#you guys know how much i love line ups. sorting things by height my beloved 💛

[twooboomoomoo]

Wanted to draw something for the main Hell Rebellion crew, while also being sleeby. Height chart/color mapping it is!!

Also because I totally forgot to add their heights to the picture:

Raditz: 6'6"/ 198 cm

Periwinkle: ~6' hunched, 6'3" upright (182/190 cm)

Regna: 5'9" without horns, 6' with horns (175/182cm

There's some writing stuff under the cut because there is, but yea!! I wanna do like actual things with them, draw them interacting and stuff. I have a lot of dynamics and plot in my head but it just. Stays there. So I wanna fix that!!

-Ok so the ship they all live on and fly around in is officially called the S.S. Shipwreck, courtesy of Regna calling the shop a literal shipwreck when he first meets Periwinkle, and Periwinkle making it the Ship Name™️. He insists it be called the S.S Shipwreck in full because it sounds "more official" (he's watched too many Hell Boat Movies™️ and thinks it sounds better). It's never called that, Regna and Raditz just call it the Shipwreck/ the Wreck.

-Speaking of the ship, I have a drawn out blue print of the inside. It's circular, with the galls being a loop and rooms shooting off like a donut. There's the bottom floor with the kitchen/living space/ the bedrooms and stuff, and the upper decks with the control room and steering. It's not really that big of a ship, kinda cramped. Three people living there is good but really the max it should hold.

-Also Raditz gets a kinda newer suits design, and it gets to be purple because I want it to be, though I might go back to navy blue. His scouter is upgraded by Regna, and he ditches the shoulder armor because I hate drawing it.

#also i colored regnas pants wrong... oops #sorry for the bit of rambling but its ok its Lore™️ #its a quick height chart. i wanted it to be more detailed and finished. maybe one day I'll do like a cool one with the whole cast. #you guys know how much i love line ups. sorting things by height my beloved 💛 #my art #my ocs #no id #regna #periwinkle #hell rebellion

[kaihoku]

V19   MAN & WOMAN - March, 1998

I think of women as both people who are able to bring out the best in us men, and the place where we can become the best versions of ourselves. So to me, they’ll always be...

~*~

I went to see a stage performance an actress I worked with before was in. Seeing her on stage, the only thing that came to mind was how cool she seemed to be up there. She had a kind of vibe that was completely different from when we worked together. After the show, I went to her dressing room to say hi, my heart pounding in my chest. It didn't matter that she was someone I knew well enough to joke around with, I was a nervous wreck.

It's nice when a relationship you have with someone allows for that kind of tension. Just goes to show that  the other person has a sort of charm you appreciate.

The first woman I've met is obviously none other than ma. She probably has a large influence on how I view women. Still, I'm not sure if that's the case for women that I end up liking. As far as I know, none of them look anything like her. A guy's gotta grow up, after all.

I've always liked people who seemed cool to me. That hasn't changed since I was little. It makes no difference whether they are male or female, when someone seems cool to me, it isn't about just physical aesthetics. Of course, when it comes type, I do tend to go for women based on various critieria like whether or not we match up height-wise, speech, scent, etc. But above all, what really does it for me is how much they appear to shine when they are deep in the process of doing something. That's why women absorbed in their work is something that I truly admire and seeing them in that state appeals to me so much and so often, it's basically my aesthetic.

The common saying of "I wanna do her" when seeing someone who appears sexy isn't something that'd cross my mind because when we like somebody, it isn't simply about that. In fact, when we truly admire someone, sex appeal is never a factor. There is zero need for women to do stuff like bring attention to their body line, or display their chest or wear short skirts that would maximize visual impact (like some do when they deliberately do that thing where they cross and recross their legs) to up their appeal. If anything, they appear sexier to me somehow in worn-out Converses and faded denim.

If we move a step forward from the differences in men and women, the next thing we'll come to see is what the person in question has within themselves as an individual. This is why even if my own partner gets so absorbed into their work that they don't have time to give to me, I'm willing to accept that side of them as well.

Something that occurred to me during the shooting of "Oda Nobunaga," was that when Nobunaga was lying down with his head on Nohime's lap and showing vulnerability for the first time as he grieved his father and anguished over the situation he was in, theirs is a relationship that does not need phrases like "I love you" or "beloved." Even without them, Nobunaga was able to seek great comfort on her lap...and I think that is the kind of strong woman I could easily fall for.

And even if the eras we live in and our positions are totally different, as a dude, it's hard not to like Nobunaga as one of the greatest rulebreakers there is. In the end, the only one who was able to recognize the truly great man behind the scruffy and rebellious facade was his wife. If it wasn't for her, he may not have amounted to anything more than what other thought of his as: a moron.

On TV, we often hear the lines, "What do you take me for?  Like what even am I to you? Air?? Is that  it?" Believe it or not, that's a relationship goal for me. Wouldn't it be just great if we can be the air that we breathe to each other?

Men will tend to change their attitude whenever there's women present. Like, if you get a group of guys just hanging out, the moment a girl enters the fold, you'll see a sort of transformation. Of course, even if it's just guys, there are plenty of times where the vibe's a comfy one. But ladies just have this way of drawing out something within us.

Which is why half of me feels lucky to have been born a guy but the other half of me wishes that weren't the case. Sure, there are plenty of things I was able to experience precisely because I was born male but there's a part of me that wouldn't have minded at all if I were born female instead. But even as I say that, I know that in reality, my brain has probably been hardwired with male settings because whenever I'm wandering the streets of Shibuya, it's the ladies I find my eyes keep following.

All in all, women are a real tough act to follow and they deserve all the respect. They are beings full of mysteries and surprises, able to invoke all kinds of feelings within. Truly, theirs is an existence that keeps on giving.

-shibuya-

#takuya kimura #kaihoku #aka takuya's stream of consciousness

[kuroopaisen]

with you || kuroo tetsurou

➵ you and kuroo take another step in your relationship. 

wc: 5k

warnings: f!reader, 18+, oral, first time, cursing

a/n: hhhnnnn this is just very wholesome smut. two people in love going at it. it’s a little sugar-coated, but what else is fanfic for?  

Kuroo thinks he’ll never grow tired of kissing you.

Yes, the honeymoon period will end eventually, and these more intense kinds of intimacy will become commonplace and comfortable more than new and exhilarating.

And he looks forward to that time, but for now, he wants to indulge himself. To indulge you.

He hovers over you, the bulge of his jeans pressing against your underwear. Your sundress is hiked up to your waist and his hands are on your hips, his fingers digging in ever so slightly.

It’s a weekend in the height of summer, in the middle of your university semester. You’re home alone and will be for the next few hours. Neither of you are stupid enough to waste this opportunity.

He ruts against you, a grunt rumbling in the back of his throat. You moan softly in response, the friction against your underwear growing more pleasant with each pass.

You’d initiated this, and he always felt more confident when that was the case.

The day you first gave him a blowjob is still burned in the back of his mind. He’s still embarrassed by how quickly he lost his composure, but he’d be damned if it didn’t feel incredible. His entire body trembled for several minutes afterwards.

But his mind isn’t on that now. His mind is on you – how you taste, how you sound, how you feel.

“Tetsu…” You say his name the same way as when his face is buried in your heat, making you squirm and grip his hair. Fuck, he’ll never get enough of that.

He groans in response, rubbing his clothed dick against you once more. He regrets wearing jeans today.

You wrap your legs around his hips, pulling him closer to you. You’re not sure where that boldness came from, but neither of you care.

His lips are warm against yours, his hot breath fanning against your cheeks, his body pressed so, so close to yours. All you can think of is him. All that exists in this moment is him.

Something in you snaps. This isn’t enough.

“Tetsu,” you mumble against his lips, pushing his shoulders back.

He pulls away from you immediately. He looks at you with a mixture of want and concern in his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod, a little breathless. “I’m great, I just…” You take a deep breath, trying to work up the courage to say it. To ask. “Do you… do you want to do it?”

It takes him a moment, horny and hazy as his mind is.

His eyes go wide and he parts his lips. “Like… sex?”

You stare at him, halfway between endeared and flabbergasted. “Yeah?”

“Yes!” The response is a little too quick, a little too enthusiastic. But you can’t blame him; he’s just a nineteen-year-old guy, whose just had the prospect of sex dangled in front of him. Sex, no less, with his beloved girlfriend.

You giggle, moving one of your hands to cup his cheek. “You’re such a dork.”

“And yet, you’ve put my dick in your mouth,” he grins, leaning down and pressing a kiss to your neck.

“Oh, shut up.” You stick your tongue out at him, but he just leans in for another kiss on the lips. You melt into it, shivering as you feel his hands move down your hips. His thumbs tease just underneath the hem of your underwear. You moan quietly, anticipation fluttering in your stomach.

You gasp suddenly, tapping him on the shoulders.

Kuroo shoots up, one hand coming to cup your face. “What’s wrong?”

“We don’t have condoms,” you breath, looking at him with pitiful eyes.

Now you’d gone and done it. You’d just proposed this and you hadn’t even thought about protection. Surely you—

Kuroo clears his throat, reaching over to his bedside table and pulling the bottom drawer out. He rummages around in there for a moment before pulling out a rectangular box.

You stare at him for a moment. “You… have some?”

He swallows roughly, averting his eyes. “Well, you know… it’s better to be prepared.”

You laugh, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I love you.”

A ripple of tender emotion rushes through Kuroo’s chest as he feels his cheeks redden. Something about you saying those words, in this context, makes him want to grin like a fool.

He leans down and starts kissing your neck, revelling in the little breath of air that escapes your lips.

You legs tighten around his hips as your hands find their way to his hair. One of his hands slinks down to your ass, kneading it with enthusiasm. He struggles with the question like most, but if push came to shove, he’ll choose ass over boobs any day. But that isn’t the main thing on his mind right now.

He’s so grateful. Grateful that he gets to share this moment with you. Grateful that you two can be so vulnerable together.

He kisses down your neck, sucking on the skin just above your collarbone. He won’t actually leave a hickey – he knows that makes you nervous – but he loves how flustered you get.

You moan again, your fingers curling in his hair. This is the sort of reaction he craves. All signs that you’re enjoying this as much as he is.

He wants to hear you moan while he’s inside you.

He’s already hard – has been for a while – but that thought makes him twitch.

He fantasises about it a lot. More than he’d like to admit. He imagines it must be like your mouth, but better. Certainly better than the poor substitute that is his fist on those nights where he can’t get the image of you out of his head.

You don’t need to do much to make him hard, and you know that. But Kuroo has never pushed you, never pressured you into doing something you don’t want to do. The last thing he wants to do is make you uncomfortable.

His hands move up to your dress, tugging on the fabric lightly. “Can I take this off?”

You nod, sitting up slowly to give him time to reposition. He reaches behind you to find the zipper, fumbling a bit before managing to yank it down. Once there’s sufficient enough give, you tug it off your body and throw it across the room.

He pauses for a moment, taking in your body. He’s seen it before – quite a few times now – but he’s still mesmerised. Your bra and underwear don’t match, but Kuroo still thinks you look cute. And God, he loves your body. He really, truly does.

“Stop staring,” you laugh, slapping his shoulder lightly. You’re blushing. That just makes his heart pound harder.

“Can’t help it,” he grins, leaning forward to kiss your chest. You indulge him for a moment, letting him tease the skin just above your boobs. But, you weren’t going to let him have all the fun.

“Take your shirt off,” you mumble, pulling at the fabric meekly.

He chuckles, moving away from you to pull his shirt off and throw it in some undetermined direction before kissing you again.

Your hands move you his chest immediately, smoothing over his muscles. He shivers beneath your touch but smiles against your lips. His own hands return to your waist, moving upwards to thumb at the band of your bra.

“May I?” He murmurs against your lips.

You nod, and his fingers fly to the clasp, fumbling with for a few moments before successfully unhooking it.

You shrug your bra off your shoulders, and his hands immediately move to your breasts.

The sensation makes you gasp, your legs tensing around his hips.

Kuroo smiles, hands moving once again on your waist so he can lay you down on the bed. You comply, looping your arms around his neck.

He gazes down at you for a moment, the look in his eyes best described as total adoration. It’s enough to make you blush, despite the circumstances.

“I love you.”

His voice is so soft. So honest.

“I love you, too.” It feels so good to be able to say that freely. To say that without fear of rejection.  

Kuroo smiles, his eyes lighting up. But even he can’t take the tenderness for too long without burning up, so he turns his attention to littering kisses across your chest.

You sigh, running your hands over his shoulders. Kuroo kisses along the swell of your breasts, but he doesn’t want to linger too long. He’s too excited.

He kisses a line down your torso, and you know what’s coming. You squirm in excitement as your heartbeat begins to increase even more.

He makes a beeline for your core, pausing only at the hem of your underwear to place a few excruciating kisses just above it.

“Tetsu, please,” you whine, hands gripping at his hair.

Usually, he’d tease you more, get you to the point of begging. But he’s too excited. Too needy. But he wants to rile you up for just a bit longer.

He chuckles, turning his attention to your thighs. He starts kissing a line down from your knee, revelling in how you squirm beneath him.

“Tetsu…”

“In good time,” he chuckles, his kisses getting closer and closer to your core at an agonizingly slow pace.

You rut your hips up, trying to catch him out.

Kuroo chuckles, gripping your thighs to hold you in place. “Don’t be so impatient.”

You prop yourself up on your elbows as you groan in annoyance. You’re really, really wet – and you’re starting to ache. You need some stimulation, and quickly.

Kuroo sucks on your inner thigh for a long moment – long enough that you’re sure it’ll leave a mark.

You feel like you’re going to lose your mind from the anticipation. He’s down there, so close, his fingertips buried in your thighs, his lips leaving a tender mark…

He shifts, his face becoming level with your core.

Your breath catches in your throat as you watch him smile up at you. You’d steeled yourself for more of this, for more incessant teasing before he’d give you the release you wanted. But not today.

“Can I take these off?” He asks, snapping the band of your underwear gently against your skin.

You simply nod, not trusting your voice to hold steady.

He gets them off you in an instant, and a rush of air hits your core. You take a sharp breath at the sensation, which is quickly replaced by his hot breath fanning over your folds.

You shiver, your hands finding their way to his hair. You pull his head forward gently, fighting the urge to grind against his face. He gets too cocky when you do that.

He presses a kiss to your core and you gasp, your hands balling in his hair. He runs his tongue along your folds, eliciting a low groan.

“You’re so wet,” he chuckles, running his hands down your thighs and grabbing your ass.

“It’s your fault,” you mumbled, gasping as he starts stimulating your clit. Kuroo smiles against you, pressing closer to your core. He wants to get deep; deep enough to make you cry out his name.

He returns to your slit, keeping a steady pace. You loll your head back, letting your eyes flutter close. It’s such a simple movement – for now – but it feels so good. Kuroo just has a way with his tongue – and that’s magical when coupled with his need to please you.

He loves making you moan, making you squirm, making you chant his name. Half because of his pride, half because he wants to make you feel good. As good as you make him feel when you wrap your lips around his dick. The dick that was currently straining against his jeans.

“Tetsu,” you breath, your eyes trained on him as you bite your lip.

He meets your gaze, smirking. He loves it when you look at him like this; hungry, frustrated, aroused. He loves knowing that he’s the person who’s making you feel like this. Knowing that you want him.

“Yeah?”

“I-I want you… inside me.” The words fall out of you with less confidence than you would’ve liked.

But it makes no difference to Kuroo. Those words are enough to make him lose his damn mind. You’re nervous, but you want him. And fuck, that’s hot. He’s been waiting to hear those words for so long. And how are you so cute when you’re saying something like that?

“Do you want to finish first?” He asks, dipping his head back to your core.

You shake your head. The pressure is building in your abdomen, but you don’t want to come just yet. You don’t want to be too sensitive for the main event.

He nods, wiping his mouth and moving up to hover over you again. You lie back down, looping your arms around his neck.

He gazes down at you, and he swears he could cum at the sight alone.

You, laid out on the bed, cheeks flushed and eyes blown, desperate for him.

Fuck, he’s excited.

So are you. Admittedly, you’re a little nervous; he’s bigger than you, and you’ve seen his dick before. It’s not exactly little.

He hops off the bed suddenly and you frown. But he just shimmies out of his boxers – the visual is absurd enough to make you laugh – and his dick springs free. You gulp as you look at it, red as anything and crowned with precum.

Kuroo grabs a condom out of the box, ripping it open as quickly as he can.

You whine, holding out your palm to him.

He blushes as he places the condom into it, stepping forward so that his dick is within your reach.

You roll the condom down his length gently, the sensation of your fingers brushing against his shaft making him shiver.

He takes a moment to rummage around in the drawer again, pulling out a bottle of lube and quickly applying an ample amount to his dick. He read somewhere that you needed to use a fair bit of lube for a girl’s first time.

Oh fuck, it’s happening, he thinks.

Oh fuck, it’s happening, you think.

The thought plays over and over in your minds as he positions himself over you again, elbows placed either side of your head.

He’s trembling.

“Are you okay?” You murmur, rubbing your hands along his arms.

“Yeah,” he smiles at you, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I’m just really excited.”

You’re glad he’s being honest with you. And it’s nice to know that your boyfriend, king of teasing, is just as eager for this as you are.

He wants this.

He wants you.

He’s looking at you with such adoration; eyes half-lidded, cheeks flushed, ears burning and hair even messier than usual.

Looking at him fills you with such love. A new wave of excitement ripples through you as you remember what’s about to happen. You’re about to share a new kind of intimacy with this boy that you love so dearly.

“Are you ready?” He asks, his voice lower than usual. It’s hot.

“Yeah,” you say, a little breathlessly.

He kisses you and you melt into it. You’re happy to hand the reins over to him, to let him lead you through this. He’s just as inexperienced as you, but you imagine he’ll find it a little more straightforward.

He rubs the tip of his dick along your folds, and you moan. Two things flood his brain; the first is that he wants to be inside you. The second is that he wants to hear you make that sound again.

He takes a moment to line himself up correctly, which is easier than he thought it’d be.

One deep breath, and he pushes the tip in.

His breath hitches. This… This is good. Barely any of him is inside, but he already knows this is going to be fucking incredible.

You’re not sure if you like it, yet. It’s… new. Different.

Your hands grip his shoulders and he pauses.

“Are you okay?”

You nod.

He pushes in a little more.

Your face contorts and he pulls out immediately, a hand coming up to cup your face.

“Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. “No, no, it’s just… A lot to take in.”

He nods, scanning your body. He’s well-aware of your size difference. While that’s cute sometimes – and he gets an ego kick from how big his dick looks in your hands – he’s also wise to the fact that it could pose a problem here.

He swallows roughly. “Do you… think you can take all of it?”

He blushes at the question. He’s usually confident in these situations, taking them in his stride despite the clumsiness that came with being inexperience. But the idea of hurting you… he’d never thought he’d be embarrassed about having a big dick.

“I think so,” you nod, meeting his gaze boldly. “I can try.”

He chuckles, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Do you want me to continue?”

“Please,” you nod You want this.

“Okay.” A long, shuddering breath and he takes his hand away from your face, getting back into position. “I’ll do it bit by bit, okay?”

He lines himself up again, his gaze trained on your face. He’s alert to your every move, every response.

He thrusts into you slowly, his tip pushing past your folds.

Your breath catches in your throat and your entire body tenses.

Kuroo pulls out again, before making another thrust. This time, a couple more centimetres of his dick edge in.

You do your best to relax around him, but it’s hard. It’s really, really tight.

Kuroo pauses, his brow furrowed. His eyes flick away from you for a moment. “Pass me a pillow.”

“Huh?” You blink at him.

“It’ll help.” He read that somewhere.

You reach over and grab one of the pillows for him. He lifts you up by your waist and puts the pillow under your pelvis.

He settles you down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Once he’s sure you’re comfortable, he gets back to it.

“Oh,” you gasp. “That helps.”

Kuroo chuckles, leaning down and kissing your forehead. “Do you want to keep going?”

You nod and he sets a steady pace. It’s still slow, but it’s very deliberate. He wants to give you time to adjust to him, to let you relax around him. It’s taking more willpower than he anticipated.

You just try and take deep breaths as he works more of his dick into you. The new angle – thanks to the pillow – certainly helps, and you feel as if you’re starting to get used to the sensation. Not totally comfortable yet, but it’s less alien.

You can feel him shuddering above you, the occasional shaky groan splitting from his lips. You lift your eyes to look at his face. His eyes are closed, his lips parted, his cheeks flushed. He looks like he’s in ecstasy.

There’s a swell of pride in your chest as you remind yourself that you are the one who’s doing this to him. You are the one making his eyes flutter close, making his whole body tremble, making moans tumble out of his throat.

Those thoughts help you relax a bit, loosening up around him.

Eventually, he bottoms out, most of his length now in you.

The feeling leaves you breathless, as if you’ve just been winded.

Kuroo feels like he’s ascending.

You stay there for a moment, bodies pressed together.

He buries his face into your neck, another shudder running through his body. “You feel so good.”

Those words, in that voice, makes you blush. “I do?”

He chuckles. How are you so cute? “Yeah… you’re so warm.”

You wonder what it feels like for him. You’re aware of a presence between your legs, but it’s not exactly the most enjoyable feeling in the world. But, it’s not the worst either. Hopefully it’ll get better.

“You okay?” He asks.

“Mhm.”

“Is it okay if I move?”

“Please.”

He makes a tentative thrust.

“Oh, shit,” he hisses, and you feel a wave of delight spread through your chest.

“Feel good?” You tease, running your fingers along his neck.

“Yeah.”

It still feels a little weird for you, but you don’t mind all that much. There’s something of a burn to it – perhaps that’s the stretch – but it isn’t unpleasant. Just different.

He thrusts again, another string of curses falling from his lips.

It’s still a little tight because of his size, but you’re still worked up from him going down on you. That build brewing in your lower abdomen is still there, waiting to be satisfied.

Kuroo sets a slow rhythm, each thrust more confident than the last. The occasional moan of your name flutters out, and you swear you can feel yourself getting wetter each time.

He’s shameless. He really doesn’t give a shit about being quiet. You always figured he would be, given his personality.

But you didn’t expect it to be so hot. Each moan, each grunt, each curse as he fucks you, his eyes screwed shut and his brow furrowed.

You can tell that he’s lost in this, lost in you.

“Fuck,” he hisses, pressing his forehead against yours. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

You feel yourself growing fuzzy. It’s a new feeling, but it’s not a bad one. If anything, it’s getting better.

And you’re so, so close to him. Closer than you’ve ever been before. And you like it. You like this new intimacy, this new way of loving each other.

And hearing him moan like this? It’s different form when you’re giving him a blowjob, or when you’re dry-humping. These are more ragged, rawer. 

You were the reason he was moaning like this. You were the reason his face looked like that, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly and sweat forming on his forehead.

Fuck, this is hot.

He’s getting faster. He can barely focus, his mind preoccupied with what’s happening right now. All he can think about is you. All he can feel is you.

But in his haze, he remembers that you need to be enjoying yourself, too.

One of his hands snakes down to your clit. You moan at the sensation, digging your nails into his shoulders.

He manages to open his eyes, just to get a look at your face.

He thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen.

He thinks you’re beautiful all the time, but this? Eyes closed, cheeks flushed, lips parted, hair spilling over the pillow? Fuck.

He wants to kiss you, but he also wants to keep looking at you.

This just feels so fucking phenomenal, being with you like this. Being so close, knowing that this is something you share. Hearing you moan underneath him, pressed so close, your legs hooked around his hips, holding him even closer…

He’s close. Too close. But he doesn’t want to go first.

So he moans into your ear, a string of almost incoherent babble.

“Fuck… fuck…” He hisses, kissing the spot where your jaw meets your neck. “You’re so fucking hot.”

You whimper at that.

“You feel fucking incredible.” His thrusts are growing sloppier, hungrier. But he keeps working on your clit, his warm breath fanning your neck.

“Tetsu,” you whine in response. You want to talk back, to say something to rile him up, but you don’t know much.

“I-I want to feel you come,” he stutters, his breath ragged in your ear.  

You gasp, clenching around him. He hisses at the sensation, his movements growing rougher and faster.

“I love you so much,” he breathes, moving to kiss your mouth. “Fuck—”

“I love you too,” you manage to stutter out as the hot coil in your abdomen tightens.

Being this close to him is making you lose your mind. Knowing that you’re doing this to him, that he’s saying all these things because of you… and on top of that, he still makes your comfort and enjoyment a priority. And fuck, he sounds so hot.

The friction is starting to feel really fucking good, and his fingers are still working on your clit, and—

You cry out, your head lolling back as your orgasm floods through you.

Kuroo thinks it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen. Your face, your moans, your nails digging into his back…

All that and the feeling of your walls fluttering around his dick is too much.

He’s gone.

He buries his face into your neck with a groan, chasing his high as elation courses through his veins. He doesn’t want this to end – he wants to stay in this moment just a little longer, feeling you all around him, hearing you moan in his ear, the smell of sweat and sex covering the two of you like a blanket.

You’re out of it, basking in your afterglow. You stroke his neck softly, coaxing him through the final throes of his orgasm.

He slows to a stop, resting his forehead against yours.

You both lie there for a moment, just breathing.

He’s still in you, his face buried in the crook of your neck. This is nice, too, you realise, running your fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. He hums in response. You feel… floppy. Pleasantly tired. You’re sore, and maybe even a little tingly. You’re sure you’ll feel it tomorrow, even though he’d been gentle with you.

But most of all, you feel happy.

“Was that… good?” You ask, after a long period of silence.

Kuroo takes a deep breath and lifts his head to look at you. “Well, it’s sure better than my hand.”

You snort. What? What? “We have sex for the first time and that’s all you have to say?”

He laughs, kissing you.

“No!” You cackle. “You’re not getting away with this!”

He just keeps laughing, pressing his lips against yours once more.

You concede, too drowsy and content to fight it.

Kuroo pulls away, a look of blissful contentment on his face. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you smile. You mean it. But, something else is on your mind. “Did I do okay?”

He chuckles, kissing your forehead. “You did great.”

You relax a bit. At the very least, you’d made him feel good.

“Was it good for you?” He asks. Concern is laced through his voice, and that touches you.

You nod, smiling. “I think I still need to get used to it a bit, but… I enjoyed it.”

The relief that rushes through him is almost like a second orgasm. He grins, resting his head against your shoulder. “Thank fuck.”

He still hasn’t pulled out of you yet. You wonder, for a moment, if it’ll be even better next time. How long it’ll take your body to properly adjust to this.

