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a34trgv2 · 3 years

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Why It Worked: The Princess and The Frog

Introduction: The Princess and The Frog is an animated musical fantasy romantic comedy film. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the film stars Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jim Cummings, Jennifer Lewis, Jennifer Cody, John Goodman, Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard. The film was released on December 11, 2009 and recieved very positive reviews from critics and audiences (85% of 200 reviews agregated by Rotten Tomatoes gave an average rating of 7.4/10). The film grossed $269 million on a budget of $105 million. For the past decade, I've grown to love this movie more and more with each passing year. Having rewatched it recently, I now firmly believe this is one of Disney's best films. In this post, I'd like to go into detail as to why.

The Plot: Based on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Frog Prince, mixed with the material in The Frog Princess by E.D. Maker, this film tells the story of Tiana, a waitress trying to earn enough money to start her own restaurtant. She encounters a talking frog, who's actually Prince Naveen turned into a frog by Dr. Facilier. He agrees to help Tiana get her her restaurant if she helps him turn back into a prince by recreating the classic tale of The Frog Prince. This backfires and now they're both frogs hopping around the buyou with their gator friend, Louis and a cajun firefly named Ray, to find a way to reverse the spell they were put under. The film is really a subversion of classic fairy tale tropes that makes the film feel fresh and new. The goal for our leading lady is not to fall in love with a prince but to make her childhood dream come true. What also makes this film standout is how magical they make New Orleans, paying tributes to jazz music and cajun cuisine. I also found the humor to be very funny, with many of the jokes getting a great laugh out of me. One of the funniest scenes in the film is when Tiana and Naveen outwit a trio of frog hunters. The slapstick and perfect timing had me in stitches. What really makes the story so engaging is the animation. It's too bad Disney hasn't used 2D animation in their recent films (not to say they don't look amazing in 3D) because the animation in the Princess and The Frog is amazing. The character movements feel so smooth and fluid and they're designs are unique and well defined. It should also be noted that some 3D was used for background elements yet are coated with a 2D paint so well you never would've noticed.

Cast and Characters: The cast of this movie did outstanding jobs voicing these characters, who are all well developed and very likable. Starting with our leading lady, Tiana is a smart hardworking woman that's determined to start up her restaurant. She's also sassy, funny and a great cook. Anika Noni Rose was perfect as Tiana as gives the character a very determined and no-nonsense tone in her voice. Prince Naveen starts off as an arrogant playboy that only wants to live a carefree life. However, the more time he spends with Tiana, the more he realizes that not everything is just going to be handed to him. This is especially true during the scene when he and Tiana are making gumbo and he comes to realize he's so used to having everything be done for him that he doesn't even know how to take care of himself. Bruno Campos gave a very stellar performance as Naveen, giving him such charm and funny lines while also selling the more personal aspects of his character. Louis the gator is such a fun comic relief that plays a mean trumpet. He easily brings out some of the best laughs and Michael-Leon Wooley gave a very memorable performance as the character. Ray the cajun firefly just might be one of Jim Cummings' best vocal performances, up there with Darkwing Duck, Pete, and (of course) Winnie The Pooh and Tigger. Ray might appear to have a screw or too loose, but he's actually a really smart, brave and reliable ally who's more than willing to help his friends. His love for Evangeline (which is actually the North Star) feels very genuine even if it might come across as odd at first. Then there's the film's made baddie, Dr. Facilier (often referred to as The Shadow Man). Dr. Facilier is every bit as charming as he is sinister. He's manipulative, he's smart, he's charsmatic and he loves what he does. Keith David was excellent in the role, giving him a deep yet unsettling tone in his voice.

Super Supporting Players: This film has one of the strongest supporting cast I have ever seen. Each of the supporting and even minor characters leave a lasting impression and make the film feel lived in. Lawrence, Naveen's butler, acts as the secondary antagonist of the film, being the catalyst of Naveen's desire for a carefree lifestyle. He sides with the Shadow Man and poses as Naveen while the prince is a frog in order to marry Charlotte La Bouff. Speaking of Charlotte, is very much nothing like the standard spoiled brat. Rather than be snobbish, selfish and rude, Lottie is a true friend to Tiana and is willing to help her get her restaurant. Believe me folks, after having to deal with the likes of Gem Stone, Princess Morbucks, Sincerity (What About Mimi), and Tricia Holmes (6teen), Charlotte is a breath of fresh air. Her father, Eli (aka Big Daddy) is also a very kind and caring figure who, despite spoiling his daughter, clearly raised her well as she gets her generosity from him. Mama Odie is a wise 197 year old blind lady that not only helps our heroes on their journey, but helps them understand the difference between what they want vs what they need. This is echoed by Eudora (Tiana's Mom) earlier in the film, who even in the limited amount of screen time she had exerts such a motherly personality and has authentic chemistry with her daughter. Then there's James (Tiana's Dad), the main driving force behind Tiana's desire to open her restaurant. Despite succumbing to the frequently used "dead parent" trope, every second he's on screen is imperative to the story. He's a kind hard working man who dreamed of opening his own restaurtant with his daughter Tiana. When she tells her Dad about the wishing star, he gives her great advice: "that little star can only take you part of the way. You got to help it along with some hard work of your own and then you can do anything you set your mind to." What truly makes this supporting cast come alive are the stupendous voice work from the actors who portrayed them. Jennifer Cody was fantastic as Lottie, making her sound so energetic and lively. John Goodman is always a treat to hear and he brings such a humble fatherly presence to Eli. Jennifer Lewis perfectly captures the sass and erratic nature of Mama Odie and is an amazing singer. Peter Bartlett right captured the bumbling mannerisms of Lawrence and when he's disguised as Naveen he exerts more confidence in his voice. Oprah Winfrey, who was also a consultant for the film, played Eudora beautifully as a kind and caring mother and they couldn't have picked a better actor than Terence Howard for the role of James.

Songs and Music: Randy Newman is a musical genius! Every single song in this film is written wonderfully with an awesome beat, wonderful lyrics and the amazing vocal talents of the stars. Starting with the opening track after the lovely melody prologue, Down in New Orleans perfectly introduces the audience to this city and what it's like to live here. The late Dr. John brought such authenticity to the song being a New Orleans native and he had great singing chops. Almost There, Tiana's number, is not so much an I want song, but more like "I'm so close I can almost taste it." Anika Noni Rose has great singing talents and carried that long final note like a champ. The villain song, Friends From The Other Side is (in my opinion) one of the best Disney villain songs. It perfectly captures the charismatic and manipulative nature if Dr. Facilier and Keith David's baritone singing makes this all the more memorable. When We're Human is an upbeat song that showcases the excellent singing talents of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos and Michael-Leon Wooley as they sing about what they'll do when they're human. It also makes great use of the trumpet, the go-to instrument for jazz. Ray is given the distinct honor of singing 2 songs, which are polar opposites yet are both wonderfully well crafted musical numbers. The first is Gonna Take You There, which is a classic cajun song in with Ray sings while he and his firefly family take our heroes to Mama Odie's. It's bounce, it's fun, it's makes great use of the accordion, it's just a great song to listen to. The second is Ma Belle Evangeline, a slow yet beautiful love ballad Ray sings for Evangeline. Even though Ray is singing to a star, it feels very genuine with his mix of French compliments and Louis' slow trumpet playing. Than there's the last musical number before the reprise of the opening track, Dig A Little Deeper. This is my personal favorite song in the film, and that's saying something because they're all great. Dig A Little Deeper incorporates a choir of roseate spoonbills to make it look like a church service on Sunday. It also has a great message behind it about finding what you need versus trying to get what you want. Also, Anika Noni Rose coming in with that extra verse was the perfect cherry on top. In addition to these spectacular musical numbers, Randy Newman also made a very memorable score incorporating strings and strong brass for intense scenes and some soft, subtle tunes for the quiet moments. Where the score truly shines is during Ray's death and funeral. From the sad reprise of Ma Belle Evangeline all the way up to the music slowy but surely picking up as Ray essentially becomes the brightness star in the sky next to Evangeline, this scene best showcases what a great score this film has. The song that plays during the credits, Never Knew I Needed by Ne-Yo, was also the picture bookend to the film, capturing the film's central message in a wonderfully crafted pop ballad with a beautiful piano tune.

Where It Falters: 👆. No, seriously this film is still a 10/10 in my book, but I personally would've amended this response from Lottie to "Travis, when I said later, I really meant not ever." Still shoots the guy down but without making her speak for all women. This concludes my meaningless nitpick.

Conclusion: The Princess and The Frog is without a doubt one of Disney's best films and Tiana is my personal favorite Disney Princess. The animation is spectacular, the characters are great, the songs are all wonderful, the voice acting is superb and it delivers a great message of finding what you need versus trying to get what you want. If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend giving this film a watch on Disney+ if you have it. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you soon ;)

This addition of Why It Worked is dedicated in memory of my grandmother, Margaret "Peggy" Simpson. I'll see you in Heaven Grandma.

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wallwriterstuff · 3 years

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Hi! Am I allowed to request some Castor headcanons?? Like, anything about him, really. He's much too adorable and I NEED MORE. 😂😶🙈 We stan an irritable, foul-mouthed racoon in this household. 👍🏻💙

(Also, Castor totally reminds me of Rocket, hence the gif 😂)

Oh ABSOLUTELY you can! I am so glad someone else loves him to, Castor is my baby and I adore him so, so much. I’ll be putting them under the cut as they may be a wee bit long....

Warnings: some swearing and Castor being the general, snarky, snobbish racoon we all know and love

Let’s be clear, Castor was not always a racoon

Castor is actually the essence inside the racoon that took over its body

The primordial forces spoken of that created the universe? Castor is their offspring, a fraction of their power siphoned off an brought to life in the animals that roamed the Earth, allowed to grow and develop as it pleased in Mother Natures nursery before being sent to guide the witches

He is therefore very, very old, almost as old as time itself

Y/N is not his first witch, he has been the integral part of precisely several witches lives. Witches live much longer than humans but they are not immortal, evne if they live for several thousand years they will eventually die, and Castor learned early on it was better to not get attached to his charges

His cynicism and snark is a product of his age. Witches study their magic for so long, they don’t get their first familiars until their studies are officially complete, and this can be anywhere between 250 - 300 years depending on the topic and depth of study, but this is in witch terms rather youthful and youth...is impetuous, stubborn, impatient. Familiars are sent to temper those things but Castor is very old and he just doesn’t have the patience to deal with all that

Before he met Y/N his charge was a witch named Charity Lobelle. She resented his attitude with her and appealed to the High Council to have their bond revoked. Castor was both furious and embarrased - no witch had ever rejected him before

There was a lot of paperwork that day and a whole training course he had to go through before he was allowed to be a familiar again which he did NOT APPRECIATE

He was not the most amenable familiar when he was first sent to Y/N. he was incredibly cold, barely spoke to her unless it was out of necessity, and he didn’t let her touch him either

It wasn’t a potions accident nearly killed the poor girl that he got his head out of his ass - she hadn’t really been sure how to brew it but was too stubborn to ask her familiar for help when he clearly didn’t want to

The more he worked with her the more impossible it became for him to keep his heart out of it. Y/N was quite clearly a trouble magnet and needed his guidance more than any other witch he’d been sent to to date

It took all his patience (and tea making skills) but he slowly managed to ingratiate himself to her. They haven’t been separated since and if castor gets his way, they will not be separated ever again

Castor thinks very highly of himself with very good reason. With millions of years of age comes millions of years of experience. He is good at what he does and he knows it so he has very little patience with anyone telling him he is wrong

Growing up as he did was tutored in every kind of magic, even the forbidden ones. Familiars have studied more in-depth than witches ever could and Castor has gotten rather arrogant because of it

It’s very hard to be taken seriously however when your a racoon that doesn’t even reach knee height, so he cultivated a dinosaur size attitude to make up for it

Confident as he is, even Castor feels the weight of his responbilities from time to time. He is guiding a young witch in protecting the balance of nature after all, if they get that wrong large scale clean up has to happen, more paperwork and the familiar...well it doesn’t end well for them

When it’s all too much for him he likes to hide away for a little while in his nest, just curl up and burrow into the blankets for some comfort. He can be a regular racoon there for a while and doesn’t have to worry about the world falling to shit while he’s gone...well...maybe he does but that’s only if Y/N ruins it all

Despite his origins as a literal force that created the universe, he is still in a racoons body. He likes to nest in cosy spaces but can also be incredibly active and mischievous! Good for Y/N that she owns the garden she does so he can climb the trees and scurry about to his hearts content. She learned early on to leave treats hidden about the garden for him to find and puzzle out

Castor will eat anything and Y/N constantly has to sit him down and talk about his food consumption, if only to save her budget so she isn’t spending too much on food

Castor was never going to think anyone was good enough for Y/N, lets be real, but Demetri...well he is further down the list than most given that this guy might actually kill his witch on accident

He has a strong sense of right and wrong and being so old has left him a bit stuck in his ways. It’s not really until he sees how miserable Y/N is without the vampire that he somewhat comes to accept Demetri is a necessity in her life

Will he ever actually like him? Who knows

Probably not

He saw the very first vampires and werewolves, feral beasts that had to be destroyed and remade into the beings we know today, so he is very very wary about letting one near his charge

Fun fact! Castor has a twin brother! Pollox is a golden retriever, but the two haven’t spoken in centuries since Castor was rejected by his last charge - Pollox sees it as a stain on their family honour

Overall, Castor is the most irritating, arrogant but loyal familiar, and despite his infuriating habits (such as playing music too loud while he’s in the bathtub) he very quickly becomes the best friends of every charge he has ever had - not that his emotionally constipated ass would ever acknowledge just how much he cares for them

You do not mess with this familiar or his charge, not if you don’t want to suffer

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #demetri volturi #x witch reader #demetri volturi x witch!reader #castor the racoon #a little magic series

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nashibirne · 4 years

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First of all. A big thank you to everyone who liked or reblogged my little story/drabble I posted yesterday. It's good to know that there are people who like what I'm writing.

So here is another piece. Still untitled. Suggestions are appreciated! It's another part of the bigger story in my head. Regarding the timeline...I think this happens a few days before yesterday's chapter. Confusing much? Let's see.

Untitled 2.1 / Against all odds

Part 1

Part 2.2

Henry Cavill x mc / ofc

Summary: Walking the dogs and confusion...again

Warnings: none

Unbeta'ed!

******

"Oh, sure. Poor little Henry. You really are to be pitied"

Her voiced dripped with sarcasm.

"I'm serious" he replied, stopping in his tracks.

"Of course." She rolled her eyes but the smile playing on her lips gave away that she was rather amused than annoyed. Sitting down on the nearby bench she eyed him pointedly from bottom to top. "A man as attractive as you had problems finding a woman." she stated. "That's ridiculous"

"Attractive?" he said raising his eyebrows in surprise as he sat down besides her.

"Oh heavens, please don't fish, Cavill. You know exactly how handsome you are."

"You're right. I think my looks are quite okay". His smile, innocent and playful at the same time, almost killed her.

"But up to now I haven't been aware that you find me attractive". He emphasized the personal pronoun by patting her knee a few times.

"Of course I do." she admitted. "Is there even one single person in the world who wouldn't agree you're good looking?"

"I just considered I might not be your type."

"I don't have a type."

She avoided Henry's gaze pretending to watch the dogs who played on the meadow on the other side of the path that had led them on top of the hill right behind Braxton Castle.

"You don't?" He wasn't convinced. "You're ex boyfriends all looked differently?"

"They were all tall. But that's it. Different hair colours, different eye colours, different body types, different looks." She tried to shrug it off.

"All right" he drawled the words more than necessary. She could tell by the way he looked at her, that he wasn't ready to bury the topic.

"Shall we?" She got up from the bench, calling her uncle's Labradors Byron and Shelley who rushed to her side immediately. "Good boys." She gave them the expected treat and leashed them.

Henry whistled on his fingers and Kal came trotting almost in slow motion. "Come on, mate. You can play with your noble friends again tomorrow." He gave Kals soft fur a few strokes before leashing him. "Good boy" he whispered tenderly. That was one of the many things she loved about Henry. His undying devotion to his animals.

"You know that dogs can't be noble, don't you?"

"Their owner is. And it makes Kal feel good to think he has some aristocratic fellows." Henry replied with a wink.

Her warm laugh was music to his ears. He loved the rough edges around it.

"Maybe we should knight him. What do you think. Sir Kal-El of Krypton?"

"Sounds fantastic. See, he already loves the idea" he replied pointing to his dog who wagged his tail somehow knowing they were talking about him.

Continuing their daily morning walk they had a lot of fun imagining a ceremony to make Kal a knight. Henrys ideas were hilarious and she almost peed herself because he made her laugh so hard. Another thing that had made her fall in love with him. His great sense of humor. She tried not to think about her feelings for Henry. It never led to anything good. Just frustration and heartache. And the nagging feeling of being a coward for not confessing her feelings to him. For just secretly fantasizing. About his lips on hers. His body on her own. Here we go again, she thought. The carousel of dreams turning endlessly, coming to no stop. But then again. It made no sense to confess feelings to a man who friendzoned her right away. Literally the first time they've ever met. He had frankly explained that he was planning on going solo. Just him, his animals and his freedom. That he was still hurting from the last breakup and that he wasn't willing to fall in love again any time soon. Of course she fell for him anyway. And she fell hard. But she was used to it. Her heart had the fatal tendency to choose the wrong ones. Maybe that was her type of guy. Mr. Wrong.

When they arrived at Henry's house she expected the usual short goodbye before she would continue her walk back to the castle. But not today. He was not willing to let her of the hook.

"So you really don't have a certain type of men you like?" he asked when she was just about to leave.

"No. Is this so hard to believe?"

"Who's your favorite actor?"

"Is that a trick question?" she eyed him suspiciously.

"No. I promise." He smirked. "I know it's me, of course." Another billion dollar smile. Another heartwarming laugh. It was a gift from god that she never blushed

"Just tell me. An actor you like and find attractive."

"Okay...Patrick Wilson from Aquaman."

"Oceanmaster, huh?" Henry internally crossed off his attributes.

Tall, blond, bright eyes, likely blue, high cheekbones, classical adonis.

"Who else?"

"Adam Driver" she said without hesitation.

"Ok. Kylo Ren it is?"

"You bet, Darling" she confirmed, giving him a pushy grin.

Well. This guy was a hulk. Black hair, dark eyes. Not the typical handsome guy, big ears, big nose, big face. But with tons of charisma, talent and charm.

"Next."

"Next?"

"Yeah...go on."

"Henry..."

"Come on, don't be a spoilsport"

She gave in with a sigh.

"Christian Bale."

Tall, light brown hair, no idea regarding the color of his eyes. Handsome guy, sharp cheekbones, broad shoulders. Strong personality.

"Ouch...Batman...that hurts." He dramatically pressed a hand on his chest.

"Don't worry, Superman. I liked him best in American Psycho. He was the perfect potrayal of Patrick Bateman."

"A serial killer. How romantic. Give me just one more."

She made a face at him but told him the next name anyway.

"Last, not least. Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Jamie Lannister. "

"Uh-hu...the Kingslayer"

Tall, dark blonde hair, green or blue eyes. Henry wasn't sure. Stereotype of the evil but sexy prince charming.

"Satisfied? Very different looking men. Nothing in common."

"On the contrary, mylady. There is one big similarity."

"Really? Well...enlighten me, please." she said with a prompting gesture.

"It's pretty obvious. You like the bad boys. The Alphas. You have a soft spot for the villains and assholes. And mass murderers" he said snickering like a schoolboy.

"Oh fuck...I guess you're right." She couldn't help but laugh along with him. Almost unable to stop. Like a silly teenager in front of her crush. When she finally managed to calm down she smiled at him.

"I better get going now, before you start analyzing why I'm drawn to the dark side." She winked at him and waved good bye, starting to walk away. But just when Henry was about to enter his house, standing on the doorstep, she turned around to ask one last question.

"So now that you know my type. What is yours, Cavill?" She expected him to give a short, vague, slightly funny answer. Something like "sexy blonde fitness model of course", topped with a sarcastic smile and a sweet blink of his eyes. But Henry went a little deeper into details.

"Oh, that's an easy one. Tall...estimated 5'90... dark blonde curls, beautiful green eyes, sensual lips and fantastic curves. Very smart, sophisticated, humble and kind with a great sense of humor. There's noble blood in her veins but she's never snobbish, only a little posh from time to time. Bookworm to a nerdy extend, with a weird but good taste in music. Librarian. Vegetarian. Introvert. Tattooed. She can be a terrible nuisance and a smartass. Little Miss-knows-it-all, but that's part of her charms. Plays the piano perfectly. Is afraid of horses but adores her cats and her uncle's doggos. Loves her twin brother, her uncle and his husband. Her friends and to my personal irritation her ex who is still one of her closest confidants. She doesn't know how stunning she is. Which is her biggest strenght and her biggest weakness. She's a wonderful person, the woman of my hottest dreams and simply irresistible. And thats all I guess."

And with a wicked smile on his lips he closed the door behind him, leaving her speechles with a racing heart and a bunch of wild butterflies in her belly.

*****

That's it. Thanks for reading. I'm planning to write about their first encounter soon. Maybe this is going to make everything a little clearer.

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fandom #henry cavill x mc

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fantastic-bby · 4 years

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Pairing: (F)Reader x Jinyoung

Word count: 1k

Genre: Royal AU | Prince!Jinyoung | Princess!Reader | Fluff | Romance

Summary: Jinyoung teaches you how to ballroom dance

Warnings: -

Masterlist

A/n: I highly, highly, highly recommend that you listen to this while you read. It’s Studio Ghibli and it gave me the inspiration to write this so it’ll set the vibe uwu

[20:03]

“Quite the ball your parents have hosted.” The voice makes you turn around to see the prince from the neighbouring kingdom.

“They host quite grand events,” you hum.

“Prince Jinyoung,” he bows, introducing himself.

