wrong).

Second season – dunno what I was expecting – but it wasn’t that and I didn’t love it, I was a touch disappointed in it when I first finished it up, because I watched it distracted and having gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever, but sometimes things take a while to settle and find their place in my brain.

We read a book called ‘I for Isobel’ in Year 11 of high school and I hated that book my first read -ranted about how rubbish a piece of literature it was – and my very wise English teacher gently promised she’d convince me otherwise. I still remember the earth-shattering shift in teenaged perception I experienced when I realized I could learn to love a piece of art I had adamantly despised and also, that it made perfect sense that a character such as Isobel could call herself a preposition and be equal parts right and wrong (I was also, most definitely, identifying as a preposition for a while there). Same with Pride and Prejudice, I hated that smug motherfucker and Elizabeth for losing her mind and fawning over him, a different English teacher again told me to sit with it, reread it, examine the angles. Both those books are still in my top ten.

And – don’t panic – at this point, of thinking and watching and thinking, I am enamoured with the second season of Good Omens. Different to season 1, and different to the book, but utterly gorgeous and complex, giddy and romantic and soft but infuriating. I mean, the season isn’t infuriating, in and of itself; it’s very good, except that it sets up our leads to be infuriating, and it does it on purpose and that is infuriating and boy, oh boy, do I love me a ‘shit communication’ trope. Even the dumb teenage humans are bad at communication trope (see: Glee) and the dumb alien and naïve human are bad at communication trope (see: Doctor Who), but, perhaps, especially, the intensely experienced, smart, worldly dumbass angel/demon duo are bad at communication trope. I can buy into the way that season ended in about two dozen different ways, but it certainly made sense to me. Some angles paint Aziraphale as a bit of a dumbass, a bit obtuse, a bit self-centred, and some paint Crowley as the poster-boy for self-sabotaging, woe-is-me, overly-willing martyr. Nothing deal-breakingly bad about those characters, just some very well-fleshed out, obvious flaws bubbling to the top.

So anyway, who the fuck is reading this? I’m writing it despite a ridiculously busy life just at this particular moment in time, because I miss writing. My whole job is writing. Emails, protocols, research proposals, reviews, scientific articles, and I’m just fine at that but Jesus Christ that shit isn’t character or place or emotionally anchored (it is 90% utter bullshit, honestly). We still teach the bloody undergrads to write past-tense, third person, passive voice for fuck’s sakes. We do an assignment where we take marks off for any sort of connotation-laden language and I lose my mind trying to explain to colleagues that their list of connotative words from the 1980s is no longer relevant. That six students choosing to call a particularly clingy amoeba ‘thirsty’ is very connotative and not at all scientific and actually, very much, hilarious.

I’ve known I miss writing for almost a decade. The fleet car I sometimes have to drive locked me out at a service station in the middle of nowhere for two hours. This happened several months ago and it triggered a medium-sized tantrum (for various other reasons) and I therapeutically wrote a 5600 word fictionalized (but honestly, very accurate and quite funny) account of the event. I sent that shit to my boss.    

Anyway, yes, I could write several, long, winding, satisfying fics to follow season two. But that sounds hard and like working in a vacuum and there’s so much source material to align with and so much fanon dissection ahead of me that instead, during all my long drives and boring seminars of the last ten days or so, I’ve been dipping into next kisses.

Because that kiss was rubbish (ohIlovedit). I have theories about that kiss that spin off into complex heaven and hell lore thinking and what all the nuance and foreshadowing mean, but I don’t, just now, have ten days to sit here and think and type (just about the kiss that I’m not at all convinced was primarily an actual kiss). So, I’ve just skipped season 3 (not a typo) and the whole second coming thing, and the whole them not being very happy with each other thing, and also, yes, them being woefully incompatible with each other (and the state of the universe) at the end of Season 1 and all through Season 2 and jumped to the end of Season 3.

It's a warm, sated, luxurious place to inhabit (built on an imperfect foundation of Neil writing the way I think he will, I hope, I’ll beg). They’ll be safe, happy, and openly in love with each other (yes, of course they’ve said it, Season 3 is over so they can’t have not said it – you fool!) and they’ll be talking (#NinaMaggieWisdom). Admittedly they’ll still be pretty shit at the ‘safe’, ‘happy’ and ‘talking’ bits, but doing quite reasonable at the ‘openly being in love thing’, actually.   

And I can totally buy into the ‘angels have no genitals’ thinking or the ‘angels have no gender’ thinking or the ‘angels are asexual’ thinking, that all makes a great deal of sense to me and can be written well, and I can read and enjoy (and could certainly see Season 3 play out like any of these). But I know I would really, really, struggle with those characters (and dare I say, with those actors (stop it)) and my own brain wiring and projection, with trying to not make them romantic.

So I’ve started to mentally play it out romantically. And then tactile. Which became touch-starved, touch-desperate, and all ‘pleasures of the flesh’ and ‘enjoying the human things’. Which, yes, of course, became sexual (do you not know me at all?) but calm down, please (I’m talking to me, lbh).

Anyhow. Next kisses, because that first one shouldn’t count. The timings are malleable, the order of 3-7 are interchangeable. There’s structure and dialogue (and choreography!) for all of them.

The second time (aka the first time it’s overwhelmingly, categorically right, albeit still complicated, and not at all as straightforward as it should be).

The third time (aka not really the third time because they don’t – they can’t – because it’s extremely awkward and weird, maybe they’ll never do it again).

The fourth time (aka, the first time since it was awkward that it’s not awkward, thank goodness).

The eleventh time (aka it’s like in the movies, there’s a rainstorm and they get wet and have to take shelter under an awning, oh my).

The twenty first time (aka the time someone thinks this is an appropriate way to inform their neighbours).

The twenty-fifth time (aka the first time they do it without thinking about doing it).

The forty first time (aka actually this time a bit more than kissing and it’s all together too good for Crowley (it’s not what you think, honest)).

The seventy third time (aka actually this time quite a bit more than kissing and it’s all together too good for Aziraphale (it’s totally what you think)).

I’m dumping this here after a long, personal post, because that way I can delete it and almost no one will have seen it. But it reads too well behind my eyes to not share (but I’m still tagging it because I’m a mysterious enigma of a needy bitch). A lot of this I came up with while driving and I had to stop myself from pulling over on a highway to scribble things down and that felling is gorgeous and so missed. So, I’m holding onto it for tonight by releasing a little bit of it into an abandoned, dormant blog, that seems to have a bunch of ghosts around.

I have scrawled notes from yesterday’s symposium to transcribe and flesh out. And tomorrow I’m getting a new couch delivered.

#doonas fic #personal #good omens fic adjacent #good omens spoilers #fic writing #imagine if i actually grit my teeth and wrote the damn thing #is it time to get an ao3 account

[lady-laureline]

Another ramblepost.

After mulling it over for a few months, I am ~97% sure I'm autistic. As this is the second neurodevelopmental label I've acquired after adhd, I'm somewhat more familiar with the whole revelatory process - i.e. the "so that's why I do that" and "no wonder this keeps happening" moments that are a significant part of why said labels feel justified (others have been explored & rejected).

I have all these little anecdotes about weird misconceptions that have kept me from spending time on the things I find worthwhile, such as feeling like I was too late to the party to be considered a legitimate part of a subculture, or taking my crappy memory as evidence that I don't care about this thing as much as I think I do. One notable moment was realising that I hadn't gotten myself a poster I wanted because of some subconscious narrative that personalised décor is for "real people".

All of this is to say that I've always been aware of several degrees of separation between myself and the general public, and not just because I wanted to be special.1 Growing up neurodivergent means you can never quite close that gap, and that shapes the way you interact with the world: studies on the social perception of autistic individuals basically say that being "a little off" is enough to ruin a first impression, which is, in turn, enough for most people to write you off as undesirable.2

×

And I'll be honest, I wasn't nearly as excited about figuring out my autism as I was about my adhd before I even thought to look at the evidence. The stereotypes are notably less palatable: at least adhd gets the manic pixie dream girl, but ask someone to describe an autistic person and there's still a good chance they'll default to a stubborn six-year-old boy with encyclopedic knowledge of the Cretaceous and zero interest in making friends.3

Even representation that is halfway decent tends to portray autistic characters without any inclination towards concealing their atypical traits, often lacking the self-awareness to even consider it, so people get confused by the thought of us operating somewhere between social grace and social oblivion. Then again, people also short-circuit when they see a wheelchair user stand up for 0.2 seconds.

Some things you don't understand until you're forced to. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't listened to someone's lived experience with unfamiliar symptoms while trying to conceal my doubt. There was a time when I wouldn't have believed my own claims, what with my warped sense of time and my hyperacusis, is thAt even a tHing lol

There's something I really want to pin down about trying to exist while everyone around you keeps sending you signals that your very perception of reality is just wrong. It messes with your head, undermines your identity. I've been working so hard at unraveling trauma bundle after trauma bundle, and I'm only just starting to believe I'm even allowed on this planet, you know? Some people aren't so lucky.4 I'd love to be at ease with myself without needing to justify it to some imaginary audience.

×

This brings me to my next point: cringe.

I am one of many who treat self-censorship like a necessary evil for the sake of appearing adjusted enough. Whether it's self-soothing with the hand-flappy thing, going off on a tangent about a topic of interest, or feeling the overwhelm creep into my nervous system, there are plenty of impulses and reactions that I've learned to stifle so that people will be more inclined to talk to me.

What's the problem with that, you might ask. Isn't learning to adapt a good thing?

I hear you, but this isn't adaptation, this is assimilation. We don't get to choose how our bodies process information, no amount of discipline that will rewire our brains to be "normal". We have a natural way of operating, but most of us have been moderating ourselves for so long that we don't even know what that is. We only know that bad things happen when the mask falls, when composure is outpaced by stress. Looking at it this way, it makes a lot more sense that the world only recognises autism at its worst.

Setting boundaries would ease the pressure, but when it comes to voicing smaller issues the assumption is that we're playing them up for attention. For those unprepared to imagine having to live with chronic discomfort, calling it a lie feels rational - which leaves us not calling for help, but embarrassing ourselves for some reason.

×

As a cherry on top, we still don't know what autism is, despite decades of research. Autistic brains are characterised by both hyper- and hypo-connectivity in different areas. There is consistency in certain functional deficits, however studies keep getting conflicting results while trying to map these out.5

While elusive in origin, our differences put us at measurable odds with the scattered demands of a modern environment. Sensory sensitivities are a giant handicap when we live in a flood of sensory information, and without the ability to develop the standard tolerance it becomes a constant battle to just feel okay on a day to day basis. But if we can outmanoeuvre the bad stuff, we can focus; and if we can focus, we can excel.6

I mentioned beforehand that a lot of the behaviours commonly recognised as autistic are linked to distress. My hope is that, with the growing awareness we're experiencing, we'll be able to normalise happier traits as well.

× × ×

1 Which I won't deny, but my secret teenage wishes had a lot more to do with being whisked away to the fairy realm than being bullied at school.

2 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286449/

3 It's the "lack of empathy" in particular that gets under my skin. There are a whole bunch of steps between feeling an emotion and expressing it in a way that translates well. We're not always good at those steps - doesn't mean we don't care.

4 The suicide rate of autistic individuals is roughly sevenfold that of the general population. (International Research Priority Setting Exercise 2021, "Where do we go from here?")

5 https://embrace-autism.com/autistic-brain-differences-connectivity/

6The other option is putting the bad stuff on hold - intoxication can offer temporary sensory reprieve to some. Without other accommodations available (as is all too often the case), this can easily turn into a destructive habit.

#ramblepost #i've got stuff to say ok #it was the x-files poster if anyone is wondering #i want to believe #to be cringe is to be free #neural signatures #fermented feelings #buckets of woe #social grace #social oblivion #social okayness #autism #adhd #audhd #studies #sources #rabbitology #spotify

[macleod]

Looking throughout the history of robotics (namely, near autonomous/uncrewed ground vehicles/mobile robots, less so humanoid) and seeing that what I've been working on for nearly the last two years finally coming together and being a fraction of a fraction (of a fraction... of a fraction) of the development costs of previous versions and being far more unique and different than anything else that has been tested or on the market, is incredibly exciting (and worrying, why hasn't anyone else done this? Is this a fools game? If so, it is quite a cruel game to be a part of).

The final prototype of Chariot (Chariot-7.3) is nearly finished and will begin road and durability tests by the end of the month. Hopeful to have something to show on all this and perhaps a paper outlining the fundamentals ready by August or September if time permits.

I am a smidge behind schedule, but that's what you get when you are (improperly) balancing a master degree course, writing an operating system, and building a robot will get you. For the past two years I've been telling myself "Six more months and this will be ready!"... so happy to report that we're only six months away from release! (I hope...)

I'm not really sure why I write these sporadic updates on the project, namely since no one really knows what this semi-secretive project is about, but perhaps for posterity sake it will be nice when I am a senile crank spouting about the "good old days" when they were in fact quite stressful and rather terrifying. I'll leave this with an irregular quote that rattles through this anxious mind of mine any time I begin to read about and learn from the wonders of all those other previous explorations that fell rather flat into the pond of obscurity.

“Those who understand the steam engine and the electric telegraph spend their lives in trying to replace them with something better.”

— George Bernard Shaw (1903)

#chariot #personal #mind #updates #dnx

[terrm9]

after all that i’ve done (Tatum x Lina)

This is officially part 2 of you give it to me anyway; however it’s perfectly readable as a one-shot, too.

WC: 4.4k, Rating: M (mature)

Warnings: swearing, mentions of army injury, alcohol & drug consumption, sex - only talking about these things, nothing graphic.

Author’s note: As expected, this doesn’t meet my writing goals at all. I got tired of looking at it, though, so here it is. Thank you so so much for reading and leaving a feedback, it means the whole world to me <3

Five weeks.

Five weeks of separation, five weeks filled with texts and phone calls and face-times and there was also a letter waiting on Lina’s bed one day – for old times‘ sake, Tatum joked.

And Lina has never been a patient woman, no. She hated those five weeks, in all her honesty.

(We managed five years, I can handle five weeks, she has been telling herself on repeat.)

The five weeks have passes. Lina’s year at Vancross was over. Election has been won.

She is home, at last. Home in Rutherland. Home in Mendozas‘ living room, Tatum’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and her own around his waist.

Leaning into his side and blushing under the attention she is getting from Mr. Mendoza, she is home.

(At last.)

„Lina!“ Tatum’s dad beams at her, a smile so wide she is sure his cheeks hurt. Where is all that Tatum’s stoicism coming from, she wonders (and then she remembers, those damn five years. Tatum used to be a perfect picture of his father – huge smiles and carefree laughters; there is nothing inherited in who he is now. He has become who he is in those five years.)

„It’s so amazing to see you again,“ Mr. Mendoza – Jerome, he insists – breaks her out of own mind. „Tatum couldn’t stop talking about you these past few weeks. It’s been Lina here and Lina there and ‚I wonder what Lina is doing‘ and-„

„Okay, dad, I am sure she gets it,“ Tatum interrupts, his voice carrying tracks of annoyance, but Lina knows it’s not really there. She has never seen a relationship more beautiful, more pure than the one between Tatum and his dad.

When Lina looks up at him, expression amused and an eyebrow raised, Tatum simply shrugs – he will not deny that he missed her. He will not support his dad’s teasing, either.

„Thank you, Jerome,“ she smiles back, probably just as widely. „I am more than happy to be back home.“

Tatum picked her up at the airport and Lina didn’t even consider going to her mother’s house. Without any conversation, they both knew she would be staying at Mendozas for some time.

She would be staying home.

„Well, I will leave you kids to it,“ Jerome winks at them and this time, Tatum does look slightly uncomfortable. „I promised Victoria I would help Josh with the nursery for the little one. Don’t wait for me with the dinner!“ He winks again and the suggestion behind his words is more than clear. Tatum’s hand twitches at Lina’s shoulder as he mutters under his breath.

„For the love of God, just go, dad.“

Lina is trying very hard not to think about what is happening. About how she is taking the stairs to walk into Tatum’s room – the room she hasn’t been to in six years. About how Tatum’s shoulders are tense under his tight black t-shirt, even though he is smiling softly at her as he opens the door.

About how this is all so well-known to her and yet so fucking different.

About the conversation they are inevitably having today. She is trying very, very hard not to think about that.

It takes several seconds for Lina to take the room in – to compare her memories to the present moment, to remember if the walls have always been this shade of gray and that there was definitely not a king-sized bed in teenage Tatum’s room.

"Ah," she can't help but grin as she spots the blank space above the bed.

"Where has the Emma Watson poster gone?"

Even though Tatum's face remains stoic, Lina catches a glimpse of amusement in his eyes.

"Dad turned this room into the one for visitors while I was gone," he replies shrugging. "I didn't think it would be, uh, appropriate to have the poster here."

Nodding, Lina takes the room further in and her breath hitches in her throat as she notices things that haven't changed, haven't been removed. The photo of the two of them from Tatum's eighteenth birthday party on a bedside table. The Valentine's Day card Lina made for him in the kindergarten pinned above his writing desk. The elegant black box sitting on the desk and she knows it's filled with the cinema tickets and concert tickets and the little notes Lina left from him in the books he has borrowed her. The ugliest mug ever made proudly displayed on a windowsill - Lina promised to bring him the ugliest souvenire from her trip to Prague and she came back with the mug. Photo of Lina in a long summer dress taken only a few days before Tatum left Rutherland, on a dresser (although it looks slightly rumpled and with a swell of her heart Lina wonders if maybe he had had this photo in his wallet while he was away, close to him at all times?)

"And these," she gestures around the room, "are not inappropriate?"

"Never," he doesn't miss a beat.

In two long strides, he closes the gap between them and taker her face into his hands, eyes full of that tenderness that scares her, full of affection and also, she notices, full of need.

„Lina,“ he whispers as he scans her face and Lina is not sure what he is trying to say – his eyes, God, those eyes, so beautiful, so breathtaking, screaming many things at once and Lina can only guess.

I missed you. I am so happy you are finally with me. I am, at last, at peace. I love you with my whole being and then some more.

All the things she feels within herself. All the things she is, just like him, not capable of saying. Neither of them has ever been a master of words. Of course, it has always been easy to talk to Tatum about others, about life, about nothing in particular.

But to talk to Tatum about Tatum?

(To talk to Lina about Lina?)

That’s... hard. Difficult. So easy to fuck up.

So she kisses him. Pulls him closer and covers his mouth with hers, pouring all that is unspoken into that kiss, hoping it could be enough.

(It is. It always is.)

Five weeks is a long time for everyone. It’s been fucking long time for Lina and Tatum.

The kisses are hungry, desperate, full of need and catching up, making up for the lost time – it would be so easy, so damn easy to just take his clothes off, to let him take hers off and then just have him take her.

So damn easy.

Lina knows he would do it, his higher principles be damned because the heat radiating from his body, the low rumble coming from the back of his throat, his hands caressing her torso – all a proof that he is just a man, that he wants her.

Tatum would do everything – anything – for Lina. He once told her he would die for her – and what a cliché, used by many, sung by rockstars and written down by poets, I would die for you, a confession or perhaps a promise, whispered freely by millions but meant scarcely by dozens.

Lina knows he means it. He would give up all his breaths for her.

(As she would for him. She decided to live for him, after all, and maybe that’s even more severe.)

And it’s so tempting she almost takes it, takes him-

It's the first time with you. (Spoken five weeks ago and still echoing in her head, those gentle words of his, for fuck’s sake)

- she can’t.

God, how she wants to forget what has been and what will be and just let them enjoy the moment of all that is physical and beautiful and easy - nothing that is their reality, has been for years, hard and ugly.

“We need to talk,” she whispers and she hates how her voice trembles already, trembles with all those wrong, dreadful emotions.

A long exhale leaves Tatum and he closes his eyes before nodding – and if he was tense before, he is statue-like now, the only movement are his hands, hugging Lina more tightly.

“Yes,” he says quietly and leads her to his bed, a habit older than Lina can remember – serious talks need to be taken to bed, they used to joke. Sitting next to each other, backs leaned against the wall behind them (knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder), Lina looks into his eyes briefly and murmurs: “Could you go first, please?”