But as much as you’d like to just lie there like this, there’s a new pressure building in your body.

“Tetsu?”

“Hm?”

“I need to pee.”

He pulls out of you with a sigh, and you miss his presence. “You’ve got to make sure you pee every time, okay?” He stretches his arms above his head, and you take a moment to admire his body. All those years of volleyball paid off. “You don’t want to get an infection.”

“That’s so unromantic,” you whine, knocking him with your knee. “I already know that.”

“I just want to make sure,” Kuroo tsked. “I’ve got a big dick, which means it’ll push more bacter—”

“Oh my God, Tetsu, shut up!”

He cackles as you rush to the bathroom, taking the moment of solitude to catch his breath.

Fuck, he can’t believe that just happened. But his body won’t let him forget. When he’d woken up this morning, he hadn’t expected to get laid. And maybe he’d thought that this’d happen at a more romantic moment.

But he doesn’t care. He’d made you come, and that was enough for him. There was a pride in that, but most of all, there was a sense of relief. And, of course, the buzz that always came from an experience like this. That feeling, and the image of you crying out is going to be burned at the back of his mind for a long time coming.

You’re crawling back into bed before Kuroo has time to process his emotions.

Kuroo holds his arms out expectantly. You settle into them, and a whole new wave of love overwhelms him.

He’s so lucky. So, so lucky.

He uses a hand to tilt your face towards him, and he peppers it with kisses.

You laugh, but you don’t push him away.

“I love you,” he murmurs as he presses a kiss to your nose. “So much.”

“I love you too,” you giggle. All sorts of emotions are running through you – a mixture of love, relief, disbelief, bewilderment. But most of all, you feel grateful. Grateful that he’s part of your life. Grateful that you get to be part of his.

He lowers his arms to your waist, holding you flush against him. He’s out of words, now. There’s not much more he can do to express how he feels but hold you close.

“I wanna nap,” you mumble into his chest.

“Get some rest,” he smiles, rubbing a hand up and down your back. “You deserve it.”

“Thank you,” you hum.

It doesn’t take you long to doze off, the exhaustion taking over before you knew it.

But, Kuroo doesn’t let you drift off without at least one more ‘I love you.’

#kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo smut #kuroo tetsurou smut #ns//fw #not family friendly #not to be that person but i guess i wrote this with the in between in mind #will i ever let go? survey says no

[pluviophile-bookworm]

HSMTMTS 2x11: Let us pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents... the reason for my next mental breakdown

I can't believe myself, honestly. Oversleeping on the one day of the week that I've got something exciting to wake up for? Oh well, I'm up now and I'd better go ahead and do this before my dashboard has showered me with spoilers. I mean, I have never really minded spoilers, but when it comes to this, somehow I do. Though I do wish something had forewarned me about last week's snap ending (get it, 'snap'... I'll see myself out). I'd better dive in already.

Yes, Mr Mazzara, that's what I've been saying for a while! Ok, maybe I haven't been very vocal about it, but it was in the foreground of my mind that they should have asked for Mr Mazzara's help re: transformation! I'm just glad he pointed it out. Not that he could have done much while he was busy playing therapist for his beloved Miss Jenn. Oh well.

Were those Ash and Ricky doing actual paired-up warmups? That is what they should have been doing for weeks now. That and having actual off-stage interactions, too. But I still subscribe to the theory that the gang had some good rehearsals off-screen — otherwise there's no way they could have been this good on stage as we saw in the previews. I said it last time and I'll say it again — not everything is for us to see.

Wow. The one time our leads are in unison, and it is about both being injured. The East High drama club must be cursed — they can't have one production run smoothly and without what can only be described as pure unbridled chaos.

They don't have any understudies? That explains some things... but also how? But also, I'm so happy Ashlyn is going on. No way she would have missed her first (first of many, right?) chance of being the lead because of some 'minor' injury.

Ricky and Nini still can't talk to each other properly. Oh well. Take your time. It's not like I care about this pairing anymore.

Did EJ just use the word 'dig'? Boy, the boy's got it baaaaaad. Also, what is it going to take for these two to realise they're in love? For all we know, they might have that big kiss we're all dreaming of and still be like 'nah, it's nothing, we're buddies'... give me a break! But I mean, at this point they might just be turning into Redlyn 2.0, where even a kiss doesn't define things. But hey, if they do follow in Redlyn's footsteps, that only means good things in their future, right?

What did that fake French git do to my boy Carlos? He's not supposed to look this inanimate until right before the climax of the play! Well, I mean, at least Seb serving as his interpreter means that Seb gets more lines for a bit. Too bad he can't go on for someone with more lines in the play.

Miss Jenn's 'words of inspiration' were less than inspired... yeah, this show's going down. Or it would, if it depended solely on her. Let's hope the kids do better. I mean, I know for a fact they will... at least for about 5 minutes of the thing. There is still room for things to go wrong and I'm scared.

Oh, my sweet boy... I wish I could jump in there and do something to help him feel less nervous. Thing is, if I were there, I'd probably be the most nervous of them all, even if I were playing Townsfolk #3 or something, and everyone's nervousness would rub off on me, and I would be making things worse instead of helping. So yeah, I'm kind of glad I'm not there.

Ahhhh who called it? @redlyncentral was it you? Ash got flowers for her Biggie! And there's a card whose contents we've yet to see. But that doesn't seem to be helping either. My sweet, sweet Reddy... I hope and pray he'll be alright.

Well this is awkward! Who told Mike to show up and shake everything up right now? Miss Jenn is literally on the brink of exploding, and now she's stuck in this completely unnecessary love triangle. She needs some space. And a quiet place to breathe, thanks Mr M for suggesting it.

'Did we forget to build a mote around the school or...' Yeah, you tell her, Rick! That girl whose name I never want to pronounce (because it makes me think of much nicer people and she's making me hate it) has no business being there. She's not... being given a redemption arc, is she now? Some people just don't deserve it. And if hating her is an unpopular opinion now, well, I never did care much about having popular opinions. I can live with that.

'Lily, scram!' Yes, thank you, Natalie! I've always wanted someone who would voice my thoughts in a way that the characters can hear them. Make this girl a main next season, won't you? (Just so we're crystal clear, I mean Natalie, not the other one.)

OMG Mr M is in the play! In a way... I love that!

I love, love, love the way they did the prologue. 'Repulsed [the prince makes an over-the-top gesture of repulsion] by her haggard appearance [the witch shows off her face to the audience]...' I love this. I would pay a lot for a chance to see their entire play, you know?

Oh dear, somebody give my boy Reddy some sort of... medical aid against all the throwing up! I've got a nice pill that helps me with my bad cases of motion sickness. Hey, so maybe I could have helped if I were there after all. Great, now I feel bad. But also, is all the throwing up an excuse on the writers' part to keep my boy off-screen for the majority of this episode? Because it's a really lame excuse.

Gina's 'Many questions' continues to be a mood. What exactly is Miss Jenn expecting from the kids? Last-minute adjustments? No way. This spells disaster.

Was Carlos on vocal rest or something? Because he shines like the star he is... despite all the very obvious nervousness backstage. I mean, I wouldn't have it any other way, but... oh well, I wouldn't say it's unrealistic. In my personal performing experience, the most nervous ones perform the best. (So... what is that saying for my boy Reddy? Good things only.)

I've already had the opportunity to geek out about Be Our Guest yesterday, but... I mean, just look at them! Carlos doesn't need actual candles to be on fire, Ashlyn is stealing the scene without any lines in it, Gina is absolutely gorgeous, and don't even get me started on EJ and Big Red looking at their girls in absolute awe! This is everything!

Aww, look at them! Gina and Ashlyn dancing together, I mean. They're sisters and it really shows. And I love them both so much.

Kourtney is an absolute show-stealer! I'm still upset about some casting choices (one of them is in this scene, doing his absolute best with the crumbs he has been given), but she is absolutely perfect. I think I'll rewind and watch this entire scene again before moving on with the rest of the episode.

I'd just like to point out that Frankie's voice in his lower register is everything!

'You absolutely dusted that stage'... Not EJ making a pun so punny even I could not have thought of it... boy is absolutely smitten!

Not me tearing up when Jordan Fisher appeared as Gina's brother... like, I knew it was happening — I knew it even before it was announced. And I still teared up because, well, it's emotional in-universe and out.

Awww, my boy Reddy is so in love with Ashlyn... I mean, who wouldn't be... but — not Ricky saying Lily might not be as mean as they thought. Especially not to Big Red of all people. To him, she was just as mean as they thought.

'Side hustle project in the south hallway'? Ooh, what is it, I want to know now!

Why do I feel like things are a bit too awkward between Kourtney and Howie? Not that I'm too invested in their relationship, but if it bothered me, imagine how it must feel for the stans.

No, Ash, you absolutely do not need to add any fancy riffs to the song! Especially not just because L... well, that girl did it. You're unique and lovely and a literal Disney princess inside and out. That girl? She's just a wolf in a sparkling golden dress.

Awww... Big Red literally lowers Ash's blood pressure! Those two are such an amazing couple! (Full disclosure, though, he kind of does the same for me too; the other night I had this horrible nightmare, and I woke up in cold sweat in the middle of the night, and then... ok, getting too personal there.) The point is, if even the fantasy of a Big Red hug makes me feel better, imagine what his actual presence would do for Ash at that moment. Where is my boy? Everyone seems to be looking for him.

Oh... guess they took my advice to give the poor boy something for his vomiting issue. Good for whoever thought of it.

And we're back to the Porter siblings... forgive me if I still can't wrap my head around calling Gina's brother Jamie. I don't know about you guys, but thanks to my lovely new friend Paz he will always be Theodore to me. I guess we can headcanon that as his middle name. Anyway, I love it that they made a joke about the hilarious height difference between him and Gina because, well, it's the only thing I can think about when I look at the two of them. It reminds me of me and my little cousin who has been taller than me since she was 10, and is still growing taller now at 13. But, I mean, it's not very hard to be taller than me, since I'm so, so short... ok, this is not about me. Moving on.

Was I the only one who actually laughed out loud at Ricky drinking from the bowl as the Beast? I mean, that part has always made me laugh in the original movie, but something about Ricky's take on it makes it even funnier.

Meanwhile, my girl Ash is absolutely killing it as Belle. Not me having the very same expression as Big Red while watching her... gosh, I love both of them so much! Also, no offence to the rest of the cast, but Julia really is the best vocalist out there. Out of all of them. I said what I said.

My apologies to Ricky, but his voice is just not it when it comes to playing the Beast. Still, with the other option being him putting on that fake deep voice from the audition, I'm glad he didn't.

Ahhhh Portwell nation you ok guys? Since we didn't get them singing Something There, this is very much the next best thing... and boy, is it good!

Those glances between Kourtney and Howie, on the other hand... what on Earth is happening there?

Ok, so you all know just how strongly I feel about Seb's casting as Chip, and yet... boy had one line and absolutely ate it up! Give him an actual singing role next time, Miss Jenn!

EJ being starstruck by Jamie not because he's a big music producer, but because he's Gina's brother... excuse me while I sob!

Excuse me, what!!!! 'A big brother figure'? Boy, this didn't turn out the way I thought it would... now I'm scared.

Way to ruin things, Jamie! And I don't even mean the fact that his name is not Theodore. It doesn't matter what his name is anymore. He might just have put a spanner in the works of Portwell, and they were just doing so well! Ugh, I'm so frustrated. I wish I'd never boarded — what did I call it — 'the majestic S.S. Portwell'. What if it doesn't set sail now?

And there goes another disappointment... Carlos' 'the orchestra hasn't vamped this much since Bop to the Top' line had nothing to do with Seblos, and everything to do with what might still be the downfall of this show. I am not ready.

No. Miss Jenn did not just say that. She did not just tell Ricky — who, may I remind you, not that anyone's forgotten, just fell off of a high place last episode — to 'jump off of something high'. I realise she's under all the pressure, but that is not an excuse. Well, at least she heard herself.

Oh my gods... Nini — well, Nina, actually — did not just call him 'Richard', did she? That's it, that's the point of no return. And well, I kind of wanted them to reach it.

Told you, didn't I? I told you that-girl-who-must-not-be-named was evil! I always follow my intuition and it has not once deceived me. Redeem that, if you can! Guess what? You can't. We've just reached another point of no return.

Wait, a bloody cliffhanger? I cannot handle this. I physically cannot handle this. If you need me, I'll be sitting on my bed in shock, trying to process everything that happened. I'll need a while to get a grip on myself.

#hsmtmts #hsmtmts s2 #ricky bowen #nini salazar-roberts #gina porter #ej caswell #ashlyn moon caswell #big red redonovich #carlos rodriguez #seb matthew-smith #kourtney greene #hsmtmts miss jenn #hsmtmts mr mazzara #hsmtmts howie #jnk

[glbertblyth]

AN: It’s been a long time shirbert fans... anybody still up for some fake-dating shenanigans? 

It was raining by the time Diana arrived—the sort of rainfall Anne might have basked in and even written a poem or two about if she’d had a mind for it. Instead, with Gilbert’s short visit still fresh in her mind, it only exacerbated her horrible mood.

Once out the door (slammed behind her, much to Marilla’s great woe), Anne threw her denim jacket overhead to avoid the inevitable ruination of the pretty outfit she’d decided on that day. The walk to the back door of her friend’s car was all it took to dampen her hair and muddy up her beloved white hightops. She didn’t even want to begin to imagine what the state of her hair might be once dry again. The half hour she’d spent on taming the wild red lockes surely going down the drain with every squelching step she took. She shuddered to picture the disobedient strands frizzing and curling annoyingly around her shoulders.

“Anne!” was the first thing she heard when she opened the car door, her hands cold and clammy from grasping the freezing handle.  

It was Diana who had exclaimed it, smiling brightly from her spot in the driver’s seat. At its most brilliant sight, Anne’s sour mood nearly melted away - she did so love Diana’s smiles. So for a fleeting moment it was as if it were summer again and they were having one of their lovely days of sloth, with the sun vibrant on their skin as they lay in the fields behind Diana’s house watching the clouds slowly drift across the sky. No school to worry about or boys to try and decipher.

Then thunder rumbled and she was brought back to the present. Sitting wetly in the backseat of Diana’s car next to Jane and catching the very last few syllables of words mumbled from the front.

The brunette beside Anne reached across the gap in the seats to pinch Ruby, who squeaked indignantly.

“We brought coffee,” Diana went on, pulling out onto the road. The higher octave of her voice gave way to the obvious—she was being purposely breezy. Acting as if Anne hadn’t just opened the door and interrupted a conversation in which they had most definitely been talking about her. “I had them put an extra shot in yours because I know that’s the way you like it. Ruby? The coffee?”

Ruby rolled her eyes as she passed the drink to Anne. But she didn’t turn back around when it was in the red-head’s grasp, instead hovering there with an oddly expectant look on her face. A look, Anne realized, that was present on the other girl’s faces as well. Even Diana, big brown eyes wide like a doe’s in the rearview mirror.

“What?” she asked, pausing with her mouth halfway to the straw of her coffee and glancing around awkwardly.

When the only response was the low and torrid voice of Harry Styles drifting through the stereo and a raise of Jane’s eyebrows, Anne’s lips thinned in realization. The very word she had interrupted when she’d opened the door hadn’t been a word at all. It had been a name. Gilbert’s name.

Anne flopped her head back onto the cushioned seat, “Oh god,” she bemoaned. Could she not escape it for five minutes? Not even amongst her most beloved kindred spirits?

But there was nowhere to hide. Not with the three sets of eyes watching her so curiously. Waiting for her to give an explanation that she surely did not have. She was beginning to grow tired of Avonlea’s uncanny ability to spread gossip like wildfire.

“Watch the road,” Anne snapped at her best friend,  “or you’ll kill us all.”

Diana gasped and averted her gaze, focusing instead on navigating the road through the pelting rain.

“You can’t deny it happened,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “It’s all over everything.” Then she whipped out her phone, pulling up twitter as a way to prove her point.

“Don’t believe everything you read.” Anne snapped at her.

“So you’re saying it’s just a made up rumor?” asked Ruby, almost hopefully—because while Anne had despised Gilbert since the time she’d first laid eyes on him, Ruby had simply adored him. While Anne would spend every single valuable and precious minute of her English classes poking holes in Gilbert’s foolish arguments, Ruby was sitting not two seats away, mooning. It was exasperating.

“I’m just saying,” Anne folded her arms defensively across her chest, “there was a lot more to it than that.”

“So it happened?!” Ruby exclaimed, with such force she knocked her binder into Diana’s lap and almost spilled both of their drinks.

“Ruby!”

“Well I’m sorry but—this is—you can’t just act like this isn’t a big deal, Anne! He’s Gilbert! ”

“I’m well aware of who he is.”

“You hate him!”

Anne bit the inside of her cheek. Of course she hated him. Of course. But it’s not as if she could tell the truth: that she had used Gilbert as a mere line of defense against dearest Diana’s cousin—her very own flesh and blood. Though how that was possible was beyond Anne considering he was so insufferably annoying, whereas Diana was so sweet and kind and considerate. She never would have pushed anyone the way that Roy had Anne. She never would have refused to take ‘no’ for an answer, never would have imposed so thoroughly on Anne’s personal space that she felt as if suddenly all of the oxygen in the world had run out except what was left in her lungs.

Hell, even Gilbert had taken Anne’s ‘no’ at face value. He had nodded and left, much to her great relief. And how terrible a concept to consider: Marilla inviting him to stay for breakfast! What would she have done then?

“Anne,” Jane poked her cheek. “You’ve got some serious explaining to do.”

Like hell she did. Maybe the decision to kiss Gilbert had been rash, but she wouldn’t have done it had she not felt as though she’d been forced into a corner. And while she did hate Gilbert’s guts, the mere aspect of her kissing him shouldn’t have been ground breaking news. He’d been there. She’d used him as a shield. That was it.

Even if the memory of his lips moving fervently against her own had haunted her dreams all night, it was nobody else's business. After all, he’d technically been her first real kiss. And even if she did think him an insufferable pompous ass, she wasn’t entirely incapable of admitting that he was a rather good-looking boy. She wasn’t blind for chrissake.

But even so, she had absolutely no intention of that little tidbit of information ever leaving the confines of her own mind. Nobody needed to know that she found Gilbert Blythe attractive. Or that she may have very mildly delighted in the fact that he’d been so quick to kiss her back. Or—or that she’d felt a bit of a thrill when she’d seen him again that very morning; a thrill that may or may not have caused her to even entertain the plan that he’d so eloquently presented to her.

The severity of the realization jolted her. Rose her blood levels to an alarming height. Had she just admitted to anticipating Gilbert’s presence?

“I don’t have to explain myself to any of you!” Anne exploded. Though she couldn’t tell if her anger was directed at her friends, at herself, or at the mere prospect of having anything but ill feelings toward her long time rival.  “What I do with my life is nobody’s business but my own! I don’t intrude on your private lives like this.”

Ruby shrunk back, but Jane wasn’t deterred. Everyone knew Anne had a terrible temper sometimes. When she yelled it was usually because she felt like she’d been backed into a corner and couldn’t see an escape besides pushing everyone else away.

“Sorry, Anne, but I’m your friend. Friends talk about this stuff. They don’t keep secrets.”

“It’s not a secret.” Anne grumbled. But she knew it was a weak argument. That her friend was right and that she had absolutely no excuse as to why she should keep the truth from them.

Because you’re actually considering Gilbert’s offer, a vexing voice said in her head,  And telling them you only did it as a way to escape Royal would ruin it. The voice only annoyed her more despite its truth.

Anne took a sip of her coffee with far more enthusiasm than necessary. Any excuse to avoid talking on the subject further. Avoid meeting the tense stares of her friends.

“I don’t see why it would be such a big deal that you kissed him anyway. Half of our grade has been expecting you two to jump each other’s bones for years.” Jane shrugged nonchalantly.

Anne felt the large gulp lodge in her throat as she choked out a cough, “What?”  

Ruby craned her neck around to face her, baby blue eyes wide and vulnerable. Diana released a quiet titter of laughter but didn’t take her eyes off the road.

Traitor.

Jane rolled her eyes exasperatedly, briefly meeting the hurt look of their sensitive friend,  “Oh give up, Ruby. He’s known you his whole life and hasn’t made an attempt at you,” When Ruby faced the front again, lower lip jutted out in a pout, her dark gaze swiveled back to Anne’s, “ You , however, caught his attention from the moment you arrived.”

Anne flared her nostrils indignantly, “Not true.”

The girl next to her threw her hands up in frustration, “It is too!”

“Is not.”

“What are we, five?” Jane quipped. And then her face turned smug, “Besides, you guys did end up kissing, didn’t you?”

Jesus, it was a good thing they’d barely missed seeing Gilbert at green gables. Anne hated to think how insufferable her friends might have been had they known he’d stopped by that morning.

She let out a dramatic huff, placing her coffee in the cupholder between them and then crossing her arms to her chest. “Do you just believe everything that Josie Pye posts?”

Jane opened her mouth to retort, but before she could, Ruby turned around in her seat again, “We don’t have to. You’ve been evasive enough to answer the question on if you kissed him or not for us.” She said with an adorable scrunch to her eyebrows. It was obvious she was stung but didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.

A loud clap of thunder sounded outside of the car, mirroring Anne’s emotions perfectly. Oh, how she wished she were a storm cloud sometimes. Floating above it all, no care in the world. No expectations except for that of releasing their torrential rage on unsuspecting passers-by. Perhaps if that were her, she wouldn’t have gotten herself in such a messy situation.

She watched as the windshield wipers slapped at the front window, avoiding looking her friends in their eyes. “How far are we from the school?” she grumbled. Though it was certainly going to be a tough task in it’s own, it would be better than sitting under the excruciating scrutiny of the three girls she was trapped in the small car with.

Diana cleared her throat. “Just another block,” she said.

“If you want me to make sure Josie stays off your back today, I need to have the details.” Jane stated simply.

Anne ground her teeth at the annoying tenacity of her friend.  “There aren’t any.”

“There aren’t any? ”

“That’s what I said.”

“How could there possibly not be—“

“Jane!” Anne snapped, teeth gnashing out like that of a caged dog’s, “Just drop it!”

There was a stunned silence for a moment as Jane snapped her mouth shut. No other sound but the constant pattering of the rain against the windows and the quiet hum of the radio. In the rearview mirror, Diana exchanged a sympathetic look with Anne.

“Fine,” Jane said finally, a cool resolve in her brown eyes, “But just because you hate Gilbert doesn’t mean everyone else does. If I can’t get the answer from you, I’ll just ask him.”

Anne stiffened—every muscle in her body pulling taut as she fought the urge to strike out with her constant weapon of choice: words.

Gilbert wouldn’t sell her out… would he? Not when he himself was riding on the possibility of a public relationship saving face.

God, would pretending to date him actually work? Could they even do it? Could she do it? Certainly he’d do something to piss her off. Something that would cause her to lash out and make it obvious that they were not, and would never actually be, in a relationship.

The thoughts tormented her as Diana pulled the car into the student parking lot. As she parked in her normal spot near the entrance. As she turned off the engine and they were swallowed by the sound of the falling rain. How fitting to see that Mother Nature bore such a pitiful mood—gray clouds swirling in the sky the very same way Anne’s feelings were swirling in her head.

As her friends giggled amongst themselves—already having moved on to the next subject of interest and opening their car doors—she took a shaking deep breath. Steeling herself against whatever the day might throw at her and clambering out of the car into sheets of cold rain.  

+++

When the lunch bell rang, releasing students from their third period classes, Anne’s relief was as palpable as a cool wave crashing against a hot sandy shore. She gathered her things hastily—stuffing them into her bag and barely zipping it back up before hurrying from her calculus class and out into the crowded hallway.

She had very little want of being left in the classroom with a certain tall, dark, and tousled boy. And since that was how things normally went—since Anne and Gilbert were usually the last two left in the classroom, quickly scrawling the last of their work out on the worksheets before them—her rush to leave the confines of the classroom wasn’t without warrant.

Not for the first time since being acquainted with Gilbert Blythe, Anne cursed the fact that they shared a fair amount of classes. (Or unfair if you’d asked her.) But this day… This day had taken her dislike to an entirely different level.

Or maybe dislike wasn’t the correct word for the churning she felt in her stomach every time she’d caught a glimpse of his disheveled dark curls across the room. Maybe awkwardness was the proper noun with which to describe the tension she felt pulled taut between them. If she could even assume it was a reciprocated tension in the first place, that is. She certainly felt it—choking the air around her like a thick and unwanted layer of dust. But… Gilbert hadn’t necessarily shown any discomfort at the sight of her. He’d backed off on making his usual snide comments or witty remarks, yes, but she wasn’t positive that it was because he was playing an angle or if he genuinely thought it better to leave her alone.  

Nevertheless, it made Anne’s gut twist uncomfortably. And because the whole school seemed to already know what had transpired the previous afternoon, she loathed to even look in his direction let alone exchange their usual haughty comments. She had, in not so many words, been avoiding him for the entirety of the school day—ducking out of shared classes with all the speed of a bulleting train and keeping her line of vision pinned straight ahead even when she felt his warm honey gaze settle on the side of her face.

This, of course, did not escape the notice of her ever so nosy classmates. In fact, the fervent silence between the two known rivals after such an unexpected public display of affection had only caused an even deeper upset among her peers. Anne liked to think she had learned to never underestimate the might of a small town’s grape vine, but she certainly hadn’t expected such… such backlash from one simple spontaneous moment in time.

To walk through the hallways of her familiar high school and notice the boisterous noise of groups dwindle around her felt much like her early days in Avonlea—except this time, instead of having smacked the town’s golden boy with a heavy textbook, she’d kissed him. And apparently that warranted an even more uproarious reaction.

Anne pushed through the crowd of students and scrambled to her locker—head down in an attempt to ignore the whispers around her. She’d thought that, after three and a half years, she had moved past the days of being an outcast; past the days of being a subject of interest on nearly every one of her classmate’s tongues.

Apparently she’d been wrong. All this time they’d only been hiding in the shadows, waiting for the precise moment she did anything out of the ordinary, so that they could pounce.

As she exchanged binders and textbooks with what had been stacked neatly in her locker, she was so thoroughly enveloped in her own vortex of thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the tall and skinny figure approach her.

“Anne,” the figure said. And despite the familiar trill of the voice, she startled, nearly slamming her fingers in the locker as she’d closed it.

“Dammit, Cole,” she hissed, but there was a smile beneath it.