“I know who you are, your highness,” you chuckle. “The need to introduce yourself has passed.”

“I haven’t spoken to you in a while. Wouldn’t want you to forget me,” Jinyoung teases.

“You and your jokes,” you roll your eyes, a small smile tugging at your lips.

“Is it not a duty for me to make The Princess (Y/n) laugh at least a little bit?” He holds his chest to mock hurt. “For someone who claims their parents host quite grand balls, you look rather dull. Are you not enjoying the ball, princess (Y/n)?”

“You know I’m not one for balls. The only need for them is for my parents to find me a prince to court.” You take a sip from your drink, turning your attention to the crowd.

“I always thought balls were more fun with music,” he comments. As if on cue, the live band in the corner of the ballroom starts. The crowd scatters to form space in the centre. “Dance with me, your highness” Jinyoung extends his hand in your direction when the music starts playing.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” you shake your head. You were never one who cared much for balls since you didn’t really enjoy dancing.

“Just take my lead.” The young prince tugs on your hand despite your protests, leading you to the centre of the ballroom. His left hand is firm on your waist, his right holding your hand up, “follow my movement. If I sway left, then your left foot takes a step back. If I sway right, you take a right step back.” Jinyoung is slow at first, testing the waters while you carefully follow his movements. “There you go,” he praises once you seem to get the hang of it. “Soon you won’t even have to think about it. Relax your body. Just move with the music,” he hums.

Jinyoung guides you around the ballroom, in the centre of the crowd of other nobles who sway with the rhythm of the music. You start to understand why the balls your parents would host were such big things. You let your body do the moving, your mind solely focused on how Jinyoung’s body slowly relaxes the more accustomed you become to dancing.

“I’m going to twirl you now,” he tells you. When he twirls you around, you catch a glimpse of the jealous women watching you, glares directly towards you. Jinyoung lowers you, your left leg extending out naturally to balance yourself.

“Those ladies are giving me quite the glare,” you chuckle.

“Who are they to say anything when you’re the princess?” he grins cheekily as he pulls you back to your feet. You understand why they would be so jealous. Jinyoung is absolutely gorgeous. His dark red suit is perfectly tailored to fit the young prince, the fabric soft under your hand as he continues to bring you around the ballroom. “The tempo might get a bit faster,” Jinyoung warns you when he hears the music slow down, his face filling with worry that you might panic.

“Then let your rhythm carry mine, dear prince.” All traces of worry fades from his face. His grip tightens more securely. Just as he had predicted, the tempo became way faster than before. You follow the movement of his body, your feet starting to become lighter the more you dance. Every other being in the room seems to disappear when the tempo slows to become something more… romantic. You’re only focused on Jinyoung.

“You’re doing well for someone who said they don’t dance much,” he quips.

“Oh hush,” you roll your eyes, unable to stop the smile growing on your face. “I don’t enjoy dancing that much because I never seem to have a partner.” The tempo starts speeding up, but you barely even notice it. You only realise it when Jinyoung spins you around, stopping you when you’re right in front of him; faces inches apart.

The music has come to a halt as well, soft applause erupting from the crowd that was watching the dance. The both of you are breathing heavily. Your hand slowly slides down from Jinyoung’s shoulder, stopping above his heart where you feel his heart beating rapidly while he pants softly.

“You are quite the natural dancer, Princess (Y/n),” he praises.

“All with your guide, Prince Jinyoung,” you smile. “It’s quite warm in here,” you mutter as you look around. There’s a light sheen of sweat on your skin that would ruin the makeup you spent quite a while on.

“Shall we head to a balcony to get some fresh air?” Jinyoung suggests.

“That just might be what I need right now,” you smile.

“You mentioned that the reason you didn’t enjoy dancing was because you didn’t have a partner?” he questions once on the balcony, the two of you shying away from the crowd.

“The other princes are rather rude. More often than not, they act snobbish and treat me as though I’m not of royal blood. Princesses, on the other hand, refuse to dance with another princess because of competitive reasons.” You pause to let out a sigh. “The women that were glaring at me? A handful of them were princesses from other kingdoms.”

“Why care what the other princesses think?” he questions. You turn to him, your eyes silently asking to elaborate more on his question. “Forget I said that,” Jinyoung clears his throat, shaking his head lightly. “If I may, I would like to ask you to be my dance partner.” Your eyes widen, a blush creeping onto your cheeks. “You’re quite the dancer, (Y/n). I would like to have more dances with you if you would allow me to.” You check his eyes for any sign of mischief, but there’s only genuinity in his soft brown eyes.

“I would love that.”

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stronghours · 3 years

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SUNSHINE IN THE SKY REPRISE

And it came to pass, a few weeks after she and Jules made a bad decision on his thrifted futon, that they met again during 4th of July merrymaking.

Lux toddled in grey lake water among Ava, Claire, and Archie (Celeste down and out with summer flu). Lux couldn’t swim, a fact disclosed in private to Ava, which Ava hadn’t kept to herself, and the group formed a stooped, anxious ring around her doggy-paddling. She was forced, among the smell of hot dogs in the safe green grass hundreds of yards beyond and the ominous cloud cover above, to make sure only her ass whomped her protectors’ knees when the waves tried to boil her body up and away. She’d made a mistake, and her only wardrobe protection beyond her suit itself and her spandex underthing was a hastily added solid color sarong, which while dry didn’t match, and while wet, just looked lousy and modest. But she couldn’t be parted with it and had made up a past bout of minor skin cancer, a pin-mole insidiously located on her protected inner thigh, the paranoia of which haunted her still. Even Ava dropped her chin for the C-word.

Now she suggested Lux float on her back and allow her perception of the water to form fingers in the magic slot located on her lower back, and soon she’d be floating like crazy among the wacky kids and her hot workmates and her boss and all their invisible pubes. A wave slapped dirty fingers up Lux’s nose.

“It’s kind of like learning a language,” Archie contributed. “Got to learn it when you’re young. Looks like your parents fucking doomed you.”

“My pap pap slam-dunked me in our above-ground when I was five,” said Claire, who floated tummy-down in frog position by exerting no effort Lux could observe. “I bobbed right back up, but like, what if I hadn’t?”

Lux, six feet tall, decided to use it to her advantage and planted her knees in the sandbar. She could just about do it and keep her eyes and forehead in periscope position.

“Reuben and I are thinking of installing an above-ground,” said Ava, and seeing Lux shrink, rose to her feet and splashed water across her dewy collarbone. Lux pushed every single one of them out of her mind and stared between the chops out into the open sea to make-believe Michigan somewhere on the other side. A rhythmic slap approached from the left and the white bow of a lifeguard’s canoe sailed past their collected heads.

“Hey now,” scolded the familiar voice behind the sunglasses, “only three hot bitches are allowed in the water at a time. Think of the community.”

Ava sloshed around at the familiarity, but everybody else had already noticed it was, absurdly, Jules, and sent up a bunch of soggy greetings, all except Lux who rose into a semi-crouch in the drifting seabed out of surprise, and Ava, who let them all perform verbal recognition on her behalf and only spared a nod.

Jules looked very high school, very lanky on the bobbing bench, with the oars braced under his tanned arms and his cute red tank top cinched under his fanny pack. He rode the up-down of the surf the same way he did most things, with enough bored grace to suggest he’d learned quite enough and had more interesting things to do. Lux had recently learned this conceit of his could be bypassed, and she was glad he kept the sunglasses on when he looked her over.

“What’s up Cathy,” he said, with the same Sophomore carelessness, and she plunged her head under an oncoming wave, the pressure preferable to the dawning knowledge that now, he had information he could disclose, and he’d had it for weeks.

She rose again, squinting. She couldn’t tell if he had caught on.

“What?” he asked. “What did I do?”

“You got another job, Jules?” Ava surged forward, displaced Lux. “Roscoe doesn’t give you enough to do, on top of commissions?”

“Give me another commission and you’ll find out.” He drew the left oar’s pole hard under his titty to keep the nose of the canoe from slicing into their crescent. The mechanism bucked like a horse and the wind snatched the ugly white hat off his head and toward an oblivion of preteens due north. Claire yelped and threw herself into the water, rippled away to go fetch it. “You ever been in the cellar underneath Rawhide, Ava? That’s like, thrice-darkness. I was gonna kill myself.”

“I’ve never been in a situation that required me to be in the cellar underneath Rawhide.” Prim Ava glanced pityingly at Lux, who allowed wave after wave to pummel her head in her effort to stay low. “Poor baby. She can’t swim.”

“Throw her off the pier,” Jules suggested.

“It worked for Claire’s pap pap,” Archie said, and braced an annoying hand on the back of Lux’s neck. “Sorry babe, looks like you’re going down.”

Lux threw herself underwater before Archie could push her into the drink. Beneath the top swell she had enough time to touch her palms to the sand and try to dig her hands where she’d braced her knees, but she was blind, and the divots were washed away and the grains were swept off and replaced swept off and replaced, and she panicked when the water tugged the sarong’s knot. She resurfaced from the green and grey, coughing and yanking the weedy fabric around her legs. Ava, shining and petite against the sky, so securely tucked to smoothness, had finished with Jules herself and was high stepping back to shore.

“…I’m just saying, you should definitely try it out –” Archie had spoken in the interim. Jules was nodding. He’d shoved the sunglasses up and over his curly head and while his gaze was trained forward to take in the gamboling bathers, Lux could feel him keeping her in the corner of his eye.

She remembered being in good if overenergetic spirits. She recalled a hot yellow sun. She wore her lavender halter with the powder-blue culottes, her hair freshly hennaed from the night before and trustily bunned. She traveled from a three-hour duo with Ava regarding some mind-numbing bouts of predicament ropework that left her guiltily bored of the client and his ballerina snobbishness, but pleased with her improving knots, and with the fact she could at least trick Ava into thinking she was a viable rope top. She’d exited the bus prematurely and entered the sidewalk throng to burn through her constipated spirits, past a raucous patio partition of a dippy sport’s bar and collided with Jules himself, exiting.

It was like striking a human-size grasshopper. He recoiled, elbows up, and almost upset a busboy’s tray. She reared at his excess, ready to dive into the full indulgence of her insult. In the past year after the Annelise Petro incident she’d only seen him at a distance. Their last words, exchanged in close quarters within Jules’s car more than twelve months ago, had not been civil. He was much tanner than she remembered of him in previous summers. He’d filled out in the chest and shoulders. For a second, she could glimpse he’d gained some weird physical vitality – but as she observed, the color drained from his face. His shoulders slumped. He looked sick as a dog. She’d thought he was drunk.

She grabbed him by the shoulders and steered his head away from her. “Do not,” she ordered, “Do not fucking puke on me.”

He pulled himself straight but didn’t dislodge from her grip. “Don’t say anything,” he hissed, dirt-sober, and before she could make him clarify, a middle-aged couple loomed over his shoulders. The woman, a full six inches shorter than both Lux and Jules (it was just then Lux realized she and Jules were precisely the same height) sparkled nervously, trussed in Cubs blues.

“Oh Jules,” she said, “Who’s this?”

She was blond and ferrety, but in the man, Lux could see a sour and fleshy shadow of Jules’s own face and bearing. He looked at her with the same stern contemplation Jules had leveled on her in the past, and Jules presently, dead in the eyes, curled in on himself like a shrimp.

She’d inexplicably exited her rancorous ditch and stumbled over Jules in the no-man’s land of Blood Relatives. She wanted to, against all rational thought, shove him behind her back and put her arms out.

Instead, she reached a hand to the man (dad? Oh boy, what fun) and chirped, “Hi, I’m Catherine!”

And to the woman (mother? God in heaven), “don’t we just all love Jules!”

The woman shriveled with feeling that hardly looked like relief. The man gravely shook Lux’s hand, and she was pleased with his grip’s condescending pressure. Her body moved far ahead of her brain. She could see herself at distance, popping one toe behind her planted heel, one hip cocked, tits pushed out, but no further than her glowing smile. “And how do you two know each other,” the man said, said, explicitly did not ask. Neither man nor woman introduced themselves.

Jules, white-lipped, opened his mouth but Lux flowed over him. “2007,” she answered, “Leidermeister Playhouse, down in, uh, are you from around here? No? Well, Tinley-ish. Way down there. Spring musical. I was on playbill. And Jules was doing costumes for Pippin.”

For the first time, Jules treated her to the sweet sight of his smug, sick face struck totally dumb.

“Theater!” The woman bubbled. She put her hand on her companion’s meaty forearm, placating.

But the man was not letting her go without a fight. “Theater,” he said. “And what part did you play.”

She treated him to her glowing smile first (cracking, a little). If Jules had learned his own abysmal manners from these creeps, then he’d somehow made improvements on his own time.

“The Mother,” she improvised. “Of course.”

“Stepmother,” Jules piped up, at last.

It was all yadda-yadda to Lux, but the man finally checked the neon dial of his watch, gripped the woman by the elbow, said they would have to start taking pains for a cab if they wanted to catch the game in time. “Sure,” Jules said, though his permission hadn’t been asked, his advice unsought. “You’re not far away.”

“You call her and say you saw us, sir,” the man said. “She’ll expect it.”

Jules was too busy accepting limp patty-pats from the woman, who shot Lux a tragic grin before she scampered up the sidewalk, followed by the broad back of her presumed husband. No proper hug, no I-Love-You, no masculine head smacks or back whacks or take-care-of-yourself-you-hear pronouncements. They just walked away. Her own parents would be appalled.

The life was coming back to Jules’s face, but he was still doubled over, as if from a cramp. “Jiminy Christmas,” he uttered, and she wanted, in a surge, nothing more than to pinch his cheeks and trap his head in her armpit and noogie him to death and bust his fluff. Instead, she assisted him away from the crowd, and before long they strolled down a quiet residential street, arm in arm. She decided to give him five whole minutes to recover from the encounter, but he did it in two.

“Ledermeister,” he said to her, appalled.

“Leider,” she corrected.

“You nutty bitch,” he dared, but there was no gas behind it.

“It’s like you think I’m some kind of pervert or something,” she said, and before she could help it, she started to nag. “What did you think I was going to say? Jules makes rubber sex suits with built-in condoms? I saw him in street clothes in a high-etiquette dungeon fingering my boss’s twenty-one-year-old latex bottom?” She felt him up a little in her haste, accidentally, and he squeaked. “Who actually has something to lose here?” She asked. “Who’s the fucking dominatrix here?”

“You don’t like me,” Jules said, coolly. “I had no idea what you would say.”

He sounded terribly calm. The sidewalk was dappled in shadows of maple leaves and, boxed in by reasonable townhouses on both sides, she was inclined to stay calm as well, and in her calm, she found a strange truth.

“I like you just fine,” she said.

“Oh.”

She liked him just fine. She liked him more than she liked Ava.

They walked.

“God, it’s fucking hot,” she said. It would be more comfortable not to have their arms around the other, but she didn’t unlatch.

“I moved to this neighborhood a couple weeks ago,” he said. “We’re not too far. I’ve got a window unit.”

A window unit meant he’d accumulated an actual window; a net gain from what she remembered of the dismal basement unit she’d ducked inside three times over their three year acquaintance, along with a damp cement strip notating the kitchen and two hoary pipes jutting six inches from the ceiling where tawny water dripped into provided buckets and Jules himself, barefoot, crisscross applesauce on a carpet square stringing the hundredth of ten-thousand waiting bugle beads with one or two local drag queens, staring open mouthed at a small, shit television propped up on a pile of clean laundry encased in a garbage bag, and onscreen a shoulder-padded daytime soap actress made lines like “there’s nothing to worry about Blake – do you really think I’d expose the Nazi treasure to outsiders?”

“Yeah, let’s,” she said.

He’d found a squat, orangey building with collapsed flower beds out front and only the faintest smell of weed in the halls. She noted, vain, that he opened the doors for her and motioned her up the stairs first and it wasn’t until she’d reached the top landing of the third floor, and he was sorting out keys that she felt the pluck of that old sexy situation, which was Going Inside a Boy’s Apartment, something she hadn’t done since college, and even at that time, something that usually happened under the close watch of protective friends. She couldn’t eye him either, to see which way his intentions were shifting – he was already eying her – but then he let her inside and the feeling was wiped out by absurd, maternal relief.

“Oh, thank God,” she blurted out. “This is so much better.”

The place still smelled like paint and floor wax, and she walked about at her leisure, touching the walls, and flapping her arms, knowing she wasn’t going to crash into a spiderweb or trod on mummified centipedes. The only furniture yet was a pulled-out futon (he was a bedmaker, who knew) and the walls had been built out to delineate a kitchen. She lifted the back of her shirt to the air conditioner.

“I thought you were an idiot for accepting that place, before,” she told him, regarding the old basement. “Or you’d picked it to antagonize people on purpose.”

“Give me a break! I was broke. I was nineteen.”

He shed one flip-flop on his way to the kitchen. She watched it prone on the floor while she calculated.

“No, no,” she reminded him. “When we first met, Ava said you were twenty. We were in a bar. She made you duck under the table when the bouncer made rounds. You were illegal.”

“Nuh-uh,” he said, unevenly thwap-thwapping back to her. He handed her a beer. “I was here a whole year before you showed up. I came before you.”

He sat on the edge of the futon, and she considered that perspective as he scratched the back of his shin with his bare foot. He had long, narrow feet, and when he was looking at things that weren’t people looking back at him, his eyes tended to glaze over. He was looking at the blank wall.

“Hold up,” she said. “How old are you now?”

“Old enough for you to sit next to me,” he replied.

It didn’t mean anything, coming from him. She left her beer on the windowsill and sat next to him. He’d have to get a nicer bed at some point, she thought, bouncing up and down a little, and wondered if, all along, his manners and his living situation pissed her off so much not because, as she initially believed, they were representations of his obnoxious personality, but because she had been frightened that he was going to get hurt and clearly no one else around was going to warn him otherwise.

“You must have left your parents pretty quick,” she said.

“That was my aunt and uncle, just now.”

“Were they more fun when you were growing up?”

“My grandma raised me,” he said. “For eight years. Then we swapped.”

She unfastened her sandal straps and tried to dream up a guess about him that could possibly be correct, but she had the feeling if she said raised in a house? He’d go no, in Mr. Toad’s canary-colored caravan, and the woodland squirrels taught me how to sew, and I lost my virginity to Morlocks. She wondered if she was the first girl he’d ever brought up here. She wondered if his aunt and uncle already knew he was gay. She wondered if he was gay. And in her wonderings, she missed, at first, his growing impatience beside her. He touched her hand; she accidentally flipped her right sandal underneath the futon.

“Crap,” she said.

He rolled his eyes and slid to the floor, slipped between her legs, and with one cheek pressed to her thigh he rooted one armed underneath the springs and came out with the sandal, which he deliberately tossed several feet away. He came up on his knees, face lifted to hers, and she had to spread her own knees to accommodate him. His stern little expression was very cute, and she was warm with pleasant condescension, something sorely missing from her and Ava’s ropework that afternoon. She was tired of art, she decided, ignoring Jules’ cold hands creeping up the back her shirt, and she was tired of fantasy and she was sick of endurance feats physical and mental, and she was tired of her own cowardly communication, so much so the tiny bubble of unearned pride she felt for Jules’s ability to maneuver himself into the positions he required ballooned, out of control, into an old familiar cocoon where she couldn’t hurt him and he couldn’t hurt her.

“Nobody knows,” he told her, perhaps feeling it too. “But I can be a good boy.”

Jiminy Christmas, indeed. But he couldn’t have her for cheap, and he clawed her spine too confidently. She put her palm to his left cheek, let her thumbnail scrape over a pale divot where it looked like the nap of a paint scraper had teased out a pill of his flesh, years ago.

“Listen,” she asked, and squeezed his ribs with her knees. “If you had met me while I was with relatives, and I looked scared about it, what would you have done?”

His fixed gaze skittered to the side, over the wall, across the floor, and while he didn’t retreat, he only spoke up when his face reached a zenith of clumsy guilt. “I would have fucked around with you first,” he admitted. “Only a little.”

“I thought so,” she said, and smacked him a nasty one across the face.

With no furniture around, the crack resonated. Jules took it open-eyed. He didn’t whine or argue and only clenched his jaw a couple seconds after, when the real pain hit. He faced her again, glowing and pink, his left eye watering. She couldn’t help it. She grabbed his head and squeezed and clawed and palpated, yanked his lamby hair, perfect for yanking, and beat his butt with her heels. His head thrashed and his hands flapped around behind her back. She seized one and forced it down on the blanket and let the other undo her halter knot while she bridled him with her free thumb. His back molars rose on the edges in sharp ridges, and she whirled her wrist under his chin until she could see him swallow from the inside. The whites of his eyes showed.

“Good boy my ass,” she said, to herself, but he heard and appeared wounded. “Okay, okay,” she conceded. She wiped her thumb on his face, forgave him silently, and even her playful meanness disintegrated. He crawled over her lap and rubbed his red-hot face in her shoulder, gnawed painlessly on her clavicle. His shorts stuck out in front.

She knew a hundred ways of positioning and a hundred more roleplay scenarios he’d probably accept without suspecting she used them not to her pleasure, but to protect her modesty. She was sick of it all, hadn’t fucked or been fucked properly since she’d been his age, and was horny enough to maim. She took him again by the shorthairs along the nape of his toasted neck, and when he sighed down her back, she pressed his hand to her groin.

“Feel,” she ordered.

He felt dopily, paused, and resumed. Squeezed. Offered no comment.

“Tell me what that is,” she said.

He had delicate ways when he had enough patience to reveal them. Without asking permission he slipped a hand down her waistband, far between her legs, far too quickly for her to chase him off, and by the time she felt him properly, he held her so the head nestled in the heel of his hand, wedged against the meat of his thumb. He felt her up against the underside vein of his silky wrist.

“That’s the cock that’s gonna fuck me,” he answered, correctly.