There is no need to particularize what is this talk going to be about – two people that shared everything, two people who have been through most of that everything together, being separated for five years, well, that’s a lot of catching up to do.

And while they have gotten to the talks about Lina’s school and Tatum’s time in army already, while she already knows about the injury that made him leave and he already knows about all the fights she has had with her mother and how it all led to her year at Vancross, they have successfully avoided talking about the people they met in those years apart, until now.

There has been no talk about the relationships and as curious as Lina has been, she never dared to ask about Tatum’s sex life. He is her best friend, though. First and foremost, he is her best friend and she knows about the first girl he kissed and the first girl he has bought flowers for and the first one he invited for a date.

“It was not long after I joined army that I met Cara,” Tatum speaks, taking Lina’s hand into his own, fingers intertwined. “She was a cousin of a fellow soldier and lived in a town nearest to our base. She came to visit him fairly often and she was impossible not to notice,” he chuckles quietly. “So loud and cheery and full of joy. Everyone was excited to see her after some time. She brought life to the people that mostly talked about death. She never hesitated to show me that she likes me. And you know, at army, dating is anything but easy – but Cara was understanding. So we started dating after five months.”

His voice is soft when he tells her all of it (so freely, so naturally, and Lina wishes her story – her stories – could be that easy to tell, too), as is his smile. No matter what has gone down between Tatum and Cara, there is no grudge he is holding, not a sign of hatred. And maybe Lina should feel jealous, maybe there should be a pang of something inside her ribs, something uncomfortable. There’s nothing.

If anything, she is grateful that Tatum had someone he could rely on for all those years. Grateful that Cara had been there to look after him at times Lina couldn’t.

„She was always so,“ he hums for a moment. „So happy. It didn’t take long for me to understand that the happy face, the loud laughter, that those things were her cover up for something terrible, something that was making her miserable. But she never wanted to talk about it and so I didn’t ask. As she didn’t ask in return.“

Tatum’s head bumps into the wall softly, too and his gaze is on a ceiling when he speaks again.

„She was a good girl. And the relationship was... nice. Easy. We made sure it would stay easy. And in that easiness, it lacked depth. I have never gotten to know her better and she has never gotten to know me.“

A long silence follows and Lina wonders if she should ask more, if she should interrupt his thread of thoughts. Before she can say anything, Tatum speaks again and this time, his voice is filled with regret.

„She had your hair.“

She reminded me of you, is what he is not saying.

„How long did the relationship last?“ Lina asks when the silence gets too thick, too uncomfortable.

„Three years and something.“

„You broke up when you had to leave army?“ she prompts softly, curiosity getting the best of her.

Tatum shakes his head before looking down at Lina and responding.

„No, we ended it before the injury happened. She found the photo of you in my wallet one day, after the discussion about my driving license – she needed to see the thing herself and as she opened the wallet, the first thing she saw was, well... you. She asked me ‚So this is the girl you are trying to forget?‘. After my initial surprise, I only said that you are my best friend.“

Breaking the eye contact, he looks ahead before finishing the story.

„‘The best friend you are in love with?‘, she asked again and it was the first time someone said that aloud. I couldn’t lie to her, not when she asked so directly. She said she understood and you know what Lina? I think she really did. I never found out who was she trying to forget, but she did understand me.“

„And after Cara?“ Lina asks, even though she is afraid she knows her answer.

„After Cara, there was nobody.“

„Are you-,“ she takes a deep breath to calm down her rapidly beating heart. „Do you really mean that you only slept with Cara? Ever?“

Tatum laughs at that, squeezing Lina’s hand. „Life in army – or healing after the injury you have gotten there – do not exactly give you opportunities to get laid, galyetas.“

„Oh,“ is all Lina manages to breathe out. „Oh.“

Oh, shit. Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This is her worst nightmare. This is worse than anything she feared.

Lina feels Tatum’s gaze on her, an unspoken ‚It’s your turn‘ hanging between them but she cannot, she cannot.

She feels like throwing up and crying at the same time and she cannot do this, she must run and run and run until she cannot catch her breath and never return because Tatum, her Tatum, deserves everything and she can give him nothing.

Not daring to look at Tatum, Lina tries to take a deep breath – to take any breath (and it feels like she has done the running already, she ran away and yet here she is, next to the man she loves, next to the man she is going to destroy.)

"You know you don't have to tell me anything, Lina," Tatum whispers, his knuckles caressing Lina's colarbone softly - a touch featherlight, almost too tender to bear.

And she needs to take another deep breath, the fire inside her blazing sedulously (painfully. It hurts to burn for Tatum, it pains as much as it pleases).

It all feels too much – his touch, his presence too good, too terrific; it feels like a dream.

(One she will soon turn into a nightmare)

„No, I do,“ she chokes out at last and finally looks into his eyes, forcing her memory to capture them fully – the chocolate brown of his irises with the specks of deep green in them, the dilated pupils and that damn warmth seeping from them, all those emotions. His eyes are smiling at her, eyes loving and caring and once she tells him everything, all of that love and care and smile will be gone and she begs her memory to remember Tatum’s eyes.

She begs her memory to forget everything but Tatum’s eyes (beautiful and breathtaking)

„I missed you,“ she begins. „I missed you like hell, Tatum, From the moment you were gone, it hurt. And I needed to find some kind of distraction, something to fill my mind with. The letters were not enough sometimes.“

Her voice is so apologetic, cracking after every other word and she hates it, hates how it sounds, hates how it is certainly telling Tatum where this is going, already.

“It was…” she stops and shrugs, trying so desperately to find the right words - which is ironic, really, as there are hardly any right words for this. “Manageable, that first year. I got drunk or high - sometimes both - went home, reread your latest letter and cried myself to sleep.”

Determined to look straight ahead of herself, Lina doesn’t see Tatum’s intense gaze on her. She feels it, however. (She always feels him, no matter her senses.)

She also hears his faint scoff.

Manageable has probably not been the most right choice of a word, then.

Then again, she has never done this before. Has never spoken about those years without Tatum to anyone.

Years of loneliness she decided to fill.

(Needed to fill, so desperately.)

Years of self-hatred that still lingers.

„The letters stopped coming, then,“ she whispers and even though she knows now why, she knows about her mother contacting Tatum only to ask him to stop sending them because it’s ‚too hurtful‘ for Lina; even though she knows all of it, she cannot keep the hurt from her voice.

„It was maybe three or four months after the last letter that it began to dawn on me, that another one is not coming. I was at this party and the first time, it was not planned, not intentional. It just... happened. I was getting drunk and ready to go home to reread the letter when it hit me, you know?“ she gulps and blinks several times to keep the tears from falling. „It hit me that I do not have anything to reread. And the guy was there, buying me drinks the whole night and he told me about his hotel room. So I went.“

Now, she needs to squeeze her eyes shut and the tears do fall and she hates them, hates herself, hates the past. But the dam has been broken and words are flowing out of her and she needs to tell Tatum everything, even if it is the last thing she will ever tell him.

„I do not remember his name and I do not remember what he looked like. I only remember that I hated every second of the sex, but the feeling of hating something else than the emptiness in me was strong enough for me to keep doing this. The second time, I planned it. And the third and every single one after that. I do not know who those people were, Tatum,“ she whispers and it scares her how still Tatum is, his hand still in hers but unmoving. There’s no reassuring squeezing.

(It’s what she deserves.)

„I never asked about their names and I never gave away mine. It happened every other week – I went to the city, got drunk, got fucked, went home. One time, paparazzi caught me kissing a woman in a bar and of course, the next day the picture was all over the magazines. My mother took a flight back home, then and I thought that maybe she would ask me what was going on, that maybe she would care. She tossed a bag my way, filled with wigs and contact lenses and told me that if I want to ruin my life, I need to make sure it doesn’t ruin her career, too. Then she left.“

Annie – Lina’s only female friend before Dionne – always used to say that what Lina is doing is a perfect example of post-breakup behavior. It never made sense to Lina. There was never a relationship. There was no breakup. She was just lonely and wanted some company.

It makes sense to her, now. She knows now that she loves Tatum in a way that is far from friendly and she knows now that she felt that way all those years ago, too. Back then, she would never admit that.

But Lina knows now. Her best friend, the closest person she has ever had, the person she’s been in love with left and Christ, that hurt more than a breakup.

„I do not know how many men I slept with, how many women. I never counted. The only thing I know that I never enjoyed the sex, not once,“ Lina scoffs and then muses, more to herself than Tatum. „Sometimes I wonder if I am even capable of that. Enjoying sex. Not that it matters,“ she adds in a rushed voice, because truly, her selfish wonder about her selfish sex life is not something that matters at the moment.

„I hate that it was that way, Tatum, I hate everything about those years you were gone. Most of all, I hate myself. But I cannot take that back. Those things are part of me now, no matter how hideous that part is.“

Silence. Long, terrible silence.

„What was the last time?“ Tatum asks suddenly and his voice is hollow, emotionless, so awfully neutral.

„Three weeks before Vancross? Maybe a month?“

This time when Tatum speaks, the emotions are clear in his voice – surprise, most of them all.

„And nobody after that? Nobody at Vancross?“

„Of course not!“ Lina exclaims, more loudly than intended – she still doesn’t look at him, though. „I was... There was no need-„ she bites her lower lip, trying to find the right words. She decides on the truth, in the end. „You were there with me. I was not lonely anymore. Not empty.“

There is a long silence, thick and suffocating and Lina feels like choking, drowning, this is the end, she thinks. She cannot meet Tatum's eyes, the fear of what she might find in them too tremendous - hate, disgust or perhaps resentment?

(All the things she would find in her own eyes, did she look in the mirror now)

And she deserves that look - the look that will crush her and destroy everything that is (was) between them; she deserves so much worse, she knows, but it doesn't make it any easier to open her damn eyes and look at him.

Taking a deep breath through her nose, Lina braces herself to face the reality, squeezing her eyes shut even more tightly, as if the counter movement of the one that is her goal could miraculously encourage her to do it and-

"I am sorry I was not there," she hears Tatum's whisper, the sound full of pain and regret and her eyes snap open without any forcible impulse sent by her brain.

What the fuck is the first reaction she manages to get out of herself.

„I should’ve fought harder for us,“ he adds and tugs her hand, forcing her to – fucking finally – look at him. „I should have been there, one way or another.“

„For fuck‘s sake, Tatum,“ Lina snaps and stands up, not able to sit calmly. „Stop this. Just...just stop this, okay? You cannot be sorry. You need to hate me, resent me. I screwed everything up. Be angry or something.“

„Lina,“ he whispers softly for what must be the eighth time that day and stands up too, cupping her cheek softly, gently enough for her to break free if that’s what she wants. „As if I could ever hate you.“

Lina’s heart breaks at those words. She is sure it does, she can feel the sharp pain in her chest and it must be that, right? Tears are threatening to fall once again and her hands are trembling and Tatum just stands there, thumb tracing her cheekbone tenderly, looking at her, waiting.

Patiently, calmly. Waiting. As he always is.

„You should,“ she whispers at the very same moment the first tear fall down, at the very moment a sob leaves her mouth. „You need to. I am not the Lina I used to be, Tatum. I am not a good person. I am all those terrible things that you are not and I can only cause you hurt. Please, Tatum, for your own sake just... please, just hate me.“

Tatum bows his head down, his lips – warm, soft, gentle – touching her cheek, kissing the tears away.

Lina’s heart keeps breaking.

„I know who you are, Lina girl. I see you as you are.“

Another kiss on the other cheek.

„It’s the past. Past that has not been easy for either of us. But it’s gone. We have each other now and I will have you for as long as you will have me.“

„But-„ she protests, only for Tatum’s thumb on her lips to stop her.

„You are not what you have done. You are not what happened to you. You are my best friend. My Lina. My galyetas. You are still the very same Lina that created the Valentine’s Day card for me at the age of five because you were worried I wouldn’t get a card from anyone else.“

They both chuckle at the memory – the bastard got eight – eight! – Valentine’s Day cards that year.

„You are still the Lina that alarmed her mother and all the assistants on the President tour because you needed to get back to Rutherland immediately – because it was the first Mother’s Day without my mom and you knew I would be miserable.“

Well, yeah, her mother was not overly happy when she had to pay for the private jet that took Lina back home. Immediately.

Tatum’s hand traces her jawline, falling down on her neck, her shoulder, her exposed collarbone until it lands on her chest, until Lina’s heart beats under it.

„You are the Lina I grew up with. You are my best friend. You are the most important person in my life and that cannot be changed. I know who you are. I see you as you are, I see you as the beautiful, loving, compassionate Lina you are and it hurts me to know that you cannot see yourself that way.“

Another sobs escapes Lina and she feels dizzy, heart beating rapidly, head underwater.

(How is she supposed to deal with this? With him and with herself?)

„I will make sure to remind you,“ Tatum whispers into her ear, kissing her earlobe there and again, Lina has no idea what to say. Again, she acts instead.

She kisses him, a deep, slow kiss and here it is again, that hope that it’s enough.

(It is. It always is.)

*** ***

Thank you so much for reading, again! I am already working on the third part in which these two finally get to the banging so I hope you won't get tired of them just yet

#l & t #foreign affairs #tatum mendoza #tatum x mc #tatum x lina #lina monroe

[lassieposting]

Any alive! Skulduggery hcs that you haven't shared? I live by your version of him tbh

Hi anon! I think I covered skug's backstory up to when he signs up to fight and then skipped ahead to when he meets his wife, so you can have the Early War Years

- so when we left skug, he'd been on the pirate adventure and essentially moved in with ghastly's family at age 16, and that's where he stays for the next three years. Ghastly's father introduces him to taking pride in his appearance, Ghastly introduces him to Hopeless, and Ghastly's mother Saoirse introduces him to three things: motherly love, household chores, and the back of her hand for swearing in the house. He settles into the family, flirts with the prettiest local girls, develops an allergy to manual labour, and starts Experimenting™ with Ghastly, who's absolutely besotted with him.

- at 19, he has his surge, and it's bad. Ghastly has his a few months earlier, and it wasn't pleasant, but Ghastly was always going to be an elemental. He was sick and achy for a few days and howling in pain for just one or two. Skug expects much the same: he hasn't used necromancy in years, and he's had the best elemental tutors his parents could find.

- But he's inherited an insanely strong necromancy gene from his biological father, and an insanely strong elemental gene from his mother, and his surge ultimately comes down to two branches of magic trying to destroy each other to be the last gene standing. His temperature skyrockets as the elemental gene tries to burn the necromancy out of him. What looks like black blood seeps from his eyes and his nose and the corner of his mouth. His veins go black as the shadows retaliate. It goes on for days. Ghastly's mother is beside herself trying to get water into him so he doesn't die of thirst.

- If he hadn't also inherited the extremely rare genetic abnormality responsible for magical ambidexterity, his surge would've killed him. But he did, so it doesn't, and eventually he comes out of it and spends the next six months or so just recovering.

- at this point, the sanctuary is pushing recruitment. Ghastly doesn't look twice at the posters, but skug does. Ghastly's whole world is his family, their farm, and his father's tailoring business. But skug's father is a diplomat, he's got extended family involved in the war, he was supposed to go to a fancy French university that ended up being burned down during an attack by some pro-Mevolent riots, he's had to field questions from smaller siblings about when - and if - their dad would be coming home. He's highly educated, politically savvy, and emotionally involved. He decides he wants to sign up to fight.

- Saoirse does her best to talk him out of it, but skug is skug, and he digs his heels in and insists this is what he wants to do. He's going to join the war effort.

- Ghastly and Hopeless think it over and decide to join up with him. Hopeless, because he's an idealistic young man looking for glory, and Ghastly because someone has to watch skulduggery's back and keep him out of trouble, or he'll get himself shot long before he gets to set foot on a battlefield.

- honestly, ghastly isn't expecting skug to last long in the army. Skug is a pampered spoiled rich brat, and he's about to be surrounded by people who will scream in his face and make him do drills and expect him to obey orders, and he thinks it will take a few weeks tops before skug wants to desert

- that is. Not what happens

- like. none of them like it very much to begin with. hopeless has never had to do this much exercise in his life, and he hates it. ghastly is lonely and homesick and just wants to go back to dublin. and their first CO decides he hates skug on like, their first day of training, because he's a smart-mouthed arrogant asshole who's never had to be afraid of anything but his own father, and he does not react well to being ridiculed during drills. skug's ego takes a good solid battering because the other enlistees don't appreciate being given extra chores as punishment for him mouthing off, ghastly has to crack some skulls to make sure he won't be bullied for his scars, hopeless doesn't quite fit in and gets some nasty ribbing over it

- but also? they've got untapped talent, all three of them. they end up black ops fighters for a reason. hopeless tops the class for intelligence and undercover operations, because he can become anyone. ghastly is strong and level-headed and does well under pressure. and skulduggery is a natural leader, a ruthless tactician, and has a tendency to pull off insane plans that would go horribly for anyone else.

- they survive basic training. they get sent into the field. and ghastly and hopeless find that they're actually pretty good at this. they earn the respect of the rest of their platoon. and skulduggery? he starts to thrive

- this is the era of wealthy aristocrats buying their way into leadership positions they don't have the experience or common sense to do well in. almost none of the lower-class soldiers have any patience for it, but as a fellow aristo Skug has the social standing to call them out on it, so he still has a habit of making enemies of his commanding officers. he resents being handed orders by men who are less than he is, less clever, less observant, less capable. he goes out of his way to prove that his way of doing things is better.

- and? it works for him, sort of. he gets promoted several times - first he's pulled out of the enlisted ranks to be trained up as an officer, then he makes lieutenant, then captain - partly because he's Challenging to deal with and partly because he's becoming incredibly competent. it's fairly common for skug to get a flogging (for disobeying orders) and a promotion (because it worked out well for him) simultaneously. he has quite a few stripes by the time he meets wifey. when he starts being given command of a squad of his own, he takes ghastly with him as his number two, and hopeless comes along for the ride.

- at some point, skug gets palmed off on then-colonel corrival deuce. it's phrased as "oh here i'll give you some of my best men", but corrival is experienced enough to recognise "god please take this one off my hands im begging you" when he sees it, and sure enough, he butts heads with skug almost as soon as they're introduced.

- by this point skulduggery's men have developed a reputation for being a bit wild, and they're very loyal to him, so corrival has his work cut out. but? he's got a bit of a different approach to a lot of his fellow officers, because he came up through the ranks himself. so instead of locking horns with skug and trying to flog him into compliance, he turns skug into his pet project, his protégé. he gives him a loose rein, defends his decisions to the higher-ups, and doesn't interfere too much with how skug runs his team, but he also doesn't tolerate backtalk, bullshit or cheek. he's the stern-but-fair mentor figure - the Captain Holt/Captain Pellew/Lord Wellington to skug's Peralta/Hornblower/Sharpe. and skug's never had a very involved father figure, because ghastly's father is massively introverted and his own was short-tempered and perpetually disappointed in him, so corrival trips his "kids want boundaries" switch and actually wins him over.

- corrival hangs onto him after that. as he gets promoted and moved around, skug goes with him, and by extension so do his team. corrival learns to use the sensible members of the group - ghastly and hopeless, then erskine - to triangulate skug and stop his temper getting the better of him. he's incredibly proud of his chosen men, and all three of them really come into their own under his guidance. skug turns down promotion a couple times because it would mean a change of CO, and he knows there aren't many people he'd take orders from anymore.

- and then skug meets wifey.

- when skug gets married, neither his mother or father attend. they don't approve of wifey or her pitiful dowry. they assume, as does kenspeckle, that he's marrying her to Do The Decent Thing because he's knocked her up, and his father reassures him that he doesn't have to marry the girl, just send her somewhere far away and send her money to support her brat, and this whole sorry indiscretion can be put behind him. skug is. furious. he was smart enough not to take wifey with him to announce the engagement, and he ends up having a screaming match with his father that ends with him a) walking out and b) getting disinherited. he marries her anyway, and despite mr and mrs pleasant senior snubbing the whole event, he's got a full complement of parents there all the same - ghastly's parents turn up, and so does corrival.

