#man i thought i liked my current playing character but wow i’m obsessed with this new one

[twinhood-2dot0]

A Shallow Dive Into: Batman’s Rogues Gallery Part 2

Here, part 2. The first one somehow got 7 likes??? I barely even put any effort into it. This one is also gonna be pretty low effort :P I started writing another post yesterday and I wrote 1360 words and I’m only like only a ⅓ finished??? And I kinda spent the whole day watching an anime start to finish 💀.Anyways, let’s get into some more that I missed.

The Al Ghul’s

Ra’s al Ghul (Raysh-Al-Ghool or, Raas-Al-Ghool. Even DC writers can’t agree, although I’m more accustomed to Raysh, I think that was how it was pronounced in the DCAU and the Arkham games. It’s Arabic for “Head of the demon”) is a man born around 700-450 years ago, who discovered the powers of the Lazarus pit, which has the power to bring people back from the dead and used it to prolong his life. (Yeah, this how pretty much most of the dead Batfam characters came back to life. Jason Todd, Kate Kane (Batwoman), who died for like one issue a few meters away from a Lazarus pit, Riddler, as mentioned before, when he got cancer and took a dip in the pit and figured out Batman’s identity.) Ra’s al Ghul, in his long life, played a part in like a lot of historical moments, and later comes to resent humanity and becomes an environmentalist. I’m not very familiar with the character unfortunately, with all of my experience being the Batman Begins version, the kinda weird role he played in Arkham City, and JLA: Tower of Babel where he takes down the entire Justice League using Batman’s countermeasures for his own allies, and the Injustice series, which I don’t remember much of except that he has like a nature sanctuary with various critically endangered species and he was besties with Animal Man.

Talia al Ghul is the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, on-and-off love interest for Batman, and mother of Batman’s biological son, and also on-and-off ally of Ra’s al Ghul. She also played a part in Jason Todd’s resurrection and consequent training.

Ra’s also has one other daughter, Nyssa, but I honestly didn’t even know she existed until I played Arkham Knight. She has much less appearances than her sister.

Lady Shiva, while not a member of the family, has relations to the League of Shadows, so I thought I’d group them together. Lady Shiva is among the best martial artists in the DCU, able to best even Batman. She’s also the mother of Cassandra Cain, the other best fighter, although more so because of her procognitive abilities. 

Man-Bat

Wow, the realisticness makes him so much scarier.

Dr. Kirk Langstrom is a zoologist cursed with deafness, and in an effort to cure his deafness, creates a serum with the help of bat DNA but it goes horribly wrong and is turned into a giant bat. In recent publications, he’s more of a sympathetic villain acting more on primal rage than malice. His interpretation in Arkham Knight was done really well. Although Arkham Knight is not a horror game, there’s a ton of jumpscares. While just gliding and grappling to different buildings, the player may be randomly met with the shrieking face of the Man-Bat, and you have to go to his lab and piece together what he has done and create an antidote.

Mr. Freeze

Dr. Victor Fries’s (pronounced “Frees”. Yeah, DC names are often very on the nose, just look at E. Nygma and Harleen Quinzel.) wife Nora Fries is afflicted with a terminal illness, and is cryogenically preserved by her husband in hopes that a cure might one day be discovered. While working, he’s trapped in an accident that made him unable to survive outside of sub-zero environments, forcing him to wear a cryogenic suit, and he turns to crime to find a cure.

Mr. Freeze was originally just another bank robber with a freeze ray, but Paul Dini changed his origin story to the current iteration in an Emmy Award winning episode of Batman: The Animated Series titled “Heart Of Ice”. Scott Snyder, as much as I loved his stories, controversially retconned this in the New 52 reboot and made Fries a man who got obsessed with a cryogenically preserved woman named Nora Fields.

The Court Of Owls

A newer addition to the Batman mythos, appearing first in Scott Snyder’s Court Of Owls and City Of Owls arcs that kicked off the New 52 Batman series. The Court Of Owls are Gotham’s own Illuminati. A secret society made of the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Gotham, they have existed for centuries, controlling the city from behind the shadows, along with the help of immortal assassins named the Talons.

Batmen of The Dark Multiverse

Scott Snyder’s 2017 crossover event named Dark Nights: Metal introduced us to the Dark Multiverse, a multiverse where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and is doomed to destruction. We’re introduced to the Batmen (and Batwoman) of The Dark Multiverse, who are all different versions of Batman with some drastic changes.

Joker 

A fan favorite, and the leader of the Batmen, is The Batman Who Laughs. This Batman gave into the urge of killing Joker, after he killed all his rogues, thousands of Gotham citizens and Jim Gordon, and is infected with a version of the Joker toxin that turns him insane, making him a Joker with the brain and physicality of Batman. He tricked the Batfamily and killed them all, and hid in his Batcave for a week, emerging to kill the Justice League, and he turned Damian into a mini-Joker and recruited the children affected by the Joker toxin as his “Rabid Robins”. This guy is freaking horrifying in all of the stories he appeared in.

Superman

The Superman of Earth -1 goes on a killing spree, even killing Lois Lane, leading Batman to decide to use lethal force. After his attempts with a Kryptonite spear doesn’t work out, he ingested a version of the Doomsday Virus (Doomsday is the monster that killed Superman in The Death Of Superman, the virus causes people to develop features like it.) aiding him in killing Superman, but after his victory, the virus spread and he could only watch helplessly as it destroyed his world.

The Flash

After all of the Batfam dies, Batman is compelled to take extreme measures, and tries to get The Flash to give him access to the Speed Force too, and when he refused, he used all the weapons employed by his Rogue’s Gallery to defeat him, chained him to the Batmobile (merged with the Cosmic Treadmill, it’s a treadmill that Flash uses to time travel accurately and stuff), and drove both of them into the Speed Force, absorbing The Flash and his powers, with Barry forced to watch as Batman murders each of his villains.

Aqua(wo)man

In a universe where everyone is gender-swapped, Bryce Wayne’s lover Sylvester Kyle (bleugh) is killed by metahumans, and starts killing every metahuman. After killing all of them on land, she meets Aquawoman, and peace negotiations turn into a conflict, and then she steals her trident, and kills her with her own weapon, and in retaliation, the Atlanteans drown Gotham City and a large part of the world, leading her to perform surgery on herself to give herself Aquawoman’s powers and designed an underwater army called the “Dead Waters''. Does that qualify as a navy?

Okay, there are a few more, like Cyborg Alfred Batmobile Batman, Ares Batman, Killed all of Green Lantern corps as a kid with a Green Lantern ring Batman, but I’m lazy, sorry. Maybe next time, cya, I gotta go finish Chainsaw Man.

#batman #dc comics #a shallow dive into #arkham knight #batman who laughs #mr freeze #man bat #ra's al ghul #court of owls #dark multiverse #dark nights metal

[sirenedoug]

OFMD Mixtape

Having gone down the rabbit hole that is OFMD brain rot, and being of GenX, my love note to the show, those who created it, and the wonderful Fandom, is in the form of a mixtape. Er, rather, a playlist.

 Music has always been a salve and takes my mind away from all the trauma of the world.  This list goes from fun and silly to the most angsty, love sick, heart thumping collection representing mainly Stede and Ed’s character development and romance.  

I’m going to break them down episode by episode and you can find all the songs linked here:

Please have mercy on me.  I am new to the beautiful world of Fandom (ignore my shoebox full of Star Wars bubble gum cards and my Tardis cookie jar…it took a Pandemic and, well, the current state of the world to bring me to this wonderful collection of people in love with a show.  I’m just a girl, standing in front of a show, and obsessively thinking about the beauty of it all.) I’m working some shit out, apparently.  My rambling gets longer as I get further in the list.

So, with that, please comment suggested songs you find just as angsty and fitting. I've got room for 50 songs on each side of my cassette.

With Love…

Episode 1

We’re going to start, soft and sweet, with “A Pirate’s Life” by Joel Fry. 

Yup, part of the soundtrack for the show. This sea shanty by the talented actor who plays Fenchie perfectly captures the innocent (and ignorant) Stede-view of life as a pirate before reality begins to sink in for Stede and for us all.

”The Empty Boat” by Caetano Veloso is also part of the soundtrack and was a perfect way to end the show after Stede experiences death and bumbles through the pirate captain life. It’s too perfect not to add to the list.  Soft and sad,  “From the east to the west, Oh, the stream is long, Yes, my dream is wrong, From the birth to the death” captures Stede’s birth as a pirate and death of his former self.  His journey begins.



Episode 2

”Lola” by The Kinks introduced me to gender identity and sexuality and acceptance.  I was fascinated by this song as a kid.  There are so many struggles of identity in this episode and the acceptance that love is love is a big part of the beauty of this show.  Olu understands his love of Jim, and Lucius discover’s Jim’s secret and discloses his own history of hiding who he really is.  Izzy is sent to meet Stede and the stage is set for an epic love story.  

Episode 3

"Fantasy" by Mariah Carey may not seem angsty, but it can be.  At the beginning of this Episode Stede is beginning to lean into, in a very Stede way, being a pirate.  He’s in love with his image of what a pirate captain is, and struts through the Republic of Pirates in his virginal white frock dragging poor Lucius (identified as decidedly non-virginal with a scarlet baptism).  I picture Stede tone deaf to his surroundings and singing along with Carey, “Oh, when you walk by every night, Talkin’ sweet and lookin’ fine, I get kinda hectic inside, Mmm, baby I’m so into you, Darlin’, if you only knew, All the things that flow through my mind” as he sings to his inner Gentleman Pirate.   But I like to imagine Blackbeard’s fascination with the Stede he has not yet met, having those very same thoughts, about the Gentleman Pirate. 

A shout-out to the sample in Carey’s song of Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love".  “With my boyfriend, my laughing boyfriend, There’s no beginning and there is no end, Feels like I’m dreaming, but I’m not sleeping” Nuff said.

Now we get stabby and properly angsty.

Episode 4

Taylor Swift's "Wonderland" (Wow, that cover looks like it came straight from “Pina Coladas” by the gifted faeeebaeee! Read this if you have not. Be warned, however, faeeebaeee invented angst.) Taylor Swift has not, up to this time,  been in rotation at my house. I had heard rumors she wrote a bit angsty, but man, that girl is working some shit out.  She and Robert Smith need to collaborate.  And thank goodness she did, because this song is perfect for both Ed and Stede.  As mid-life-crisis-Ed sits by mid-life-crisis-Stede’s sickbed and nurses him with his eyes, and um, gentle touch, and as Stede awakens to meet a man (a pirate even) who appreciates him for who he is, I can hear Wonderland playing, “Flashing lights and we, Took a wrong turn and we, Fell down a rabbit hole, You held on tight to me, ‘Cause nothing’s as it seems, And spinning out of control…We found Wonderland, You and I got lost in it, And we pretended it could last forever”.  That’s it.  The only song for this episode.  It’s got the lighthouse, it’s got the tension with Izzy, it’s got Ed’s plan to kill Stede and assume Stede’s identity.  It’s got Ed’s look, as he walks away from Izzy.  It’s got Stede’s fantasy coming to full fruition.  Ooooooh, the angst.

Episode 5

"Got Weird" by Dodie

Oh Dodie, Dodie, Dodie, how I do love thee.  And really, most of her lyrics come straight out of Ed’s brain, I’m convinced.  But this song IS the inner dialogue both Ed and Stede have at different points during this episode in order to navigate dinner with the fancy white racist upper crust weirdos. “Table for two, that’s all sorted, I played the man, and you bought it, We’ll talk over glass, like I own it….So take a deep breath, a big stretch, baby, It’ll feel like a movie (maybe)...A pep talk in a bathroom corner, Do I down the gin, stick to water?”  

And really, this song would be great after the actual kiss as well…but as Ed clearly wants to kiss Stede at the end of this episode, you can imagine this being the scenario Ed is worried will take place, “I got weird when we made out, What a goddamn kiss to think about…Clearly, I’ve got shit to figure out, Baby, baby, please don’t hate me, Call me up again, I won’t get weird”.

"Rises the Moon" by Liana Flores

Just perfect.  Sweet.  Sad, cuz we know what we know now that we’ve watched the whole season more times than we are able to admit to ourselves. (btw-I’m not using the royal we here, I’m talking you and me and you and you and you…we know who we are)

 “Days fade into a watercolour blur, Memories swim and haunt you, But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke, Rises the moon”

Episode 6

"I Caught Myself" by Paramore I’ve got two songs by Paramore on my mixtape, and this one is for Ed.  It represents his struggle with the Kraken, it represents his struggle with his feelings towards Stede and it represents his struggle with his loyalty to Izzy.  It opens, “Down to you, You’re pushing and pulling me down to you, But I don’t know what I, Now when I caught myself, I had to stop myself, I’m saying something that I should have never thought…I’m saying something that I should have never thought of you, of you…But I don’t know what I want, No I don’t know what I want, You got it, you got it, Some kind of magic, Hypnotic, hypnotic, You’re leaving me breathless, I hate this, I hate this” and I should just write out the whole damn song.  It’s Ed’s struggle with all the relationships in his life.

"Simply the Best" by Billianne  I love this version of the song that I’m sure you’ve heard on TikTok. This song is for the bathtub scene.   (I realize there have been many “bathtub scenes” over time.  Usually they are disturbing, or creepy, or scary, or romantic.  This one is just beautiful.)  This is Stede’s heart telling Ed he loves him when he breaks through the door and tells him, “I’m your friend”.  Course, Stede doesn’t understand it’s love yet.  And it’s Ed being completely and brutally honest with Stede, and the way his cheek leans on Stede’s hand…my heart is breaking a little…again.

“I call you when I need you, my heart’s on fire, You come to me, come to me wild and wild, When you come to me, Give me everything I need…Take my heart and make it strong, baby, You’re simply the best, Better than all the rest, Better than anyone, Anyone I’ve ever met, I’m stuck on your heart, I hang on  every word you say, Tear us apart, Baby, I would rather be dead”. 

Episode 7

"Seven" by Taylor Swift

Yes, I get the hype over Taylor Swift now.  What a beautiful song, and for my angsty purposes here, it kills two sets of love birds with one stone so to speak (apologies to Carl).  

This song references childhood trauma and we certainly explore Jim’s trauma in their life as a child as well as just having learned about Ed’s dad in the previous episode.  Swift sings, “And I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted, Your dad is always mad and that must be why, And I think you should come live with, Me and we can be pirates, Then you won’t have to cry, Or hide in the closet”.  How perfect is that?

But the love, too, and this episode ends with love, the near kiss with Olu and Jim, the stuck snake snack scene.  “Our love will be passed on”

And there’s one little line in the song that feels like it is foretelling events, “I still got love for you, Pack your dolls and a sweater, We’ll move to India forever…Our love lasts so long.”

"Absolutely Smitten" by Dodie This song captures the joy of the back-and-forth silly banter about Blackbeard’s Bar and Grill and Other Delacacies and Delights and Fishing Equipment scene…it’s got the giddy first love feels all over it.  

“She feels her heart begin to swell, Handsome stranger, you have made her insides turn to jelly,  She wants to dance around the room, Kiss you until her lips turn blue…She’s absolutely smitten, She’ll never let you go”.



Episode 8

"Hate Myself" by Dodie We are now seriously circling the angsty drain of sadness my friends. So buckle up, more songs to cover the last 3 episodes. This song could be playing in both Stede and Ed’s minds while Calico Jack is wrecking havoc.  Ed self-doubting and sabotaging his relationship with Stede.  Stede horribly confused by his own feelings towards Ed, towards Jack, and desperate to have his Ed back.

“Could it be different?  Did I ruin the day?  Oh, do you look angry?  Oh, what did I say?  Filling in the gaps, something wrong with me, I’m getting desperate, losing my mind…When you go quiet, I hate myself”

"Dreaming With A Broken Heart" by John Mayer Again, a song for both Stede and Ed.  Ed has gone off with Jack and I imagine this song has been playing in Stede’s mind all night.  He’s put the song on replay all night long and his red-rimmed eyes say he didn’t sleep a wink (I won’t say 17-year-old-me may have put The Cure’s “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” album on replay all night after her little heart got broken-she feels you, Stede).  Ed, waking up, face in the sand, could have the same song playing.

“When you’re dreaming with a broken heart, The waking up is the hardest part, You roll out of bed and down on your knees, And for a moment, you can hardly breathe, Wondering, ‘Was she really here?, Is she standing in my room?’, No she’s not, ‘Cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone”

"S.O.S." by ABBA You know what, Stede?  You would feel so much better if you just came to my house and we came up with a roller skating routine to this song from a record my mom just got.  We can practice in the basement and later, we can put on a show!

“Where are those happy days, They seem so hard to find, I try to reach for you, But you have closed your mind, Whatever happened to our love?, I wish I understood, It used to be so nice, It used to be so good, So when you’re near me, Darling, can’t you hear me, S.O.S., The love you gave me, Nothing can save me, S.O.S., When you’re gone, How can I even try to go on?  (oh good lord, every lyric in this song is so perfect…and Rhys Darby learned morse code in the NZ military, so, S.O.S.) When you’re gone, Thought I try, how can I carry on?, You seemed so far away, Though you were standing near, You made me feel alive, But something died, I fear…” Every.  Word.  Is.  Perfect.

"The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac After the first time I watched this episode, I had to replay this scene again and again.  It was like watching a perfect music video on MTV’s 120 Minutes circa 1990.  And really, the more I watched, the more I was convinced this is really Izzy’s song about Ed.  So sad, for Izzy.

“Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise, Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies, And if you don’t love me now, You will never love me again, I can still hear you saying, You would never break the chain”

******foot touch****** My heart.

Episode 9

"Sparks" by Coldplay Boy are Ed and Stede in their own heads at the beginning of this episode. Stede is shaken by the news he is “dead” and the old guilt about Mary and the children begins to seep back in.  Stede tries to re-kindle the adventure dynamic that made him and Ed so happy, but Ed is floating through the up-ending of his life whilst folding stuff, and that’s OK.  Ed has made a huge sacrifice to save Stede and he’s promising, in his own way, to be there for him, no matter what.  This melancholy song could, once again, fit both our favorite pirates.   

“Did I drive you away?, I know what you’ll say, You say, ‘Oh sing one we know’, But I promise you this, I’ll always look out for you…My heart is yours, It’s you that I hold on to…I know I was wrong, But I won’t let you down…”

"Like Real People Do" by Hozier  Oh the kiss.  Oh the kiss.  Oh the kiss. I understand that Hozier wrote the song imagining a romance from one of the well preserved bog bodies pulled from a peat bog in Ireland and a live human, but Ed and Stede both consider themselves monsters of a sort, so, voila!  This is a beautiful song, and the lyrics really do fit the kiss.

“I had a thought, dear, However scary, About that night…I will not ask you where you came from, I will not ask you, neither should you, Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips, We should just kiss like real people do”

"Pink in the Night" by Mitski This is all Ed on the pier, my babies.  “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed is beautiful too, but this feels more fitting (also, fun fact, no heroine).  He’s given up everything to save Stede and now he’s flayed his heart open for the man and there he sits in the lavender sunset.  

“I glow pink in the night in my room, I’ve been blossoming alone over you, And I hear my heart breaking tonight, I hear my heart breaking tonight…I love you, I love you, I love you…and I know I’ve kissed you before, but I didn’t do it right, Can I try again, and again, and again…”

"Two Birds" by Regina Spektor

“Two birds on a wire, One tries to fly away, And the other watches him close from that wire, He says he wants to as well, But he is a liar”  

Poor Ed.  Poor Stede.  Screw you Chauncey.

Episode 10

"Stop This Train" by John Mayer Can’t listen too carefully to this one, but the sentiment is spot on.  Stede, middle aged and caught between his family and his *still can’t quite understand he is in love* Ed, thrown back into his old mindset by the bullying of Chauncey and Chauncey’s subsequent violent death, flees home.  Life is moving too quickly for him and he returns home, thinking there will be a solution.  Well, there is, I suppose.  But the consequences…oh, Ed.

“No, I’m not colorblind, I know the world is black and white, I try to keep an open mind, But I just can’t sleep on this tonight, Stop this train, I want to get off and go home again, I can’t take the speed it’s moving in, I know I can’t, But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?”

Meanwhile, consequences…

To quote Buttons, the next songs are just going to be pure tone…

ED:

"Shallows" by Daughter

“Let the water rise, Let the ground crack, Let me fall inside, Lying on my back, Lying on my back, Dry your smoke-stung eyes, So you can see the light, Staring at the sky, Watching Stars collide, Watching stars, If you leave, When I go, Find me, In the shallows”

"Where Is My Mind" covered by Maxence Cyrin- instrumental only

"Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies

“Where is my mind?  Where is my mind?  Where is my mind?  Way out in the water, See it swimming, I was swimming in the Caribbean…Bump into me, swear he’s, Tryin’ a talk to me, say wait, wait…”

"Avalanche" by Leonard Cohen

“You who wish to conquer pain, You must learn what makes me kind, The crumbs of love that you offer me, They’re the crumbs I’ve left behind, Your pain is no credential here, It’s just the shadow, shadow of my wound, I have begun to long for you, I who have no greed, I have begun to ask for you, I who have no need, You say you’ve gone away from me, But I can feel you when you breathe”

"Monster" by Dodie

“Tell me again, About how it hurts, Being awfully loud, For an introvert, Get out of my room, Smile wiped clean, Isn’t it weird, To be so mean?, I’m guessing that I’ve grown horns, I guess I’m human no more, Oh, how easily passion twists, You think I’m a crazy bitch, I craft my words to fit your head, ‘Cause no one listens to the dead, So maybe I will talk to you, The only way I know how to, I’ve said my speech, Through sharpened teeth, You break the rules and spikes grow from your skin, Please, let the devil in”

STEDE:

"Strange" by Celeste

“Say isn’t it strange? Isn’t it strange?  I am still me, You are still you, In the same place, Isn’t it strange, How people can change, From strangers to friends, Friends into lovers, And strangers again?”