She had condoms in her purse. He had Vaseline in a bric-a-brac moving tub besides the futon. He rolled onto his narrow tummy, and she flipped him onto his back again so fast he nearly rolled off the mattress. She wished, as she watched him raise a knee and finger himself, that she’d brought her toolkit with her from the club where she kept her nitrile gloves and her fancy salves and her more mobile toys. Jules laid himself out on the futon like somebody else would on a beach, languid and comfortable and she pressed one of his nipples with impatience. She suspected he’d be chatty, but he didn’t speak at all during the preliminaries. He had more body hair than she would have expected, but not enough to grab, and a severe bathing suit tan line that reminded her of Ava’s jabs about the minor gossip between him and Roscoe. She wondered if some queen paid him to lay out on a patio somewhere, if that kind of arrangement still happened, and she wondered if he could let go of the sniping and the attitude long enough to show that hypothetical crowd what he was showing her now – that he was, actually, a very good boy.

When he was ready for her, the very good boy reached out with his arms (and made gimme-gimme clutches with his hands). She obligingly sank on top of him, then, quicker than she intended, into him, guided by his hooked shin and a decisive hand on her ass. She clawed his scalp and arched, involuntarily driving herself forward. A telltale sensation like he’d dumped a bucket of his own blood over her head soaked her from head to toe, and for a hot second she thought it was too late – then he jerked one her nipples until she shrieked and came back to him, stunned.

You’ve got more than that in you, she heard him say, through the haze in her brain, and in between two blinks he swapped out the sadist faunlet for, once again, being her very good boy, and he undid her bun with one hand and guided her head so he could kiss her mouth and calm her down. She saw from above his legs lock around the small of her back. She was shocked she could get hard enough to effectively penetrate, a shock that blissfully vaporized as she rocked inside him.

His own cock, which they mutually ignored, was restrained by her soft stomach. Her breasts ached, pressed against his chest, and she had to break free from his clasp to prop herself on her forearms. He followed her, licked her lips until she gave up and sank back down. The tip of his nose was cold against her cheek. She could feel his lashes and the curve of his eyeball roam around in the socket. He was a ferocious and intent kisser, not nearly so languid now, and every goosebump outside his skin and strand of muscle beneath rose to her, encased her in his prickles. His focus made her quite aware of a separation between her hips (melted, as far as she was concerned) and her brain, electric-bright now, entertaining Jules by turns as a barbed, poisonous plant, as a nuzzling, brainless creature, as a mean bottom slut who clawed her bottom and held her hair in a knot in his fist, who maybe needed to be exercised as a handler would a spirited pony, in order to nurture his kindness, improve his manners, and keep his juices fresh – and she giggled involuntarily, a tight muscle in her back relaxed, and she came inside a boy for the first time.

She either made an unacceptable noise, or a had been making noises all along. A downstairs neighbor ratta-tat-tatted their ceiling, Jules’s floor. Practical as a fillet knife, Jules pushed her out of his ass, swung one leg wide, slammed his heel rudely against the floorboards, uttered “fuck off, asshole” then rolled back to her again and rubbed his face between her breasts. She cuddled him a couple tender seconds, which he tolerated, before scuttling backward and regarding her from a lucid distance as she disposed the condom.

“Come back here, she said. He looked like a praying mantis.

First, he stuck his legs off the thin mattress and with one judicious sweep of his torso, seemed to crack every bone in his body. Then he crawled over and allowed himself to be held.

“Oh,” she noticed. “You didn’t come.” His dick was still hard, and when he laid his back flat against her hip, it bobbed due west of his belly button.

“Relax, it doesn’t always happen for me.”

She ignored him and let her ego propel her forward. He reclined on her like she was a chaise and breathed through his nose.

“You know what Ava calls you?” She asked, jerking him onward and upward, hopefully.

“I’m a community opportunist,” he answered smugly. “Plus, Roscoe’s houseboy.”

Two out of two, verbatim. She drew her nails up and down his stomach and he twitched, fought against curling up. “Houseboy,” he repeated, hissed. “The last houseboy passed away in the fucking nineties. They peeled him down with the wallpaper.” She felt, through his spine, how he tried and failed to work up a temper. “Then they tatted his chalk outline above some burlesque artist’s John Willie tramp stamp. Mistress Avalon sure is concerned with faggot business.”

“Your boys don’t make you come?” She asked, a hill over him now, and above arguing. He sparred solely with himself.

“What boys? These guys – big guys –”

She went back for more Vaseline, not great for this kind of thing, but she was getting the idea Jules had a sensible nursery spirit and rarely abused himself. He didn’t appear to know much about his body and froze like a striker frame when she rolled the tip of him in her palm for more than fifteen seconds.

“– They think your asshole is your only sex organ,” he continued. “They hate themselves for loving twinks. And then they give you the reach around and if you aren’t wet like pussy then oh-h-h-h my god, it’s like the fucking sky is falling –”

She sat up, and his feet paddled the blanket to stay in contact. He reached behind her and grabbed her hair again but didn’t pull. He turned his face into her neck, and he shook all over.

“Being a slut is really hard,” he said, woefully, failing to hide, for a millisecond, the ghost of what might have been a sweet kid. Or it was her imagination. Either way, she made him come all over himself. It didn’t seem to register to him until the drops hit his chest. He looked down at his sad, wet dick and then back up at her, so testily she laughed in his face. He was smudged pink all over from her lipstick, and she pinched his springy cheeks.

“I’m a cradle-robber,” she declared.

“Okay, Methuselah,” he said, unimpressed, and darted away into the dirty ivory bathroom before she could slap his ass.

He recovered rapidly. In the sunny room things took a slumber party turn. He fetched her abandoned beer, dug out makeup wipes he inexplicably possessed, and repaired the damage to her makeup. He berated her when she couldn’t stop giggling.

“I was kind of wondering…” he began.

He paused. Sex had made him tactful.

“Go on,” she allowed.

“I was wondering if I’d ever figure out why you bothered being a dominatrix.” He used the point of his little finger to clear wet black scuzz from the corner of her eye. She hardly felt it. “Ava’s got her thing about being top dog. Claire’s a sadist. And somebody needs to get around to neutering Archie before he starts spraying the furniture. You, a mystery.”

“You think about me!” She preened and wiggled.

“You go on.”

“I like,” she confided, “to strap muscle hunks to the pommel horse and tickle them until they scream.”

“Gee whiz.”

“I like straitjackets, but I don’t like rope,” she continued. “And I like floggers, but not single-tail whips. And I like human furniture, but not human ashtrays.”

“The Marquis de Lux over here.”

He’d reached around and started French-braiding her hair. She put her ear to his chest and found his mousey heart.

“My mom and dad were angels,” she continued. “And my sisters were angels and my aunts and uncles and my grandparents. They were angels from the start. So was I. I liked it. Doctors like it too. When a kid is angelic, and very, very, very, very good, and says the right things, and rolls over. They give you what you need.” She thought that over. “They decide to give you what you need,” she clarified. “I was rolling over constantly. I didn’t know how to stop. It freaked me out.”

Jules’s heart answered wug-wug-wug. He sat in her lap and tried to get her braid to stay fixed in a twist. “See, I’m the opposite,” he said. “I’m a huge cunt, but I’m always looking for an excuse to be nice.”

Her hair unwound down her back. He clamped her bobby pins between his teeth, to deliberately make the job harder, then, looking down in their laps, spit them on the floor. And as quickly as she decided she needed to find her clothes and depart, having revealed too much, she stayed the entire night.

On the lifeguard pavilions, the green flags were lowered, and yellow flags were handed up.

“Archie,” said Jules, from the safety of the canoe, “Head on back to dry land. No! no,” he called when Archie took Lux’s elbow. “Cathy and I need to talk really quick.”

“It’s not safe,” Archie said.

“I’m Red Cross certified,” Jules said, arms outspread up the oars as far as they could go. “I’m a beautiful heroine, waiting to happen. Also, I’m in fucking charge.”

“Go away, Archie,” Lux agreed, and Archie slopped to the shore, his broad back damp red in the sun’s undergrowth. Dark clouds approached from the west.

“Actually, that’s my boss.” Jules pointed to the sand straight ahead, where a bronzed ingenue, her thigh muscles sticking out like bread loaves, appeared to be watching the duo intently.

“You’ll get in trouble,” Lux cautioned.

“She wants to ride me hard and put me away wet, I think I can get away with it. I feel like you must have,” he added, pointedly. “She’s nineteen.”

It was hard to glare when wet, and it was hard to talk with Jules high and dry. Lux was clammy and clingy, and she couldn’t understand why he sniped at her. Then he crouched down, chest to knees, under pretext of scraping the oars straight down his gunwales and snapped, with pure, guileless annoyance: “Why are you pissed off? I’m the one who should be mad.”

That was too much to bear. “Jules –”

“I showed you my hole and said call me.” He straightened, the little snot, sincerity evaporated. “And you didn’t call me. Now I feel cheap.”

“Jules,” she said, sticking to her own path. “They don’t know.”

“Of course, they don’t know!” He said, clueless, if technically correct. “I didn’t think you’d spread it around to that crowd.”

“Shut up, Jules,” she tried again, and when his mouth opened automatically, she really blew. “Shut the fuck up!”

He shut the fuck up.

“They don’t know. They don’t know.”

She refused to say anymore. She wasn’t in the mood to roll over. Funny, how fucking a guy in the ass could spackle over a few of the gaping holes in her dignity. Patiently, she watched Jules rock to-and-fro, his face oscillating between his premature certainty and the vanishing tail of what she was trying to explain. Then he exclaimed, “huh!” and raised his face to the heavens.

Whistles sounded north and south, and one of his canoe companions raced twenty yards past, churning the creaming waves to reach the point to disembark. Jules ignored it all.

“Oh.” He started, blank-faced. “There’s bossola.”

He waved to the girl on the beach, who was really putting her back into her whistle. “Jesus, baby,” he said just as abruptly to Lux, who had been forced to retreat a few feet to find higher ground. “Now I’m really starting to worry.”

It was either of their guesses, as to what situation he was talking about. Lux wasn’t sure herself, and doubted he knew. His confusion reminded her less of him now, more of him the morning after, when she’d woken up, found him sitting bolt upright, staring at the walls of his clean, sunny studio. He’d turned to her bleary face, and with no confidence whatsoever, asked, Is it really so much better?

“You want to climb up?” He asked now. “I’ll tell boss you have a cramp.”

“No, I can make it by myself.” She strolled backwards, ass out of the water, and twisted the sarong in front.

“I told Roscoe I fucked a girl for the first time,” he called to her, his eyes cast demurely downward. “You should have seen the sweat roll down his back.”

“I’ll call you,” she promised.

“Yeah, you better,” he advised, and shielded his face against the bursting spray. “Before someone else does. Ladies love the canoe.”

One perky heave-ho, and he displaced bow and stern, fixed his little craft perpendicular to the beach, and cast off toward the pier.

On the beach, Archie and Claire scuttled in the sand, packing their bags, and shaking out their towels. Claire held Jules’s rogue, soaked hat. “I was going to swim back over, but she yanked me out,” she explained, and pointed out Jules’s bossola, who had, watching Lux emerge from the dirty waters, eyed her face, eyed her cleavage, and continued stalking down the shore. She had an ass that needed to be seen to be believed. Lux hoped Jules wouldn’t tease her too much. She might call him sooner, to demand that exclusively. Possibilities, vistas, scenarios, she thought of all these and wrapped her towel around her waist, and she faced the dreary city skyline and she dreamed, and the full force of her imagination asserted itself.

“I’ll give it to him when I see him next.”

Domme Lux took property of the hat.

Ava, ever watchful, caressed their folded umbrella. “I thought you and Jules didn’t get along,” she said. Deliberately did not ask. Lux, in that moment, didn’t care. It wasn’t her job to teach Ava manners.

“I like him just fine,” she said.

#SAFEWORLD #intimacies; ambiguities; a twunk in a boat #beautiful friendships have been sprung for less #isn't particularly relevant but this takes place in 2009

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chayacat · 3 years

Text

Devil’s Sweet Star (3)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut

***

“Welcome to the Nebula! Where our pastries came from outer space! How can I help you?”

You smile as you look at the room full of people. You didn't imagine you had so many people for your grand opening, maybe a few curious. You can thank Jed for doing this article. How are you going to thank him after that? He didn't have to, and yet he did. The sign you ordered the day you received your coffee beans was in harmony with the rest and by far it wasn’t hard to spot you. You were lucky to find an artist who could make you such a sign in a short time. And he was graciously paid for his work.

“Have you made your choice Miss?” you said smiling.

“I hesitate between a slice of Neptune’s pie and your UFO Brownies... they look so delicious!” said the young girl switching her eyes between the two pastries.

“They are! it's an alien chef who gave me the recipe, you'll see in one bite you'll leave ... in a space travel of flavour!” you say jokingly.

“Ha ha that’s really funny! Well, I’ll take two brownies and a slice of Neptune’s pie then! And an espresso with a cloud of milk.”

You prepare the order of the girl, who pays before taking the bag where the two brownies are, the slice of blueberry pie and the espresso. She gave you a big smile before going to a table to enjoy her sweets freely.

You'll still have to consider hiring someone to give you a boost, because you have to admit, that you'll have a little trouble dealing with it all. Especially if more and more people come over time. While you were writing all this down in your diary, so you wouldn't forget it, you hear another customer coming in and you turn again to the counter ready to serve him.

“Welcome to The Nebula! You said “Oh hey, It's you Jed!”

Jed gives you a sweet smile while heading to the counter.

"Well, my little finger tells me that your grand opening seems to be a great success." he said with a laugh.

“Good deduction, Jed Holmes. Thanks for your article, I didn't think I had so many people sincerely. I don't even know how to thank you.” you said embarrassed

“No need. All pleasure was for me. And then if it can allow Roseville to energize a little ... Why not? With a pretty face like yours, this trade can only hold up well.”

You blush a little in front of his words which made him laugh. Definitely this boy has everything to please. How could his parents have considered him as a mistake? If they saw him today, they'd see that he's succeeding in his life.

You've only known each other for a few days and you don't know why, but the runner went very well between the two of you, we'd think you'd be friends who've known each other since high school. You see two young girls looking at him and talking to each other.

“Well, well, my little finger tells me that you’ve attracted the attention of these two ladies. What a charmer you are.” you said with a wink.

“What?” he replied before looking towards the two young girls who turned around looking like nothing before sneering when he faced you again, cheeks slightly pink. “I... I know I'm not ugly, but I'm not a beauty cannon either. I'm just... Me. A little journalist, a little nerd on the edges.”

Hey don't say that! If you knew how cute you are... Don't lower yourself to the lower than you really are."

Jed smiles while Danny smiles widely. So innocent... And besides you confirm his incredible beauty. He knows how handsome he is, a real charmer when he wants to. But as Jed he has to hide it, playing the little nerd who doesn't know how attractive he is.

“So, can I take your order?” you said.

“A long cup of coffee, with cream and sugar. And I’ll take a slice of your March cake please.” he responds putting his glasses back in place.

“Coming right up at the speed of light!”

You gathered his order and give it quickly and when he pulled out money to pay you, you gently give it back to him.

“Well... I didn't get yelled at yet...”

“it’s on the house. It's my way of thanking you for that.” you said with a sweet smile.

“I can’t, here take it” he replied.

“Jed.” you started taking softly his hand to put the money in it. “What you did was the nicest thing on earth that anyone I know has ever do for me. And we barely know each other. Friends I've known since kindergarten would never have done it for me. You can always pay next time. But not today.”

Jed blinked several times before putting his money in his wallet. Then he took his cup in his hand to lift it up in the air.

“To the Nebula. Hoping that he succeeds and brings a little joy to our city so bruised by the current events. Cheers.”

“Cheers” you said lifting up your bottle of ice tea to toast with him before each drinking a sip.

“Excuse me miss can I have a refill? And another slice of your blueberry pie?” said a young woman working on her computer.

“Sure!” you answer. “Sorry I have to get back to work. But you can take a sit if you want! Unless you’ve still got some work to do?”

“Well, I'm on a break. I would say that this time I took my time because I am often criticized for not resting. But don't tell anyone.”

You smile at him and take a pot of coffee to refill the woman’s cup. Jed took a seat not far from the counter and discreetly look at you. For Jed, doing all this on your own must be difficult and he really wanted to help you, but for Danny it's a blessed bread to know that you’re alone. No one could help you if he wanted to pay you a courtesy visit.He’s not going to kill you right away, oh no... He's going to get to know you. To the smallest detail.

While you served again other customers in coffee and pastries, another entered. And you could say that he was not an ordinary person in view of his clothes and his way of being, he could be defined as a snobbish but influential person. If even a snob like him comes into your business... That can only be a good thing, right?

“Welcome to the Nebula sir! How can I help you?”

“Do you have imperial tea or Vintage Narcissus tea?”

“Uhm...Sorry sir this kind of tea is rare to find and very expensive. I only have red fruit tea at the moment and green tea. I should receive more soon.”

“Tss. Give me a Latte Macchiato in this case.”

You force yourself to smile and start preparing his order. But you feel his gaze on you as if he was stabbing you in the back. Jed gave you a reassuring smile as you returned him and once the Latte was ready, you lay it on the counter.

“Will it be all sir?” you said with a forcing smile

“Your... cakes there... Are they industrial or homemade?” he said haughtily.

“homemade Sir! with only natural products for better taste and quality!”

“I doubt it very much.”

“Excuse me?”

“I doubt that a girl like you can get "natural" products as easily and cheaply. Or you take the big game out of them. It won't surprise me when you see such a decoration, it's like a junkie club.”

“Who are you?” you said with a nervous laugh

“What ??”

“I said: Who are you? Where do you know me for talking to me in that tone? Just because you have money doesn't mean you can do all you want. Plus, you insult me as a whore.”

“How could you...This is not a way to treat your customers! You can't even handle orders from your customers!”

“Sir... If I am not mistaken, I didn’t force you into my establishment, you came on your own. In addition, you adopt a behaviour that, in another place, you will have been worth an immediate exit with, if the person wanted, a kick in the ass or even more. So, are you going to take something extra or just pay for your coffee?” you replied with an Olympian calm.

Vexed, the man took the cup and spilled his content on the ground before throwing the cup in your face. But for all that, you do not react and you are quite right, with a man like him, better not to blame yourself.

“You don't lose anything to wait, little bitch. I'm sure I'll find something that will make you close your slum.” he said before leaving.

You take a deep breath, throw the cup in the trash and take the bucket and mop to clean up the still-hot coffee on the floor. You expected to have rough customers but like him and from day one... Not really. But you did the right thing, not to react, stay calm in all circumstances.

“What a son of bitch. he's never had his mouth broken this dirty asshole rich.” you grunt as you finish wiping the floor.

“Unfortunately, not... and with the influence he has, it's hard to do anything to him.”

You startle slightly when you hear Jed's voice behind you, who had witnessed the whole scene.

“Who's that bastard? How can you let a guy like that treat people like shit honestly??”

“You know men like him... can easily afford to do everything when they can afford it. All they have to do is bribe some people and they're safe. They feel untouchable and only live that way. They know that most people have financial worries and they take advantage of them.” said Jed.

“What a coward. Money can't save him forever.” you replied.

While you were tidying up the bucket and mop, some customers came to tip while supporting you, facing what had just happened. Some of them swore on this guy making fun of him openly which made you smile. The rest of the day passed quietly; Jed had gone back to work in the meantime wishing you good luck. You check several times that all the doors were closed before closing your café and heading to your apartment.

You suddenly feel someone following you and you turn around discreetly for a guy in a hood. You walk a little faster and you hear the man's footsteps go faster as well. As you feel it approaching to the point of touching you, a horn startled you both and when you turn your head, you recognize a familiar vehicle.

“Hey! Have you ever been taught to not attack a woman? I wonder what we're going to learn about you if I call the cops. Get in. I’ll take you home.” Said Jed opening the door while Danny discreetly shot your assailant with his eyes.

Once you got on, you closed the door and Danny went back on the road. You're lucky that Danny finishes his job earlier taking advantage of his extra free time to stalk you without getting noticed. This allowed him to study the situation a little more and he now knows that you check everything several times before leaving. And you may do it more often and longer after his visit as Ghostface.

“Thanks. if you hadn't arrived he would surely have...”

“Don't say anything. I'd rather not think about it. You don't have to thank me. Between neighbours it's normal to help each other, right? You would have done the same for me.” He responds without looking away from the road.

“I'm sure it was these bastard rich that hired him to scare me. I should have beat him like that, he would have gotten the message out to him.”

“And then he would have used his influence to sue you and make you lose your coffee. It's a technique as old as the world.”

“He loses nothing to wait.”

Jed nods as a bad smile appears on Danny's face. Oh no he loses nothing to wait for sure. Thanks to you, involuntarily, you found a new victim for Danny. But not right away. You have to study your prey before you kill it.

***

(Phew! Finally finished! I'll hope you’ll enjoyed it! if I'm not often distracted, I’ll try to post a new chapter every Friday! This will give time for new readers to read the previous chapters! See ya ! )

#dbd #dbd fanfic #dead by daylight #ghostface #danny johnson #jed olsen

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ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 3 years

Note

Hiii can I request a oneshot where the other other Shelbys never really approved of Tommy and reader's marriage even though she's nice (idk maybe because she seems like she doesn't fit into their life? or seems naive, whatever reason works tbh) but they start to realize they were wrong when they see how much she cares for him when he's really injured and how happy they are sometimes or just when they see that she's not as weak as she seems. Does that make sense? Idk I just thought about it and I can't write but you don't have to! 🥰

//This was one of my favorite one shots in a while. I had a lot of fun with it so if you ever want a continuation I would LOVE to do so.

Tommy came in like a storm. “Alright, everyone’s on their best fucking behavior, right now.”

His family was all sitting in the open part of the betting shop as Tommy had requested that they be there.

“Why-”

“No.” Tommy held up a hand to stop John from speaking any further. “No questions. Just do as I say.” He said before going back to the door connecting the shop and Six Watery Lane. He returned arm in arm with a beautiful young woman who had bright eyes and a friendly smile.

