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confused-wanderer · 10 months

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Bruce never asked for this.

There’s an eight year old, staring at him with the most intent expression he’s ever seen.

“CAN WE SEE HIM??”

He sighs, trying to maintain his scowl but it’s gone. Batman has now melted to Bruce, who stares down at his ward.

“It’s twelve in the morning. You need sleep.”

“I was in a circus, we never slept at your times.”

Bruce. a voice in his head pipes up. This is a child. This is a fragile being entrusted in your care. You cannot expose him to the dangers, to anomalies that could threaten harm in the future. Even those with god like abilities who’ve sworn to protect.

Especially those with god like abilities who’ve sworn to protect.

But it’s been three weeks. Dick hasn’t slept a wink, Bruce has been on edge as a result, and they both needed to rest. And both were too stubborn to admit it.

You’re doing this for a greater cause, he reminds himself as they watch from the shadows.

You’re doing this for Dick.

“The air smells different doesn’t it? Even the noises and the darkness. It’s not the same.”

He looks over to Robin, currently pinching his nose and making a face.

“Why do you think that is?”

He watches Dick blink, reading between the lines before finding the challenge Bruce poses. The child puffs out his chest, body tense as his eyes scan the area, doing a little break dance in the process.

“We’re not in Gotham!” Dick declares.

On seeing the nod of approval, Robin’s eyes bulge as he stills.

“We’re not in Gotham?? Why aren’t we in Gotham? Are we chasing down a new suspect? A bad guy? Did you want to go sight seeing? Or shopping? Because you need better clothes. Oh or is it-”

Bruce winces. He should be used to the onslaught of noise. And hyper activeness typical of a kid vibrating with excitement. But he likes the chatter, and lets the babble continue until Robin finally realises what it means to be a human and takes a breath.

Batman lets his mind go blank before it warns him of how everything could go wrong, lets his hand hover over the wood and knocks.

It takes three seconds before it swings open, and the embarrassed smile on Clark’s face dissolves when it sees the guests.

He watches the reporter freeze, mouth opening and closing as if trying to find the right words before Bruce decides to save him the trouble.

“Robin. Meet-“

“The reporter. You’re Mr. Kent right?”

That gets both his and Clark’s attention. Robin is by his side, one hand behind his back and squeezing Bruce’s cape for reassurance while the other is clenched.

He knows that look on Dick’s face. He’s trying to assemble an invisible puzzle, trying to place Clark in his world and assessing him.

Batman clears his throat.

“May we come in?”

Clark’s eyes snap to him. They knew each others identities of course, had worked together on several cases. He knows the thousand silent questions Clark was biting back right now.

But guess what? Bruce was tired. So. Very. Tired.

The door is pulled back, and they both enter, Dicks grip on the cape tightening.

“Is anyone else here.”

“No. Is there something wrong Batman?”

He looks between Clark and Robin, and sighs.

“Robin. Meet Superman.”

Clarks eyes widen, and Bruce savours the last few minutes of blissful silence before Dick processes the information.

There’s silent squealing, and Dick starts vibrating again.

“YOU’RE SUPERMAN?! OH GOLLY I ALMOST DIDN’T RECOGNISE YOU OH MY GOD SIR GOOD EVENING HOW ARE YOU WHERE’S YOUR COSTUME CAN YOU FLY-”

Clark’s eyes widen, clearly taken aback by the energetic chatter and curiosity the child has before his eyes soften and he kneels down before Dick, unbuttoning his shirt just enough for him to see the logo peeling out.

It was a playful gesture of mock secrecy, and that, Bruce notes with satisfaction, was the last straw.

Dick launches himself at the other, asking thousands of questions and rambling on and on about the stories he’s heard and begging Superman to show him his powers.

It’s clearly getting a bit too much for Clark, who takes a step back and shoots a pleading look at Bruce.

“He’s all yours. Don’t do anything stupid.”

And then Bruce leaves them both, ignoring the spluttering protests and helps himself to a glass of wine in the kitchen.

It takes less than two seconds before Superman follows him.

“Batman-“

Bruce raises a finger to motion for the other to wait, before he takes a swing of his glass. It wasn’t nearly enough to even make him feel tipsy, but the taste helped him pretend he could.

“He hasn’t slept for weeks, and he’s not listening to me. He’s been wanting to meet you though, so good luck.”

That shut him up. And if it didn’t, Bruce didn’t care. He had crossed his limit, played tennis with it and shot it into the sun before venturing so far back that he couldn’t even see it anymore.