"The Night We Met" by Lord Huron

“I am not the only traveler, Who has not repaid his debt, I’ve been searching for a trail to follow again, Take me back to the night we met, And then I can tell myself, What the hell I’m supposed to do, And then I can tell myself, Not to ride along with you, I had all and then most of you, Some and now none of you, Take me back to the night we met, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Haunted by the ghost of you, Oh, take me back to the night we met”

"All I Wanted" by Paramore

“Think of me when you’re out, when you’re out there, I’ll beg you nice from my knees…All I wanted was you, All I wanted was you, I think I’ll pace my apartment a few times, And fall asleep on the couch, Wake up early to black and white re-runs, That escaped from my mouth, All I wanted was you…I could follow you to the beginning, And just to relive the start, And maybe then we’ll remember to slow down, At all of our favorite parts, All I wanted was you”

"Ready Now" by Dodie 

“You saw through me, All this time, I’d forgotten, People are kind, I was hurting, And you knew, So you showed me, What to do, You said, ‘I will listen, Tell it all, When you’re finished, We’ll talk more’, But I didn’t know how, So we took it in turns, And to my surprise, We found my words, Feet firm on the ground, We stood hand in hand, The world seemed to tell me, That I have a plan, Together, we sang, ‘I’m ready, now’”

I’m hoping that last song by Dodie ends up on my next mixtape for Ed…

And the last song leaves us all dangling over the side of the Revenge, preferably offering Lucius a hand up and into a secret compartment while Stede finds his footing on the water and Ed watches Frenchie hoist his new flag…

"Miles From Nowhere" by Yusuf/Cat Stevens

“Miles from nowhere, Guess I’ll take my time, Oh yeah, to reach there, Look up at the mountain, I have to climb, Oh yeah, to reach there…I creep through the valleys, And I grope through the woods, ‘Cause I know when I find it, my honey, It’s gonna make me feel good, I love everything, So don’t it make you feel sad, ‘Cause I’ll drink to you, my baby, I’ll think to that, yes, I’ll think to that”

#our flag means death #ofmd #edward teach #stede bonnet #our flag meets death #our flag means love #my playlist #music recommendation #spotify #Gen x

[euphoricfilter]

OMG WTF "FAIRYTALE DREAMS" WAS SO GOOD! (idk i feel like your writing got better or something in this fic? it feels different in terms of pacing, wording, and smut idk. or is it bc i love the concept hm idk) I love both of the characters and their relationship dynamic. Shy, spoiled mc. (ipad baby tho lol. im a lil like that with my phone tho so yeah hm) Simp Namjoon who takes care of her so much and never wants her to be sad omg TT I love the intro section and the usage of fairy tales. "That sickly feeling you get...the main cast of the story, fall in love and find their god-awful happiness that you can only dream of." This paragraph hit hard. Mood while watching kdramas and good fics omg TT His thought process and obsession feel realistic. The cafe section was really good. Patient Namjoon and the sleeve holding. so cute TT "Namjoon feels his cock twitch in his pants as you bend over the table slightly," I love this part bc it seems like he doesn't even take his eyes off her omg. (right?) such a simp aww. and the casual hair pulling omg. SIZE AND BULGE KINK OMG! The dirty talk is so good. The fleshlight line got me so flustered omg. (i love it) The murder part was interesting. He waited for a long time wow. Why? Him writing his fantasies was good omg. How did he kill him? And he goes to Jin's home bc he doesn't want to risk her seeing the blood? Does Jin know about the murder or not? Namjoon also said he lied to her in the beginning? I wonder if he had a bad past or job. My first thought was he was in a gang with Jin. What's his current job?

-🖤

NDJSJSNWJE THANK YOU

this one probably is different, i think this is closer to my actual writing style. i seriously find writing requests and drabbles kinda hard and idk why it’s like i need to see ever individual paragraph split up otherwise everything feels jumbled and i’m constantly second guessing myself

i think for this, i had a clear idea of what i wanted and how i wanted to write it, so it was less, always second guessing what i was doing throughout the whole thing. i think this also took me 3 days 🥲 when usually i can get a request done over like an afternoon and then edit everything at night

honestly i think i was projecting because super simp namjoon just 😋 it’s what i need in my life and maybe this is why i have yet to date because this is what i expect from a relationship

the cafe scene made me giggle or whatever and i had a very clear idea of how i wanted it to be and think i did okay in explaining it 🥲

oh yeah if the m/c is in the room then namjoon’s eyes are on her no matter what, this man does not care

idk where the fleshlight line came from, that wasn’t me i swear something just consumed my body and then uh oh my fingers were typing it out

ah yes the murder scene, he waited because if he’d gone after jimin right from the bookshop then it would have been kinda obvious he had been the killer and he’s not trying to get arrested, luckily he has the patience of a saint so he didn’t mind waiting a little while before he did what he needed to do

i think i’ll write a second part at some point to fill in the gaps that weren’t touched on in this because jin plays a significant role in namjoon’s murders and how he always seems to get away with it that’s why he wasn’t all that fazed when he showed up at his house after dealing with jimin

yeeah i think the foundation of their relationship was probably based off lies, though i doubt it would have taken much convincing on namjoon’s part to woo the m/c, because no matter what he was going to be a good boyfriend to her

nope no gang in this one

namjoon works in an office, among other things 😋

#ask #🖤 anon #fairytale dream

[lemonlumens]

concept art for a dnd aasimar cleric that gets disowned by her god and becomes a barbarian

(more details about her under the cut)

okay so like i was possessed and just absolutely had to make this character. she doesn’t have a name yet cause although i have her basic premise down, i haven’t fleshed out her details and probably won’t until i get to play her (which’ll prolly be a while).

so, she’s an aasimar and was literally chosen by god, so by all means she’s set up to become a great and powerful healer, but then she grows up into a shitty person. like, believes that her god is The One True God in a world where it is incredibly easy to disprove that, she forces others to stick to The Holy Path of “Good” or she beats the fuck outta em, she’s got rage issues, she believes so deeply in her god and that she is always in the right because she is Holy despite like literal actual signs from her god to cut that shit out, and is just generally all around prejudiced and fucked up.

then she somehow meets her god and it weeps for what she has become for it never wanted any of this, and it cuts their connection, making her completely lose all her spells so she’s just no longer a cleric. then she screams and sobs and goes into a rage and punches god or something! from there she’s a barbarian hell bent on righting the things that she perceives has wronged her or something.

it’s pretty blurry because of course i’d need to play her and her story to flesh her out, but i really like the concept!

#my art #art #original art #digital art #doodles #dnd #dnd aasimar #dnd cleric #man i thought i liked my current playing character but wow i’m obsessed with this new one #i do have a little more thought in her backstory and thinking process but this is already long #and i’m worried i’ll get too attached to ideas that would happen during a campaign which would probably not be great #(idk tho i’ve played like 2 sessions in my life lol)

[thefanficmonster]

Corpse’s Girl

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Bullying, Swearing, Derogatory Terms

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Summary: Y/N’s life as a regular college student is forever stripped away from her when her relationship with the famous YouTuber Corpse Husband is accidentally revealed during an online class of hers. How will she cope with the sudden spotlight and the unwanted attention, some of which crosses into bullying?

Requested by my amazing Tumblr friend @itsminniekat 🥰 She’s been reading and liking my works since day one and I honestly couldn’t be more grateful. If you’re reading this, all I can say is thank you, darling. Thank you so much for sticking by my blog even when I posted some crappy fics. I’ll make sure this ain’t one of them. Love you with all my heart. ❤❤❤

P.S. - I named the mean character with my name so I hope no one who reads this has the same name. Wouldn’t want any of you feeling like the villain 😘

Who knew online class would be even more boring than being physically present for a lecture? Seriously, I find myself doing the weirdest of crap to entertain myself - like trying to balance a pen on the tip of my nose for example. I jot down some notes every now and then but that’s basically it. My mind can not fathom the concept on concentrating on whatever my professors are going on and on about. Well, full disclosure, I couldn’t concentrate even if I wanted to, especially with my boyfriend streaming in the other room.

He’s currently playing Among Us with his usual gaming squad. Listening to his input during the discussions, I can always tell when he’s lying. I honestly find it hilarious that his friends can’t pick up when he’s bullshitting them. I sometimes wonder if he has brainwashed them. And that’s one of the main reasons we don’t play Among Us together - he can’t lie to me. Not only do I pick up on his con with ease, but he always says he feels bad when he lies to me which is just the sweetest thing. Also, I refuse to play cause I’m shy. His friends are all well-known content creators and I’m a literal nobody. Every now and then I find myself wondering why Corpse is even with me. He’s always quick to push those thoughts out of my head and make sure they don’t return on a long notice, but they do interrupt my peace from time to time.

“Y/N, do you know?“ The sound of my professor saying my name takes me out of my eavesdropping of Corpse’s stream.

I panic, but quickly improvise, “Sorry, my internet is slow, you cut out for a second. What was the question?” I feel my face heating up, making me glad we are allowed to keep our cameras off.

“Question number 15 on page 82 in your textbook. Do you know the answer to it?“ My professor repeats himself, his tone annoyed.

I look down at the page that’s already opened in front of me. I let out a sigh of relief, seeing that the question is rather easy.

“Yeah, um, it’s...“ Suddenly, Corpse’s laugh reaches my room loud and clear. There’s no doubt my mic picked up the noise, especially since the door to my room is open.

The color drains from my face as I hurry to say the answer and remute myself. My eyes are wide as I stare at my screen, hoping no one will acknowledge that very recognizable laugh.

“OMG Y/N, are you watching a Corpse Husband stream in class?” One of the bitches in my class, Vy, speaks up, “Not a very goody-two-shoe move on your part, dear.” 

I purposely unmute my mic to mumble a quick ‘Shut up, bitch’ that somehow manages to fly under my professor’s radar and the class continues. It’s the first time something like this has happened and I’m not sure if I handled it properly or not.

The class ends shortly after, allowing me a sigh of relief as I disconnect from the meeting. 

“Fucking finally.“ I mumble to myself, leaning back in my desk chair. Tilting my head backwards, I see Corpse standing in the doorframe. I grin, not only because his presence itself makes me ten times happier, but also because he’s upside down from my viewpoint. “Well, hello there! How long have you been spying on me?“

He struts over to me, leaning his face over mine, “Long enough.” His lips linger above mine without any actual contact before he pulls away, allowing me to sit up straight and proper in the chair. “You still have classes?”

I nod my head while disappointedly rolling my eyes, “Yeah. One more. Shouldn’t be too bad since it’s English Lit. You’re done streaming?”

“Yeah, I just have some other things to do. I haven’t done a narration video in a while, I miss making that type of content.“ He plops down on my bed, running a hand through his messy black curls.

“Weren’t you recording some lines a few days ago?“ I frown as I try to recall if what I’m referring to actually happened or my brain is too fried to decipher reality from my bootleg perception of it. Online class, man - messes with your head like sleeping pills - makes you disoriented and exhausted with barely doing anything other than trying to wrap your brain around a lecture or two.

He hums affirmatively, “It’s not a finished project and I don’t even know if I’ll use those or rerecord them. I’ll have to listen to them again before I make a final decision.“

I tilt his chin upwards with my pointer finger, a gesture he has told me he finds very endearing, “I’m sure they’re great and you just refuse to be satisfied. Everything you do is great.“

He smiles a small, shy smile, his fingers gently wrapping around my wrist, holding my hand in place, “You’re biased. You like me too much to tell me when I do some bullshit.”

I scoff, “You know that isn’t true. If someone’s gonna kick your butt in formation, it’s gonna be me.“ I give him a quick kiss on the forehead before pulling away from him, “Go on, now. I have a class to attend. You distract me enough while you’re in the other room, I can only imagine how hard it’d be for me to focus if you were right by my side.“

He smirks, bowing a little as he makes his way out of the room, “You flatter me.”

I playfully roll my eyes, getting my headset back on as I tap the last class for the day. We have an assignment due to the start of the class which we’ll have to present if the professor approved of it. We basically had to write a psychoanalysis of a character from any book of our choice. I chose Heathcliff from ‘Wuthering Heights’ which is one of my favorite books of all time. I’m proud of what I wrote and the way I wrote it, but I’ve always barely scraped by with a B in this class, a B+ if I’m lucky, so I’ve never gotten any major credit, even when I put my 110% in the assignments and projects.

Well, color me surprised when the professor calls on me first to read my work, complimenting it on its detailed and specific nature. I get my printed assignment out in front of me and unmute myself.

“I wrote a psychoanalysis on for Heathcliff, a character from Emily Bronte’s novel ‘Wuthering Heights’.“ Just after I say this line, Corpse’s voice booms throughout the whole apartment, no doubt being picked up by my mic. It doesn’t sound like he’s actually talking, he can’t be that loud. I put two and two together when I recognize the lines he’s saying - the ones he recorded a few days ago. They’re coming from his computer speakers. He probably didn’t check the volume before playing back the recording.

I mute myself as quickly as possible, but it’s too late. The voice dies down as Corpse probably turned down the speakers.

My professor, who is already done with this lecture, just annoyedly remarks, her words overdosed with sarcasm: “Read your assignment and you can go back to whatever it is you are watching.”

“Wow, Y/N! Again?! Are you one of those crazy obsessed fans or something? Is Corpse Husband all you watch?“ This bitch is really poking a stick at me, huh? The only crazy obsessed fan here is her, and my friends but they are allowed. Little do all of them know, I am obsessed but not simply over a YouTuber. I’m obsessed with my boyfriend who just happens to be a YouTuber.

“No commentary, please.“ The professor scolds her, “Go on, Y/N.“

I finish reading without any other disturbances. The professor compliments my essay again when I’m done, the small incident at the beginning forgotten already. Well, not by everyone. One of my friends shot me a quick text to joke about it which only earned an eye roll from me.

My friends don’t know that I’m dating Corpse either. As I said, they are simping HARD over him while I act the most indifferent on the subject. Whenever they ask my opinion on him I either say ‘he’s OK’ or just avoid answering completely. I know saying anything more enthusiastic than that would turn into a snowball rolling down a snowy hill - I’d just keep babbling about how nice, amazing, wonderful and a gift to this world Corpse is, inevitably revealing our relationship in the process.

I’m afraid of revealing my relationship with Corpse in front of these people. They are all run on jealousy and selfishness and I can only imagine how mean they’d be about it. I’m already not too fond of them, it would only be worse if any of my personal life was exposed.

When the class finally ends I remove my headset, putting my forehead down on the desk, barely missing the keyboard. I groan in frustration and anger at myself for not fighting back. I could’ve and should’ve said something - ANYTHING. But what? That’s a question I can’t find the answer to.

“Hey...“ Corpse’s hesitant voice comes from behind me, “You ok?“

I straighten my posture, turning to him with a smile. “Yeah, but these people suck.”

I get up from my chair as he approaches me, basically falling in his arms. The comfort I feel radiating off of him makes me relax, forget the past hour or so. He has always had this effect on me. Like my own personal kryptonite to my anger and anxiety.

“Did I get you in any trouble because of that?“ His voice shows clear concern and guilt. 

I wrap my arms around him tighter, burying my head in his chest. “No, don’t worry about it.“ 

And I really wasn’t in trouble. Not until now that the video is officially posted....

I can call these people dumb all I want but they sure put two and two together awfully fast. They recognized the lines they heard during class as the same ones from his new video that came out almost a week after the incident, aka two days ago. It’s safe to say I haven’t touched my phone or computer since.

“This is all my fault.“

Of all the horrible things I suspected would happen this has to be the worst - Corpse is blaming himself for it. I am prepared to take all the shit these people have to throw at me but seeing Corpse beating himself up over this is killing me. No amount of convincing can change his mind. Nothing I say helps.

“Please, stop doing this to yourself. Non of this is your fault, Corpse.“ I’ve repeated this sentence more than a thousand time these past forty eight hours, each time saying it more and more desperately.

“All of it is my fault, Y/N. I’m so sorry. I hate myself so much.“ Has been his reply single time.

 I can’t watch him be so mean to himself. It’s the most conflicting thing when the person you love most is torturing themselves. It’s easy if it’s someone else doing it, you just kick their ass. But what are you supposed to do when the person you want to protect is the same one you need to protect them from.

Corpse has shut himself away in his recording room these past few hours and though he clearly needs to be alone, he still left the door open just a crack cause he knows I’ll be worried sick otherwise.

While I’m alone in the living room, I’ve finally managed to brace myself and build enough courage to power up my laptop. Last time it was on it was going mad with notifications.

“It’s digital. Only digital. It can’t hurt you too badly if it can’t touch you, right?“ I mumble to myself, already frustrated despite not having yet seen all the horrors that await me.

And horrors there were. Everywhere. Twitter. Instagram. Facebook.

My grades. Some pictures of me no one has ever seen. My school files. People from my class tweeting Corpse to ‘expose’ me for the ‘slut’ or ‘bitch’ I really am. Corpse hasn’t touched social media either and I plan on making sure it stays that way. God only knows how much worse he’ll get if he sees these claims.

And then, like a notification sent straight from hell, an email from my professor.

Practical lectures on Friday. Be here at 9 AM. Don’t forget your mask and gloves.

Good thing I opened my laptop when I did. Friday is tomorrow and I need to prepare for this day. Not only do I need to hit the books but I need to toughen up a bit. I can’t go there looking like I feel - like a mess.

Alright, time to put the brave face on. No more wallowing in it, at least not until tomorrow afternoon.

I make a study plan and hop in the shower. I feel the need to apologize to my hair for washing it so roughly, basically yanking at my strands from frustration that has been suppressed for too long.

I get our of the boiling hot shower, red as a lobster, and change into some clean comfortable clothes and put my ass in study mode. I remove all the scary expectations of the morning to come from my mind and let the information the textbooks has to offer seep into my brain.

                                                            *  *  *

I’m about to head out and, despite my put-together composure, I am a wreck inside. I actually put effort into my appearance, I mean - I even styled my hair. A pretty façade to hide a ruin.

I saw my friends’ texts last night, all three of them ending their friendship with me because they felt betrayed. I haven’t yet decided how to feel about that. Doesn’t matter at the moment, there are more important matters at hand, aka surviving the next three hours.

My college is within ten minutes walking distance from our apartment. That ten minute walk has never been so stressful, not even during exam season. The air feels a little harder to breathe, the path a little shorter to walk. And my moment of reckoning a little too close.

I feel eyes on me the second I start walking through the park of our campus. Sure, I could just be paranoid, but the feeling is too real to be just my imagination in overdrive. I’m glad I have my hair down and a mask on so the redness of my cheeks and neck isn’t on display. That’s a sign of weakness right now.

We have two an hour and a half long classes between which we have a snack break that’s half an hour. I usually enjoy that period but I’m dreading it now. These assholes can only be so mean in the presence of a professor, but during lunch break they can increase that tenfold. 

“Well if it isn’t Corpse’s girl.“ I hear that a lot. The whispers are not so much whispers as intentionally loud enough for me to hear remarks. I’m not bothered by them, it’s the least they can do. If I let such a simple thing get to me, I’d be crumbling by the end of first period.

I hear some shuffling behind me and out of the corner of my eye I see, yeah you guessed it, THAT bitch. She’s standing as close to me as she can without violating Covid regulations. A mask is covering her face but the menacing look in her eyes tells me all I need to know about the interaction that’s about to go down.

“I’d ask how much he pays you for the hour.....“ her long nails tap the wooden desk, “but that’d be rude. I bet it’s tough being a maid. Do you just clean or are you a multipurpose lap dog? No offense, I’m genuinely curious.“

“Vy, would you be so kind as to give Y/N some room to breathe?“ The professor asks as he nonchalantly walks in.

Vy rolls her eyes, batting her eyelashes at me, “Talk to you later, sweetheart.” With a fake friendly wave she’s out of my hair, at least for now.

Remember what I said about these people not being as dumb as I pegged them to be? Yeah, scratch that. These fuckers actually tried getting away with taking pictures of me with flash in broad daylight. Like, HELLO! I have two functioning eyes and a brain, I’m onto you. Sadly, me having figured out their childish but hurtful methods of humiliating me doesn’t change much. They still posted the pics they took, using the most derogatory terms they could find in the English language, always making sure to tag Corpse and me both.

Needless to say, these were the longest three hours of my life.

                                                              *  *  *

Shutting the door to our apartment behind me causes relief of the highest levels. I feel like I’ve locked out all the bad shit I have had to deal with these past twenty four hours. 

I’m tired. I’m fucking exhausted. I feel like a discarded piece of paper. 

And it all starts crumbling. A wall is bound to start slowly falling apart after being hit over and over again, each time feeling the blows with a stronger intensity. 

I slide down the door sitting down on the floor and slowly taking my shoes off. I put my bag beside me and wrap my arms around my knees, hiding my head in the space between them and my chest.

One tear slides down my cheek.

Another follows.

And another, this time accompanied by a choked sob.

A pair of arms wraps around the ball that my body has been shaped into. One of his hands comes up to stroke my hair gently, feeding me the comfort I have been longing for since I left the apartment this morning.

“I saw it. All of it. All the shit they talk about you. All the names they call you. And I’ve never wanted to beat so many people up simultaneously.“ His words make me raise my head from its low position, giving him a knowing look. “I wish I could. I would, but that would land me in jail. Which doesn’t even sound so bad cause I don’t like going out. Only problem is you wouldn’t be with me. I wouldn’t want you to be there with me, don’t get me wrong, I’d never want you to end up in jail. I-...” I cut him off by pressing my lips to his. A quick kiss that says so much but mainly shows the immeasurable gratitude for his support.

Seeing those awful tweets and comments had the complete opposite effect on him. He no longer blames himself but the people who actually deserve the blame - all those jerks from my college.

I pull away, giving him a small smile. “I would never let you go to jail.” 

He smiles back at me, overjoyed that my mood is slowly being lifted, “Come on, I have a nice crowd that would like to meet you.”

I know exactly what he means. Felix, Sean, Rae, Dave, Sykkuno and the rest of his friends. The people I’ve been so shy and afraid to meet since day one. Being shy doesn’t really make sense now, seeing as how they know I exist and that I’m a part of Corpse’s life. 