Polly looked a little surprised but was quick to welcome the woman. Tommy, while he’d been in London on business, called his aunt about a woman he’d met. He said she was a socialite daughter of a long line of blue-bloods. But that didn’t concern him. What did was she had a love for charity work, especially regarding orphaned children.

One night and she’d captured Tommy’s heart. It was quite a remarkable thing. And now he was bringing her to meet his family for the first time.

“Everyone this is Eve, Eve, this is my family.” Tommy introduced with a tentative tone.

“How do you do?” She greeted.

Only four words in and Arthur and John were about to burst out into laughter. The combination of her posh accent with the greeting made them almost doubled over. And they didn’t make it conspicuous either.

So much that Eve’s face fell and she looked self-conscious.

Tommy wasted no time whacking John upside the head. “These are me idiot brothers and my aunt, Polly.” He glared at Arthur.

“It’s good to finally meet you.” Polly stood up to readjust the mood and shook Eve’s hand. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh.” Eve forced a small smile. “Well, thank you. Tommy has spoken very highly of you all

as well.”

“Might’ve been speaking too soon,” Tommy muttered under his breath. “C’mon. I’ll show you my uncle’s yard.” He took Eve’s hand to lead her out of the shop, throwing his brothers one more deadly glare as they left.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, when Eve was freshening up for a night at the Garrison, Tommy went downstairs to tell off Arthur and John.

“What did I say when I came in?” Tommy snapped.

“Oh, Tom, c’mon.” Arthur protested.

“She’s a fucking toff.” John threw a hand up. “You honestly think she belongs ‘round somewhere like here?”

“You nearly made her cry, you bastards.” He snarled. “She’s a good woman, it doesn’t matter where she’s from.”

“Yeah, then what happens when you get into trouble and she’s clutching her pearls running back to London,” Arthur replied. “We’re only tryna protect you, Tom.”

“I don’t care what either of you thinks. But she wants you to like her. So, you both better start acting nicer ‘round her.” He spoke in a threatening tone.

Arthur sighed seeing how upset his brother was. “Alright, alright. We’ll be nice.”

“’Long as her family tosses us some money,” John muttered under his breath.

“Enough.” Tommy hissed as he heard Eve coming down the stairs. He smiled as he saw her wearing a flashy gold dress.

“I hope I’m not overdressed.” She apparently had taken the Shelby brothers’ reaction to heart and was self-conscious about her appearance and demeanor. Truthfully, she felt out of place in Small Heath. Eve had been raised in the highest echelon of society. For the first seventeen years, she lived in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor was at least a mile away. She had horses and toys, nurses and tutors to raise her, and practically anything else she desired. When she turned eighteen, she began to live part-time in one of her father’s properties in London. It was the first time she’d truly seen poverty and it made her realize her privilege. With her father’s blessing, she began a charity to help build and fund proper orphanages that took care of their children.

She became of trying not to come off as snobbish. But being in Small Heath, she was hyperaware almost to the point that she came off as shy and awkward.