Dick drags Superman back, latching onto his arm and demanding answers to his questions. There’s only enough time for Bruce to see the panic in Superman’s eyes before he’s gone.

Clark wouldn’t do anything to harm Dick, he tells himself as he watches Clark take off his plain clothes and don the cape. He has contingencies in place, Dick has kryptonite he’s been instructed to use just in case, and there were hidden devices locked onto their locations ready to fire at him and alert Bruce if anything.

It takes three hours of talking, flying and games of tag across the city before Dick’s eyes finally grow sleepy. The kid stubbornly refuses to admit it, and when Clark makes a comment about being tired he almost has a heart attack when Dick dives into the freezing water and then gives a thumbs up to say he’s not anymore.

Yep. Clark figures, swooping up the shivering kid before going to someplace warmer. just like his father. Too damn stubborn they might just escape fate just because of spite.

The minutes tick by, and as Superman carries Robin and flies above the city, silencing the noise and the bustle it isn’t too long before the chatter ceases, and Robin slumps.

Clark breathes a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the boy’s company, or that they weren’t having fun. But Batman had always kept his distance, always been closed off and refused help, or even assistance when the situation was dire. Yet here he was, barging into Clark’s apartment with his child in tow.

Clark dared to hope.

Was it a sign of trust? of the beginning of an actual friendship? Or was it a test?

They silently enter his apartment just as the morning light starts to peak through the shadows, and Clark freezes.

Batman, feared protector of Gotham, cold, paranoid, vigilant batman who didn’t let anyone near him, who never showed his wounds or vulnerability, was fast asleep on his couch.

The mask was off, and the normal grimace on his face was gone, replaced by a calm, peaceful look that Clark didn’t want to disturb.

Dick mumbles in his sleep, awoken by the lack of movement and makes grabby hands towards Bruce. Clark chuckles. Bruce really did have a soft spot. Who would’ve thought?

He gently placed the kid next to Bruce, who stirs when Robin latches onto him but just grumbles before an arm protectively covers Dick and promptly falls back asleep.

They don’t acknowledge it the next day, and by the time Clark gets home from work they’re both gone, with a note from Robin demanding Superman meet them again.

Superman jokes about it years later when they partner for a case, saying that Dick saved Bruce from a lifetime of solitude and loneliness. He never expected the other man to have a fond look on his face before he agrees.

And even now, years later when Robin has now become Nightwing, the entire league at some point has seen Batman dump an overly energetic Nightwing onto Superman before leaving.

Flash even commented that it reminded him of a grumpy cat tired of her kitten and dumping it on the golden retriever to take care of it for a while.

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copperbadge · 2 months

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Hey Sam, do you remember how long it took for your student loan discharge to show up on your credit report? It's been eight months and my loans are still on my credit report and I can't get Mohela to answer me about when they'll report it. I submitted a complaint to the DoE a few weeks ago, but who knows when I'll hear back. I guess I was just wondering if this type of delay is out of the ordinary.

Oh, man, it never even crossed my mind to look. My credit score was hovering around 800 when I began the loan discharge process and is now in the 810 range, so I never bothered to check. I had to go log into CreditKarma just now to see.

I think this must be backdated, but according to TransUnion, my loans were closed in September 2020. The reason this must be backdated is that my forgiveness wasn't finalized and approved until April of 2021. Like my balance didn't zero out until 2021, but the paperwork went into the system in September 2020, so presumably the closure was retroactive to that. I don't think any closed loan falls off for several years, but I don't know how they handle an open loan that you have actually discharged. I don't know what kind of delay is normal (I may have even had one myself and just not noticed).

As far as I know carrying a student loan balance doesn't have a huge impact on your credit score as long as they're not reporting you in arrears/late, so hopefully it's not killing your credit somehow. You might consider sending a registered letter to the bureaus, disputing the error; they may be able to shake that information loose from the loan administrators. In any case, good luck with it!

Readers, if you have advice please do share! Remember to comment or reblog, as I don't post asks sent in response to other asks.

#student loans #finance

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glossglamour · 2 months

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The Doctor is in the House: A 2011 Article on House M.D.

BY SHERI LEVINE, POSTMEDIA NEWS NOVEMBER 17, 2011

LOS ANGELES - Paging Dr. House. After eight years, Hugh Laurie is still keeping House's heart beating. And while the medical mysteries may serve as plots for the long-running medical drama, it's Laurie's alter ego, the man himself, Dr. Gregory House, who keeps people tuning in for their weekly fix.