What do I have to lose?

“Guys, this is my girlfriend, Y/N.“ Corpse’s black avatar runs around my cyan one in the Among Us lobby.

I can’t help but giggle when I unmute my mic, “Hi everyone! It’s so nice to finally meet you.“ They each introduce themselves, expressing how happy they are to be meeting me too.

It’s the first time in what feels like a while that I’m truly having fun. These people are wonderful, each so unique and lovely. They never brought up the scandal nor acted as though they knew about it. I know they did and I am beyond grateful that they never mentioned it or treated me any differently because of it. Also, Corpse was streaming the whole time. I had my phone on his stream, my eyes nervously scanning the chat every now and then. I couldn’t believe it. Corpse’s real fans were just as wonderful as his friends - they were nothing but supportive and happy to have met me.

Now, I can either choose to believe these people were being so nice to me out of sympathy or I can believe they really like me and appreciate me for who I am and not for what happened to me. 

I choose to believe the latter.

And while I’m still getting accustomed to this whole new spotlight, I know I’ll be able to handle it as long as I’m holding Corpse’s hand in the process. All I need is to have him beside me and I’m prepared to tackle anything.

“They love you.“ Corpse tells me once the stream is done and we’ve hopped out of the Discord call, “But I love you more.“

His arms wrap around my waist while mine instinctively find their way around his neck, “I love them, too. But they’re at the number 2 spot.”

He smirks at me, “I wonder who’s at number 1.”

I push up on my toes, putting my lips an inch away from his, “Hmm, I wonder...”

He doesn’t let me finish, silencing my teasing with a sweet, loving kiss.

@susceptible-but-siriusexual  @simonsbluee  @save-the-sky  @hacker-ghost  @bi-andready-tocry  @imtiredaffff  @jazzkaurtheglorious  @hereforbeebo  @fandomgirl17  @chrysanthykios  @maehemscorpyus  @loraleiix  @letsloveimagines  @annshit  @i-cant-choose-a-username-help  @enigmaticmaze  @divine-artemis  @waterlilypat

#corpse #corpse husband fanfic #corpse husband #husband #corpsehusband #corpse imagines #corpse simp #corpse x reader #corpse x y/n #corpse husband fanficiton #corpse husband x y/n #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband imagine #fluff #angst #romance #love #comfort #x reader #reader #reader insert #x y/n #y/n #requests open #requests

[evanpeterssource]

Evan Peters and Billie Lourd Discuss the Art of Dying Onscreen

BILLIE LOURD: Let me set the scene for you: I’m sitting outside my house in my never-washed car, because that’s the only silent place in my home, and it’s not even in my home. I have a wireless breast pump with me, so if you hear a weird sound, that’s what that is.

PETERS: I’m in my bedroom, currently in my PJs. I worked a night shoot last night and am doing a night shoot again tonight. So, I’m drinking coffee and trying to wake up and get back into it.\

LOURD: I know how that goes. My hands are on my temples for you. Okay, Ev, I’m fucking obsessed with Mare of Easttown. I do not watch any shows because if I ever have free time, it’s usually spent napping or just lying in a silent room. But I failed all my nap times with watching this show. You’re a fucking genius.

PETERS: Thanks Billie. I appreciate it.

LOURD: Tell me the story of how it all came to be.

PETERS: They sent me the script and it said that Kate Winslet was going to be the lead, and that it was an HBO crime drama. So I was like, dude, I’ve got to really work on this one. I did the self-tape thing, so it was super awkward and weird.

LOURD: It was a self-tape? Wow.

PETERS: Yeah, I sent that in, and then the director and writer and showrunner were like, “You want to have some lunch?” And I was like, “They’re going to tell me to redo the tape, I know it.” And then they offered me the part, thankfully.

LOURD: That’s when you know you’re a really good actor, is when you get a part off a self-tape. I’ve never done that.

PETERS: Oh come on, you’re a great actress. You can do that single-tear thing.

LOURD: I do have a single-tear thing!

PETERS: That’s incredibly hard to do.

LOURD: Only when there’s a promise of bratwurst at Krafty’s will I do a single tear. What was the scene that you had to tape?

PETERS: The earlier scenes, where I’m coming in and meeting Mare and she just does not want me there at all.

LOURD: I was going to say, if you had to do that drunk scene, or the breakdown scene, that would be a nightmare. Did you know you were going to die? How did that make you feel? I’m a therapist now.

PETERS: It was a little stressful trying to navigate that. You had a finite amount of time to cram in all this stuff. Because you knew how it was going to go, and you wanted it to have an interesting arc, but… poor Zabes.

LOURD: Dude, it was fucking devastating. Zabel is so sweet, and you’re like, “No, he was on such a fucking upswing!” You’ve gotten shot in the head a couple of times now, which is pretty rare for an actor.

PETERS: Yeah, he’s got to work on that quick draw. But it was a cool scene to shoot. We kind of stretched out time and it was like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where it was a stare-down, and you’re like, “God, this feels like a really long time to be staring at people.” But Craig, the director, was like, “We’ll edit it. It’ll look good.” And nowadays, everything’s CGI, so back in the day they probably would have used blanks to help with that, but it was just a click. Or the other actor going, “Bang!” and all of a sudden you would have to get shot in the head. And you’re like, “What are we, 12, playing with guns?” It was such an awesome set that they built. They found this property that was like an abandoned bar, with a house on the back. And then set dressing came in and made it that amazing, creepy, disheveled, messed-up house that it was. So it was really cool to be in there and feel like, “Oh my God, we got the guy.”

LOURD: It’s amazing to watch you piece it together and look at each other and hear the pipe banging. It’s so suspenseful. We’ve got to talk about Kate. Can I call her Kate? Should I call her Kate Winslet? She’s so fucking magical. What was that like working with her.

PETERS: I was pretty terrified and nervous and stressed out before meeting her. I’m such a huge fan, and she’s one of the best actresses of all time. But she was so warm and down-to-earth and immediately disarming. What’s really cool is that she’s very collaborative. I thought she was going to be like, “Nope, I’m right. You’re all wrong.” You know, because she’s brilliant. But she was very open to new ideas and exploring things. I found that really reassuring, and surprising, since she’s set at such a high caliber.

LOURD: That’s so cool to hear. I feel like every actor’s dream is to get to work with her. Did you stay in your accents all the time? I always wonder that when people do accents.

PETERS: I was in it the whole time. I’m not good enough of an actor to be able to pop in and out of it. Somebody on set said there are different levels. There’s the learning it, there’s the “I have to stay in it,” and then there’s, “I’m so good that I can pop in and out of it.” Kate was that. She was incredibly English throughout the whole thing. Like [in British accent], “Oh, hi, Zabes. How are you doing babes? You good? Everything good? Okay, great.” And then she’d be like [in Philadelphia accent], “Let’s go get a hoagie. Let’s go down to the shore and check out the store.” I was just like, oh my god. How do you do that?

LOURD: That is so trippy. I don’t think I could do that.

PETERS: No, I could not do that. She’s really impressive that way.

LOURD: What was your favorite scene to do with Kate? I have to stop calling her that. Lady Winslet?

PETERS: There were so many. The bar scene was pretty awesome because it was so improvised.

LOURD: Oh, really?

PETERS: Yeah, it was just kind of fun to be at a bar with Lady Winslet.

LOURD: That’s my dream.

PETERS: But there was another scene that I really liked too: When I first got in the car, and I’m like, “Hey, are we carpooling?” And she’s like, “Ugh, this fucking guy.” And then I get in the car and she slams on the gas and I almost smoke my head. I thought that was really fun because it was one of the earlier scenes that we shot, and it set the tone for how much Mare was annoyed at Zabel being there.

LOURD: How did you do the bar scene? Are you allowed to get drunk?

PETERS: No, you can’t get drunk unfortunately. But I would say I’ve done a ton of research over the years. You know, at a couple of your birthday parties.

LOURD: Would you rather do a death scene or a killing scene?

PETERS: Oh, that’s a hard question. It really depends on how you’re killing or dying. Dying is such a challenge, as an actor.

LOURD: I don’t like dying.

PETERS: It’s so hard. It’s like, how do you do it? And does this look believable? Can they see me breathing? It really depends on how you’re getting killed as well. There’s so many questions and so many ifs.

LOURD: Killing me in American Horror Story was such a laugh. I hope they put in parentheses, “She said sarcastically.”

PETERS: Yeah, that was a pretty horrific day.

LOURD: That was a rough one. I’ve watched it back and I can definitely see myself breathing. And the eyes are so hard, like to actually keep your eyes open. I feel like I’ve made the decision to close my eyes. Do you do open-eye or closed-eye deaths?

PETERS: I like to do a little halfsies—a little open, a little closed.

LOURD: I like it. Split the difference. Have you been on the streets since Zabel died? Do people come up and hug you and thank god that you’re actually alive?

PETERS: No. I’ve gotten some text messages that were like, “Sorry, man. You’ve got to work on that quick-draw.” I’m super stoked that people like the show.

LOURD: It’s one of those shows that’s now part of the zeitgeist. Even my baby loves it. How long did it take to shoot?

PETERS: Gosh, we started in October 2019, and then I was supposed to be done at the beginning of March 2020. I had about two or three weeks left. Then the pandemic hit and they punted it to September. I was like, “Oh man, I’ve got to keep learning this accent for six months.”

LOURD: And not eat all the double doubles in sight. You had to keep that accent and keep that bod.

PETERS: Yeah, it was a challenge.

LOURD: What do you think would have happened with Mare and Zabel if Zabel didn’t die? It’s a real thinker.

PETERS: Ooh, that is a real thinker. I think they would have gone on a few more dates and then Mare probably would’ve realized that Zabel’s not the one. Zabel would have been devastated again.

LOURD: I think they could have had a shotgun wedding in Vegas and lived happily ever after. It could have been great.

PETERS: I like that for Zabel. That sounds good.

LOURD: Do you think you would have moved to Easttown or would he have gone back?

PETERS: I think he definitely would have had to move out of his mom’s place. For sure that would have been step number one.

LOURD: Were you sad when he died or did you think that this was the perfect ending for him?

PETERS: I thought it was an interesting ending to the character. He kind of came in, and then it was so shocking, but that’s the way death is in real life. You’re never really expecting it, and then it happens.

LOURD: It’s amazing you got to know the whole arc of the character before you played him.

PETERS: Yeah, it’s rare to get all the episodes beforehand. You make a choice in episode two and then you get to episode seven and you’re like, “Oh wait, that was totally wrong, what I did in episode two… Can we go back and reshoot that?” And they’re like, “No.”

LOURD: Did knowing the ending affect how you played him? He was so lovable anyway, but did knowing he was going to die make you play him even more lovably, if that’s a word?

PETERS: Yeah, that did play into it. There was talk about making him a little bit more arrogant and cocky. But I thought, when he dies, it’d be more tragic if he wasn’t that. So we tried to make him a little bit bumbling and not as good of a detective and really trying. We wanted it to be as shocking and sad as we could.

LOURD: Did you do any actor-y stuff? Like, a cologne you wore? Or did you wear a special hat?

PETERS: That’s so funny. I wish I wore a special hat to work every day , like an old-school 1940s detective hat. I did always have my coffee mug. There was a little bit of a Zabel-mug thing going on. And there were rituals. I would write in the mornings and try to get into it, stuff like that. But god, I wish I wore a hat.

LOURD: We should incorporate that into our future careers, to make sure we have a hat for every role we play. And then you could have a case at your house of all the hats you wore.

PETERS: That’s so goddamn funny.

LOURD: People are going to be like, “Billie Lourd is a psychopath.”

PETERS: Oh, you know what I did do? I wore a cross. You can’t see it, but when he died, I wanted you to see the cross on his neck. He’s got this weird thing with religion where he was raised religious, but then being in the line of work that he’s in and seeing all this death and awfulness, you start to question that. And then his mom is very religious. So I wanted him to be, underneath it all, a little bit religious and hopeful and needing the protection of god when he went out into the field.

LOURD: That’s way better than a hat.

#evan peters #billie lourd #interview #mare of easttown spoilers #txt #ours #extraordinaryxmen

[starryrock]

My thoughts on all TWST characters before and after going through the chapters (currently started Chapter 5, I have not played the game. I just watch English translations on YouTube by Shella_BB.). Tbh, this is just me making fun of them all.

I will try to be vague to avoid spoilers, but just to be safe, here’s a disclaimer. !!Potential spoilers for Prologue-Chapter 4!!

[Prologue] - Before

Ace: I loved him before I really knew the story. He just screamed “I’m stupid and you’re stuck with me” and I think that’s sweet.

Deuce: Not much of an opinion on him. Prolly the voice of reason, heard parts of his backstory. Might’ve gotten stuck with us because he got stuck sitting with us at lunch.

Grim: Gremlin. Tiny gremlin that the fandom would probably hate, like most small, mascot things are. Not much of an opinion.

[Chapter 1]

Riddle: *Hall Of The Mountain King intensifying* “Um, actually. According to the encyclopedia of pslshdbsls-”

Trey: Seems calm but is actually feral or somethin. Idk, not much of a personality??

Cater: Tbh, I didn’t really know if he existed (along with Trey). Cutesy sparkly “I’m gonna call all of you ‘-chan’” guy that actually knows way more than he lets on. Previous dorm leader??

Chēn’ya: I wonder what he’s inspired by. You showed up once but I like your energy, funny magic man.

[Chapter 2]

Jack Howl: Doggo. Sir you’re way too tall to be a freshman. Cryptic existence. Where are you????

Ruggie: “Shishishishi” oh So he’s evil. He broke?

Leona: s,, sir your shirt,, Oh wait you there’s representation? Yoooo Pog. I like his fashion sense.

[Chapter 3]

Azul Ashengrotto: Mob boss. He literally looks so much like a mafioso. 100% would sell you out for $20. Probably weird obsession with Riddle or his Unique Magic. “Your UnMa is so strong... I want it... Lol jk. Just kidding,,, unless?”

Floyd: Feral twin. So completely unhinged. Looks like BSD Atsushi’s hair. Would Hotwire a go kart and attach some magic crystal to it so it goes 80 mph, all while singing Under The Sea and laughing.

Jade: I do not trust this man. Has to be equally unhinged. I do NOT trust that smile. One driving the cop car to catch Floyd. Not because it’s illegal, but he didn’t put on his seatbelt.

[Chapter 4]

Kalim: Sunshine child. Ily you so much. Babey. Wow he’s short. Is it the Sultan or Aladdin?

Jamil Viper: Lol Nice name. You seem oddly calm for someone inspired by Jafar. I like your hair-

[Chapter 5]

Epel: Soft boy? Please don’t be another uwu im a soft boy character that doesn’t speak much at all. I wanna see you swear.

Rook: I do not like you. For some reason, I just do not like your vibes. Is it the hair? I think it’s the hair. Hhhhggg,,, you’re just so off putting. Your expression puts me off for some reason, I swear it’s the hair-

Vil: Holy crap he’s pretty. His dorm outfit design??? I’m love. Designers went definitely tried to make one of the most attractive characters, not surprised.

[Chapter 6]

Ortho: Baby. Tiny child man. Ily but your existence also hurts. I want to protect you.

Idia: I was introduced to him with his backstory with Ortho. BRUH THAT HURTS. You good? Definitely depressed.

[Chapter 7]

Malleus: Does he curse someone??? He never gets invited to anything, he’s gonna snap. I bet you. Tiny bit salty because it still reminds me a bit of Descendants, just Maleficent being the strongest.

Lilia: Tiny man. I like how you wear your outfits + your hair. Still someone not much opinion, but my friend who introduced me simps for you soooo....

Sebek: Loud. Loud. Loud. You just seem so angry all the time. Somehow reminds me of the Madame Trunchbull from Matilda. Just the expressions and kinda the energy.

Silver: Who are you????? Where are you??? What do you do? Uh, nice, hair????

#twisted wonderland #first impressions #my opinions #these tags are gonna be a train wreck #ace trappola #deuce spade #twst grim #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #jack howl #ruggie bucchi #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #jade leech #kalim al asim #jamil viper #epel felmier #rook hunt #ortho shroud #idia shroud #malleus draconia #tsunotaro #lilia vanrouge #sebek zigvolt #twst silver #silver #I’M SO SORRY #I made this instead of working

[princesssarcastia]

Thoughts on Star Trek AOS? (And do you think Kirk was on Tarsus?)

i have SO MANY THOUGHTS about star trek aos, so buckle up.  brace yourself.

star trek aos is a terrible disaster and i love it SO MUCH.  for me, star trek 2009 is still in that class of unreasonably pleasing movies like the mummy or stardust or jumanji: welcome to the jungle.  what they are isn’t exactly top notch but you love them for being exactly what they are.

star trek aos is a star-studded fucking phenomenal cast of some of the best actors working today, which makes up for the very inconsistent writing and unfortunate low-level current of sexism.

literally where would i be today if chris pine could not make faces Like That. i honestly couldn’t tell you.

overall, I have quite a few bones to pick with JJ Abrams for setting up a star trek universe that is less Wacky Space Utopia adventures with liberal political commentary ranging from unsubtle to im-hitting-you-over-the-head-with-my-opinions-like-they’re-a-brick—

to this kind of overtly militarized action-hero adventure porn where one white man saves the universe from Scary People Who Don’t Look Like Us And Are Crazy.  I also don’t appreciate what they did to Jim Kirk, turning him into this womanizing self-centered bastard who has to be in charge.  I REALLY don’t appreciate the casual misogyny, what with the last of rank stripes for women and the gratuitous sex-ed up scenes and the way that Amanda Grayson gets fridged for man-pain and and and— you get the picture.

Or at least, that’s what they tried to do to jim kirk.  and god fucking bless chris pine for being able to make facial expressions, because i firmly believe if pretty much almost anyone else had played Jim Kirk as written by JJ Abrams, that’s exactly what he would have been.

But because of chris pine’s acting, instead, most of the AOS fandom and I realized/decided that this “womanizing” version of jim kirk actually really really hates himself so much, most likely for trauma reasons. 

we took that shit and ran with it and never really stopped.

zachary quinto is also like god tier casting.  unfortunately the writers for the first two movies mostly gave him Anger as a primary motivator, which like, is not exactly how I would interpret Spock at all, but quinto played this Angry Spock so so well.

ZOE SALDANA PLAYS THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE, NYOTA UHURA, PERFECTLY AND THAT’S ALL I’LL HEAR ON THE MATTER.

john cho should be cast in everything ever he’s amazing and I love seeing him.  this man has the range. hikaru sulu is the backbone of this fucking ship.  this man wins the big damn hero award every single movie. 

i still miss living in the same world as anton yelchin. i really, really do.

I also have found family feelings all over these movies, where these baby versions of iconic characters from the sixties are brought together too early to witness too much fucking trauma.  harry potter references aren’t exactly in vogue right now, but there’s this one piece from a—well, actually, its a harry potter reference in an mcu fic i read years ago, now that i think about it, but anyway:

it was something like, there are some things you can’t go through with a person—like that mountain troll in harry potter—without becoming friends for life.  there are some crucibles that will bind you together forever.  and awful as it is, I think Nero and the Vulcan genocide were the AOS crew’s mountain troll.  there’s no going back or separating, after that.

also I feel like there’s a ton of competence porn in this trilogy that i deeply, deeply enjoy.

star trek: 2009 and into darkness are both grimdark male power fantasy bullshit that only accidentally hits all the right buttons for me.  I love them dearly but i know EXACTLY what they are, thank you.

star trek: beyond is a delightful movie with no real plot where our favorite crew are finally Adults With A Modicum Of Common Sense And Stability, instead of Disaster Children Angsting All Over The Place, and they get to save the universe with the power of excellent rock music and friendship. how cool is that?!?  i wanna give simon pegg a high five for making this movie.

on a more meta note, what I find kind of satisfying about these movies is that—for all his many faults that i’m always happy to expound upon—JJ Abrams actually went for it.  He Did That.  He just made his own brand new timeline, killed jim kirk’s dad, then gave him an abusive uncle/step-dad, then literally destroyed one of the founding planets of the Federation, then he, in an iconic fashion, switched Jim and Spock’s places in the infamous “wrath of khan” death scene, so instead Spock gets to watch Jim die. 

and you know what? I can forgive a lot of bullshit for that kind of poetic angsty fanfic plot detail. 

every time uhura says, “an alternate reality,” in star trek 2009 just gives me chills.  every time she says it, you feel the weight of sixty years of history and legacy sitting on these people’s shoulders, the weight of arguably one of the most popular TV shows of all time.

imagine, living in a new world you’re aware isn’t the one that was supposed to be.  imagine that!

oh! and on the question of tarsus:

what I think is probably true irl: JJ Abrams has never thought that far ahead in his life.  correct me if i’m wrong, but hadn’t he.....not even watched star trek.........when he made these movies............like lol i’d bet you this man didn’t even really know Tarsus was a thing.  And even if he did, I don’t think he thought it was part of the new canon he was creating.  AOS is much more self-contained than the serialized universe the original star trek was, so I don’t think that AOS was intended to encompass all those things, like tarsus, that we as a fandom like to obsess over.

what I personally enjoy: i love me some AOS fic that explores the ridiculous amounts of trauma that comes from living through a genocide.  I think that, given we all decided AOS Jim Kirk hates himself, and engages in a shit ton of self-sabotaging and destructive behavior to cope, it’s a reasonable jump to think that at least some of that comes from some survivor’s guilt bullshit from Tarsus.  And honestly, hit me up if you want recs for this, because boy do I have them.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: no one does angst quite like AOS!Jim Kirk.

what I believe wholeheartedly: this is like Schrödinger's Plot Point, okay, it both exists and doesn’t exist simultaneously.  it’s easy to read tarsus into some of jim’s behavior, and it’s easy to read none of it in, and both of those choices are valid.  go with your gut, go with what makes you happy, go with what you think makes sense.  This is where fandom lives, in these little details that fall through the cracks.

anyway WOW did I talk a lot.  those are at least some of my star trek thoughts.  i do have others, but i’ve expounded on them before on this blog, and y’all don’t need me to repeat myself

ask me my thoughts on ______

#star trek #aos star trek #jj abrams #ask meme #actually i also had the tarsus convo with a mutual recently #and like 99.99% of my fandom opinions it boils down to: You Do You Babe We're Doing This For Fun #long post #(oops) #lupanymeria

[bulletballet-arch]

REALLY LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY. RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog !    tag 10 ! good  luck ! TAGGED. I took this from Minnie’s archived Bioshock blog. I’ve been looking for this meme all this month. TAGGING. @hammurabicomplex. @bluuxriising. @ Me - for Sal on @bulletsoverbensonhurst​. @immaterialed (charlie) @soypeor (bella) @svmmercmance​. @mrflayed. and you!