“You look beautiful,” Tommy assured her. “The Garrison’s got a bit of a makeover itself so you’ll fit right in.” He linked arms with her and guided her toward the door, away from his brothers to avoid any other contact.

~~~~~~~~~~

The party was in full swing and Eve was starting to feel less out of place. She found Tommy’s friends and family to be amiable and enjoyed their company. Class didn’t really matter when it came to having a good time with plenty of drinks.

Halfway through the night, Tommy left Eve at a table while he went to get another round of champagne. She decided to take a breather and left the pub. There were a few people mingling outside, talking and having a smoke.

“Tommy said we made her cry. Fuck’s sake.”

Eve heard a familiar voice and saw Arthur talking to a woman who Tommy introduced Eve to earlier that night.

“I didn’t think Tommy would want someone so sensitive.” She replied with a shrug.

“Maybe he just wants a leg up. Wouldn’t blame him.”

Eve had heard enough, she went back into the pub and found Tommy waiting for her. He frowned when he saw her face.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and tried not to look upset. “Do you mind if I go back to the flat?” Her voice trembled.

“Ev…what happened?”

“Please, Tom, I just-I’m tired.” She felt like everyone was looking at her. “Please.”

“Okay, okay.” He stood up, leaving the champagne flutes on the table. “I’ll get our coats.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Tommy refused to back down. Arthur and John apologized to Eve who accepted the apology with a smile. She said she didn’t care but Tommy still wasn’t happy. His brothers were still doubtful of her and made jabs at her upbringing.

She couldn’t load a gun. Didn’t know how to drive a car. Didn’t smoke. Asked too many questions about their operation.

Eve felt like a child, naïve and so out of touch with the way they lived. But her true test of strength came in when a few weeks after she originally visited Small Heath.

Tommy was ambushed, and a bullet grazed his side. Arthur and John managed to get him to safety, half dragging him back to Watery Lane.

Polly and Eve were sharing a chat in the parlor when Arthur burst in with his brother hanging off his arm, bleeding a profuse amount. John still had his gun drawn, afraid they had been followed back home.

Eve, shockingly, didn’t go into a panic. Arthur thought she might’ve become overwhelmed or even faint at the sight of blood. But immediately, she went into a work-like mode.

Paired with Polly with Arthur’s strength, they got Tommy onto the table. Eve hurried to get Tommy’s layers off to find the wound. “Get some towels and water.” She ordered the eldest brother in a strong voice he hadn’t heard from her before.

He didn’t even hesitate, always a soldier he responded to firm direct commands.

“Ev…” Tommy moaned, his vision spotting.

“You’re okay.” She said softly. “It’s not too bad, just need to stem the bleeding.” When Arthur returned, she made quick time, disinfecting, washing the wound, and bandaging it tightly. “Doesn’t need stitches.” She reassured Polly and the boys who were watching her with a bit of surprise. Usually, they were the ones who had to put Tommy back together again after an altercation. But she had worked so quickly that there was no need.

Eve pressed a cold cloth to Tommy’s head and dabbed the sweat from his brow. “Take it easy and rest.” She said softly and kissed his cheek.

“Where’d you learn to patch up gunshot wounds?” Arthur asked, still unsure of what he’d just witnessed. The posh girl had taken command and very well could’ve saved his brother’s life.

Eve looked a little shy, tucking a curl behind her ear. “My friends and I all took red cross courses during the war. They enlisted as nurses but-” It felt like a terrible admission to make to a veteran. “My father talked me out of going. I was his only child and he said he couldn’t bear it if anything happened to me.” Her brow wrinkled as she rinsed the bloody cloths in the water basin. “I always regretted it. One of my friends lost her life in France because of a grenade. Every so often I’ll take a course just to make sure my skills haven’t gone rusty.” She smiled weakly. “Especially now that I know Tommy treats everywhere like a battlefield.” She affectionately touched his hand as he was still recovering from the shock of being shot.

Polly gave John and Arthur a side-glance and a small smirk.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I s’pose we misjudged you then, Eve. That’s very erm-admirable of you.”

She smiled; a bit relieved she had proved herself to Tommy’s brothers. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s good to put some of the things I learned to good use. Although I do hope none of you encounter another bullet.”

Polly rolled her eyes. “Don’t hold your breath with these three.”

They shared a chuckle and Tommy began to stir again. He grasped onto Eve’s arm, his head still spinning from the blood loss.

“Ev?”

“I’m here.” She sat down beside him and stroked his hair back. “You’re alright.”

“Yeah, glad the red cross taught you well.” Tommy smiled as he stared up at the ceiling.

“I told you those classes weren’t for nothing.” She teased him gently, weaving her fingers in with his.

“Was all her, Tom. Fixed you up good as new.” Arthur chimed in.

“Yeah, no surprise. She’s good at a lot of things you bastards aren’t.”

“Oh, Tommy, hush.” Eve scolded.

“Well, once we teach her how to shoot a gun, I think she’ll be on her way.” John took a seat with a good-natured smile.

“That’s right.” Arthur tousled John’s hair. “We’ll turn her into a Peaky girl soon ‘nough.”

Tommy shook his head and closed his eyes to rest a bit. “I like her the way she is now.” He mumbled.

Eve squeezed his hand. “I’d like to learn how to shoot, though.”

Tommy just laughed weakly before nodding off.

#ugly crying asks

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slversoul · 3 years

Text

* mia goth, cis female + she/her | you know cecilia rutherford, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, three hours? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to summer wine by nancy sinatra and lee hazlewood like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole strap of a silk slip falling down her shoulder, sitting on a sailboat and smoking, soft smile hiding shark teeth thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is june 1, so they’re a gemini, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( cornelia )

death tw, gaslighting tw, animal death tw, murder tw, attempted murder tw

born at 12:02 am on june 1, three minutes after her twin brother, making her younger — a fact cecil never let her forget.

the twins shared one name. one head. two hands. two feet. one heart. it was impossible to tell them apart as small children, everyone assuming they were identical twins with their matching haircuts and outfits.

their parents had met when their father was shooting a movie in brazil, sweeping their mother off her feet, and bringing her to connecticut where they were married within three months. only four years later she was moving to italy to live with her young lover.

back and forth the twins moved between their father’s home and their mother’s home. the constant shuffling around led them to be homeschooled in their youth. all the better for them. the twins ran through the large houses, barefoot, with laughter filling the corridors behind them.

it wasn’t that their parents didn’t love them, but they had other things to preoccupy their time. cecil and cecilia only had each other.

when they turned 11, they were enrolled in a middle school, settling in with their father full time during the school year. the other kids might not have known them, but they certainly recognized their last name. despite their lack of early socialization, they made friends quickly. calm and easy to converse with, they were respected among their peers.

(attempted murder tw) the first incident happened when they were 12. with their friend over and their father gone, the three of them were swimming in the pool. their friend, wanting to show off, dived into the pool. in the blink of an eye, cecilia watched red bloom from him, seeping slowly into the surrounding pool water. she wanted to run and find the housekeeper, wanted to call 911. do something. do anything. cecil held his hand up, stopping her in his tracks. his eyes were on their friend floating face down in the pool, and her eyes were on him, searching for anything buried in his cold, dark eyes. as the seconds ticked by, he finally lowered his hand, and cecilia ran screaming into the house. the friend lived, but from then on, there seemed to be a separation between the twins and the rest of the world.

they skipped eighth grade, too smart for any of the silly assignments their teachers had for them that year. they played tennis and golf and even learned to sail. all activities they could do together. all activities their parents had wanted them to learn on their own.

(animal death tw) it was their trips to italy that got them interested in architecture and history and classics. places they could explore first hand, reconstructing history with nothing more than their imaginations. one night, they snuck out of their mother’s villa and stole three chickens from a neighboring farm. deep into the woods they went until they came across the smooth stone. it was cecil that butchered them, but this time, cecilia’s eyes were cold as she watched the blood spill down the stone and seep into the forest floor. the gods were appeased cecil had said.

every time a friend encouraged cecilia to step away from cecil, the friendship ended shortly after. he was her older brother. he knew the ways of the world and was helping lead her through it. she went on dates but she never dated, preferring to limit her company. perhaps that’s why everyone clamored to be around her, and even fought for cecil’s attention. they didn’t walk, they floated, in a reality of their own making. a secret universe that no one else got a glimpse of. but their classmates and their teammates and their neighbors needed to know what made them so different from everyone else, blinding them to the coldness the twins wrapped themselves in like a large quilt.

off they went to college, both of them double majoring in classics and history with a minor in latin.

the tipping point came when they were placed in different recitations for some general lecture. they demanded their parents try to convince the dean to place them in the same one, and the parents insisted they tried their hardest, but in reality, they were happy to see the twins apart. it was there that she made friends. friends who didn’t know her brother, and didn’t care to know him. it started with study group without cecil, but it grew bigger and bigger, until slowly, she became cecilia rutherford and not cecil’s sister.

of course, he didn’t take this news well. he was sick every month, needing cecilia to nurse him back to health. or he wanted to do a family dinner the same night she was supposed to go out. she tried reconciling him and her friends, but they never seemed to get along. torn between two worlds, she was tugged back and forth, helpless in the middle.

(murder tw) bunny, siobhan, cecilia, and cecil were at the marina late at night. they were tying the boat up, having spent the whole day in the sun, still tipsy from an afternoon of drinking. a comment about one of their classes, one cecil wasn’t in, struck a nerve, and he launched into a tiraid. a move to grab cecilia, resulted in him being pushed away, slipping and falling over the pier and hitting his head on the boat before he landed in the water with a splash. nobody made a move to call for help. a relief really. he had been but a stone, trying to drag everyone down to whatever sad pit of despair he lived in. it was a secret that they would take to the grave, binding them together.

they stayed close throughout college, drifting away as they graduated. cecilia moved from pursuit to pursuit, treating everything as if it was some kind of game rather than a career. she even tried her hand at writing a novel, growing bored after only ten chapters in. she had more fun laying around on the yacht of whoever she was seeing at the moment.

her brother’s death hardly left a mark on the family. they cried together at the funeral, but they floated apart again, dealing with the grief in their own way. she never talked about it, preferring to block out his memory entirely than deal with the consequences of their actions. this proved impossible when she received a note, slipped under the door of the penthouse she was currently renting out. a note, in her deceased brother’s handwriting. you can’t get away that easily. fear left her cold, and she tracked down her old friends, packing up and moving to irving, north carolina to confront the past.

PERSONALITY

she’s friendly and charming and outgoing. she can talk to everyone and be kind to everyone, but that doesn’t mean she likes everyone. it’s all about appearances. is very good at hiding things and keeping things close to her. she’s still struggling with the loss of her brother because he was her best friend. she’s aware of his flaws, but it’s hard for her to reconcile her fairytale version of him and the truth. cecilia is super smart and pretentious and snobbish, but she’s also a bit of an airhead in that she’s not aware of how the “common person” lives. she’s very out of touch with things because she lives in the bubble of her parents’ money. she’s calm always. it always seems like nothing fazes her, and it’s all a façade. um i think i’ll add more to this later but that is all for now :)

WANTED CONNECTIONS

okay, so as she is new, like literally just moved in hours ago, she’s not really going to have recent connections. but i’m so down for doing past connections :)) maybe a love affair when they were both on vacation somewhere, or someone who she knew in the past who hates how calm she is about everything. also someone who knew her brother and either hated or loved him bt that would be fun angst bc she doesn’t talk about him anymore :) anyway, if you think our muses could have met in the past, just let me know and we can brainstorm connections :D

#irvingintro

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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House of Mouse Review: Not So Goofy or The Ungoofy Is Upon Us!

Welcome back to the RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS. And i’m hitting the ground running to continue the trek after some lessened activity over the holiday weekend. Especially with Christmas season already there.. and.. things to take care of.

Your time will come, you blighted hell of an episode. But no today we’re talking about something actually good! It’s Not So Goofy! It’s back on in to the house of mouse as this was only one year after the previous episode. We’re on to season 2 though frankly i’d have to re-watch more of the show to spot a difference. The show really didn’t change all that much between seasons. The only difference i’ve heard of is Pete is ENTIRELY absent this season, so my long spiel on him being on the show continues to be worthless and I continue to not regret it. But since I covered most of the stuff I knew about the series and how much I liked it last time we can dive straight into the episode> And this one was a treat for me as Goofy was my faviorite watching this show back in the day and is tied with donald now as my faviorite of the classic characters.. not that it’s hard competition but still I love both. Goofy is kind, clumsy, and a loving father, he’s who we are and who we want to be all in one. As with last time, which you can find on the disney tab on my blog, i’ll be reviewing the host segment seperate from the short’s for coherency’s sake. So with that in mind...

NOT SO GOOFY: Hot Goofy on Beast Action We open with Mickey intorducing the show and everyone chanting house of mouse, house of mouse, which makes me want a version of the show that’s a disney fight club, with over the top smash bros or scott pilgrim style battles. God that’s a project I never completed.. reviewing that series... maybe some day i’ll just start from scratch and do that.. HINT. Point is instead of Disney Fight Club, we get goofy breaking a bunch of shit, because this episode he’s extra clumsy. Though thanks tot his I am reminded the HOM’s jaintoral staff is the brooms from fantasia, which is a nice touch and we get a nice bit of Minnie sending all of them after Goofy keeps breaking stuff. So despite Mickey being the one interrupted constantly, everyone else is hte one to point it out, Minnie politley everyone else just sorta barging in. I was going to give out about them giving out when none of them were effected but.. really bad wait service really dose impact them all: Donald is co owner so if goofy injures someone he has to help pay the setlement, Minnie runs the staff and has had to have her brooms work double to clean up, Hoarace has to clean up structural damage, Daisy is guest services so she has to hear about it, Clarabelle only heard a rumor and Gus is chef so he has to remake the food. So i’m sympathetic to all of them.. except Gus. Gus your only gimmicks are your lazy, you eat things, and in animations case you only communicate by honking obnoxiously. You don’t get to insult a comedic genuis for doing his bit.

But Goofy overhears this and is upset, saying they want him to be the oppsitie of goofy, ungoofy. I mean technically your right, but an ungoofy would be something more like this.

“I WAIT INSIDE YOUR HOUSE UNTIL THE CRESENT DAWN THEN ONE BY ONE YOU’LL ALL BE GONE. “

See nothing like goofy. But no ungoofy in this episode’s case is just goofy acting refined and posh. And to help with that after the first cartoon, aka half the episode as i’m now realizing is standard, is...

I will never get tired of doing that. Rob Paulsen is back as Jose, and does a MUCH BETTER job this time. Though really that’s also because he has more to actually work with this time, so he can actually play the character. Him being a white guy playing a Brazilian is still unfortunate, still not his fault, and was covered more last time. We’ll get into how Jose helps goofy after the cut.

So Jose helps goofy try to ungoofy himself.. which as established isn’t how that works but hey. So we get a funny montage of Goofy learning the ropes of being significant, getting a turkey on his head, and backslapping jose so hard he flies into the next room and goofy wonders where he is. I don’t have much to add, it’s just funny. It’s why reviewing comedy is hard. Besides being subjective sometimes that’s the most you can say.

So it works, and Goofy helps everyone in a dignified manner.. and this is where the plot starts to slip up slightly, as for starters Goofy’s apperance is the same, he’s just closing his eyes a lot. He’s also not really doing anything wrong... the closest he gets is massaging bugs out of the beasts hair when he has an itch.

And that’s because he didn’t ask if they have an open marraige.. I mean they probably do, Belle’s open minded and beast has needs, but still, he should’ve asked. Otherwise it’s going great. As for where it goes wrong.. it’s because he dosen’t really DO anything bad. He isn’t an uptight jerkass about it or anything, he isn’t mean or tyranical to the customers or dosen’t transition to that he’s just.. not himself. Which isn’t good, btu the most he does in that regard is just not give the goofy laugh. Mickey and Minnie just suddenly kind of decided “Whelp this is bad let’s fix that”. And Disney would do this better, one of the Mickey Mouse shorts had Minnie, swooning over a sophisicated gentelman type on tv, give Mickey finishing lessons which turned him into a snobbish monster who broke up with her for daring to serve Bologna and not having a waiter. That WORKED.. and not just because we got Donald and Goofy kidnapping Mickey. But because we were shown there was nothing wrong with him in the first place, and there was something bad with the change.

Here Goofy’s just.. compitent at his job. he’s not cruel to say max or clarabelle, he’s just refined. He should be himself, i’m entirely on board with that, but he’s not shown being worse off. I’m not saying he should stay posh, just give him a clear reason why his life is worse off this way is all. It’s basic storytelling. But since Jose can’t just.. undo his training because he dosen’t know how they bring in Panchito! And we get another delightful song as Panchito tries to give a good lesson on being yourself with the help of his fellow cabs by explaning his long ass middle name... with Rob Paulsen’s voice. Yeah while Rob dosen’t play Panchito outside of song, he does end up voicing him for the number, likely because of his signature rapid fire delivery in music, but still does a GREAT job at that too. Serously I wasn’t just trying to placate people calling him a legend last time, he REALLY is fantastic, he was just given nothing to work with and here the diffrence shows as the song is really catchy, really beautifully animated and really fun and really plays to Rob’s strengths. Again casting a white man as a Latino is .. pretty sketchy, but it’s not Rob’s fault and i’m sure if Carlos was even offered the song, or even if he wansn’t, Rob apologized for it and made sure it was okay> Wether it actually was I don’t know but I can’t genuinely see Rob Paulson as the kind of guy to be racisit or steal rolls or any of that stuff. It’s likely they just knew he could sing fast and wanted to do that and dind’t think through implications.

The song dosen’t quite work so they play a short, and when that fails Mickey closes the show sincerly thanking everyone and apologizing to Goofy. Goofy is restored.. horay? What do you think ungoofy?

“SOON THE APOTHEOSIS WILL BE APON THEE AND ALL WILL BE GOOF. ALL WILL BE GOOF. “ Oh you always say that Final Thoughts on Not So Goofy Wraparound: Not terrible, but it’s really thin plot wise. but joke and song wise it’s REALLY good, so overall i’d say i’ts just okay> Not a great or memorable plot, or an original one really, btu the use of the cabs is FAR better this time around, the song is really damn good, and there are some good jokes, so overall it works. Like the last one the wraparound is nothing specail, but it’s still deeply entertaining. Speaking of entertaining, let’s talk shorts.

Roller Coaster Painters: It’s one of those old “Mickey, Donald and Goofy” have a buisness deals, where all are hired to paint a rollercoaster with the person who does the most getting a free pass for life and Donald naturally being the only one who cares. A paint war insues between Donald and Mickey... mostly because Donald wants the prize real bad and Mickey wants to “give him a run for his money” instead of just helping him because he’s a dick I guess? I dunno, but it escalates to them paiting each other and, in my favorite part, Donald stealing shit from the park to create a paint arsenal for himself, forging the prize to get his revenge. Fun paint base fighting ensues, and Goofy inevitably wins and rips the thing. SImple, but really charming with really fluid and wonderful animation helping accenutate the hyjinks. Really good slaptstick stuff and a VAST improvment over the last episode’s longer short.

Goofy’s Extreme Sports Wakeboarding: Just a fun, silly skit of Goofy wakeboarding, my faviorite bit being him doing the tantrum, which his him doing a child’s tantrum in mid-air. What was your faviorite bit UnGoofy?

“BEHOLD MY SEED, THE SEED OF YOUR DOOM, THE SEED OF ALL WORLDS AND THE SEED OF ALL BLOOMS!”

Awwwwww.... he has a kid now.

How to Wash Dishes: Another How to Bit. Not as strong as the last one but still fun and throughly relatable as Goofy’s a dishwasher, which having been one twice now, I can relate to his surly disposition at the narrator guy talking it up. The Narrator then.. has goofy run up credit card debt because he’s a terrible person, hijinks ensue, and Goofy ends up.. washing dishes. Overall a fun short, and again relatable as Washing Dishes is not great. Not quite as good as the other two, but still enjoyable because well. it’s goofy after all.

OveralL Thoughts: This was more like it. While the plot of the main segment was kind of thin and nonsensical in places... it worked because this is more of a comedy show and the wraparounds are more focused on jokes and crossover gags than a real plot, and worked SLIGHTLY better. The shorts were also really great, making this a hell of a lot more fun to watch. Highly recommend it to any cabs or house of mouse fan or if your intrested in house of mouse, this is a good one to try out. If you liked this review, reblog it, like it, comment etc etc, and if you have an episode of house of mouse, another disney show, or just another show in general you’d like me to cover you can comission episodes by sending me a direct message on here or an ask to get my discord to hash things out there. Right now comissions are ONLY 3 bucks through monday, so get em now while their hot! And until next time there’s always another rainbow. NEXT TIME: It’s Don Rosa again! Horary!.

#house of mouse #goofy goof #jose carioca #panchito pistoles #the three caballeros #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #donald duck #clarabelle cow #gus goose #not so goofy #reviews #comission

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enigmasalad · 5 years

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Weddings Are Places We Don’t Belong

Deceit sighed as he walked into his apartment. Today had been rather exhausting. Sure, being a bartender at a high-class club doesn’t seem like it, but it is. From making drinks for finicky and snobbish customers to keeping figurative and literal tabs on others (for his side business as an informant) he had his hands full. There was one older gentleman saying something completely homophobic as he ordered a scotch on the rocks that he so totally didn’t manipulate to give a rather hefty tip. Another lady (who was most likely going through a midlife crisis) he was serving an expensive cocktail to loudly and bluntly asked about the scarred side of his face. Yeah that was a completely idiotic and bitchy move, but Deceit would milk this opportunity for all it was worth by basically making her feel horribly guilty. So he got another large tip and satisfaction of this woman looking like she was mortified at herself. So after work like that (and a rather threatening text from a customer of his informant business he just shrugged off) he just wanted to relax with his boyfriend and their two headed snake Jekyll and Hyde. However, as he took off his shoes, he heard a frustrated shout followed by a loud crash.

“Dammit Remus.” Remus was probably having another outburst, which meant either broken furniture, walls or even fingers. Deceit entered the kitchen to see what the extent of the damages. There were broken plates and glasses on the floor. Knives and somehow spoons were embedded in cupboards and in the walls. Heck Remus managed to have a fucking skillet stuck to the ceiling by some substance that Deceit didn’t even want to guess the origin of. And of course, In the center was Remus, hair wild and eyes even wilder. Tears flowed freely down his face and his slightly sharper than average teeth were bared in fury or pain. There were glass and ceramic in his feet, hands, leg and arms. He had his arm on their cutting board and a cleaver high in the air right over it. Deceit announced his presence by clearing his throat. The crazed man dropped the cleaver that was in his hands once he spotted Deceit. “Dee..” he said, voice broken and raw from the amount of screaming he’s probably done. “Stand still Remus.” Deceit ordered. And still Remus stood. Deceit swept up the mess, which took forever. There was ceramic and glass everywhere. The man tried to get what he could but was certain one of them will have a piece of glass in their feet sometime this week. Once he was done, it was time for stage two of the outburst aftercare, treating Remus’s injuries. Deceit lead his now quiet and drained boyfriend to a dining chair and went to get the first aid supplies. When he came back, he decided to get to the bottom of this.

“What made you want to impale our walls with spoons this time Remus?” he asked as he tweezed glass and ceramic out of his boyfriend’s body. “Shut the fuck up.” Remus growled. Deceit rolled his eyes. If Remus was going to be like this, fine. He can play bitchy too. He sighed and put the tweezers down and looked at Remus with an indifferent expression. “Alright, then you can tweeze the glass out of yourself and I’ll be in our room since you can handle this yourself.” Deceit said, starting to get up. “Wait! Don’t!” Remus cried, head suddenly snapping up and eyes desperate. “Then I need you to tell me what’s going on Remus. You know I won’t actually leave you, but you also know I can’t help you if you won’t cooperate.” Deceit got back down on his knees and resume cleaning up Remus. Remus shakily sighed in defeat. He let out a humorous laugh. “S-So I found out Roman has an Instagram.” Remus started. Deceit practically growled at that name. Roman. He fucking hated that bastard. Not as much as Remus, but close. He felt sick Remus felt this kind of pain again from his twin. It had been years since he saw the pompous dumbass, but the hate was still there. You see, Deceit knew Remus and his brother Roman since middle school. He quickly made friends with Remus (back then Deceit saw him as a tool, but “unfortunately” hormones and feelings had different ideas in the future) and heard about Roman from him. Apparently once the twins entered middle school, Roman decide to become one of those fake, disgusting popular kids. According to Remus, Roman went even so far as to publicly insult his childhood best friend named Virgil. Their first encounter with the anxious and pale kid was in the boy’s bathroom. Remus had led Dee to the poor boy. He decided to follow Remus’s wishes and let the boy join their group. Virgil agreed, so they were a trio from then on. They spent time together talking shit about the popular kids and plotting public humiliation for them. It was the best fun any misfit could have really. However, their plans quickly turned into revenge when Roman, egged on by his “friends”, shoved Remus in a locker. Deceit picked the locker open to find Remus pale, shaking and unusually quiet. They all quickly agreed to make the popular kids lives hell once high school started. Sure, Dee handled most of the revenge (planting drugs in lockers, framing cheating, etc) but it was a group effort. Watching popular kid after popular kid get expelled, sent to prison or disowned had the trio raise a red solo cup of booze to victory. Now it was on to target Roman. That’s when the bastard had a change of heart. Roman finally snapped out of the need of being the popular kid and as he did with poor Virgil, broke ties with them. He called them out for the peer pressuring and told them he would rather try to be a better person with no friends than be a villain and have many of them. Most of the lunchroom clapped. The small group didn’t. In fact, Deceit wanted to throw up. It was truly disgusting the amount of bullshit Roman spewed out. Like hell he was going to be a better person. Remus left a dent in the metal lunch table when he slammed down his fist in rage. Soon everything fell apart, because Roman was telling the truth. He wrote apology letters to everyone he’s hurt, joined theater and developed his own personality, or at least shown the personality he was “forced” to hide. What’s worse is Virgil started to believe him. Roman handed Virgil a literal fucking apology essay and begged for forgiveness. “I-I know I’ve hurt you beyond the point of fixing our relationship. It was stupid to do that to you when you were my best friend! Its fine if you never forgive me, but I will always regret hurting you and not treating you like a friend.” Roman looked like he was going to burst into tears. Virgil’s eyes were wide. Deceit growled. “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying, as usual;. You should burn his apology.” Deceit said, staring at the pathetic brother. Before Virgil or Roman could speak, Remus acted. He punched Roman in the gut HARD. When Roman doubled over, they left. Virgil followed, but Deceit saw his hesitation.