Laurie, who made a name for himself as a comedic actor in his native England, was relatively unknown to North American audiences when House first aired. Of course, that's no longer the case. The multi-talented Laurie -- who recently released a fine album of New Orleans-inspired blues music -- has become a huge star across the pond, as well as one of the highest-paid actors on TV.

"I highly doubt that," says a modest Laurie, who actually seems embarrassed by the very notion that he would rank so high on the actors' payroll. Clearly, he doesn't take his good fortune for granted. Laurie calls himself "a lottery winner" with the great success he's achieved on House.

Dressed casually in a blue, button-down shirt, black pants and black and white sneakers, or trainers (as the Brits would say), Laurie rests his cappuccino cup and saucer on the table in front of him. The charismatic Englishman playfully takes on the group of international journalists who have invaded his turf.

In person, the affable Laurie smiles easily, laughs frequently and seems to never be at a loss for a witty response or anecdote. He is adorably charming, with piercing, blue eyes -- an intense blue not picked up on camera.

It's oddly amusing to see the man -- who plays such a cynical, depressive, perpetually grumpy person, week in and week out -- so happy. Of course, that's the mark of any good actor. But as creator and executive producer, Canadian David Shore, says: "He didn't become House, he WAS House."

Laurie's strong comedic roots may have been what resonated so strongly with Shore upon seeing Laurie's audition tape.

"I venture to guess that, actually, that's part of the reason that I'm here," says Laurie. "Unless this character had a sort of grace and a wit about him, he would be just too much of a pain in the ass, really. The elegance of the way his mind works, and the speed at which it works, is part of his charm, if he has any. Now, lots of people would say he doesn't have any. I disagree. I find him immensely charming.

"I'm not sure I would put up with him as a best friend, but I do find him endlessly entertaining. And I find . . . the references he draws on, the way he seeks out people's weaknesses in such a cruel and horrible way, I find he does at least do it with wit."

House has become an iconic character, largely due to Laurie's flawless portrayal of a brilliant doctor with a horrible bedside manner whose asinine qualities are overshadowed by his brilliance. He's not really an ass, he just acts like one . . . a lot.

The antithesis of House is his best friend, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). One might even go so far as to say it's their friendship that humanizes House, and is a big part in sustaining the show's success.

"One of the things I'm proudest of in the show is that relationship," says Shore. "I think that it's something you don't see on TV very often -- the male friendship explored," he says.

Leonard weighs in: "His actions are what count. It's the only relationship on the show that's not tied to any employment. I don't work for him and he doesn't work for me, and it's not true of any other character on the show. So we're the only two characters that have actually chosen to be together."

The onscreen pals are also good friends off-screen, a likely contributing factor to the genuine House-Wilson dynamic.

"Well, now that we've stopped sleeping together, it's a lot more comfortable in every way, physically, as well," jokes Leonard. "I don't know. He's very complicated. He's a very strange guy. He's very funny. He's like most of the people I like in my life: tortured, miserable, and just a pain in the ass," Leonard says (referring to Laurie, not House, just in case you were confused).

As to whether this is the show's last season, David Shore says he's undecided.

"I'm not being coy, I'm just honestly not that well ordered," admits Shore. "I would love to and I would hate to (continue the show). It's been a wonderful opportunity for me. It's just been amazing on so many different levels, and I'm continuing to find new and interesting things to do with it. But it's been eight years. It's a long time to do a show. And so I really am not sure what's going to happen."

In the end, Shore says the show is ultimately about "trying to change, but we inevitably fail."

"But if we don't keep trying to change, we're just going to slide completely backwards. I think House would like to be the type of person who could do things differently. But he's not, and he will never (be)."

What does this mean for the fate of Dr. Gregory House?

"I'm not going to change his character for the end of the show," says Shore. "It may not be a miserable ending, but (House) is not going to ride off into the sunset with love."

--- (source) ---

this one surprisingly only took me like twenty minutes to find. my favourite part is when shore says that house is not going to ride off into the sunset with love and yet .