BASICS. FULL  NAME :  Eve Delores Littlejohn NICKNAME : Evie, Little Evie (by her maternal side of the family), Delores, Didi NAME  MEANING / S  Eve is from the ancient Hebrew name  חַוָּה (Chawwah), which was derived from the Hebrew word חָוָה (chawah) meaning "to breathe" or the related word חָיָה (chayah) meaning "to live". Delores is a variant of Dolores, meaning "sorrows", taken from the Spanish title of the Virgin Mary María de los Dolores, meaning "Mary of Sorrows." Littlejohn is a surname that has historically been found in England and Scotland. With potential origins being either ‘to distinguish a beloved child that was not the eldest.’ Or, ‘a contradictory nickname for a large man.’ HISTORICAL  CONNECTION? : She’s named after her grandmother, Evelyn Hollins.

AGE : 42 BIRTHDAY :  June 2 ETHNIC  GROUP : Black-American. Meaning she’s mixed with a lot (Some of her relatives are respectively Creole and Italian) but uses Black as a catch-all term. NATIONALITY :  American LANGUAGE / S : English, Italian, Spanish, Latin, some French SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   Bisexual ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :  Biromantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS : Verse dependent, usually married -or connected- to Salvatore Scozzari in some way. CLASS : Upper-Class HOME  TOWN / AREA :   Brooklyn. Spent time between Bedford-Stuyvesant - with her paternal grandfather and Park Slope - with her maternal grandparents.  CURRENT  HOME : In her childhood home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. PROFESSION : Ballet Instructor. Former Professional Ballerina. ( Other verses see her as a professional thief. )

PHYSICAL. HAIR : Black. In terms of her natural hair, Eve has springy, 3C hair she seldom shows off because she was raised in a family where straightened hair was deemed presentable and professional.  EYES : Thin almond eyes. Dark brown. NOSE : Straight and small. FACE :  She has a prominent, high forehead, that’s accented with high cheekbones and a pointy chin. LIPS :  Full. COMPLEXION : She has a light brown (tawny) complexion.  SCARS : None major. TATTOOS : None. HEIGHT : 5′4″ BUILD : Eve has a slender build. One of those people who have been small and petite since childhood. Despite this, she also stays skinny because she is obsessively conscious of the food she consumes. The older she gets the more she weighs, however. USUAL HAIR STYLE :  Her hair is cut short. Reaching her shoulders in a neat, even bob. She either curls it in a retro fashion or curls the tips. For work she wears it in a traditional, pinned bun. USUAL FACE LOOK : In public, she appears stoic for the most part. Any emotion shown (such as the length of a smile) is carefully calculated. She has to seem perfect.  USUAL  CLOTHING : Form fitting dresses. Incredibly chic and fashionable for the time. Shoes include heels - never open-toed, unless she has on stockings. Extravagant earrings. Jewelry that can include either necklaces, crosses, pearls, or dainty rings. Prone to wearing black sunglasses in public.

PSYCHOLOGY. FEAR / S : Thunderstorms, airplanes, creatures like weasels, snakes and ferrets, break-ins, men she doesn’t know, harm coming to her children ASPIRATION / S :  Formerly wanted to become a major [black] ballerina in the elite world of ballet, now she just wants to expose more [inner city children] to dance through her job. Personally, she wants her children to change the world in some form or fashion, too. Eve also has good ideas on improving the community, but at the moment has no idea how to go about these ideas. POSITIVE  TRAITS :  Generous, compassionate, patient, protective NEGATIVE  TRAITS : Strict, sullen, hard to read, represses her emotions, secretive MBTI :  Advocate - INFJ-T ZODIAC :  Cancer TEMPERAMENT :  Melancholic ANIMALS :  Lioness VICE / S :  Pride & Lust FAITH : Christian. Grew up Baptist, but Catholic influences have been around her since childhood. Attended a Catholic High School in Park Slope, her grandmother Evelyn was also a practicing Catholic.  GHOSTS ? : Yes and no. She feels that objects formerly owned by the deceased posses the essence of their previous owners and that they essentially live on through these pieces of property. AFTERLIFE ? : Yes. REINCARNATION ? :  No, but it’s a romantic concept. ALIENS ? : No. POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  Democratic ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE :  She likes being where she’s at now. But honestly, being upper class is all she’s ever known. SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : Bourgeoisie, basically. The Littlejohn’s represent The Historical Black Elite.  EDUCATION  LEVEL : College level. FAMILY.

FATHER :  William ‘Bill’ Littlejohn MOTHER : Linda Littlejohn ( nee Hollins ) SIBLINGS : None EXTENDED  FAMILY : Amos Littlejohn (paternal grandfather) Liza Littlejohn (paternal grandmother) Evelyn Hollins (maternal grandmother) Giuseppe D’Aietti (maternal grandfather) and a wide host of cousins, aunts and uncles.

FAVOURITES. BOOK :  Night Song by Beverly Jenkins. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Some sort of old, French erotic novel that was published before she was born. MOVIE : Eve watches films along the lines of...Waiting to Exhale, Beaches, The First Wives Club and Fatal Attraction. She loves Made-For-TV movies from the time period. In regards to plays, her favorite one is Sunday In The Park With George. 5  SONGS :  Meet Me On The Moon / Essence of Sapphire / No One In The World / People / The First Time I Saw Your Face  DEITY :  Persephone  HOLIDAY : New Years Eve, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Major holidays during the colder season. MONTH :  October SEASON :  Autumn PLACE :  The dance studio she works at. WEATHER : Sunny, but cool. SOUND : The voices of Anita Baker and Sarah Vaughn. A skilled hand running over piano keys. Soft trumpets. Running water. Cats making chipper little meows. SCENT / S :  Perfume, floral scented lotions, her partner’s cologne TASTE / S :  Caramel, the tang of dark chocolate, strawberries coated with either chocolate, or sprinkles of white sugar. Light Vinegar.  FEEL / S : Performing in front of an audience. Hot water engulfing your skin after a long day. Satin - whether it be the fabric of her clothes or sheets, your fingers tightly intertwined with another’s, feeling your significant other’s chest raise and lower against your skin with each breath they take. ANIMAL / S : Cocker Spaniels, Afghan Hounds, Cats, Birds - she loves all ( well, a majority ) of animals. NUMBER :  Doesn’t have one. COLOR :  White, Pink, Gold.

EXTRA. TALENTS :  Dance, Eve is trained in ballet when it comes to her main verse. She has attended ballet classes since the age of eight and ever since then she placed all of her focus into it. Similarly, Eve has always had the makings of a good artist - as a child she enjoyed drawing and had informal art lessons with a man who lived in the basement of her grandfather’s brownstone, but she never invested into that half of her. BAD AT : Singing, Being interviewed, Public Speaking (as in Speech Giving), Decision Making TURN  ONS :  Charisma, Leadership Skills, Temperature Play, Phone Sex, Heavy Kissing, Light Roleplay TURN  OFFS :  Public Sex, Tearing [ Her ] Clothes, Threesomes, Cruelty, Senseless Violence HOBBIES :  viewing plays & some musicals, reading romance novels, shopping, working out (she was into the whole celebrity VHS tape exercise trend), playing tennis, decorating AESTHETIC :  Vintage Black Glamour, Black Ballerinas, Champagne and Wine Glasses, Paintings by Melinda Byers and Edward 'Clay' Wright QUOTES :  "I'm bad with words, I hope you're good in reading eyes." / "There are truths I haven't even told God. And not even myself. I am a secret under the lock of seven keys."

FC INFO. MAIN  FC / S : Lynn Whitfield ( A Thin Line Between Love & Hate ) ALT  FC / S : Kylie Bunbury ( Twisted ) OLDER  FC / S :  Lynn Whitfield ( Greenleaf ) YOUNGER  FC / S : N/A VOICE  CLAIM / S : Lynn Whitfield

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 :   if  you  could  write  your  character  your  way  in  their  own  movie ,   what  would  it  be  called ,  what  style  would  it  be  filmed  in ,  and  what  would  it  be  about ?       A1 : Recently I decided that if/when I try to write anything serious about Eve again, it’ll center on her being a jewel thief because it presents me more fun, and emotionally diverse, opportunities. That and I have a very specific cover image in my mind. Ideally, her adventures would be a series of books. I have no title in mind, no idea about how ‘it would be filmed’ ( although a style replicating 90s films would be excellent, film grain and all. ) but, I do have a bunch of plots in mind that I really don’t feel like typing out here.  

Q2 :   what  would  their  soundtrack / score  sound  like ?         A2 :  Her score would have a vintage sound (or a jazzy Spike Lee sound, if you will) with instrumentals by Dorothy Ashby (a Jazz Harpist) the Ahmad Jamal Trio, Pharaoh Sanders, Yusef Lateef and Tarika Blue. For music with lyrics, the soundtrack would include the likes of Julie London, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dionne Warwick.

Q3 :   why  did  you  start  writing  this  character ?   + Q4 :   what  first  attracted  you  to  this  character ? A3 :  Whenever I make NPCs for my character’s lives I actually can’t just let them just be NPCs. I start thinking about them too much. Developing them too much. And then I’m like, ‘wow! I really like this character!’ Eve was a different character when I began writing her, and likely wouldn’t be considered the same character as she was previously, if I told someone in real life who knows about my writing (like my grandma) about all the changes she has undergone. Originally Delores was a university professor, because I thought it could lead to interesting interactions with college-age muses. And her previous history with the mafia was also something interesting to tap in. But then I started thinking about what was realistic, what wasn’t realistic, what did I feel comfortable/interested writing? What didn’t I feel comfortable/interested in writing?  So as time went on, things would alter about this character. And the new things I came up with attracted me more. 

Q5 :   describe  the  biggest  thing  you  dislike  about  your  muse.         A5 :  I have a love/hate relationship with Eve’s quiet demeanor. On one hand, I think quieter characters need love and the ability to be fully dimensional but on the other hand, writing louder characters has always been more fun for me. But really, Eve’s guarded behavior makes writing her stressful in some cases with others because sometimes...if I’m going to be honest...people don’t know how to carry a thread and interact with someone of her demeanor effectively. 

Q6 :   what  do  you  have  in  common  with  your  muse ?       A6 : We’re both black, we’re both into art (although our exact interests and aesthetics with art differ)

Q7 :   how  does  your  muse  feel  about  you ?         A7 : Realistically she would think I need to take better care of myself.

Q8 :   what  characters  does  your  muse  have  interesting  interactions with ?   A8 :  We skippin’ this question.

Q9 :   what  gives  you  inspiration  to  write  your  muse ?       A9 : Films such as, “Waiting to Exhale,” “The Kitchen” and “Widows.” Books by Alice Walker, like “The Third Life of Grange Copeland” as well as her short story, “Roselily.” The historical mob figure Stephanie St. Clair.

Q10 :   how  long  did  this  take  you  to  complete ?       A10 : A few hours.

#long post #dash games. #headcanons.

[bedtimebrain]

EXO KAI: Detective Gone Wrong P3

You can find the masterlist to the other parts on my bio/description!

Characters: JonginxYou

You came to know Jongin by accident, but have no clue he’s EXO’s Kai. And when you found out....

You walked away blankly, remaining in a daze until your phone started vibrating in your pocket.

It was your boss who called and anxiously asked if you could cover her shift from the afternoon as she forgot about her wedding anniversary dinner.

You gladly agreed, thinking it might be better to have something to occupy yourself with today. Otherwise you’re just going to be spending the day thinking about you and jongki.

Still sane enough to be in need for breakfast, you went by the convenience store to pick up a sandwich. Standing in front of the fridge, you paused to think

What does jongki want? Does he... like me ?

And he KISSED ME TOO?! That’s definitely something only couples do right?!

How did everything escalate so fast overnight ?!

‘Excuse me, are you getting anything? You’re standing in the way’

You must have stood there for quite a while, looking at the irritated face of the customer. Apologising, you just grabbed whatever sandwich there was on the shelf and left after paying.

Falling deep in thought and replaying what happened last night again, you opened your sandwich packaging and bit down on your sandwich  

EW! Egg Mayo!

You sighed. Feeling a little more miserable with wrong sandwich choice, you continued feeding on your thoughts on the way home.

You dive straight into your bed and hugged your big Coney plush the first thing you got back. You screamed into Coney like a lunatic and kicked the air violently with your legs.

Stupid jongki, who does he think he is. Ah yes, I secretly gave you a kiss, so what. IT WAS JUST A FRIENDLY KISS CAUSE YOU WERE CUTE.

BUT WHATS WITH KISSING ME ON THE LIPS AND WAKING UP TOGETHER LIKE ITS ABSOLUTELY NORMAL

What a flirt!! See y/n you were right. Rich, handsome guys, tsk. Bound to be bad.

You threw coney to the side and your phone came crashing down with it from your side table.

Groaning, you bend over your bed to pick it up, only to see a message from the dear boy you wanted out of your mind right now.

J:I’m heading out for work soon~ have a good day today😙

Is that a kissy face?!

Oh goodness, you were so annoyed.

Kim Jongki, are you playing with me right now?? WE ARE NOT ATTACHED

.....

at least not yet (?)

Tossing the phone aside, you decided to take a shower. Afterall showers always work best for any occasion. You got up and spent a peaceful 20minutes running under hot water, clearing your thoughts. 

Though still feeling bothered, you were definitely more refreshed. Time check , it was about time for you to get changed and pick up lunch on the way to the store.

Dusting on some light make up, bunning up your hair, you changed into your working clothes. In 30 minutes you were out of the house.

On the bus ride to your working area, you were so torn between checking your phone and not to. You wanted to know if jongki texted you again, but you didn’t really want to deal with this situation.

Fiddling with your phone, you almost dropped it when it beeped to announce a message had arrived.

That’s a sign, I should look at it! Since it rang when I’m thinking whether I should

Excitedly you unlocked your phone and checked your notification, only to find that it was just a reminder message from your landlord to pay your rent.

Your heart literally dropped because you actually really wanted to receive a message from him. Just then your phone beeped again and this time it was from jongki!

J: y/n ah what’s for lunch today? I’m having kimchi stew. Texting because I thought about you who might be board having an off day today :p

Sigh, you can’t deny that boy is so cute and lovable. But you still weren’t ready to reply him. You wanted things to be clearer between both of you. While uncertainty in relationships can be the most heart fluttering period, you didn’t like being in that phase.

It wasn’t long before you reached your stop to alight. Not feeling particularly hungry yet, you stopped by street stalls along the way instead.

You arrived at your shop, feeling satisfied with the pajeon you just had. You almost forgot how therapeutic the scent of flowers were until you stepped in. The mixed floral scent of dew and freshness instantly released you from the troubled thoughts bugging you at the back of your head.

‘Unnie! I’m here! How could you forget your wedding anniversary , hahah. Have you bought a gift or something yet?’

‘Ah, y/n ah! My life saviour. No I haven’t bought anything! There’s just too many activities and occasions this month that I forgot about my own. Gosh’ she face palmed herself making you laugh

‘Then you better leave soon to get your gift! I’m here already anyway! I’ll just continue wrapping this bouquet you’re currently working on’

‘I’ll buy u a meal another day, sorry for calling you back on your off day~ oh right I’ve a parcel coming later, just open and let me know what’s inside. I ordered so many I can’t even remember what’s coming anymore.’ Removing her apron, she rushed off after saying googbye. 

Looking at the tasklist, it was going to be a busy day. 5 bouquets to finish and lots of prep for the workshop tomorrow. You immersed yourself in the wrapping right away. 

A few minutes later, your phone lighted up. It was a message from jongki.

J:yaaa, are you ignoring me deliberatelyy? do you want to come over again on sunday? 

You scoffed when you saw the message because your detective mind came to a conclusion that the latter question was just bait to get the answer to his first question. He was tempting you with a chance at his place that was a hit or miss if you don’t reply him. 

You put down the stalks of flowers you were still holding in your hands, you paused to form an appropriate reply. 

Text:

my lunch was great, and i cant go over on sunday, im going to my parent’s place 

You typed then deleted it, doesn’t sound about right, you remember telling him yesterday that you got a half day shift on sunday which you really hated.

Trying again,

i got called back at work 

Sounds fine? Should you send it like this? 

‘Delivery!’

Reacting in shock , you pressed the send button by accident at the voice of delivery man

ah shucks! 

You closed your eyes and hit yourself on the head imaginatively. Smiling at the delivery guy, you received the parcels and signed them off. 

One of it came in a tube, while the other was in a box.

What in the world did unnie order that would come in a tube? Wallpapers? Drawings??

The tube really piqued your curiosity, so you decided to check that first. opened it first.

Opening the tube, you pulled out a rolled piece of paper. Unrolling it, you noticed at the top right was a black and white logo that writes EXO Obsession. 

Ohhhh EXO!! Unnie likes exo?

Ever since you watched 100 days my prince, you had a positive inclination towards EXO. Which also reminded you of jongki who seems to like EXO Kai.

You wondered who was going to be in this poster. Not like you would recognise them though, you thought, unless its do kyungsoo ssi. 

A little excited, you pulled the poster open to full length.

Looking at the poster that stared back at you. Your smile faded away. Your jaw dropped.

‘Jongki oppa?’ you muttered under your breath

There was an uncanny resemblance between the man in the poster and jongki. 

 No way, who the hell is this from EXO? 

You turned the poster to the back hoping to find a name of the man in the picture. But there was no information.

Flipping back over, you looked closer at the other small details on the logo, you found this 3 lettered word staring back at you — ‘KAI’.

EXO KAI? Jongki watches his dance videos... or rather, Jongki also can dance ..

There were only two logical possibilities to this , either jongki has a twin or... kai is jongki..

You had to know the answer to this incredulous situation.

Making a grab for your phone, you saw jongki had already replied you , but you weren’t even going to read it

Madly typing away

Y: Oppa, do you have a twin ?

You could feel blood pumping through your veins as you sent it.

How could this be possible ? He mustn’t be exo right?

Although you weren’t interested in boy groups, there’s no one that hasn’t heard of EXO in the whole of korea. And that’s how popular EXO is.

Even though you have never checked them out to find out how they looked like, but you still knew a few names. Names like Baekhyun , chanyeol and.. kai..

Thinking of it now, it seems to all make sense that he could dance, he has abs, he’s rich, works till late, doesn’t reply all the time....

As you waited for his text to come back in, you googled EXO Kai.

Birth name: Kim Jong In

Birthday: 14 Jan 1994

Height: 1.82m

1994 was his birth year, that’s right. Kim Jong in, difference of 1 word. 1.82m, yes, obviously describes him. Google images ? 100% similarity.

If it’s not a twin....

Ding!

His msg came in

J: uh, no.. that was so random though, why? Saw someone looking like me?

You didn’t want to believe this. The friend you’ve been hanging with and even sleeping at his place.. is kai?

In the past, when you watched those cliche dramas you never understood why people made such a huge fuss when they found out their dating partner has a hidden identity.

Like isn’t it totally exciting and fun! Especially if the person turns out to be some rich CEO. Wow, your rags to riches story would come true over night.

That’s how you thought you would react.

But honestly, all you felt was some sense of betrayal right now.

Y: oppa, I think I just found out what you do...

you sent

Just in a few seconds, he replied

J:really?! What’s your wild Guess this time ?

Your hands were shaking as you prepared to type this. The moment you send this and he confirms it... what are you going to do ?

But still, this has to be done

Y: EXO Kai. Kim Jong In.

Again, he replied instantaneously

J:omg, took you long enough!! How did you find out though??!

Clearly not being able to sense the tension over the phone, he was, as usual, cheery about everything.

Y:so it’s true ? Why did you lie your name to me?

You had no idea why you felt so emotional to the brink of tears about this truth.

J: ah, I’m sorry for lying about that.. I was worried initially if I told you my real name you might make a connection and recognise me at the start.

He double texted as soon as you received that msg, saying

J: y/n, are you ok?

You typed

no I’m not. I don’t even know how I should be feeling now, or what I should be doing about our friendship.

But.. you didn’t send it. You switched your phone to do not disturb and kept it in your bag.

You stared blankly at the poster for a while before putting it back in the tube. You’re still in disbelief. This situation was ridiculous. But it was logical.

In a state of mental breakdown, you couldn’t even wrap your bouquets right. You switched over to prepping for the workshop tomorrow instead. But your mind was so preoccupied with the whole fiasco that you kept missing things out. You just wanted work to end and have the time to yourself.

The entire day went by in a mess, but at least it finally ended. Back at home, you scroll through the multiple texts he sent you

J: hmm, seems like you’re pretty shocked about this right?

J: I wanted to tell you but you said you preferred if I didn’t though..

Then there was also a missed call from him

J: Call me back?

You swiped away all his notifications. There is something you really want to do, but not really ready to. You contemplated

Should I? Search kai up ?

Typing into Google, you searched kai. It was strange, just 24 hours ago you guys were so close, almost like lovers. But right now, you’re searching him up and getting to know him like an unreachable stranger.

You tapped into one of those webpages that told fans his entire life story. From his blood type to who he has ever dated and all that small little things people conclude from what he has said.

Again, you felt a stab in your heart and sour inside. These were things you never knew about , but surely, everyone else but you knew. It was like... jongki wasnt jongki, this him is different, it feels so far and distant from the one you knew...

Pondering on that thought, you let out a bitter laugh. Jongki really wasnt jongki. He was never jongki.