One day, Virgil came to Deceit’s home where he lived alone. He was obviously uncomfortable. “I read the apology.” He said. “Was it as fake as we thought?” Deceit asked with a laugh. Virgil didn’t laugh. He swallowed thickly. “No. In fact, I realized something.” The look Virgil gave Deceit still haunts him in his dreams.

“I’m no better than him. In fact, we’ve been in the same boat.” Deceit rolled his eyes. “Virgil you sound ridiculo-“ “No, I don’t. I realize we both are the same! We’ve been manipulated to do the opposite of what we’ve wanted to do, all for the sake of a fake friendship! I’ve helped you get people sent to prison for fucks sake!” Virgil almost shouted.

Deceit snapped.

“Watch your fucking mouth Petrov. You forget what we’ve done for you. Without us, you’d be nothing!” “No, with you and Remus, all I am is nothing! I’ve been a fucking tool all this time! You’ve never cared for me at all!”

Both Virgil and Deceit stood up. Deceit clenched his fist to prevent him from decking Virgil. And by the look Virgil was giving him, Virgil was silently daring him to do it. “If Roman is trying to be a better person, then maybe its time for me to try as well. I don’t care if I’m alone. At least I won’t be fake like you.”

Deceit was about to punch Virgil when the door burst in. It was Remus. He looked..disturbed. His grin was WAY too wide and tears were falling. There was something wrong, horribly wrong. Virgil backed up towards the back door, like he knew something was about to happen. “Remus what the f-“ “I killed Roman.” Deceit’s hand fell to his side as he stared at Remus in shock. He knew Remus was crazy but- “H-He tried apologizing, so I grabbed mama’s cast iron and just-“ Remus make the violent motion of hitting someone over the head with an object. He chuckled and sobbed. “I blacked out and woke up here! I-I killed him! I killed my own brother!!” Remus said hysterically. It was at that moment Virgil bolted. Remus’s head snapped up and started to run after the emo, most likely to leave no witnesses, but some pathetic and sentimental part of Deceit held Remus back. “Calm the fuck down!” Deceit demanded. “He’s escaping! He’s going to tell the police! Let me kill him for you!” Remus screamed as he struggled. As Deceit developed bruises and scratches from trying to restrain the crazed man, he knew Remus was right. Virgil was going to alert some kind of authority. They didn’t have time. They packed up their shit and left before Virgil had the chance to snitch. They found out Roman was alive with miraculously less damage than anyone thought. Plus, Virgil hadn’t said a word, saying he had no clue where Remus or Deceit were, but it was too late. They were gone. And that’s how they ended up in this apartment in London. This was the reason he was picking glass out of his tormented boyfriend in stewing silence. Deceit wrapped Remus’s arms, legs, hands and feet in bandages. He finally decided to ask the question that he was dying to know. “Why on Earth were you looking for Roman’s Instagram?” Remus chuckled, a little more alive now. “I was going to anonymously send him chain mail letters and links to vore porn. And crocs!” Remus admitted. “Jesus Christ Remus.” Deceit sighed. “But I saw that he’s engaged. To three people! They must have kinky sex. I didn’t know he was that desperate for cock. Or ass.” Deceit blinked. Three people, with Roman? What poor, gullible people decided to stick Roman? Di “Is it Virgil?” he asked. “Eh one of them is. Another is like, a sexy teacher looking guy who’d I’d let spank me with a ruler and the other is this chubby guy I’d think would have very squishy insides. I’d like to make a onesie out of him. I’d cuddle with you by a fireplace and drink wine with you wearing that.” Remus said with a grin Deceit chuckled slightly. Most people find Remus disturbing but not him. He found Remus childish and just misunderstood. It was endearing, borderline charming. Remus grinned brighter at the chuckle, but then his face was pained once more. “I just got in my head again. I hate him and I wish even to this day I could finish the job! And yet-“

Remus let out a shaky sigh. Deceit stood up and led his boyfriend to their bedroom. Stage three was comfort and reassurance, so Deceit eased Remus onto their bed and went over to their dresser. On it was the terrarium Jekyll and Hyde lived in. The snake immediately tried to slide up Deceit’s arm. Deceit held his arm up and one of the snake’s heads flicked its tongue out, tickling Deceit’s cheek. He walked back over to the bed and sat next to Remus, letting the snake slither and get comfortable on Remus. Remus giggled as the snake’s tongue flickered against his neck. “Aw they’re giving me kisses!”

“They’re not concerned about you. They just think you smell bad.” Deceit said. “We have the best sons. I love them so much.” Remus sighed as he snuggled the duo headed snake. Deceit smiled softly. Within minutes, he, Remus and their “sons” were cuddling. Remus turned his head to Deceit and looked at him with a soft kind of look that was always only for him. “Thank you.” He said. “It’s no problem.” Deceit responded. Remus looked at the ceiling. “I just…miss home sometimes. Yes, even Roman, even though I want to send him to hell. I miss causing trouble with Virgil. Making him terrified of his shadow. Watching him shrink away when I flirted with him.” Deceit listened carefully, stroking Remus’s messy hair with careful fingers. He listened about the places they’d hang out at back home, like the abandoned strip mall or the playground at night. Remus chattered about the alleyways that had the best dumpsters to dive in and the convenience store bagged pickles that always smelled funny. How back then Deceit easily snuck into liquor stores and bars and somehow always got them free drinks. Then Remus closed his eyes and his voice grew shaky. “I miss mama. I miss her hugs, her food, her songs when she’d clean, when she’d yell at me for stabbing birds with sharpened sticks. W-When she would try to make me bring you to our house cause you were “too skinny”. But she always looked at me differently than Roman. I-I just don’t know what I did wrong for them to hate me. What did I do?”

“She loved you, I think. Just not the way you needed. She was too focused on reforming you to society’s unrealistic standards, she didn’t take time to understand that there’s nothing wrong with you. That you just have an enhanced view on reality that cowards are too blind to see.” Deceit answered. So, there they lay, Deceit whispering reassurances and Remus giving him and their “Sons” kisses and affection. This was just another day in their hellish life but, they had each other.

“Weddings suck anyways. You just watch a princess and a butler shove cake into each other’s mouths and say how much they love each other even though they’ll most likely hate each other in ten years.” Remus grinned the dangerous smile that didn’t make Deceit’s chest feel warm and his cheeks flush. “The only release they get is when death does them part!” Deceit laughed loudly. That was true! “Virgil’s made a huge mistake. I hope he’s happy when he dies.” Remus said. “Probably not. He’s never happy.” Deceit hummed. “No one will be happy in all honesty.” Remus agreed.

Deceit’s life is rough. He’s a bartender for snobs and an informant for the criminal underworld. He lives in an apartment with knives and spoons in the walls and glass on the floor. He has a boyfriend who has violent meltdowns and who destroys their home on some days, and others just does the oddest things. They have a freak of nature snake as their only family members. And you know what? It was perfect.

Remus turned over with a smirk and pulled Deceit closer to him.

“Lets have some comfort fucking Dee.”

Deceit sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Dammit Remus.”

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years

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678.

music;

x1 Your top three favorite bands: >> I don’t really have favourite bands anymore, but three bands that I enjoy a lot are Muse, Nevermore, and Coheed & Cambria.

x2 One song that means a lot to you: >> Nothing As It Seems by Pearl Jam.

x3 An instrument you dislike: >> I don’t think I dislike any instrument.

x4 A musician you think others should know more about: >> I don’t think there’s any musician that everyone should know about. It’s not that deep. Listen to whatever you like.

x5 Some lyrics you find meaningful: >> There’s no way I’m going to think of some off the top of my head.

x6 The name of one of your past music teachers: >> I think one of my choir instructors was named Mrs Brosnan.

x7 A musician who inspires you: >> Clint Mansell.

x8 A song from your childhood, that you used to sing: >> I sang stuff from the Prince of Egypt soundtrack a lot when I was a kid. Which is why I still remember all the lyrics.

x9 A description of your music taste: >> I wouldn’t bother describing it.

x1o One thing you believe about music in general: >> I believe that people should listen to whatever moves them, and being snobbish about which artists/genres are “better” than others completely ignores the pure subjectivity of the experience and makes you annoying to be around. The analytics of music is a very interesting area of study, certainly, but when it comes to whatever people choose to listen to for their own pleasure, leave that stuff at the door.

x11 Do you judge other peoples' taste? >> No. See above.

x12 Do you think you have "good taste"? Why|why not? >> I don’t care about whether my taste in music is “good” or “bad” to other people. It’s just what I like listening to. Again, it’s not that deep.

x13 Are there any concerts you'd like to go to? >> Sure, a few.

x14 What would be a perfect line-up, in your opinion? >> I don’t have any ideas for a perfect line-up.

x15 What do you think of modern VS older music? >> I stay away from comparison. I mean, I’ve definitely had discussions about how the music industry has changed, how listening habits have changed, stuff like that -- because that’s stuff that’s easy to measure. Whether music was “better” “back then” and all that is not of interest to me, because it’s really just opinion and not even useful opinion. Some of the music I like is leagues older than me, some of it came out just last year.

life;

x1 What is one lesson you have learned? >> Oh, you know. Everything is temporary, and such.

x2 Have you ever reconnected or reunited with old friends? >> No.

x3 Were you ever in a hurry to grow up? How'd that work out? >> I was in a hurry because nothing about being a minor made sense to me -- life really only started making sense to me when I was out on my own. Even when it was terrible, it made sense. I could figure shit out. Trial and error never really scared me.

x4 What did you tend to think of school, as a kid? As a teen? >> I don’t know what I thought of school as a child, but I know it was the bane of my existence as a teenager.

x5 Do people have to earn your respect? >> I give basic respect to everyone, regardless of their personality or whatever, unless their behaviour is just full-on atrocious. But more personal, deeply-felt respect is something that is developed for a certain kind of person.

x6 Or is it given until there's a reason for it not to be? >> That’s how basic respect works for me, yeah.

x7 What is something you've learned about trust? >> I’ve learned that it’s a really valuable thing, but people will definitely treat it like it’s nothing, and that’s a tragedy.

x8 What advice do you have regarding happiness? >> Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s really, really not that deep. The cult of happiness is just a huge money-maker for the corporations, none of which actually have your well-being at heart. Also, the definition of happiness varies depending on who you talk to and what angle they’re pushing, so as far as intangible things go, it’s ridiculously mercurial and insubstantial. Make your goals more specific than “be happy/happier” or else you’ll always fail.

x9 In your own opinion, what is the meaning of life? >> Whatever you want. There’s no inherent meaning, in my opinion, which means it’s all up to the individual.

x1o Who|What makes living worthwhile? >> I don’t know. Whatever sparks joy, I guess.

x11 If there was no God, would you still want to live? >> Luckily, there are far, far more reasons to enjoy being alive than the concept of God.

x12 When was the last time you altered your lifestyle? >> I’m not sure. My lifestyle has been rather stable for the past couple of years.

x13 What is your take on getting older? >> I’m interested to see what happens.

x14 Do you think you are wise? >> Nah.

x15 Do you believe in an afterlife? Why|Why not? >> Nah. It just doesn’t jive with me. Well... on the other hand, I interpret Inworld as an afterlife and neither of the current Inworlders have disagreed with me. But it’s not... like, literal “after-life”. They could also be living other lives, simultaneously, or in parallel to this one, or before this one or after this one or... whatever. It still doesn’t track with the idea of, say, Heaven, which is a very ... linear destination. Hm.

people;

x1 Do you ever observe other people, at random? >> Sure.

x2 What is one thought you have about society today? >> I don’t really have thoughts about society as a whole. I usually have thoughts about specific aspects of American society, like media influence and individualism and stuff like that. But those thoughts change frequently as new information is presented to me, so I wouldn’t quote them or anything.

x3 Can you agree to disagree, easily? >> Sure.

x4 Do you ever wonder about what goes on in other peoples' minds? >> Of course. Especially neurotypical people. What’s it like to have a brain that functions the way you expect and need it to, all the time???

x5 Do you try to persuade others to think like you? >> Eh. I am always up for offering my perspective on things, but there’s no way I can expect to convince anyone to adopt my perspective if they don’t already have it. It might happen, on some odd occasion, but I don’t expect it to.

x6 Has someone tried to persuade you to see things from their point of view? >> Sure. It’s usually not too difficult for me, though. Whether I care about their point of view is the thing that matters, not whether I can grok it or not.

x7 What is one lifestyle you do not understand? >> I cannot think of a single lifestyle I just flat-out don’t understand. (Yes, you should consider that a challenge.)

x8 How do you think people with mental disorders should be treated ( socially, not medically )? >> Well, with dignity and compassion, of course. How else?

x9 Is there a subculture you dislike or make fun of? >> Nah. I like subcultures, even the ones I don’t participate in.

x1o What do you hate about humanity? >> Nothing.

x11 Do you contribute to what you hate? If yes, in what way? >> ---

x12 Do you wonder what the world would be like w|o people? >> Sure, it’s a fun thought exercise.

x13 Is interacting with others something you enjoy? >> Under certain conditions.

14 Do you think the government is up to something? >> I mean, aren’t they always? But maybe not necessarily the stuff r/Conspiracy says they’re up to.

x15 What is one cure for ignorance? >> The only cure for ignorance that I’m aware of is the willingness to learn.

#surveys #survey #themed survey

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 6 “Stealing from the Elderly”

Here’s the dilemma:

I adore a lighthearted RWBY.

I don’t adore RWBY when the parts RT chooses to frame as jokes are the legitimate flaws the group needs to work through, thereby sending the message that they aren’t flaws at all. No need to take dangerous mindsets seriously!

And that’s this entire episode. Let’s dive in.

We open on a shot of the Atlesian airships stationed in the Argus bay, cuing the viewer into the one thing I really hoped wouldn’t happen in this episode: the gang going through with this ridiculous plan. Because as we quickly see logic needs to do exactly what I said it would, getting the hell out of the characters’ way in order to justify them making it this far. Every choice they make over the next 13 minutes only works because of the Power of Plot and yep, I’m just salty enough to point out as many inconstancies as I can.

Let’s start with Weiss pretending that she’s “come to [her] senses” and is willing to go home. (Oh look! The kids are telling more lies.) This part is, in my opinion, the most solid portion of the plan. As a Schnee, Weiss does have a guaranteed way of getting access to an airship and the biggest risk is that she’ll actually end up going to Atlas by herself, ending up in the hands of her family. In which case Weiss is strong enough and done enough to just leave again. They physically can’t stop her. I would have actually given her the relic with the hope that, worst case scenario, they still complete their task: getting the relic behind safer walls. Right now emotion is warring with pragmatism. Emotionally Ruby isn’t willing to separate from Weiss and have her brave Atlas alone, but logically the best option is to let Weiss complete their mission—just have her run/sneak away once the airship lands?—and leave the rest of the group to figure out how to get to Atlas at their leisure. As in so many other ways, they’re not thinking as huntsmen right now. They’re not putting their jobs above their personal desires.

Still, that tiny portion of the plan is pretty solid. The problem is… everything else.

Cordovin makes Weiss uncomfortable by saying that she hopes she follows in Winter’s footsteps and she’ll be sending two of her best guards on the journey with her—so be sure to tell General Ironwood that! Cordovin is clearly concerned only with making herself look good. She leaves Weiss in the ‘capable’ hands of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

As she’s walking away though things start getting ridiculous. The twins try to take Weiss’ luggage, commenting on how heavy it is, but Weiss insists strongly that she can take care of it herself. First off, this just shows how ill-equipped the gang is to pull this off. The easy answer here is to just let them carry your luggage. So what if it’s heavy? The first time we’re introduced to Weiss, Ruby is crashing into a small mountain of her suitcases. If anyone can pull off the snobbish, can’t-go-anywhere-without-my-whole-wardrobe heiress shtick, it’s the actual heiress. But no, Weiss makes a big thing of it so that Cordovin gets suspicious, partly because these kids have no idea how to pull off a complex ruse, partly because, as said, the writing wants to treat all this in a lighthearted manner. So Cordovin pauses.

The answer to this problem? Have Adrian cry. Okay wait, how old is this kid? Because he looks to be about two. Maybe three. Regardless he is not old enough to cry on command, especially when his mom doesn’t, say, do something that she knows will upset him, but straight up goes, “Just like we practiced.” Oh yes. Over the last few hours you practiced with your toddler until he’s now an expert at crying at the drop of a hat. There’s a hint that this is his semblance—those rings of sound we see emanating outward—but that’s not confirmed (it could just be a stylistic choice to show he’s crying very loudly) and even if it was, that doesn’t change a kid’s ability to comprehend his mother’s vague statement and execute an order. RWBY is a show with fantasy qualities, but they’ve never extended that to human development before.

My point is this is stupid. And stupid is okay! On its own this scene is absolutely hilarious and if we’d gotten it a few episodes ago I would have been thrilled. The RWBY gang meets Jaune’s sister, her wife, and the proud parents show off their kid’s semblance by asking him to cry. Adorable! No one cares if the logic there is iffy because it’s just a fun, character driven moment. There’s nothing relying on that logic. Here though? It’s precisely what I’m trying to point out. In order for the plan to work the logic of the world has to suddenly bend itself to the kids’ whims—up until the plot wants them to fail.

That’s just annoying.

So Adrian cries and the guards are immediately distracted. “A crying child!” “We must console it!” Kudos to them for being kind people. They’re weird and way too wrapped up in the supposed superiority of Atlas, but there’s something to be said for seeing a kid crying and dropping everything to try and make him smile.

Weiss takes her own luggage onto the airship… where we hear Maria’s voice inside.

Look. Maria is small. She’s not that small. Is it possible to fit someone into a suitcase? Yeah. Pretty sure I’ve seen Youtube videos of stuff like that. Is it a good solution when applied to a problem that’s been plaguing your team for half a volume now? Not really. You’ll notice throughout this recap that all of the things I point out do have potential explanations—maybe Adrian is that smart, maybe Maria is that small—so it’s less an issue of each thing individually and more that they’re all slammed together in one episode, piling on each other to ensure that the plan works as much as it does. All writing requires a suspension of disbelief, but RWBY is really stretching theirs today.

Everyone else is standing by at various locations. Where did they get these comms to stay in contact? Who knows. Maybe Terra? We’re not told. Because there’s very little in this episode that’s meant to be taken seriously, despite the fact that it should be. RWBY is trying to work in a lot of humor before the finale’s inevitable angst, but this really wasn’t the time to do it.

We do see then that Terra is helping them by giving Blake and Yang info about the relay tower. I said before that they should use her as a resource, absolutely, but here we see them using her flippantly. Terra says seriously that this conversation “never happened” and Blake rolls her eyes at her. “Don’t worry. This isn’t the first time I’ve disabled Atlas security.” That’s not the point, Blake? The point is this woman—who you met two days ago, I might add—is risking her job in order to help you steal a freaking airship. Hell, she’s probably risking her freedom too. Cordovin is absolutely the type to chuck them all in jail in the name of “order.” Moments like these just re-emphasize to me how childish the group can be and once again the problem isn’t that childish view in and of itself, but that they’re not learning from it. That no one is calling them out on it. The story doesn’t challenge Blake on her insensitivity here, that she’s shrugging off this woman’s sacrifice like it’s her due. Of course you’d risk all this in the name of our idiotic plan. We’re the heroes. My leader just announced last night that we know what we’re doing and you all should follow along. Your worry is hilarious.

Terra reiterates that this conversation “never happened,” but we’re supposed to laugh at her fear. It’s not meant to read as legitimate because Blake isn’t worried and Blake is one of the protagonists. Now I want Terra to lose everything, just so the gang can look back on their choices and go, “Huh. Maybe we were hasty and kinda arrogant. People got hurt because of that.”

…Except we’ve already seen this. That’s the exact setup involving the relic and we still haven’t had anyone acknowledging how bad those choices were. At this point it’s not even a matter of whether you think the kids should or should not have found out about Salem, or challenged Ozpin’s authority. That ship has passed. It’s the way they went about getting the information that’s a problem. Entitlement, lack of empathy, thinking that it’s your way or the highway. We’re seeing more of that with this plan.

Then we get a legit wonderful moment though. God bless. Yang drops Blake off a little ways from the tower and asks if she’s sure she doesn’t want any help. Blake rightly points out that it’s a lot easier to sneak in with one person than two… and also, uh, sorry Yang. But you’re not exactly the stealth type.

This is a natural, well-written moment between two people who know each other intimately. My friends and I do this all the time: kinda insulting each other, we’re kinda annoyed by it, but we also realize the other has a point, so there’s no hard feelings. But I’m still gonna act a little like there is because it’s my right to fake-sulk in this moment. The expressions and dialogue are on point here. “I mean… you’re great! And I’ll hurry back!”

Highlight of the episode for me. Everything else can scoot on out.

We cut to an enthusiastic Jaune. “YES! Everything is going to plan.” Yeah, only because your plan has Plot Armor right now. We get a shot of Qrow leaning against a tree in the background, obviously unhappy. We’re once again suppose to sneer at his pessimistic attitude, but he’s right. The show isn’t commenting on his actual issues (drinking, lack of faith in general) because it’s too busy focusing on the one time Qrow is 100% on track this volume (this is a horrible plan bound to go awry).

We return to Weiss on the airship where she watches her scroll until she’s finally out of range. We stay focused on her seat as the sounds of a fight happen off screen and then the twins are drifting down from the airship on a single parachute, held together by one of Weiss’ glyphs.

But then that breaks and one of the guys falls.

He catches hold of the other’s leg because—again—the writing wants this plan to have a strong comedic tone (no doubt to combat the coming drama of Yang and Blake fighting Adam) and is ensuring that nothing bad actually happens. But something bad could have happened. Quite easily. These guys don’t appear to be fighters. I doubt they have the aura to protect them from a fall like that. Weiss could have just killed a guy if the writing was willing to take this plan at all seriously.

All we get though is a slightly guilty look from Weiss. I honestly find this whole series of events to be absurd. It would have fit in well with the early volumes of RWBY before the show grew darker and started emphasizing the consequences attached to a huntsmen’s choices; before we had a whole volume trying to convince us (unsuccessfully imo) that our group is made up of mature adults who are on par with—or according to Ruby’s words—surpassing the likes of Ozpin and Qrow. And this is how they follow up the claim that they don’t need and have never needed adults?

Ah yes. Stealing from allies, beating them up, and tossing them out of a plane. The epitome of being a huntsmen.

We then get the exact kind of line I figured was coming.

Maria: “Missy, I was the Grimm Reaper. What part of ‘best huntress of her generation’ don’t you understand?”

(In which that expression is me.)

Of course she can fly an airship! Note that the dialogue dodges all the concerns Weiss brings up. Aren’t you blind? Maria just laughs. Okay, okay, we as the audience at least got a glimpse from Maria’s perspective and know she can see shapes, but aren’t the goggles that allow you to do that “in desperate need of repair”? Maria still doesn’t provide an answer. She takes a super convenient plugin that just happens to fit the glasses we’ve only ever seen her wearing and we get a SENSORY DATA readout on the screen… so she’s connected to the ship now? Who knows. Again, we’re given no explanation. “Why would you kids let me fly this thing?” Maria asks, but it’s once again just another joke to laugh at, not treated as a legitimate question that I’d like answered. There’s a big difference between not boring your audience with every detail of how something works and outright ignoring how it works because you can’t be bothered to come up with something convincing.

Additionally, as said, the episode is riddled with more of that adults vs. kids mentality. Cordovin tells Weiss that, “Knowing you’re returning to Atlas just warms my old heart,” reminding us that the antagonist of this episode is old. She says, “It’s time you ask yourself, children: do you truly wish to defy me?” framing her, the adult, as the bad guy and the team, the “children,” as underdogs we’re meant to root for. Our episode title is “Stealing from the Elderly” because remember, we’re not just stealing from Atlas. We’re the young people stealing from old people because young people are good and old people are bad. Cordovin has been established as a delusional, nationalist, overly controlling racist. There are plenty of reasons to dislike her. Why does the show feel the need to emphasize age as one of the primary reasons we should distrust her? Oh yeah, because our protagonist just announced last week that kids rule and adults drool.

I bring this up again because it’s in direct contrast to what we’re seeing here with Maria. Her age is being used as a catch-all explanation. She’s ancient! She was a renowned huntress! That’s all you need to know. It’s because she’s been around so long and had so much experience that we supposedly buy into the fact that ‘fly an Atlesian airship’ is a part of that skill repertoire. We see the same thing happening when she conveniently knows the “jargon” to speak with the man down at the base. RWBY wants to have its cake and eat it too. Ozpin leads the team and keeps everyone going/alive. The kids turn on Ozpin because they don’t like how he runs things. Maria takes his place and does the exact same thing (giving orders, keeping them safe and their morale high), but the kids refuse to acknowledge this and the narrative encourages us to do the same. We never needed adults. Except now, once again, it’s an adult and an adult’s experience that’s coming to the rescue… but just forget about that by the time Ruby gives her speech to Qrow, okay?

You can’t have it both ways.

RWBY sure is trying though. While Maria perfectly flies her airship—and taunts Cordovin with cashews. That was admittedly great—things finally start going south. Blake was supposed to take out the tower but now isn’t responding to anyone’s calls. Cordovin hops into a giant fighter and demonstrates the ease with which she can knock Maria and Weiss out of the sky. Watch how fast the group goes from smug to panicked. Oscar yells, “What are we going to do?”—a familiar question at this point in the volume. Keep in mind that given Cordovin’s extreme personality, that first shot was (once again) only a warning shot because the show can’t actually have Weiss and Maria die a fiery death as their ship explodes in the sky. But that was always a possibility! Your actions have consequences. Often horrific ones, but like with the relic, no one is admitting that their ill thought choices are at the root of it all.

Qrow finally speaks up, but it’s not to let the kids take responsibility for their horrible plan that’s now put three teammates in danger. He shoulders all of it, claiming that it’s because of his semblance.

Which… okay. There’s a lot to unpack in this conversation. That is actually a very in-character thing for Qrow to say, but I’m still waiting for someone to point out how irrational his guilt is. That needs to be a part of his healing process, acknowledging his actual mistakes (relying on drink to the point where he becomes a liability) rather than stuff he’s not at all responsible for (this mission). Qrow’s semblance has a range. We established this clearly in his fight against Tyrian, so how the hell did he mess things up for Blake who’s all the way at the tower and Weiss who’s all the way up in the air? In that moment I thought Ruby would point this out. Start the conversation we should have gotten last week: Your semblance isn’t the problem and neither is the fact that you’re obviously hurting from these revelations. Your coping mechanism is. We need you to take responsibility for the things you can actually control.

Instead we get:

Ruby: “We’re all in this together and we’re all going to do the best we can. That’s all anyone can do…we would have come whether or not you let us so stop talking like we’re your responsibility. We’re not.”

Ruby, I hate to break it to you, but you are Qrow’s responsibility. Four times over.

Emotionally as the much younger niece of an adult uncle.

Legally considering that you are a minor in the company of an adult.

Legally again given that Qrow has his huntsmen license and you do not. Right now he is the only one with any authority in the real world (presuming that Maria can’t prove her status as former Grimm Reaper).

Justly since Qrow has been fighting this war for at least a decade and you’ve known about its existence for about three months.