#house md #hatecrimes md #robert sean leonard #rsl #hugh laurie #interview #james wilson #gg.txt #muted

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checkoutmybookshelf · 6 months

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From Criminial Mastermind to Fairy Tale Hero: The End of Artemis Fowl

Here we are, everyone: The final Artemis Fowl book. It has been a journey revisiting the first series I was old enough to follow and fandom, and it's wild to me that we're finally at the end. Especially since I picked up the first Artemis Fowl book in late elementary school (I'm genuinely not sure when though, because the first book came out in April of 2001, when I was in fifth grade and it's very possible I didn't pick the book up until sixth grade, which would have put me at 11, same age as Artemis in that first book) and the final book came out in 2012, when I was in my junior year of undergrad. So at that point, Artemis, Holly, and Butler had been part of my life for a long time. And now here we are, to say goodbye to them again after this leisurely re-listen/read. Let's talk Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian.

Artemis grew and changed so much across eight books, which makes sense because holy cow do kids change a LOT between 11 and 15. We get so busy living life in those years that we don't really think about how much we truly learn and grown between prepubescence and full-on teenagerhood, but that is a time of massive change, and I think that more than anything else really justifies how Artemis goes from a chillingly vampiric child to a teenager with enough compassion and empathy to understand that sometimes the right choice is a heroic self-sacrifice for the people that your people (both humans and the people, in this case) love. Artemis also did a really interesting version of that thing so many teenagers do where they hit a point where they can't just phone in their abilities anymore and have to actually put effort in, but for Artemis it was emotional rather than intelligence. And yet even when making said heroic sacrifice, we have the absolutely beautiful callback to the end of book one, where Artemis drugs his mother, Butler, and Juliet to keep them from being harmed by the bio-bomb. To stop Holly from preventing him from stopping Opal, Artemis sedates her. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Except where best villain ever Opal Koboi is concerned. By this book, Opal is so disconnected from reality that she is willing to risk literally going nuclear to escape captivity, and then just...casually sparks off the apocalypse because if there is one thing our girl wants, it's to be Empress of the World, and if that means using spirit zombies and an ancient fairy doomsday device, then I guess it's a good thing she's already versed in black magic. Or something. Opal is fully and completely off the rails at this point, and if you catch yourself referring to yourself as "Mommy" in reference to the spirits of several scores of ancient elven berserkers who would--barring a geas--murder you for it, you might want to stop and take a long, hard look at your life choices. And maybe don't forget that you've cloned yourself, because that's the kind of little detail that can completely ruin your chances of being Empress of the World.

Holly quite possibly deserves every medal that exists for managing to drag Artemis's extremely out-of-shape butt through increasingly dangerous and high-stakes missions while navigating fairy politics and *checks notes* breaking up with her commanding officer after a disastrous date where they both got kicked out of a crunchball match. (And once again...HOW DARE Colfer leave this in exposition and not show us this amazing disaster of a date!?!?) Holly has also just been through the emotional wringer with Artemis and every time he decided to double-cross or lie by omission to bring off a plan and every time he does something infuriatingly human that drives up her blood pressure and yet makes the mission succeed. And then she has to sit there and watch him die to save humans and fairies. Seriously, the fact that Holly Short is a functional being rather than a hot mess is nothing short of a miracle.

And then we come to Butler. Long-suffering, super fucking over it, broken-hearted Domovoi Butler. Artemis got DAMN lucky that the whole "put my spirit in a clone of me" plan panned out, because if it hadn't, Holly was entirely correct: Butler would never have recovered. Butler and Opal might be my two favorite characters in the entire series at this point. That's not where I started--for a very long time, Holly was my favorite character, and Commander Root still gets an honorable mention--but as a grown-ass adult (I'm not doing that math for you, if you want to know that I'm old, you do the math), I cannot escape how dedicated, competent, kind, and just AWESOME Butler is. I feel like the vibe here is very similar to the thing that happens when you watch Sound of Music as a kid and either Maria or one of the kids is your favorite character, but when you come back to it as an adult, Captain Von Trapp is EVERYTHING (RIP Christopher Plummer, we loved you). Butler has a similar vibe but in a different genre.

So, I was an adult and had enough experience of watching fandoms to see the mixed reactions to this book being released. People were sad the series was ending, people were disappointed because the series had seemingly drifted, and people loved it. My reaction was pretty mixed, because I had a lot going on, I knew there were good things here but I was also kind of missing the heisty, criminal mastermind vibes, but also OPAL KOBOI. So I was pretty unsure how to feel about this book when it came out, and then I didn't reread it for literal years because I went to grad school.