She turned to her friend, a feeling of ease settling on her shoulders as it always had around Cole Mackenzie. He was leaning against the lockers with his hands wrung loosely around the straps of his backpack and his familiar blue eyes were warm with affection. After a moment, Anne realized there was a dark smudge just under his right eye—more than likely a result of wiping at his face after working with charcoal or graphite. A quick glance at his smeared hands confirmed just as much.

“You’ve got art on your face,” she said, gesturing at her own as a way to show him.

He released a breathy laugh before using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe it off. “Sorry I wasn’t able to get here sooner, I got caught up in class.”

Anne snorted despite herself. “Sure you did,” she said. “Keep acting like you weren’t flirting with that new exchange student.” She twisted her mouth into a feigned look of utter despair, “You left me to the wolves.”

Cole laughed as she schooled her features back to their normal, friendly state and swung her bag around her shoulder. She entwined her hand with his as they made their way in the direction of the cafeteria.

He fixed her with a faux imperious look. “I was only showing Gabriel the precise way of shading. Charcoal is a difficult medium to work with.”

“Don’t tell me,” Anne lowered her voice, acting as though what she was about to say was an absolute scandal, “You stood behind him and guided his hand with your own, heart pounding against his back as he leaned into you.” She caught at her chest with her free hand, “Oh, how romantic! ” she squealed, much louder than she’d meant to. A few students looked in their direction.

An exasperated laugh burst from her friend’s lips and he squeezed her hand lightly. “Not so loud, Anne.”

She shrugged. “People are gay, Cole. They can get over it.”

Cole wasn’t necessarily closeted. It was a pretty well-known fact within their friend group that he was very much homosexual—you have one conversation with him and he just couldn’t hold back his flamboyancy— but the world was still filled with small-minded bigots. And in a small town like the one they lived in, it was easier just to keep the knowledge of his sexual preference to a minimum.

“I suppose this means our vow to marry one another is broken,” she continued forlornly. It was a joking promise they’d made to one another when they were fifteen and certain they’d be deemed outcasts forever—no one but each other to lean on.

Of course, she’d had Diana. Beautiful Diana. But there were many things Anne experienced that her beloved best friend just couldn’t understand. Diana was popular, beautiful, a glittering star among the backdrop of the night sky—something with which Anne found little to no relatability being the scrawny ostracized girl that she was. But Cole’s friendship allowed a quiet solace; a person who knew what it was like to feel unwanted and unpopular.

Cole snorted. “You broke it first,” he said, “What do Gilbert Blythe’s lips feel like?”

Anne nearly tripped over her own two feet, having briefly forgotten the mess she’d gotten herself into. She snapped her head to look at the tall boy beside her and fixed him with a desperate glare. The look on his face was nonchalant, but she knew he was dying with curiosity.

“Why’d you have to bring that up?” she said, unable to help the whiny tone that had weaved itself into her words.

Cole clucked his tongue. “You left me on read last night. You deserve it.”

“I think I’ve gotten punishment enough,” she replied, a frown twisting at her lips. “It’s all anybody can talk about when they see me.”

He looked at her. “Anne. You kissed Gilbert Blythe . ”

“Yes, I know what I did.”

“Gilbert. Blythe.”

Anne unlatched her hand from Cole’s and threw her arms up exasperatedly. “Can people stop saying his name as if I don’t know who he is!?”

They turned down a slightly less crowded hallway, taking a shortcut they’d found halfway through their freshman year. “Can you stop brushing it off like it’s no big deal?”

“It isn’t a big deal.” Anne grumbled.

He ignored her. “How’d it happen anyway?”

There was a tearing feeling in her stomach—indecision on if she should tell him the truth of the matter or not. The small part of her brain that was hung on Gilbert’s earlier suggestion rioted at her to choose not.

It won. “It just—happened. Okay?”

Cole screwed his nose up. “What does that even mean? ” he said. “What, did you just randomly see him and say ‘fuck it, I’mma give into the three years of overwhelming sexual tension’ and decide to eat his face off?”

Anne blanched at him, stopping dead walk in the middle of the hallway. “Sexual tension?” she sputtered. “Have you been talking to Jane?”

Cole released a light laugh at the expression on her face. “No, but I’m not surprised she feels the same way. Everybody does.”

“I hate it here.” Anne said sadly, mouth turning down at one corner. What a piteous thing to confuse hatred with sexual desire. Because certainly— certainly —Cole and Jane were wrong. There was absolutely no sexual tension between her and Gilbert Blythe. None whatsoever. And she was positive in the fact that there never would be.

“Drama queen.”

“How observant of you,” Anne replied, beginning to make her way down the hallway again. “It’s as if we’re friends. Almost like you know me.”

Her blonde companion snorted, but followed after her.

“Apparently not,” he continued vexingly. “Not if you’re sucking face with Gilbert frickin’ Blythe.”

“Cole, I love you, I really do. But if you don’t shut up right this very moment, I will not hesitate to murder you.”

“Anne—“

“I’m serious,” she said, “I live on a farm—lots of sharp tools at my disposal, Mackenzie. Don’t push me.”

He laughed—a short and exasperated release of breath. “Has anybody ever told you you’re kinda scary when you want to be?”

She glanced over to where he was matching her stride beside her, smiling crookedly and impishly.

Cole’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Please don’t flash me your murder eyes. It gives me the creeps.”

Reaching across the space between them with her arm, she patted his shoulder lightly. “Good.”

They lapsed into casual conversation then, walking quickly the rest of the way to the cafeteria and occasionally bumping each other’s shoulders teasingly. She really did appreciate Cole, she decided. Well, she’d always appreciated him—but unlike the rest of her companions, he never pushed her to talk about the things he knew she was most uncomfortable with. Teased her relentlessly maybe—okay, certainly —but he always, always, knew when enough was enough.

As they passed through the metal-doored threshold of Avonlea High’s sorry excuse for a cafeteria, (even their library was larger than the sparsely decorated area—hardly even eight long tables adorning the length of the walls and smaller rounded ones few and far between) Anne startled at the absolute terror she was faced with.

Being such a small school, the majority of the senior class was pushed into the same lunch schedule. Meaning all the kids she’d grown with for the past few years—all the classmates that knew most definitely about Anne’s adamant hatred towards one Gilbert Blythe—paused fractionally when they noticed her fiery mane out of the corners of their eyes.

Anne’s heart rate kicked up, stomach twisting painfully as the cafeteria quieted ever so slightly and heads swiveled to gawk at her.

She felt Cole’s hand squeeze hers. “Christ,” he mumbled beside her. “They really don’t have any lives do they.”

She snorted, eased slightly by his encouraging and easy-going presence. “Our school doesn’t even have a total of five-hundred students. This is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened since you showed sophomore year and Billie Andrews made it his mission to torment you.”

Her friend winced. “Don’t remind me.”

“Shit, sorr—“

“Anne!”

The breath that had frozen in Anne’s chest upon realizing the upset she’d caused when first entering the cafeteria thawed the rest of the way at the familiar cadence of Diana’s voice. She could see her friend’s veil of dark hair, her infectious smile big and bright as she stood from their usual table tucked in the far corner of the room. The rest of her friends, still sitting, waved to her gregariously.

Friends, Anne reminded herself. Those are your friends and not even the disastrous evening before and whatever trouble Gilbert Blythe insights next can take them away from you.

She felt a warm smile tug at her lips as she moved toward the familiar corner, pulling Cole behind her as she went. But as she got closer, doubt crept into her mind. She saw the nervous glances Tillie, Jane and Ruby exchanged with one another—however miniscule they might have tried to make them seem. The scrunch of Diana’s nose, bringing her hand down from her enthusiastic wave and rubbing at a non-existent itch. Anne recognized it immediately as her bosom friend’s nervous tick.

Her steps slowed as she approached the table, nearly causing Cole to stumble into her from where he’d been following behind. Josie Pye—she was sitting straight backed, arms folded across her chest and an accusing glare flashing in her blue eyes.

Oh no.

Now this— this was the part she’d forgotten all about. Josephine Pye and her ridiculous aversion to amiable conversation. Her insufferable adamance on making Anne’s existence appear as a show for all the school to see. Josie fancied herself a puppet master, tugging at the strings on Anne’s back from the very first moment they’d met. And though a tedious friendship had developed between the two over the last few years, some things just never changed.

“Hey,” Anne squeaked out, instantly noticing how guilty she already sounded. She winced, sat stiffly on the stool across from her friends.

Cole rolled his eyes and plopped down beside her, shoved his bookbag towards the end of the table and folded his artist hands in front of him as he leveled Josie with a shockingly protective gaze.

“There will be absolutely no mentions of a certain happening with a certain someone taking place at a certain time yesterday afternoon, got it?” His voice left no room for discussion.

Diana nodded eagerly, reaching across the table and giving Anne a sympathetic squeeze of the hand. Jane pursed her lips, obviously wanting to say something, anything, about the unfinished conversation the girls had all had in the car that morning—but seemed to think better of it. Tillie and Ruby, always the more soft spoken of the group, simply sat quietly, glancing between Cole and Josie, the latter of which had narrowed her eyes in an obvious challenge.

The blonde grenade snapped her eyes to Anne instead. “I think that—“

“No.” Anne said icily, surprising herself. She’d never been one to overtly challenge Josie. But after dealing with Royal Gardner and Gilbert Blythe and every single pair of eyes that had followed and judged and questioned her all morning, she’d had enough.

She cleared her throat, “No,” she tried again, less hostile this time. “We will not be discussing the kiss because it’s my business and I owe absolutely nobody an explanation.”

“Periodt,” chimed Cole, snapping his fingers. Diana giggled, attempting to smother it with her hand but failing rather obviously.

Tillie’s eyes had turned wide as saucers. “So it’s true? You and Gilbert kissed?”

“Of course it’s true, I saw it with my own two eyes.” Josie snapped, “And obviously—“

“Josie, Anne literally just said we weren’t discussing it.” Diana huffed. It was the most annoyed Anne had ever seen her act with Josie—it made her want to tackle her best friend in a hug. “Please just drop the subject, okay? If she wants to explain herself then she will.”

“Must I repeat myself?” Cole raised an eyebrow at the blonde dragon across from him who was just barely containing the angry smoke Anne was sure to pore from her nostrils.

“Please,” replied Jane, amused.

“Periodt!” And he gave another flamboyant snap of his fingers.

Josie rolled her eyes imperiously. “You guys are dumb,” she said to the snickering gaggle of girls beside her, then she faced Anne again. “Look, I’m not one to really care all that much about your romantic life—“

Cole opened his mouth to protest but without even glancing his way, Josie cut herself off and snapped, “Shut it, Mackenzie.”

He raised his hands in the universal sign of defeat.

“But as your friend,” loosely Anne had to bite back from commenting as Josie continued, “I worry about what this means for your… reputation.”

“Oh, for the love of god, Josephine Pye. We’re in high school, not running for the frickin’ electoral college. I promise you, me kissing somebody is not that deep.”

Did any of them have lives?

A throat cleared beside her—Cole’s. “I mean,” he said quietly, “it kind of is when you’ve vowed to hate said kissee for the rest of your days. ‘So long as you bring air into your lungs’ I believe were your exact words.”

Anne snapped her head over to her traitorous friend, one who’d not moments ago was just defending her.

“Whose side are you on?”

“The gays,” he said solemnly. And then, upon seeing Anne’s unamused look, “Joking, joking—I mean, not joking obviously, but… Look, Anne. As overdramatic as Josie is being—“ said girl harrumphed impertinently, “—Everybody and their mother knows how much you hate Gilbert. I’ll fight tooth and nail for you, girl, but this whole situation is questionable in the least.”

“I just want you to know,” began Anne, “How much I hate all of you right now, nevermind Gilbert.”

“Hey!” Tillie protested, “I haven’t done a single thing besides ask if the rumor was true in the first place.”

“Tillie Boulter with-holding.”

Jane opened her mouth, “I—“

“You’re on thin fuckin’ ice, Jane Andrews.”

Anne was so incredibly and entirely tired of this entire situation. So much for not talking about it… God, she should just out and admit the reasoning already. Clear the air, make sure that everybody knew it was a farce. A ploy to get Roy Gardner to finally leave her alone.

Who was she kidding anyway? Even entertaining the idea that Gilbert had planted in her head earlier that morning was absolute insanity. Them? Dating? Imagine the uproar then. If her classmates were so nosy as to be absolutely entranced by the fact that they simply kissed, imagine if they announced they were dating .

Oh dearest Snow Queen, she asked of her longest comfort, What would you do?

She set her jaw then, determining it was time to come clean. “Listen, guys. Gilbert and I didn’t actually—“

“Anne?”

She froze. Didn’t blink. Didn’t take a single breath for what felt like a solid thirty seconds. Her friends all startled to look behind her, Cole craning his neck to meet the gaze of probably the absolute last person Anne wanted to see right then.

“Roy!” Diana chirped with false cheer. Her eyes flit between Anne and the monstrous cad that stood behind her, betraying the panic she felt on behalf of her best friend. “I thought you had B lunch?”

Anne refused to turn around, still frozen as she watched, horrified, as all her friends looked at each other confused and curious.

“Well, I did. But the adviser decided to switch some of my classes around. She thought it would be best if I stayed with the rest of the senior class even if British academia didn’t quite meet up with American—Anne, are you trying to hide?”

She was, she totally, full-heartedly was. She’d sunk into herself, almost as if she were trying to allow the lunch table to swallow her whole.

“Anne, sit up ,” Josie hissed at her. Was she—god, was she batting her eyelashes at the boy behind her? The boy in which Anne could very clearly feel inching closer to her with every second she didn’t acknowledge him?

She took a deep breath, turned around in her seat finally for fear that he might reach out and touch her, place his disgustingly delicate and nimble hand on her shoulder. “Roy,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “Hi.”

“Hullo.” Roy replied, probably smiling in a way he thought was enormously charming. “Your dress is quite beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the one wearing it, I might say. Almost .”

Oh, for the love of all that is good and— He was insufferable. Anger, white hot and immediate bubbled in her blood.

“What do you want?” She said, rather bluntly. Cole elbowed her in the arm, shot her a confused look. I’ll explain later, she hoped her face portrayed to him.

Diana, ever the mediator, cleared her throat. “Royal. These are my friends. Tillie, Ruby, Jane, Josie, and Cole.” Cole watched him hesitantly, the girls all exchanged giddy glances. “Of course, you already know Anne.”

“How could I ever forget.”

Anne had to resist the urge to feign a gag.

“Anyways. Guys, this is my cousin Royal.”

“Roy. Call me Roy,” he said. But he didn’t even glance at them, his eyes were trained solely on Anne’s. And Anne rather wanted to punch him in his obnoxiously pert nose.

“It’s nice to meet you, Roy—“ Ruby had begun, but the miscreant cut her off, paying sweet Ruby no attention.

“Anne, I was hoping we might talk?”

Anne clenched her jaw, fought to keep from squeezing her eyes closed in exasperation at the sheer audacity Roy had to even ask that of her.

Right. This was why she’d entertained Gilbert’s plan. This was why she had desperately kissed him. Because Royal Gardner had no boundaries and despite being related to her best and closest friend, every moment spent in his presence was a moment she knew she’d never get back.

“Talk,” she said stiffly. She stood up, grabbed a confused Cole’s hand and yanked him up beside her. “But make it fast because Cole and I still haven’t had a chance to get in the lunch line.”

“I am… so confused.” Anne heard one of the girls say behind her. Diana shushed her.

“Privately? Perhaps?”

She was seriously going to punch this boy in the face. Like, actually. Right there in front of everybody.

“Privately?” Anne snapped coldly, her fury like fire in her veins. She stepped around him, cornered him to the table, making sure her back was to the rest of the cafeteria. Too many rumors were already circulating around her. If she caused a scene, lord knew she’d never come back from it. “Are you joking?”

She saw Cole step back from the corner of her eye, scuttle to the other side of the cafeteria table with the girls. All their eyes were wide and unsure of what to make of the situation.

“Anne, there’s no need for such hostility. I was just trying to—“

“Deliberately make her uncomfortable?” a new voice chimed in from behind her. There was an unrecognizable hardness to it, incongruous to all of the other times she had heard it before. Across from her, her friends' eyes widened impossibly, gazes landing on the new addition to the already intolerable conversation.

Anne could feel as all the eyes in the cafeteria turned toward them, a sure spectacle to behold.

She watched as Roy’s jaw hardened, eyes trained behind her with a new intensity as he tracked the movements of Gilbert Blythe lazily sidling up beside Anne.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of properly meeting,” Gilbert said as he threw an arm around Anne’s shoulders. She had to fight to keep from stiffening up, knew what he was doing, knew exactly what game he was playing at as he pulled her closer to his side and tucked her neatly beneath his arm. And while her blood boiled at his intrusion, at the audacity he had to come running in like he thought he was  some god-awful knight-in-shining-armor, at the way her friends’ expressions all changed immediately—all smirking and knowing and not nearly as surprised as she thought they’d be—the smallest part of her was relieved.

Relieved.

Like she’d still been gunning for that stupid, ludicrous plan that Gilbert had blabbered on about that very morning to actually work. Which in itself was most positively and unmitigatedly not going to happen in a million—

“Right. Is this him then?” The accusation in Roy’s voice broke Anne from her spiraling thoughts, solidifying the situation she was in. There, in front of all of her friends and essentially the entire senior class, she was facing off with one of the most impudent males she’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.

And, lord above, Gilbert Blythe of all people was the only person with the ability to make Roy leave her alone.

“Just a few months.” His words pinged around in her mind, “We get Royal and Winnie off our backs. And then we never have to deal with each other outside of class again .”

She scowled, resisting the urge to fidget beneath Gilbert’s arm. The heat radiating from his body where their sides were pressed flush together was rather difficult to ignore. She felt as though she could feel it fuse with her blood, travel through her veins and warm her cheeks, her toes, clog up her lungs.

“Is this who?” Anne replied, her scowl deepening.

“The boyfriend. The reason I can’t pursue you… or so you say.”

A choking sound came from her group of friends, though she absolutely refused to look in their direction. She was positive that the fire she felt across her cheeks no longer had anything to do with Gilbert’s body heat.

Roy raised a single brow when she opened her mouth, snapped it back shut immediately—a fish floundering on dry land. Gilbert’s arm tightened around her shoulder, probably meant to be comforting, reassuring, but it only made her want to elbow him in the side. The mortification leaching any and all relief she’d previously felt by his presence.

“I—uh,” she stuttered. Oh god, ohgodohgodohgodohgod. How in the hell had she gotten herself into this situation?

“My god, he broke her,” she heard Cole whisper.

“Anne? You did tell me you had one, right?” Roy’s eyebrow was still raised, the brazen confidence leaking from every pore. She hated him, she decided. Hated him more than the curly haired boy whose arm was wrapped around her and whose current silence felt like a ticking time bomb.

“I did,” she replied, and to her utmost horror it came out weakly.

“As much as I love being talked about as if I’m not standing right here,” Gilbert interjected, and Anne wasn’t sure if he’d noticed it but his thumb had started rubbing tiny comforting circles where it rested on her upper arm, “Anne doesn’t owe you an explanation. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t owe you a damn thing. So whether she has a boyfriend or not—whether I’m that boyfriend or not—is none of your business.”

Woah.

Wait a minute, not woah , what the hell? Had he really said that? Had it really made her heart rate kick up in her chest at the way he’d not only defended her but her right to make her own choices without explanation?

Royal blinked, opened his mouth, closed it. But Gilbert ignored him, turned his head to face Anne. The expression on his face said It’s up to you , the small curve at the corner of his mouth added, Carrots.

She closed her eyes, counted one, two, before opening them back up and meeting Roy’s gaze.

God help her.

“Yeah, Roy,” she said, swallowed thickly, “Gilbert is my boyfriend."

#shirbert #anne with an e #shirbert fanfiction #royalcordelia #my writing

[mikaze-discord]

OG Heavens: Love letters

For these Heavens posts, I had reached out to a few people who just never ended up responding. With projects like these, please at least hear them out, you don't have to do it because I know its a huge project but at least tell them you won't be doing it instead of ghosting them. But apart from that little road block, this project was really fun!!

Please enjoy under the cut!!!!

EIICHI OTORI

From @milkmateartist:

I have always leaned towards megane characters and Eiichi is no exception. However, it's not often you see idols wearing glasses, and that is something I appreciate about Eiichi's design. His color palette also intrigues me since I love deep shades of blue. His royal blue jacket is very attractive, and the way he pops the collar also makes me go "kya!".  His voice is also very sexy as well and is pleasing to the ear uwu. I love how egoistic he is too. Being incredibly ambitious he has been able to reach amazing heights that surpass other idols. The one thing that seems to make him unique though is that he really gets zealous and overly passionate when it comes to the power of music, so much that it makes him physically tremble. You could get high off that shit literally. His entire being is centered around being an idol, and all the components of him go above and beyond the requirements. It's not just a job for him or something that simply makes an earning or brings satisfaction. It's pretty much everything to him. For that reason he has made it to the top. There is also the component where he's lonely and isolated emotionally that interests me. Despite being a beloved idol, he clearly didn't get the love he needed growing up. Even though he had Eiji I feel as though his nature was more to protect Eiji and shield him from whatever terrors would arise. I admire his ability to come through all of that and pay attention to the things he really cared about. Eiichi can be himself, his strange, sexy self, but also he acknowledges the lonesome darkness within too. I think that component makes him incredibly powerful.

Extra Details:

While appearing to be a bad guy in the anime (at least), Eiichi seemed to be that typical bad boy idol that would steal away Haruka from the main group. The time when he approached Haruka and took her by the chin is a perfect example. How dare this new guy just think he can have his way with our protagonist!  To be honest I liked that aspect about him a bit. While I can't remember my first impression of Eiichi aside from not knowing how to feel about that, he slowly grew on me. He had the appearance of just another selfish idol, demonstrated by swiping the mic away from the announcer at one of his concerts and immediately declaring their foreseen victory. So far that looked rather bland to me, and I was still cheering for STARISH. They really made him out to look like some bad guy who would not play fair and do whatever he could to take the throne (and the girl).  It's not surprising his glasses shine adds to his 'freaky antagonist' vibe that the show seemed to try to give off, but however for me I love the glasses beam, thus having the opposite effect.

And then there is the Next Door episode. Now here's where we got to see more of Eiichi aside from when the HEAVENS Dragon demolished the entire stadium. Aside from kya-ing over the EiichiOtoya content (especially where he goes behind otoya and covers his eyes), I got to see more of him here. It surprised me that someone so cocky and confident was actually the same depressed, lonely person that Otoya was. But it was also evident to me as well that he did care about the effect it had on Otoya as well after he sort-of-well mind broke him. I like how he is ambitious but also still caring, as compared to an antagonist that would stop at nothing to achieve their goal regardless of how much pain they cause.

I also enjoy Eiichi because I feel like I can roleplay him well. Usually for me, roleplay has to achieve some kind of goal since I tend to be business oriented. I think to some degree I'm able to practice being a eboy idol through Eiichi, as I do enjoy charming the fans. It also helps that I can naturally play characters with an inflated ego who enjoy charming people.

From @/egoisticCEO on twt:

July 2019. When Eiichi was first introduced to me via his voice, I hated him from the very beginning. His singing, his appearance, his personality – everything about him made me despise him. It’s funny looking back and seeing how quickly my attitude changed towards him, realising I’d been biased against him because of a friend. Finding more about him, hate turned to interest. It seemed like his life hadn’t been the best. Maybe that was why he acted in such a way? Interest turned to liking him more. Maybe I’d misunderstood him. I’d made the mistake of taking him at surface level.

December 2019. Like was slowly turning to love. More and more, I found myself looking at him instead of my current favourites. I found myself wanting him to actually be a part of Egoistic. Once I started devouring HEAVENS Radio and unveiling his true character, it was shocking how quickly I fell. He truly acted like a father to everyone in his band. Giving them what he never received. Everything was for them to thrive.

2020. With how much I was at home, it only made sense I grew more obsessed. I found Life with Thanks’ translation. “We’re irreplaceable to him,” he tells us, and that made me certain that his heart wasn’t as evil as some people liked to believe. He’s a caretaker, someone who wants everyone to feel like they matter. Even at his own expense. Instead of selfish, he’s selfless.

I related to him more than I have to any character – it was comforting. Seeing someone have no choice but to put on a brave face, even when his confidence was at an all time low. 2020 got a lot harder for me, but when I recovered, Eiichi was like a home to go back to. Time and time again, I’d have to break away, but I’d always be invited back in by that stupid smirk and overexaggerated ego and the warmest heart you could ever find. Every scene I watched with him would make me smile. I’d tease him to myself. I still do.

2021. That brings us to now. I can’t see my love for this one of a kind man dying any time soon. I don’t want it to, either. Just looking at him makes me happy! He’s the type of character with so many facets to his personality that you can keep digging and never reach the end. So, in conclusion, I hope I never stop finding new things out about this wonderful idiot. More than anything, he deserves all the love he gives to others, and I’d love to provide it tenfold.

KIRA SUMERAGI

From Anon: 

Many have their reasons to love their favorite characters. As for me, why Kira Sumeragi is my favorite character is because there are several things about him that I can relate myself to and there are a few qualities he has that I like about him. If many do not know about Kira that much, they’d look at who he is. He may look intimidating at first and may not talk much, when in actuality, Kira is a considerate, dependable, and mindful guy. Mainly, he is the type of guy that lets his actions do the explaining. He is a hard worker, as an idol, he looks after his bandmates, HEAVENS, like family. It’s like what Eiichi said in HEAVENS Radio about Kira, “he is HEAVENS’ pride!” Although he may not say much, Kira is very observant of his surroundings and never hesitates in his decisions. The members of HEAVENS understand and acknowledge Kira, knowing that he means well.

You can even tell in his solo music! Although there are only two solo songs for Kira, if you read the lyrics carefully, Kira’s thoughts and feelings are shown. Kira always knew that if he cannot explain his feelings through words, then he’ll let his songs and his actions do it for him for you to see.  Although the anime doesn’t show much of Kira, the only way to get to know him more is through HEAVENS Radio, also drama CDs like Paradise Lost, and other media like LINE Messenger Japan. There’s still much that I’d want to know about him, but as a start, these things are what makes Kira my favorite character for HEAVENS.

From Anon: 

Aside from my huge bias towards OnoD the first thing that drew my attention to Kira was his design. Dark haired anime boys with bright eyes have such a vibe and I loved how mysterious he was set up to be in season 2. But the thing that really hooked me a lot was the found family that Heavens became over the progression of the anime.