Even if you believe Ruby is a fully autonomous adult at 16 with no formal standing in this world, the knee jerk reaction of “we would have come whether or not you let us” is precisely the problem. This isn’t a matter of rejecting what Ruby sees as unwarranted authority, it’s a rejection of valuable support. Qrow did tell them not to do this, but he said as much because the plan is stupid, not because he’s an adult who wants to…what? Curb kids’ actions just because he can? His objection had nothing to do with his authority and everything to do with the fact that this plan can only end badly—as we see happening right this moment. By planting herself on Team Kid, Ruby is choosing to automatically reject adult voices not because the advice itself is bad, but because it came from them. Boiled down the message is teenage rebellion. Don’t tell me what to do… even though you’re usually telling me what to do for a damn good reason.

Remember though, the writing is pro-protagonist here. So instead of having Qrow point out that these views need to be addressed, we get,

Qrow: “How did you grow up so fast?”

Ruby: “I had good role models.”

Ruby is not grown here. She’s doing a damn good job for a traumatized teen thrown into an impossible situation, but just because she believes she’s the bees knees now (ha) doesn’t mean we as the audience need to buy into that. Kudos for acknowledging those role models… but jeez. Rather than a heartwarming moment between uncle and niece, this now reads very much as, “I had good role models and now I don’t need them anymore.” Ruby says they could use “Qrow Branwen,” but she’s not showing it. The last time we saw her speak to Qrow she was announcing that they didn’t need Oz or other adults. Based on what we’ve seen, rather than address the actual issue (alcoholism) Ruby is trying to put Qrow into a subordinate position. I want your help, but only if you follow our lead. I just reminded you that (I believe) you have no authority over me anymore and you can’t make us do anything. Your place here depends on you acknowledging that we don’t need you; we’ll just have you.

Which would be something to consider if these kids had actually demonstrated an ability to survive without adults and make better decisions than adults, as they claim they have. If they could actually think and act and plan and enact as equals, on par with people who have finished their schooling, experienced far more, and fought this war for decades (if not millennia). But RWBY hasn’t shown us that. As I’ve laid out elsewhere, the show has in fact done the exact opposite. We’ve had 6 volumes demonstrating why they’re not ready to call all the shots yet, emphasizing how much kids still have to learn. Whether it’s a matter of thinking ahead, thinking strategically, controlling your emotions, or a straight up difference between you and an adult fighter’s power, the kids consistently need an adult’s assistance. Which is natural! But it’s also why having the show frame Ruby as justified in this attitude is quite frustrating to watch.

But whatever. I’m trying to enjoy this episode despite all the issues I see, but I really prefer writing that hangs together and volume 6 has been all over the place. Regardless, we see more of Cordovin piloting that robot (at least she’s reliably over the top in her characterization), but we also see how everyone else is reacting to it.

Civilians are scared. They’re all staring, some holding onto one another, others with hands up over their mouths. This is why the plan is stupid. Not just because we need to crank up our suspension of disbelief, but because they’re stealing an airship. And now they’ve gotten caught. Again, the plot kept treating it as a joke, but Atlas is actually going to see them as “traitors” for this. It is going to cause more tension between the kingdoms. It’s already freaking people out.

Hmm. What happens again when people get anxious and scared...?

And now Ruby wants to start a battle. They’ve committed to this theft, which means that once things go badly all they can do is escalate the situation. They’re not going to surrender. They’re going to make things worse by now attacking the special-operative in charge of this base. It doesn’t matter how much of an asshole Cordovin is, she’s not an enemy. She’s not a grimm, a bandit, or a subordinate of Salem’s. She’s an authority figure of a currently tenuous ally… and Ruby’s solution is to call Weiss back so they can “take this thing down.” This is what happens when kids are in charge.

Qrow got in trouble for destroying two random Atlas robots. What do we think is going to happen after the gang destroys what looks like one of the best (and most expensive) defenses Argus has? Well, at this point presumably nothing since the writing is determined that the kids shouldn’t take responsibility for their actions, but logically it can’t end well.

Let me be clear here: they are in the wrong. It doesn’t matter that they’re our protagonists with a super secret mission. These kids stole the property of an ally in a time of peace, endangered lives, planned to disable their security, and now plan to destroy one of their primary defenses. Their actions are scaring people which means they’re more likely to attract grimm. The show can dress it up if they want, but the gang’s plan goes against everything they’re supposed to be striving for as huntsmen.

Regardless, they’re going through with it. We end the episode with the surprise reveal of Adam, another ‘Okay how does this work?’ moment. So he really was there on the train and out by the farm? He just left Menagerie after getting there and managed to catch the same ride? Following them without anyone noticing? Waiting for this precise moment to get Blake alone? Fine. Sure. If I can ignore the gang getting to Argus in an afternoon I can ignore this too.

Especially because I am looking forward to Blake and Yang finally getting to confront him, if only so we can (hopefully) put Adam’s arc behind us. I’ve never been invested in him as a villain, primarily because he doesn’t do anything. His status as a Bad Guy is so tied up with Blake that unless they’re on screen together Adam is just a whiny, useless man-baby. RT does his abuse very well—his claim that Blake “ruined everything” and her calling him out on his “stalking” were great—but those interactions are rare for obvious reasons. So yeah, I’m hoping for a semi-accidental death in this fight. I don’t want the girls to go through the trauma of being murderers, but if Adam could do something stupid that results in him being killed? I think that’d be good. Let the girls find their closure and then be done with him. The cast is massive. We don’t need to keep around characters who only manage to be relevant once every two volumes.

Maybe he can hit a part of the tower and electrocute himself. Would that kill a fighter other than Nora? I don’t know… and now that I think about it, this theorizing is getting morbid lol. Let’s just wait and see.

Until next time!

Other Things of Note

Cordovin’s comment that everyone was devastated when Weiss chose Beacon over Atlas is a great contrast to the comment about Pyrrha. Both went to Beacon to escape the attention from their home towns, but one was a good attention that just proved limiting—are these people really my friends?—while the other was outright abuse.

Honestly, “Jargon was fine, but our pilots aren’t elderly women” is one of the few parts of this plan that’s logically on point. Yes. It is highly suspicious if the pilot checking in sounds like Maria. So it’s clear that RT can apply these basic rules when they choose to.

“That’s the sound of me not caring!” Istg cute bees teasing and Maria living her messed up life to the fullest saved my sanity today. I’m staning those parts of this episode.

How does Adam see??

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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mermaidsirennikita · 5 years

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Book Roundup April/May 2019

This spring has been exceptionally difficult and busy for me on both a personal and professional level. I really haven’t had the time to read as I’d like--so I’m combining April and May. With that being said, there were some good books within the past couple of months--Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan was DEFINITELY a huge highlight.

Call Me Evie by J.P. Pomare. 2/5. Kate is held in a remote cabin by Ben--who holds her captive while claiming to protect her from the fallout of something terrible that she did. The trouble is that Kate can’t remember the night that terrible thing happened. As she struggles to piece together her memories, what Bill tells her isn’t matching up--and she must reconcile who she is with what she did. I’m sure that lots of people would love this book, but the pacing was thrown off for me by all of the flashbacks. It’s not you, it’s me.

Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan. 5/5. Nadya is a Kalyazi cleric, and as such she can commune with--and draw supernatural power from--a pantheon of gods. She’s spent her life in a monastery; however, a looming threat finally materializes in the form of Tranavian invaders, heretics that send Nadya on the run. Falling in with Malachiasz, a Tranavian defector, she sets out to end the war she only way she knows how: by killing the Tranavian king. Meanwhile, Serefin, the heir to the throne, is summoned home from the front--only to discover that he’s in more danger at home than abroad. This is a wonderfully atmospheric and delightful novel. Emily never holds back--you get monsters, you get royal politics, you get alcoholic princes and questions of theology. And there is a romance that I’m absolutely obsessed with, which is always major for me. I loved this book to death, and there is one bit at the very end that just got at my soul. I can’t wait for the next installment!

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. 3/5. Kya is a young child when her mother walks out on the family; it isn’t long before her brother and father follow suit, leaving Kya as the borderline-feral Marsh Girl. At first, she’s dependent on the kindness of strangers. But gradually--with the help of friends and Tate, a boy who will become her first love--she becomes independent, if never truly accepted by the nearby townspeople. Her way of life is shattered when a young man shows up dead--and she is accused of murder. On the plus side, this book was very engaging, and some the descriptions were at times beautiful. If you’re from the South, some things will indeed ring true. It’s not perfect, but it is engaging, and a fun if predictable read... until the last third or so, when everything kind of collapses and the book’s flaws are emphasized in a big way. I really, really disliked how much Owens went in on the “untouched wild beauty” thing with Kya. It felt very fetishistic. She’s this beautiful poor white girl living feral in the marsh... learning everything she knows from black people, by the way. And all the men love her and want to have sex with her. I’m honestly just torn about this one; I feel like I would have given it a lower rating if not for how much I did enjoy the first chunk.

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang. 4/5. Khai is accomplished and handsome; however, he’s never had a girlfriend. On the autism spectrum, he’s convinced himself that he’s incapable of love. His mother has other ideas--and while visiting her homeland in Vietnam, she meets Esme. She offers the single mother a golden opportunity: visit America for the summer and convince Khai to marry her. If he refuses, she can go home, no strings attached. It’s too much for Esme to possibly turn down--but making Khai fall in love with her is a much more difficult task than she first imagined. This wasn’t quite up to par with Hoang’s debut (the delightful Kiss Quotient) but I did really, really like it. Her trademark humor is there, as is her sensitivity and knack for sweet romance. Khai and Esme’s story is just kind of lovely. (And sexy.) I did feel like the ending was a bit rushed--I wanted more. But I’d recommend it any day, and can’t wait for Hoang’s next book.

Little Darlings by Melanie Golding. 2/5. Following the birth of her twins, Morgan and Riley, young mother Lauren is exhausted. Therefore, few believe her when she says that she saw a woman slip into her hospital room and attempt to replace her babies with strange creatures. A month later, the boys briefly go missing in the park--and when they’re found, Lauren insists that the things that have been returned to her are not her children. This may have been a bad fit for me--I love magical realism and changelings, but the overwhelming depressing darkness of this book was just... not even vaguely enjoyable. And it did help put me off of having children for a looong time, if ever. I couldn’t focus on the writing quality; it was just so dour.

From Scratch by Tembi Locke. 5/5. This memoir tracks the first few years following the death of Tembi’s husband, Saro, following a long battle with cancer. As she visits his Sicilian family each summer with their daughter, she flashes back to the early days of their courtship and marriage--as well as her in-law’s initial struggles over the fact that their Italian chef son married an African-American actress. “From Scratch” is LOVINGLY written and painfully beautiful. It made me want to be more open to falling in love, as cheesy as that sounds--what Tembi and Saro shared was clearly worth all of the pain she’d feel after seeing him slowly deteriorate and ultimately losing him... which is saying something. Locke also has a talent for writing in general, but especially about food. I appreciated her human examination of the prejudice she faced; it’s really obviously on her to decide whether or not to reconcile with people who treated her with clear racism, but... She also clearly loves and is loved by her mother-in-law now. The honest complexity in that relationship is refreshing. I don’t usually love memoirs, but this one was fantastic.

The Unlikely Adventures of the Chergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal. 4/5. Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirina aren’t estranged, exactly, but they don’t have much in common either. But after their mother’s death, it’s revealed that she charged them with a journey through their ancestral homeland of India. With each sister carrying secret struggles, they unite in an attempt to fulfill their mother’s wishes--and come to terms with their relationships with not only her, but each other. Balli Kaur Jaswal is so good. And even if I didn’t love this quite as much as Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, it’s still quite good. She’s a rare author who can blend genuinely funny moments with high drama (that is often socially aware). There is one subplot that I didn’t super love due to its implications, but otherwise I really enjoyed the book and the sisters.

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev. 3/5. Trisha Raje is a successful surgeon--who is nonetheless alienated by her blue-blooded family due to her history. When she meets DJ Caine, a high-profile chef in the running to cook for the prestigious fundraisers supporting her brother’s political campaign, it’s dislike at first sight. He can’t stand her snobbish bossiness; she finds his assumptions about her frustrating and demeaning. But even if DJ didn’t need the job, they can’t avoid each other--because Trisha is the only person who can save DJ’s terminally ill sister. So: Dev says that this is very loosely inspired by Pride and Prejudice, but as the title suggests it’s VERY inspired by Pride and Prejudice. Points for the genders being swapped here--though DJ does stand in part for Darcy, he’s the Lizzie of this story--and Dev does a great job of bringing cultural backgrounds and social issues into the forefront without beating us over the head with it. But for whatever reason, I never really clicked with Trisha and DJ’s romance, and the Wickham side of this was... not great. Still, it’s a fun read and it made me very hungry. Not bad for a day by the pool!

#books #book roundup #book recs

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poorvioletdraws · 5 years

Text

Tom vs. The Underworld

Chapter 3: Santeria, Part 2

We came to the Susanoo Hot Spring at the base of the Mountain of Boom. The resort was quite lavish and architecturally exquisite; it was like something you would see in Japan. This was definitely the highlight of this town. There were demons and monster tourists everywhere. We came to an outdoor lounge area where what looked to be the rest of Raya’s family had been waiting.

“Belmontes, front and center!” Albion called. And with a snap, eight more Stone Demons assembled. “We have been granted the honor of being blessed with the arrival of our Prince of the Underworld, Thomas Lucitor. Welcome him and accept receiving him here today.” He bowed at the conclusion of his announcement.

I tried to say, “Really we don’t have to be so formal I--”

“First my oldest son, Your Highness. Tremaine.” Albion continued.

The eldest son approached me and bowed. He had the same serious expression like his father as he said, “Your Highness, it is my pleasure to receive you.”

“Hey, nice to meet ya.” I said.

“My eldest daughter, Rochelle, Your Highness.” Albion continued.

The eldest daughter approached and bowed. She had a sophisticated stare and said, “Your Highness, it is my pleasure to receive you.”

“Yo, what’s up.” I said.

“My daughter, Shaila, Your Highness.” Albion continued.

His second daughter approached and bowed. She had a bouncy attitude as she said, “Your Highness, it is my pleasure to receive you.”

“Really you don’t have to--”

“My son, Cephastian, Your Highness.” Albion continued.

The second son approached and bowed. He seemed a bit unnerved as he said, “Your Highness, it is my pleasure to receive you.”

“Ok, just keep going I gue--”

“My daughter, Kivi, Your Highness.” Albion continued.

The third daughter approached and bowed. She oozed a snobbish aura about her as she said, “Your Highness, it is my pleasure to receive you.”

“Yes, hi, nice to meet you.” I said with a sigh.

“The twins, Piers and Peter, Your Highness.” Albion continued.

The twin boys approached and bowed with the same motion as if they were one. They were the ones Albion vaguely mentioned who were spying on Raya and I earlier. Both boys had mischievous grins on their faces as they said, “Your Highness, it is our pleasure to receive you.”

“Wow, there is just as many kids as Pony Head’s family…” I muttered under my breath. I glimpsed over to see Raya smiling gently as she watched the entire exchange. It made me smile a bit too honestly.

“And finally, my wife, of the Harlow family, Griselda.” Albion took his wife’s hand and presented her to me.

But instead of being as ceremonious as her family, Griselda took me in her arms for a tight embrace that squeezed the air from my lungs. She said cheerily. “Your Highness, thank you for coming! We are so happy to have you and learn Raya wasn’t lying when she said she met you before!”

“Mom!” Raya groaned as she blushed in embarrassment.

“Yea of course. It is nice meeting all of you. Thank you for welcoming me.” I beamed. Although a bit overwhelming at first, they seemed to be a great family. It felt nice feeling accepted.

“Now let’s all reserve the private dining room and treat our Prince to a feast in his honor.” Albion commanded as the rest of the family eagerly agreed.

“Oh, well I don’t want to impose or anything like that.” I said while rubbing the back of my head.

“Nonsense, Your Highness!” Albion startled me with a friendly pat on the back. “It would be rude if we did not put up our Prince!”

Deep down I wanted to be included and was glad he obliged.

And with that, we were inside the hot spring’s Ryokan-styled Inn and placed in there dining area within minutes of the staff learning of my arrival. We were all sitting on tatami floors with a great table before us. Waitresses entered with elaborate cuisines and exited with our empty dishes through the sliding doors behind us. Raya’s family was incredible. The Stone Demon clan seemed like their hunger was never-ending as each of their plates were cleared one by one. They were a close family and after being in my presence for a bit, they began to get comfortable around me and not be so formal. And although Albion was loud, he was a jolly soul that really loved his family. Him and his wife sat across from me and proudly praised each one of their children and noted their accomplishments. This was a much-needed change.

I looked over to Raya who had been furiously clearing plates as if it were a contest. All her siblings were doing the same and reaching over the other for the next dish even before their own was finished.

I leaned over and said to her, “Heeeey, the food isn’t going anywhere, you know.” I chuckled.

“Oh!” She brought her head up from her trance and looked at me, realizing she must have forgotten I was sitting next to her. “I’m sorry, Prince Tom. That’s kind of rude of me” She began patting her face with her napkin hastily.

“Heh, I was just joking. That’s cool you have an appetite.” I laughed. “And you know, it's pretty sweet when you get nervous too.”

Raya started fiddling with chopsticks and looking at her plate, her face as red as her hair.

I chuckled to myself again and focused on my own plate now. It was nice being in a new place with different faces for a change. The atmosphere was perfect. It was lively yet full of warmth. The resort was amazing. The food was delicious. I bet Star would have liked this…

Suddenly, Albion began slamming the table as if he were a judge banging his gavel. “Now, Belmonte Family, we have eaten our fill, have we not?” His children boisterously concurred. “Haha! And with such a feast in honor of our future King of the Underworld, we must unwind with a refreshing dip in the Yomi Hot Spring!”

Raya snapped up from her shy spell and disputed him. “Dad, I’m sure Prince Tom doesn’t want to spend his day soaking with commoners.”

“Actually, that does sound kind of nice.” I thought it over.

Raya was about to advise her disagreement further but her family’s cheers of approval drowned her out. They all stood from the table with a flash and we were on our way.

The hot springs of Yomi were so cool. Tremaine was telling me how the water here is famous for rejuvenating your soul and revitalizing your inner demons. Literally. All of mine were in bliss as they emitted from me like I were casting a shadow on the water I was lounging in. Tremaine thought it was sick one demon can have that many in them. The two eldest brothers and I were sitting in a smaller part of the hot spring with a waterfall spraying down in front of us.

“I like that it is the right temperature too. Boiling.” I exhaled in pleasure. But then I just realized something and asked, “Hey, the temperature doesn’t harm any of you?”

“No, Prince Tom. Stone Demons are impervious to fire and heat.” Tremaine explained.

“Sweet.” I said. Well that explains why hardly any of the tourist monsters are in the spring. The ones that couldn’t stand the heat were all enjoying the steam it released on the sideline in their lounge chairs. It was still soothing enough and causing the same effects as being in the spring would.

“Skull Ball!” Piers shouted as he unexpectedly came crashing down into the hot spring.

“Double Skull Ball!” Peter shouted next as he came splashing in balled up as well.

“Hey! Why do you always do that! Both of you are so childish, why don’t you act your age sometimes?!” Cephastian stood up from his seated position next to us and glanced over in my direction. “Agh! Both of you got Prince Tom wet!”

“Aren’t we all wet though?” Piers said sarcastically.

“Haha, it’s cool, bro.” I said leaning back with my hands cradling the back of my head.

“Yea, Cephas, it’s cool, bro!” Peter mocked his older brother as he used his arm to fling water at him.

“That’s it! Hyugh!” Cephastian barked back while placing his hand on the closest boulder by the edge of the spring.

“Hey Cephas, keep your temper in check before you--” Tremaine warned but it was too late.

Cephastian used his ability to make the boulder light enough to pick up and hurled it to the space next to Piers and Peter. Once it was no longer touching him, the boulder regained its previous weight. It hit the water with so much force that it pushed it away and out of the small spring that we were sitting in. All of the bystanders were engulfed by the wave of boiling water and were now writhing from the heat.

“Ugh. Cephas.” Tremaine rolled his eyes.

The hot spring started to fill back up from its waterfall regardless of the turn of events.

I was looking behind me at the ones left in pain. The tourists were running around and screaming that it burned. I asked bemused, “Um… Are they ok?”

“I don’t know. I guess. This happens all the time.” Tremaine shrugged as he looked at his younger brother annoyed. Piers and Peter were now on each of Cephastian’s arms trying to pull him into the waterfall as he yelled for them to stop. Tremaine took it upon himself and went to go stop their bickering.

Having brothers would be kind of crazy, but it would be fun too.

“Haha! Boys will be boys!” Albion laughed deeply from behind me, making my heart jump yet again. He proceeded to sit down next to me in the hot spring.

“Oh, Mr. Belmonte. I wanted to thank you. This has been great, I didn’t expect my day to go this way honestly.” I expressed my gratitude to the paternal demon.

Albion’s expression grew serious. “Young Prince, Raya tells me you both visited the temple here.”

“Yea! It was amazing! I mean, I’ve seen torture before but never—“

“Do you understand what Amaterasu Temple symbolizes, Young Prince?” Albion cut me off, still in his serious tone.

I shook my head in a “no”. I tried to think back at what I may have learned about Yomi Town before, but it had never been mentioned. Not even by my parents. I didn’t even know the name of the temple come to think of it. I mean, this was the first time I’ve been here. All I knew of this place was what I saw today and what Raya had told me.

“Did you know, the Belmontes are the Underworld’s most renowned stonemasons? I have built so many landmarks and structures, Lucitor Castle being one of my accomplishments.” Albion mentioned.

“Whoa really?” I gasped at the revelation by Albion.

He nodded and continued. “When I was a boy, my father and grandfather were commissioned to build Amaterasu Temple together, in which I was able to help alongside them for the first time. They taught me how to construct something as grand as that.”

“That is awesome. You could really tell all the time and hard work you and your family must’ve put into it. It took my breath away honestly.” I complimented the large Stone Demon.

“Heh. Thank you for your acknowledgement, Young Prince.” Albion gave a hearty chuckle but soon cut it short as he said, “It was crafted from stone we mined from the Mountain of Boom known as obsidian. Do you know why we used such a material?”

I thought it over and said, “Must be for the color and effect. It being shiny and black catches your eye.”

Albion chuckled again, “That’s partly true but there is another purpose as well.” He cast his gaze up toward the Mountain of Boom and grew pensive. “Obsidian can be used by our people as a totem for protection, healing, and truthfulness. Therefore, if you are lacking in any of those aspects, it is best to enter the temple in order to gain the power of what it can provide. It rids the body of the resentments, fear, and anger that has been built up and helps the seeker calm his mind to think clearly again. In short, all the negativity you are facing will be cancelled out from existence. ”

“...” I was speechless so I continued to listen quietly to what Albion had to say.

“There are many opinions that have skewed what Amaterasu Temple is used for--tortures, rituals, ceremonies--but to me and what my grandfather and father built it for was more philosophical than those reasons. It was created for the beliefs that I gave you. To help those who are lost and need protection, healing, and the truth. It is a special place I have shared with my family. For all of my children were born there in order to take in those same three properties.”

“Oh wow…” I was intrigued by finding out such a remarkable bit of information about Raya and her family. Now it makes sense why she looked at the temple so proudly. It is apart of her family legacy. It is where she was born. This place is where she was born. I wonder why she never mentioned it?

Albion now cast his gaze upon me as he spoke. “Over the years, I’ve noticed Raya being very drawn to that temple. Most importantly, out of all of the Belmonte children, she is the one closest to what I envisioned for Amaterasu Temple. Raya is growing highly clairvoyant. She may not see it yet but she will in time. I mean, she was able to sense what was troubling you enough to guide you to the temple, Young Prince.”

“W-what?” I stammered.

“You’ve come here in search of protection, healing, and the truth. And Raya helped you find it or is still helping you find it in some way.” Albion theorized.

“Huh… I guess that could be right…”

Albion chuckled a bit. “Heh. Sorry to get so serious, Young Prince. I suppose I just want you to better understand what is precious to us. And I hope you have been able to recognize what is precious to you from your time here.”

What is precious to me now?

“Raya is the youngest and is still trying to find her place in the world. She is stagnant when it comes to change and making friends; she still has the same five she has grown up with since she was little.” Albion studied the steady moving water around us. His sons had moved on to the top of the waterfall and looked as if they were trying to push Cephastian off of it.

Albion continued speaking, “It is nice to see her branching out and making new friends, and with our Prince no less. That is highly out of the ordinary for her but you are a special person regardless of your family name. So I hope you value your friendship.”

I perked up and affirmed his remark, “Yes, of course, Mr. Belmonte! We even made—“ Oh no! What happened to our friendship necklaces we made at the temple?!

Albion smiled down at me, not realizing I cut my sentence short. “And I would not object if in time it became a union of great strength for the Belmonte name as well, Your Highness. We must all be strong for the future of our Underworld.”

“Y-Yea… you’re right.” I grew pensive now and glanced away. We were both silent after that, but it was more in a mutual understanding way instead of an awkward one. There was so much more I needed to learn about this place, the Underworld, and everything in general. How could I have gotten this out of touch? How can I become a better prince for my people?

We continued to bask in the Hot Spring, content with each other’s company. And being entertained by the Belmonte boys pushing Cephastian over the waterfall.

As twilight was beginning to encompass the Susanoo Hot Spring, I was now checking out the rest of the resort alone and still thinking over what Albion told me earlier. The Belmontes suggested that I come with them and partake in the nightly activities that were being highlighted by the Inn but I think it was time for me to bow out. As much as I liked the company of such a large family--especially after they opened my mind to how I’ve been handling my situation--it was best for me to start figuring my issues out again apart from them. I thanked and said goodbye to all of them before they dispersed. All except Raya who was not with them.

I wonder where she ran off to? I haven’t seen her since dinner. I hope I didn’t upset her by agreeing to keep on hanging out with her family like that. She did seem embarrassed with me being around but hopefully she knows I’m the last to judge anyone, her family was awesome! … I wish she would’ve told me more about the temple and why it was so special to her… I wonder if I’ll even see her again…

As if on cue with my thoughts, there she was. Raya was standing on a small bridge in the garden of the hot spring that faced the Mountain of Boom.

I waved my hand so she could see me as I shouted for her, “Hey! Raya!”

She brought her head in my direction and squinted through the passersby until I caught her sight.