- it's a military thing - skug's in his military dress uniform, they cut the cake with his sword - the parade sword, at least, the one he's never actually used, they walk out of the venue through the sword arch and skug's team do the rifle salute. ghastly's mother drags him to one side, pulls him down by the shirtfront to fuss over his hair and try to make it lay flat, licks her thumb and wipes a smudge off his cheek, embarrasses him in front of all his friends. then corrival snags him while they're waiting for the bride, tells him off for not having perfectly shiny buttons, redoes his collar for him, and tells him, "You'll do" like he isn't about to cry a lil. he offers skug some whiskey from his flask "for courage" and without really thinking skug says he doesn't need it because he's never been so sure about anything in his life and corrival is just. he's fine. he's not choked up at all. stand up straight, boy, for god's sake.

- he also makes a speech ghastly still brings up hundreds of years later, because it's the soppiest the old man ever got with any of them. along the lines of "i never had a son, and if i had, i like to think he would've turned out absolutely nothing like you, because you are single-handedly the reason i am going grey several hundred years ahead of schedule. that being said, i couldn't be prouder of the man you've become; you are at least half as stubborn and annoying now as you were when i met you, and i think i can claim at least some of the credit." and then, to wifey, "as to you, my dear, you have freed me, this monster is yours now. to your health, and my heartiest hopes that your future children turn out like you, because one of him is plenty."

- wifey laughs until her sides hurt and she's wheezing. skug pretends he's offended. ghastly wolf-whistles noisily and gets clipped round the ear by his mama. corrival tears up a little in the middle of his speech and clears his throat to hide it. and when it's all over and they're about to leave, wifey thanks him for coming because she knows it meant a lot to skug, and he promises her he'll do his best to bring skug home safe and sound until this damnable war is over.

(he wishes he'd been able to keep that promise until the day he dies)

#Anon #fire message #skulduggery pleasant #sp headcanons #skugwife #skug #corrival deuce #long post

[lizzy-williams]

𝐦𝐫. 𝐛𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏)

((Howdy there, this is my first time writing on here, so I hope you enjoy!))

Masterlist

Summary: You accept a job as an assistant to the now world-famous Colson Baker, who shattered the charts with his album Tickets To My Downfall, and an Oscar winner for his success in the award-winning film titled Midnight in the Switchgrass, which also starred his ex, Megan Fox. But once you are accepted for the job, you seem to get closer than anticipated with Mr. Baker. 

𝑾𝑯𝑬𝑵 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑯𝑨𝑫 graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, you had never expected to be getting a job like this. Sure, you had heard about your employer. He had won an Oscar for christ’s sake. Not to mention a Grammy-winning album. You had to say that personally, you were a fan, which was one of the main reasons you interviewed for the job. But never in a million years did you think you would land it. 

When you were employed, you were expected to start right after you had applied, which you obliged, even though his house was a thirty-minute drive away. 

So now, there you were, sitting in your car, taking deep breaths. You had arrived several minutes early. You had pulled into the driveway, breathing in and out as you prepared yourself. You were excited but scared out of your mind.

“Come on, AJ, you got this, just go in there and try to not be a nuisance,” you spoke to yourself. With a deep breath, you exited the vehicle brushing yourself up, walking up the long, intimidating stairs. 

You raised your hand up, taking hold of the lion-shaped knocker and knocked three times, the echos being heard even from the outside. The door was large and almost looming over you with its height. You took the waiting time to look around at the garden out front, trimmed to perfection and colorful pink roses littering the gravel. It was nothing less than stunning. 

“Who’s there?” a voice asked, making you jump, your eyes shifting around. 

You then realized the voice was a Ring doorbell system, and you mentally slapped yourself for not just using that. You leaned down slightly, trying to meet the camera’s eye, giving a warm smile. 

“Um, I’m Adeline Williams, I’m the new assistant for Mr. Baker, I was instructed to start today,”

“Yeah, I’ll be right down.” 

The voice was deeper then what you would think Mr. Baker would sound like, having seen plenty of interviews. Suddenly the door swung open, revealing a tall African-American male. He had to be at least six feet tall. 

“What’s up, I’m Slim,” He held his hand out for a handshake, which you quickly took. 

“Yeah, I’m Adeline, but you can just call me AJ,” you responded, “Where is Mr. Baker?”

“Yeah, he’s still asleep. His manager made you a binder for your duties and other stuff. It’s good to meet you though, just feel free to come in and grab your stuff in the kitchen.” He stated, stepping aside and motioning for you to enter. 

You walked in, taking in the entryway. The walls were littered with gold record plaques for collabs he had done with other artists. Paintings of him were scattered around, some furniture almost automatically spotted that looked more expensive than your entire apartment. The ceiling was high-up, light fixtures illuminating the space, giving off a warm feel to the area. 

You slipped off your flats, Slim already slipping away into the maze of the house, leaving you to find the kitchen by yourself. Your sock-clad feet patted across the hard floor, your eyes wandering around, trying to find the kitchen in the stupidly large house. 

You walked down a hallway, reaching another large room, but now the walls were covered in posters and guitars, a drum set in the corner, recording systems, speakers, and even a Monster Energy Drink sponsored mini fridge which was fully stocked, drawings and art above it, the window next to it letting a fair amount of light in, the curtains drawn. You walked over to the drum set, running your hand on one of the symbols, which had sadly had a light coat of dust on it. Come to think of it, so did most of the other instruments.

“You could play them if you want,” another voice said behind you, making you jump and whip around, your eyes instantly meeting the eyes of your employer. 

He was tall, six foot four according to Google, his exposed chest littered with so many tattoos, you couldn’t possibly count them all. His bleach-blond hair was long and shaggy on top of his head, meaning he had probably just woken up, grey sweatpants covering his bottom half, the hem of his boxers peeking over the waistband of the grey material, making you blush and meet his eyes again. 

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, I don’t play,” you then mentally slapped yourself once again, “Sorry, what am I saying. I’m Adeline - Um, Williams, I’m here as your new assistant.” 

He looked you up and down, taking in you attire, a slight sneer appearing on his face, only for a second. You guessed by his reaction that you were over-dressed. 

“You look like a kindergarten teacher.” he laughed. 

“Uhm, noted, do you... want me to take off my sweater or something?” you asked. 

He scoffed, biting his lip and turning away, holding back from saying something that you were guessing would piss you off. 

You sighed, slipping off your sweater and messing with your hands, “Would you mind showing me to your kitchen? Your friend, Slim told me that your manager had had something in there for me,”

“Yeah, follow me,” he muttered, turning on his heel and walking away, your own small feet scuttering across the floor, following him. 

And of course, the kitchen was as stunning at the rest of the house, the size, making it look like a gourmet kitchen. And there on one of the granite countertops was a .5 inch pale white binder. Colson walked over to his coffee machine, starting it up and watching you walk over, opening it up. 

It listed normal duties like setting up venues for tours, making appointments with the production company, merchandise shipment, and payment, normal duties for Colson himself, (Making iced coffee, booking flights, rides for Casie, his daughter, for school, etc.), and traveling with him to the recording studio for sessions, along with renting time for the studio itself. 

“So, what do ya think. The list gonna scare you off?” he asked, a sly smile on his face. 

“Well, seems easy enough. It just seems like a lot of booking things.” you smiled, “But it shouldn’t be a problem at all, Mr. Baker.”

He grimaced, “Yikes, just call me Colson. You make me sound like an old man. And if I’m going to be seeing you every day, we kinda need to be on a first-name basis.” he said, opening one of the hundreds of cabinets on the wall, pulling out a mug, “What’s your name again?”

“Adeline. But you can just call me AJ.” you looked back down at the papers, turning to a page to all the numbers needed for your position. 

“What’s the J?” 

“Huh?” you asked, not looking away from the page. 

“Well, in AJ I already know what the A is, so what’s the J?” He smirked, pouring the coffee grounds into the coffee maker, pressing start. 

“Oh, um, Jane.” you shrugged off. 

“Adeline Jane Williams,” he repeated to himself out loud. 

Your heart unintentionally fluttered. Never in a million years did you think that Colson Baker, Machine Gun Kelly, would ever say your full name. 

The day went by smoothly, your brain soon catching onto the rhythm of things, you and Colson making small talk as you typed away, sending emails to the publishing companies, his agent, manager, and PR team. Colson would occasionally text you to make him a drink, which you did, always getting right back to work afterward. People came in and out, paying you no mind. The only one you honestly recognized was Rook, his drummer, who only came in to grab a beer from the fridge. Soon enough, the time reached 5 o’clock. 

“So, what do you wanna eat?” he suddenly asked, walking into the kitchen area, leaning over the counter you were working at. 

The sound of the TV played as you heard the laughter of a group of people in the other room. 

“Oh, I honestly have no preference,” you answered honestly, looking up from your Chromebook. 

“You sure? Me and the guys were gonna Postmate some stuff, but they can’t decide either.”

“Ummm, I heard there’s a really good restaurant downtown called Beau Jo's. Hear they have a mean menu of Cajun food.” you perked up, 

“Alright, Beau Jo’s it is.” He responded, picking up his phone and walking away. 

Even though you two had small talk, you still felt like he was so cold to you. Like he didn’t like you, or he didn’t trust you. But you really needed this job. After you finished with your work, you walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. 

There, you were greeted with glancing eyes of 20 or more people, who were scattered throughout the space. 

A man walked up to you, looking eccentric as ever. You only knew him because you knew he dated Bella Thorne, but you would never tell him that. 

“Heyyyy, you must be the new assistant. Welcome to the best years of your life!” he greeted, slinging an arm around your shoulders, a cola in his other hand. The smell of expensive cologne. 

“Modern Sunshine, I presume?” I asked in a snobby British accent, making him laugh. 

“Yo Kells! I like this chick!” he called out to Colson, who was across the room talking to some blond broad in short shorts and a crop top. 

“Why don’t you come meet the rest of the guys.”

Well, you knew it was coming. It was the end of the night and everyone had gone home, and it was your job to order Ubers for everyone who wasn’t fit to drive. (Which was close to half the people there). 

You gathered up your things, sighing as you grabbed your kindergarten teacher sweater, packing it in your bag along with your computer and everything else. Finally, you tucked the binder into the back pocket. 

“You heading out?” Colson asked from behind you, his hand on your shoulder. 

Your arms formed goosebumps as you looked back smiling, “Yeah, I think it’s that time.” 

“Cool. Well, have a good night.” he said while you slipped on your flats, “Oh, and one more thing before you go.”

You turned your head to look into his eyes. 

“Tomorrow wear something more... spicy,”

#machine gun kelly #mgk #mgk smut #mgk imagine #tickets to my downfall #hotel diablo #megan fox #rookxx #slimxx #colson #colson baker #mgk x reader #colson baker x reader #love #romance #imagine #fanfiction #alpha omega #lace up

[aggieharkness]

Lily of the valley (Part 2) (Wanda x Pietro x Agatha)

Summary: Now that they are all back home Agatha must strike a friendship and gain the kids trust, both for their sake and hers.

a/n: A user asked me to add something, so I hope you liked the bit that I added for you @andshewillrecover​ . Hope you all enjoy it, and if you want other stories, just ask. Please, share and comment if you like it. Here you can find the first part Lily of the Valley

Words: 4k

Lily of the Valley (Part 2)

Tapping on the soil with her small hand shovel she looked at her work, the lilies now planted next to her pink petunias and her 150 years old salvia, Wanda, and Pietro standing beside her watching her almost without blinking. Tapping the dirt off her pants she stood up and placed a hand on their shoulders as they watched the plant blooming in a matter of just a few seconds, making them gasp in surprise. If she had been one of those ordinary women that lived in one of those big houses she would say her garden was her pride and joy, but in her witchy life, her normal life, her garden was more than just something to be proud of, it was a big part of her witchcraft. Carefully she turned them both around and took them inside, it was beginning to get a bit chilly, a soft breeze picking up, and she didn’t want them to get cold. It was past midday in Salem, nigh time in Sokovia, but it was colder than usual in the forest where she lived, probably because of the storm that was brewing just a few miles away. She suspected the children would be tired, she was sure it was past their bedtime, but she knew better than to let them go to bed, they wouldn’t be able to stay still and quiet once they had rested, not caring if it was three o’clock or five.

-Sit here, I want to talk with you both. – guiding them to the couch she sat on the floor in front of them, noticing how they were holding hands. They were relaying on each other now that their parents were gone, she would have to make sure they didn’t stay inside all day, that they made friends, it was always good to have one or two, at least for little children. Four bulging open wide eyes stared at her, waiting. – Are you alright? Does any part of you hurt? Do you have scratches, bruises… anything at all? – both shook their heads, a sigh of relief leaving Agatha’s lips.

-Are you a good or a bad witch? Are you like Samantha? – it surprised Agatha the knowledge the little witch seemed to have about sitcoms, mainly because she had watched them when they were being broadcasted for the first time and it had been close to thirty years since she had watched Bewitched. At least she knew she could compare herself to things that the kids would be able to understand.

-I’m a bit like Samantha, a bit like Endora… In real life, witches are a bit more complicated, but I will teach you, don’t worry.

-Do you have a black cat?

-I once had one, but now I have a rabbit. He’s my familiar.

-What’s a… familiar?

-It’s a spirit that lives inside an animal Pietro, and he helps me and takes care of me. His name is Señor Scratchy, do you want to see him? – the bright smiles and nods gave her a warm feeling in her chest, but she still was nervous and worried. Walking over to her basement door she opened it, her fluffy bunny rushing out into the hall. Agatha chuckled before she turned and pointed at the living room, the rabbit hopping quickly inside the room. Both kids stared at the pet, not sure whether they were allowed to touch him as Agatha scooped him up into her arms, sitting back down in front of them. She had expected them to jump into her arms, petting him like crazy, but they sat there as if they were restraining their impulses, probably because they still didn’t know how she worked if she would scold them or get mad at them. She would have to work on that as well, gain their trust. – Do you want to pet him? He won’t bite.

Wanda stretched her arm, placing her hand doubtfully over the soft fur that covered the rabbit. As soon as she touched him, she felt a wave of comfort, her nerves calming down as she petted the animal.

-Come on Pietro, he’s very soft.

-Are you sure he won’t bite? – Agatha tried not to smile at the worried face the little boy had, his sister scratching the bunny as if she had just seen the animal for the first time. Maybe she had actually never seen a rabbit before in her life.

-Quite sure Pietro. Your sister doesn’t seem worried, are you? – determination settled in his eyes as he placed his hand over the white fur, softening his features as he realized he wasn’t going to get bitten by the little rabbit. – I’ve had him for years; we have an understanding.

-You had a cat, you said it. What was its name?

-Her name was Ebony. I had to leave her somewhere dangerous to protect someone. Sometimes I miss her, but Señor Scratchy has helped me a lot, and I’m sure he’ll help you as well, Wanda. Do you want to take him, Pietro? – the boy hesitated but soon he had the little rabbit nestling in his arms, his nose twitching happily. – I have a few rooms that I don’t use, why don’t we go upstairs so you can choose one.

-We get a room for ourselves?

-Of course. Or do you want to sleep together?

-No! Pietro snores.

-And you talk in your sleep! – Wanda stuck her tongue out, mocking her brother as he turned his head as if he had been offended.

-Okay, then one for each. Come on, follow me.

-Was your son really bad? – the question took her a bit by surprise as she made her way to the staircase. It was her fault, she had mentioned him, but she really didn’t feel like talking about Nicholas. The silence that followed Wanda’s question almost answered it, Agatha’s form still with one of her feet on the first stair, the other one still firmly on the floor. – Sorry, I didn’t want to make you sad.

-It’s not your fault Wanda, you are just curious. – Agatha turned her head to give her a warm smile, she didn’t want to upset the child. - I just don’t want to talk about him, okay? Not today, I don’t want to make you both sad. Pietro, tell me, what things do you like?

-I like… cars. And cartoons.

-Very generic, but tell me, is there anything that you really love? I don’t know, maybe… sports? Science?

-I like physics. I’m very good at it, in school, I go to classes that are for older students.

-Is that so? Well, then you must be very smart. Maybe I can get you some books about physics.

-He doesn’t like books. He says they are boring. He prefers to play pranks on people.

-I don’t do that!

-Well, there won’t be any pranking in this house, I have very delicate objects that could do very bad things if you broke them, so all the pranks out in the garden, understood?

-Yes, ma’am. But I don’t do that. – Wanda smirked when he saw the frown on her brother’s face.

-Do you like anything else? – they made it to the top of the stairs into a hallway that communicated with six doors. The one closest to the stairs was ajar, and they could see that it was a bathroom, the one next to it, which was wide open, was Agatha’s bedroom, white pristine walls making a beautiful contrast with her dark purple carpet and duvet. The other three were closed, but the furthest from them had a lock on it.

-I like running, I’m the fastest in my class.

-There’s a school here in Salem that I’ve heard has a very good sports club, maybe we could look into it if you want.

-Salem? That’s in America, right?

-Yes, Wanda, we are in America.

-Mum and dad wanted to bring us here. They say that we will have a better life. – Wanda’s words gave Agatha a stabbing sensation in her chest. She didn’t think she could turn around without feeling that they had been robbed of a lifetime of happiness. They just wanted a better life for their babies. Reaching the third door she twisted the doorknob, opening it for the two little ones to go inside.

-We’ll honour that. I’ll make sure you have the best life you could imagine. We’ll make them proud, children.

Pietro looked around the empty room, the big windows covered in dust as he roamed it, but Wanda didn’t seem interested in seeing if she liked it or not. She took Agatha’s hand in hers, holding onto the older woman almost as if she were afraid, she would disappear into thin air. Squeezing her little hand, Agatha watched the boy as he stared at the walls, Señor Scratchy peacefully sleeping in his arms, reassuring Wanda that they were all there.

-Do you like it?

-It’s very big. What am I supposed to do with all this space?

-Whatever you want. You can have toys, maybe some drums, or a piano, or just a pile of dirty laundry.

-But that means a lot of money.

-We don’t have to spend money, not while I’m here. – with a questioning look the boy turned around, Wanda staring intensely at her as Agatha moved her long fingers skilfully while muttering words none of them understood. Out of thin air, a purple cloud seemed to form, making itself bigger and bigger, enfolding the room. Pietro screamed and run outside, placing himself behind Agatha’s back, the rabbit hopping off his arms, startled, which gave the boy the opportunity to place his arms around Agatha’s waist, which caused a chuckle to escape from the older woman as she worked. The once empty walls were now painted in a very soft blue with a white ceiling, posters of famous runners and sports players hanging from the now deep blue closet and walls, a ginormous bed filling up the empty space in the right side of the room, the print of a black Lamborghini over the thick duvet. The floor was now covered in a baby blue carpet, on the other side of the room she placed a wooden white grey desk with a matching chair. The purple cloud vanished with a snap of her fingers, Agatha smiling at her work. – What do you think Pietro?

-I… I like it.

-But there’s something you want me to change?

-I want… I’ve always wanted a car as a bed. Like you see in the television.

-On television Pietro. We can fix it. – With a wave of her wrist the bed changed into a super-realistic Lamborghini, the wheel still at the foot of the mattress, but the entire inside was nothing like the car that you would usually see on the road. The boy went inside the room again, looking around before he jumped onto the bed, kicking his shoes off as he kept on going over and over again from the floor onto the bed, laughing. – Now, let’s give it a Pietro touch, shall we?

Agatha twirled her fingers around, comics and books filling the empty desk, a radio and Cd’s making the shelves that were now gracing the previous semi-empty walls, a set of drums in the corner of the room, toys, teddy bears, anything a kid could imagine, filling an empty trunk that was underneath the window, which was now covered by blue curtains. Pietro’s eyes sparkled with joy as he looked around his new bedroom. Agatha had never seen a child this happy in her life, the ones she had met over the years had behaved like little brats, who she hated endlessly, but these two could be happy with just a bed and some food as long as they were together. It brought her so much joy to be able to give them what they had never expected to get, not even in their best dreams.

-We’ll leave you to enjoy your new things while we make your sister’s bedroom, okay? – he seemed to have forgotten they existed as he dove into his toy trunk, pulling out dolls and robots, laughing giddily. Leaving the door ajar the two girls walked over to the fourth door. They stood in front of it, Agatha waiting for Wanda to open it with her free little hand. Nervously she twisted the knob, pushing the wooden door to see a room more or less the same size as Pietro’s, but the windows were broken, the glass shattered, lying on the floor along with fist-size rocks. – Sorry about that, I had a few teenagers the other day trying to play a prank on me.