Particularly since people in the fandom have a bunch of funky headcanons about Kira being the mom friend in the group, which is incredibly wholesome. Kira’s very quiet and reserved but clearly holds a deep caring for his group members and does what he can when needed which is one of the reasons why he became so loveable for me.

NAGI MIKADO

From @/_PXRFECTIONIST on twt: 

If I managed to stan Nagi, so will you.

Greetings. I present to you, once more, a story of how I came to love a character that I wished I threw hands with.

So.

Nagi Mikado.

The possible only utapri character that Shinomiya oshis despise. Thanks to what happened in the anime.

Truth be told, I too was one of them. Until I came to love Both Shinomiya and Nagi. Reason?

Research.

Ya see, it is universally agreed upon that the way Nagi was pushing and pulling at Shinomiya's trauma and DID was… Not okay. So I said "yeah okay what an obnoxious kid i dont think ill ever like him lol" especially since I never come to really warm up to people younger than me.

Boy was I wrong.

My heart really sways easily when I go deep into characters, and why they act the way they are. And also because I chose to roleplay as him, but let's not. Speak of that.

(its actually the main reason i like him in the first place who am i fooling)

Nagi is… Indeed obnoxious, and really has bad manners that are covered up by his cute looks and fame, especially since he's one of the original HEAVENS members, but once you get to really know him.. It makes sense why he's being such a brat. And that is sort of endearing. And knowing how his group is like family to him too, it becomes harder and harder to completely dislike him.

….

He really is a boss man.

He knows what he wants, and how to get it. He knows how to get people to like him without handing over the tiniest sliver of his weaknesses. He acts in his own way that shapes his personality to suit him, yet still manages to be caring and helpful, even if it's hard to see tenderness and good will through his aggression.

Reading his solo lyrics, listening to the drama CDs, even thinking of headcanons due to lack of lore, it all slowly comes together like a lovely parfait to suddenly make you realize..

'Wow…'

'I really do like that rat.

#utapri #utanoprincesama #uta no prince sama #eiichi otori #otori eiichi #Kira Sumeragi #Sumeragi Kira #Nagi Mikado #Mikado Nagi

[thecloserkin]

book review: Carolyn Slaughter, Relations (1976)

Genre: Gothic psychological suspense

Is it the main pairing: yes

Is it canon: yes

Is it explicit: yes

Is it endgame: no

Is it shippable: yes

Bottom line: I read this concurrently with Wuthering Heights and allow me to play sommelier—10/10 recommend this wine pairing for maximum gothic extraness. tw: suicide

There’s boatloads of sex but this is not a horny story. It’s a lyrical story—in the sense of expressing direct, spontaneous feeling. Not that a story couldn’t be both (Wuthering Heights is both horny and lyrical) but I actually want to spend a minute defending this book to my past self. The first time I read it, I was unimpressed because Relations wasn’t much of a Love Story. You know the kind I’m talking about, you know the beats you’d expect it to hit: here is a pair of siblings tOrMeNtEd by their iLLiCiT pAsSiOn!!! I mean, the mode isn’t always tragic or dark but even the cream-puff versions of this arc entail some sort of line being crossed or feelings being caught. We are used to characters who begin in initial-state, a journey brings them to end-state and a clear delta separates the two conditions. This book says: fuck that. Fuck change. Fuck growth. My best days are behind me and I’m ok with that because now my brother is lost to me and I give zero fucks about anything else. We have a novel steeped in the symbolism of winter (the season of loss & deadness that is impermeable to change). Our pregnant heroine dreads her impending due date, in part because the child is not her beloved brother’s; but mostly because having a baby is just about the biggest change a body can be subjected to, and she’s actively averse to change. All she wants is her brother back. If you’re looking for characters to fall in love, as in transition from feeling one way to feeling another way, this is most likely not the book for you. But I enjoyed it a whole helluva lot and let me tell you why.

The predominant note of this story is MELANCHOLY. It’s backwards-looking rather than forward-looking, things just keep getting worse and worse for our protagonist and yet she’s unapologetic about what she did: she loved her brother, loves him still and always will. What I admire is that she is steadfast in the face of remorseless despair. Compare these quotes, this one from near the beginning: “I feel listless, often close to tears. I am beset by fiendish pangs.” This is from near the end: “I am hollow, clanging with emptiness; there is no solution.” Do you see what I mean by no delta between initial-state and end-state? I think there is an important distinction between this book and Forbidden, which holds out the promise of a happy ending only to snatch it away at the last minute, in that Relations puts its cards on the table & promises no such thing. It’s melancholy all the way down (well, three-quarters of the way down it transpires this book is in fact a high-concept Folgercest prequel I SHIT YOU NOT friends read it yourself).

In the novel’s present, our girl Catherine is entombed in a emotionally sterile marriage; in the past she grows up warmed by the sun of her brother Christopher’s regard & affection. Slaughter chooses to locate these strands at two crucial points in Cathy’s development—age ten (prepubescent) and age thirty (the age at which women’s “biological clocks” start ticking—this is relevant because Slaughter is writing in the 1970s even if Cathy is living in the late Victorian Era). We should note here that Christopher is older than Catherine by two years, aka the universally acknowledged INCEST SWEET SPOT (I know some of you favor twincest but you are WRONG and I will prove it in my forthcoming monograph on the topic). At age ten, Cathy and Christopher have intercourse for the first time after stumbling on their father’s secret porn stash. The sex is more mechanical than enjoyable, and that’s the point: they start banging out of curiosity, keep banging out of habit, and only later do hormones and feelings kick in. Ten- and twelve-year-olds just don’t get horny the way older kids do, and that is, again, the entire point. Slaughter structures it so the sex happens first (in the very first flashback chapter). The feelings don’t follow, the feelings don’t emerge, the feelings were there all along. What the sex does is seal a secret between the two of them, the secret of their father’s porn stash (hidden in an abandoned wing of the house).

If we turn back to the present, we find Catherine yoked to a man who excites zero feelings in her. By her own admission she married him because “I found him pleasant to listen to and he never made any demands upon me.”These are the qualities that recommend a husband to her—that he impose no psychic demands whatsoever! All her energies are already absorbed in reminiscence lol. We find out he proposed to her with a speech worthy of Pride & Prejudice’s Mr. Collins, and that he possesses not a particle of passion. Which is exactly how Cathy wanted it:

I entered the marriage in a state of apathy; simply undergoing it because of Mamma’s pressure, and because there seemed no other real alternative apart from marriage open to me.

We were married in the winter of my thirtieth year.

I walked down the aisle in a state of complete inertia, my sense muffled by the laudanum … I wished with all my heart he could have been my brother.

File away that glancing reference to winter; more on that later. For now please focus on how numb she is—not discontent, just apathetic. Cathy insists the present brings her nothing but pain and insists she doesn’t regret the choices that brought her here. She’s unrepentant about loving Chris, and explicitly rejects the conventional moral framing that would view her past self as “sinning” and her present self as “redeemed”:

I could not rid myself of the old and over-riding passion of my childhood. I decided eventually that no one would ever, could ever, be what my brother had been to me.

If I could have felt then, and now, that there was some evil in what we did, then I could have borne it. But I could find no evil in it.

I would not be so oppressed if I could but feel my past was wicked and scandalous. If I believed that, i could gladly submit to the institution or the grave. But some buoyant spirit within me keeps insisting that what I had was fine, and contained elements of true beauty.

“The institution or the grave,” she says. Those are the choices. If you want to have Thoughts and Feelings and not just a Body, then your lot as a woman is to end up either in a sanitarium or dead in childbed. Only when she looks back at her childhood does Cathy perceive a time when it was different, when Christopher, at least, saw her as a whole-ass person. Yes, this is another entry in dr. thecloserkin’s ongoing “Incest vs. the Patriarchy” series; if you guys thought I was going to stay off my bullshit for more than ten minutes then joke’s on you hahaha. Here are some quotes that show she was getting her emotional needs met as a child (she’s borderline suicidal as an adult):

leaves me with only the memory of such complete intimacy. It is beyond my reach now, and perhaps I shall never agin recapture it though I live to be ninety.

there was no discord in our interests and desires.

We talked all the time. We never ran out of conversation; I never grew tired of his speech.

It never occurred to me…that we would not always be together. There seemed no need for anyone else—he filled out my present and my past.

Ok so if everything was so idyllic back then what the heck happened? How did it all fall apart? Slaughter withholds the crucial revelatory scene until close to the end, but the story up till then is permeated by a very Gothic sense of creeping dread. The elephant on the horizon is change. Cathy and Chris are on the precipice of puberty, which portends seismic changes in their bodies, and the accompanying changes in their roles as they inch toward adulthood. Cathy doesn’t handle it well:

the old fear. A fear of things changing; of his face looking at me in an unfamiliar way; of our world altering and growing cold about me.

There seemed no question why it should not always continue in this way, and no reason why our bodies or our minds should change or suddenly not fit.

Our life became a little cloister: and I never wanted to leave it. The idea of change haunted me.

I was insisting, always, like a child, the nothing must change; nothing must happen to destroy our life together.

And here is where I connect her fear of change with her favorite season, winter:

I was afraid of change. It seemed menacing. I realized the sadness and bleakness of the winter really suited my nature best. It made me feel more real; sadness now seemed more real than happiness; more permanent, and therefore easier to bear.

the seasons change and find me the same. Nothing touches me, nothing makes me laugh or weep. I have no real substance.

OMG SHE’S A FUCKING REVENANT

”You are so thin. Your limbs are slim as these winter branches.”

I have touched my roots, my beginnings, the things that have formed me.

This book is an anti-change pro-winter manifesto. Winter is the season of desolation, where nothing grows, and if there is one change she adjures above all others it’s the life presently taking root within her womb:

If I am a seed about to burst, if I am to flower, the old seed, my Self, must die. Some new thing will grow out of me; but I must perish. I cannot have it; I cannot allow it to happen. I must protect myself from this that would devour me.

My body continued to change according to its own will, nothing could shift the determined embryo within me … I cannot bear the thought of this thing growing within me, living off my blood … I feel nothing but doom, and a great fear if this shall finally come to pass.

The progress of her pregnancy is literally making her mentally ill. I want to link this horror imagery to child!Cathy’s musings on the decomposition of her father’s corpse:

I wondered if all the flesh had fallen off by this time. I imagined his bones growing into the wood of the coffin, and the trees growing into his skull, the roots twisting around his rotting limbs.

People who read this passage and think “this is a really tight horror aesthetic but what is it doing in the middle of my luscious love story” are missing the point. This is a horror story. But instead of framing the incest as the impure act that violates and threatens our accepted categories, we are invited to view the pregnancy as a gross & unnatural hijacking of Cathy’s body. Her body’s fecundity defeats and puzzles her. She actually tells us about her nightmare wedding before she tells us about her real wedding; in her nightmare she looks at her bridegroom and:

transfixed with horror because he is without the male member — all that resides in the space between his thighs is a burnt-out stub—like the hacked branch of a tree deadened and blacked by many winters.

So far we’ve had body horror associated with (1) her father (2) her husband (3) her unborn baby. Notice who’s not on this list? Notice who she always thinks of with tenderness? Notice who doesn’t ever evoke an iota of fear or horror in Cathy? That’s right! Her brother. The whole incestuous affair is really an own-goal on patriarchy’s part, because the same doctor who warns Cathy’s mother against Cathy’s “wild and unnatural attachment to her brother” goes on to say:

Little girls, Madam, are the scourge of the earth. They have no future, but to grow into that unhealthy state of womanhood, with its unclean festerings and grotesque swellings of the abdomen. I would that little girls could always stay the pure young things they are before the age of eight.

This is some next-level IT WAS EVE’S FAULT SHE ATE THE APPLE spin. Can you blame Cathy for taking this venerable authority figure at his word, and staying “pure” by staying a child, by warding off womanhood and childbearing altogether? goodforher.jpg

Real quick here are some lighthearted episodes from their childhood since it’s not all doom and gloom: Christopher marches next door to confront the Frenchman who is maybe sleeping with their mom and is definitely perving on Cathy. Christopher returns the Frenchman’s gift of silk stockings with a grand declaration of “My sister Catherine has no need for these.” That’s right shut him down Chris!!! Also: Cathy falls into a frozen pond and Christopher rescues her. Their negligent mother blames Christopher. Cathy is shaking with pneumonia and all she wants to do is “make the sad look leave my brother’s sweet face.” Christopher refuses to leave her side until she rallies from the fever. He is thirteen:

I think that Christopher and I half-died together in that terrible week, and afterward, when the terror had passed, we were never quite the children we had been before.

Congrats kids you have undertaken a symbolic journey to the underworld!!!! Good job.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

It wouldn’t be a real incest story without a third sibling, an odd-man-out who helps us triangulate our main pairing’s relationship. Edward is a sociopath and a bully. Parents playing favorites always wreaks havoc with children’s sense of self-worth, but I think in this case it’s 90% down to Edward just being a bad egg (fwiw their father, when he was alive, did favor Christopher). Edward is a peripheral figure for most of their childhood; he appears only to “bang on our door to tell us to be silent for our giggling kept him awake.” That’s right, our door—teenage Catherine and Christopher share not just a room but a bed (!). Edward resurfaces as an adult to beg for Catherine’s intercession with his wife. He married an heiress, and now he seems to have soured on her. He talks about her “malady” and her “hysterical nonsense.” She has “phantom confinements.” They are “phantom” because she is barren. Sir you are literally a Victorian dude named Edward who keeps his mad wife locked up in the attic, you can sit allllll the way down. A heavily pregnant Catherine rolls up to Edward’s house just in time to witness his wife’s suicide: ”I had to make sure there was nothing inside me,” explains the poor woman, lying in a pool of blood after cutting her abdomen open with a knife. This seems fine. This whole society seems fine, right? Catherine reflects: “Ill-health or madness was her only solution, married as she was to a man who so complacently felt himself her superior” and “We are sepulchered alive in this close world, and want more room.” If this applies to her sister-in-law’s tragic fate it applies with equal force to her own situation. Cathy may not be physically barren but her inner life is empty af.

I’m going to talk about the breakup now. The climax of this book is the last time Cathy and Chris have sex. Contrast the arc of many slow-burn stories where the climax is the first time the main pairing has sex. Cathy’s menses doesn’t even arrive until after the incestuous affair is over! And what precipitates the breakup? Well, their mother decides to take the family on a seaside vacation. This is the summer when everything changes (Cathy’s favorite season is winter, and she abhors change). As for what changes, exactly, it’s kind of unclear? Wasn’t like they got caught having beach sex (which they had a ton of). The forces of change are wholly internal. They’re growing up. They’re waking up to the existence of social taboos that will brand their love “unnatural” & worse. As readers we can see that Catherine and Christopher’s attachment is as natural as breathing, and it’s actually the Incest Is Icky crowd that’s drawing harmful artificial boundaries. What happens is there’s a local girl who has obvious designs on Chris. She’s a nonentity but the mere existence of someone outside of Catherine and Christopher, someone who views one of them as an object of sexual desire, sort of punctures the bubble they’ve hitherto been living in. They can’t pretend society doesn’t exist or that what they’re doing isn’t immoral by its lights:

”We have never felt bad before. It just happened and there was no harm in it. I see no harm in it now—I cannot feel suddenly that it is wrong … but even if it is, why does it signify? Nobody knows.” ”Yes, but why does nobody know? It must be because we have deliberately tried to hide it?”

Christopher is the one who unilaterally decides that incest is wrongdirtybad and it has to end. Christopher is the one who seeks out Rando Local Girl and fucks her just to prove how serious he is about ending it with Cathy, which imo was inflicting a pointlessly cruel injury for no reason?? Wtf Chris I thought you were one of the good ones. What I love about Cathy is the steadfastness of her conviction—she accepts Christopher’s decision but she is far from convinced by his reasoning, his deference to social norms. Here’s Cathy’s take: “it seems to me that to live in a way that is contrary to one’s own nature, to live in a way that is false, that is the evil. The discontent grows like a cancer.” Authenticity ought to count for something, no? But these kids and their beautiful love are ultimately outmatched by, and broken by, the weight of social mores:

I could not bear to think of anything changing. I wanted it to stay the same dear way it had always been; ever since I could remember … but the spell was broken; we could not pretend any more. We had to stop being children. “Please. Once more.”

And that’s the breakup scene. It’s devastating. Cathy keeps staring at this one beauty mark on Christopher’s familiar well-loved face and she’s crying and I’m crying too. Recall that they’re still sharing a room/a bed up to this point? “The first night alone was the worst,” says Cathy. Imagine losing the person who is your whole world….overnight. Oof. There’s a time-jump of a few years, and Chris announces he’s off to—I think South Africa? I think this is around the time of the Boer War? I didn’t make any detailed notes and I’ll be damned if I’m going to fish for my copy of the book just to confirm what we already know, that it’s the 1800’s and the sun never set on the British Empire:

”I must get away from here and see something different; begin again…I cannot imagine a day without your face, or your sweet companionship. I do love you. But this must be for the best.”

Christopher goes off to doing colonial-settler stuff, initially. Here’s his first letter home:

I want you to be happy and grow up straight without me.

As opposed to growing up crooked, or growing up gay?? Here are subsequent letters where he seems to have done a complete 180:

thought it would be simpler to be away from you, from the constant temptation. It is not. My nightmares terrify me, they are eating my brain. I don’t know how long this can last.

AND THEN he writes he’ll be coming home for Christmas! I must’ve missed the memo where this story turns into a straight-up Folgers fic but that’s about where we are. It’s literally Folgercest. He goes to Africa explicitly to get away from her. Time and distance cannot suppress their feelings. He comes home to find her still waiting for him:

”Why have you clung to me, or rather the memory of me. For surely the memory is better than this twisted, pathetic creature before you?” “I have found no one better,” I said simply.

Asdfdfkdfjd this reunion scene is heartbreaking bc Christopher and Catherine are barely five minutes in each other’s company before Edward intrudes, claims to have found them in a compromising position, claims to have suspected all along about the incest, almost comes to blows with Christopher, tells him to get out. And Chris does. Cathy doesn’t even get to say goodbye. Edward’s presence is so clearly a case of entrapment—he was expecting Chris to come to her, he was expecting to catch them doing something “inappropriate” even though it sounds like they were only embracing—that there is no doubt in my mind Edward’s intent was to hurt Cathy and Chris, rather than to protect Cathy’s reputation or whatever bullshit he was spouting. We have seen from Edward’s abuse of his wife that he is no kind of moral authority. He does, however, succeed in “making me feel unclean, and dirt was attaching itself to me with every foul word he said.” In this scene Edward is handy synecdoche for patriarchy, which berates Cathy with accusations of sinfulness while actively stifling her every creative impulse and intellectual endeavor. If this book has a villain (and I don’t think it does; it’s not that kind of book) Edward is it. I find that edifying. It’s not Cathy’s husband who’s the primary antagonist standing in the way of her self-actualization—the husband is no more than an empty suit—it’s her other brother. One brother saves her and the other damns her.

After Edward runs Chris off and Chris goes back to Africa there are a few more letters, including this one: “that nothing has changed in my heart. That I love you with the passion of our youth, with the strength of all these long, long years.” Thank you for the affirmation Chris! I needed it even if Cathy didn’t. But the war is ramping up and Chris is headed into a combat zone and the odds of his survival do not look good. Cathy is already preparing to grieve him. She’s also preparing to go into labor any day now. These two threads, her brother’s impending death and her child’s impending birth, merge in the final pages of the book where Cathy is just clearly SO OVER IT:

I have nothing to fight, yet the waiting is most terrible … I have nothing to do but wait. I have nothing to leave.

It is hard to go on. How can I escape this life, this round of boredom and other births? O, that I could be ten and happy!

That’s the end but come on. Raise your hand if you don’t think this girl will 100% yeet herself into the sea and they’ll rule it “postpartum depression”? Anybody? No?

#book review #carolyn slaughter

[master-sass-blast]

Of House and Home.

Aaaaand back to the wedding themed stuff!!!

(Also next week’s fic is the wedding fic! :D)

Summary: your friends make a vykup nevesty of sorts for you and Piotr after your wedding rehearsal --and there’s a very big surprise waiting for you at the end of it.

Rating: T for mild references to sex, references to childhood trauma, and swear words.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader and Alexandra Rasputin x Nikolai Rasputin.

Set after the ending of “The Moments in Our Lives Leading Up ‘Til Now.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

The ceremony rehearsal goes off like a dream. Everything goes smoothly, no tech errors happen, Piotr actually laughs when you switch out your vows for a joke version made entirely out of cheesy pick-up lines…

Perfection, short and simple.

The dinner party afterwards also goes flawlessly. You and Piotr had opted to order pizza to keep it simple and friendly for everyone, and it basically amounts to a massive pizza party with your dearest friends and family.

Except the two of you are getting married tomorrow –and also you each shove cake in each other’s faces because it’s fun, but you hadn’t wanted to ruin your dress.

Everyone chuckles and claps as you wipe your respective faces off –and also as you wipe each other’s faces off because it’s kind of hard to get all the frosting off without help—and then Neena stands up. “Alright, so, some of us planned a bit of a game for the groom-and-bribe-to-be for while everyone ate. You two are going to have to answer questions and preform tasks for some hints that will help you earn a prize at the end.”

Piotr raises an eyebrow, but grins anyway. “Sounds like vykup nevesty.”

“We were deeply inspired,” Wade comments, waggling his nonexistent eyebrows.

“What’s the prize?” you ask, wiggling in your seat a little.

“You’ll find out at the end,” Neena says as she taps at her phone screen. “Alright, who’s ready to watch!” She grins when everyone else cheers. “Okay, first question: what is each of your favorite foods? Piotr, you answer for Y/N, and Y/N answers for Piotr.”

“Pancakes or Cheetos,” Piotr says automatically, the picture of confidence.

“Yeah, but which one?” Neena retorts.

Piotr’s face goes blank, prompting several chuckles from the crowd. “Uh… they are both equally beloved?”

“Pick one.”

“Wait!” you interrupt as Piotr mulls it over. “This is one of the questions I put for the actual vykup nevesty! What the hell!”

“We had you write some extra,” Neena reassures you. “Just for this.”

“I think… it is pancakes?” Piotr says, shooting you an unsure glance before looking back at Neena. “She has me make those for her most often… so… pancakes.”

“That’s… correct!”

The crowd –which is really just Piotr’s family, Yukio, Ellie, Russell, Wade, Kitty, and Nate—lets up another round of cheers and applause.

You stare at Piotr when Neena turns to you for your answer. “Uh… uh… uh…”

“Come on!” Ellie interjects when you blank out for too long. “This one’s easy!”

“It is not!” you protest. “He eats weird stuff! Like Grape Nuts! And plain baked chicken! And raw celery! No one actually likes any of those things!”

“Okay, yeah,” Ellie concedes. “But there’s only one thing he makes a point to carry around with him on a daily basis.”

You gape at your fiancé as he starts laughing. “Protein bars? Your favorite food is protein bars? It’s protein bars—” you turn to Neena really quick “—his favorite food is protein bars. Really?” You turn back to Piotr. “No one likes those that much!”

“They taste good!” Piotr defends himself between chuckles. “I like protein bars. You like Cheetos.”

“Cheetos actually taste good!”

“They do not taste like anything!”

“You guys have one point!” Neena interjects while everyone else laughs at your antics. “Next question: what is each of your two’s favorite look for each other?”

“Literally anything, but especially one of your sweaters and a pair of jeans because you are forever telling me how adorable I look when I wear your sweaters,” you fire off after a moment of thought.

Piotr nods, smiling softly. “That is probably best answer. And you…” He frowns. “I feel like… when I wear nice suit… but I am not sure…”

“Babe,” you say with mock seriousness. “Think like me. Think about how I would answer this question.”

He stares at you for a moment, then his expression shifts to one of annoyed endearment. “When I wear nothing. That is what you like best.”

You grin impishly. “Hell yeah.”

“Ding ding ding!” Neena says while everyone else chuckles. “Another point for you two! Alright, last question: what is the funniest thing either of you has said during sex?”

You stare at Neena while Piotr turns red and buries his face in his hands. “Wait, what?”

“Essentially, what is the funniest thing that has been said while the two of you were having sex and who said it. You both need to have the same answer, and you can’t coordinate on this. So take a minute to think, and then when you’re ready say it at the same time.”

“Why would you write this as question?” Piotr murmurs as Mikhail cackles.

“I didn’t!” you insist. “Otherwise, I’d know what the answer is!”

Wade raises his hand, waggling his fingers as he smirks proudly.

“Of course,” Piotr grumbles, shaking his head. He glances over at you. “I have my answer.”

You start laughing. “Yeah –I mean, it’s kind of obvious.”

“Alright. Three, two, one—”

“The time I said I thought you’d—” You break off into peals of laughter, almost falling out of your seat. “I thought you’d be bigger!”

“The time you said you thought I would be ‘bigger,’” Piotr says at the same time, pursing his lips together as he chuckles.

The uproar from the crowd is immediate. Everyone starts laughing –Alex almost chokes on her drink, while Illyana scrunches up her face like she wants to forget having ever heard that, and Mikhail actually does fall out of his seat.

“I can attest,” Wade says, raising his hand. “That he is sized proportionately.”

Piotr chucks a plastic fork from the cake-face-smashing endeavor at Wade’s head. “Shut up.”

“That’s a match!” Neena announces. “Which means you have a total of three points, have passed the first challenge, and have earned your first hint!”

You take an envelope she offers, and open it to pull out…

Two house keys on key rings.

You and Piotr both frown as you examine the keys.

“We already have keys to Xavier’s,” you say as you look back at Neena.

She just smiles like she knows something you don’t –which, given the setup of this game, is pretty accurate. “It’ll make sense at the end. Alright, the next challenge is couple’s yoga!”

You and Piotr both groan while everyone else laughs.

“You guys need five points to get the next hint! Each pose is worth a point, and there’s ten poses in total, so there’s some room for error on this one.”

You stretch your shoulders as you stand up. “Alright. What’s on the docket?”

The short answer: nothing easy.

Granted, you and Piotr are in good shape and aren’t exactly super… un-limber, but it would seem that your beloved friends and family have taken into account your height differences in picking the poses –meaning that they picked the ones where Piotr’s massive size makes everything extra difficult.

“Absolutely not!” Kitty shouts when you try to fly yourself into the right position. “That is totally cheating!”

“It’s within my ability set!” you argue. “No one said I couldn’t use my natural abilities to do the poses!”