Switching to YouTube , you click on ‘mmmh’ the first result when you searched kai. No matter how you tried to keep an open mind, you didn’t like it. His costume made him strange and the song really wasn’t your type.

Deciding that’s enough for the day, you put your phone aside and tried your best to fall asleep.

—-

Back at work the next day, you decided to get some ‘intel’ from your boss about kai.

‘Unnie, you like EXO Kai?’

‘Ne!!! Wae? Isn’t his visuals to die for???’ She reacted so excitedly upon hearing his name

‘Why don’t I remember you liking EXO though?’

‘I recently just got into them because of my friend who kept playing their songs on repeat in her car’ she laughed as she fixed the flowers

‘Why did you ask though? Since when were you interested in boy groups?’ She continued asking

‘Ah... When I checked the poster yesterday I thought kai was really good looking, so I’m just asking haha. So what’s so nice about kai you bought a poster?’ Finally asking what you really wanted to .

‘Oh gawd, you really wanna know? I could go on a whole day about jongin. Though he is sooooo fierce on stage , killer looks and everything, but he has such a cute personality!! You know when they ........’

And she went on and on about it, even showing you clips of kai on variety shows, interviews, etc. In these the sense of familiarity was back, you felt like this was the Jongki you knew. Oh well, it’s Jongin now, you really got to change it out.

You laughed along with your boss and you understood why he had so many fan girls. Introducing you to some EXO songs, you had to admit you really liked them!

Knowing more about kai now, you went back home that night and sat infront of your laptop, making a search for EXO’s variety shows, music videos and the likes.

You searched up ‘kai cute moments’ and you wanted to sqush him because he was just so cute like how he was normally. At the same time you can’t help but feel a little jealous that you’re sharing these sides of him with other people too.

You watched his dance videos and he was literally a dancing king. Thinking back to when he danced for you, you suddenly realised just how many girls would die to be in your place.

It was already 1am by the time you finished your search. A msg came in just as you were about to crash

J: are you up? I’m going to the convenience store to grab some food. Are you hungry? Want to come along?

Seeing his msg, you felt a little bad about ignoring him for the 2nd day now. How should you reply him now that the situation is a little awkward ?

Nicely, your phone died as you were thinking.

Alright, just a sign I should go to bed, oppa I’ll reply you after I get my phone charged up tmr.

——

You woke up to an absolutely crisis that you overslept. Considering how you didn’t sleep well for the past 2 nights over jongin, this was bound to come. You quickly washed up and left for work.

Plugging your phone into the portable battery, you phone came back to live. Again, jongin was persistent in his texts. 

J:y/n ah don’t ignore me please

J:Come over on sunday? 

J: I’m waiting for your reply. 

It was 1.30am when he asked you to come over on sunday, but his last message was past 3am. He must have been thinking about what happened with you.. You felt bad for being so absorbed in how you felt and failed to consider his feelings  when it really wasn’t his fault.

All this started out because of your dumb self who wanted to play detective. But then again, if you had found out who he was from the start, would you have gotten this close with him? Possibly not. You replied him without delay

 Y: i’ll come over on sunday

The shop gets really busy on saturdays, packed with workshops, tons of deliveries and online orders. You didn’t have time to check your phone till the end of the day, at which you saw you missed jongin’s call and texts again.

J: omg, you finally replied! is there anything you want to eat on tomorrow? i could get it if you’re coming over from work

J: we are all ok now right? 

Should you call him back? It wasn’t like you were completely okay yet, you couldn’t imagine how it would like seeing him tomorrow. He was surely still that jongki you knew, but he was also kai.

Thinking to leave the rest for tomorrow to think about, you just replied 

Y: there’s nothing i really want, just get whatever you like:)

Back at home, for the 3rd night in a row, you stayed up like a fan girl again, watching all of EXO ladders, their concert videos. You squealed and fangirled over them like a teenage girl. The more you watched, the more you started falling harder for them.

---

A halfday shift always makes your day go by real fast. You were standing outside jongin’s door. You were suddenly reminded of the times you watched 100 days my prince with him and talked about D.O. who he probably knows 1000x better than you do. And how you asked if he was a kai fan. Oh gawd, you wanted to jump into a hole. Feeling a little nervous and a little awkward and hella embarrassed, you didn’t want to press the door bell.

Finally pressing the door bell, you waited for barely half a minute, which felt like eternity before he opened the door. You could even feel your palms sweating. 

‘Annyeong Y/N! Come in quickly!’

You didn’t reply him immediately, neither did you move an inch yet.  The smile on his face slowly faded and he just looked at you, starting to chew on his lips. 

Seeing his face once again, in real life, your heart skipped a beat. You knew it wasn’t because he was kai, but because he was still jongki, that someone special to you.

You quickly smiled back at him the moment you got out of your thoughts. He let out the breath that he has been holding, making you laugh. 

‘Annyeong, jong..’ you paused there, about to call him jongki 

‘annyeong jongin oppa’ it sounds weird to you, not to be calling him the name you were used to

You guess he must have been feeling a little awkward when you called him by his real name too, he scratched his head and chuckled.

‘I ordered pizza, are you hungry? let’s eat’ he gestured for you to go to the dining area and was ready to walk away

But you felt you had to talk to him first about this, 

‘oppa, can we talk?’ 

He turned around to face you, he nodded slowly

‘sure..’

You walked over to him, leaving a comfortable space between the both of you. 

He avoided your eye contact as you started

‘so... EXO Kai huh?’

‘...y/n, i.. you should know i have no intentions to hide anything from you deliberately, i was ready to tell you anytime. but i also thought you would react in a ‘pleasant surprise’ way rather than a ‘nasty shock’ received, so i just let it be’

He looked at you with sincerity in his beautiful eyes which showed how bad he felt. But you honestly just wanted to clear the air and lighten up the mood

‘actually, I just wanted to tell you that... I became an EXOL!’

You exclaimed and laughed. His eyes widened and stared at you like you were out of your mind, before bursting into laughter too.

But his laughter soon turned to sobs, and he rubbed his eyes profusely, which got you stunned

‘I... I thought I messed up our friendship, our relationship. And I really missed you, I didn’t want our us to end like this.....’ he said in between sobs and almost sounded like he was wailing

‘We haven’t even started...! Y/N, you scared me when you didn’t even reply at all! I thought you didn’t want to contact me anymore!’ He give you a light push on your shoulder as he emotionally spilled out all his thoughts

Though you were really confused, it was heart wrenching to see him cry so hard. You quickly put your arms around his waist and have him a hug.

‘Oppa, I’m sorry for the past few days I ignored you. I was just trying to figure how to handle the weight of the truth that you’re EXO Kai. Hahah, I’m so confused at your reaction right now you know.’

Calming down, but still sounding nasal he said

‘I’m going to make you stay here today until I’m convinced that you don’t hate me for being kai.

Oh and that you won’t go MIA on me again if you found out some other kai stuff’

Breaking away from the hug, he grabbed onto your shoulders

‘Y/N I like you, I really like you, so don’t leave my life please’

His impromptu confession got you feeling shy, you didn’t know what to do , but merely nodded in response.

Feeling all bright again he grabbed your hand and pulled you into the house.

You were glad it was as if nothing has changed, except that you probably became the luckiest fangirl alive just like this.

———

This fic went through so many content changes, I’m so glad I finished writing this! For those that waited for this part, I hope it wasn’t too underwhelming:,) feel like there’s definitely still a lot for me to work on as a new writer.

Also just dropping a note to say this would most probably be my last fic tell after may! Please check out of my other fics in the meantime too:) Hopefully I’ll be back with better writings !

#kai #exo #exo fanfic #exo scenario #exo scenarios #kim kai #kim jongin #jongin fanfic #jongin scenarios #jongin scenario #exo kai #exo jongin #exo comeback #nini #kai x gucci

[feckin-zicons]

Squids, Dancing, and Dirty thoughts... Not necessarily in that order or all at once.

Apparently people like this? I am more confused than Liam is in this chapter. Which you know, makes sense bc this character only exists in my head, but also doesn’t at all bc I have no idea what goes on in there most of the time. Anyway this is for Zayn, Oxford commas, @stanmedusa who pointed out Zayn was also an Oxford comma stan, @redyellowberry, and their anon to started this mess. Also please imagine Zayn with his current blue hair, but also with his long Aladdin hair bc that’s what I’ve been doing and oh holy gods do I need that to happen. Please. Hair gods make it happen I’m begging

Same warnings as ever its 4AM, this is much longer than planned, and I have no interest in editing, making it sound coherent, or good. No, I don’t know about the squids either.

Parts 1&2 here

Liam would like to point out while he's not a stranger to feeling confused, he's still having trouble pinpointing how exactly he got to be Dance Mistress Irina Alinova's personal bitch. 

Ever since he accidentally interrupted one of the dance practises while looking for a missing prop for Director Corden, more and more of them started disappearing only to show up in the basement. No one else was interested in facing the Dance Mistresses' wrath, but Liam didn't mind the yelling. As long as Mistress Alinova didn't start throwing things, he figured he was safe enough. After all, it gave him the chance to see the blue haired ballerino again.  

Zayn Malik, the god in mortal form, the prima ballerino, the prettiest man Liam had ever seen, who had no idea who Liam even was. 

Liam had it bad. 

Liam had it so bad.

Liam had it so bad he tripped over thin air, spilled hot coffee over himself, and walked into a door when he thought he saw him at a Costas with Louis. The man he saw wasn't Zayn, thank fuck, but the entire sequence of events did give Louis more ammunition to tease him with. Stupid pretty boys with long blue hair and piercings sent from hell just to ruin Liam's life. Yeah, he was a goner. 

Louis dragged out the whole sorry story after Liam texted him about spiking his lunch and laughed himself sick knowing just how much of a mess Liam became around people he was interested in. They still didn't talk about Danielle. Which was a good thing considering the end of that relationship had Liam pretty much swearing off women for the rest of his life. No pussy was worth that mess. Dick though? Liam was willing to take that chance on Zayn, even if asking Harry didn't give him much information. 

According to Harry, Zayn had been around for a few years but mostly kept to himself or the other dancers. There was something about him throwing a fit a few weeks before Liam showed up. Upset about being forced to learn the choreography for Winston's show when it was just going to fail on opening night like it always did. 

Liam thought he had a point, considering. He didn't know what bananas, ballet, and really bad rapping had to do with King James VI but didn't want to voice that in front of the man playing the gay king. No one dared fire Zayn, considering he kept the whole theatre afloat, but it also didn't make many actors happy with him. Especially not Mizz Wendy Williams, who played Marie Antoinette in the play. Again, Liam had a lot of questions he didn't dare ask out loud. It's not like he was ever good at history, so it was entirely possible the two lived in the same time period. Or it was some sort of allegory that went over his head like the aristocrats wearing banana suits did. 

Louis always found his stories about his placement hilarious, but even that one had him wondering if there wasn't some sort of gas leak in their apartment. It wouldn't have been the first time, or the second. Most likely, it was the theatre that was growing some sort of mold that caused insanity if breathed in. Some of the things Liam had been forced to clean in the past few weeks were unspeakable. 

But even that probably couldn't explain Zayn Malik. Nothing could explain that sort of beauty and talent. Or those hands... and thighs... and fingers. Ung. Liam would love to get up close and personal with all of him.  

Either way, Liam had just been cleaning the mirrors in the practice room, humming along to Brandy and Monica on the radio, wondering if Niall was actually going to come down and help him instead of hiding away like a coward. Again. By the second verse, he'd given up trying not to sing along, not expecting anyone to come by. It was late, the dancer's practise long over, and Winston left screaming over an hour ago. Liam would have done a recce and skipped out on the last half hour if one of the managers wasn't sticking around still. Piers Morgan, an absolute cunt who treated the lads on probation like hardened criminals, and he was the prison warden. Despite, you know, most of the lads on summary probation, and Liam’s arson charge being the most serious crime out of all of them. 

Anyway, the last thing he's expecting is for anyone to come in while he's singing about the boy being his, rolling his body to the beat. Which is probably how he ends up tripping over himself when he notices Zayn leaning up against the open door, watching him. Watching him, in bright, tight, teal dance tights (were dance tights usually blue? They should be) that looked nice with his hair and complimented the gold tones of his skin. The skin he could see a lot of. Because he was shirtless. Because he was shirtless and had a lot more tattoos than Liam realized. Tattoos Liam wanted to bite. Not hard enough to make a mark or anything, that would be sacrilegious, but enough to make him make a sound. God, Liam hoped he was a moaner. Not that he thought he had a chance with Zayn or anything, but it would be a shame if Zayn was the type that stayed quiet during sex. 

Except he wasn't being quiet now, he was talking. And Liam was staring at him, like an idiot, not paying attention. Because he was an idiot. 

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, why did this always happen to him? 

"Er, what?" Liam asked, desperately hoping he didn't sound as stupid as he felt right then, which was pretty fucking stupid. He probably looked even stupider than he felt and ruined his chances at ever-

"I asked if you were almost done? Was planning on practising more tonight," Zayn answered him. 

Zayn, Zayn Fucking Malik, answered him, and he was still staring at him like an idiot. Shit Liam say something.

"Pretty" 

Not that you idiot.

"What?" Zayn asked, looking confused and adorable.

Oh god, he was precious. Was that a smile? Was he smiling at him? Liam? Oh no.

"Pretty much, I meant. Pretty much done," Liam replied, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. "Just one more mirror, and I'll be out of your way."

There, those were words, sentences even. Now all he had to do was act normal and finish cleaning. Easy. 

"So, Brandy and Monica, right? You like R'n'B then?" Zayn asked him, walking into the room with a heavy dance bag, setting it off to the side.

Liam felt himself flushing as he turned back around to finish cleaning the mirror so Zayn wouldn't see.  "Yeah," he answered, trying not to peek at Zayn bending over as he rifled through his belongings. 

Those legs, Fuck. Liam wondered what it'd feel like to have them around his- 

"I didn't expect that," Zayn said, drawing Liam out of his filthy thoughts, and making him turn back around.

"What?"

"No, I- I didn't mean it in a bad way or anything. I guess I just expected you to listen to more rock?" 

Liam was pretty sure he missed half of the conversation somewhere. Was Zayn blushing? He was so pretty. Wow. 

"No, I like everything," he replied dumbly. They were still talking about music, right? That would make sense. Why was Zayn talking to him again? God, Liam couldn't handle this. "Do you like it? The music, I mean."

"Yeah, grew up listening to ‘em. My older sister was obsessed with Monica. So... Who's your favourite artist?" 

"Artist? Oh uh, I've been listening to a lot of Post Malone? How about you? What do you- who do you listen to?" 

"Post Malone's sick, mate. I like most music I guess, but I've been listening to a lot of The Weekend."

"Have you heard his new album?"

"Yeah, it's sick! Do you-" Zayn was cut off by Niall running in out of breath. The bright orange tee that labelled him as one of the community service workers was wet and stained black. Actually.. all of him was soaked and stained black. Was that ink?

"Hey, Payno, are you done yet because we have a situation upstairs," Niall gasped out, hands on his knees, looking like he'd just seen his life flash before his eyes. 

"What the hell happened to you?" 

"There's a squid stick in the toilet." 

"There's a what?"

"A Squid! A giant fucking squid in the toilet!" 

Liam blinked in confusion, trying to wrap his head around why there would be a squid anywhere near the theatre let alone one of the toilets. Did Corden want live animals in his show now? Or Winston. It could be either of them. 

"Why do you need me?" he asked. "I don't know anything about squids."

Niall sounded like he was at the end of his rope when he replied, "You know something about plumbing at least!" 

"Not a lot! Enough to keep the water on at home, but I'm not a plumber." 

"Doesn't matter, we need your help, Ashtons gone to find some butter," Niall said, stomping back around, leaving behind a trail of watery black ink. "We'll meet you upstairs when you're done."

"Wait, what do you need butter for?!" Liam called after him but didn't get a reply. Butter? How was butter going to help?

A muffled giggle distracted Liam from his thoughts, and he was abruptly reminded Zayn was still in the room. Zayn, might as well be a god, was in the room, and Liam was just talking about squids in toilets.

Why him?

"I guess I should go see what they need help with?" Liam tried to say without sounding... Well, he wasn't sure what the proper response was in this situation or how to react to it. 

Zayn smiled at him, and oh. How was it possible he looked even more attractive now? 

Liam thinks Zayn said something about the other lads needing him and it sounding urgent, but really, Liam was in a daze until he also got a face full of ink... From another squid in an entirely different toilet. 

What the fuck.

Louis was never going to let him live this down. 

Really? Squids???

#yeah idk #my fic #ballerino au #genuinely have questions for myself #why is it always crack #ngl I'd be interested in seeing Winstons 'historical' play and Corden's musical #if only to know what the hell my own brain is coming up with #the globus theatre is its own warning #lmao #Ziam au #Ziam fic #idiot boys with crushes #Liam is a simp

[gveret-fic]

Alright HtN final thoughts

Similarly to the last book, I’m overstimulated to all hell and back. Gideon is my favorite protagonist of all time, no question. The sheer endorphin rush I get reading her cracking jokes and being insufferable is just bonkers. I started this book with 2 spoilers, without which I might never have even started this book: 1) there was Gideon content in HtN, and 2) there was multiple Gideons content in HtN. On the first point, I’m more than satisfied; I’m currently buzzing with how ecstatic that was as a reading experience. On the second, Gideon 1.0 was a boring lump of dude lmao, the only interesting thing about him was his bodyswap poly relationship with Better Gideon’s mom, which, wow. What a 10,000 year old soap opera. So that was disappointing, but you know what, one Gideon is really enough.

The vast majority of this book was a miserable slog and it genuinely hurt to read to the point where I don’t know that I can recommend this experience to anyone who isn’t already a huge fan. Yeah, the payoff was massive and I was played like a perfect little fiddle, but I don’t approve of the tune. I think Muir could’ve cut out a good third of the book and at the very least 50% of the relentless torture she put Harrow through and it would have still been effective. I still have a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t have a problem with difficult or hurtful stories and I’m not trying to invoke any moralistic outrage here, but that wasn’t what I expected or frankly could have prepared for coming out of the (drastically tonally different) first book and I do believe it was excessive. It was blow after blow after blow to an isolated, terrified, pointedly disabled protagonist with no single moment of relief, comfort or connection until the fucking reveal and I don’t want it, thanks.

Okay that’s enough about that. Now the rest of it.

I really tried to care about the new characters, but no dice. God had his moments, but we haven’t really seen him do too much interesting shit. Ianthe was fucking excellent, though I really really didn’t want her to be. The rest were dead boring, I’m sorry. The blasphemous makeouts were their only redeeming moment. When we finally got some Palamedes and Cam, I could have cried. Wish we could have spent more time with them, but I have high hopes for the next book. Ortus, surprisingly, was awesome! I wish him a happy afterlife with his poetic legendary husband. Also he did nothing wrong and all that nonsense about finally fighting for what’s important yada yada was pure military propaganda, let the man write lengthy poetry about his ghost boyfriend in peace. Dulcinea was a fucking badass! So happy she got a chance to shine, and to say ‘nyah!’ Abigail was also fantastic. Well that whole section of the book had me swimming in endorphins so maybe it isn’t saying much, but I fucking loved them, I fucking loved how much Harrow cared about them, Harrow, who had been an emotionally depleted husk throughout most of the book, now showing the most heartrending vulnerability and care for this little found ghost family and practically rotating through them one by one to apologize in the most terrible, gutpunching way, and finally being told not everything in the whole fucking world is her goddamn fault. This is the only reason I was able to accept no Gideon reunion, not even a single word between them. I’ve been yearning for hundreds of pages for Harrow to find human connection and care, and I’m so happy these are the people she found it with.

Gideon. I’m like tearing up right now just thinking about this. After the endless tedium, suffering, emotional disconnect to the point where characters dying horribly seemed insignificant against the backdrop of unrelenting despair, to have that vibrant, wonderful, dumbass motherfucking voice back---it was beyond cathartic. I reread every single line multiple times and I still don’t think I’ve wrung em fully dry. It was amazing. The personality dripping off the page, the immediate chemistry with any character living or dead or dull as rock, the blatant, beautiful disrespect for the sombre self importance of the whole preceding narrative. It was my favorite character crashing into one of my least favorite books, and making it awesome. I think a lot of people try to write a Gideon, and most of the time the result is completely unbearable, and I’d posit there’s 2 reasons for this: 1) they tragically, mistakenly make their Gideon a man, and 2) they just aren’t funny. Of course an unfunny Gideon would be unbearable. Of course a funny but emotionally vacant Gideon would be dull. But this Gideon is a fucking delight with a real heartfelt gooshy selfless vulnerable yearning center, and every line I got to spend with her was a rush.

Harrow and Gideon. Oof. I’ve been going back and forth on whether I shipped them, whether I even could, whether it was the intention at all. But like, come on. This is clearly a love story. It’s a love story from start to finish, and it’s cool that it got me to doubt that so sincerely when it’s just this level of ride and die, jump into hell, carve out your brain, share a body and preserve its modesty against your every instinct and not even make any jokes about it, universe crossing, death defying, soul melding level of mushy ass romance. Harrow fucking kept Gideon’s shitty sunglasses wrapped in a love note. She did find&replace on her whole personality. She kissed Ianthe. I remember the first time I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, where almost every other episode would begin with a lil fairytail backstory recap telling you about the little girl who saw a prince and was so enamored she decided to become a prince too. And you believe that narrative, because why wouldn’t you? It’s a stylized repetitive fairytale at the start of a show. Why would it lie? And then you find out, at the very end, that it wasn’t the cool manly prince who precipitated all of this, but baby Utena witnessing another young girl in pain, and deciding then and there that she was going to grow up and help her. And she does, even if she can’t remember why.

This was that level of paradigm shift for me. Harrow and her pile of letters and rules and her obsession and her nauseating work ethic, what was she doing?? Saving the world? Fixing a broken timeline? Trying to unlock unlimited power, bring back the corpse in the locked tomb, serve her god and emperor? Nope! She was just trying to keep her big beautiful dumbass girlfriend a little bit alive. 