-What did you do?

-I think they are still being chased by the ducks I conjured. – that brought a small laugh from Wanda. At least she was still capable of laughter, maybe the shock would come later in the day, she would have to make sure to look out for any signs. Walking inside the room she sat on the floor, making Wanda sit over her crossed legs, taking her hands and hugging her. – Okay, Wanda, what do you like?

-I don’t know.

-You like sitcoms, do you not? You were watching a show when… when I found you.

-Yes. I also like cartoons.

-Alright, let’s do this slowly because I want you to help me, okay? – Wanda’s big green eyes stared at Agatha’s blue ones as she nodded, a questioning look over them. – I felt something from you, Wanda, and I think you might have a little bit of… magic, just like I do.

-I’m… I’m a witch?

-That is what I’m going to find out. Try to lift one of the rocks.

-How?

-Look at it and concentrate on moving it. Imagine it lifting from the floor and going out the window, okay? – with Agatha’s hands still holding onto her arms, Wanda held out both of her hands, staring intensely at one of the rocks. A surge of red magic made it rise from the floor and fly out the window. – That was amazing!

-I did that? I really did?

-You sure did, sweetheart. You are a very powerful witch.

-Like you?

-Maybe, we shall see. Let’s work on your room. – Agatha vanished the shattered glass and rocks, fixing the window in just a few seconds while the redhead still looked down at her hands, amazed by what she had done. – Imagine the colour you want on your walls, and I’ll help you if you cannot do the entire room, okay?

-I want it to be the colour of straw… straw… the fruit. I can’t remember the name.

-Strawberries?

-Yes, but I don’t want pictures of people running like Pietro has in his room.

-Okay, let’s work on the colour first. – the red magic poured out of her hands fast, bathing the walls, tinting them slowly. After several minutes she felt Wanda losing control, the red cloud spreading over the ceiling and floor as well. Grabbing her hands, she interrupted the stream of magic, Wanda panting, a worried look on her face as Agatha looked at her to see if she was okay.

-I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.

-You just lost control, it’s okay, happens to the best of us when we are little. We’ll work on it, but look, you did a very good job, you almost finished the walls.

-But I painted the ceiling.

-It’s alright, we’ll fix it. You rest and I’ll wrap up this bit, then, you can tell me a bit more about yourself. – Agatha whirled her fingers, a white coat of paint covering the ceiling while the walls that Wanda had not been able to finish wrapped themselves up, her hands topping it all off by putting a light pink carpet on the floor. With that done she looked down at the little girl, smiling to make sure she understood she had done nothing wrong. She was powerful, far more than anyone she had ever met, maybe even more powerful than her, but she couldn’t scare the girl by screaming at her for not being able to control her magic, Agatha’s mum had not wanted to help her learn how to do it, she had managed to teach herself after many years, but she would help Wanda, she would teach her and guide her just as her mother should have done when they were in the coven before everything had happened. – You like sitcoms. Maybe you would like pictures of Lucy and Ricky or the Addams family?

-I like the Dick Van Dyke show. It’s my favourite.

-Then we’ll put up a poster of them. – from a cloud of purple magic appeared a big poster of the show, which by Wanda’s huge smile, she noticed she liked. – You tell me where I hang it.

-There, next to the window.

-Perfect. Any other series you want? I really liked the Munsters. I went out with a vampire when I was young, but he wasn’t really into walks around the woods and by the river, so I had to leave him. He also smelt like rotten cheese.

-Vampires exist?

-Yes, but I have garlic all over the house, no one will suck your blood, don’t worry. Maybe we could hang a poster of Lily and Herman? Maybe you prefer Eddie?

-I like Grandpa and Eddie.

-Alright, let’s set it up. – close to the door she placed a big picture of both characters. When she looked down, she saw a small doll in Wanda’s hands, one she had not been holding before. She had unconsciously conjured this little toy, probably to make herself feel more secure, she couldn’t blame her, she was only ten – What’s her name, dear?

-What? – Wanda stared surprised at her own hands, where a little duck with a pink dress and bow laid. – I don’t know. It’s not mine.

-It sure is Wanda, dear. You created it, it’s yours. Name her, come on.

-I don’t know… maybe…Webby? Like in Ducktales.

-You like those cartoons? – small stickers of the characters appeared all over the walls, a white trunk underneath the windows filling with cuddly toys from the series. Agatha could feel that Wanda was tired, probably because she was trying to control her magic although she couldn’t, afraid she might hurt the older woman. She didn’t want the girl to do that, it wasn’t worth it. – You are tired, I’ll finish your room and then we can have something to eat.

From another wave of purple magic came a big bed with a white veil, the print of Sabrina’s cat on the duvet, a soft pink desk on the other side, just like she had done in Pietro’s room, and a similar chair to accompany it. She didn’t want to push Wanda into telling her more about herself, what she liked, what she loved, what she was good at, she felt how tired she was. It would take her more time than what she had previously expected to get to know this little girl. Picking her up in her arms, she walked out of the room, the girl resting her head on Agatha’s shoulder, little Webby nestled in her chest as they entered Pietro’s room.

-Sweet Lord, you’ve already left your room a wreck Pietro. Tidy up and come downstairs, I’ll have lunch ready in just a bit, and I do mean tidy up.

-Is my sister okay?

-She’s just tired. You can use the bathroom to wash your hands before coming down.

He began to pick up all the toys he had managed to spread all over the floor as Agatha walked down the stairs, finding Señor Scratchy at the end, twitching his nose hurriedly, as if he was upset with her. Rolling her eyes at the rabbit she made her way to the kitchen and was about to leave Wanda in one of the chairs when she realized the girl had fallen asleep. She couldn’t bring her heart to let her go, so after pressing a sweet kiss on top of her head she began to take pots and pans out of the cupboards with quick movements of her free hand, potatoes, and vegetables coming inside through the window, leaving a trail of dirt on her clean floor.

She was so caught up in her work that she didn’t seem to hear Wanda’s whimpers as she nestled her face a little bit more into Agatha’s neck, the sound of water boiling and knives chopping covering them up. It was only after she felt a sharp pain in her head that she stopped in her tracks. She felt a mind-breaking through her barriers, sporadic images filling her brain, images that didn’t belong to her, a pain she could understand but that wasn’t hers rising in her chest. That’s when she felt the tears on her skin, the vibrations of Wanda’s whimpers on her neck. The little girl grabbed the older woman’s sweater in her sleep, her whimpers turning into sobs and words filled with hurt and worry. Placing a new set of barriers around her mind as strongly as Agatha could she sat on a chair, petting the girl’s hair. There were things in her mind she had to make sure the girl never saw, they were painful and dangerous, and she was far too young to understand them, they would scare her, prevent her from trusting her. They were forbidden for those who she could protect them from. Pietro almost flew down the stairs as he sensed Wanda’s distress, forgetting to dry his hands or turn the light out, worried the woman might have done something to upset his sister, but when he entered the kitchen he found her sitting on a chair, her sister in her arms.

-Shhhhhh. It’s okay Wanda, it’s fine. – the whimpers continued, words in another language spoken from the girl’s lips, and although Agatha knew around thirty languages, dead ones, and magical ones not included, this one wasn’t one of them. To her dismay, she couldn’t understand what poor Wanda was saying. – I’m here Wanda, wake up. Wake up, darling. – Her eyes fluttered open, tears still running down her cheeks as she held onto Agatha, trying to remember where she was.

-Mama. Papa.

-Shhhhh, it’s okay. You are safe. It was just a nightmare. There are no bombs, nothing here that can hurt you.

-It wasn’t nice.

-I know darling, nightmares never are, but it’s alright, it was just that. Whatever you saw, It’s not true. You are safe. Both you and your brother are fine with me. I would die before I let anything, or anyone lay a hand on you.

-Mama? – Agatha stared at Wanda’s eyes, an emotion on them she hadn’t seen in a person in over a hundred years. She didn’t deserve the title that the little girl was offering her, or at least not yet. She had spent less than eight hours with them, she couldn’t bring herself to accept it, she could take care of them, of course, but that was one thing and another completely different was to become someone’s mum. She couldn’t do that to these kids, erase the memory of their own parents in her favour, she was a stranger to them, but Wanda trusted her, an unconditional trust that Agatha herself could not fully understand.

-Sis? – Wanda’s eyes wandered to the kitchen door where Pietro stood, looking at them. There was a conversation happening between them, Agatha knew it, their eyes changing emotions so fast it was hard to follow since there were no words to match them. After a few minutes, he walked over to them, nodding at his sister, placing a hand on Agatha’s shoulder, a sad expression on his face, a sorrowful smile gracing his lips.

-Mama? – this time it was Pietro who spoke making Agatha’s chest swell with pride and love.

-Alright sweetheart. I’ll be both your mums if that’s what you need me to be. You are here with me, and I won’t let any nightmares haunt you. – brushing a few strands of red hair off Wanda’s face she smiled at the girl, stroking her cheek lovingly before looking at Pietro, who seemed to have agreed with his sister this was what they needed. – We need to talk about what you saw, but not today. I’ll get lunch and then you both can go to sleep; I’ll give you something, so you won’t have any nightmares. Just a small touch of magic and when you wake up, we can get to know each other, okay?

#agatha harkness #wanda x agatha #wanda x agnes #wanda and pietro #agatha x wanda x pietro #wandavision #kathryn hahn #marvel #agnes

[neoyi]

I don’t think I’ll ever get to humorously commentate on KH2 piece-by-piece as I tried to do for the first two games (and god knows if I’ll wrap up Re:chain of Memories with the writing method I was doing, but I digress.) I like talking about this endearingly dumb series and replaying this game is a nice opportunity to revisit how I feel now versus how I felt back when I was a fresh-out-of-high-school Neo playing this game for the first time back in 2005.

So I’m going to surmise my current play session (this collects my thoughts up to the Hercules world) with easily containable bullet points.

*I kind of want to make a separate post about the infamous prologue and discuss how people felt Back in the Days (an understatement, let me tell ya), and ultimately what I feel it does for the game and whether I personally liked it, so I'm going to leave that in the back burner for the time.

I will say Twilight Town sounds like a nice, quiet place to live. I love the concept of a city that's always perpetually sunset. It's a beautiful place and like Traverse Town, sports an amazingly cozy soundtrack.

*I'm sure there's some bullshit reason why, but I don't get why Sora's one year absence meant some of the people he's met just....forgot him. Like why? What purpose does this serve? This especially affected Kairi, but it’s ultimately negligible because she regains her memories of him during the beginning portions of the game.

Was this Namine's doing? Was it to protect Sora from the bad guys or something? Why hasn't Riku forgotten him? Was Namine just selective on who she erased Sora's existence from? Did Kairi forget just because she’s connected to Namine? Or Sora? What purpose does this narrative serve? What was the point?

*Speaking of, I forgot, did they ever explain why Riku disguised himself as Ansem? I don’t remember if they ever explained it when I played through this game, but also I haven’t touched KHII in six thousand years, so I don’t remember a lot of the more convoluted parts of the plot.

*It is comical to see Setzer of Final Fantasy VI fame turn from a risky, gambling sky pirate who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the empire, only cares for the freedom of the skies, and enduring survival’s guilt over a tragic loss of someone dear to him into a...

Whiffle Bat Champion.

*My sheer excitement and obsession when they first announced Vivi as one of the FF cameo was astronomical. I remember keeping a DeviantArt journal detailing any news and screencaps of the little guy pre-release. Still my favorite character from the whole franchise.

Even if he suffers the same fate as Donald and has a zipper on his mage hat for absolutely no reason other than this game existing during Nomura’s Belt-and-Zippers phase.

*Someone’s going to get sued one day because these damn kids keeps sitting atop the clock tower that has yet to be grafted with bars to prevent their inevitable deaths when one of them slips and falls.

*I swear I could play a six degrees of Kingdom Hearts with all the voice actors in this game. Or at least a "Whozit" and "Whatzit" they've done in other media (like Yuffie who is voiced by Mae "Katara" Whitman here. Pre-Avatar, even.)

Also I’m sorry, Will Friedle, you’re a fine voice actor, but you’re...Terry McGinnis. Batman told me he “totally owned all you lamers.”

*I love the Nobody enemy designs. The sheer creepiness and uncanny valley of them all lends credit to their existence as, well, non-existences. The Dusk enemy design alone is inspired with its unsettling belts wrapped around its fingers, or terrifyingly sharp teeth subtly hidden inside of its mouth. I can imagine the creature unzipping its mouth to reveal a set of flesh-eating teeth and the fear is real.

I love the way it flies and circles around its victim, almost like it’s trying to wrap itself around you, but I’m especially fond of that one attack where it essentially kicks you as while it sashays over to you upside down.

The Samurai Dusk also has my favorite reaction command. It’s just unspeakably badass.

*I never liked Squall in FF8 back then (don't know how I'd feel now if I ever replay FF8) and he was just okay in the first Kingdom Hearts, but I remember I really endeared myself to his reappearance in KHII. Squall in this game is what happens when he grew up, found good friends and family, and got some therapy for his issues. He’s stoic, but always a team player, and supportive of Sora and the people around him. KHII Squall is what FF8 Squall has the potential to be once he reaches adulthood and it’s nice to see that here.

*I really love the little changes the developers inputted for Sora, Kairi, and Riku's models to accommodate for their physical growth. Riku's is the most obvious (boy clearly ate his vegetables), but I like that you can tell Sora grew not just through story observations (Yen Sid points out how he outgrew his old garbs) but by comparing his height in relation to Goofy. Sora was shorter than him in the first game, but has since outgrown him in KH2.

Along with his better skill set during combat, this is a really nice way to visually shown how far Sora has come and how much time has passed.

This also goes in the opposite direction with Namine whom I think had to redo her mod when they remastered Chain of Memories for 3D. I notice she looks younger in that game than in KHII which would make sense at the time since it takes place a full year ago.

...Well, maybe. Can Nobodies age???

*Damn it, game, don’t give me a pouch containing 5,000 munny and treat it as an in-game key item that I can’t use even though munny is literally the currency I use to buy things.

*The retooling and emphasis on battle mechanics means the platforming element of the first really suffers and that’s a damn shame. I wasn’t particularly in love with exploring the Disney Worlds in the first KH, but I appreciate the effort put into so Sora could not easily get from Point A to Point B.

Even finding treasure chests is comical and if not for sake of posterity for anyone going for 100%, I wonder why Jiminy bothers to keep track of how many you find. There were literally like three out in plain view the minute I entered the Mulan world.

*Speaking of level designs, yeesh, the layout is not optimal for the skateboarding minigame.

*Trying to design a gummi ship in this game requires a masters degree in gummiology and metaphysical engineering, as well as the ability to tap into the 4th dimensional. The 45,000 page instructional manual they give you, the odd grid map used to piece together your ship (fair, the latter was also in the first game), and finicky button controller layout means it took me a while to fully grasp what I was suppose to do and I’m still not sure I got a full handle of it just yet.

*I don’t understand why Sora had to use a physical object as a conduit in each world to open up a metaphysical gate to the next world. He never had to use an in-between to close it. What’s the exception outside of unnecessary symbolic tie-in to the individual worlds he’s in?

*Props to the developers for recreating the ballroom. It’s actually kind of majestic to look at the beautiful ceiling and chandelier design from Sora’s perspective.

*There are a couple of random gameplay elements I forgot completely existed and seemingly there for arbitrary purposes. I just find it unusual that Mulan’s world forces you to collect literal manifestation of morale. It’s like the developers decided they wanted to reuse the Struggle minigames’ balls into a repurposed Morale Ball because well shit, someone programmed these things they’re damn well going to put it to good use.

I guess if Sora and pals don’t literally collect morale, all the soldiers will be, I don’t know, sad and die in battle or something.

*I’m aware Disney villains using the Heartless as their personal army is the norm, but it’s tonally weird when it’s Shan-Yu of all characters doing it. The infamous Charge-In-The-Snowy-Mountain scene doesn’t quite have the leg up in terms of threat when his army consist of adorable Heartless bumblebees.

*You know what pointless shit I am obsessed with? The stupid puzzle pieces scattered throughout the game. This is the first time I’m playing the Final Mix game and I’m just seething at the lack of abilities I currently do not have that prevents me from reaching certain pieces.

*Auron was instantaneously my favorite character when I first played FFX twenty years ago, and his return in KH2 sent me in fangirlish squeals. How could I not? Look at this handsome bastard. He’s calm, collected, badass with a cool sword, has rugged good looks (he doesn’t have it here, but he rocks some killer shades), and a good dad. That’s prime DILF quality right there. Of course I can’t get enough of him.

Square Enix knows we can’t get enough of him; dude be all “fuck off hades” and gives the god the middle fingers and fucks off elsewhere. Auron is King Shit.

*Oh man, do I still have my old Sora figurine? I think I got him in Katsucon way back in 2009.

*So who’s done a drinking game every time the game introduces Sora, Donald, and Goofy individually to every character they meet?

*Hey, so I noticed Square Enix is finally moving their asses and bringing the Ultimania books to the US. I doubt they’re going to bring the older KH Ultimanias overseas (my kingdom for an officially translated FFIX one), but ya know. I kinda think that yeah, I might want the KHIII Ultimania.

...Just saying.

*GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK! GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

GET UP ON THE HYDRA’S BACK!

#kingdom hearts #neoyi talks #kingdom hearts II

[modern-fae-female]

Elorcan Modern AU Chapter 6 Lorcan’s POV

She just had to show up with the rest of her friends to see me, the Cadre, and Maeve arguing and taunting them. Then of course Maeve hade to go around calling her the ‘crippled girl.’ Usually I would go along to the names Maeve would call people, but for some reason that made me angry. I felt the sudden urge to tell her to shut up, but I held back because I know it would make tonight more awkward and I didn’t want her to be angry at me. I had zoned out again until I heard Maeve say we were leaving and I walked out with them to head out to football practice, sadly Dorian, Rowan, Aedion were also on the team which meant we were going to have to deal with them. I got to the locker rooms with the Cadre and got my uniform on. I could still feel the rage I had from Maeve taunting Elide and I hoped that I could get it to stop during practice. 

“ Alright boys, stop frolicing around and get into formation and do some run and catches, pair up.”

Luckily I got paired up with Gavriel, one of the members of the Cadre I could stand most of the time. 

“ So, your going over to Maeve’s tonight?” he asked.

“ Ya, why?”

“I heard during class, just wondering since she’s never had just you over before, right?”

“ Not that its any of your business but yes.”

“ Well good luck, she can be pretty unpredictable when she asks you over.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ Well I know what your thinking why she's asking you over, but when she asked me over she asked me to do some jobs for her.”

“ What kind of jobs,” now I was confused,

“ Like you said earlier, none of your business.”

We did some catches and played some runs until practice was over. It was now 5:00 and I knew I had to head over to Maeve’s in a little bit. I didn’t want to head home so I just decided to visit the library and get some work done until I had to head over. 

I got on my motorcycle and drove to the library and walked in. Surprisingly

“ I went there quite often so I smiled to Mr.Illias as I walked in and went to my usual spot, a table beside the window where you could see most of the city. It calmed me, to see the outline of the city, its lights, the people walking by, the sun setting over the horizon. I sat down and pulled out my bag to do some work. I did some math and science until I pulled out the debate papers. How was I going to work with Elide on a six week project when I couldn’t even stand up for her today. I thought we made good progress during class, I don’t usually do small talk but with her it was easy, and now she probably hates me again. Great job Lorcan, you’re back at square one. I looked at the time, 6″15, shit! Maeve;’s house was at least 20 minutes away with no traffic, but it was rush hour. Maeve was not a patient person and I didn’t want to make a bad impression as it was my first time over alone. I quickly packed up all of my stuff and got on my motorcycle and drove as quickly as I could over to her house. I pulled into her driveway and ran up to the door and rang the doorbell. After a minute her maid opened the door nodded at me and let me in. She pointed me up the stairs and to Maeve’s room. Maybe Gavriel was wrong, maybe she did love me back and wanted to get together with me. I knocked and walked in to see her sitting at her vanity pulling up her hair.