Fortunately, the two of you manage to do five of the poses successfully and get your next hint…

Which is a receipt for two welcome mats, a set of champagne glasses, and a bottle of champagne.

“It’s the right thing,” Neena says when you try to hand the receipt back to her, under the impression that she may have handed you the wrong thing. “Do either of you have any guesses about what the prize is?”

“Fuck if I know,” you mutter as you scan the receipt again before setting it next to the keys.

“Alright, last challenge.” Neena walks so she’s standing behind two chairs, which Alex and Nate just so happen to be seated in, respectively. “You two have to make these to cry.”

You snort. “What the fuck?”

“Clarification: you’ll be talking about why you love your spouse-to-be and when you knew you wanted to marry them, that sort of thing. The goal is to make each of our soldier types here shed sappy, weepy tears of joyful emotion.”

Piotr simply stares at his mother, looking dumbfounded. “I think I have seen you cry… perhaps ten times? Less than?”

Alexandra simply smirks and shrugs at her son.

“I’ve seen you cry twice,” you say to Nathan. “And one of those times was due to eyedrops.”

“Alright, time to start cutting those sweet, sweet onions!” Neena cheers as Ellie pulls out her phone and starts filming. “Piotr, you’re up to bat first. Why do you love Y/N and when did you know you wanted to marry her?”

Piotr shakes his head, smiling softly. “I love everything about her. Everything there is to what makes Y/N ‘Y/N.’ And I knew within first year.”

“Of dating?” you ask, almost incredulous.

“Yes, but also… I think within knowing you,” Piotr amends. “I knew that if you were interested in me and were interested in marriage, that was what I wanted. I knew I wanted a partner like you, someone with tenacity and excitement for life, and lucky for me you were interested.”

Mikhail mimes gagging and sticks a finger down his throat.

“Y/N,” Neena says, ignoring the eldest Rasputin’s antics. “What about you?”

“Is it a cheat answer to say ‘ditto?’” you ask, which earns several chuckles from the room. “No, no… I mean, I like everything about you, too. I like how gentle you are, how much you invest in the kids you teach, how patient you are… with me especially…” You giggle at him while he smiles at you. “And as far as marriage goes…” You quirk your mouth to the side as you think it over. “I mean, I don’t think it was so much a point of me realizing I wanted to marry you as it was… me realizing that I was ‘marriage material.’ Like, I definitely had those points of ‘man, this dude is awesome and I want to spend the rest of my life with him, and I’d love to marry him someday,’ but those really coincided with me realizing that I’m worth being loved in the first place. And I’ve always been happy with the concept of marrying you, but I think it really all solidified in the last two years because I finally got past the fear that… I don’t know, that my biological parents would be right and I’d wind up all alone, and I was finally able to trust in my own worth enough to stop doing the anxiety questioning thing of whether you’d really stick with me or not.” You frown as you look up at Piotr. “Does that make sense?”

He smiles and nods. “Makes perfect sense to me,” he murmurs as he bends over to kiss your forehead. “Also, I think we win.”

You look over, realize that both Alex and Nate are wiping tears from their eyes, and pump both your fists in the air. “Yeah! Exploiting childhood trauma for the win!”

That prompts shocked laughter from everyone –especially Mikhail, who collapses to the ground while practically howling with laughter.

“Alright,” Neena says as she hands you a folded-up piece of paper. “We’ll call that win. Here’s your last hint. This should be everything you two need to figure out what your prize is.”

You unfold the piece of paper—

It’s a top-down view of a massive estate, with a larger building in the front surrounded by a sea of grass and a few trees, with a band of trees all around it, save for one spot that’s been cleared out and has a decently sized house in the center of the clearing.

Piotr frowns as he stares down at the picture. “What… what is this?”

“It’s Xavier’s estate,” you say. You recognize it from flying over it often enough. “But it doesn’t have that building at the back.” You tap the house in the clearing which normally would be –should be—trees. “Did someone photoshop this?”

“It’s not photoshopped,” Neena says. “You’re right that it’s a picture of Xavier’s estate.”

The two of you stare up at her, completely stumped.

“What else did you get?” Wade prompts the two of you. “What were the other hints?”

“Two keys and a receipt,” you say.

“What was on the receipt?” Ellie asks, grinning broadly.

“Welcome mats, champagne, and champagne glasses,” Piotr reads off. “And we also got keys.”

“What kind of keys are they?” Neena asks. “And what do you use welcome mats for?”

“They’re house keys,” you say as you hold up one of key rings. “And welcome mats…” You gape as the lightbulb goes off in your head. “Wait, what? What? What!”

Piotr’s right behind you on the realization train. “…No. No. You…”

Neena points towards the back of Xavier’s property –the ceremony’s being held outside, which means the rehearsal was outside, and you’d all opted to eat outside for simplicity’s sake. “Go check it out, guys.”

You immediately book it towards the back of the property, and get about ten feet away before you realize Piotr isn’t following you because he’s picking up all the hints. “Oh my gosh, come on!” you exclaim, grabbing his hand and yanking him towards the tree line.

Sure enough, once you two get close enough to the back of the property, you see a clear cut path in the trees and underbrush that you don’t remember being there the last time you were out here.

You dart down the path, with Piotr close on your heels. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit—

It’s a beautiful, two story white house with a wraparound covered porch, a pitch black shingled roof and dark blue shutters on all the windows.

You clap a hand over your mouth, tears welling up in your eyes as you take it all in.

Piotr comes to a stop behind you, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as he gawks at the house. “Bozhe moi…”

“It’s a house, baby,” you whisper. “It’s our house.”

And that ultimately does it for you. You start crying and turn to face him so you can bury your face in your fiancé’s chest.

Piotr hugs you close, kissing the top of your head as you cry tears of joy. “It is. It’s ours.”

You look up at him and realize he’s teared up as well. “I love you so much.”

He beams down at you as he wipes off your cheeks with his thumbs. “I love you, too. So very much.”

You kiss him passionately, deeply, then grin up at him when the kiss ends. “Wanna check out our new house?”

He lets out an excited giggle and nods. “Sure.”

The two of you climb the steps of the porch –and there’s one of the welcome mats at the front door. There’s a bit of hesitation over who should unlock and open the front door, since it’s both of yours’ new home and this is both of yours’ first time being here, until you suggest “putting it in together” with a waggle of your eyebrows, at which Piotr laughs and agrees, and then you both slide the key into the lock together and turn the handle together—

And then the door’s swinging open, and Piotr –ever the gentleman—ushers you over the threshold first.

It opens into a hallway that leads straight back to the rest of the house, save for one room on each side of the front entrance. There’s what looks like a living room type of room on the right that’s otherwise closed off from the rest of the house, and what is probably going to wind up being a dining room on the left that has another entrance at the back of the room that you wager leads to wherever the kitchen is.

“Oh my gosh,” you murmur as you look around. “I almost don’t want to walk in. I’m afraid of ruining everything.”

Piotr kisses the top of your head and gently nudges you forward. “Go on. It is your home. You cannot ruin it.”

There’s a powder bathroom further along on the right side of the hall, and then the space opens up into a spacious kitchen on the left and “hang out” area on the right that has a fireplace built into it. The space on the right has a hallway that leads to a different room on the side closest to you, and on the side furthest from you is a staircase that leads up to the second floor. Between kitchen and the living area space are a set of French doors that overlook the deck and yard space.

“Wow.” You press a hand against your chest, throat constricting with emotion as you take it all in. “It’s really beautiful.”

“It is,” Piotr agrees quietly, just as awestruck and overwhelmed at you are.

The two of you poke around in the kitchen first. There’s a bottle of champagne and two glasses sitting on the counter, along with a card that says “Welcome home” that’s been signed by your friends and family on the inside.

Piotr pops open the bottle and pours a glass for each of you. “To being home.”

You grin and clink your glass against his. “To being home.”

The kitchen’s already fully set up as far as the appliances go. There’s an oven with a gas range, a fridge, a dishwasher, and a microwave installed, ready for use. The cabinets and drawers –of which there are plenty—are empty, but that’s not a problem. They’ll be filled as you and Piotr and your future children grow into the space.

On the left side of the kitchen, towards the back, is a door that leads to a massive pantry space –which, as you suspected earlier, connects to the dining room.

The two of you head back to the kitchen and connected living area and head down the smaller hallway, which leads to two doors. The first, at the furthest end of the hall, leads to a flight of stairs –which tuck under the main set of stairs by the kitchen—that lead to a basement, and the other door—

Opens to Piotr’s art studio, which already has everything from his old studio in the mansion in it. It’s even set up the same way he had it set up in the old space. Hell, even the windows are oriented in the same direction.

Piotr gapes as he takes it all in, no doubt noting how perfectly the space as been set up to replicate his original studio. “How did we not notice any of this happening?”

“I don’t know!” you exclaim, laughing slightly. “I really don’t know!”

The two of you head up the main flight of stairs to the second floor, and are greeted by more doors than you originally expected.

You look up at Piotr and find your shock mirrored in his expression. “These… these would all be bedrooms, right? Why do we have so many bedrooms?”

“I do not know,” he admits. “I guess… we should look.”

Four of the doors lead to what look like bedroom spaces. All of the closets have built in shelves and drawers, and one of the rooms also has a built-in full bathroom.

One of the doors is another full bathroom with a double sink vanity and a separate “toilet closet” attached to the space.

The second floor is clearly designed to host a lot of people. But does that mean you’ll be having a lot of guests, or…

The last door leads to what is clearly the master suite –which already has the bed from the room you two share, along with the frame designed to hold Piotr’s weight in and out of armor, set up next to a set of French doors that lead to a balcony.

Piotr’s desk and chair –also designed to take his full armored weight—are also there, and next to them… are not your original desk or chair, but a newly built desk and a regular office chair.

You pick up a sticky note attached to the top of your desk.

Xavier needed his furniture for some incoming residents. Didn’t want you to go without a desk. -Dad.

Piotr just shakes his head as he stares at the room. “Seriously, how did we not notice this happening?”

There’s a full bathroom attached to the suite, along with a closet with more built-in shelves and drawers—

And several boxes containing all your two’s clothes.

“We are the most oblivious idiots in the world,” you laugh when you see the boxes. “There’s no other explanation.”

Piotr hugs you against his chest. “Good thing we are getting married.”

You grin up at him. “I certainly like to think so.”

By the time the two of you head back downstairs, everyone else has gathered on the front porch –except for Alex, who’s stepped over the threshold and is peering around despite Nikolai’s protests.

“Okay,” you say when you reach the front door. “How did you guys even pull all this off?”

“We all chipped in,” Neena says. “Your uncle helped, too. Once we realized the problems you two would have finding a place to live with your mutant statuses –especially with Y/N’s history—we wanted to make sure you’d have a place to live and grow into. Xavier was cool with us building on the property since Y/N’s here under a protective order and Piotr’s the future headmaster, and everything kind of worked itself out from there.”

Wade mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “lazy writing.”

“So yeah.” Neena smiles. “Welcome home. Do you guys like it?”

“We love it,” Piotr says as he wipes tears from his eyes. “It is… it is more than we could have ever asked for. It is more than you all should have done.”

Wade waves his hand dismissively –albeit with dramatic flair. “You’re basically the most grade-A, decent people to have ever lived. That means you deserve good shit. It’s happening. Let it happen.”

Hug are exchanged all around, along with repeated thank you’s—

And then Nikolai starts sputtering in mildly embarrassed sounding Russian when Alex starts poking around in the front of the house again.

“They have not seen inside yet,” Piotr translates to you when you shoot him a curious look.

“Go on! Show them!” you encourage, waving him off. “I’ll catch up in a couple minutes.”

Piotr kisses your cheek before ushering his family inside—

Which leaves you on the front porch with Nate, Neena, and Wade, since everyone else went inside with Piotr and his family.

“There’s four extra bedrooms upstairs,” you say quietly, looking between the three remaining people for some sort of explanation.

“We wanted to make sure the space would take care of your needs so you wouldn’t have to add onto it or move,” Nate says, equally as quiet. “I did a quick look into future records.”

Which means those four bedrooms are going to be occupied long-term, which means –given that it’s the most logical explanation—that you’re going to have at least four kids, depending on how everything times out.

And, granted, there’s a lot of ways to have kids, but your hand still goes to your abdomen of its own accord as you look back into the house. Seems like the future is here.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #alexandra rasputin x nikolai rasputin #look this fic is part of my 'has nice house with nice things' wish fulfillment fantasy #which will probably never be realized because capitalism #so let me have it sldkfjlsdjflsdkjfkldsjf #thank you #deadpool fanfiction #x men fanfiction

[pierrotdameron]

On the set of His Dark Materials, Dafne Keen is about to see a bear.

With battle raging around her, snowflakes flying and alarms ringing, the young actor – who plays lead character Lyra in the BBC’s new adaptation of Philip Pullman’s acclaimed novel – sprints down a corridor, dodging enemies and fighting for freedom. And just when all seems lost, she looks up, seeing her saviour. A broad smile breaks out as she sees who’s standing above and ready to save her… a man wearing a white, faux-bearskin rug on his head.

OK, on set Pullman’s trademark armoured bears (or panserbjørn) aren’t much to look at – but over a year later, when they finally arrive on-screen, they’re an incredibly impressive achievement, realistic and filled with character, a triumph of puppetry and visual effects. If anything, they’re even more impressive than the animal dæmons that have appeared in every other episode so far. But how were they brought to life? What did the actors film with on set, and what were the biggest challenges?

Happily, after we’d suitably calmed down from all the excitement, the behind-the-scenes team were happy to fill us in…

Pre-production

While the 2007 movie adaptation of His Dark Materials (titled The Golden Compass) wasn’t exactly beloved by fans, it did win plaudits for its VFX, with the work of independent company Framestore winning the film its only Oscar. Now, over a decade later, the new adaptation would have to surpass even that achievement – which is why Framestore were brought on board again to work on the TV series, marking them out as the only common element between both adaptations.

“Framestore did the original bears in the original film, which we won the Oscar for, and we’re doing the bears again, now,” VFX supervisor Russell Wilson told us. “And what’s really interesting about that is certain things we computationally couldn’t do then, we can do now – but obviously it’s harder work.”

And the digital work on the bears didn’t begin after the shoot had already concluded, as many might expect. In fact, before a single scene of the panserbjørn storyline had been committed to film, Framestore and Bad Wolf’s in-house VFX gurus were working hard on previsualizations for the bears – in other words, plotting out scripted scenes in basic computer animation in specially-rendered environments, so they could work out how the bears would look before the directors started work.

“That was a combination of Framestore’s bear animation and our [interactive set] environment,” VFX artist and pre-vis supervisor Dan May told RadioTimes.com. “We blocked out the sequence with Russell and the stunt guys downstairs. “They animated the bears to quite a high level in pre-vis, that that pre-vis was then brought to our [digital] set with all its textures.”

In other words, basic digital bears were added onto a specially-mapped digital set, blocking out the scene before anyone had even turned on a camera and creating a “virtual shoot.” And when it came to actually filming the sequence IRL, this preparation meant that the bears could (sort of) be on set as well, with specially-prepared screens and virtual “cameras” allowing the production team to check where the animated, moving bears were at all times.

“When they shot the sequence, they were able to bring that animation and the virtual camera angles, and see them live on set,” May explained. “They were able to line up a digital bear with a real set. And that is not a first, because they’re doing that sort of thing on Jungle Book and Avatar. But we’re doing it on a more affordable, sustainable way.”

Though of course, it wasn’t just digital bears lurking on set…

Puppeteers

As with the dæmons, the bears on set were built and puppeteered by Brian Fisher and his eight-person team, with various different rigs and outfits utilised by the team for different purposes.

“There’s about seven to 10 different bear rigs,” VFX supervisor Wilson told us. “There’s one for smashing into stuntmen, there’s one for representing his face, there’s one where there’s literally a guy with a glove on putting it on his face.

For example, sometimes the bear was just represented by actor Joe Tandberg (who also provides Iorek’s voice onscreen) wearing (functionally) a bearskin costume, while other times he wore a special rig (pictured exclusively above) that allowed Iorek’s bear head to hang in front of his own.

Other times, he just wore a plain boiler suit with a light rig over his face, or stepped away in favour of a static model (pictured) to help the crew include Iorek’s scale, or was replaced by a large grey cushion for scenes where Iorek was less mobile or in a confined space. “You’re basically in a green room, with a weird grey thing which is supposed to be a bear, and with Lin singing? It’s just all very weird,” Dafne Keen, who plays Lyra in the series, told us.

And of course, a lot of the time the full-time puppeteers took over. For example, while on set RadioTimes.com was shown a large puppet version of Iorek operated by two people to impressive effect. Within the rig, one puppeteer wears an ordinary large hiking backpack, leans forward to face the ground and hoists two long poles forward, with a mesh bear head that he can control and turn at the end of the poles.

Another man behind holds two strings to control the front legs. Together they can rear the bear to his full height, stalk him around an area and generally bring him to life. In His Dark Materials episode four, another bear head – one with Iorek’s snarling teeth – was used for a scene where he attacks a foe, and generally speaking the team tried hard to keep things simple instead of using complicated mechanical rigs or creations.

“When the bear attacks – that was much more stuntman, him, us throwing him around on a mat until we worked out something that we liked,” Wilson says. “We take a very human, organic, what I call a man-tronic approach to things that you might take or do in a technical perspective. “When he’s getting dragged around by the bear it is just a guy in a boiler suit and [the victim’s] on a wire, and that’s it.”

Riding Iorek

But the fighting wasn’t the only filming challenge. In fact, a key action shot that everyone was even more keen to get right comes later in the series, when Lyra rides on Iorek’s back as the pair travel into a dangerous new area. On set, the human portion of the shot was achieved by creating a special rig for Dafne Keen to ride (pictured above) – but unlike similar ridable CGI animals like the dragons of Game of Thrones, it wasn’t mechanical, instead requiring the puppeteers to move it themselves.

“When Lyra’s riding a bear, it’s all operated by a human in a backpack,” Wilson said. “You know, we don’t bring in rigs and mechanically programme them because it’s quite slow to do, and it means you get less takes at it.” “To get the specifics, the biomechanics behind how a polar bear’s gait runs, we had to go through and, with the animators, actually break it down into segments, figure out how we can translate that into something that has movement and life but is not purely mechanical,” puppeteer Brian Fisher told us.

“The second you go into a mechanical movement, you can speed it up, you can slow it down, but it is always rhythmic, whereas we don’t work in binary movements.” As you can see in the above video, RadioTimes.com actually got the chance to try out the bear rig while on set, and can confirm it’s definitely man-powered – and surprisingly bouncy. “I loved the bear rig,” Keen herself us. “Though I was too light for it. “It was very funny. They made this rig, and they didn’t calculate my weight. So they had to then harness me, because I bounced too much off the bear. So that was really fun.” “Although I felt kind of bad because I had two human beings bouncing up and down underneath me…”

The final touches

Obviously, the lion’s share of the work done by the VFX team comes after the filming as they gradually work on creating and animating CGI shots right up until broadcast. And for Wilson and his team, no detail was too small when it came to the armoured bears. “In our version of Iorek now he has the muscles underneath [his fur] that flex as he moves, and that also drives the fat on him to jiggle as he runs,” Wilson told us. “But then the skin actually slides over the bones and the ribs, which makes the fur that’s attached to the skin slide over that as well. All of that together gives you something that feels really realistic. “So again,” he concluded “the appetite and the ability is higher – therefore the workload is higher.” Oh well – hopefully, the time and trouble wasn’t too unbear-able.

#His Dark Materials #Iorek Byrnison #Joe Tandberg #Brian Fisher

[squiddybeifong]

Meeting the Sirens

Harley could honestly admit to never paying attention to how amazing plants were at camouflage. It made sense to a certain extent with the natural world, but when one mixed Raven’s darkness with Pam’s powers, it gave the impression that Hell could be nothing more than a jungle on fire.

Sapphire eyes watched as cacti scuttled closer and vines slithered along the walls, hidden by the usual shadows. Their leaves curled in on themselves before they aimed towards Raven and the shadows darted away, forcing the plants to scramble into better hiding as Pam tried to keep the upper hand.

Harley ran a tongue over her teeth and forced out a laugh, sliding in between her kinda-girlfriend and her kinda-niece and tossing an arm around them both. “Come on, you two!” She pulled them close until their cheeks touched, spinning to beam at Talia and Kitty, “We can all get along, can’t we?”

Three glares and one look of pure apathy greeted her suggestion. “It’s bad enough you brought her--” Selina started, not taking her glare off of the assassin.

Ivy continued her sentence, all but sneering at the teen, “But why the fuck would we ever trust a hero?” The botanist’s glare deepened, the vines shifting in preparation again.

Emerald eyes widened half an inch as Raven forced to vines to stay in place, the darkness freezing the walls around them. The two superpowered women stared at each other for a long moment, uncaring to how Harley sheepishly squeezed their shoulders.  

After an impossibly long minute, the clown started to squirm and the Titan shrugged, “Your grudges are fair enough.”

She lifted her hand and made sure that Poison Ivy saw the magic fall away from her palm. Raven silently lowered herself until she stood on the floor and crossed her arms over her chest, rolling her jaw once before offering an olive branch, “But from what Harley’s told me we both despise Zatanna.”

The redhead raised a brow, a humorless laugh escaping, “That’s it?”

“I’m also an empath.” Pam straightened her back at that information. Raven glanced at Catwoman out of the corner of her eye, addressing the green-skinned woman in front of her, “And I’d imagine that while I’m not as fond of her as you seem to be, we all don’t mind Harley dragging us away with her shenanigans.”

A pale hand raised from underneath her cloak, “That’s at least two things we have in common.”

Talia finally spoke up, “Three if you count having powers.”

Selina snorted at her interjection and Harley turned to them, her eyes brightening up as she tried to get her two friend groups to get along. Pam and Raven didn’t seem that close to killing each other, so she focused on getting Kitty and Talia from trying to glare each other out of existence, “And I bet you two have stuff in common too!”

Almost immediately after the words left her Harley sucked her teeth, wincing as she remembered the last time they had met. Raven shifted at the emotions in the room, letting out a silent hum as her shadows drifted closer to her.

Amethyst eyes flicked to Ivy as she let out a huff, “Not this again.”

The teen didn’t ask, but her question was loud in the air. Talia kept Selina in her line of sight as she shifted to explain, “We’ve had the same lover.”

Raven arched a brow, her mild amusement obvious even despite her hood shadowing half her face. She tilted her chin towards Ivy, “Batman seems to just attract criminals, doesn’t he?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Yes,” Talia hummed, displeasure rolling off her in waves. “He surrounds himself with more and more incompetence after every switch.”

Harley emphatically nodded her head at the statement behind her words. She patted the assassin’s arm, “Oh, so Batman ditched you? That’s rough, buddy.”

Selina narrowed her eyes despite the haughty smirk on her face, her hands curling into fists as she shot out to the goth, “He ditched her for me.”

“Wait, so you were the rebound? That’s rough too, Kitty.” Harley seemed to catch herself, her head snapping back to Talia. “I, uh, I mean…”

The blonde glanced at Raven, looking for some emphatic help. When nothing came she rushed out, “That sucks, my gals who can hopefully be pals?”

Raven crossed her arms over her chest, “This is an awful conversation.” Violet eyes turned to the botanist and she inched closer, “I’m sensing at least four deaths that have taken place here in the past two months. Care to show me around?”

Her request was met with a curious stare. After a contemplative moment the vines seemed to relax around them, a tangle of flowered stems curling to make a sort of hallway near their feet. A lazy grin curled black-lipsticked lips.

“Sure,” Ivy waved at the mystic to follow and away they went. Green shoulders shrugged, “If Robin--no, he’s a different bird now, right?”

“Nightwing.”

“Yeah. If he asks, they were all eco-terrorists that went missing.”

Raven snorted, her face curious as Pam added, a lilt to her voice, “There’s also a bunch of mushroom patches over their graves. They’re just full of poison; you’ll love them.”

The demoness perked up at that, “Any death caps?” Pine eyes flicked to her and Raven amended, “You’re Poison Ivy. I’d expect you to have at least a few of this planet’s best.”

“I’ve got better than that. Look up there,” Raven followed her pointed finger, her eyes lighting up as she spotted a white patch clumped along the rusty rivets. Pam watched as she floated up a few inches until they were practically the same height. A rare smile curled the stoic’s face, “I didn’t know Gotham was humid enough to support destroying angels…”

“You don’t know a lot about Gotham just yet.” The redhead nudged her elbow, starting to walk again. She bit her lip and decided to give this hero one allowance; if Harley loved her and she seemed morally gray enough to mingle with Batman’s enemies, then Raven was not yet trustworthy but slightly okay in her book. “And you can call me Pam, by the way.”

Raven tilted her head, giving the siren a thin but genuine smile, “Pam, then. Shall we go?” She motioned to where the vines were laid out for them to follow, “Those spirits aren’t going to be put to rest otherwise.”

Her words got an ‘Aha!’ and a snap as recognition filled the redhead’s aura, “Is that why all of our stuff has been moving around when we aren’t here? I told Harley no one alive was stupid enough to keep breaking into our place…”

Harley watched them go out the doors with a pout, turning back to see Talia had a hand on her sword’s hilt and Cat was tense, poised for a fight with her claws unretracted, if curled into fists.  

Quickly skipping in between them, the blonde tried to stall.

Her hands clasped in front of her chest as she wiggled her shoulders, thinking of something, anything, to prevent the fighting before it really began. Not that she couldn’t take care of any brawls, of course, but her friends were supposed to be getting along, dammit!

When nothing came to mind, she thought of how she’d distract the Joker whenever he got in his funks. And while neither of the two villainesses in front of her seemed opposed to potentially joining her in bed (though that was more up Pam’s alley, honestly), the answer came to her: both Kitty and Tally Marks were awful when it came to withstanding annoyances.

Her eyes bright, the blonde spoke a single word.

“Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo--,” Harley held it for a few seconds, paused to take a breath, and continued on as long as she could, “--oooooooooooooooooo…”

A clawed finger jerked out to press against her lips, “Shut up.”

Talia tensed at the move and Harley twisted away to speak up again, “Right, right. Cool, cool, cool, this is so cool that we’re all meeting again like this.” Harley rubbed at the back of her neck as her eyes darted around the room, considering asking the cactus where Ivy and Birdie went off to.

But she was the bridge and she had to stall the inevitable fight (again). The clown clicked her tongue and spoke freely and impulsively, “So, you two both fucked Batsy then?”