I navigated through the crowd and was in front of her in no time.

Seeing Raya again gave me an indescribable feeling—like when you go to a carnival and you ride your favorite ride over and over. The thrill of going and the anticipation of waiting in line until it’s your turn. That feeling of not wanting it to end... But why am I feeling like this now? Was it because I thought I wouldn’t have been able to thank her or say goodbye before I left? Did I really want to leave right now?

Raya held one of her hands to her chest while the other was tucked away in her jean jacket pocket. “I see you survived… I hope my Dad and brothers weren’t too… aggressive...” She coyly said but wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“Nah, they were pretty awesome.” I shrugged.

“...” Raya continued to stare at the stream beneath us as the other guests of the resort walked on by. This silence was odd, especially after today. I wonder why she doesn’t want to talk much to me now? We did spend most of the day together so maybe she was just tired of me hanging around… Like Star was…

I shook the thought from my head. Why do I keep doing this. After everything that was said and done today, Raya would never be like that. She even said it herself and I had to respect her words by believing in them. But is this the appropriate time to tell her goodbye or should I wait it out a little longer?

I decided to carry on the conversation instead. So I told her, “Hey your dad told me all about that temple we went to. Totally cool that he built it with his dad and grandpa.”

“Oh..”

“And he told me how special it is to your family. That’s amazing you were born there.” I tried coaxing her further.

But she didn’t budge as she mumbled, “Oh, he even told you that…”

“Oh and your brothers are so funny! Cephas dumped all the water out of the hot spring and onto the guests just because he was mad at the twins. You should’ve seen it, haha.” I laughed nervously.

“...”

I was getting a little annoyed from her vague responses, if anything at all, but I was determined to get us back to the way we were. Us? Well yes, there isn’t anything wrong with wanting to hold on to a friendship. No matter if you’ve only known the person a short while… And like her dad said, I do value our friendship and if she does too she will tell me what’s wrong.

I took a breath and gave her a reassuring smile as I stepped in front of her. I asked her, “Hey, is everything okay?”

Now that I had cut off her view of the stream, she had no choice but to look me in the eyes and talk. Or so I thought.

Raya clenched her eyes shut and seemed to be trying her hardest not to break down and cry. But why?

I grew concerned and placed my hands on her shoulders to get her attention further. I asked her again, “Hey what’s up? Did I do something to upset you?”

Raya broke from her momentary silence and finally replied, “Of course not, Prince Tom…”

“Okay… Well what’s going on…” I retreated my hands away from her shoulders. I was unsure of how to proceed. I didn’t want to pressure her and I didn’t want to get upset either. But that’s what landed me in the situation I’m in before I came here. Because me not wanting to goad the truth is why I wound up in Yomi Town hurting. I didn’t want to feel that pain right now.

I explained further, “It’s just… You’ve been acting kind of distant and it’s kind of bringing up negative feelings I’ve had with--”

“I just thought you left without saying goodbye!” Raya blurted out.

And then that unusual feeling from earlier returned. It was my turn to be silent as she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Prince Tom. I should’ve known better, it is an insult to question your character especially after the day we had. I ran into my family after you left them and Piers and Peter heavily implied how you already left and told them all goodbye.” Raya gave a sigh of relief after getting all that off her chest.

I couldn’t help but smile from what she said. I can’t believe I also questioned her character after today. I felt some relief too.

“Especially since…” Raya’s hand began to tremble in her pocket as she meekly stammered, “I… I thought you left… without giving you…”

Suddenly, a demon pulling his son along bumped into my shoulder. He apologized as they hurried away with both Raya and I looking to where he was heading. I realized there was a lot of commotion as other guests were heading toward a certain location in the garden.

There was a sizable crowd starting to circle around a large basin at the foot of the Mountain of Boom. I asked her, “What’s going on over there?”

“... Oh, that’s Old Fearful. It’s a gigantic fire geyser that erupts every hour, spewing its incinerating flame from the mountain’s core.” Raya said matter-of-factly.

“Okay I need to see this.” I said without hesitation. “Let’s go!” I didn’t realize I had grabbed onto the demon girl’s hand as we ran over to the gathering crowd. Something about it just felt right. And for a second it felt as if I were running with Star.

Raya and I stood among the ruckus of demons anxiously waiting for the show to begin. I could see a large mound on the ground with what appeared to be steam releasing from it. People were chattering away until a loud hiss abruptly escaped from the opening of the mound and quieted the crowd. And then with a flash, a huge gulf of magma flared out like a flame from a lighter. It was bright and blinding as it illuminated the darkening atmosphere. It shot so high in the air, I’m sure all of Yomi Town was able to witness this spectacle. It was beautiful.

The blaze was so hot that a lot of the guests standing closer to it had to flee unless they wanted to be scorched by such blistering heat. For some reason, I felt another undefinable feeling as I observed the fiery geyser. I was in awe but I felt something familiar. It felt like when I would also blow up in rage towards my friends. Was it that terrifying and unbearable for them? But the Mountain of Boom was different. This was natural for it and it had to let go of what was built up within it, kind of like a more liberating experience. Could I learn to handle my stress in a more positive way? Maybe that will help my situation with...

Being deep in thought, I didn’t know I was still holding Raya’s hand and began lightly squeezing it. I felt her squeeze back.

We sat on a bench nearby and watched Old Fearful until it diminished back to its previous frothing state. The crowd had disbanded by now, leaving just the two of us still enjoying what we had seen. The steam from the geyser that enveloped us was a comforting heat and I felt my mind and body were at a most unexpected peace.

I hope Star is having as much fun as I am… Ugh, why am I even thinking of that right now… She probably doesn’t even.... Ugh

“Prince Tom?” I heard Raya pipe up.

“Hm? Yea what’s up?” I asked her.

“Excuse me for asking--I’m just curious is all... And it has been in the back of my mind all day.” Raya sat up a bit from our lounged position. “... What brings you to such a normal place like this? I mean, for us lesser demons, this is as adventurous as we get.” The demon girl stared ruefully at her hands in her lap. “You must’ve been pretty bored today…”

“No way, today was sweet!” My sudden outburst caused Raya to flinch. “I mean, the shops, the temple, and the hot spring with this flaming geyser. It was the best!” I calmed my excitement and leaned back with my hands behind my head. “I mean, I’m to rule the Underworld one day so might as well get to know everything about it, right?”

Raya looked toward the sky with a dreamlike gaze. “... Such a life to be someone as important as you. You must have so much fun being a prince. Everyday must be something new. My life is always the same… Just ordinary.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I wish my life was ordinary. Your family is awesome. I’m kind of envious.” I gave a half-smile as I looked up towards the sky as well. “My parents are away a lot so I have to stand-in for them while they’re gone. I can handle it but… It’s just so many people are watching me to succeed and carry on my family’s legacy. It can get kind of overwhelming.”

“That’s how I feel too!” Raya startled me from her change in tone. “When others find out that I’m a Belmonte, they just assume I’m to be just like my Dad, or a great forger like my Mom. My siblings don’t help none either. Everyone just tries to keep me in this box.”

“Heh, no kidding.” I agreed.

“Yea, just because I like music over building, or take longer than others to come to a decision, or just ‘cause I’m a little clumsy here and there. I’m just a…” I noticed Raya hold her hand to her mouth, silencing what she was intending to say. “Sorry, Prince Tom. I kind of get a little… passionate when it comes to… I don’t know.”

“Destiny.” I finished her sentence as I started to gaze upward again.

Raya took a breath and went on to say, “I just wish… I wish that your destiny weren’t so heavily decided by who your parents are…”

I closed my eyes and said rather forlorn, “You’re like her too, huh.”

“Hm?” Raya looked over to me, wondering who I was referring to.

“Everyone has their own path… ” I muttered.

“Prince Tom?” Raya sounded concerned.

I shook my head in order to bring me back to my senses. “It’s nothing, just thinking out loud.”

“Oh, ok…” Raya quieted.

It would probably be best to change the subject anyway before I grow sad over the situation I’m in with Star. I was doing somewhat good at forgetting about it but was that really helping me?

“Actually, in response to your question earlier, I’m trying to decide on which dimension to visit. I haven’t been to many and I’m just taking some time to figure it out, I guess.” I felt the smile I gave her was a bit forced.

“Oh, really? All I’ve ever known is the Underworld. You’re able to travel across the multiverse?” Raya grew interested in what I had mentioned.

“Yea, I can use portals.”

“Wicked cool!” Raya leaned in excitedly. For a moment, she had let a little bit of her personality break through her shyness; but then she caught it just as fast again. “Erm--I mean, that’s great...” the demon girl began to blush as she placed her hands quickly in her lap and darted her head away in embarrassment.

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I looked back at Old Fearful’s orifice. Its steam left a somber mist hanging among us; to some it would feel eerie, but to me it was tranquil. You could hear the busy sounds of the Inn behind us and the boiling and bubbling of the hot spring around us. I’m glad I ended up in a place such as this. But then I started to feel guilty again.

This is how it should be, everything about being here is how it should feel, but with Star. I hate being away from her. I hate not being able to contact her. Does she even care how I feel? Why won’t she choose me? How can I even attempt to be happy knowing she isn’t the one here sitting next to me...

The creeping sadness began to show on my face again and I knew Raya saw it for sure this time.

“Prince Tom, is everything alright?” I heard her ask. I just couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“I… I’m sorry… It isn’t anything about you, or your family, or today. Today was great! I just… I just can’t stop thinking about my girlfriend and what I should do next. I thought if I distracted myself or got away or just--I don’t know, I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore or what I should do. I feel like I know but she is just so… special to me… But… Ugh!” I got up from the bench and rubbed my hands through my head slightly agitated.

Raya stood up too and held her hands to her chest. I realized that was a habit of hers that she would do when she was nervous. Was I making her nervous? Or was I making her feel insecure? What’s wrong with me… How inconsiderate of me to just start ranting about my personal problems after all this time her and her family spent cheering me up. Raya was patient and had a subtle outlook on life. She wasn’t loud or attention-seeking, nor was she plain by any means. She was different. She had a shell that I started to see crack the more she becomes comfortable around me. Her eccentric mind was admirable and although she seemed a bit spacey at times, I see a girl that is just looking for something more than the ordinary life she has been given. Raya took the time out of her own family vacation to spend it with me. And here I am just neglecting her hospitality by wishing Star were here… This is just so difficult to figure out right now… Maybe this is something I should’ve waited to talk to my Mom about…

And then suddenly, Raya had a reassuring expression cover her face and spoke in a tone that matched the softness in her eyes, “She must make you very happy… When I first met you, Prince Tom, you had this smile that could brighten any room… Something I wish I am capable of doing one day. Just being a reason for someone’s happiness… Your girlfriend was the reason for that smile, I’m sure...”

But then, the female stone demon’s smile disappeared into a slight frown as she cast her lemon-colored eyes away. “For someone to make you this upset--you, our Prince of the Underworld--it is… It hurts us all. I want you to be happy again, I’ll listen to whatever problems you have and try to help you find a way back to that happiness with her if I can. So please, let me know what happened and maybe we can figure out how you can resolve things with her.”

Raya looked back at me with another smile that gave me solace. I was surprised and couldn’t help but to follow through with her offer. So I gushed.

“Okay… Well, she keeps shutting me out. And whenever there is a problem between us, she runs away from it or we just pretend it doesn’t exist. I want her to tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it or at least confide in me with what bothers her, but I never get that chance. I always come second because she puts her best friend before me. He is someone I care about too, so the situation is just kind of… complicated. I care about them both and feel selfish wanting her all to myself sometimes. But that’s how a boyfriend should feel about his girlfriend.” I didn’t realize I had started to pace back and forth as my ranting continued.

“And the more I tried to close the distance between us, the more I was pushed away. I tried everything. But in the end I was the one who kept running away from the truth.” I clenched back tears and turned away from the redhead. Thinking about all of this was one thing, but actually revealing what has been building inside of me for so long was showing it for the hard reality that it is. This was what heartbreak feels like, and it was so painful. But for some reason, getting it off my chest was also alleviating some of that pain. “I’m tired of not being acknowledged. I’m tired of not knowing what I’m doing wrong or if I’m doing anything right. Just once I want to be able for her to understand why I’m upset sometimes and that she can take a step back and value my own feelings for a change. Is that too much to ask of your girlfriend?”

Raya was silent for a moment.

I held my head down and said, “I’m sorry, Raya. I shouldn’t be dumping all of this on you like this…” I began rubbing my left arm as if it were sore.

“No, I’m sorry, Prince Tom…” Raya looked genuinely saddened by my revelation. “I don’t know how that feels, or what you could do… I have never been in a relationship… but I would think both involved should make each other’s feelings a priority over the feelings of others outside of their relationship…”

“Yea… I wish that were my case…”

“And your feelings matter just as much as hers!” Raya straightened up and became a bit serious with me. “Your situation may seem complicated, but that doesn’t describe a typical relationship to me. I really only have my parents to go off of here, but they would never do to each other what you say your girlfriend is doing to you… Sorry if I’m being too blunt...”

“No, not at all. I think I actually need to hear this…” I started to get this strange feeling of adrenaline in my chest from listening to what Raya had to say.

“Have you told your girlfriend what’s been bothering you at all?” She asked me.

“No… If I do, I feel I’ll just stress her out even more over what I want and she’ll just shut me out. Or she’ll want to break up… And I don’t know if I’m ready for that or if I want that… I’ve come a long way for her. I changed a lot for her. Should I just let it all be for nothing?” I looked down at the ground defeated.

“Has she done the same for you?” Raya spoke rather straightforwardly.

“What?” I was taken aback by her sudden change in tone.

“Has she changed for you too?” She repeated herself. “Because if you’re the only one that has changed or you have to avoid conflict instead of working through it with her just so she won’t leave, then that doesn’t seem fair at all to me.”

“Well... She hasn’t really shown me a definite change when it comes to being in a relationship…” I pondered that possibility. “Maybe I was too focused on changing for her that I forgot about her own insecurities that she needed to work on as well. I think I was just scared that Star was going to get so far ahead of me on the path she has chosen for herself that I wouldn’t be able to catch up. ”

“Yea, but where does your path lead?” Raya had a newfound air of sophistication about her and was speaking as if she were a totally different person. She continued to speak without reservation and practically challenged my way of thinking. Brian would give me coping techniques but this was a method that nobody ever has done for me before. I was interested to hear more of what she had to say..

“My path? I hadn’t really thought of my own, it was always shadowed by Star’s. I know what I want to be in the future, but I don’t know if she’ll be by my side and that’s what’s freaking me out the most...”

“Like you said earlier. Everyone has their own path. I think what you want to say is that those paths will either come together with another or they will separate and go its own way. You start out on the path of another, such as your parents, but eventually you’ll have to branch out and figure out your own way to get where you’re destined to be. If you truly feel you’re headed on one different from what others believe then go for it. You are Prince Thomas Lucitor, future King of the Underworld. If both you and your girlfriend’s paths can’t compromise to one day end at what you believe is your destiny, then I think you have the only answer you need.”

“Is that really all it is?” I whispered to myself. Raya’s words really resonated with me. Am I in denial of the possibility of our paths beginning to separate? Have I really been making this way more complicated than it needed to be? I started to feel that adrenaline build in my chest once more. I was starting to feel frustrated. But not with what Raya was saying, or the situation with Star again; I was frustrated with myself.

“Are you alright, Prince Tom? I hope I wasn’t being too harsh…” Raya asked attentively.

“Not at all... You know, your father was right about you.”

“Hm?” She blinked confused.

“Heh nevermind...” I forced a smile and looked back toward the ground. “Back then, I probably would’ve blown up and used my anger and power in a way to get what I want. I was a person back then you or your family probably would never want to be around.”

“If you and your girlfriend break up, will you go back to that person you once were?”

Raya’s question shocked me. I began to remember how I use to be. How much others hated me. How Star couldn’t stand me and how cruel I was to Marco. I never want to go back to that person.

“Never.” I told her.

“Then maybe all this time you weren’t just changing for your girlfriend. She was the catalyst for you to start on your own path towards your destiny. You changed for yourself and that’s something you should be proud of.” Raya commended me.

“Yea… I just can’t believe I almost wasted all my progress by almost blowing up at her. I mean, I was getting angry with Star just because she didn't pick a place to go to from a silly book when I can’t even do the same myself...” I threw my arms up and landed back on the bench. We sat for a moment without talking to each other but it was Raya who finally broke the silence.

“Um, Prince Tom, can your portal take you anywhere?” She asked.

“Yea, of course. As long as I know where it is I’m going that is.”

“Please wait here for a moment, Prince Tom. I won’t be long.” Raya hopped up from her seat and took off toward the inn.

I sighed and leaned back on the bench. I had put my hand in my pocket and pulled out my compact phone. I opened it up to see if I had any missed messages or calls. Still nothing. It’s been almost five days now. Did Star even care what I was doing, or where I went, or who I was with? I was so tempted to call her. I want to know what she is doing. I want to know where she went. I want to know who she was with. But I think I already knew the answers to all those questions. Ugh. I should just call her and apologize, maybe it isn’t too late and we can get over this… Or do I just want to keep hurting myself by even continuing this…

I was about to punch in Star’s contact when Raya returned. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and stood up from the bench.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Prince Tom.” Raya huffed trying to catch her breath.

“What happened, why’d you run off?” I asked.

“Here.” Raya said as she gave me a folded up piece of paper.

I opened it up to see coordinates written down.

“Rochelle looked it up for me, would your portal be able to take us there?” Raya asked eagerly.

“Sure, but why--”

“Please?” Raya insisted. What could it hurt? If Raya wanted to show me something, it couldn’t be all that bad.

And without another word, we went through my flaming portal to a destination unknown to me.

A cascade of fire shot up from the ground and out we walked to a breathtaking sight.

An endless sea of golden sand stretched out behind us as we stood on a small mound of it. What should've been an ocean, filled with water, instead resembled the universe in all of its spectacular glory. A plethora of vibrant red gases were blotched against the dark abyss of the duplicated space while shooting stars skidded by like tadpoles. It was as if we were standing at the edge of the world looking out across the glistening galaxy. And suddenly it happened. The sky was cast in brilliant gradients of oranges, pinks, blues, and purples as what could’ve been a thousand suns were setting in the sky sporadically. One by one, they went down in the realm like a domino effect, but never ceasing. It was a land of infinite sunsets.

I had been holding my breath during such wonder, but I finally felt myself gasp ,“Whoa! This is amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“... Yea… Me neither…” Raya looked just as awestruck as I did.

“You’ve never been here before too?”

Raya brought her gaze to me. I could see the sunbeams reflecting in her yellow eyes and I had to admit the sparkling it created in them while in symphony with the rays outlining her body was rather ethereal. She smiled contently and said, “This is my first time coming here. Rochelle loves watching sunsets, and I usually sit out with her watching them while at her shop… She has been to this dimension before with my aunt a long time ago. We never really get a chance to travel because we can’t freely use portals, but when she told me of this place, I always wanted to see it for myself one day.” Raya was now staring back out across the canvas of cosmic colors. “... Something so beautiful yet simple as a sunset is taken for granted. Tomorrow is never promised, but the sunset gives you hope that the sun will rise again...”

“That’s… kind of deep…” I finally diverted my eyes from her and back at the galactic beach scene as well. Looking out over the horizon as the suns would continuously set, I began to realize something from what Raya meant.

I don’t want to be lied to, and I don’t want to lie to myself any longer either. I don’t want explanations or excuses. I want closure. I’m avoiding it in every way possible. I pretended to be oblivious to all of the signs--Song Day, the photo booth at the wedding, thinking the Severing Stone would solve a nonexistent curse. I didn’t want to pressure Star because I thought she would want to immediately end our relationship instead of dealing with the stress of her own divided feelings. Neither of us want to admit what we need to do or what is best for the both of us because we love each other so much that we don’t want to hurt each other. But just because it hurts now, doesn’t mean it will always be that way. There are all kinds of love out there. I love my Mom, my Dad, my friends. Marco. And I truly love Star. We’ve had something not many people get to experience, and no matter if it is long-term, short-term, on-again-off-again, or even just friends, the memories will always be special. She will always be my friend no matter where our paths lead. The sun may set today but there will always be a new day awaiting me. And I value both Star and Marco so much that I want to continue being with them both well into the years to come. Should it be as friends, well that is good enough for me.

Without warning, a loud shriek startled me from my thoughts.

“Kyyyaaaaah!!” Raya was purposefully screaming.

I glanced around as if for a sign of danger but I didn’t find any. I asked her, “What-W-What are you doing?”

“Come on, try it too, Prince Tom.” She had a mischievous smirk aimed my way.

“Try what exactly?”

“Let it all out.” She explained.

I guess it couldn’t hurt. So we both began to yell.

“Gyyyyyyaaaahhh!!!”

“Kyyyyaaaahhhh!!!”

Upon ending our noisefest, both of us broke out in a fit of laughter. The adrenaline that had been building within me had flushed out from its rampaging climax to now a slow trickle—just like Old Fearful. Was that really all I needed? No, it was just part of it. I understood what she was showing me now. I have kept so much of my feelings bottled up inside, believing for a while now that it was wrong to let them loose. I need to come to terms with who I am and make sure others respect not just me but my feelings also. Because being afraid of letting out how I feel is what got me into my situation with Star in the first place.

“... You--just seemed--like you really--n-needed to let it--all out.” She caught her breath in between bouts of giggles.

“Yea… You’re right.” I came to the realization with a grin across my face as I confided in her, “I used to have a problem with my anger and didn’t really have the best way to cope with it.” I cast my eyes down to the side, now fixated on the sand of the shore. “I’ve been treated as if letting my anger out wasn’t something I was suppose to do if I wanted to keep my friends.” I looked at her and continued. “But I understand now that friends should be more concerned with helping me with what’s bothering me instead of just avoiding the problem. They should want to help me better myself and resolve our differences.” I saw her smile back at me as if in tune with my decision. “So, thanks, Raya, for this… For today…All of it.”

“Of course, Prince Tom.” Raya looked back at the setting suns.

“Hey…” I began rubbing the back of my neck. “Do you think you could just call me Tom? We’re friends and all…”

I knew how her upbringing was and I knew she would object. But it couldn’t hurt to ask. I was just tired of formal titles right now. I just wanted to be treated like everyone else, well to a point I suppose. But in this moment and after today, it just felt right to drop the formalities.

I didn’t get the disapproval I expected from her. As she continued to take in the universe in the sea, she blushed and softly said . “Alright… Tom.”

We walked through my flaming portal and back out to the entrance of Yomi Town. The shops had all closed and the people had gone home with the lights inside their residences all glittering in the darkness. The torch of the lamp post at the gateway entrance flickered dimly on us as we stood there facing each other. I could see my carriage positioned outside the gate and my skeleton horse snoozing away.

We had stayed in the sunset dimension for a good bit of time, just hanging out and playing in the water and sand. We didn’t want to be gone for too long to cause Raya’s family to worry. Especially her father. I may be a prince but he is still a parent. I could already picture Albion and his intimidating glare…

“Well, I guess I better get going.” I said rubbing the back of my head. Part of me didn’t want to leave but I knew it was time for me to confront the truth I had been avoiding.

“I’m glad you were able to enjoy your time here in Yomi Town… Tom.” Raya blushed a little when she said my name without the honorific. She was holding her hands to her chest again and looking at the ground. I wonder if she enjoyed herself today as much as I did as well.

“Well thanks to you and your family, I did. Hope I wasn’t the only one who had fun though.” I chuckled and waited for her reply.

“Um… I had fun too.” She mumbled as she twiddled her fingers together.

I wonder why now all of a sudden it was so awkward for her. Surely she knows that I have to go. And at least this time I can properly say goodbye to her. Maybe she didn’t want me to go?

But it was time. It was hard saying goodbye, and not just to her. I needed to address that goodbye with another person too. It was time to truly set her free. So I began to slowly turn away as I said, “Well, I better get going. Thanks again Raya.”

I hesitantly waited in hopes for her to say goodbye, but she didn’t. She was still gazing at the ground, fidgeting with her hands. I sighed, a little let down, and started walking toward the exit.

“...Tom!” She called after me.

I stopped in my tracks and turned back to her, I internally smiled. “Yea?”

She closed the space between us and held out her hand. I instinctively brought my own hand forward and let her put whatever she wanted to give me in it. It was the necklace we made from the temple!

“I think you should have this… I mean… I want you to have this. As a souvenir from your time here. And as a symbol of our friendship.” She was still not meeting my eyes while her cheeks remained as red as her hair.

“Oh, thank you!” I said with glee as I placed it around my neck. This will be a great memory of my time here for sure. And a great memory of her as well. To think she even thought to get me, one of her friends, a gift now too.

She finally looked up at me with an expression I hadn’t seen from her before. Her eyes seemed to be searching for some form of validation from my own. It seemed like she wanted to say something else but instead she said, “I hope you’re able to work out everything with your girlfriend and get your happiness back.”

I wanted to say something else too, but instead I said, “Thanks, I know I will be able to now.” And I stepped away from her.

“Bye, Tom. Have a safe trip back.”

“See-ya, Raya.” I gave her a half-smile and used the goodbye that was a play on her name that I had said to her back when we first met.

She returned my smile with one of her own and began to run off, back to the inn and her family, back to her normal life. I wondered why she was hesitant to give this gift to me. I wondered why that even though she said it with a smile, it was the first time it looked like there was some pain behind it. I began to walk off, back to my carriage and back to my kingdom, back to being a prince.

I flopped down in my throne chair, a little exhausted from the day I just had. As my skeleton horse began to pull the carriage through the mountain pass and further away from Yomi Town, I started thinking about Star. I know what I have to do now. And it will be the hardest decision I have ever had to make.

And with that, I reached in my pocket and pulled out my compact phone. I punched in the contact and waited for it to connect.

“Hey Star, can we meet up tomorrow?” I asked her and she excitedly accepted. We didn’t talk long because she wanted to get back to playing with Marco’s new little sister...

I sat quietly at my throne during the long ride home, not noticing that I had been clutching the necklace Raya gave me the entire time as I thought about tomorrow.

#svtfoe #starvstheforcesofevil #OC #star vs the forces of evil #oc fanfiction #tom lucitor #The Underworld #TomVSTheUnderworldFanfic #TVTU

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