“ Lorcan, so glad you could come.”

“ Of course.”

“ Now down to business,” wait what, “ You know that little new crippled girl, Elide Lochan?”

And there it was again, the rage, and like before I resisted the urge to tell her to shut up.

“ Yes I know her, I sit next to her in history and she’s my partner for the debate project.”

“ Exactly, that’s why you are the perfect person for this job,” what job is she talking about that had to do with Elide, “ We both know that Aelin the bitch and her little group of pathetic friends are always nice to everyone, but they were exceptionally quick to make her part of her little group and I want to know why. I know that there is some dirt there so I want you to find out everything you can about our little Lochan.”

“ Why is this so important,” now I was annoyed. I didn’t want to hurt Elide. 

“ Lorcan, think about it. There is a reason that the little queen bitch snapped her up so quickly. There may be some dirt on them that we can find out and take our revenge on them.”

“ What exactly do you want me to find out?”

“ Anything, I’m planning to have this year be our best yet and I have some big plans for the school and I don’t want anyone interfering, so you find out anything that will make the rest of the student body turn on them and love me.”

Of course Maeve some clever plan, but did it have to involve Elide. Wait what am I thinking? Maeve is asking me personally to help her with a big job and I’m second guessing it. What is wrong with me, Maeve is everything and Elide is nothing. I should have no guilt about this, so why do I do?

“ Can I rely on you to find this information for me Lorcan?”

“ How am I supposed to get that from her?”

“ I don’t care, you have six weeks of working on a project with her and thats when I need all the information possible by. Befriend her, make her fall in love with you, threaten her, I don’t care, just get it for me, and maybe I will give you a little reward.

I defiantly wouldn’t threaten Elide, but befriending her or making her fall in love with me. I didn’t know how to do either. My ears perked up at the little reward Maeve would give me. I could do this. I mean I’m Lorcan Salvettere for gods sake. I’m Maeve’s most loyal follower, member of the Cadre, feared my most in school, and star player on the football team, I could totally get information from a little new girl, right? 

“ So, do we have a deal Lorcan?” I looked up to see Maeve right in front of me with those eyes looking at me, she new that I would do anything to be with her. 

“ Ya, we have a deal.”

“ I knew I could count on you,” she said while dragging her nail up my arm and to my shoulder and leaning up to my ear, “ And don’t fail, remember your reward.”

I nodded and I knew I was done here, so I walked out and back to my motorcycle to head my foster home, which my great luck just happened to me Fenrys and Connall’s family. They had known my parents and when my dad left when my mom was pregnant and my mom died when I was 8 years old, I was put in the system. I was in and out of a few families but managed to still be in the Adarlan school district. After a couple more years Fenrys and Connall family had taken me in. They are very nice, but it still doesn’t feel quite like home. I pulled into the house and walked into the home to my Rottweiler, Hellas, jumping on me.

“ Omph, really Hellas, I just walked in.”

“ Lorcan sweetheart, how was school,” Mrs.Moonbeam asked.

“ It was fine, have a big debate project.”

“ Oh Fenrys told me about it, he said you got paired with a new girl, Elide Lochan.” 

“ Uh ya, I did.”

“ Well be nice to her, I’m sure its hard moving here after most people there have known each other for years. Well we just ordered pizza tonight so you can get a slice and do what you need, don’t forget to take Hellas for a walk soon.”

“ Thanks.” 

I walked into the kitchen and washed my hands and got slices and walked up to my room. They had a big house so luckily we all had own rooms. Mine was very minimally decorated, it had some rock posters, my guitars, motorcycle helmets, my bookshelf which had lots of books, my desk, and bed. I walked and sat down on my bed and pulled out my phone. I had a text from an unknown number.

>> Hey, its Elide, your debate partner. Rowan gave me your number and I just had a couple questions to ask you about the project.

She got my number from Whitethorn? Now I had Maeve’s job to think about which weighed on my chest. How would it end, but that was to think about later, might as well try to befriend her. 

<< Hey, and I know who you are Elide. And what questions.

>> Um.. did you want to start some things on your own before Wednesday or did you want to completely start then?

<< I did a little research about what the case was today so if you want to do that we can then cover the basics when we meet.

>> Sounds good! Thanks for letting me know.

<< Yep...

>> Everything ok?

>> I wanted to say sorry about after debate. I didn’t know Maeve would call you that

<< oh, it’s fine.. I expected it. I was just sad that you were there.

>> What do you mean?

<< Well when we talk you seem so nice, but then I see you with her and your a different person, someone who I don’t like. 

Is that how she saw me? She didn’t like me?

<< Don’t get me wrong, you seem like a good person, but I just don’t know why you act like two different people.

>> I don’t.. at least not on purpose. Maeve and the Cadre are my friends and I do what I can to please them. 

<< That doesn’t sound like friendship.

>> What do you know about friendship?

<< Well friends should accept who you are and make you the best version of yourself.. you should feel happy and accepted with your friends

>> Are you saying that I’m not.

<< I’m just answering your questions, I don’t get to chose what friends you make. 

>> Ya, you don’t. 

<< Well... I have some things to do, see you tomorrow. 

>> See ya. 

Well... this year got off to an interesting start. 

@bri-loves-sunflowers

#elorcan #elide #lorcan salvaterre #modern #tog #elide x lorcan

[bakudekuficlibrary]

Finally!! Good luck with the changes and welcome to the new members. Here my question: do you know any rock!Au fics? Either bakugou or izuku or both like member of a band? It could be explicit or no. And it can be in canon universe or no. Thank you :3

Happy new year and thanks for all your patience! I am eternally bananas over the Rock Band AU, so I scoured the interwebs and put together a mini-list for ya (my personal favorites are right at the top)!^^

~Gabs ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

1 Series. 16 works.

Tire Swing by ElopeToTheSea ( T | 21,061+ | 4/? )

After being kicked out of college, Bakugou Katsuki decided to go back to his hometown. Back to the friends he knew, back to what he was familiar with, back to simpler times.

However, Midoriya Izuku wasn’t familiar. He was strange, he was confusing and he was hurting.

Bakugou couldn’t help being entranced by the anomaly. Especially when he had the voice of an angel.

Surpassing Expectations by Mewphisto ( M | 4,273+ | 1/? )

DEKU! goes on tour with Ground Zero thanks to some great connections and sheer luck. Izuku, DEKU!’s guitarist, is one of Ground Zero’s biggest fans, and feels extremely lucky for the opportunity to tour with his idols. He’s even more grateful when they get to share a tour bus, after all, part of the reason Izuku chased a music career was because of his crush on Ground Zero’s lead singer, Bakugou Katsuki. 

Even so, Izuku never expected the grumpy singer would be attracted to him as well, not with his ugly scars and annoying personality. But Bakugou Katsuki was always surpassing expectations, and with six months on tour together, he had plenty of time to demonstrate. 

Friends and Friends of Friends by songbrd ( E | 30,933+ | 6/? )

No one purposefully follows their grade school bully into university. But as Midoriya Izuku arrives at UA on freshman move-in day, he realizes he may have done just that.

[Series] Impulse Control by orphan_account ( E | 12,093 | 2 Works | Complete )

Izuku never did anything without a plan, without forethought, without looking into every possible outcome and weighing the pros and cons of each.

But something about Katsuki made him want to be impulsive.

The Space Between by Kanae_vR ( M | 115, 583+ | 20/24 )

Holding his expensive camera tightly between his hands, Midoriya Izuku looked up at the once-white letters displayed on the black storefront banner. “The Hard Luck Bar,” he murmured to himself, unsure if he was getting ready to enter or flee.

Amateur photographer Midoriya Izuku is stuck in a rut and desperate for a change of pace. Deep in his city’s grimy underbelly, he finds exactly what he’s looking for in the form of an underground punk sensation on the verge of their big break, fronted by a foul-mouthed firework of a human being.

Loud, brash and passionate, Izuku may have just found the creative spark he needed, as well as something new to set his soul ablaze.

Without You I’m Nothing by BrightEyesEren ( T | 16,661 | 5/5 )

Katsuki Bakugou has gone his entire life without understanding how someone could give into their feelings. As long as he has music, there’s no need for anything else to get in his way; it’s a way to get through everything. He’s convinced that nothing could possibly stop him… At least until he meets Izuku.

For the 2018 BakuDeku Big Bang.

Drummer boy blues by Natsumiofgames ( T | 1,862 | 1/1 )

Bakugou was pissed.

And that was the nicest way to put it.

As per usual, the whole fucking world couldn’t let him be happy. It’s not Bakugou’s fault he’s obviously destined to be the best, so why does something always have to get in his way?

All Bakugou wanted to do was to take a holiday and relax at home, maybe watch those Crimson Riots DVD Kirishima had been hyping up with a few drinks to get the night going.

All in the company of Deku, the dense dumbass Bakugou had the misfortune to fall so hard for.

But instead he finds himself, in Chicago, one of biggest music cities in America and the last venue his band, Ground Zero, was playing at on their tour.

What’s a guy to do when the show must go on?

Magnolia Dreams by ElopeToTheSea ( T | 7,098 | 1/1 )

“Kaachan!” Deku’s voice. Sweet and cheerful, like a midday breeze. He was looking at him with those big bright green eyes, holding a flower crown in his hands. “Look what I did!”

“What’s that, Deku?” he asked. He was five, flower crowns weren’t something he was familiar with.

“Mom taught me how to make them,” he replied, placing the flower crown on top of his head. “They’re called flower crowns! I made mine of Magnolias!”

“They’re so lame,” he snickered. The field they were sitting on was covered in flowers. From white lilies to purple orchids. They all bloomed in spring. “A true crown is made of metal, idiot!”

[Major Character Death]

I Miss the Music by InkspillsNotebook ( E | 22,800+ | 4/? )

Inspired by the prompt by pennyforyourotp on tumblr of:‘You’re a really famous actor/musician and I’m your childhood friend that shows up a lot on your Instagram/Twitter/Snapchat and people have started shipping us which is really bad for my crush on you that I’ve been trying to hide’

Founder of the number one band ‘Ground Zero’ and lead guitarist, Katsuki Bakugou, takes a vacation before an upcoming tour. Upon returning home, he strives to convince childhood friend, and secret love interest, Izuku Midoriya, to abandon his internship hunt and come on tour with him to once more be apart of each others lives, and write music together again.

Seven Stages by Mikacrispy ( E | 2,022+ | 1/7 )

The 7 Stages of Dealing with a Confession from your Best Friend

Katsuki confesses and Izuku’s whole world view changes.Izuku is involuntarily thrown on a journey of self-discovery to find out what love and sexuality mean to him.

drumbeats & heartbeats by katsugoii ( M | 12,194+ | 5/? )

College— it was a place where fresh adults could start to find themselves and what they wanted to be. All Katsuki’s friends had been bubbling with excitement, but as for him, he didn’t really see what the big deal was. He was there to get his degree and then move on. It was just another branch on the tree of life. He would get up in the morning, go to the gym, go to class, and then either do homework or practice with his band. The only difference now compared to before was that he didn’t have to deal with the old hag, and he’d be on his own, which he supposed was a relief.

However, when he saw a tiny, curly-haired boy with a ridiculous amount of freckles splattered over his cheeks, on his tiptoes to hang a poster next to his desk on one side of the dorm— Katsuki thought they might have had a point.

Hard Habit to Break by Takiewrites ( G | 3,359+ | 1/? )

“Um, ‘zuku. It’s- hi, I’m uh, I-Izuku.” His voice wasn’t as loud or stable as he hoped it would be. He cleared his throat as Ochako covered her mouth to hide a giggle.

“Hah? Fuckin’ speak up, for fuck’s sake.” Bakugou shifted to his other foot, radiating annoyance. “Deku? That’s yer name?” Izuku quickly shook his head, opening his mouth to speak before Bakugou cut him off, “Cool, Deku.“

Or the one where Izuku is a big-bi-mess and gets the hots for a lead singer of a punk band.

Let Me Down Slowly by BrofriendWrites( Not Rated | 2,001+ | 1/5 )

When Plus Ultra’s lead singer loses her voice right before The Battle of the Bands, Izuku and Iida have to find a female lead singer with high range ASAP in order to still participate.

Luckily or unluckily, Izuku finds salvation in his angry classmate, Katsuki Bakugou, who he bribes into helping them.

Notes: Going to be a cute, short-ish fic. Maybe 15k-25k words in total. Just had this on my mind lately and needed to get singer!bakugou out of my system and hopefully clear my writers block. Enjoy watching Izuku lose his mind while trying to process pretty Katsuki singing :)

[Underage]

From Chaos [Comes Clarity] by cosmikuri ( M | 4,732+ | 2/? )

Izuku Midoriya was just following his dream: fronting a rock band and leading his friends to the top. Well, attempting to, anyway. Things became more complicated when he met a certain hotheaded blonde, who happened to be a part of the rival band.

It will take a while by abovetheclouds14  ( Not Rated | 2,698+ | 3/? )

Katsuki may seem to be intimidating but he has a soft heart - in fact, he loves soft things. His current obsession? The softest guy he ever laid his eyes to, one who has fluffy green curls and mesmerizing freckles; he goes with the name - Izuku, the newest addition to the bar he’s working for.

Katsuki wants to know everything about this new guy but it will take a while :)

My Sweet Baby by yumenoyousei ( G | 5,070 | 2/2 )

Izuku noted mentally his new facts on the angry blond. First, his name was Katsuki. Second, he liked sweets and whipped cream. Third, he gave weird nicknames to his friends. And last, he was actually very hot.

Don’t need your pity by thedeathofyouboo ( M | 3,292+ | 2/? )

Izuku has 3 jobs not including caring for his deadbeat father. When a blonde rich kid stumbles into his life he finds himself in a band with a bunch of over protective friends. Will he ever get to have his dream of going to the UA music academy or will everything be for nothing?

#BakuDeku #KatsuDeku #BNHA #fic rec #bkdkfl ask #long post #curator gabs

[liam-93-productions]

Nearly five years ago, I saw One Direction live. Twice, on consecutive nights – on the first two dates of their On the Road Again world tour. Once was for work, to review the show. The other was for the sheer, heady, sugar-rush pleasure.

I was, I’ll admit, a little on the old side for a Directioner, even then. Most of the 45,000-odd crowd was much younger – not that that you would necessarily be able to tell from the saucy suggestions on their homemade signs. “I don’t want to draw attention to them,” Liam Payne had said fussilyon stage.

It was an on-brand comment for the then-21-year-old Payne, who, had the harried, slightly anxious energy of a father-of-four at Disneyland. And no wonder: it was clear, even to me, that Zayn Malik had checked out, barely bothering to conceal his rolling eyes. He would be gone within the month, marking the beginning of the end (or “indefinite hiatus”) for the biggest boy band in the world.

“It was a point where every day, you didn’t know whether it was going to be the end,” says Payne, sitting in the offices of his PR company in central London. “It was so touch and go, at every single show. I was slowly losing the plot.”

Now 26 and almost totally tattooed, Payne has a new album on which he raps about getting rowdy on Bacardi and being “free” from 1D. At the same time his very-nearly-naked form is plastered on buses and train stations in a provocative ad campaign for Hugo Boss.

Yet Payne is as polite and agreeable as if he were talking to his best friend’s mother. He is tired he says after an energetic early morning music video shoot. “There was a trampoline involved,” he says, sucking on his silver Juul. “It was hell – but it will look great.”

Gym beast and sex symbol are relatively new tags. His role as the diplomat of the group was established from the time they were first assembled from five solo applicants on The X Factor in 2010.

Payne auditioned when he was just 14, but was told by Simon Cowell to “come back in two years”. He did – and, eyes serious beneath his enormous fringe, blew the judges away with a brassy rendition of Cry Me a River.

Growing up in Wolverhampton, he had been a talented cross-country runner – making the reserve list for the British Olympics team. But a fan of Usher, Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown, he was drawn to singing as “the thing that made my parents proudest”. His backup plan, had he not got through on X Factor, was to follow his father into an aircraft fitting factory.

Once grouped in One Direction it took the five boys, then between 16 and 19, to pull together. “At the start we couldn’t get past our own egos,” says Payne. There would be fights over who got to sing what part, and even personal style. “Everybody had their own little thing – it was like having four older brothers.”

Payne went on to write songs for the group, contributing to two-thirds of their 2014 album Four (arguably their best) and even earning a production credit on 2015’s Made in the AM. But in the early days he would be the one to sing the opening part because, he was told at the time, he “used to settle everybody”.

Payne says he was a more experienced performer than the other boys, and a “bit more mature” – which he puts down to spending more time with his dad than his peers, and being so focused on a career in showbusiness. “I’d lived a different lifestyle from 14 to 16. Most kids try alcohol and experiment – I never did any of that because I thought there’s a chance that I might make it.”

Management took advantage of this, he says, telling him his “very specific role” in the group was to keep the rest in line. “I was like, that’s great, innit – because then everyone in the band thinks I’m a dick.” He remembers one of the band’s first hotel stays. “We’ve got plates being thrown out the window, mattresses being ridden down the stairs, and I’m getting calls from the manager saying: ‘You need to sort it out’.”

It wasn’t lost on the fans. Where Malik and Styles were the heartthrobs, Payne says he was classed as Mr Boring. “When you’re at the stadium, and if you get the least screams, it’s like: ‘For fuck’s sake.’”

After a year playing 1D-Dad he gave up and learned to have fun. “If you can’t beat them, join them” – at which point, he notes wryly, the band’s public image became more cheeky and carefree. “And the more fun we had, the more successful it got.”

He recalls performing to sold-out stadiums night after night, seeing “hundreds” of iPhones being thrown onstage in the vain hopes of their being returned with a selfie. “It’s like the kids just lost their minds.”

“There were parts of it that were a bit shit, like there is with anything,” he says, “and there were parts of it that was just euphoria.”

He recalls seeing 15,000 fans camped outside his hotel room in Lima, Peru. Security had advised them to stay inside all day, and because “they were the adults, we thought they were in charge. Then over time we started to figure out that they weren’t, and that’s when we used to run off.”

Yet the adrenaline peaks of performing, followed by long troughs of tedium, were akin to a drug addiction, says Payne. He turned to alcohol. “Doing a show to however many thousands of people, then being stuck by yourself in a country where you can’t go out anywhere – what else are you going to do? The minibar is always there. ”

For a time, he was also taking an epilepsy drug as a mood stabiliser that he says affected his cognitive functioning under certain lights. Payne says he had been well advised to take it, to counter the “erratic highs and lows” he was experiencing – “I just needed a little bit of help to keep me stable” – “but under certain lights on stage or during interviews, I wouldn’t be able to tell them my name”.

The day we meet, Payne has made headlines for telling Ant Middleton on the pair’s Sky One show that the loneliness of fame had “almost nearly killed” him. When Middleton asked Payne if he had ever wanted to act on those feelings, Payne said that he had: “100%”.

He is not inclined to discuss this today, “because it’s a bit dark,” he says, a touch brusquely – “but yeah, it was very touch and go at times”. This was both in 1D and afterwards, he clarifies. As One Direction got bigger and bigger, he says, “I was like: ‘I don’t really know how to deal with this’. Once you start, you can’t really press the stop button.”

The “indefinite hiatus” button, though, was easier – in mid-2015, four months after Malik’s departure, the band made the decision together. “It was a little bit dark and twisted towards the end of it,” says Payne, “but the last few shows were really beautiful moments because the pressure cooker had been let off.

“It was almost like counting down to holiday – we were going to wake up that Monday morning with no schedule.” Afterwards Payne was in therapy for two years, and took six months off. “It was difficult at the start, because I didn’t really know anything about myself. It was a bit of a numb feeling.”

(...)

That schedule is about to get busier, with Payne’s debut album as a solo artist finally out this Friday. Laden with chart-friendly trop house, trap and Latin pop influences, LP 1 plays like a water cannon aimed at commercial radio – there is even a Christmas song.