Neither women moved but two green glares landed on her. Deciding that she had to out-tension them both, Harley flipped one of her pigtails over her shoulder, “Hey, at least y’all got something in common, amirite?”

She rocked on her heels, “I mean, jeez. Wanting to cuddle with raspy-voiced bats. I know that feeling.”

That got Talia’s attention. Her eyes didn’t stray from Catwoman, but her temple tilted towards her friend, “Are you in love with my Beloved as well?”

“Ugh. Gods, no,” Harley’s face scrunched up at the mere thought. Shaking her head, she puffed her chest and buffed her checkerboard nails on her shirt, “I’m more-a Fidget kinda gal, myself.”

When neither reacted the blonde looked between them, her eyes comically widening, almost in slow motion. Blinking rapidly, Harley let her astonishment fill her voice, “Please say you guys remember Fidget? He’s one of Disney’s best characters in one of their best movies. Of all time.”

Selina couldn’t hold back her snort and Harley waved her thinly-veiled mockery aside, answering the look of confusion on Talia’s face, “He was the bat in ‘the Great Mouse Detective.’ Great film, by the way.”

Blue eyes smugly bored into Cat’s face, “Waaaaay better than ‘the Aristocats,’ despite the lies Kitty may believe.”

Smiling, she strolled back to face her favorite evil heiress, “Now I wouldn’t so much as ever think of fucking him --y’know Kitty’s the furry of the group-- but I can see getting to know the baby. Maybe even plan a heist or three after Rati--”

Selina drawled out, “Don’t spoil her.”

Talia watched the way Harley’s face lit up, “So you have seen it!”

“Yes. You make us watch it all the time.”

“Well I didn’t realize you were so busy thinking of a different bat the whole time. I just figured you purring about milk was a feline thing. Sorry for assuming, Kit-Kat.”

Annoyed, an irritated sigh forced its way out of Talia. She rolled her jaw, her fingers drumming against the metal of her sword’s guard, “You two tire me in the worst of ways.”

A high-pitched laugh escaped Harley as she dove into a hug, her palms hastily wrapping around Talia’s waist to prevent the assassin’s sword from being unsheathed. Giggling against the taller woman’s shoulder Harley sighed into the air, “Ray Ray was right this is just awful. We can find a different connection besides Batman, right?”

Talia and Selina didn’t stop their glare-off but the blonde paid them no mind, her words coming a beat faster than usual, “Like how we all break the law! Or how you both really appreciate having me in your lives? Oh! What about how both your names end with ‘A,’ that’s gotta be worth something!”

Her nose scrunched as she kept thinking, the idea coming to her effortlessly after a few seconds of silence, “Oh! I got it!” She held out her hands, making a square out of her fingers and closing one eye as if painting a picture in the air. Harley’s grin was loud in her declaration, “Strawberry milkshakes.”

Selina let out a huff through her nose, “Neutral ground won’t keep us from wanting to kill each other, Harls.”

“You never know. That’s what happened with Tal and Rae and me. Oh!” Blonde brows jumped an inch above sapphire eyes as a place came to mind, “How about we go to that burger diner that the Bats sometimes goes to.”

Talia tilted her head to the side, knowing the girl’s connection to the city’s protectors. “I doubt Raven will agree to that.”

“She’ll agree. But it’ll be reluctant.” Harley pitched forward and aimed a finger gun to both, her smile widening to a grin, “Just like your truce.”

Two aggravated sighs came from her words and Catwoman’s lips tightened in annoyance, “Not likely.”

Talia glowered when the blonde clasped her hands above her collar, Harley’s growing pout accompanying her dilating eyes, “No. We’re not as susceptible as the other two to your looks.”

A lazy laugh slipped out of the blonde, “Something else y’all have in common?”

The assassin’s glower deepened at her words. And while she’d never admit to the troublesome way Harley’s eyes grew and her lower lip quivered, Talia had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep her resolve. Without putting too much attention on her rival, she knew Catwoman was doing the same.

Olive eyes rolled in annoyance and Talia sheathed her sword, grumbling out, “I won’t attack her tonight.”

Selina shrugged one shoulder and retracted her claws. She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced between the two, “These meetings only last the night, correct?”

“Yep!” Harley popped the ‘P,’ practically bouncing on her feet at the way the tension in the room was lessening. The clown looked like a kid in a candy store and both Bat-lovers rolled their eyes.

“Then I guess we can get along for a few hours.” The Cat glanced at Talia out of the corner of her eye, a tiny smirk quirking her lips, “For Harley’s sake.”

“Agreed.”

#with imagination #talia al ghul #harley quinn #raven #selina kyle #poison ivy #my writing #g o d when u post a fic with a ref to another fic u haven’t released yet. It’s like o h noooooo they don’t get the cuteness yet #it’s the tally marks nickname btw. there’s something fluffy coming i’ll tell y’all hwat #i read a few issues of gcs (just the ones with talia) so i guess i'll keep to that reality #also fuck bc like.. taila has so few name based nicknames this is bullshit #but im adapting #slowly adding to the lore... makin rae and pam buds #letting harley shine like the gem she is g o d i love her #i realize she's super smart but m a n i relate to that chaotic dumbass energy so hard #i realize i eventually gotta introduce some of the titans and like.. figure out if these have a timeline?? #bc this one has an official reference to tea time so like!!! plot is coming together somehow #also i must make a stance. neutral as it is #great mouse detective is about equal to the aristocats. i had to take a side but they're both masterpieces lbrh

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Solo: A Star Wars Story review

As a lifelong fan of Star Wars (I’ve been watching these movies since I was a little kid), there is one thing that has always and will always be true about the Star Wars fandom, no matter how many movies, TV shows, and books come out:

The Star Wars fandom is a malignant tumor on the franchise.

This is not anything new, but seriously, I saw so many people writing this film off before even seeing it – with one guy even going so far as to call it a trainwreck on par with that new David Cage game – that frankly I am confident in saying Star Wars has the worst fans of any property ever. You give them one really divisive film and then they immediately decide everything after is garbage as soon as it’s announced. But hey, I could rant all day about how awful Star Wars fans are; hell, I could write a book about it. But I’m here to talk about the movie they were so insistent would be utter garbage and a disgrace to the Star Wars name. How was it?

It was fucking excellent.

This film is just a fun, exciting space adventure; think Indiana Jones… IN SPACE! While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel or really do anything particularly new story-wise, it’s just a fun, thrilling, adventure film with heist film elements sprinkled in, it is the first Star Wars film in ages that actually invokes the feeling of fun and adventure that the original trilogy did. Do what exactly happens in this film that is so much fun? Well, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

...Han was living on the streets as a petty crook, serving some nasty criminal to stay alive and help find money to get himself and his girlfriend Qi’ra off the planet. Of course, things get complicated when they try to escape, and she’s dragged off while Han is left to join the army to fulfill his dream of being a pilot. Promising to come back for Qi’ra some day, he joins the Imperials, where he meets the thief Beckett and his crew, as well as his soon-to-be BFF Chewbacca. They decide to team up to pull off a heist that will have them rolling in money, but things go awry and soon Han and Tobias find themselves having to do ANOTHER heist for crime lord Dryden Vos, lest they wish to be killed. Can the gang pull off the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs, or is Dryden Vos gonna add their skulls to his collection of jewels, statues, and Indiana Jones props?

So this movie is easily the best Star Wars movie Disney has produced yet – and for the record, I enjoyed at least two of the previous Star Wars films. The reason I call this the best, though, is it just recaptures that fun, adventurous feeling the old movies had in spades, but ALSO because the movie invokes the other great Harrison Ford character, Indiana Jones. There is a lingering taste of Indy to  this movie, and man is it nice to see two of  the best adventure franchises’ spirits blend into one fun package. If you ever wanted to see an Indiana Jones movies with aliens that is inarguably excellent, BOOM, you’ve got it.

The cast is actually the biggest surprise, especially Alden Ehrenreich, who had insurmountable odds stacked against him as he is playing a younger version of what just might be the most beloved character in the entire franchise. Thankfully, your worries will be erased only a few short minutes in; while this is clearly a younger and more idealistic Han than the bitter, cynical jerk with  a heart of gold we all know and love, the inflections, facial expressions, and “everyman who keeps getting dragged into crazy shit” feel of the character is all still there. I fully believed this Han and the later Han could be the same character, giving a level of prequel consistency that has on occasion been missing in Star Wars films. I’m looking at you, backflipping super Yoda.

Of course, the rest of the cast is excellent as well. I don’t think I need to spend any time convincing you that Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover is probably the most perfect casting choice in the universe for Lando; as soon  as everyone heard this casting choice, it was just collectively agreed this was the most perfect casting imaginable. Lando really steals the show when he’s onscreen which is the least surprising sentence ever typed out. Chewie, of course, is as good as ever, but is that really a shock either? What’s really a shock is how good the supporting cast is. Beckett is the least surprising with how good he is, because he’s Woody Harrelson, a man who just exudes greatness. Qi’ra, on the other hand, is a bit more shocking, seeing as she’s one of those love interest characters who is obviously doomed by canon despite this, she’s given quite a bit of characterization and depth, to the point it really is kinda sad things between her and Han don’t work out. Then there’s Lando’s droid gal pal L3-37, who despite the stupid name and a rocky start actually becomes very amusing and enjoyable as her screentime progresses. Dryden Vos is a suitable villain for a story like this, with Paul Bettany giving a great performance. And then there’s the badass space pirate Enfys Nest, who sadly I cannot go into great depth without spoiling; just take my word for it, Nest is awesome. Overall, this is a really solid cast of characters we got here.

One of the best things about this film, though, is just how fresh it feels why still incorporating all sorts of old ideas. This film actually canonizes a lot of stuff from the Legends continuity, so if you were sad about some of that stuff seemingly being rendered non-canon, well boy are you in for a treat! Planets, areas, even parts of Han’s backstory, all of it appeared in the old EU before appearing here. For some of the more fresh stuff, we get a lot of cool new alien and droid designs, and while there’s obviously some CGI mixed with practical effects, it’s not ridiculous, and when we get cool aliens like Therm Scissorpunch, the Summa-verminoth, and Lady Proxima, it’s really hard to complain. There’s stuff here for everybody, old fans and new. You can’t really complain about them not caring about fans anymore now.

Sure, there are some really corny moments and some dumb, nitpicky things here and there, but that’s really in line with the spirit of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films this movie most emulates. It’s just a fun, exciting adventure film showing how everyone’s favorite lovable rogue got his ship, his best friend, and learned the tricks of his trade, and it doesn’t try to overachieve and push things to new heights, which is a problem I have with The Last Jedi. This movie knows what it is, and it just wants you to have some fun. Casual fans will love the exciting thrills and the backstory, and longtime fans will enjoy all the shout-outs to the expansive lore of the series and appreciate the cameos and appearances of some characters, particularly a certain villain who has a brief appearance at the end. This is just a seriously great and fun film, which isn’t really something I’ve been able to honestly say about Star Wars in a while.

People who initially wrote this off and have seen it have reacted positively to it, so I guess not all hope is lost for the salty Star Wars fans out there. But the fact so many wrote this off due to the overblown hateboner for The Last Jedi is just ridiculous to me. Give this movie a chance, because whatever you feel about Star Wars right now, this will probably improve how you feel. Don’t go in expecting a reinvention of the franchise and just go in expecting a fun time like A New Hope or Raiders of the Lost Ark and you’ll be golden.

My only real issue with the film is that they did not once reference or use this song at all:

Come on, would it have KILLED them to play this over the credits?

#Review #Movie review #Star Wars #Solo #solo: a star wars story #Han Solo #Lando Calrissian #Disney #action #adventure #sci-fi

[jinships-ideas]

BTS Run 39 - The Jin Harem

We get another rendition of MC JIN!!!

This man can do so much!

Let’s Begin!

So we start off with Jinkook standing unnecessarily close.

Great start!

Also, UNIFORM BANGTAN!!!

(To everyone who has a uniform fetish, bless our souls)

Going unnecessarily close to Jin, Candidate Number 2: Joon

He had plenty of space to avoid the close proximity with our beloved MC but Nooooooooooo

Of course, he chooses to go as near as possible

Their heads are almost if not, touching!

Somebody was being waaaay too active to perhaps garner some attention?

From who?

WHY, OF COURSE FROM OUR FINEASS MC!

Look at Hobi looking in Jin’s direction to see if he saw his awesome moves!

Our sunny Hobi just wants to be looked at and praised by the multi-talented Jinnie~

Guys. It’s a HUGE SET.

THere is NO NEED to be sticking so damn close.

(there definitely is ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) )

hmmm?

Why is Joon looking at Jin when everyone was focused on Tae who was speaking?

???

Is he adjusting his collar?

Is this some sort of mating ritual/ courting ritual in the world that I know nothing about?

That’s definitely a flirty thing, right?

Adjusting your clothes/collar (to be specific) while looking at your person of interest??

Or was he hoping Jin would help him adjust his attire like Jin has done on multiple occasions???

Again. PLENTY OF SPACE

BUT they stick themselves arm to arm

(ANd no Yoongi was standing further back so there was ample space beside Joon)

Joonie... there’s so much space so...

Also... You hand...

I wonder if he managed to touch the Jinbooty...

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Joon: YOU ARE MY MAN! LOOK AT HIM TRYING TO STEAL MY MAN! THIS BLASPHEMY!  Jin: Did you say FREE?!!! Jk: INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY IS I, GIVING COMPUTERS AWAY IS MY GAME. Get on my level losers.

Joonie SERIOUSLY, at first you were subtle and now you are just grabbing jin in broad daylight/camera view

Jin doesn’t even react to it...

Does that mean it happens regularly?

Also, look how smug Jk looks with Jin fawning over him...

Money makes the world go round, Giving a desktop away makes Jin comes to you

A mighty fine trade as Jin practically is worth the universe

A split second moment where Jin reaches out for Jk!

Jin really wants that prize huh?

But... is it really the computer he wants?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

JINKOOK HAND HOLDING

They are NOT toning  down their touchiness at all

This looks like Jin declaring his love for Jk disregarding the disapproval of his members

Joon: Really? In front of my salad? Chim:*scoffs* so this is what betrayal is Jk: Money can get you bitches but a computer can get you the universe Jin: Free = Yes

Once again, Jin is more interested in other people’s teams than his own

He is almost ALWAYS the LAST to open his team allocations and he always looks at others’ before his own

And look! Tae is once again looking in the general direction of Jin...

They are really not subtle about wanting to be on the same team

YOU KNOW THE KIM FAM IS BACK!

(if you got the reference feel free to leave a comment~)

Look how happy the Kim Fam are to be on the same team again!!!

You can’t see me but I’M SO FCKING HAPPY

Top 10 anime betrayals

Taejin happening in front of Joon’s eyes

Joon: What is this bullshit betrayal?

Jin shoving Joon away because he isn’t part of his and Tae’s Kim family tree

BUT LOOK HOW SMITTEN JOONIE IS!!!

Jin: yea back off, it’s time for Taejin Joon: *only focused on Jin touching his chest* good thing I worked out just now when I got my ass up from the floor from falling at his beauty Tae: Hi, thy name is your future husband

(ok if anyone’s curious, even though they are all ‘Kim’s, there are many different families/lineage of that surname. Some families are of a higher status/hierarchy and it’s a massive cultural aspect of South Korea. 

So from what occurs in the episode, Tae and Jin seem to be part of the same family tree when it comes to their surnames <or their lineage are affiliated> which makes them ‘allies/family’. But Joon is not of the lineage they mentioned which is why he looked at them awkwardly while remaining quiet and Jin jokingly shoved him away.)

Yoonjin taking mirroring to new heights

(that may or may not be a jab at Yoongi)

FIGHT ME

(ง •̀_•́)ง 

They are kind of polar opposites... the shoes, the blazer, the hair...

And you know how they say opposite attracts?

Jin trying to flatter MC jk 

(the captions actually read Ohgu ohgu <오구오구> which is the sound made to appease/praise babies)

:’)

Being unnecessarily close to Jin Candidate 3: Tae

Of course Tae will take his chance WHEN he can

He is rarely on Jin’s team after all

LET TAEJIN BE A PAIR ON BTS RUN!!!

Mirror mirror on the-

Wait that isn’t a mirror!

It’s a pair of handsome men!

Look at Jinnie acting all shy when Joonie suggested leaving the MC-ing to Jin~

He looks grateful too 

:’)

Joonie trusts in Jin’s abilities

Namjin is once again out for my heart

:’)

After Jin becomes the MC (again) Joon immediately suggests maintaining eye contact with the MC...

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

If that ain’t an ulterior motive...

Joon: I’m such a genius!  Tae: Gazing into Jin-hyung’s eyes... *too lost in thought* JK: You sly dirt- wait... that means I get to stare at Jin-hyung too!  Chim: *tsk tsk* I see right through you, you sly dog Yoongs: Oh... that’s actually a smart idea since hyung will only be looking at me when I look at him Hobi: Nice one fellow 94-liner! 

JK is so smitten 

Jk.. chill... All Jin did was say some words

You are way too obvious 

Tae being unhappy because Jin is looking at Joon while talking and not at him

OR Tae could be practicing his gaze for his eye contact time with Jinnie~

(Side Note: MC Jin tends to always look towards Kim Team (-Jin +Jk) I assume it’s his habit but DAMN he turns to that side a lot)

Jin’s first target is Tae!!!

Tae must be so damn proud that he was the first person Jin turned to

And then there’s Jk admiringly staring at MC Jin who is so damn talented and entertaining

THE ONLY WAY TO LOOK AT JIN IS WITH THE GAZE OF AWE

with 0 hesitations, Tae declares he LIKES THE MC and that THE MC IS VERY HANDSOME

Look at Jin fake being surprised when Tae brings up how Handsome Jin is!

Honey, we know, you know, and you know we know and we know you know that you are a fineass good looking fellow.

BUT Tae’s immediate reply, which means it’s his initial thought and is 100% truthful

Jin: Why are you suddenly saying I’m good looking? Tae: It just came out? What Tae means: BECAUSE YOU ARE???

Ain’t that the truth!

Joon: What sort of cheesy ass shit did I just witness? *fingers curling from the flirtation of Taejin Tae: This man is handsome and he is mine. He will also side with me. Just watch Jin: Either ways, I got called good looking by another good looking man so I’m happy where I am

Top 10 anime betrayals pt.2

Joon: Someone stop their flirting right now or I will end them

Tae: How ridiculous! You can’t oust me from the game for saying the truth about how handsome you are!

Jin: I diddly darn well can! You’re OUT! thanks though, you are good looking too

Joon: really? In front of my salad? Taejin: *Giggling happily* Jk: I love romance

Jin: *already on his next target* Tae: I wonder if I wasn’t flirtatious or forward enough...

Joonie: *gotta be my best to charm him* JK: Wow. This hyung is incredible. Tae: The betrayal... Jin: TELL ME I’M GOOD LOOKING!!

Joon: Your wish is my command 

This right here is a whipped man

Yoongs and Hobi looking expectantly but Jin went for Chim!

Chim is so flustered he immediately loses the game XD

Next target: Yoongs!

Is Chim perhaps a yoonjin shipper??

Jin called Tae and Joonie ‘V-ssi’ and ‘RM-ssi’ but when it came to yoongi, he didn’t use ‘Suga-ssi’!

He called him Yoongi-ssi!!!

Yoongi got so flustered!

His tone implied he was really taken aback by the flow of events

:’)

Result: Loses Immediately!

Hobi loses the game too BUT he managed to make Jin laugh so much

Who’s the real winner?

Kim Fam (-Jin +jk) Wins!

Joonie is the real winner though! 

He got Jin to lightly hit his chest!

Lucky Joon!

Jin requesting the other team to Line up so he can hit them with the hammer

(He definitely only remembered because the hammer made a squeak as he was laughing and hitting himself with it)

Joonie and Tae taking the chance to shake MC Jin’s hand

They take any skinship moments they can have with Worldwide Handsome-nim

Jk lightly punching Jin to get his attention and to say ‘good job’

If you listen closely, you can even hear Jk saying ‘Ah Jae’<아재> as he punches Jin

Jin really looks to his right side a lot

Jk is the ONLY one to pay attention to Jin and answer him

Obedient Makane

DAMN HOBI! This is a game. 

WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE HE IS SERANADING/PROPOSING TO JIN?!!

Jk... not you too...

It’s a game... 

NOT A LOVE DECLARATION SEGMENT

Tae: You can’t do this to me the 2nd time hyung!!!

Hobi tries to win the favour of Jinnie once again by seranading him 

BUT Jin awards the point to Tae!

This whole episode is just ‘Flirt With Jin As Much As Possible’ huh?

LOVE IT

Hobi reaching out to try to get what he wants

Too bad his object of affection is focused on the other team, AGAIN

Hobi, reach out a little more and you can get that booty!

The way the Kim Fam (-Jin +Jk) looks at MC Jin when they guess

:’)

Endearingly adorable

Tae wanted a high-5 from MC Jin but sadly the MC was too focused on dancing to reciprocate

Thank god Nochu Came Through!!!

Nochu saved Tae from Joonie’s fate

When Jin Awarded 5 Bonus recreational points for Yoong’s Dance

LMAO this boy needs to chill

Chim and Hobi wants Jinnie’s praises too~

Look how smug the 5 recreational points holder is!

Yoongs: Don’t you know? The way to Hyung’s heart is to be funny.

The way they look at MC Jin and sing the number song~

(The song was basically Jin’s excuse of wanting them to flirt with him)

(Yoongs line consisted of him saying ‘I love you’)

at this point I must say, Yoongi is bad with eye contact with Jin... he’s been avoiding MC Jin’s eye contact whenever possible

he does NOT avoid eye contact with the rest

I wonder what’s up with Yoonjin...

Chim is so done with Hobi’s blatant seduction tactics

Too bad Jin was busy with his script

Jin gyrating his hips as he maintains eye contact with Tae

OK JIN NOT SUBTLE AT ALL

Also, TAE YOU LUCKY CHAP!

Jk enjoying and pointing at Jin’s mating ritual

Joonie judging Jin because the dance wasn’t directed at him, a fellow Wing

This time Jin’s gyrating hips target is Yoongs!

DAMN YOU YOONGS!! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE

STOP AVOIDING EYE CONTACT WITH MC JIN YOU SHY BUB

really? Jin is shaking his junk IN YOUR FACE and you are looking away to argue over a stupid game?

ಠ_ಠ

you might have won this round but you sooooo lost

Look at the way Joonie looks at Jin all fondly despite Jin teasing him throughout the entire ‘MC’s nonsense quiz’ round

HE IS SO DAMN FOND

also, JIN YOU MAJOR TEASE

OMG DID HE JUST?!!

<아이 러브 우유>?!!!

(It actually is a mix of eng and kor = I love milk BUT there has been dramas/shows where people used this line to confess their love...)

A-I LUBEU OYOO

I LOVE YOU 

KIM NAMJOON YOU AMAZING MAN

Look how impressed Chim was at Joon’s shocking sudden confession!!!

Joonie himself was shocked at what slipped out

Jin seemed to love it too!!!

NAMJIN LIVES!!!!

Jin wasn’t even surprised when Joonie got on his knees...

Does Joon habitually go on his knees?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

STOP TEASING THE KIMs JIN!

ISTG the whole nonsense quiz segment involved Jin teasing the Kims

XD

This was probably one of the only times Yoongi made DIRECT EYE CONTACT with Jin...

and he is even covering up his face...

WHY DOES HE NOT WANT TO MAKE FULL ON FACE TO FACE DIRECT EYE CONTACT WITH JIN??

WHY YOU SO SHY HUH??

Also, I’m pointing out how Hobi looks appalled at Yoongi, looking at Jin

Hobi: Quit your act you fool

Jin giving hints out to Yoongi :’) 

*MC’s neutrality flying out the window*

Yoongi whines about not being able to get the answers

Jin IMMEDIATELY suggests seat changes 

YOU SO WHIPPED LIKE CREAM 

Hobi: Your pitiful act is a NO NO

Cutie so shocked at the question Jin gives him when the rest all got easy AF ones

Jin you fcking tease

Tae: Really? You’re going to do this to me? After all the Love?

WOW! Yoonjin eye contact!

SUCH RARENEsS 

Jin giving the English hint to Joonie

Of course, he gives the English hint to Joonie!

Fact: Joon didn’t even know the answer he just said  ‘oil’ because he trusted Jin’s hint

*MC’s unbiasedness flying out the door*

Tae: Isn’t he just AMAJIN? Jk: You are a JINius Joon: My man is so leJINdary

CHIM CHECKING OUT THAT JINBOOTY

You thought you were slick

TOO BAD MY EYES ARE MADE FOR SUCH SUBTLE MOMENTS

ONLY JIN NOTICED TAE’s Mistake

MC Jin paying extra attention to a fellow Kim huh?

TAEJIN CUTIES

I really like how Tae angles his head, ready for the hit

It’s cute

He’s cute

:’)

Give Jin a squeaky hammer, say stupid shit, and he WILL hit you

Hit you out of affection of course

Chim doing the whole gentlemanly gesture with that tiny hand of his

He looks like a prince escorting his partner

GENTLEMAN CHIM ft.smol hand

STILL NO EYE CONTACT

Hobi turning his extra to a 100 once Jin is playing for his team

Someone wants to look good~

Jin: Let me introduce to you my- Chim: MAN. *thumbs up* I’m his man!! :D

Jin’s hand not leaving Chim through his little fit at Joonie

He’s got his hand on him

Chim still has his thumbs up

Hobi also does the head angle for Jin to hit him 

He looks way too happy to be getting punished though

who wouldn’t if its Jin punishing them?

Jk taking the opportunity to place his hand on MC Jin’s godly waist

we see all JK

Joonie patiently repeating the team action to Jinnie is so damn soft?

It’s so sweet?

Namjin is goals??

Ft. Jin’s unique fingers

The anticipation they have for Jin!

They look so expectant!

Ft. Jin in a cuteass pose with his legs and just being the cutest ever

Proceeds to make the same mistake he laughed at JK for just now 

It’s ok Jinnie, you still look incredibly good despite making that mistake

Seok Jin 3? YES PLEASE

1 to watch, 1 to keep, 1 to learn dad jokes from

and ALL to LOVE AND PROTECT

Jk shoving Jin away (or is he just using that as an excuse to do more touching?)

Love triangle between the Kims

The way they look at Jin

JK represents all of us out here

The look of awe is how people look at Jin 24/7

Tae: Really? You’re flirting in front of me with another man? In front of my salad?