Yeah. It’s a fucking love story.

Random thoughts: I liked Harrow’s grudge against food and the word ‘pommel’. I liked the diminishing ages Mercy inflicted upon her. I liked the first/second person shenanigans, tho really, there’s no way that was Gideon’s voice, first of all, there was way too much anatomical knowledge there. (Gideon’s secretly a time traveling bone doctor, calling it now). I liked the fanfic AUs, and very sad we didn’t get a fake dating one or like a nice “there was only one bed”. Not gonna mention soulmate AUs cuz that’s just canon.

That was a ride. Coulda done without some parts of it, but don’t regret it one bit. Let’s see what kinda nonsense the next one brings!

#Harrow the Ninth spoilers #Harrow the Ninth #the locked tomb

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-08-06

♪ HS2 HS2 is baaaaack ♪

♪ HS2bloggin here we gooooo ♪

♪ Structural changes on their team but I don’t caaaaare ♪

♪ Already resooolved myself that its NOOOT gonna beee as good ♪ with inattentiveness to details characters like Terezi forgetting-what-they-used-to-know and an obsession with dwelling on traaageeeDEEE without relief-or-considering how weee’d feeeeeeel~ ♪♪♪ --so just gonna enjoy-what-i-caaaaaan about iiit~ ♪♪♪

Okay time for bankruptcy

> CHAPTER 11. History's Most Notorious Haters

Let’s see how effectively my perky new lowered-expectations attitude lets me enjoy this comic  *click*

wut

Oh.  so is this Dave drawing comics about current events or Regular Calliope doing so for our very first lanky look at her presumably-grown-up-more cherub form

> Knight: Keep it real.

HOLY SHIT IT’S DAVEBOT AND ARADIA

so we just get to SEE them?!  just like that???  no buildup or anything?  :D

Okay I’m marking out a little that’s a good sign.  Also what a nerdy cop-out to turn the roboteyes into glasses that’s barely passable which is perfect, the rest of his outfit looks pretty cool tho

DAVEBOT: and thats reason four hundred nineteen why despite my mans many accomplishments i will never acknowledge big skateboardings contrived message that tony hawk is the quintessential skater of our generation ARADIA: o_o DAVEBOT: not in these trying times

Good to see Ultimate Dave is being true to form with regards to the core of his personality

DAVEBOT: beep boop ARADIA: i have told you several times that i was a robot before and i know for a fact you dont have to say beep boop DAVEBOT: hm that sounds fake does not compute ARADIA: david DAVEBOT: mom

I was with this conversation until the last two lines what the fuck

(I’m reading into it aren’t I, Aradia was trying to be atypically proper -- even though she wouldn’t have the frame of reference to know without being specifically told that “Dave” was considered nickname shorthand for the human name David, and thus if she DID know there’s no reason she’d use it except to troll him -- and Dave’s just mocking her response.  Without any shame about his continued weirdness of calling people Mom, and by without any shame I mean he made the choice EXPLICITLY to intentionally evoke the awkwardness.  Wow I got a lot out of two lines.)

(Oh, also alt!Callie’s true Jade-body incarnation here probably prompted her to start using “David” by example.  There, various mysteries solved via a pile of assumptions probably to be disproven in the next couple lines I read.)

The Knight and the Maid stare at each other briefly, having exchanged enough meaningful glances over their time together to know when to drop it.

Would Time players have an easier time gelling this way, like this particular smoothness?  Dropping it just before it gets weird or excessively irritating?

(Overclasspecting)

ARADIA: i think we have exchanged enough meaningful glances over our time together to know when to drop this DAVEBOT: what i enjoy about our conversations is that you just say things like that

OKAY I SNRK’D AT THAT.  That was funny.

Initially.  And now I’m concerned whether Aradia is being controlled by the narrative-speak, or whether they’re both just humorously referencing the meta-text they can both see, or--

ARADIA: oh is that what you enjoy ARADIA: well we are both an infinite number of years old living countless lifetimes at once but thats no reason to waste any of our...

WHAT??!?  She’s an Ultimate Self too?!?

Um, okay!  Yeah!  So they’re BOTH just riffing on the narrative then.  But... why would Dave need a robot body to accommodate his Ultimate Psyche without getting sick but Rose not need it?  I can understand Dirk not needing it because the merging of the full breadth of his multiversal individuality gels well with him being a God of the aspect governing the power of his multiversal individuality, but Aradia?

Were the robot bodies not necessary after all, and the sickness Rose suffered and Obama thought Dave would have suffered some sort of ruse?  Are there shenanigans afoot?  (Or are we going with the “troll biology is better” cop-out?)

She knows how this will play out, having undoubtedly tried this joke on her friend in some timeline or another. Their rapport reflects a unique combination of their matching aspects but greatly differing classes. One a passive but powerful servant to time, the other wielding the aspect like a honed blade.

WH

WHAT????

PASSIVE SERVANT OF THE ASPECT?!? WHAT THE FUCK

Okay if that means anything like it sounds like I guess my class chart is finally blown up, sure, they only waited (*checks last edit date*) SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS TO BLOW THAT GUESS UP, SURE

Wow.  Okay, I feel some obligation to jump to conclusions and say the whole class chart is wrong, but let me stay strapped in to see if “passive” is as literal as one would expect alt!Callie to mean, or it just means “an active class passive compared to other classes”.  And, serving the aspect?  Oh dammit, now people are gonna come at me advocating a Maid / Page dichotomy about actively serving the aspect versus allowing the aspect to be served... or Page / Maid even, jesus

I wish I had enough energy to have those chats anymore.  I’d rather hold on and see the whole ridiculous chart scheme they have in mind... which is definitely (and hopefully) the one Andrew really drew up at the time and not made up by the staff, even if it throws away plenty of my old work...  I’ll just stop thinking about it and keep reading.

...

--no, I don’t think I can just stop thinking about it yet.  Dammit, brain.

So um.  Maids serving their aspect.  There was a whole “Maids serve” thing going on throughout the whole plot of Homestuck, but despite how prevalent it was, I wrote it off as the story riffing on the classical definition of Maid when the actual stuff Maids accomplished was something different and more specific, just like Knights constantly got riffed on for chivalry and the like.  Furthermore, service seemed like a really shitty class definition, when class definitions are the verbs one uses to interact with reality through Aspects to change the way reality unfolds, and “serving” isn’t really an action that results in change, implying a distinct deficit of agency that I wouldn’t have viewed as fair.  (Especially since you originally think “meant to serve others” and not “meant to serve the aspect”, implying even LESS agency.)  Furthermore, MOST passive classes from their descriptions seem to have a propensity to act “as if by the will of the aspect”, so even with the nuance of “serving the aspect”, devoting an entire class verb to service would just step on the territory of other active/passive class pairs’ passive sides, right?

But... IF we were to take this for granted as what it SEEMS... then concentrating on that angle of “serving the aspect” implies a whole lot more agency than a service class might sound on its surface.  The definition fits with the story better once you contextualize all the Maid-y references to service around Jane, for instance, with the additional idea of “serving Life” by baking prolifically and creating more of its symbols in food and--

--fuck.  “Serving”, like serving to others.  Serving the aspect as its attendant AND serving it out to others that need it.  Maybe this still IS part of the Additive class pair!  Whoa.  :O

Okay okay so, what I/we thought before was:

Create/Add - Maid / Sylph

Destroy/Reduce - Prince / Bard

But “additive” really isn’t an elegant verb compared to the “Destroyer” classes, so... could it be the “Servants” and the “Destroyers”?  Like Maids cleaning up and healing the broken wreckage strewn through the halls by a bratty Prince’s tantrum???

It’d certainly be weird... and it’d CERTAINLY be a wild twist where I was partially wrong in some fascinating ways but not entirely off base?

One a passive but powerful servant to time, the other wielding the aspect like a honed blade.

And yet, I can’t bet on this being the situation yet; not at all.  First, it relies on the idea that alt!Callie’s explicit narrative here is slightly misleading, which would be a pretty extreme thing to commit to, even for a technical truth like “she was saying it was passive relative to other classes even though it’s technically “active””.  Second... it would mean that Muses are even more wildly defined than the previous insinuation of hers, that the Sylph -- what we thought was the passive additive class -- was not enough like a Muse compared to a Witch.  Muses not being that Additive?  I could grudgingly understand that, but Muses not being anything like passive Servants?!  That would be EXTREMELY weird!

So... there’s not a whole lot of chance that I’m not dramatically wrong somewhere about these classes!  In a way that throws the entire chart into disarray!

I’m... oddly excited?  Huh.

That’s a pretty nice surprise that I actually feel that way.

:)

(Don’t hit me up all at once to discuss this Classpect development over Discord, I’ll still need a few days without talking about Homestuck to recharge as usual.  Like... maybe wait and come at me as a group chat? So I’m not talking about the latest developments separately with everyone?  No that wouldn’t work, how about... guh I dunno, look my outlook’s a little more positive right now but dealing with Homestuck still takes emotional energy okay?)

Okay the rest of this page...

ARADIA: ... DAVEBOT: time then make a weird face ARADIA: ........ DAVEBOT: waste time DAVEBOT: time ARADIA:............. DAVEBOT: i experience all points of time simultaneously please just say time and make a weird face

This is true.

ARADIA: .................. DAVEBOT: cmon megido youre killing me clocks ticking ARADIA: ... ARADIA: time o_o

The Maid casts a furtive glance around the empty crew quarters, as though to search for someone more sympathetic to her bit.

ARADIA: tough crowd

Dorks.

> ==>

(Lazy fruit-throwing sword-training I won’t bother to screenshot but looks fun)

(I mean, really lazy looking, these people really don’t have Andrew’s knack for action composition that would make the same amount of gif-creation effort feel like a microcosm of the event they’re depicting, unfortunately.  Again, I don’t blame them; Andrew was just too good at it.)

DAVEBOT: ok heres one DAVEBOT: how old do you think you are ARADIA: emotionally? ARADIA: that is a pretty heavy topic DAVEBOT: you know damn well thats not what i meant ARADIA: you know I have been through a lot dave DAVEBOT: ok ARADIA: its just so kind of someone DAVEBOT: ok i get it ARADIA: to finally ask how i feel ARADIA: i am beside myself with emotions ARADIA: i want to open up DAVEBOT: jesus christ ARADIA: shall i open up about my past traumas to you ARADIA: would you enjoy that ARADIA: to think even a frog like me can work through their pain with a dear friend ARADIA: you have truly blessed me on this day dave strider

Is Aradia JUST trolling here or is her Ultimate Self grappling with a ton of real unresolved trauma too that she’s bullshitting around Dave-style?

DAVEBOT: times fun when youre having flies

Okay that’s a damned good frog pun.

Alright now Davebot’s rapping

DAVEBOT: lacking tact i stay stacked while i breach contract DAVEBOT: sacred vows disavowed got divorce fever DAVEBOT: i leave her DAVEBOT: dont look back dont perceive her ARADIA: do you want to talk about it :( DAVEBOT: about what ARADIA: would you say you are hung up on leaving your wife and friends behind

Goddamnit is DAVE’S ton of real unresolved trauma leaking into his raps unintentionally Dave-style??  I knew we had to address it when we cut to Davebot but how about LESS TRAGEDY IN THIS COMIC MAYBE

DAVEBOT: arent you even a little guilty about ditching your boyfriend ARADIA: what ARADIA: oh fuck

Wh

But she knew what she was doing when she did it she explicitly did it didn’t she?  Epilogues quote:

DAVEBOT: what about your boy DAVEBOT: eyepatches ARADIA: oh sollux is in one of his moods ARADIA: this was all getting to be a bit much for him ARADIA: if i go ill probably just cut him loose DAVEBOT: good move

And then they stepped through the sky hole more or less.  Did like, distracted Ultimate Aradia not realize exactly how long she was leaving Sollux for, ie forever?  Or did she “ascend” to Ultimate status later and hadn’t thought back to the full consequences of her actions within this timeline?  Or both?  From the looks of the link we’ll probably find out on the next pa--

--Wait.  Something else I just thought of, unrelated.

If Aradia is an Ultimate Self, that’s another coincidentally Ultimate version of someone hanging around that happens to be on the prospective list of Soul-Powered Jujus that might have their creation loops closed in the coming story.  Could those two things play into each other somehow?  Like instead of their souls getting stuffed into the items, their “Ultimateness” is?  Or as if that’s a necessary component, or...  no, I’m probably overthinking things.

> (Months in the past, but not many...)

Uh huh.  Is that flashing because he’s “watching” Aradia leave?  But I thought Aradia SAID she was leaving--

> (==>)

--and that black hole portal doesn’t look as cool as it sounded in the Epilogues.  But why was Aradia acting surprised, she said “I’ll probably just cut him loose” mere MOMENTS before entering the portal, did she mean “cut him loose” as in “I’m going to talk to him before leaving” and then just IMMEDIATELY forget that she didn’t say anything to him because she cared so little???

Wait.  Waaaait wait wait.  I think.  I think maybe I missed some subtext.  Lemme do some fuller quotes here:

ARADIA: oh sollux is in one of his moods ARADIA: this was all getting to be a bit much for him ARADIA: if i go ill probably just cut him loose DAVEBOT: good move

His gaze remains fixed on her. She blinks and looks away, unsure what to say next. He’s standing perfectly still, presumably waiting for her to say something. She met him... what was it? Once, twice before? She can’t remember. But she knows this is a very different Dave. Aside from the metal skin, he seems implacably confident. But then, people go through changes. She’s been through more than her share. She cocks an eyebrow, recalling her own stint with a metal body.

DAVEBOT: hey earth to whats your face ARADIA: oh ARADIA: its aradia

[...]

DAVEBOT: youre coming DAVEBOT: better decide quick i doubt that dank fuckin hell funnel is staying open for much longer ARADIA: yes i suppose so ARADIA: thats where all the action is right? DAVEBOT: all the action that matters yeah ARADIA: off we go then :) DAVEBOT: word

He holds out his hand. She looks around, and assumes he means for her to take it, so she does. She didn’t know someone could fly this fast. He nearly yanks her arm out of its socket. She considers reminding him that maybe this isn’t necessary, since she can fly too. But she doesn’t want to risk saying more embarrassing stuff around this outrageously cool dude. Besides, they’re through the wormhole before she can even finish the thought. It vanishes the moment they’ve crossed.

...this was a SHIPPING thing wasn’t it.  She’s impressed as hell with Striderbot, she SAID she’d cut things off with Sollux, and then she was so busy being swooped off her feet and into the portal that she forgot to actually say anything to him.  Is that what happened????

Ultimate Self Davebot x Ultimate Self Aradia.  Huh.  Didn’t see that coming.  (Though, again... they could make it SLIGHTLY clearer that this wasn’t just a blatant continuity error.)

Anyway, a rare-don’t-get-used-to-it [S] page...

> [S] (Gaze.)

...Okay that was kinda funny.

> (==>)

SOLLUX: h0w the fuck am i g0ing t0 get d0wn fr0m here.

HAH!  Okay, he’s taking it pretty well.  :)  --and THAT’s what she realized she forgot, giving him a flight down from the tower before leaving.

GOOD.  KEEP THINGS HUMOROUS EVEN WHEN LITERAL ABANDONMENT IS HAPPENING.  THAT’S the Homestuck I was missing.  :)  :)  :)

> Back to reality.

(Since the black hole is outside “canon” reality.)

Those are some cool poses-AHAH JESUS CHRIST ALT!JADE YOU LOOK ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING XD

COULD YOU MAYBE HAVE CLEANED UP THE DRIED BLOOD AT SOME POINT OR IS SOME OF THAT FRESH FROM EATING MORE RAW MEAT

(Lord English’s blood leaving permanent timeless bloodstains would be a cool new thing to squeeze into canon i admit, i wouldn’t blame them for taking the excuse even if you could find small canon counterexamples I’m not sure of but dimly think might exist)

((ALSO SHE’S GONNA BE TINY NEXT TO THEM I DUNNO IF THAT MAKES IT MORE TERRIFYING OR LESS, PROBABLY MORE))

DAVEBOT: so youre telling me you dont even feel a little bad that you ditched him to be a weird death acolyte ARADIA: no i think he found my wiles both charming and irresistible DAVEBOT: not even an ounce of guilt or self doubt huh DAVEBOT: just like that DAVEBOT: no conversations about the greater good DAVEBOT: no revelations about your feelings

Is Aradia a jerk or weird?  Can’t decide.

ARADIA: do you often find your faith in yourself shaken like this or is it a new experience now that your mortal coil has been left behind DAVEBOT: what ARADIA: do you think now that all that is left of you is a literal ghost inside of a machine you are more or less likely to embrace finality DAVEBOT: oh dope more cult of one shit DAVEBOT: immortality changed you ARADIA: could it be that you are projecting your feelings onto my situation DAVEBOT: does not compute rose jr ARADIA: ... ARADIA: we dont have to talk about it DAVEBOT: thanks

Wow, I actually can’t follow this conversation at all.  Let me stare at it for a sec...

...okay, the first part she’s talking about DAVE’s faith in HIMself being shaken, not her own.  She’s not asking if he relates to HER experience, she’s contrasting it.

Then, asking if he’d be more likely to embrace death, or... Time?  Death.  Whether his self-worth has changed because he might view himself as “less real”, something Aradia doubtless struggled with when she was a robot who already had so many excuses to devalue herself at the time?  And then Dave talks about “cult of one” shit what does that even mean-...

OH.  Like she’s a death cult.  Gooot it.  Because Aradia’s of the position that death and ending should be celebrated, and Davebot understandably isn’t entirely bought in.  This is as hard to parse down as one would EXPECT conversations between two Ultimate Selves to be hard to parse down, unlike Rose and Dirk where their insane missions and glaring flaws shine bright enough through it all that you can follow their conversation flow easily.

JADE: They sit in each other's presence, the silence between them as meaningful as any words they could exchange. DAVEBOT: its always really cool to hear how meaningful my silences are DAVEBOT: especially while DAVEBOT: CALCULATING DAVEBOT: CALCULATING DAVEBOT: especially while i am attempting to experience them

Alt!Callie pulling a narrative-text AFTER a talk-identifier like “JADE:” is really hilarious in my opinion.

JADE: i do not need your approval. the story will continue how it must. DAVEBOT: beep boop hater detected ARADIA: wow is that true JADE: i am not a hater. DAVEBOT: classic hater line DAVEBOT: i know this because i am pouring through genuine actual quadrabytes of information on historys most notorious haters JADE: no, you aren’t.

Pffffff. This is pretty fun.

DAVEBOT: you are the exact opposite of a hater ARADIA: a liker DAVEBOT: ok DAVEBOT: perfect example your tolerance for whatever is going on with DAVEBOT: all this ARADIA: i think she looks quite lovely covered in the viscera of the all-powerful enemy she consumed ARADIA: floating lifelessly in our periphery ARADIA: observing our every action and noting its relevance :) DAVEBOT: uh huh thats what i mean

I was gonna note “liker” as additive for pointless classpect purposes, but really more quoting it just because I really enjoy this conversation.  I’m starting to get sold on the chemistry of these two a lot faster than I expected.

JADE: even though I understand that it must happen, i am growing frustrated with the direction of this conversation. DAVEBOT: do you want to talk about something else stinky JADE: what would you suggest?

How long has that dried fucking blood been on her

DAVEBOT: ok hear me out DAVEBOT: kanaya DAVEBOT: but like DAVEBOT: wearing huge jorts

That explains Homestuck’s twitter earlier

> Weeks in the future, relative to the original point of interest...

Wait wait which point of interest?  This time we were just viewing? *click*

I love what must be this shitty imagination-ship they’re using to cross the substrate of reality

> ==>

Whoaaaa.  So they DIDN’T stay in those outfits for long?  It showed them in a bunk bed earlier, it showed CallieJade still going around blood-covered afterward-- dammit, I’m having a hard time gauging exactly how much time is supposed to have passed between their entry into the black portal, their earlier conversation, and this moment.  And as likely as some are to call this poor scene composition, I can’t think it’s anything but intentional, given we’re dealing with a couple of Ultimate Time players bullshitting with each other.

Moments like these are not rare, and serve a valuable function to the story. They are able to show a passage of time with the bulk of the emotional labor of a lengthy bonding process happening off screen. How did we get here? What have they been through? These questions are often better left open to individual interpretation and can give the one interpreting a sense of ownership of the story.

See?  We’re being trolled is why.  (Even if the authors are pulling the trick Alt!Callie describes maybe a little too damn often, because a cut like this where we’re supposed to fill in the emotional gaps and intervening events ourselves as readers depends on readers’ faith that sensible events and decisions for these characters would OCCUPY the gaps, as if readers don’t have faith that what intervenes WOULD make sense to their understanding of the characters the way the authors are writing them... it just seems like an excuse to do whatever you want without adequately explaining yourself, when in reality if you’d spelled out the events that led to it we’d all cry foul at the mischaracterization.)

...okay, maybe I’m a BIT bitter.  Sorry.  Where were we?

JADE: As a point of curiosity- ARADIA: oh shit!!!!

The dead Cherub possessing the body of an equally deceased Goddess of Space pauses at the interruption.

She doesn’t talk much, then?  Too busy doing whatever talking you’d do as your other possessed Jade body?  Just how temporally related is you controlling THIS Jade compared to when you were controlling the other?  When that Jade pegged you as enjoying contact with friends, are these two just not enough for you, or did you “experience” the trips entirely separately?  I don’t THINK the alt!Callie possessing either Jade is a separate entity from the other, but...

Were she to voice her opinion, it would be that --actually-- it is not unusual for those whose primary concern is The Grander Scheme to have a passing curiosity about the insignificant. So when one really thinks about it, any annoyance with the attendant’s small mindedness is both understandable and warranted.

She pissed

...also, “the attendant”.  Even if “serve” is really the verb here, that phrasing really irks me as if she’s talking down to her.  Which, I mean, makes sense for alt!Callie’s character, but doesn’t make me feel better about this new definition being foisted on us.