It has been a long lead-up: the first single, Strip That Down, was released nearly two years ago and established Payne as the 1D member most influenced by contemporary hip-hop – perhaps too much so. A picture he posted to Instagram of himself in February 2018 wearing a chain necklace, flipping the bird and bragging about travelling by private jet was quietly deleted following ridicule.

Amid the success of Strip That Down, which was streamed over 1bn times, Payne was also still “struggling” with alcohol: “I just hid it very well.” He went on to spend an entire year sober – a necessary if boring step. “My social life completely plummeted. I always feel like you never get past the awkward first 10 minutes at a party, when everyone’s like: ‘Do we get up and dance, or do we just sit here?’ I don’t know whether it made me happier, but it was definitely needed.”

His more recent stint of self-discipline was to prepare for his nude photo shoot with model Stella Maxwell for Hugo Boss. In the lead-up, he was in the gym between “five and eight times a week, sometimes twice a day” and eating mostly chicken and vegetables – with no carbohydrates after 2pm and nothing at all after 8pm. For the last “stripping” phase, he ate nothing but porridge and white fish for a month. “It was horrible – but it definitely works.”

The shoot had been his idea, inspired by campaigns featuring David Beckham and Mark Wahlberg – Payne’s role models, whose cross-disciplinary celebrity shapes his own career goals. Last year he auditioned in front of Steven Spielberg for a part in next year’s West Side Story remake, and has been submitting audition tapes irregularly since. “It’s just trying to manage the time in between (...), singer, model and whatever.”

Between the trap beats, tighty-whities and tattoos is he attempting to put across a new, more grown-up image? “Oh yeah, definitely.”

In One Direction, he was “Mr Vanilla – no one wanted to know a thing”. Then, with the “chain and rapper phase … I didn’t really know what I was aiming for, but it was actually exactly where we are right now. I just needed to find the right keys to make me feel like the man I wanted to be.”

Which is, he jokes, is “like a really English Magic Mike”. Do you like being objectified, I ask? “I think it’s quite funny,” says Payne, clearly delighted. The other day, he says, someone sent him a picture of an old lady walking past an enormous blown-up poster of him in his pants. Not bad for Mr Vanilla, I say. “Exactly.”

Liam Payne’s debut album LP1 is out on Friday 6 December

#liam payne #the guardian #one direction #lp1 #liam's interviews #02.12.2019

[tjkiahgb]

Episode Recap: 3.19, “A Moving Day”

Can you believe we only have 50 or so minutes of content left with this show?

I want to love every single one of them and not take any for granted. Each minute feels truly precious.

Never mind.

Folks... we got ourselves a Toast-Off!

Cyrus has brought Jonah, Buffy, and Andi together to make toast. I wish I had more here, but that’s the extent of it.

Jonah presents his toast first. It’s burnt.

Andi says toasters are the trickiest appliance in the kitchen, which is true. Sure, anybody can figure out how to put the bread in, but when it comes time to select between the settings of Light, Medium, and Dark, too many people just twist the dial all the way past dark to Burnt to a Crisp. Avoid that setting. That’s where most people get tripped up.

Jonah advises Cyrus to not eat his burnt bread, and Cyrus agrees.

Buffy presents her toast, which is more like the concept of toast.

Buffy claims it wasn’t fair because Jonah was using the toaster. To think, if only Jonah had used the toaster less, both he and Buffy could’ve made decent toast and been in the running to win... I don’t know, something. I really don’t know what we’re doing here.

Anyway, because Jonah sabotaged both his and Buffy’s chance to win the Toast-Off, Andi can walk away with the competition if she’s just made a piece of non-ruined toast.

And, of course, Andi went extra and made some kind of toast chicken coop.

Seems like an easy win, but Cyrus can’t declare it thus until he’s had a taste.

He thinks it’s pretty good, but there’s a flavor on it he can’t place. What is that, he asks.

Cyrus spits it out as Jonah and Buffy chuckle about one of their friends almost poisoning their other friend.

I guess it was only right to get one last random cold open in before the show ended. Here’s to the nonsense cold opens: the Toast-Offs, the extended oral hygiene montages, the projects for school about eggs, the bad coffees made, the phone chargers stolen, the games of Scrabble played, the times the Mack family argued about what to eat or what to watch or who stole clothes from whom. Oh, random nonsense cold opens, you were always... there, and we shall sometimes remember you.

49 or so minutes left. Each one from here on out? Truly precious.

At Celia’s, Celia has gathered her family around to do an aggressively large jigsaw puzzle.

Frankly, I’m a bit worried for her. This puzzle size is the type you buy when you want to make a statement: No, I don’t have anything better to do and no, I don’t plan on leaving the house for the next week! This puzzle is my life now.

Bex comes walking in, finishing a phone conversation. She tells the family she won something. The family guesses what she won, but they don’t come anywhere close to the right answer, which is a free meal cooked by famous chef Raoul Ricci. No one’s heard of Raoul Ricci, not even Celia, which you might think would tip them off that something’s afoot here, but no one seems interested in digging for the truth.

Even a quick Google search would’ve told them that something was wrong, as it seems the only known Raoul Ricci is an Italian dentist.

Or, as they call them in Rome, a dentista.

Anyway, Bex explains, through a long and bewildering story, Raoul Ricci was famous and had restaurants, but then he didn’t want to have restaurants anymore, so he left to be a hermit.

Andi’s like...

...oh, can we keep him?

Bex explains the prize is that he’s going to cook for them. They just have to go out into the forest and find him. Once they do, though, he’s going to make them the meal of a lifetime.

I can’t stress enough how shady this sounds. There’s a 75% chance this ends with Raoul Ricci chasing the Macks through the woods in some kind of “Most Dangerous Game” type scenario.

Bowie and Andi are in. Celia’s like, this sounds like an awful pain.

Bex warns her if she doesn’t go, the whole family is going to “rhapsodize” about this meal forever. Quick question: where does Bex get off? Just dropping rhapsodize in a sentence like that? Who does she think she is? I’m offended for Celia and I’m offended for us.

Celia is still not interested, despite the threats of rhapsodization, so Bex turns to Andi and Bowie for help. They basically say they’re not going to do puzzle-time with Celia unless she goes with them to the woods, so she relents, with one condition.

A puzzle so big it causes you mental anguish just thinking about it. It ain’t a real puzzle unless your fingers are bleeding by the end.

Meanwhile, Cyrus, Buffy, and Jonah walk around, somewhere, and talk about that “thing” they all have tomorrow. Jonah’s worried he won’t be able to make the thing because his family is moving. Cyrus and Buffy agree to help him move, but Jonah asks Buffy if she will be able to, given her foot and all.

Buffy’s like, of course I can...

Okay, but I’m pretty sure a strong gust of wind could lift Cyrus. I would require stronger proof. Jonah, however, doesn’t need to see more than that minor show of strength, and agrees to let them help.

The next day, the Mack family is all loaded up in Celia’s SUV that we’re seeing for the first time this entire series in the penultimate episode. Celia goes through a long series of things to get ready to leave: moving seats, checking mirrors, putting on gloves, searching for sunglasses. It’s agonizing.

Eventually Celia puts on her suit of knight armor and night-vision goggles and chugs an entire large coffee and she’s ready to operate a motor vehicle.

I do want to warn her though, she should make sure all those production lights and reflectors are moved out of the way before she starts driving.

Wouldn’t want to run over one of the crew members.

Celia drives off. They head for the mountains.

And in a hurry, too. Celia seems to be doing at least 80 on these winding mountain roads.

Me? I’d be worried about ice or sudden hazards or taking a turn too fast, but I guess the Macks trust Celia’s driving ability more than I trust my own.

The Macks all sing songs and make jokes and-- OH MY GOD!

LOOK OUT FOR THAT BUS!

THEY’RE BOTH DOING 70 ON A TWO LANE MOUNTAIN ROAD AND HEADING RIGHT FOR EACH OTHER!

IS EVERY DRIVER IN THIS TOWN MAD?!

The family survives that hairpin turn, though, and makes it up to Mount Washington, named, of course, after America’s most famous obelisk.

Bex leads them onto the trail at Panther’s Hollow, which naturally leads Celia to ask if there are panthers around. Bowie’s like, no, no. Well, maybe one.

And then he scares the hell out of an already nervous elderly woman.

Everyone has a good laugh about it and they set off walking to find the hermit.

Then we get about twelve minutes of footage of the Mack family walking through the woods. I’m not going to include screencaps. I’m just adding that for posterity’s sake.

Over at the storage unit the Beck family rented to put all their stuff in, Cyrus and Buffy help Jonah move said stuff into trucks.

Cyrus comes across a crate of old VHS tapes and DVDs and screams when he sees their contents.

He calls Buffy over to show her.

It’s Judy Bartholomew!

Who’s Judy Bartholomew? She’s an old workout video lady who became a meme. Cyrus feels like he has to show Buffy the video, so he pulls out his phone.

They both have a good laugh about it. Cyrus is surprised to learn she’s real. He’s like, I can’t believe how big a fan Jonah’s mom is. She must be to have the entire Judy Bart collection like this.

Then Jonah’s mom shows up and she’s like, hey Jojobear, can I finally meet your friends? The ones you’ve been good friends with for like a year and a half now and that you won’t let me be around for some reason?

She walks over to Cyrus and Buffy who are shocked to see the Judy Bartholomew standing right in front of them.

Jonah’s like, yeah, it’s her.

Honestly, I’m impressed Jonah’s been able to hide his mom from his friends for this long. Did they never hang out around his family? Did she never come to pick him up from some place?

And doesn’t she wonder who his friends are? When he’d talk about the stuff they’d done together, would she just sit there going, “Oh, that sounds nice, Jonah. Sure would like to meet some of your friends one of these days.” And would Jonah be like, “Uh huh, yeah, you should,” and then he’d just continue putting it off for 15 months? Just kept kicking that can down the road?

Anyway, I still appreciate the show broaching this subject. Media so often lacks in representation of children whose parents have become internet memes.

Back out in the woods, the Macks walk through the woods. All but Bex grow restless. They ask her for proof that she knows where she’s going, like a map.

This doesn’t make them feel comforted.

Bowie pulls Bex aside and asks her what’s really going on. Bex is like, you trust me, right? Bowie says of course. Bex is like, okay, good, back into the forest we go and she walks off.

Bowie tells Andi and Celia it will all be worth it, like a liar, and they start another walking through the woods montage. Bex carries Andi. Bowie carries Celia.

This episode has more characters carrying other characters than any other episode the show has done.

Back at the storage unit, Judy Bart teaches Cyrus and Buffy how to trot.

She’s doing like this locomotion move, very simple.

Cyrus is like, AM I DOING IT?!

As he twists his body back and forth and throws his arms out.

Like, no, man. You can’t tell that what you’re doing is nothing like what Judy is doing? That it’s like, almost the opposite of what she’s doing?

Judy tells Jonah to show them how to do it, so Jonah steps up and does a whole dance routine that I’m also not sure is what Judy was doing.

But it looked good and had a nice finish, so whatever.

Jonah says he’s been doing that since he was six and it’s permanently ingrained in his head now like so many childhood scars.

Then Judy’s like, hey, didn’t you kids have to be in the mountains right about now? And they’re like, oh yeah, we have to get changed and get to the mountains, so they leave her in the storage unit.

Speaking of the mountains, the Macks find rocks.

They collapse on the rocks.

Bex is like, no, don’t sit on rocks now! We almost made it. The family doesn’t want to believe her, but she convinces them it’s true. She leads them around the bend where they find a fancy set up and...

Cyrus?

You see, Cyrus, for three years now, has been posing as celebrity chef Raoul Ricci and sneaking off to the mountains to prepare three course meals for random tourists.

No, wait.

Buffy appears from out of nowhere and this whole thing reeks of a setup.

How in the world did these two get up here so fast from the storage facility? Helicopter?

Andi’s like, what is going on? Where is the hermit I was promised?

Bex tells everyone there’s no hermit. This was all made up to trick everyone into going to the mountains. Bowie asks why.

Bowie’s like, oh, is that back on?

Cyrus and Buffy bring them rings and flowers.

Bowie’s says finally and they embrace.

They all head for a gazebo.

Jonah plays Bowie’s song, “You Girl”, on the guitar.

Andi walks Bex to Bowie.

The two take each other’s hands as the officiant begins doing his officianting.

Where did he come from, too? Did Jonah and Buffy and Cyrus ride up here with him? Carpool?

The wedding goes as weddings do. You know, rings and stuff. Bex and Bowie are about to kiss when--

Everyone looks around trying to figure out whose phone that is before Andi realizes it’s hers. She shuts it off and the music and kissing starts again.

They complete the kiss this time.

Bex is like, I know... it’s been a lot. Thanks for not fleeing.

Later, Bex and Bowie delight in calling each other husband and wife. Everyone is sort of shocked it actually finally happened.

The Mack family (the ones we’re still counting) share a hug.

That night, Cyrus shows Andi the Judy Bart videos and then he brags that they spent the day with her. Jonah says he introduced her to them. Andi doesn’t believe he knows her, but Jonah’s like, yeah, I do.

Andi’s stunned. She feels bad, but, in fairness to Andi, it’s super weird that Jonah kept her hidden this long anyway, especially from Andi of all people. She couldn’t be expected to make that guess.

Jonah’s like, don’t feel bad, the whole thing is funny. He used to be embarrassed about it but he’s over it. Andi says she can’t wait to meet her. And then they talk about meeting Jonah’s dad. Buffy makes a joke about his dad being one of the hairy guys from the workout video and Jonah’s like, yeah, he is.

Everyone sits around thinking about this for a second before they all decide Jonah’s joking.

He’s not.

I don’t know what makes them think Jonah has suddenly acquired a subtle sense of humor. Jonah’s idea of jokes are jump scaring Andi and “S’less.” You really think he’s got a level of clever beneath all that that he’s been hiding for a year and a half as if it was his mother?

Jonah leaves without saying another word.

Can I just take a quick second to try to piece together the history of the Beck family, because I find it fascinating.

So, sometime in the 1980s/early 1990s (I assume based on the fashion), Judy Bartholomew makes it big as a workout video star. Jonah’s father, Mr. Beck, is hired at some point to be a background guy in one of her videos.

I assume this is where they meet and fall in love. Later, they get married and have Jonah.

In the years that follow, Jonah’s dad undergoes a full-body transformation, getting buff and changing hairstyles and retires from the workout video business to coach little league, and, I guess, control the finances of the Judy Bartholomew workout empire.

Eventually, Jonah’s dad invests the Judy Bartholomew fortune unwisely, and the family loses their house, and they’re homeless until very recently when he gets a new job. Doing what? I have no idea. I can’t begin to assume what his area of expertise is.

I guess my question is this: does any child in this town have a quiet, average family? Buffy’s mom spends half her life in foreign countries doing work for the military and Buffy’s family is still somehow the most normal of the group’s.

Later, Andi wanders off from the group and checks her phone. That call earlier? It was from SAVA.

The school left her a voicemail. Andi listens to it and gets sad, but I don’t think in the “rejected from a school” way.

Plus, I don’t think schools call you just to tell you to screw off. “Hi, this is Caroline from SAVA. Is this Andi Mack? Okay, great. Just calling to tell you you weren’t good enough to get into our school. Have a nice evening.”

Bex and Bowie sneak up on Andi and scare her.

God, this poor girl must live in constant fear. Why is everyone always doing this to her?

As the episode ends, Bex and Bowie talk about how happy they are right now. Andi says she is, too.

Though, as TJ would say, “Tell your face.”

Speaking of TJ...

Aww, this is the last time I get to be excited about seeing TJ in the scenes from the next episode.

One more to go, people. One more.

#Andi Mack #Cyrus Goodman #Buffy Driscoll #Jonah Beck #Bex Mack #Celia Mack #Bowie Quinn #Judy Bartholomew #Dr. Raoul Ricci DDS. #episode recaps

[talesofpanem]

The Interview

Author: @xerxia31

Rating: T for potty language, adult situations, mentions of substance abuse and minor character death.

Summary: This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time.

Author’s note: This is for the prompt ‘work’, but I just couldn’t get it done on time. Thank goodness for make-up week!

————

It feels like entering another world, driving through the grounds of the west campus. Everything is wide open, lush, green, alive, a huge contrast to the dirty and crowded city where I’ve been living for the past two years.

There are young people everywhere on the expansive lawns, throwing frisbees or leaning against trees with books or binders in hand, and not a cellphone to be seen. It’s like a utopian fantasy world, on the surface.

But I know better.

I pull up to the building where my appointment will be. Grey stone, old, but not yet old enough to be considered classic. Its architectural failings have been compensated for by brightly-painted window trim and shutters, and climbing vines clinging to the stones, bursting with purple flowers. Elegant, but only if you don’t look too closely. For all of its window dressing, it’s an institution.

I’d been instructed to wait in the lobby, arranged as a waiting room of sorts. It’s little more than a dozen chairs ringing the area, facing the double set of interior doors, faded industrial carpet underfoot. I settle into one, the sun-hardened vinyl squeaks in protest. The walls are covered with inspirational posters, pictures of sunsets and mountaintops with words of wisdom in bold print underneath. Motivation. Persistence. Achievement. 

“Mr. Mellark?” 

I jump to my feet as a young woman with glossy black ringlets enters the room where I’ve been cooling my heels for twenty minutes. She smiles at me. “They’re ready for you now.”

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I wipe my hands on my suit pants before picking up my portfolio. I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous about anything. Young Peeta Mellark was an outgoing, gregarious fellow. But I haven’t been that guy in a very long time.

The doors close behind me, electronic locks snapping ominously. 

The young woman, Rue, she tells me her name is, leads me along a dim corridor, the floors polished to gleaming, reflecting scattered pools of light. “We only use emergency lighting in the offices on the weekends,” she confides. “Budget…” I nod. The schools where I worked while finishing my master’s degrees had all struggled with budgets too. Education is not a career that is steeped in money.

But working with children is what I’ve chosen. And this job, at this particular school, is the one I want more than anything.

Art therapist at the Panem Institute.

The Panem Institute is the preeminent residential facility for kids in trouble, kids struggling with substance abuse issues or mental health disorders. And unlike most centres of its kind, lack of funds is not a barrier to admission.

I can’t help wondering how different my life might have turned out if I’d had access to a place like this when I was a teen. Would I be established now, with a life I could be proud of? A wife, maybe even a family of my own?

Instead, I’m thirty, with a shiny new double MA in social work and art therapy, and precious little in the way of resumé experience. That the institute is even meeting with me is almost miraculous. Apart from student placements and volunteer work, I have almost nothing to show for my life.

But I want this job so badly I can almost taste it. This job, this place– this is why I’ve worked so hard the past six years, for the chance to make up for my own failings.

My childhood wasn’t fantastic, but it was typical by most measures. The youngest of three children, I was born upstate, in a quintessential white-washed all-American small town where everyone knew everyone else. My parents didn’t get along, but they stuck it out for the sake of us boys, which is retrospect was probably far, far worse for us than if they’d simply split.

Instead, beaten down by a life she hated and a town she couldn’t escape, my mother was cold, and often rough with us. Rye, Brann and I learned young to hide from her temper. She, in turn, hid in a bottle.

My dad, though, was my hero, mine and my brothers’ too. He coached our little league teams, came to every one of our wrestling matches, filled our lives with cookies and hugs. Shielded us from mother’s ever-increasing drunken and violent episodes.

Then midway through my senior year of high school, the unthinkable happened. My father, my kind, generous father, was murdered. Shot by some punk barely older than I was, killed for nothing more than the two hundred dollars in the cash register of the small family bakery my father owned.

I was devastated.

There was no one left to moderate my mother’s behaviour with my father gone and my brothers away at school. Down to one final obligation, freedom in sight, she made it her sole purpose in life to be rid of me as well. Or maybe she was just drowning in grief and alcoholism and wasn’t even aware of how she was acting, a theory my brother broached at the time. Whatever the reason, life at home deteriorated. Badly.

And like my mother, I sought refuge in a bottle. Or many, many bottles.

I’d already been offered a college wrestling scholarship based on my earlier performances. A good thing since I showed up at the state wrestling championship - my last ever high school wrestling meet and the first one where my father wasn’t a spectator - hungover as hell, or maybe still a little drunk, and ended up placing second.