Returning to this book now, I have suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch respect for how Colfer tied up the series and how he pulled off a new Irish mythological cycle, but updated for the twenty-first century. I have enough life on me to appreciate the changes Artemis goes through, and enough literature degrees to have a new and deeply fulfilling perspective on the series structure. Last Guardian is not my favorite book of the series--it's not even in the top three--but I think that what it does is genuinely impressive and I love how you can finish this book and go instantly back into the OG Artemis Fowl. The story does not, strictly speaking, have to end. And that is a vibe I can 100% get behind.

I deeply love the Artemis Fowl books, and I cannot recommend the series enough. They have so many strengths, are incredibly well-written, and they live rent-free in my head even now as an adult.

#artemis fowl #eoin colfer #artemis fowl the last guardian #artemis fowl and the last guardian #domovoi butler #holly short #opal koboi #children's literature #children's books #books and reading #books & libraries #books and novels #books #book recommendations #middle grade sci fi #middle grade books #middle grade fantasy #middle grade fiction

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jishyucks · 1 year

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only fools. ‣ hrj

‣ pairing: huang renjun x reader

‣ genre: FLUFF, sorta angsty? idk, co-leads to lovers? is tht even a thing?

‣ wc: 2.2k

‣ summary: Renjun's made one promise to himself ever since the play's production started: I promise not to fall in love with my fellow cast member. But after months of working alongside you, he finds that this promise was something he couldn't keep.

‣ warnings?: sorta sorta cheesyyy?, mentioned that reader's smaller than Renjun, Shrek (loml?jkjk) mention

‣ an: I finally wrote something after having writer's block for ten million years I s2g,,, tht being said I'm not sure if this is the best I can do but I do believe it's really cute ( •̯́ ^ •̯̀) so I hope you enjoy it!

‣ tags: @mosviqu @sleeping-sirens

Dress rehearsals start in a mere thirteen minutes yet Renjun is sitting at the top corner of the football field’s bleachers in hopes that none of his castmates could find him.

He’s disappointed in himself because he’s being unprofessional. He knows damn well that if he did the same thing in the real world, it wouldn’t be accepted. Sure, it’s not acceptable now… the production is set for next week, yet he’s here wondering if he should even show up for rehearsals because of his own damn feelings.

Fuck feelings, he thinks, They’re stupid anyway.

Renjun kicks the edge of the seat in front of him and watches as the football team finishes up with their warm-up. He’s not sure how long they’ve been running in circles, but judging from how the coach yells for them to finish strong, he could guess it’s been close to fifteen minutes.

Fuck feelings, Renjun repeats to himself.

He feels like beating himself up over the very fact that he broke a promise that he made to himself at the beginning of the show’s production.

I promise not to fall in love with my fellow cast-member.

It was a simple promise that he thought would be easy to fulfill. Renjun was never one to develop feelings easily, which was exactly why he easily forgot the fact that feelings are something you couldn’t plan. Ever.

The reason it even came to existence was because his other castmate and best friend, Jaemin, had pointed out that this production was ‘romantic-full’—whatever that meant in his books—and that he was in some dangerous position of developing feelings for his co-lead.

He clearly remembers waving off his ridiculous reminders, simply because Renjun’s already been in countless productions and not one of them did he develop feelings for another cast member that could be deemed greater than that of friends. The idea was stupid.

But he made the promise anyway.

Just in case, he told himself.

Then this brings Renjun to now. With a broken promise dangling right in front of his face and feelings sitting rather irritatingly at the centre of his heart like a bullseye.

Renjun blames you for it all. For the way his heart beats around your presence, for the way the butterflies erupt at even the slightest touch of your hand, and the way he loses all composure the millisecond you smile his way.

Renjun doesn’t even know how it even got to this point.

But then again, it’s absurdly clear. The roles you both play, the late nights rehearsing just to get cues right, the impromptu hangouts after rehearsals… his relationship with you has grown over the past few months and he can’t really blame his heart for giving way for you.

In fact, it would have been much more worrying if he didn’t develop feelings for you. Especially since it was you. He would be a total fool not to fall for someone like you.

Nonetheless, Renjun’s frustrated over breaking the one and only promise he made for himself because now, after accepting these newfound feelings, he’s practically deathly afraid to face you. If he sees you now, he knows he’s going to make a fool of himself.

“Okay, bring it in!” The coach’s voice was rather loud despite him being twenty steps below Renjun.

He sighs and grabs a glimpse of the time. Eight more minutes until rehearsals and it was a good walk across campus just to get to the theatre.