ARADIA: :( JADE: as a point of order, you never answered dave’s question. ARADIA: which one he is very chatty JADE: you experience time in a way that is woefully unfamiliar to me and it has... piqued my curiosity enough to learn more. ARADIA: ?_? DAVEBOT: shes asking how old you are

Wait a minute, is Alt!Callie asking a question about a dropped topic from WEEKS ago?!  And is Davebot so in touch with Time and the meta ordering of topics that he actually CAUGHT ON that fast to what she was actually wondering about?????

This is getting more disorienting by the minute.

ARADIA: in this form our bodies stop aging once we reach maturity i think ARADIA: the god tier keeps our physical form locked in a state of undying ARADIA: even in death the bodies do not decay ARADIA: only lay dormant

THAT LAST PART IS FUCKING IMPORTANT.  It’s being brought up intentionally to tell us that JOHN’S DEAD BODY can still be in the wallet Terezi’s carrying around RIGHT NOW without having decayed over the past years.  I remember remarking in SOME previous HS^2 liveblog post of mine that I was alarmed by the decay that would have happened there (can’t find my remark on short notice and don’t really care to), so this explicitly dismisses it so we won’t be surprised by the fact that she could keep it in just-dead condition.

DAVEBOT: like how long have you been alive JADE: yes, that one.

[...]

ARADIA: oh maybe a few hundred years or so DAVEBOT: what JADE: what? ARADIA: well if i had known you were going to be so judgy about it DAVEBOT: when did this happen ARADIA: oh i spent some time in other doomed realities and timelines and came back before anybody could tell i was gone

Hm!

We knew she spent a LONG time in the dream bubbles, enough to talk to “pretty much all of the Nepetas”, but she was actually able to access a universe or universes and hop between them?  That’s not something any time traveller we’ve seen has been explicitly able to do intentionally before, quite like she’s describing.

DAVEBOT: oh just out for a bit of fun then DAVEBOT: just hopped on over to a different reality DAVEBOT: real casual like DAVEBOT: oh hello dont mind me just popping in to see if it really is as doomed as they say it is DAVEBOT: did not disappoint ARADIA: yes almost exactly like that :) DAVEBOT: who did you hang out with are they cooler than me ARADIA: it is complicated to explain DAVEBOT: oh ok nevermind then DAVEBOT: all clear

Yep, he’s kinda bewildered.  Is this Pesterquest stuff she’s referring to?  Did she stop by Pesterquest?

DAVEBOT: a whole alternate universe ripe with the coolest motherfuckers imaginable ARADIA: you were there too i threw your air conditioner into the sun DAVEBOT: wow thats fucked up DAVEBOT: thats not where that goes at all JADE: these events are not-canonical. ARADIA: rude

Ah!  Yeah, almost certainly Pesterquest.  (Still haven’t played that and have little inclination to now that I’m more sure we aren’t being gaslit with intentional continuity errors, just disappointed by actual continuity errors.)  Oh!  And that makes a bit more sense because I imagine that’s Black Hole territory, and that territory outside of Canon seems pretty rich and easy for time-travellers to hop between stories and timelines willy-nilly.  As they’re apt to in fanfics, which is the most appropriate way for things to be in that realm!

DAVEBOT: is that the trope of being hundreds of years old but looking young forever patently sucks ass DAVEBOT: a plot device an asshole would write ARADIA: :( JADE: that is not what i am trying to say at all. DAVEBOT: hmm wow yeah thatd really be a sort of pot/kettle situation i guess DAVEBOT: i cant believe im the only woke one here DAVEBOT: its hard being such a visionary AND such a fine metallic specimen DAVEBOT: but im an altruist first and fucking foremost ARADIA: so selfless JADE: yes, the greater narrative is truly blessed by your beneficent presence. DAVEBOT: oh so you got jokes now huh JADE: i have always had the ‘jokes’ of which you speak, but i have heretofore exercised restraint in laying you low. JADE: i possess knowledge of many of your iterations, as the scope of my powers allows me to exist in several narrative structures at once. DAVEBOT: but can she see why kids love the sweet cinnamon taste of cinnamon toast crunch JADE: i do not know, or care, what that means. ARADIA: neither do i :)

I’m actually really enjoying this conversation

JADE: its cultural significance to you as an earthling is wasted on the two of us entirely, as we have not conflated the misguided notion of clinging to nostalgic cereal advertisement trivia with socially relevant conversation.

Pff she literally checked her meta notes just now to learn what the cereal ads were after admitting she didn’t know what it meant and pretending not to care

> ==>

Oh, closer look at Davebot.  Are those actual SHAPED shades over his robotic eye bulges?  Weird, I thought it was just a lazy line drawn between them with red sharpie at first, Sans style.  That would’ve been funny.

> ==>

Ohh, I get it.  I was gonna say that was an unwarranted reaction... but he just realized that the Time-wait puns will be coming from BOTH his shipmates from now on.  That’s gotta be a downer.  :)

> ==>

HOLY

FUCKING

SHIT

IS ALT-CALLIE LAUGHING!??!?!?!??

That’s REALLY, REALLY GOOD!!!  SHE’S ALREADY LAUGHING OCCASIONALLY THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY

“BEST NARRATOR” COFFEE CUP

SHE’S ADORABLE

> ==>

Ah, was that Jade kicking you out?  Or just the multiverse punishing you for being briefly happy :(

--oh, end of the update.  Guess that’s it for now!

...

Alright I know I’m A BIT BEHIND on covering the HS2 commentary,

But

I really would rather wait on that a bit longer if that’s alright.  Real busy and stressful week or two.  (Found out my hair is starting to thin noticeably at age 31!  Quite suddenly, too.  Blood test looks fine so it’s nothing serious... gonna see a doctor to check if anything can be safely done about that, it’s really hurting my self-esteem more than I thought it would.  Didn’t think it would hit my emotions that hard when it eventually happened, knew it was likely but not so SOON... really messing with my anxiety every time I accidentally touch my hair, now.  I’ll deal with it.)

If I sound really aimless in this post, I think it’s cause I am?  My mental and emotional energy’s REALLY drained.  I’m glad that June/July break in HS^2 happened when it did, and I’m definitely glad there’s apparently plenty in HS^2 I can really enjoy, if this update is anything to go by.  Maybe this comic can help lift me up instead of knocking me down.  :)

See y’all later!  More Patreon commentary blogging catchup after some other upd8.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #Homestuck Theories #Homestuck Theory #spoiler #spoilers #Classes and Aspects #Space and Time #Aradia

[misssophiachase]

I’m back, hope you liked the first part! You can read from the beginning on AO3 and FF. 

Synopsis: She skipped bail and he’s tasked to track her down. As a seasoned bounty hunter, it’s a fairly routine job on paper for Klaus Mikaelson but then he meets Caroline Forbes and has no idea what to do with her.

Thrill of the Chase - Part Two: Man Down

Cumberland County, TN, (Interstate 40) - Caroline

Karma was a bitch, currently disguised as a blown-out tire.

Caroline kicked it a few times in frustration but then stopped realising her heels weren't fully equipped to soften the blow.

"Mother chucker," she hissed, rubbing her sore foot.

Caroline decided then and there she was woeful at this whole ‘on the run’ lifestyle. Not only with her poor choice of footwear but the fact she had no spare tire, and even if she did, no jack to change it.

Only she would decide to skip her bail hearing and not complete the requisite checks required on the vehicle aiding and abetting her getaway from New York City. 

She could hear her idiot, car-obsessed ex-boyfriend berating her for not taking proper care of her convertible. Caroline figured she must have done it despite him. Unfortunately, her stubborn ability to hold a grudge had led her to this moment and he was clearly still tormenting her from afar. Ass.

It really wasn’t her day. Actually, who was she kidding? It wasn’t her year.

2.5 hours earlier

“How’s my little fugitive?” She’d asked after the call connected, while Caroline was still singing along with Rhianna about shooting a man down in Central Station.

“I’m fine,” she lied, turning down the music.

“Liar,” she countered. “I heard Rhianna, things must be desperate.”

“I’m getting into character,” she offered.

“This isn’t high school drama club, Care,” she sighed.

“What ever happened to you being the bad influence?” She growled. Katherine Pierce had been well renowned at their prep school on the Upper East Side for her questionable reputation. “I recall having to cover for you more than a few times.”

“For smoking in the girls’ toilets.”

“And the rest. I also seem to recall other less PG things happening in that bathroom too, Kitty Kat,” she laughed, despite everything else.

“Good times,” she chuckled. “So, where are you now?”

“Bristol.” For some reason, every time she crossed a state border, Caroline felt relieved. Like the more miles she put between herself and Manhattan the better.

“Welcome to Tennessee,” she squealed excitedly. “You’ll be here in Nashville with me before you know it.”

“Thankfully,” she murmured, pleased to see a familiar face. “But I can’t stay too long.”

“I know,” she drawled. “You’re a woman on a mission.”

“I promised,” she insisted.

“And, as your best friend, I know more about your ability to keep a promise than most. Please tell me we can get obscenely drunk before you go at least?”

“Are you kidding? We have so much time to make up for,” Caroline smiled. ���And now that I’m a felon on the run who knows what I might do under the influence?” Katherine’s laughed intermingled with her own until she stopped suddenly and Caroline could already tell what she was going to say next.

“Do you think maybe you should have stayed and…”

“You are really killing my fugitive vibe, Pierce,” she interrupted. “I couldn’t stay there, you know that. I needed to get away, it was stifling and had been for a while.”

“Your father certainly has that suffocation gift down.”

“Lucky me,” she muttered. Katherine was responding but she was breaking up and difficult to decipher. “Kat, I can’t understand you.” She could hear her voice cutting in and out until the line went dead. 

As stupid as it sounded, Caroline really didn’t want to talk about him so it was probably good timing the cell reception dropped out when it did.

Although interstate 40 was a busy route, Caroline hadn’t seen many cars that time of the day. She’d noticed mile marker 337 not long before her tire blew out, interrupting her fugitive themed playlist in the process.

Now, here she was stranded and trying to get someone to pull over. Easy, right?

Although, wasn’t that how people were kidnapped and killed? That’s what her parents had drummed into her since she was young and although she was supposed to be rebelling against society it still didn’t feel right or safe.

Caroline winced thinking about her parents again. She’d already ignored their steady stream of calls since leaving New York and was too afraid to listen to her voicemail. She was fairly certain if Liz and Bill were disappointed in her after committing her crime they were royally pissed about her running away.

So, the fact her cell reception was non-existent was timely because her parents’ calls weren’t getting through but it also meant no calling for help hence her current predicament.

She decided to push aside every sensible thought and think about what would Thelma and Louise do? Well, besides that driving into the Grand Canyon part.

Caroline was madly trying to remember if general hitchhiker etiquette was to hold out a thumb or not. Pity she was wearing jeans otherwise she might have flashed a little leg like she’d seen in movies.

While inwardly arguing with herself, Caroline heard a loud crunch synonymous with tires on gravel.

The silver Lincoln was impressive looking but what she couldn’t get past was the person behind the wheel. 

Even wearing aviators, she could make out an enticing pair of crimson lips curved into a curious smile and untamed, dark blonde hair that curled over his ears teasingly. His black henley was open at the top, a few necklaces peeking out that were just begging to be pulled upon.

Looks like her Brad Pitt had arrived just in time. 

Caroline just hoped he wasn’t going to ask too many questions.

Klaus

Usually, when Klaus had to apprehend a skip it took a lot more than two hours but yet here she was standing on the roadside.

He had to open and close his eyes a few times to check they weren’t playing tricks on him. But here she was basically standing there waiting to be caught. His intel from Lucien was supposedly a reliable destination in Nashville but it looks like he wouldn’t need that anymore.

Klaus recognised her straight away given the picture his friend had sent through had been running through his mind ever since. One thing was for sure that her photo, albeit flawless, still didn’t do her justice.

Those fitted, dark jeans were showcasing a lithe pair of legs, her red and white striped tee highlighting her creamy skin and those golden waves were fanned out perfectly over her shoulders. And that was before he’d even studied her face of expressive, blue eyes with some kissable, pink lips.

Given Sex on Fire was blasting through his speakers, it seemed almost apt given the way his nether regions weren’t cooperating.

But Klaus was a professional and knew he had a job to do.

He still couldn’t believe he was doing this in the first place but Lucien had begged and pleaded. Lucien never did that. Ever.

2.5 hours earlier

“Even if I could help, you know Rebekah would murder me if I don’t...”

“Kol tells me the family reunion is in a week, you’ve got the time, mate.” Klaus balled up his fists remembering to kill his brother when he saw him. “

Who is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“This walk in the park? In and out, no trouble? Last time I checked that’s a little beneath my skill set, Castle.”

“Agreed but this case is special. I, uh, sort of know her father.” Klaus nearly swerved off the road given how unexpected that confession was.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Klaus, please?” He pleaded. “Let’s just say he’s well-known in the city not to mention extremely powerful and can’t risk this getting out publicly.”

“So, let me get this straight,” he growled, his frustration growing. “You want me to chase down some rich, daddy’s little girl who decided to ruffle his feathers by getting arrested?”

“Well…”

“Wow,” he groaned. “Rebekah’s demand is suddenly not so bad.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, Klaus,” he insisted. “And if you do this I’ll be in your debt. Any skip you want I'll get.” Klaus had to admit it was an enticing offer, especially given all of the revenge he could exact.

“Keep talking.”

“So, you’ll do it?”

“I want to know everything first,” he replied gruffly. “Who her father is and what the hell she did.”

When Lucien told her what Caroline Forbes had done he was surprised but another part of him was intrigued. Seeing her picture had done nothing to dampen his curiosity either.

Her father was a whole other story and Klaus was beginning to realise that she wasn’t just any other skip. She was a liability, an expose waiting to happen. No wonder he was hoping to keep it under wraps as long as possible.

Now, peering at her through his windshield, Klaus had to decide how he was going to handle this. Handle her.

Should he use the handcuffs or not? Should he identify himself from the outset or not? Was she a flight risk and more savvy than expected? Or was she just crying out for attention from daddy and would be compliant and come easily?

Klaus never had to question himself. He always worked on pure instinct and it had served him well in the past. Let's hope it did this time.

As he opened the car door and eased himself out from behind the wheel, Klaus knew was this certainly wasn’t going to be dull.

Soundtrack: Man Down (Rihanna) Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon)

#klaroline fanfiction #klaroline fanfic #thrill of the chase #misssophiachase #my writing #man down #hope you like

[watch-grok-brainrot]

hey!! i'm back again with another ask! (god please tell me if i'm annoying? i just want to send you as many asks as i can but if i get too annoying, pls tell me off) my questions today are, what are your top 3 songs from the cql ost and what tea do you not like? like, is there a tea you don't like? also, is there a tea you like in particular? what cdramas have you watched besides cql?? - ❄🐇

hey snowbunny! you’re not annoying! i really appreciate you being so engaged with the mdzsnetcc event! :D 

cql ost fav songs: the characters songs for jiang cheng, lan xichen, and wei wuxian. they’re all so pretty and so sad. bu wang kinda  annoys me with the epic orchestra thing in the middle and wuji almost makes the cut but it’s just not as depressing as the others. though wei wuxian’s character song does lose points for the duet part that has a female voice and not yibo singing along... alas. 

i don’t like lipton? lol. so most ctc blends i’m meh on... but i don’t add milk and sugar to my tea for the most part so i need something that works well by itself and most ctc teas are made for british style drinking. 

i like many teas in particular. particularly their aroma and texture. some are light and airy and sweet. some are heavy and grounding. some are earthy and warming and smooth. i love so many teas for so many reasons. i can’t even begin to explain. i think high elevation taiwanese oolongs with crisp sweet and floral notes are a style that i will always love and always hold dear to my heart. 

i used to be really into BPAL (black phoenix alchemy lab) because i like the idea of smells carrying memories for people. and i like the idea of being able to differentiate smells and remember how things blend together to form flavors and then, in extension, feelings. so i got really into bpal -- which is an indie perfume company-- and started collecting samples (imps). in all of that i started getting better at picking out certain smell objects (e.g. rose or orange or honey etc) and really loving how bpal smells different wet in bottle, wet on me, dry on me, and dry at the end of a day. 

and then i realized tea has a lot of those qualities. it tastes different piping hot and kinda hot and warm and cooled. it has layers and dimensions. when you gongfu brew you can almost parse out the layers of flavors and really experience isolated snapshots of the tea as a whole. i liken it to chromatography for the chemistry folk. and in some ways tea became the merging of my nerdy science self and smell obsessed self and my gluttonous self. so it was a good fit. also booze. but booze is less.. socially acceptable to drink 24/7. :P

wow. that got long. oops. 

anyway, cdramas. omg. uh... a lot. i’m chinese so i grew up watching stuff... like i’ve been watching cdramas for a LONG time. (note: i went on a long ramble and i’m kinda sorry so don’t feel obligated to read all of this... ) i watched the mainland china’s version of journey to the west (made in 1986 i think.. go them on video tapes borrowed from idk where in the early 90s... the one episode i wanted to watch the most didn’t work. i was devastated).  and then a lot of wuxia shows -- mostly jin yong stuff. i remember i was 8 or 9 and watched a few eps of condor heroes. my parents finished the show without me. i was pissed. and at some point i watched dream of red mansion and romance of three kingdoms. both classics made into cdramas. and then i remember when zhao wei was in princess pearl. and i also watched 情深深雨蒙蒙 with basically the same cast... and a lot of other wuxia shows that came out around that time..uh.. early 2000s. i remember watching some show with zhou xun in it too around that time... and trying to find more stuff with zhang ziyi. man... zhou xun, zhao wei, and zhang ziyi were and are still all so pretty! and then i watched liu yifei (of live action mulan infamy) back in 2003(?) when she was in a few jin yong novel based show roles. and then um... i kinda got annoyed with the constant remake of those stories so i stopped watching them. but i did enjoy 天龙八部 and 笑傲江湖. seriously, i would watch the crap out of a 笑傲江湖 starring xiao zhan... but the novels were written in the 60s/70s and rather not LGBT friendly so i’m also fine with them never getting remakes... and then there was the meteor garden craze. i watched that, part of teh sequel (which wasn’t very good) and a few shows the actors were in... i really liked the MARS manga and was sad that the taiwanese adaptation of it as a show was meh. and around 2013-2014ish i started watching random crap... uh... like my first time seeing luo yunxi (who plays the white cat master aka chu wanning in hao yi xing / the erha live action) was in 何以笙箫默. and i was so confused by how weirdly they styled the poor man. he did not look good. the stying really emphasized his facial features to make his face look unbalanced. and i binged a few other shows while trying to write my thesis. i don’t remember them all. and then there was NiF and i also watched the Disguiser and some other random stuff as part of that rabbit hole. i thought “when a snail falls in love” was really cute even if the story wasn’t really that good. idk. i now put cdramas on in the bkgd while making gifs. so i’ve “watched” eternal love, ashes of love (DO NOT RECOMMEND. but skip around for luo yunxi being pretty i guess), love o2o. i’m currently seriously watcihng Ever Night. it’s so freaking good and king’s avatar (also on netflix) is my gif making bkgd. i have a soft spot for how pretty yang yang is... yeah. knowing the language helps me get through shows. lol. 

do you watch other cdramas snowbunny?

#mdzsnetcc #i watched a lot of shows #i'm really good at binging things... #oooof #people should come bother me about these shows though #it'd be a fun journey down memory lane #snowbunny asked haoppo answered #Anonymous #LONG POST #and i do mean LONG #orz #one big midwest ope

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Desperate Gal Pals of White Crest || Morgan & Cece

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @thebickedwitchoftherest & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan and Cece hit a roadblock with their research on an exorcism, so they take a field trip.

CONTAINS: drug manipulation tw (magic poisoning), gun (not fired), 

“I know I literally can’t get tired, but if I see one more book handwave harm exorcisms away with ‘wooo dark magic’ and ‘oooh dangerous! Sacrifice!’ I am going keel over with exhaustion. You’ll have to call Regan for my autopsy and explain to my girlfriend that boredom and no helpful answers is the new hip cause of death.” Morgan flopped down the side of the couch, her head dangling over the edge. “Tell me you’ve got something to banish Puritain Carrie,” she groaned. “I need a win. Literally...any kind of win. A can of seltzer of a win.”

Cece was lying on her back on the ground, book in hand and avoiding reading it by listening to Morgan’s melodramatic self-eulogy. She at least knew how to spice up a story and make it more interesting. She made dying of boredom sound marginally interesting. The irony was not lost on Cece. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on me for the record. How am I supposed to talk at your funeral and make your death sound badass that way?” Cece eventually gave in, shutting the book and tossing it away from her in her own dramatic show of exacerbation. “Nothing. These books have lots about magic and yet a surprisingly lacking amount of ghosts. My coven really should have expanded their horizons a bit.” Cece stated, mostly to herself. She rolled over onto her stomach, finding Morgan’s eyes again and pushing herself up, “We need some new source material. There’s got to be somewhere around town with some decent exorcism knowledge, right?”

“You’ll have to make something up much cooler,” Morgan sighed. “Just don’t promise any of my fae friends to tell the truth about me and you’ll be good.” She looked over at the pile of books around them, new purchases on the diamond card Deirdre had gotten for her, and pulls from the Scribrary. She felt guilty about those the most, sneaking in and using Rio’s resources for something he was bound to hate. “We have to be looking in the wrong place. The wrong key-words, or the wrong sections in the library. You would think ‘most brutal harm exorcism’ would be a short dig, but…” She puffed air through her lips. “Apparently the powers that be think discretion is super ‘in.’ Tell me what you found. Let’s go over it again.”

“No worries there. I don’t like making promises to humans.” Cece laughed, thinking of any ideas she could to spice up Morgan’s imagined death and make it a bit more grandeur. She wondered how she could fit fireworks into the story. Maybe one of the daredevil car jumps through a flaming circle. No, this was all way too distracting when she was supposed to be focusing. She shook the thought away and reached for the notepad that she had used to take any notes that she found vaguely helpful. Emphasis on vague. “Nothing too useful. I found some old history on this former Scribe that studied exorcisms. John something. Sounded like a real bore. I got an autobiography by this Amanda Wallace chick who wrote about her haunted house and how she got rid of it. Not exactly sure how factual that one actually is. Basically, I have nothing but crap. You sure we can’t just call the ghostbusters in for this one?”