College was supposed to be my escape, but by the time I got to State that September, I was far more interested in getting bombed than in studying or practicing. 

Over the course of a year, I destroyed every dream I’d ever had, every hope, every plan, every relationship. I alienated every friend, every mentor, even, eventually, my own brothers.

And I hadn’t even cared.

Twelve years later, I’ve clawed my way back, one sober day at a time, through more ups and downs than I can even remember. Fought to become a man my father would have been proud of. But I didn’t do it alone. Therapists and counsellors helped me heal, and in doing so showed me how satisfying it could be to guide someone back from the brink, to help set them on the right path.

And that’s why I’m here now, standing sweaty-palmed but hopeful at the door of a boardroom. Interviewing for a job where I could change the lives of troubled young people like I once was.

My escort, Rue, pulls the door open and gestures for me to enter. The room is small and much brighter than the hallway, with a pair of large windows and pale wood reflecting the warm afternoon light. It takes me a moment to adjust to the brightness, to focus on the group of people waiting for me.

Then the bottom drops out of my stomach, and out of my world.

I never got blackout drunk. Consequently, I remember every stupid decision I made, every assholish word I said. And the recipient of one of the tirades I regret most is sitting across the table, her ebony hair pulled back in an elegant chignon. 

Katniss Everdeen.

She and I went to school together, from kindergarten all the way through until I ruined my life. I had the worst crush on her back then. But until after we graduated from high school, she didn’t even know I was alive.

Imagine my shock when, a few months into my ill-fated college career, I ran into her at a party on campus. I’d had no idea she went to the same school. But I was well into a bottle of Bombay that night, and what should have been the start of an epic relationship, or at least a chance for me to talk to the girl I’d lusted after always, turned into a nightmare.

I was already slipping then, already on academic probation, already suspended from the wrestling team and constantly in trouble with my coaches. I was weeks away from losing everything - my scholarship, my sport, my friends. And every encounter with my professors, with my academic advisor, with the counsellor the athletic department had insisted on, every single one had impressed on me that I wasn’t good enough, though I am, in retrospect, certain that’s not what any of them had meant. But I’d had so much anger in my system then, so much loathing. 

And Katniss, beautiful, seemingly unattainable Katniss, for some reason seeing her there triggered the deepest well of self pity to open in my chest. She was, in that moment, the embodiment of everything I’d been told I could never have. My gut clenches and my heart hurts as I remember the vitriol I’d spewed at her that night, the accusations about her character and motivations, every one of them utterly untrue. I’d called her stuck-up, selfish, a bitch, among so many other words. Katniss, beautiful, stoic Katniss hadn’t reacted at all, apart from a widening of her eyes and maybe a slight trembling of her lower lip. When I’d run out of filth to throw her way, she’d simply blinked and said softly, “This isn’t you, Peeta.” Then she’d walked away.

I have heard those words in my head a thousand times since that night. 

It had taken another three years of couch-surfing and homelessness, of lying and begging and stealing to feed my addiction, before I finally hit rock-bottom. In an alley in the Capitol, with a bunch of other low-life scum just like me, I’d listened as they made plans to rob a convenience store a few blocks away. So desperate was I for the few bucks it would have garnered me that I was ready to go along with them… until I saw the gun.

The idea of robbing a little mom-and-pop convenience store at gunpoint was my come to Jesus moment. I was hunched in filth, hungry and so desperate for a drink that I was steps away from becoming the man who had killed my father.

The road back from that point wasn’t straight, and it wasn’t easy. I’d like to say that I never had another drink after that, but it’d be a lie. But I’ve been sober now for seven years and forty-four days, a purple medallion in my pocket reminds me every day how far I’ve come.

As does Katniss’s voice in my head, reminding me when I feel weak, when the cravings hit hard, that I’m not that person.

But she doesn’t know that. Looking across the table, she must be seeing the asshole who treated everyone, and especially her, like dirt.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Mellark,” an older, balding man says, smiling. I recognize his voice, Plutarch Heavensbee, the institute’s director, with whom I’ve spoken on the phone several times before today. I hesitate though, steeling myself to meet Katniss’s eyes. If she looks uncomfortable I’ll leave. It wouldn’t be fair to her if I stayed. As disappointing as it’ll be to walk away from this opportunity that I want so damned badly, I have only myself to blame.

I catch her gaze, silver pools in the sunlight, expecting her to be glaring at me. She’s not though, her expression is carefully neutral. But as if she sees the question in my glance, she nods.

Plutarch introduces the others in turn; Reza Seder, head of counselling services, Dr. Lavinia DeSantis, head of medical services, Alma Coin, head of security. “And of course you know Ms. Everdeen,” Plutarch says, his smile widening, and I can feel my eyebrows crawling up to my hairline. She knew I was coming, told the others that she knew me, and yet I’m still here. They’re still going to interview me.

“Hello, Peeta,” she says, in that smoky smooth bourbon voice that has acted as my conscience for years. And, okay, has narrated my fantasies too, if I’m being honest.

“I’ve already disclosed to the board that we grew up together,” she continues, “and they’re okay with my presence. But of course I’ll leave if it makes you uncomfortable having me here.” Her words and delivery are coolly professional, but beneath them I hear a faint note of pleading. She wants to be here, I just know it. And though I’m likely signing the death warrant on this job, I find myself asking her to stay.

This has all the makings of the most uncomfortable job interview of all time. But if I’ve learned anything from my primary therapist, Dr. Aurelius, it’s that I can’t run from my past. And if I’ve learned anything from AA, it’s that I can’t ignore my shortcomings.

Each member questions me, softballs to start - my education, my job experiences, my plans. I pull out my portfolio, walk them through the educational and therapeutic programs I’ve developed, outline what worked during my previous placements, what innovations I’d like to employ. They seem impressed, and I start to relax. 

“You didn’t go to college right after high school, Mr. Mellark?” Alma Coin asks, her strange, pale eyes cold and judgemental. I stiffen; this is where previous interviews have gone off the rails. I’d never outright lie about my addiction, but I’m not keen to bring it up either. Even seven years sober, people are reluctant to entrust an alcoholic to watch over children.

“That’s correct,” I tell her. “I didn’t start my undergrad until I was twenty-four.”

“Why is that?” I could tell her that I couldn’t afford it until then, that’s true, or about my father’s death throwing a spanner in my plans, also true.

Katniss is looking at me, grey eyes wide and guileless. She nods again, and it feels like encouragement. I know what I have to say.

“I’m an alcoholic,” I tell them, bracing for their reactions. But nobody flinches. “I’ve been sober for seven years. But I started drinking in high school, and I lost a lot of years to the disease.” Across from me, a hint of a smile graces Katniss’s pouty peach lips. I take it as my cue to keep going. “That’s why I went into social work, and why I want to work here so much. To help kids like me. To maybe save some of them from the mistakes I made.”

There are nods around the table, no one looks particularly surprised. I don’t know whether Katniss has told them, or if it came up in my background check.

“And you’re not concerned that working with addicted children might trigger you to revisit your own demons? Your CV is completely lacking in experience with troubled youth.” It’s true, my field placements were all in middle schools, my experience as an art therapist mostly with kids with ADHD or autism spectrum disorders. The kids here by and large have much more complex issues, abuse and addiction and mental illness all compounded, often violent and criminal backgrounds too. 

“I’ve spent years in therapy learning to cope with my triggers,” I tell Coin.

“That’s not the same as real-world experience,” Seder interjects. “These kids, the things they tell you, the things they’ve seen. It’s gutting.”

“I realize that,” I tell her, affecting the most professional tone I’m capable of despite the cavern that’s opened in my stomach, the knowledge that I’m nowhere near qualified enough in their eyes. “I completed a research project on intergenerational addiction in college and interviewed hundreds of young addicts.”

“That’s really not the same as interacting with them day to day,” Seder says, and it’s not cruel, but it feels dismissive.

“I also observed troubled youth in counselling during my practicum while I was in graduate school.” They know this, it’s in my resumé, along with letters of reference from the clinician supervisors. But Seder is shaking her head and Coin looks unimpressed and I can feel the opportunity slipping away.

“Peeta has volunteered as a mentor at the Children’s Hospital’s substance abuse treatment program for more than three years,” Katniss interjects, and every hair on my body stands on end. Because while that’s true, it’s also something that’s not in my resumé, something I’ve avoided self-reporting because it’s common knowledge that the program volunteers are all addicts in recovery themselves.

I have no idea how she knows that.

My gaze snaps to Katniss. Her expression remains carefully neutral, but there is the barest hint of a smile in her silver eyes.

“That’s an excellent program,” Dr. De Santis says, looking up from her notes for the first time. “They’re incredibly selective about who they choose to work with their clients.” 

“They are,” I agree. The screening had been brutal, but it had been necessary, so many of those kids have lead lives that make mine look like a walk in the park and many are not shy about sharing all of the horrific details. “They can’t risk having the volunteers drop out or relapse. The kids need the stability of knowing that they can’t scare away their mentors. So many of them have had everyone else in their lives give up on them.” I swallow hard; it’s the reason I volunteer there. I’ve seen myself in so many of their faces, kids who use alcohol and drugs to escape the pain, kids who lash out and push away the people around them before those people can abandon them. Like I’d done to my teachers and coaches, my friends and my brothers.

Like I’d done to Katniss, all of those years ago.

“How do you find your personal experiences impact your work with those children?” Katniss asks, a gently leading question, and one for which I am so grateful.

“I can empathise with them in ways that their doctors and case workers often can’t,” I say, mostly tamping down the waver in my voice. Four sets of eyes watch me intently. “It’s the whole basis for the program, giving these kids not only guidance, but hope for their future. If I can succeed after all of my mistakes, after all I’ve done, then they can too.”

“And you intend on continuing to volunteer there?” Coin asks.

“I do.” I’ve already checked with the hospital about whether this job would constitute a conflict of interest, they assured me it would not.

Across the table, each of the interviewers smiles, even Coin, though her smile looks a little less genuine. But I only have eyes for Katniss. Because her smile feels like forgiveness. And though this is my dream job, I feel like even if I don’t get it I’ve accomplished something monumental here. I’ve shown Katniss that she was right, that nasty boy who hurt her, who made her feel small and alone, that person wasn’t me.

Plutarch claps his hands. “Excellent, my boy,” he says. “Now let’s talk salary.”

“I… what?” 

“For the position.” At my expression, he laughs. “The interview is really just a formality,” he says, mirth twinkling in his eyes. “The job is yours if you want it.” He pushes a couple of papers across the table. A contract. “I know it’s a little less in salary than you’d make in private practice, but we offer a comprehensive benefits package. Take a couple of days to look it over and let us know.”

I don’t need a couple of days. I don’t need a couple of minutes. “I want the job,” I tell him firmly.

“Well then,” Plutarch booms with evident pleasure. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Mellark.” He reaches across to shake my hand firmly, and I can’t help my goofy grin. I got the job!

Plutarch informs me that their admin will get in touch with me over the next few days to file the tax and legal paperwork they need, and then I’ll begin at the start of the new term, some four weeks away. And I nod in all the right places, but my mind is spinning so fast I’m almost dizzy with it.

I shake each of their hands in turn, lingering just a bit longer to squeeze Katniss’s hand tightly. I thank each of them, but my gratitude to her means more. I think she can tell.

“Could you see Mr. Mellark out?” Plutarch asks Katniss, and she agrees, though she doesn’t meet my eyes. 

I follow her silently down the corridor, towards the exit, the delicate tapping of her heels on linoleum almost drowned out by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. Katniss was a cute kid, tiny and scrappy, and she had morphed into a fierce and self-possessed young woman  by the time we’d graduated high school. But now, at thirty, she’s an absolute bombshell. Still lean, but with delicate curves that her pencil skirt and blouse highlight perfectly. She walks with confidence, back straight, head held high. She’s more intimidating than ever.

At the electronic doors, she pauses, hand poised just above the lever that would release the locks. Then she sighs, and glances back at me over her shoulder. “Would you like to have a cup of tea with me? Catch up?” I’m nearly rendered speechless; not only is Katniss Everdeen willing to work with me, she’s willing to talk with me too. 

“I’d like that,” I rasp, the first words I’ve spoken directly to her in twelve long years.

She leads me back into the building and up a set of stairs. Another corridor stretches in front of us, windowless doors set close together. “Our offices,” she says. Partway down the hall, she stops and pulls a set of keys from her pocket. A small brass plate on the door reads Katniss Everdeen, Lead Addictions Therapist.

Her office is small, and appears to be set up for both paperwork and individual counselling sessions with a tiny desk tucked back into the corner but comfortable looking couches dominating the space. She confirms my guess. “I see the lower risk kids here,” she says. “It feels less institutional that way.”

I can only stare, stunned, as she unlocks a cabinet and withdraws a tea kettle. I knew Katniss’s title here from Plutarch’s introduction of course. But until now, it hadn’t really sunk in, what she does. She’s an addictions counsellor. How utterly incredible that she went into the very field that eventually inspired my own career path.

“Sit, please,” she says over her shoulder. I slip off my blazer, draping it over the arm of the couch, then sink into plush microfibre. The ceramic clink of teacups and spoons and the sultry sway of her perfect posterior as she putters, preparing tea and humming just faintly are almost hypnotic. For all of the times I’d thought about Katniss Everdeen, I never imagined I’d ever actually see her again, and good lord she’s so much hotter than even my edgiest fantasies. “Black, right?” she says, snapping me out of my lurid thoughts.

“Uh, yeah,” I say after a moment’s pause where I try to pull myself together and remember that she’s making tea, so that we can talk. So that I can apologize to her. As glorious as her ass is, I have no business looking at her that way. I lost any possible chance I might have had a dozen years ago.

But she knows how I take my tea. The last time I saw her, gin was the only thing I was drinking.

She sets a red mug in front of me, on the low table between the couches. But she herself sits beside me, instead of across from me, which surprises me. Though maybe it shouldn’t, since she’s a therapist. Knowing how to set someone at ease is part of her training. It’s backfiring in my case though, since her closeness feels intimate. I catch a hint of her scent, something fresh and green but with a little bit of spice, like a campfire in the woods. So perfectly Katniss. “How have you been?” she says, sipping from her own mug.

“Better,” I tell her, because she’s not asking to make small talk. In addition to knowing everything I confessed in the interview, she was there when my world fell apart, she saw first hand how shitty I was.

“I’m glad,” she says softly, and she smiles, and it’s so beautiful and sweet it nearly breaks my heart.

“I am so sorry,” I tell her, but the words are completely inadequate. How do you tell someone that they are not only your biggest regret, but also your biggest inspiration? “For how I treated you when I was drinking. You didn’t deserve any of that, and I have regretted it every day.”

“I know,” she says. 

“And what you did for me today,” I continue before my nerve runs out. “I can’t begin to thank you. You not only gave me this chance when you could have told any of them I wasn’t worth considering, but you actively helped me in the interview.”

“You earned the job, Peeta. Plutarch was already convinced before you even walked in the door.”

“The others weren’t.”

She laughs. “I knew Lavinia would love you. And Alma, well, she doesn’t really like anyone, but I have a feeling you’ll win her over eventually.”

“What about you?” I can’t help asking. She’s treating me so kindly, but she can’t possibly have forgiven me. I know she hasn’t forgotten. 

“I believe in second chances.” Her smile is softer, a little pained. “I knew you’d find your way back.”

“I was such a dick.”

“You were,” she agrees. “But I knew that wasn’t you.”

“You said that back then too,” I tell her, my tea forgotten. “I, uhm.” My neck feels hot and I rub it distractedly. “I hear you saying that, when I’m having a difficult day. It’s helped me so much over the years. You’ve helped me more than you’ll ever know.” It’s embarrassing as hell to admit that. But she deserves the truth.

She snorts, and it’s a sound so at odds with her elegant presentation and with the seriousness of our conversation. My gaze snaps up to her face, she looks amused and abashed. 

“You’re the reason I went into psychology,” she says, and my eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “I was a biology major first year. But seeing how everyone failed you after your dad died, and how easy it was for you to fall…” she trails off. “And then when you came back to school to try again, sober and working so hard, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

“You were there?” 

She nods. “Just for a semester. I was finishing my masters. I saw you a couple of times on campus, but you never noticed me.”

Honestly, that’s probably for the best. That early in my recovery I was still so fragile, just getting through classes took every bit of effort I had, and I spent so many hours with my sponsor and therapist back then I had no time for anyone else. “I wish I’d known,” I tell her. “But I had my head pretty far up my own ass.”

“You didn’t though.” She looks away, towards the tiny, narrow window on the exterior wall, barred, like all of the windows I’ve seen in this building. “I watched you. I’ve kept track of you over the years, when I could. Even then you were already working so hard to make amends.”

I was. And I can tell by that specific word that she knows why. One of the steps in AA is making amends for the shitty things we’ve done, at least where doing so won’t cause any further damage. In those early years, I’d concentrated mostly on my brothers, and earning their trust again. But I also spent time speaking with professors and coaches who I had alienated. It would have been far easier to start over at a different college, and likely would have been less triggering. But it’d have been a coward’s way.

“I never got a chance before now to apologize to you,” I whisper. She’d kept track of me, but I hadn’t made the same effort. Before the booze, Katniss Everdeen was that perfect, unattainable fantasy woman I put on a pedestal and never approached. And after, I locked her away, so terribly ashamed by my actions that I never sought her out, even though she would have been easy to find. I was terrified by how she might look at me.

But she’s clearly a much bigger person than I could ever be.

“I think the time wouldn’t have been right before now,” she says. “For either of us.”

We lapse into silence, Katniss still staring out the window, me fiddling with the mug I’ve picked up again. “Can I ask you something?” she says, and there’s something in her tone that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Of course.”

“That night… why me?” She’s trying to keep her voice even, I can tell, but the slight waver slays me. 

“You were there, and I was a drunken asshole,” I rasp, but she shakes her head, glancing at me.

“It was more than that. The things you said…” she looks away, but not before I see the shine in her eyes. Not before I see the hurt I had been expecting all along. The knowledge that even all of these years later, my words continue to bother her is gut-wrenching. I feel like the biggest piece of shit.

“It was all bullshit, Katniss, the ramblings of an absolute lowlife shit of a human.”

“There’s always truth, even in ramblings,” she says softly. “It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d been called those things. But we’d never even spoken before then. I didn’t know you even knew my name.”

“I knew you, Katniss. I’d always been watching you.” She turns back to me eyebrows raised, confusion in every line of her beautiful face. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, and I don’t want to make excuses for my absolutely inexcusable behaviour. But she deserves the whole truth. I drop my gaze to my lap. “The truth is, I had a huge crush on you, nearly the whole way through high school.” 

She makes a little choking sound, and I can’t bear to look at her. I know I’m doing unfathomable damage to our potential working relationship, confessing like this. I’ll decline Plutarch’s offer, if being here will hurt her. But I can’t let her think that any of the awful things I said had even a speck of truth to them. I can’t let her take any blame. 

“In senior year,” I continue, “I had finally convinced myself that I was going to talk to you, to ask you to the Valentine’s dance. But then…” I trail off. My father had died at the end of January, and everything else in my life had fallen away, sucked into the black pit of grief.

A soft, cool hand lands on my forearm, and I glance up. Far from looking disgusted, as I was expecting, Katniss is looking at me with compassion, even through her confusion. “When I saw you that night,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out. “I had already screwed up everything else in my life. I was just so angry at the world, but mostly at myself. I was drowning in regret and self-loathing. And you were there, and you were every bit as beautiful as you had always been. And you just represented everything I wanted so badly and had fucked up. My father was gone, my sport was gone, and the girl of my dreams was completely out of my league. And I lost it, lashed out at you instead of at the person who really deserved it. Me.”

“You didn’t deserve it either,” she whispers, and her eyes shine silver under a film of moisture.

I place my hand over hers where it still rests on my arm, and she doesn’t pull away. “I’m truly sorry, Katniss. Hurting you is the biggest regret of my life.” 

“I accept your apology.” I squeeze her hand in gratitude, and a sad half smile ticks at her lips.

“I won’t take the offer,” I murmur, and her brow furrows again. “This is your career, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, being here.”