Pretty sure Hobi forgot about the game and just went full-mode flirtatious with MC Jin

Their faces when Jin was playing round 1 of Dibidibidip

PURE JOY

??????

Well, as long as they are all happy I Guess???

2SEOK MOMENT!!!

HUGs HUGS HUGS

Chim and Hobi flocking to Jin to put their hands all over him

Hobi with the hugs, shoulder and neck touches

Chim goes for the arm and back

Sharing is caring

HOLD HIS HANDS DAMN IT

HE WANTS YOU TO HOLD HIS HANDS

JIN HAS 2 HANDS, THERE ARE 3 OF YOU

WHY AREN’T YOU GUYS BATTLE ROYALE-ing THIS OUT??

Kim Fam (+Jk) being happy while twirling around holding hands

Chim: I don’t want to see that. I would have done so much more Yoongs: *hmph* That should be me holding your hand Hobi: That looks fun! I want to join!

The lucky person who receives Jin’s gaze is Joonie!!

Lucky fella

‘Do you see my drawing?’ More like ‘Do you see my everything?’ Because EVERYONE STOPS AND STARES FOR A WHILE WHEN JIN IS THERE

Can I just say, JIN DID SUCH A MARVELOUS JOB BEING THE MC!

He made the mundane games so much better and his skills are no joke at all! Well done MC-nim! You deserve all the praises!!!

Hope you guys enjoyed!

Until Next Time~

#yoonjin #namjin #taejin #jinmin #jinkook #2seok #bts incorrect quotes #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts run #bts reactions #jin harem #jinship #seokjin #jin #namjoon #rm #rap monster #yoongi #suga #jimin #jungkook #hoseok #jhope #v #taehyung #bts #bangtan

[persephonesgossip-blog]

fondue for the mudracker

A New Beginning

Yo and Hello from JBI and Brittany Pierce, here to bring you the hottest gossip and introduce our newest speciality.  Minus the cheese, there’s a total lack of cheese, we’re working on it.

We all love The Sirens and Divine Influence, obviously - who doesn’t? And since some of us can’t see the tour live RIP all you broke fangirls and tiny children, we wanna make sure you get to see all the drama. So welcome to our new blog for all the ladies on Persephone’s Tour. As The L-Word taught us, too many ladies all together is gonna bring some MAJOR drama. And lady loin tingles.

Speaking of that specific l-word, let’s start out with the only one who’s officially used that word - little Miss Kat Hummel...

Of course we’re all major fans of Kat’s Korner (maybe not all of us?) and we’re stoked for her upcoming fashion line, but is that all we want from her? Of course not! We want her to be rocking with The Sirens 24/7! But is that what Kat wants? The answer is maybe a yes. Rumor has it that Kat is going to drop out of the band to focus on her fashion endeavors. Probably because her socialblade suggests that reviewing shoes and bringing Marley on here and there can only give her so much ad rev. She lacks cheese, I’m telling you, cheese and cats = YouTube success.

She might also just be tiring of certain members of the band. “Members” being used very lightly. Her stepsister, Fiona Hudson, is playing drums for The Sirens, who don’t have their own drummer, on tour. Obviously they’ve used drummers before, and Kat seemed friendly enough with other replacement drummers...but have you noticed how little she mentions Fiona on social media? How Fiona is the only Siren-of-sorts who hasn’t appeared in a Kat’s Korner video? The two don’t seem very close at all. Could family tensions force her to leave? Maybe so, especially since both Marley and Norah could easily take over keyboard and possibly bass when needed. Spoiler alert, Fiona’s height probs makes Kat feel too tiny since she wants to be the biggest thing in the band. Too bad Mad Marls has that covered.

Kat leaving, as mentioned, would let her focus on her well-known first love, fashion. We also assume that means she could focus on her girlfriend, Kitty Wilde of #KittyKat fame. Oh, sorry, we mean “friend”. Friends don’t invite friends to do the couple tag on YouTube, just saying. Obviously. After all, Kitty should have time with her fellow feline-named female once Rachel Berry goes on Broadway, a gig she has lined up right after the tour ends. We all know Rachel loves Broadway and majored in musical theater at UCLA, so will she choose to stay on stage? And, if she doesn’t, can her band really recover from a Broadway hiatus? I hate her.

Kitty, while “close friends” with Kat, has also openly called Rachel her best friend, as the two have known each other almost their entire lives. Kitty only pretends to be in the God Squad so she can convince people she has a soul. It seems rather interesting that Kitty would be so close to the two people who are rumored to be leaving. Is it something she did? Maybe she wants more time with Kat - or maybe she wants to start and empire of her own, and had to recruit Kat to help her start a fashion/make-up/social media fame platform. We’ve noticed how her follower number has grown exponentially since #KittyKat vlogs started, and we wouldn’t be surprised if all of that success went into her little blonde head. Kitty is just a knock off version of Quinn and knock offs always fall apart.

Regardless, we wish Rachel luck on Broadway (no), but not enough luck that she’ll actually get recognized for her work. If she does a good enough job she could get a Tony nomination, which will lead to more job offers, and that might just be the end of Divine Influence... Tony should keep his award and Rachel should keep being horrible somewhere I don’t have to see it anymore.

...Unless someone takes over for Rachel. Lead singers do have a history of being replaced - we’re looking at you, Van Halen, Fleetwood Mac, etc. - but could Divine Influence be doing the same thing? Blair Anderson speaking of, who even IS Blair?????, a back-up singer/dancer on the tour, also studied musical theater at UCLA, and she obviously knew Rachel. There’s even evidence of her being friends with the other members of the band. Sabrina Smythe, the manager of both bands on Pesephone’s Tour, has said their back-up singers have been working hard and well with the bands, She even made special note that Blair could have a solo during the encore which is a shame because Santana Lopez should totally get to sing, and it doesn’t take much searching to find out that Blair has made a demo herself. Is this tour going to be her audition to take over Rachel’s spot? And, more importantly, would we care about the band anymore if Rachel’s not a part of it? Hmm. We just don’t know. Wait... we care about the band right now??

What else we don’t know? Why are there back-up dancers in the first place? Jackie Williams made a smash in Divine Influence’s “Hey Beautiful Angel” music video, but was it enough that they really decided to add dancers to the tour? Back-up singers, sure, which Jackie also doing, but it’s oddly coincidental they managed to book her months afterwards, right? Sabrina announced the search for other back-up for the tour shortly after the video debuted, and Jackie was a part of the search team. Something about that seems rather off, don’t you think? Sad pandas unite for me not making it on the tour. I dance way better and am way hotter and have bigger boobs. So.

Speaking of Sabrina Smythe, have you ever wondered if there was another “S” that needed to slip into her name? Perhaps Sabrina Stripper Smythe? A blind item on twitter claims that some tour member has a stripper past, and wouldn’t that just fit the narrative of the Spoiled Smythe? After all, her best friend, Santana Lopez, is known for taking her clothes off, so we can’t help but wonder if she was influenced by her. She’s also the only member of her family to not have a law degree, and we could see a stripper past causing that problem. I’d pay to see that... just saying.

Another degree-less member? Sam Evans. As in, not even a college degree, or even an attempt at college, like Fiona. It’s rather sad, actually. We don’t know much about her past between Kentucky, dyslexia, and moving to LA. Is she hiding some dark past? THIS IS RUDE college is hard :( and Sam is pretty, pretty people don’t need to go to college. Maybe SHE was the stripper.

Eh. Seems unlikely with how innocent of a country bumpkin she is, but we’re keeping our eyes on her. When your past is full of so many blank spots, we can assume you’re hiding something

Then again, do we know anything about Quinn Fabray? Well, about her past? She was friends of some sort with Santana in college, as evidenced by Santana’s old picture of her with pink hair all the way back from their freshman year. Along with the pink hair, there are some now gone piercings and a punk vibe that we didn’t expect.

We also know that Quinn’s real name is “Lucy”, but why did she change it? Could that mean - NEVERMIND QUINN’S THE STRIPPER

And, lastly, let’s get into our beloved Puckerose, both of whom may not be hiding so much anymore...

Norah Puckerman and Marley Rose have been the fan favorite ship of the band since day one. Over time, the ship has grown from fan speculation to fans just knowing it’s true. All the posts about each other, the duets, the songs they’ve written together, and now they live together? Please! Even non-fringe fans are starting to assume they’re dating. I’d date them, too. I’d also date Norah’s new boyfriend, he’s hot.

Which is why we are very distressed to report images of our beloved Puckster with a man. The two seem to be enjoying time in New York City and are all smiles.

While we all just assume Norah’s bi and, yes, we would be okay with her dating guys, we gotta ask...um, what the fuck??

Norah has mentioned an affinity for older men in the past, but this old? Um...what? Originally we dismissed the photos, since there wasn’t much to them and she could’ve just ran into someone on the street who was trying to talk to her. She’s pleasant to strangers...well, sometimes.

But now the two have been spotted together a couple of times, and we think that could be a sign it’s a real thing. One brave TMZ-er got footage of the two of them at dinner before the man - her boyfriend? - asking her to leave them alone while Norah just sat there politely. Norah being a quiet, good girl?? He looks old, maybe she has a bigger daddy kink than Kitty does for Jesus?

We’re kinkshaming this relationship - am I using that term correctly? Whatever, this whole thing is weird!

Of course, maybe it’s in response to Marley’s obvious beard - oh, oops, “boyfriend” - Ryder Lynn. Marley must be good at shaving, she should shave her boyfriends head, too.

Totally cute and believable - if we pretended Puckerose wasn’t living together - right? Except...where the fuck is this guy? We never see him around. Maybe he’s a robot, they’re good at hiding.

And you’d particularly think he’d want to be around after the events of the day. The OG Sirens had a group interview today, and, as soon as it ended, Marley fainted. She was quickly revived and had plenty of water but was rushed away before any questions could be asked. Marley even declined to be on Fondue for Two which totally means she either hates cheese or isn’t eating at all...because we all know she’d love to come pet my pussy’s. Sabrina and Santana put out a message that Marley was simply dehydrated and tired from all the rehearsals, but, come on, we all know “dehydration” and “exhaustion” are code words for drugs - I bet Norah gave her drugs - and mental health issues. So, what’s Miss Rose hiding besides her relationship with her favorite guitarist? Or is the stress of headlining a major tour while her bestie for the restie, Kat, is planning on leaving too much for her?

Well...we’ll have to wait and see.

#ptgossip #jbi #bp #a new beginning #all #ba #rb #se #qf #fh #kh #sl #jp #np #mr #ss #kw

[platoapproved]

okay you know what, you know what, the day has come, i woke up about 10 seconds ago and i guess i dreamt about a past life where i worked in a sodium factory because i am feeling salty and it’s time for me to talk about all the stuff i hated about wonder woman. if you’re not feeling that, please don’t click below

i get how badly people want canon bi representation but this movie was so not it. this movie wasn’t CLOSE to it.  diana was not shown having any sort of relationship with any kind of emotional depth much less equality with any other woman on themyscira. they all saw her as like, a beloved little niece, basically.  she barely interacted with anyone apart from her mother and aunt, for more than a line or two.

diana had no woman friends the whole movie

i’ve definitely seen (and not read, you better believe i scrolled on by with a scoff) people talking about the diversity of amazons on themyscira but like. giving diana a black nanny who goes running after her to show us what a mischievous scamp she is as a kid? that’s not progressive. having one of the only other black women be an unnamed warrior she fights against, whose only traits are that she’s the Silent Strong Unfeminine Bruiser Tank Lady? and we know that diana has become a true warrior when she can best The Butch One? super... just super DUPER not progressive.

having etta candy be this frumpy, fussy, ineffective suffragette whose only real function is to be exasperated by steve but also love him as a boss? and by extension make non-themysciran women look like silly side characters in the history of the world? ugh.

i saw a different post talking about how badass it was that etta noticed the spies first or something blah blah like. honestly. stop trying so hard. please stop trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse y’all. she was supposed to be the Funny Loyal Fat Side Character who gets a few chuckles out of the audience but has no depth whatsoever.

the entire film erases the efforts of women before and after wwi, both around combat, in government, socially, everything. like every time i think about the fact that diana doesn’t speak to another woman for 95% of the last half of the movie, and these board room dudes act like they’ve never heard of a woman ever DOING anything in their lives, i get hives and want to reread the section of the well of loneliness about women ambulance drivers in wwi. and also to have a shower.

women have ALWAYS been instrumental in their own liberation.

stop making jokes about victorian/edwardian dress being restrictive as if it’s the height of feminism. the history of women and their clothing and how it was liberating and repressive is so much more complex than a stupid joke about her tearing a dress.

like, as if there weren’t plenty of women by wwi who were dressing in “men’s” clothing, and changing the fashions as they saw fit

literally everything about dr. poison like, it’s such an UGLY portrait of so many things

making a women scientist seem Evil and unnatural

associating her disability with her desire to hurt people

making it seem like disabled women hate non-disabled women for being Pretty and Desirable, don’t act like that scene with Steve was meant to be anything other than “see, she’s really just pathetic and jealous because no man has ever wanted to kiss her, look at her”

she was nothing more than a pawn in the end. someone who was easy to manipulate because she was An Ugly Woman

stop saying the movie subverted the born sexy yesterday trope. stop it. every single one of you knows it was 100% that, and nothing but that.  diana talking with naive confidence about how she has read ye olde themysciran porn doesn’t undo that. in fact it only contributes to it because it’s setting her up as someone who knows about sex in ~theory but not ~practice

them giving the Racist Stereotype Side Characters one token line each that humanizes them does not make them fully fleshed out characters. stop talking about Drunk Loud Scottish dude as great representation of PTSD. stop applauding the line about wanting to be an actor but being the wrong color in a movie that is so. so. so white.

one line vaguely referencing white people’s horrific genocide against native americans, one that never comes back and has no repercussions on the story, is just not good enough. also, not gonna mention slavery or anything? not even a bit? ok.

also stop saying the movie subverted the male gaze, you guys saw diana’s outfit. i saw so much of gal gadot’s thighs. and i’m gay, my dudes, i was into it. i loved it. but it’s not like this movie didn’t objectify women. you know that it did. stop trying to make it not what it is.

also, stop saying the scene with steve was only ~the female gaze. i have less ground to stand on for this one because not an atom of my body has ever or will ever find anything about chris pine desirable but that scene was played in a way that would be appealing to certain men

ohhhh it’s a naive beautiful woman gazing at his penis and she’s ~never seen one before, and he just lets her look, like you know there are creep-ass dudes who were into that, and it was ultimately just one scene and he was fully modestly clothed the whole rest of the movie.

looovvveee is the only remedy against waaaaaarrrrrr someone fucking kill me.

i mean i’m a sap but “the answer was love all along” isn’t really a conclusion that flies for me in a movie dealing with a nonfictional war that happened for complicated economic political and social reasons involving nationalism and capitalist greed and all kind of shit, lots of actual people actually died, its’ not like OH NO WHY DIDN’T ONE OF THEM REMEMBER TO LOVE????

david thewlisface ares? stupid.  like using him in that flashback? not a good call.

those glasses steve got diana were so fucking LAUGHABLY not time period accurate like he just got those from warby parker a week ago it’s supposed to be 1918 or whenever the fuck at least try a goddamn little bit

diana’s costume should have been more colorful and the texture of her armor was weird and looked bad

i don’t know a whole lot about wonder woman but it’s 10000% rather go back and rewatch that two-parter from justice league where diana becomes Gal Pals with that princess who is about to marry vandal savage and has to rescue her, that was better in almost every conceivable way than this film

“maid of honor” season 2 look it up just sayin it’s on netflix

i’m really glad a lot of you found a lot of things to love and be happy about in this movie but honestly it’s exhausting seeing people on tumblr contorting themselves to talk about how it’s A Revolution, Never has there been Anything Like This About a Woman when yes, there has, and done better

love the movie if you want! i enjoyed it a lot! i saw it twice

but stop acting like part of the process of loving it is to say that it is diverse, or progressive, or any of this shit that it’s so. not. 

this article is great go read it. i don’t agree with ALL the points necessarily but damn. good and brutal.

please, like i’m begging you please. just go watch xena. shhhh. shhhh i know. the foley is cheesy the production values are really low on the first few seasons and yes it’s not like xena never fucks up on race stuff because hoooo boy. but like. xena is 7 seasons of a woman warrior kicking ass in a vaguely ancient greco-roman world, and it has 10000% more interaction BETWEEN women, and women who are campy villains not just because of disabilities, and there’s so much homoeroticism and heart and badass flipping and it’s just. it’s so good.

it will heal your heart. it will make you realize you deserve much much much much more than the crumbs that wonder woman gave you. go watch xena instead.

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #negativtiy #like solid wall to wall negativity #wonder woman

[nighttimelights-prompted]

Us Papyrus and Uf Papyrus with a male S/O because most the time even if the S/O isn't gendered do they almost always have a fem body in most imagines that I have seen let's give the guys some love? Have no idea for anything specific except that I would love some fluff, maybe cuddles, anything will do :D though I got a sort of idea while writing this, the skellies realising they are falling for their male friend who they are not sure swing that way? I don't know anymore, you decide~

(alright, i apologize for taking a bit to finish up this prompt! you’re absolutely right, there’s nowhere near enough plainly-stated male s/o content for those sweet skeleton feelings around… i’m happy to give this a shot- so let’s see what may be brewing for Stretch and in Edge’s mind on that front, shall we~?

US Pap:

“Okay, seriously, how do you get a huge mixed flavor box of popsicles and only have blue ones?”

You shot an exasperated look over your shoulder at Stretch, who was watching you with his usual tired grin while he took a drag at his cigarette. He shrugged amicably, his gaze turning briefly towards his brother’s room - it was unoccupied at the moment, as Blue had decided to go out training with Alphys.

“would you believe me if i said that Blue buys six boxes at once, then sorts them into single flavor boxes and delivers the other flavors to friends with the matching taste?”

“… Holy… okay, damn. Yes. Yes I would. That ridiculously kind-hearted son of a…”

You shot one last lingering look to the box of popsicles, but grimaced and shuddered briefly and opted to grab yourself a soda instead. You shut the freezer with a bump of your elbow and moved to flop back down on the couch next to your best friend.

“not a fan of that flavor, then?”

You tilted your head back with a groan before meeting his genuinely curious look. “Blue raspberry? Hell no. I mean, it’s cool, Blue can like what he wants, but…” you shuddered again before taking a swig of your soda, as if to wash the ghost of a remembered taste from your mouth. “Just… no way. I mean, first off - it’s only blue because there were too many ‘red’ flavors, so they chose to make cherry flavors darker, watermelons lighter, that sort of thing, and just decided raspberry could screw off to an antifreeze blue color, as if that was a reasonable choice - and second, the raspberry flavor. It’s actually mostly freaking pineapple and banana mixed flavoring you’re tasting, did you know that? I just… nope. Not gonna do it. I may eat junk, but I’ve got junk standards, dammit.”

(continued under the cut … //mobile link)

… You realized that you had definitely veered into outright ranting about artificial flavoring. You colored slightly, biting back the urge to curse at having just essentially insulted Stretch’s beloved brother’s favorite flavor. Oh hell, maybe it was his too-? You knew Stretch had a thing for honey, that was more than obvious even without how much you two had been hanging out, but…

You decided to take your odds and looked back at him with a bit of a sheepish grin. Much to your relief, he was grinning too, and - wait. Was that…

“Uh. What’s up, Stretch?” You asked, your face heating just a bit further despite yourself. You forced your eyes away from his orange-tinted cheekbones and tried to recover further. “Er, I mean - sorry, didn’t mean to rant.”

He chuckled then, one of his hands lifting to rub at the vertebrae of his neck as his gaze shifted from you. “nah, don’t worry about it. it was just - er, nevermind,” he said, trailing off to a low laugh.

Your hand tightened around your soda just a fraction - the sound of his laugh always did funny things to your gut. You knew exactly why, but you weren’t going to go out on that limb when you didn’t know where Stretch stood - and even as you though that, your chest tightened a little.

Stretch’s gaze turned to your chest for just a flicker of a moment before meeting your gaze as you spoke again. “No, I mean - now I really wanna know,” you said with a laugh of your own, pushing aside your feelings with a practiced mental effort. You nudged his closer arm with your elbow, leaning just a bit further towards him to do so. “What, do I have a weird look on my face or something?”

You pulled a face as you spoke, putting special focus on talking just as casually as before even as you made the silliest, weirdest face you could manage. Stretch snorted so hard he nearly dropped his cigarette, the sound turning into a laugh as he smacked a hand to his face.

“stars, no - though that’s a good look on you,” he shot back with a waggle of his brow bones, and you shot him finger guns and a wink in return, which caused him to grin a little wider. “no, i just - uh, just was thinking about how… cute you are when you get into something you’re talking about like that.”

Your eyes flew wide open. You were stock still now, and you felt the rush of heat and blood take over your face.

Stretch now seemed to be finding a bit of paint on the opposite wall absolutely fascinating.

“I don’t - I - uh. You. You.. think I’m cute.” You couldn’t even quite phrase it as a question, your voice had gone dry and far too soft. Shit.

Stretch didn’t look back towards you, but you could see the orange glow becoming more intense against the line of his bones. “i mean - uh. sorry. sorry? i forgot - human guys don’t like to be called cute, right-”

His voice died as his head whipped back towards you - you, now sitting next to him, your arm now resting against his.

“No, I… thanks, Stretch,” you said, your voice still a little quieter than you wanted. It was your turn to look forward - wow, that really was a great spot of paint.

You could nearly feel the weight of his shocked gaze on you.

Then he lifted his hand to his mouth, tucking the cigarette between his teeth and putting his arm back down… around your shoulders.

“… anytime,” he said, his own voice just a hair quieter too. When you chanced another glance at him, you saw that he was looking back at you, a softer grin on his blushing face.

UF Pap:

“IF YOU DON’T CHOOSE TO SKIN THAT INSOLENT FOOL ALIVE WITH YOUR WORDS, I WILL.”

“Edge, c’mon, he just spilled some coffee on me.”

“AND THEN PROCEEDED TO BLAME YOU FOR IT-!”

“The city’s full of rude assholes, Edge, trust me - we’ll never get to the park in time if we stop to pick a fight with every one of them.”

Edge paused in his stride again, ready to argue further, but you shook your head and grinned in good humor as you rolled up the sleeve with the new stain.

“Besides - it’s pretty hard to stay angry when I get to see you having my back so strongly.”

You turned forward again as you finished matching your other sleeve and started walking, a bump of your arm against Edge’s signalling your desire for him to keep up.

He stared after you for a moment, horrified as his magic rushed unbidden to his cheekbones.

… But stars damn him back to the Underground if he was going to give you a reason to turn around and catch the absurd magic displaying itself traitorously on his cheekbones. So he picked up his stride until he was a step in front of you, leading the way, his height thankfully giving him added cover.

This was absurd.

It had been, for too long now - not you, not anymore at least, but his own soul, reacting so strongly to your presence, to the easy spread of your grin, to the sharp glint to your eye when you were about to reply with that damnably attractive sharp wit of yours, to your steady hand under a number of kinds of pressure-

“Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Edge’s gaze shot down to you. You were looking back up at him, a knowing tilt to your brow even as the smallest crease of a frown pulled at your lips. Edge’s own brow furrowed in response as his unintentional scowl turned down a little further. You huffed a breath through your nose and gave him that particular look you were so inclined to when you had caught on to something.

“I’m fine with standing up for myself - when it matters. That time wasn’t anything - hell, if you want to look at it another way, someone like that just isn’t worth the time you’d waste on him, right?”

For once, you had only just slightly missed your mark - but, well, only slightly. That particular rude human was still on his mind, just… not the forefront. Edge’s blush had faded, to his relief - which seemed to help account for your guess.

Edge sighed, a sharp and short puff of unnecessary air. “I AM NOT FOND OF THE ATTITUDE OF DISRESPECT SO MANY HUMANS HAVE,” he replied dryly, his gaze turning forward again.

You laughed, a low sound that made Edge’s soul stutter in his chest. Your arm bumped against his as you matched his stride - and he yours, admittedly. “Can’t say that you’re alone in that, Edge. But hey, we’re a couple of pretty good-looking guys who more or less know what they’re about - we’re bound to run into some trouble,” you said with a grin. “Well, I mean, you’re - uh, you’re downright hot, and definitely know what you’re about, so you’ve got that all handled more than I do,” you added, your face turning away from him as you chuckled again - the sound a hair… embarrassed?

Edge’s brow lifted as he looked back down at you, knowing the bright red was dusting his cheekbones again. If only his damn soul would calm down - “SURELY YOU’RE JOKING,” he replied, a rougher lilt to his voice despite his care.

You looked back up at him, and Edge saw now that your face was flushed - something that made him far more pleased than was probably good for him. Your own brow was lifted in mirror of Edge’s, a disbelieving grin on your face. “What, that you’re hot? I - I mean, not to be… weird - is that weird? No, I mean - well, it’s just fact,” you said, playing off some apparent nervous energy with a shrug.

Edge was feeling less and less angry at his intensifying blush - your words were proving to be quite the compensation for his ego and soul.

“NO, YOU - ABOUT YOU,” he managed to reply. He turned a corner, and you took an extra few quick steps to keep up.

“Oh- uh. Well… not really?” You replied. You shrugged, decidedly matter-of-fact on this topic. Edge frowned as you continued, “I mean, I’m alright, but in comparison to you-”

Edge stopped in his tracks, causing you to stop barely a step later. You turned half back towards him with clear confusion on your face.

“IN SPITE OF YOUR QUICK MIND, YOU’RE FACING A LOGICAL FALLACY,” Edge said. He captured your gaze, one hand on his hip as his gaze narrowed. “THERE IS NO COMPARISON TO ME-”

“Don’t I know it-”

“HUSH. I MEAN THAT IT IS A FALSE LINE OF LOGIC TO MEASURE YOUR OWN WORTH IN COMPARISON TO ANOTHER. YOU ARE A BRILLIANT MAN OF YOUR OWN RIGHT, WITH YOUR OWN IMPRESSIVELY OVERCOME PROBLEMS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES AND TALENTS AND GOOD LOOKS.”

Edge continued to hold your gaze as he took another step closer to you. He ignored the continuing bright red glow of magic on his face in favor of speaking further as you stood there, somewhat frozen in place.