Morgan’s brow furrowed at the name Wallace. “Is that name from a comic book movie? It sounds familiar…” She turned herself right side up and crawled to Cece to read over her shoulder. She moved so fast, her focus was groggy, but the illustration on the page she was looking at definitely seemed familiar. “No, wait, that’s...fuck, that was in something I read. Not here but…” Morgan fumbled for her laptop and started digging through her browsing history. She looked sheepishly over at Cece, glad that she couldn’t blush. “...Don’t judge me, okay?” She mumbled. Buried under searches for pirated theory articles, halloween themed lingerie, and Buzzfeed quizzes for Which Character from Grey’s Anatomy Are You, was several rows of local blogs, niche social media groups, old news reports, and PDF access links. Morgan scrolled past them all to get to an access link to an article from the library. There was the same picture, Amanda Wallace and a few others. The caption read, Cromwell was mentored in his early years by the local Ghost Watchers Society. Pictured, left to right… The article was about a man named Ernie Cromwell. He was arrested, several times, for vandalism, arson, and public disturbance. He claimed he needed to in order to make the ghosts go away. He also escalated to a much more deadly life of crime after this, around  the period Roy ought to have been town. That’s why she’d been looking in the first place. “Hey, Cece?” She asked. “You wouldn’t happen to know if any of these people are alive, do you?”

“I hope you know that prefacing with that only makes me want to judge you that much more.” Cece perked up immediately, if she wasn’t interested in studying Morgan’s open tabs before, she was definitely interested now. Fortunately, it was so much better than what Cece had predicted. “Oh my god. This might be more embarrassing than if you just had like straight up porn in your search history. Which for the record, I’m in full support of.” Cece added in, finger gunning and winking in Morgan’s direction. “Please tell me you’re an Izzie too.” Cece tried focusing again once Morgan asked her a question about recognizing anyone. She scanned the page but shrugged after a long moment, “I wish I could be more useful. But most of my magic knowledge was before I got to town. I’ve been about as low key as I can manage since I’ve been to town.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “I appreciate the sex positivity, and so does my girlfriend. And, you know, hopefully she appreciates the spider web themed set I ended up buying. And I’ve taken way too many and no matter what I do, I’m solid 50% Izzie or Meredith. My dark and twisty ways defy simple categories.” She wiggled her brow, mouth curling into a grin, and turned back to the picture. “I swear I’ve seen these faces somewhere. And the names. You don’t remember any from the paper or…” Morgan took out her phone, scrolling furiously. “Oh. Mother of Earth! Oh, this is so weird!” She showed Cece an event page on the UMWC social media page. Two people stood next to a handmade poster advertising GhostWatch Parties. Ostensibly, it was a horror film club. But the names of the two faculty shown were Amanda Wallace and Leigh Cromwell. There was no accounting for coincidence, but it seemed pretty likely that there was a connection to Ernie. “They’re meeting tonight. We have to go, right? Scope things out, set up a time to talk better and see what they can offer, or ask if they have any exorcist finding tips! We’re going, right?”

“Anything for you, as usual.” Cece might not be Deirdre’s biggest fan, but she still wished for a killer sex life for the two. “You know? I can see it, honestly. I support it. Among the characters you could get, I think those are two of the better ones.” Morgan seemed sure that the faces would be familiar, so Cece did her best to study them again, but just ended up shrugging. “You think I read the paper?” She asked the woman curiously. Not a moment later and Morgan was poking the screen and then changing pages to find a social media page. From the college. Cece gasped overdramatically, “Right under your nose this whole time? Also, do you think this horror movie club accepts members that don’t go to the college? Actually never mind that’s not important right now.” Cece jumped up and found her bag, moving towards the coat closet to slip her jacket on. “Well obviously we have to go. What other choice do we have? Plus I need to find out if this club is even worth my time. Which is obviously like a side objective. Priority is the ghost thing for sure. Let’s go!”

The GhostWatchers of White Crest met at Professor Wallace’s ivy covered town house near campus. The gathering was small; only three cars littered the street beyond the driveway. Morgan parked them at the end of the street, positioned to make a quick and easy getaway. The bue-white light of a television illuminated one of the back rooms, bright enough to illuminate parts of the yard as Morgan approached. She knocked on the door gently, but found it already open. Inside was exactly what you would expect from a liberal arts professor. Stacks of papers, catalogues for bamboo kitchenware, and books bursting with post-it’s in every room. Morgan wrinkled her nose at the normalcy of it all. At least she kept a few decorative skull paperweights in the great room and kept the foyer clean.

“How do you think we should play this?” She asked in a whisper, lingering in the front hall, one eye on the back den where the movie, The Innocents, was still going on. “Is it rude if we snoop around first? Should we split up?” Somewhere, she thought, there had to be a private library.

“Wow this place is boring.” Cece yawned as the two slid in through the open door and studied the office that they found themselves in. “You’d think that someone obsessed with exorcisms might have a bit more personality.” She pushed aside a self help book lying on the desk and took a glance at her desk calendar, “She has scheduled times for lunch.” As if that was the most boring thing on the planet.

Either this woman was the worst occultist she had ever seen, or all of her more interesting things were hidden away somewhere. “It’s totally rude, but technically speaking she’s the one that left the door open. She should be more careful about her belongings. So let’s snoop.” Cece wasted no time moving to dig through her other belongings. Given how nonchalant the rest of the room was, Cece wasn’t convinced they were going to find anything too bizarre or helpful just sitting out in the open.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? They hired me because the fun department was empty,” Morgan teased. She watched her feet carefully as she tiptoed onto the plush carpet with her muddy leather oxfords. She hadn’t planned on playing hide and seek in some dusty mini-mansion when she’d left the house, so she was left cringing at every squeak the leather made on the floor and hoping against hope that everyone in the den was too engrossed in the movie to notice.

As luck would have it, the library was one room off from the den. Morgan pointed at it, giving Cece a look of, I don’t know if I got this. One foot, then the other. Could Cece get in there first.

In the den, someone yawned and got up, murmuring about refills. Morgan dropped to the floor, panic in her eyes. Was this the worst idea ever?

The library had to have something useful. If it was just filled with normal literature and more self help books, Cece was going to lose her mind. At least Morgan seemed pretty into the whole espionage thing, tiptoeing around the place and slipping through the door into the library as silently as a mouse. That swiftness and suave attitude seemed to dissipate when movement could be heard from farther in, someone getting up to get a refill. Morgan dropped immediately and Cece remained in the doorway, unsure what the best thing to do in this scenario was. Would the person asking even come this way? Cece crept back a few steps, peaking around to get just a moment’s glance of someone walking towards them. They would definitely see Morgan if something wasn’t done. Would these people be more interested in calling the cops or offing anyone in their way? Cece couldn’t be sure enough, so she figured her only option was to be a distraction of some sort. Back in the office, Cece found a paper weight on the desk and pushed it aside, sliding it off the desk with a loud crack against the floor. That ought to do some distracting.

Morgan heard the paperweight fall before she realized what Cece was doing. Her head whipped around, question marks sprouting all over her face. But whoever was heading her way turned the other direction to see the commotion, and Morgan was able to take her chance. Hopefully Cece wouldn’t be so far behind.

The library was the same as the rest of the house, expected to the point of comical. There were shelves of matching leatherbound British novels, another set of American ones, a whole row of paperbacks and theory that were almost certainly just for posturing, and… who lived like this? Who actually worked here? This was a magazine-style library. Which meant-- “Fuck.” Morgan covered her mouth and flinched. Too loud. Right.

She started peeking behind books, looking for hidden volumes, then the large desk centered at the back of the room. No one really had secret compartment doors, at least not here, the house was too small but-- Morgan kicked back the rug that covered the floor. Cut into the pale hardwood was a heavy door, older and darker, with a black handle that looked to be iron. She peeked her head out, searching for Cece to get her over here, quickly, before anyone realized how reckless they were being in a stranger’s house.

The door was well-oiled and rose silently at Morgan’s tug, and inside-- “Yes!” Beams of light from the other room flashed on. The shadows in the library vanished. It was time to hurry.

Cece ducked behind the desk to avoid whoever was coming towards her. She had successfully distracted the man from discovering Morgan but hadn’t quite thought through the fact that the man would now be coming towards the source of the noise that Cece had caused. Cece began rifling through her purse quickly, pulling a bin of powder free and cupping some into the palm of her hand. Once the footsteps finally became close enough, Cece popped up from behind the counter. “Hi there.”

The man jumped before settling on a confused expression, “Who are you?” He asked, more curious than angry. Probably unsure if Cece was supposed to be there in the first place. “Uh-” Cece began, trying for a long moment to think of an excuse for too long before finally giving up, “I can’t think of a good excuse” She shrugged before pulling her hand up and opening her palm, blowing and sending the powder directly into his face. He stumbled backwards and Cece jumped forward, grabbing onto his shirt and helping direct his fall into the chair by the desk. She patted him softly. Better to get some rest right there.

She slipped across the floor until she found Morgan and then crawled over to her, “For the record I didn’t sign up for this” Cece whispered at her, eyeing the new door that she had discovered. Before hearing more voices. “Welp, after you!”

Morgan’s muscles were already clenched with confusion and unspoken questions. “Sign up for what?” She hissed. “You said we should snoop! Nothing bad has happened, right? And look at all the spooky books down there!” She shined the flashlight on her phone down the ladder, showing tables full of messy, half open books, arcane circles etched on leather, and iron chimes dangling from the ceiling. “Oh, yes, this is the jackpot.”

“Is it now?” A voice called behind them.

Morgan barely suppressed a squeal as Amanda Wallace filled in the doorway. Her straw-white hair seemed to puff up out of sheer rage. “I don’t remember receiving your RSVP, Professor Beck,” she said stiffly. “May I ask what you are doing in my library, opening my trap door?” A smaller, slightly younger head popped up over Amanda’s shoulder and murmured that she’d see the students out. Leigh Cromwell, probably. Guess they weren’t too late for the party after all.

“Hey, Amanda--!” Morgan drew out the words longer, as if a few more syllables in Amanda would help smooth things over, or give her a better idea about what to do next.

“Don’t ‘hey’ me,” Amanda snapped, bristling with a bitter frown. Downstairs, now.” She pointed into the dimly lit trapdoor room, and her look did not suggest that she was entertaining counterarguments at the moment.

“Ummm” Cece considered what may or may not be considered to be bad in Morgan’s mind. And depending on that, whether or not she wanted to share that with Morgan. Putting a man to sleep was hardly that bad, right? She didn’t hurt the man. He would wake up and at worst his memory would be a bit foggy and maybe have some nausea. Nothing that would last more than a week. “Define bad.”

Morgan was right, this was a jackpot. The space was different from the rest of the house. It didn’t look like the end result of an HGTV makeover, for starters. It wasn’t basic or expected. This room was hidden away and it was used. This woman that the two were spying on definitely used this room.

Speaking of the woman they were spying on. Apparently they had been discovered. Cece awkwardly watched  the exchange. Apparently the two were super close work colleagues. “If there was no RSVP, does that mean she wasn’t supposed to bring a plus one?” Cece grinned slightly, completely ignored by the woman and instead following behind Morgan as the two were led away from the space they had just found.

Morgan backed down into the room, feeling, all of a sudden, that she should have told more people where she was going. Of course, she’d told Deirdre they had a lead, but if she were to drop a pin right now, would Deirdre know what to do with it? Remmy might, but the part where she had to explain what she was doing here might not lead to the best of conversations. But, fortunately, there weren’t any high tech keypads standing in their way of getting out. Just one seriously perturbed old woman.

Morgan made her way over to where the stacks of books were the largest and the shelves were packed to bursting. She looked for sigils, icons, anything recognizable. No one ever labeled ‘find harm here,’ but there were unavoidable markers if you knew how to look for them.

“I should report you to the police, for trespassing,” Amanda snapped. “And I could do much worse. But I would like to know first, Professor Beck, what you are doing in my trapdoor of all things. Do you have no respect for others?”

“On the contrary--” Morgan said carefully, flashing Cece big ‘what do we do?’ eyes, “I have the utmost respect for you and your interests.” She backed away until she could back no further. “The interests you keep a secret, especially. I think I might have something that’s of interest to your attention. A ghost something that is, let’s say, too good for mercy.” She reached out for one of the tomes, a leatherbound journal, by the look of it. Not as old as it was pretending to be, and bursting with pasted-in clips and notes.

“Not so fast.” She took out a little pearl handled pistol, gold and shiny, like something out of Agatha Christie. She cocked the safety with a slow, deliberate click. “That’s sensitive material, Professor. Access has to be earned. Tell me the truth, do what I say, and maybe we’ll see about it.”

The two hadn’t found themselves in an ideal situation, Cece was willing to admit that much. The woman that had discovered them hardly seemed especially dangerous. She was a college professor, taller than Cece was but that was hardly an impressive feat. The only thing she looked capable of seriously harming was a student’s grade point average. Still, the woman had enough to hide that she kept it hidden beneath the library, and she really didn’t like the intrusion by her colleague.

Morgan attempted to sweet talk her way out of it. Honestly, Morgan came across as such a pleasant person that Cece probably would have laughed it off if she had found the woman trespassing in her own home. Then again, maybe that didn’t count when Morgan had already previously lived with her. When Morgan reached for a book, hopefully one that Morgan deemed important, Amanda acted with an elevated decree of hostility. Looked like a bingo to Cece. The woman pulled out a small handgun, pointing it at Morgan but still eyeing Cece every now and again. She didn’t show much interest in Cece at all, which may have been more a mistake than anything else. “Your terms and conditions don’t sound all that appealing.” Cece called to her, straightening her back to give herself the appearance of being taller. She wasn’t sure that it worked. “Don’t get me wrong. You have the upper hand here. We’re totally up to no good. But don’t you have a door number three option?”

The woman finally looked Cece over. It had probably been the first time that she had offered her anymore than a passing glance, “I don’t even know who you are. This doesn’t concern you in the slightest.” She turned away from Cece again, but irritation seemed evident. Cece slowly dug into her purse again. She knew she had something else useful in there it was just a matter of rifling around until she found out. Once she did, she popped the lid off and dipped her fingers into it. “I just wanted to give you the option of rethinking your offer. Morgan and I have places to be. Let us go now and we can all enjoy the rest of our nights in peace.”

This time the woman finally turned the gun away from Morgan and towards Cece, at the same time that Cece rose up her hand and grabbed onto the woman’s wrist. “Have you ever heard of curare?” Cece asked the woman, a hint of curiosity in her voice. Though nothing apparent was happening, the woman hadn’t yet pulled the trigger and instead looked silently at Cece. “Some hunting tribes use it to paralyze prey. Normally, it doesn’t have a lot of effect on humans if ingested orally or through the skin.” By the woman’s expression, it was clear the effects had started to take effect now, “But with a bit of alchemy, it can be altered. All of a sudden, it just takes a tiny bit rubbed against the skin to get into the blood system. As Amanda began to fall back, Cece grabbed onto the gun, letting it slip from the woman’s hands as she crashed against the ground. “You should be able to talk still, it might just be a little mumbled. So try to speak up.”

Cece set the gun against the shelf and crossed her arms, “You got any questions for her?” she asked Morgan. Cece wasn’t sure this counted as life or death exactly, but the gun hadn’t been entirely promising. At this rate, Cece knew that she’d have to do something at the end to make sure that Amanda didn’t hold an unfriendly grudge against the two of them. Cece had gone this long, but now in the span of just a few weeks she would be whipping out the memory spell twice. Yikes. “Spare no details, something tells me that Amanda’s memory of the night might end up a bit fuzzy anyways.”

Morgan was scurrying for Cece and wishing zombies had super speed when it happened. She couldn’t let Cece get hurt and didn’t Cece know she was basically bullet-proof? Not one more friend, not one more life she cared about was going down because of-- and then Amanda’s face was going slack and she was sinking to the floor, and Cece was giving a pretty impressive speech of her own. “Holy shit,” Morgan whispered, suddenly feeling a little woozy with shock. Then, as it settled, “You...are so amazing, Cece!” She ran over and gave her a hug, ecstatic with relief. “Okay, so, one of your proteges was arrested for what sounded like some serious supernatural damage, and he said he had to get the ghosts. So I’m thinking you know a lot about exorcisms, maybe harm exorcisms, specifically?”

Amanda made some unintelligible noises that sounded aggravated enough to mean ‘yes’ to Morgan.

“Great! So, where would I find those? Is it here? Or--here? Or--” At the sound more throaty, aggravated groaning, Morgan knew she was right on the money. She hauled out everything from the self she could carry and started looking. “Woah, Nelly, some of these pages are torn from other volumes.” Morgan peered over the desk at Amanda on the floor. “Have you been defacing historical archives? That’s not very polite, you know. I wonder what would happen if I reported some of these original books as damaged and gave your name? That might be a bummer for research funding and future archive access, right?” Satisfied with her fun, she started flipping through, grateful that even though Amanda was a thief, she was at least an organized one. There was a handy table of contents and index between each hodge podge volume, and by some topics there was a reference number that seemed to correspond to a file, probably in the cabinet at the other end of the room.

Amanda made another slurry attempt at speech.

Morgan’s face crinkled. “French Revolution? Did you hear French Revolution?” She gave Cece a look to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood and started checking dates throughout her haul. Sure enough, there was a hefty volume with some emphasis on the 18th century and quite a few notes in French and English as she started flipping through. “Cece, come look at this,” she said. “I think this… I think I found something! What do these ingredients look like to you?”

If Cece had any worries that Morgan might think she had taken things too far, those fears were immediately quelled when Morgan launched into a hug. Cece hugged back, keeping her finger away from any of Morgan’s skin, “I don’t think this would work on zombies, but better not take the chance.” Considering the rest of the abilities that Morgan had now that she was undead, Cece wasn’t convinced it would have paralyzed her the way it had Amanda. If it did, the fast healing probably would have fixed her pretty quickly. But better to avoid the situation regardless. “But that was nothing. Didn’t want her messing up one of our pretty faces.”

Morgan was far better at searching and researching than Cece was. The extent of Cece’s reading had gone into her plans to get away from the coven. Since then, the books she had stolen and brought with her mostly stayed hidden in the floorboards of her closet. Something for a rainy day, if it ever came. For the most part, Cece scanned the shelves as Morgan actually talked to the woman and searched for something that was useful to her.

Cece hadn’t heard French Revolution at first, but hearing Morgan question it made Cece laugh and clap for Morgan’s better hearing skills, “You know I thought I heard bitch contusion but that makes way more sense.” Morgan flipped through a volume and called Cece over to look at something, but the symbols on the page weren’t like anything Cece had worked with before. “Yikes.” Cece started, trying to look for smaller details and anything that did look familiar, “I can pick out a few things. I see some containment symbols. Probably used to keep something trapped. But nothing that I’ve worked with before.”

“Me either,” Morgan admitted, “But that--” she pointed to the word, “Is definitely French for spirit, and some of these ingredients look like they’re obeying sympathetic principles for inflicting pain. I’m gonna need a dictionary or three to figure some of this out, and you know, an expert, but you saw the containment sigil too, right!” She snapped the book shut and held it close to her chest, her eyes shining with relief. “I think this is it, Cece. I think this is--” Morgan was lost for words and only smiled, glowing with gratitude for her friend. “This is the key to everything I’ve been looking for.”

“Well I know a guy if you need a French interpreter.” Cece stated nonchalantly, “Can’t promise he won’t be grumpy about it though.” Cece couldn’t keep an easy grasp on who in town knew who, but it seemed like a safe bet that Morgan and Kaden were acquainted. “Fuck yeah! Former roomies strike again!” Cece called out triumphantly, raising her hand for a high five. Once the two were done celebrating, Cece remembered that they had company. Cece spun around to their host for the night and clapped her hands together, “Amanda. You’ve just been so welcoming tonight, truly. We had a great time. We’re going to wrap up and then I promise it’ll be like we were never even here.” Cece scooted towards her and knelt down towards the woman. “Are we done here Morgan?”

Morgan joined Cece beside her colleague, still light on her feet with victory and beaming with pride in her friend. “We do make pretty good partners in crime if I say so myself,” she said. “And, you know, aside from, hmm---” She reached back over to the desk and took a couple more books. “These. Just for good measure. And fun. Trespassing is rude, Professor Wallace, but pulling guns on your colleagues is far worse.” She nodded at Cece to work her magic. They’d gotten what they came for and then some.

“This probably won’t hurt,” Cece began, pressing her fingers against Amanda’s temple, “Or if it does you won’t remember it. Which is basically the same thing.” Amanda’s eyes were frantic at first, darting back and forth almost definitely trying to will her body to move. But soon they settled, floating shut as Cece dove into her memories to pluck them free. She figured the last half hour or so would do the trick. The woman would be left with a lot of blurry portions on the night, undoubtedly waking up in this room to wonder how she had gotten here. But those were hardly Cece’s concerns. She made sure to go back far enough to when Amanda started suspecting someone was here. Once Cece was done, she left Amanda on the floor and stood up, “She should be waking up soon. She should be able to move shortly after. If you have what we need, we should get out of here.” Cece suggested, heading towards the exit of the room before snapping and swinging back towards her, “Actually, now is probably the best time to mention that there may be another person that conveniently fell asleep in the office. We may want to stop by on our way out and wipe him too. Just to be safe.”

Morgan stopped halfway on the stairs they came down in just to gape at Cece in awe. “Remind me to never underestimate you for the rest of your days. And maybe bring you up on my list of people to call next time I need help with the forces of darkness. You’re a dangerous lady, Cece Bishop…” She gave Cece a chivalrous hand out of the cellar, grinning in the evening light. “But, then again, so am I sometimes.”

#wr cece #wr chatzy #wr cece chatzy #desperate gal pals of white crest #drug manipulation tw #wickedswriting