She shakes her head. “You won’t,” she says. “I’ve been watching you for so long, cheering for you from the sidelines. I feel like I know you. And I know you won’t ever repeat that mistake.”

“I won’t,” I swear. “I’ll always be an alcoholic, and there will always be a risk that I’ll relapse. But I’ve learned so much in therapy, about communication and managing my emotions. About coping. I have better mechanisms now, and a really great support group behind me.” It had taken a long time to make things right with my brothers, but they are my staunchest supporters now. And my sponsor, Haymitch, is a crusty old bastard, but he’d rip out someone’s throat before letting me down.

“Then stay,” she says. “I’d like to start again, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. Build up that friendship we should have had.” She looks down at our hands. At some point, she’d flipped her palm and I’d entwined my fingers with hers.

“Always,” I whisper in awe, and she smiles, that beautiful, elusive smile that I know will be the stuff of all of my future fantasies. And maybe, just maybe, the stuff of my future reality too.

#talesofpanem #tales of panem #makeup week #work #xerxia31 #submission #week 10

[novastarlyght]

NOVA SCREAMS ABOUT ENTER THE FLORPUS

In six words:  "Children sing. People rejoice. Fatalities minimal."

In much more than six words and featuring a BUTT LOAD OF SPOILERS, continue on....

Biggest takeaway: Membrane is a badass DILF 10/10 would marry especially to have Dib and Gaz as stepchildren.... even if he is the poster boy for the Flat Earth Atheist trope (ALSO HE SQUISHY NOW!!!!!)

okay thirst joking aside THIS WAS WORTH WAITING 17 YEARS FOR!!! I MEAN IT!!!!!! IT'S EVERYTHING I COULD'VE WANTED AND MORE FROM AN IZ REVIVAL and honestly an IZ movie in general??? like the fandom used to talk about the whole “Invader Dib” TV movie idea thing the crew tossed around back during the show's run, if it ever ran for so long that a TV movie could happen, but I don't know if it would've been or felt as satisfying as this. Maybe that's just due to again, this being the first animated IZ related thing in SEVENTEEN YEARS but you can just feel how much Jhonen went all out with this, probably because it has been so long. I feel how much love went into this, how much Jhonen and crew and put that same love that fans have had for IZ for the past nearly 2 decades back into this. He wanted to give us something really truly special, something to thank us for loving his show for so long despite how short lived it was, and I don't think he could've succeeded more. This was his gift to the fans and I wish I could tell him how grateful I am for it in person. Maybe I'll get to someday. ;u; Regardless, thank you Jhonen for giving all of us who loved your show all these years this wonderful thing that's everything we loved, and still do love, about IZ and more ❤︎

Gosh all the things from little fanservice moments to answering questions and addressing things fans have wondered about for years... Dib and Gaz confirmed to have Membrane as their last names, Gaz's full name being Gazlene, Dib established as being 12 years old, Tak's ship playing a big part, DIB'S ENTIRE ARC WITH MEMBRANE and of course “What would happen if Zim actually thought the Tallest didn't respect him?” And the answer is, of course, continuing to never give up and do whatever it takes to try and win their admiration because Zim is the ultimate determinator and will literally never accept failure ever. Even though failing is all he does. And that's why we love him Though apparently he was legitimately depressed before Dib told him about the Membracelets which is like... oh no.... baby.... my heart......... ;~;

SPEAKING OF HEART SHATTERING, THESE LINES!!!! JUST THESE LINES!!!!!!:

“Son, you don't have to prove anything. I'm always proud of you.”

IZ has never had anything resembling a genuinely heartfelt moment before which made it pack even more of a punch. The fact that, unlike the original series, this movie wasn’t afraid to take itself just seriously enough to be able to have a moment like this, is what really drove it home to me as not only a faithful return but an evolution - the series modernized and grown up, as though it matured along with its audience. And it’s a reward to all of us who genuinely love and care about these characters. It knows how beloved IZ is and not only celebrates that but also gives us something new and special that wasn’t in the original. That is what makes a perfect reboot.

AND DUDE THE ANIMATION WAS INCREDIBLE?????? just... so unbelievably gorgeous I was floored by every frame.... the original IZ series was, and to my knowledge still is/was, the most expensive show Nick ever produced so I can't even IMAGINE, even with how much technology has advanced since '01-'02, how much money Nick must've thrown at this. And it's ALL on the screen. ESPECIALLY THE FLORPUS SEQUENCE ITSELF SWEET UNHOLY CTHULHU I AM GONNA HAVE TO GO BACK AND WATCH IT FRAME BY FRAME FOR EVERY SINGLE LAST PIECE OF MIND-BLOWING AMAZINGNESS THAT SEQUENCE WAS MAN just... legitimately, phenomenally astounding.

Enter the Florpus is flawless. Or as close to flawless as something can probably be, since I genuinely can’t think of anything in this movie that didn’t work spectacularly or that I didn’t irrevocably adore. The only thing that maybe, possibly could have made it better was having some more of the minor characters make a return or appearance, like Tak herself or the Resisty, but I can understand not having them since that wouldn't have exactly fit into the story all that well. And I prefer a solid story over just seeing something cool or fanservicey for coolness/fanservice's sake. This movie had everything it needed to have and that's what made it so great. I couldn't be happier. And now I’m going to go rewatch the entire original series again for the 777th billion time. And then watch the movie again right after. And then cry. A lot.

#texts from last nova #enter the florpus #invader zim #invader zim spoilers #spoilers #enter the florpus spoilers

[angelofberlin2000]

@HadleyFreeman

Sat 18 May 2019 09.00 BST

“Hey, I’m Keanu,” he introduces himself – unnecessarily, of course, and yet very Keanu-ishly. Despite being so famous his surname has long been superfluous, Keanu Reeves has always given the impression of being utterly unaffected by his own celebrity. He is regularly described by his co-stars as “kind” (Winona Ryder) and “humble” (Laurence Fishburne) and it is easier to imagine him walking on the moon than knocking back champagne with other celebrities on a yacht in St Barts. After all, the most famous paparazzi photo ever taken of Reeves was of him sitting alone on a bench, eating a sandwich out of a plastic bag. Hard to imagine Leonardo DiCaprio doing that.

“I’ll sit anywhere you want me to. This OK?” he says, taking a chair and offering me the sofa in the London hotel room where we meet. At just over 6ft, he is taller than I expected – also unusual for an actor – and dressed in a very Keanu outfit of dark shirt and trousers with sturdy boots. Despite being recently announced as the new face of the high fashion label Saint Laurent, Reeves has long been the patron saint of normcore, decades before it became a fashion statement. And I know this all too well because, from 1991–99, I had at least five posters of him on my bedroom walls modelling said look.

The 2010 photo of Reeves on a New York bench that sparked the Sad Keanu meme. Photograph: Splash News

Should one ever meet one’s teenage crush? Up until this week, I’d assumed I was long past the point of being starstruck – I’m a 40-year-old woman, for God’s sake! But now here I am, sitting opposite Reeves, now 54, the beard more grizzled than in my posters and the forehead suspiciously smooth, but still, most definitely Keanu. There’s that devastating smile he flashed at Sandra Bullock at the end of Speed, and there he is saying – and this is where I nearly lose all vestiges of professionalism – “Excellent!” while playing air guitar. Listening to the tape of our interview later is not an edifying experience, as I hear myself – Oh, dear God – flirt with Reeves (because, clearly, a heavily pregnant mother of two is the dream woman he’s been waiting for). Happily, my mortifying giggling soon abates, thanks to Reeves’ management of a situation he has presumably had to deal with every day of his life for the past four decades. And as he does, I get an insight into what it takes to be Keanu Reeves.

We are meeting today to discuss his latest film, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It will unquestionably boost the more than $3bn Reeves’ movies have grossed over the years. When he made the first John Wick film in 2014 – directed, as all the Wick films are, by Chad Stahelski, Reeves’ stunt double on the Matrix films – few expected that a movie about a former assassin avenging the killing of his puppy would amount to much. Despite starring in some of the most successful and seminal movies of the past 30 years – from offbeat hits like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and My Own Private Idaho, to blockbusters like Point Break, Speed and The Matrix – Reeves has been in at least as many damp squibs, including 2013’s 47 Ronin, one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Yet Wick, a stylish, brooding, ultraviolent revenge fantasy, was an unexpected hit with critics and audiences, and is now a mega-million dollar franchise, giving Reeves his first mainstream hits since the Matrix movies.

Part three – sorry, Chapter 3 – is larkier than its two predecessors, including one incredible scene in which Reeves offs some bad guys using an actual horse as a weapon (rest assured: the horse escaped unharmed). As a testament to the success of the franchise, there are more celebrity co-stars, including Halle Berry, and despite the naysayers when it comes to Reeves’ acting, he is terrific as a man still mourning the death of his wife. (She died at the beginning of the first John Wick film, from that terrible terminal disease, Convenient Plot Device.) “We certainly didn’t know when we started on John Wick that it would become like this,” says Reeves. “We’re only getting to tell these stories because of the audience. So thank you.” He salutes me in thanks, as representative of all the Wick audiences. (If you are imagining this is one of the times I giggled at him, you are correct.)

One of the canniest things about the Wick films is how they riff on Reeves’ public image. Once dismissed as an airhead by those who confused the Bill & Ted movies with reality, for the past two decades Reeves has been seen as a melancholic loner. The famous 2010 photo of him on a New York bench sparked what became known as the Sad Keanu meme, but it only struck a chord because the assumption already existed that Reeves – then in a career slump – was, well, a bit sad. Reeves, with polite firmness, denies that this echo is deliberate – “No, no, I don’t think about that” – although it is hard to believe it wasn’t in the film-makers’ minds as they shot endless scenes in John Wick 3 of Sad Keanu wandering alone through rainy New York streets, empty hotel corridors and a desert.

It quickly becomes clear that polite firmness is Reeves’ modus operandi when it comes to nosy questions: he will give the impression of being up for answering anything while, in fact, saying very little, or nothing at all. (Sample exchange. Me: “Was there ever a moment, maybe after Bill & Ted, when people started reacting differently to you and you realised your life had changed?” Him: “Um, no.” Me: “Really?” Him: “No.”) What this distancing tactic might lack in conversational intimacy, it makes up for in shutting down any embarrassing flirtations from women who should know better. You can’t kid yourself you are soulmates with someone who is building such protective walls against you.

So I’m surprised when he volunteers that Wick’s melancholy possibly has a connection to some of the most painful moments in his life. One other big reason the public perception of Reeves shifted from comedy stoner to faintly tragic figure was because, in 1999, his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their daughter Ava, who was stillborn. The couple broke up soon after, and two years later Syme was killed in a car accident. Reeves has never married, had any other children or even been reliably linked to other romantic partners since. He has also never spoken publicly about their deaths, and who can blame him? But given that the heart of the Wick films is about him mourning a lost love, the resonance is hard to ignore.

“With any character, the way I think about it is, you have the role on the page, you have the vision of the director and you have your life experience,” he says.

Did he bring his experience of bereavement to the role? “Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief,” he says, visibly perking up at the subject.

What is it about grief that interests him? “Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

Has he been thinking more about the people he has lost as he’s grown older? “I don’t think it’s about getting older. It’s always with you, but like an ebb and flow,” he says.

Anyone in particular? “Lots of people,” he says, bricking those walls right back up.

***

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of an English mother and Hawaiian-Chinese father. (His first name, as all Reeves-ologists know, is Hawaiian for “cool breeze over the mountains”.) With his sister Kim, the family moved around the world, from Australia to Manhattan, before finally settling in Toronto when Reeves was six. I reckon you can often spot an adult who moved around a lot as a kid, I tell him. “Oh yeah? How?” he says, intrigued.

They tend to have a sense of detachment, self-sufficiency, maybe loner tendencies and a strong sense of independence, I say. “Yeah, I clinically belong to that. I definitely have a bit of the gypsy in me,” he agrees.

Reeves’ father left the family when Keanu was three, and disappeared entirely from their lives when he was 13. He and his sister had multiple stepfathers.

That’s a pretty hard age for a parent to vanish off the scene, I say. “For sure, I think it’s definitely traumatising. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?” he says.

Did his father ever contact him again? “Yeah, in the mid-90s, but I didn’t reach back out,” he says.

This was after his father had been convicted for selling heroin? “Yeah, but that wasn’t why I didn’t get in touch!” he laughs.

So why not? “I just didn’t,” he replies, and that’s the end of that. But I can’t help but think of one of my favourite scenes of his, from Ron Howard’s 1989 ensemble comedy Parenthood, in which Reeves’ character muses about paternal figures: “You need a licence to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a licence to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

Often the class clown at school, Reeves liked sport and loved acting, and got an agent as a teenager after being talent-spotted in a play. He dropped out of high school before graduation. “I feel really fortunate in a way, because I knew what I wanted to do, and a lot of kids that age don’t. But I had a creative ambition and I did it,” he says. After some early television work, Reeves started getting film roles, most notably in the cult 1986 teen drama River’s Edge, followed by Bill & Ted, and from there the work never stopped.

Back in the 1990s, he was the go-to pin-up for all teenagers who wanted a beautiful, gentle and safely asexual boyfriend (hi!). But his acting, if not his looks, has been a more debatable subject. “Is Keanu Reeves a Good Bad Actor or a Bad Good Actor?” a reader wrote in to ask the New York Times’ film critics in 2011 (the answer was, “Neither! A good actor, period”). Writing in the Guardian, self-professed superfan Joe Queenan put him in a small category of actors so beloved they are beyond criticism: “In most of [his best] movies, Keanu plays a character the audience views more with affection than with reverence or idolatry, like a kid brother who has bitten off more than he can chew and may need outside help to survive.”

Today Reeves has a good riposte to the criticism that he doesn’t, or can’t, act. “I certainly never got it from any of the directors I worked with,” he says, checking off some of the most respected in the business, including Bernardo Bertolucci (Little Buddha), Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) and Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly). “It’s not like I went to meet Kenneth Branagh [who directed him in 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing] and he was like, ‘Excellent, dude!’ You know?” He chucks in a little air guitar to boot.

It would have been pretty funny if Branagh had said that, though. “Of course! But the pigeonholing just comes from journalists and, yeah, that happens a lot. I generally don’t read the press but when I do I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, you’re doing that again,’” he says with a shrug.

I’ve never really understood the criticism. OK, he might not have been perfectly cast in Much Ado and acting opposite John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons when he was only 24 was never going to be a fair fight. But he has always been a far more varied actor than the snarkers allow. He proved his superlative comic timing and endearing charisma in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, when it comes to drama and sci-fi, no one is better at maintaining an inscrutable blankness. That quality is precisely what has driven so many directors to cast him, often as a messiah-like figure in movies such as Little Buddha, 2005’s Constantine (one of Reeves’ favourites), 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic and, of course, The Matrix. And of all the improbable actors who became action stars in the 1990s – Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Cage – Reeves seemed the most at home in the genre, in the still deliciously enjoyable Point Break and Speed, which he made in between smaller indie fare. So did he do the big movies in order to fund the smaller projects?

“Honestly, I try not to do anything I don’t want to do. But I guess those movies were in reaction to each other. It wasn’t as thought out as, OK, I finished Point Break, so now I’d better play a street prostitute. It was more like, OK, I finished this, now I want to do that,” he says.

“That” refers to 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, in which he and River Phoenix play street hustlers. Reeves had already met Phoenix through the latter’s girlfriend Martha Plimpton, with whom he had worked in Parenthood. The two quickly became friends, and it’s not hard to see why: both were young actors on the rise with a love of music and a pronounced lack of interest in the glitzier, red carpet side of their job. They were the anti-Brat Pack, and Phoenix, along with Alex Winter from Bill & Ted, were, Reeves says, “definitely my closest friends from that era. We shared an artistic sensibility. River was just so down-to-earth, spiritual and a unique artist. Yeah, I miss him,” says Reeves quietly. When Phoenix suggested the two of them make My Own Private Idaho, “I was in right away,” he says.

They had something else in common, a shared experience suggested in the now almost unbearably moving scene where the two sit by a campfire and talk haltingly about their childhoods.

Mike (Phoenix): If I had a normal family, and a good upbringing, then I would have been a well-adjusted person.

Scott (Reeves): Depends on what you call normal.

Mike: Didn’t have a dog, or a normal dad. Anyway, that’s all right. I don’t feel sorry for myself, I feel like I’m, you know, well-adjusted.

Scott: What’s a normal dad?

Phoenix’s dysfunctional childhood, growing up in a rackety family who for a time belonged to the Children of God cult, has been well-documented. Reeves’ was different, but no slouch when it came to potential trauma. Was that another thing that drew them together?

He ponders the question a full 10 seconds. “Certainly our histories played a role in that movie and in that scene. So I’ll say yes to that, yeah,” he says.

Two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release, the actor who desperately wanted to avoid every Hollywood cliche died the most cliched death imaginable, of a drugs overdose on Sunset Boulevard in 1993. Plenty of his contemporaries were also caught out, either self-destructing or becoming victims of their own success. Reeves adamantly refused to do either. When I ask how he avoided falling victim to drug addiction as Phoenix did, he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “I just wasn’t into that scene.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s being blithe or defiant when he insists he still lives his life totally normally, unaffected by fans. But if Leonardo DiCaprio went into a supermarket, there would be hysteria, I say.

“Yeah, but Leonardo has fame and fans that I don’t have in that way. Definitely. I don’t know what his experiences are, but I think someone from the outside would think [going shopping] might not be easy for him. Whereas I can, which is good,” he says.

Come on, surely fans bother him all the time? But the worst he can come up with is someone quoting Point Break at him in the airport the other day and someone, once, quoting River’s Edge when he was queueing at an ice-cream van. “And that’s fun!” he says cheerfully.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he was offered every hot young part under the sun, including the lead in Platoon (which went to Charlie Sheen) and Val Kilmer’s role in Heat. But when I ask if he regrets turning any of them down, he smiles and instantly replies, “No.” He also turned down a $12m pay cheque to make Speed 2 because he, rightly, thought the plot was nonsense, which resulted in him being shut out of 20th Century Fox films for the next 11 years (and no, he doesn’t regret that, either). He is about to start shooting Bill & Ted Face The Music, in which the now fiftysomething duo have to write a song so good it will save the universe. “There has to be a reason for making a movie, and the writers have come up with a good ‘why’ for telling the story,” he says. When I ask what gives him an ego boost, given that he’s not driven by money or fame, he is so baffled by the idea of his ego needing a boost that he is silent for a full 28 seconds before finally answering, “The work.”

Maintaining his privacy has been a major factor in helping Reeves retain his sanity, yet away from the press he can be extraordinarily open and laid-back. By a weird fluke, I have two friends who, separately, spent time with him in the 90s and both still talk about his generosity: he took them for rides on his motorbike and stayed in touch (yes, I am furious with them for not including me in any of this). There are legions of stories about Reeves’ kindness: buying his stuntmen motorbikes, renegotiating his Matrix contract so that the crew got a better deal, at a personal cost of millions of dollars. Shortly before we meet, Reeves was on a flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles that was grounded due to a mechanical fault. Instead of pulling rank with some “Do you know who I am?” A-list entitlement, Reeves encouraged his fellow passengers to board a van with him so they could drive to LA, keeping the mood up by sharing fun local facts and playing music from his iPhone. (Needless to say, footage of this quickly went viral.) So his four decades-long reticence with the media might well be Reeves’ most brilliantly sustained performance.

  How we made Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure                                                                                                                                                         Read more                            

But he bristles when I mention these stories. “I’m pretty private, so when that stuff doesn’t stay private it is not great,” he says.

Because he worries it will look like he’s just doing it for show? “No. Because it’s private,” he says with emphasis.

Ah well. I have accepted by this point that we probably won’t ride off together into the sunset on his motorcycle. But if the price of Reeves still being so recognisably Keanu-ish is him retaining a firm grip on his privacy and at least a pretence of normality, that feels like a fair trade-off. I assume doing this interview has been a torturous experience for him, so as we get up to leave I ask how he’d have preferred to spend the afternoon, in a dream scenario.

“Oh, I don’t know. This dream ain’t so bad!” he says, and gives me that full end-of-Speed smile again. And reader, I giggled.

• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is in cinemas now.

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