“YOU SHOULD ONLY EVER MEASURE YOURSELF BY YOUR OWN GROWTH. AND PLATEAUING IS NATURAL TOO, SO THAT IS NEVER SOMETHING TO BE TOO UPSET ABOUT - SIMPLY A MATTER TO FIND MOTIVATION THROUGH. AND BESIDES… EVEN IF YOU WERE TO COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS…” Edge’s voice slowed slightly and he fought the urge to look away from you, despite the distracting thrill running through his soul right now. “… YOU WOULD STILL FAR OUTSHINE SO, SO MANY OTHERS.”

… Stars damn him. Was that too much? Well, no, he wouldn’t make such a mistake… but if he recalled correctly, human men were not always so receptive of words of praise from other men - isn’t that why he hadn’t yet measured whether it was worth broaching any such subject with you…? Oh, stones take him if he had gotten too caught in the moment with that horribly distracting thrum of his soul in your presence-

His eyes snapped back to you as your hand met his upper arm - he hadn’t even realize his gaze had turned from you. You were blushing hard, and were having trouble meeting his eye.

Still, you squeezed his arm, and gave him a look torn somewhere between intense embarrassment, abject relief, and something much, much warmer. “… Thank you, Edge,” you said, your voice a little rough. You seemed to be struggling to find other words.

… Oh stars, what you did to him.

“… I SPEAK ONLY THE TRUTH,” Edge commented, returning your intentions with a small nod. He fought the odd phantom urge to clear his throat. No, instead he took a sudden stride forward, his hand closer to you shifting without a look to catch your hand. He tugged gently without glancing back as he spoke again. “COME NOW, WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE, AND YOU DO SEEM TO HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO WANT TO AVOID THAT.”

Edge strode onwards, unable to fight the slight smile pulling at his bones as you recovered and matched his stride once again, a grin spreading on your own face. Your fingers intertwined, neither of you shifting to let go of the other’s hand as you continued on your way.

#undertale prompts #undertale imagines #pap x reader #underswap #underfell #us pap #uf pap #bonus raffle prompt #messedupessy #stretch and edge crushing hard on a guy #ahhh i hope you like it~! #also guess what color stretch's reader prefers #*predictable eyebrow wiggle* #i hope this does the trick ;) #<3

[sunshinemiranda]

King of the Lost Boys - Anthony Ramos x Reader (Chapter 4)

Summary: Nibs seems to see a certain spark between you and Pan. Some Pablo Neruda is traded for intimacy. A waltz ends up in a fight. Hook wants Neverland. 

Warnings: Swearing! (it’s pretty much all Nibs that kid curses like a sailor)

Words: 5,299 (listen...just listen...)

A/N: oh my god i have sucked so bad with writing lately. this helped me get over a block but i also totally procrastinated studying for an exam haha priorities so that’s great! there is a song that plays in this chapter so i’ll just link it on one of the words in the scene. please listen to it, oh my god, it is so good. enjoy. 

askbox | masterlist

Change was in the air. Everyone could feel it crackling in the air like electricity. The future loomed, clouded, unsure and threateningly close. Time seemed to pull to an immediate stop in Neverland, but as soon as you stepped one foot on the highway asphalt, it was if the world had to compensate for the temporary freeze by speeding up instead.

“God, before this term is over, Mr. Kravitz will actually kill me.” Nibs was groaning from the corner, buried in piles of textbooks, loose pages and half-finished assignments.

“You’ll be fine,” you chuckled. “Besides, it’s too hard for him to kill a student who never goes to his class.”

Narrowing his eyes, he flipped his middle finger in your general direction, to which you replied with an affectionate grin. Things with Daveed had smoothed over in a way that you had never thought possible. He was more insecure than anyone believed him to be and a new bond of trust between the two of you made talking through it much easier. You had worked past your prejudices, and he had finally gained a friend through more than compensation. It was the perfect equation.

“So, (Y/N), since you’re a new member of the Lost Boys,” he drawled, standing to make his way to sit across from you. “I’ve got to ask. When are you going to fuck Pan?”

You, in the middle of drinking from a mug of tea, choked ungraciously as you sputtered through words. “Oh my God. You can’t just spring that shit on me. The answer to that is: A, I don’t have to tell you anything and B, don’t ask stupid questions, dickhead.”

He reached one of his long legs out to kick gently at your shin, a bit of a laugh bubbling from his chest as you choked on mint tea. “You do have to tell me something because you’re one of us now, and my questions are gloriously stupid, thank you very much. It’s one of my talents with the ladies. They all think I’m dumb.”

You couldn’t help but snort out a laugh as he made a show of himself, puffing his chest out in mock pride and flexing to the point of it looking painful. “You know, that’s probably the truest thing you’ve ever said in your life. I always did wonder how you got so many dates. You have a truly unmatched talent and being unintelligent. Congratulations.”

“Don’t you try to get purposefully carried away now. We have to talk about this.”

“Nibs, there is nothing to talk about. Pan and I kissed like, once at a bar. He was drunk, I was drunk. People do that all the time and never even interact again.”

“First of all, Pan was sober as fuck when that happened. It’s not that he doesn’t drink, it’s just that he hadn’t gotten to it when you guys made out. He made that decision in good judgment and through a valid choice.”

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes. “Then let’s just say I was drunk. That still doesn’t change anything.”

“Actually, yes it does. It takes Pan at least, like, four shots to actually find a girl he’s willing to swap saliva with. It didn’t take any for you.”

“Gross. We did not ‘swap saliva’, Daveed.”

“Right. And I don’t think your friend is hot. Anyway, you’re right when you say people do that all the time and never speak again. Remember who you’re talking to, babe, I’m the master at avoiding. Problem is, you guys interact. A lot. And half of it is charged with this weird, frustrated, sexual tension that just makes everyone uncomfortable.”

You gave a groan and let your head fall back on the couch. “Can we please not discuss my love life? I already feel like enough of a sinner in your presence.”

“So it’s your love life with Pan, now? Hm. Interesting.” Daveed nudged your leg again, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Fuck you, Diggs.”

“Wrong person, (Y/N). The person you want is Anthony, who, by the way, should be getting here any minute now.”

You cocked an eyebrow at him. “Wow. You’ve really painted me into a corner. Way to use your clever wit. I’m not scared of being in his presence, Daveed.”

“I believe that,” he nodded, and it was sincere. “I just think it’s better for you guys to be alone, so I’ll be leaving when he gets here. That way, you guys can talk it out without other people in the room, and when I say talk it out, I mean use that couch for what it’s for.”

“Nibs, you don’t understand. He’s…different with me, and different with you. It’s like he has-“

“Two personalities.” Daveed gave a sigh, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette and a lighter. “I know. It’s a problem for him.”

“You knew this entire time?” You couldn’t do anything but stare. Up until this point, it had been a Jekyll and Hyde case with Anthony that you thought had been under wraps this entire time.

“We all do. It’s hard to talk about it with him, he gets so defensive. We were all hoping that he’d realize he doesn’t have to pretend to be a hard-headed dick in the public eye now that he’s met you.”

Eyes widening, you opened your mouth to pull a snarky reply together but the screen door clattering open dragged your attention away.

Anthony stood there, in all his leather-jacket clad glory and God, it seemed like he looked even more beautiful than the last time you’d seen him. His hair was down for once, and the sun had brought out his star-kissed freckles. He shot you a smile and the part of your brain that could not be controlled whispered, fuck. Daveed was right.

“Right, that’s my cue,” Daveed stood, throwing his leather jacket over his shoulder. “I should get going. Nice to see you, Pan.” He reached out and grasped his leader’s hand for a moment before sweeping by you, shooting you a quick, almost imperceptible wink as he exited.

Anthony took a seat, letting out a tired breath. The smile was still on his face but it was uneasy now. The atmosphere had changed. “Was Nibs bothering you?”

“Yeah, but just the usual kind of bothering. I don’t think Daveed can help but get on everybody’s nerves, at least a little.” You offered a smile, an olive branch of sorts.

“Oh, God, I know. I still don’t understand how these women fall at his feet while he manages to still be that childish.” A laugh fell from his lips and it was as if the sound dissolved all the uneasiness in the air. He was truly a magic kind of boy.

“He’s undeniably good at what he does,” you chuckled, leaning back on the couch as you took a sip of your tea.

He let out a breath, closing his eyes with exhaustion momentarily before he shook himself and glanced at the table in front of you. It was covered in different books, highlighters, colour coded page markers. A Pablo Neruda book was open on the table, orange highlighter picking out special lines.

“Did I interrupt anything?” He asked, concerned, and gave a gesture to the table.

His comment ripped you back to reality and, blushing, you reached forward to scramble your open books and highlighters into a pile. “No, no, I was…I was just reading.”

“You need all that,” he chuckled, moving from the wooden chair to take a spot next to you on the couch. “Just to read?”

“Well…yes,” you smiled, staring at the half-open Neruda book in your hands, still open to a poem titled Absence. “I can’t read a Neruda book, or Whitman’s words without knowing I have a highlighter. I feel like if I don’t remind myself which parts made me feel something, that I’ll forget it altogether and I’ll never remember why Charles Bukowski made me feel a certain way.”

A silence passed and you looked up to see him staring at you, eyes deep with awe and reflection. You blushed, looking away hurriedly, embarrassment coiling deep in your chest.

“It sounds stupid, doesn’t it.” You attempted a laugh, looking down at your hands as your face burned.

He paused, and then reached out, gently taking the Neruda book from your hands. Gently, he reached out to tip your chin up, encouraging you to meet his eyes again. He was smiling.

“I love Neruda.”

It was a silent assurance, a wordless comfort that he understood, more than anyone you had ever met, what it meant to be at the mercy of words.

“Then let’s read some,” you smiled, reaching to take the book from his hands. You flipped through the pages thoughtfully, silently wondering which beautiful passage to read from. Finally, you found something.

“Beloved of the rivers, beset by azure water and transparent drops-“ you started, but the look of recognition on his face dragged your attention to him.

“I love this one.” He grinned.

“Me too,” you admitted, tucking a stray hair behind your ear.

“(Y/N), please, could you continue?” He asked, voice soft. “It sounds so good when you read it.”

The way he stared at you with the wondrous eyes that seemed to reflect in the curious gaze belonging to children made your heart clench painfully. The realization that the two of you were still, simply kids came flowing back. Somewhere in the past, he had been let down and you felt a strong willingness to right every wrong committed against him rise up in your chest. You sent him a fond smile before continuing.

“Like a tree of veins your specter, of dark goddess biting apples; and then awakening naked to be tattooed by rivers, and in the wet heights your head filled the world with new dew. Water rose to your waist, you are made of wellsprings and lakes shone on your forehead. From your sources of density you drew water like vital tears, and hauled the riverbeds to the sand across the planetary night, crossing rough dilated stone, breaking down on the way.” In glancing up, you caught a sight of him mouthing the words of the poem to himself, leaning ever closer to hear you say them.

“All the salt of geology, cutting through forests of compact walls, dislodging the muscles of quartz.”

You set the book down and looked up to grin at him, to which he returned it.

“That one always reminds me of Neverland. I didn’t lie, you know?”

“About what?” you enquired.

“About it sounding good when you read it. It really did.”

“Thank you.” You found yourself blushing harder than you had planned. “You’ve got a good voice too, you know. You should read one.”

“Okay. My turn then,” he smiled and you reached to place the book in his hands. He flipped through the pages until he found a particularly highlighted page, marked all over with notes in the margins and orange streaking line after line.

“I have scarcely left you, when you go in me, crystalline, or trembling.” His voice struck a resounding, plaintive chord within you and the air itself seemed to still at the sound of his voice speaking poetry. It was all of a sudden imbued with a magic that was incomparable. It seemed that he was practically made to speak beautiful words. “Or easy, wounded by me, or overwhelmed with love, as when your eyes close upon the gift of life that without cease, I give to you.”

He looked up, saw the rapt attention with which you listened and moved closer to you, took one of your palms in his. His fingers ran rampant, tracing lines over your fingers, exploring, and yet still preoccupied with the words on the page. 

“My love, we have found each other thirsty and we have drunk up all the water and the blood, we have found each other hungry and we bit each other as fire bites, leaving wounds in us.” 

You could hardly breathe with his presence and yet you were so enraptured that your body seemed to tremble at his tone. It was overwhelming in the sweetest way possible.

“But wait for me,” his voice had softened. “Keep for me your sweetness. I will give you, too, a rose.”

The room fell so quiet that even the birds of Neverland ceased their singing. Then, in unison, the two of you drew a breath and released it at the same time, as if your lungs had synced on purpose, your hearts matched beat and oh God, his hand was still tracing shapes over yours.

“My turn,” you murmured, voice barely a whisper.

It didn’t take long to find the poem you had pored over endlessly. After the first night you had met this boy, someone who had managed to reinvent your world in the space of one hour, you had read these words over and over, finding relevance and bittersweet memories in every line. It was painfully familiar.

“We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening, hand in hand, while the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen, from my window, the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.”

His fingertips started their motion again. You had to remember how to breathe before you could continue.

“Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know. What were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?”

You ventured a glance past the book and saw him staring intently at you, eyes searching, searching, and then finding. You weren’t sure what he had been looking for but by the look in his eyes, you assumed he had found it. Your stomach fluttered.

“The book fell that always closed at twilight and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings, toward the twilight erasing statues.”

A prolonged silence marked the end of Pablo Neruda’s words flowing between you and his hands wandered past the heel of your palm, pushing back the leather jacket that marked you as one of his circle to start tracing shapes against your wrist. An involuntary shiver travelled down your back.

“There’s this one that always reminds me of you.” He whispered.

“Read it to me.”

He flicked through the pages gently, as if afraid that a sound too loud would break the balance you two had created with so much poetry heavy in the air. Finally he found the desired page and you caught a glimpse of the title: Sonnet XVII. It was your favourite.

“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.” By the first line, his voice had punctured the air like a golden arrow. It was boyish and youthful, soft, powerful and undeniably magic. Everything with Pan seemed to be touched by fairy dust.

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved: in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.”

You leaned closer to hear his words and revel in the atmosphere he created and so did he, an ever-present desire for closeness deep in his heart. Soon enough you were tucked against his side, hand on his chest as his voice created vibrations that tickled your palm. His arm draped gently over your waist and there you sat, knee to knee, hip to hip, side to side, as you listened and he read.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride. So I love you because I know no other way than this: where I do not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.” 

The air crackled as he closed the book and set it down. His eyes went to you immediately and stayed there, searching for that same thing he had been looking for just a moment ago and staying locked on that. You slowly realized that he had found it with more ease this time. You had let your feelings become too obvious and it was time to stop being a child. Pulling away quickly, something in the air broke and the world started to spin again.

“I have to go. I promised I’d meet Nat at the Lagoon for a few drinks.” You stood, posture wooden, pretending to brush at your clothing to avert your eyes.

He stood too and as you looked up, you were astonished to see that he hadn’t closed down and exhibited his defense mechanism of lashing out. There was a soft smile still on his lips.

“Okay.” It was a simple but genuine reply and before you could realize the significance of that, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss on your cheek, light enough to be the brush of a fairy’s wing. “Be safe, (Y/N).”

You could do nothing but smile as you nodded, pushing out of the screen door as your stomach tumbled like a clothes dryer.

Pablo Neruda would never be the same again.

“So you guys read poetry to each other…and still didn’t make out.” Daveed’s voice was disbelieving and you could see him cocking an eyebrow at you from where he sat.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, (Y/N), just jump his bones, it’s not that hard, I don’t see why-“

“Am I interrupting something?” Slightly grinned from the doorway, a messenger bag likely full of pages of writing draped over his shoulder.

“Nothing at all,” you replied, glad for another presence. “Come on in. Nibs was just being lecherous, as per usual.” 

“You know it,” Daveed grinned, shrugging shamelessly.

“Why am I not surprised?” Lin laughed, setting his stuff down before taking a seat next to you on the couch.

“Hey, don’t you put this all on me. (Y/N)’s the one who won’t take initiative.”

“Oh, sure, ‘take initiative’, is that what you call it now?” You sent Nibs a glare.

“Ah. Are we talking about the sensitive subject of Pan’s softening towards our newest member?” Lin added.

“See? See? Slightly sees it too!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” You gave a groan and fell sideways, head landing in Lin’s lap. He chuckled, reaching down to ruffle your hair.

“What? Trouble in paradise?”

“Lin, there is no paradise. Jesus, you guys just don’t get it.” You pouted.

Lin’s hands had began to smooth over your hair gently, not unlike a caring sibling would to quell your stressing fears. “(Y/N), reading poetry with Pan is pretty much as intimate as anyone has ever gotten with him. Ever.”

“Can we please talk about something else?” You groaned, about to huff but soothed by Lin’s touch against your hair.

“Sure. How about the fact that Slightly’s hair makes him look like one of the founding fathers?” Daveed grinned.

Wordlessly, Lin reached for a pillow and whipped it at him as you laughed, unable to stop your giggles.

“Fuck you, man. I like it long.”

“Totally. John Adams could only wish.”

Lin flipped him off with a huff. “Shut up. Besides, if I was any one of the founding fathers, it would be Washington, the guy was a badass. Do you guys have any idea what he-“

“No, we don’t, and we don’t want to.” Nibs interrupted, rolling his eyes.

As you giggled, Lin’s hand still tugging through your hair, a movement out of the corner of your eye pulled your attention.

Anthony swept through the door, a grin already in place on his mouth but it faltered as he caught sight of you, mid-laugh, looking quite comfortable on Slightly’s lap. What made it worse was that Lin had clearly made no attempt to curb that behavior and the sight of his hands brushing gently through your hair made Pan’s hands tighten into fists.

“Anthony, yo, what’s up man?” Daveed stood to reach out for a one-armed hug as a greeting. Pan went along with it half-heartedly.

“I…” he started, taking a breath before straightening. “I was just dropping by, wanted to see who was here. I should go.”

You frowned, sitting up from Lin’s lap as you fixed him with a curious look. “Why don’t you stay?”

“I’m just not feeling up to it, okay?” He threw back, a bit of bitterness leaking into his tone. You startled back, hurt and confused.

Daveed quirked an eyebrow, looking between Pan and you. “Oh…kay. Huh. Alright, well, see you around Anthony.”

Before Nibs could even finish his farewell, the screen door rattled closed and the room fell silent.

“What the hell was that all about?” You huffed.

“Oh, honey…” Daveed simpered, shaking his head. “You really don’t know?”

Lin sent you a sheepish smile. “I think he’s jealous. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make anything weird.”

“No, no it’s fine.” You breathed out, reassuring him with a half-hearted smile. “I should go explain.”

“Yeah, you should. Kiss him while you’re at it too, huh?” Daveed laughed.

You sent him a goodbye in the form of an affectionate middle finger before stepping out of the projection room, taking a breath of Neverland air that always seemed to be tinged with a sort of un-placeable sweetness.

Ahead you saw Anthony’s receding back, just about to enter the path that lead back to the highway. His pace was quick and you needed to jog to catch up but that started to become pointless too, so you called out.

“Anthony!” He didn’t turn at the sound of your voice but he did stop and that gave you enough time to make your way to his side. “Why did you leave like that? Is something wrong?”

The concern in your voice seemed to pull the tension from his shoulders and he deflated, looking down at the ground. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Did you read poetry with Slightly too?”

So he was jealous. A small smile turned the corners of your mouth up and you reached out to brush your hand against his, just barely, pinky against pinky. 

“No. No, I would never. What you saw back there was just friendliness. Nothing more.”

He took another breath then finally met your eyes and the relief that you found in his gaze both delighted and terrified you. Attachment could not be far behind and your heart quivered at the thought.

“Good.” He grinned. “Come on, I have something I wanted to show you, it’s what I came here to do.”

He reached and grasped your hand in his, a motion that seemed hauntingly familiar. It tingled an electric current through all your nerves, every limb of yours feeling a jolt of something you had never felt before. You followed happily, a part of you feeling terrifyingly satisfied with going with him anywhere he wished.

“Where are we going?” You questioned, eyebrow raised.

“It’s a surprise.” He shrugged, focusing forwards after a vague reply.

“Anthony, last time you showed me a surprise was-“

“Was when I showed you Neverland. And how did that work out?” He turned to you, raising an expectant eyebrow as a triumphant grin spread across his face.

“Okay, okay.” You resigned, pretending to grumble as a wave of curiosity and excitement rattled your stomach.

He took you down a path you had never seen before and the lack of familiarity delighted you. It was like taking a final plunge off a cliff’s edge or willingly throwing yourself into a dark room that you had no idea how to escape from. The possibilities became endless and soon there was nothing to concern yourself with other than Anthony’s presence and the forest around you. It wasn’t a long way to travel and after fifteen minutes of throwing banter back and forth, complete with a few Neruda references, you arrived at the mouth of a clearing. The grass seemed to thrive better in this area, becoming a healthier, deeper green. The trees seemed to take delight in the clear magic in the area, their branches reaching taller than any of the other pines in Neverland. Birds sang sweeter, the air was charged with a peacefulness that seemed to be balanced perfectly. Right in the centre of the clearing stood a huge stump, much too big for you and Anthony to wrap your arms around, even at full wingspan. It would have been a regular sight if it weren’t for the unmistakable glow that seemed to flow from every crevice and crack of the stump. Something inside was shining brightly and you weren’t exactly sure how the hell it could work but being a Lost Boy led you to leave logic far, far behind.

“I call this place Fairy Hollow,” Anthony smiled, voice returning to a shy softness.

“I can see why.” You sent him a smile, glancing to his face then back to the enchanting light that seemed to touch every surface in the clearing.

“Sometimes,” he whispered, eyes trained on you as if he couldn’t get them away. “You can hear music, if you listen really closely. It’s quiet.”

You nodded, following his advice immediately and nearly cutting off your own breath to keep the silence that suspended the clearing in a perfect sort of cradle. Frozen, the both of you waited with baited breath, not daring to speak a word. The only movement that could be visibly seen was the slow circles he traced into the back of your hand, your fingers still inevitably splayed into his.

You waited for a long time. Almost too long and you were considering giving up your temporary vow when suddenly you heard the first chords ring out, clear as day but whispered as if it the music was brought upon the wings of pixies. It was like the sound that came from music boxes with dancing ballerinas, or elegant carousels. The sound of a harp joined in. You turned to him, wonder glistening in your eyes and you found the exact same childish excitement in his gaze. Your grip tightened on his hand.

A string section seemed to join in and soon an entire symphony of melody was streaming from between the bark of what had just been an ordinary stump, the remainder of a tree. A choir started to sing and you didn’t wait to question such a phenomenon. It was only then that Anthony dared move again. He raised your clasped hands and stepped forward, his hand going to rest lightly on your waist. You, in turn, reached out and placed a cautious hand on his shoulder and soon enough he took a step back, leading you further into the clearing.

He bowed; you curtsied, unable to push away a smile. His hand reached out and you slid your palm into his, the warm of his touch creating a fire in your nerves. A smile from him reassured you that no previous experience was necessary. He stepped back, leading you and soon enough, you were engage in an airy waltz that felt like flying. Every step of his was planned out perfectly and with him leading you, nothing could go wrong. Each move was meaningful and as the music hit a crescendo he lifted you up, twirled you around with his eyes never leaving yours. Slowly, he set you down and you froze there, caught up endlessly in the way he looked at you, God he did that well. The clearing settled. The music faded.

“Anthony?” You could hardly dare to bring your voice above a whisper.

“Yes?” He grinned back. 

“Tell me,” you breathed. “What-What are we doing?”

He paused, cocking an eyebrow before looking down, remembering the way you had stepped, perfectly in time, at his side. “Flying.”

“No, I…I mean you and I.”

His face clouded over as you said that. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t even know myself,” you whispered, reaching out tentatively to brush a fingertip across his cheekbone. “But I think that if I were to tell you I love-“

“Love?” He spat the word, pulling away from you within a moment. Too soon, did he leave your arms, pulling with him the delightful warmth you had felt just moments ago. You froze, a rolling wave of hurt attacking your chest as you waited for his next words.

“I have never heard of it.” All at once, he had closed himself off. You were now dealing with Pan.

“I think you have, Anthony,” you pleaded, desperate for just a second longer of that sweet boy’s presence, the truth behind an enigma. “Perhaps for someone long ago, someone you felt for-“

“You don’t understand, (Y/N).” A tone of desperation leaked through the coldness of his voice. “Everyone leaves.”

Your heart gave a great ache. He had been hurt, and bad. “It doesn’t have to be that way. There is more than just-“

“More than just what? I showed you Neverland, I made you a Lost Boy, I took you on adventures. What more is there?” He stepped forward, despairing, pleading for an answer.

“You’re just a boy,” you whispered, realization washing over you. He was still so young.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anthony’s hands closed into fists, searching your eyes again but finding nothing.

“Anthony, I think…I think we need to grow up.” Even as you said the words they drilled holes in your heart. If only everything was as simple and innocent and magical as Anthony saw it.

“No,” he shook his head, creating further distance between the two of you. “No, you cannot make me.”

You plead with him silently, reaching out only to fall short as he flinched away. Slowly, your hands dropped and resignation fell like a rock into the pit of your stomach.

He stepped forward, gaze vulnerably soft for just a moment. “I want always to be a boy, and have fun.”

You closed your eyes and in a second saw so many possibilities: the adventures, the flying, and every bit of the world under the pad of your thumb. It was painful to watch.

“Then I can’t,” you shook your head, stepping toward the pathway. “I can’t be here.”

“Fine,” he threw back, arms crossed. “Leave, (Y/N), just like how everyone else does. You know what, while you’re at it, don’t bother coming back.”

You turned around, eyes bright with fury. “I will not be banished.” The statement took him by surprise but you ventured further. “Do whatever the hell you want with your Lost Boys, but there is a piece of Neverland that, whether you like it or not, belongs to me. You cannot keep me away from it.”

“Like hell I can’t. If you think-“ He was interrupted by Slightly’s voice.

“Pan!” His tone was despairing, searching. Something was wrong. Immediately, it took priority and your argument was left behind. “Pan!”

“What is it, Slightly?” Anthony replied, not even bothering to turn to his friend, fists clenched at his sides.

“Hook is here.” Lin was pale, out of breath and rattled. “He wants a fight.”

“How many of them?” Anthony asked, turning to face his comrade now.

“All of them. Pan, every single Pirate in town is here.” Slightly’s tone dipped with importance. “I think they want Neverland.”

#ok anyway i suck but i hope you like this #i took so many quotes from the movie holy shit but i love that scene #anthony ramos x reader #anthony ramos imagine #hamilcast imagine #king of the lost boys #kotlb