There’s a feeling in his leg that was itching for him to stand up and go, but he ignores it, instead laying down against the warm metal seat before throwing an arm over his eyes to block them from the sun.

Renjun bangs his heels against the seat causing the whole bench to shake. He has to shift in his position so he doesn’t fall off. Then he groans and whispers a ‘what am I going to do?’ under his breath.

Because that was the real question. What is he going to do? He’s unsure whether to wait it out and let the feelings disappear on their own or take his chances with you—if you even reciprocate these feelings. He can’t just avoid you until the entire production is over because he is one of the show’s main leads. Renjun worked hard for this role and he can’t just let the understudy do it all for him because of his feelings for you were getting in the way.

Renjun knows for a fact that actors and actresses have gone through the same thing he’s going through… but how the hell did they manage to get through it?

He wonders if there was a book or YouTube video of some sort that provided him helpful steps on how to solve the situation in under 10 minutes—but one can only dream.

Renjun lets white noise overrun his head as he lays in a still position for who knows how long, feeling the breeze move past him gently. It was a cool breeze, but it balances out the sun that was beating down directly onto his skin.

Peripherally, Renjun can hear the sound of steps against the bleachers, but he quickly dismisses it, immediately assuming it was another student on their way up to isolate themselves like he was.

But, boy, was he wrong.

“There you are.”

Renjun’s heart thumps against his rib cage at the sound of your voice and he quickly sits up. “Y/N! What are you doing here?” His vocal pitch is three levels higher than usual, almost giving away the nerves that now have taken over his system.

How should he even act around you? This shouldn’t even be hard. He’s been around you almost every day for the past few months, and he’s an actor for god’s sake. He can simply fake it ‘til he makes it.

“And you don’t expect me to ask you the same thing,” you give him a look and wheeze, “You were supposed to be there like half an hour ago, y’know. You should be glad I volunteered to find you because they were going to send Doyoung and you know how scary he gets when he’s mad.”

When you realize that Renjun wasn’t going to budge anytime soon, you sit next to him with almost no room left between your shoulder and his. You wait for a short moment for Renjun to reply, but you’re only returned with silence and the groaning of sweaty men down at the field, “Are you okay?”

“Of course, I am,” Renjun waves off your concern and stands up, “Let’s get to rehearsal.” He shuffles past you and makes his way down the stairs. Renjun’s quick to reach the bottom, but what he doesn’t know is that you’re close behind.

“You’re lying,” you say when you finally catch up. It was blunt, but it was because you don’t have a single fibre of doubt in your body.

Renjun shakes his head, “I’m not lying.” When he notices that you’re catching up, he speeds up just a tad bit to keep you from gaining any sort of eye contact. He’s not even sure why he’s doing this when he knows that he eventually has to make eye contact with you during rehearsal.

“Yes, you are,” you retort, “Huang Renjun of all people wouldn’t willingly show up to practice late. There’s something wrong and you already know I’m going to try and get it out of you.”

Renjun chooses not to say anything, afraid that he’s accidentally going to give you hints of his dilemma. He focuses on the way his feet taked steps as you both find your way to the theatre.

“So, what is it?” You start, “Is it homework? Roommate problems? Nerves?… No, it can’t be nerves…” You’re practically skipping to keep his pace. He can hear you rambling beneath your breath and he lets you be, refusing to give in too easily.

When you’re returned with silence for the nth time, you switch gears and let out a loud, rather deep, sigh. “Renjun, I’m being serious right now. I know something’s wrong. And it’s not because you’re showing up late to practice on purpose, but it’s because you can’t even look me in the eye.”

“We’re going to be late,” he mumbles. Renjun’s walking so fast that he’s almost jogging.

“Oh, c’mon, as if we’re not already late,” you roll your eyes and reach for Renjun’s wrist, forcing the both of you to stop in your tracks, “We’re not going until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I told you,” Renjun repeats, “There’s nothing wrong. Now, let’s go.”

Renjun attempts to wiggle out of your grasp but you simply just tug on his arm to reinforce it, “And I told you that we’re not going until you answer my question. What’s wrong?” You sigh, “Renjun if you don’t tell me now, my head’s going to be preoccupied during rehearsal. Do this for you and for me.”

Renjun’s stuck. He’s not sure whether to tell you now, lie now and tell you later, or simply just not tell you (hard stop). All these options have one possible outcome in common and it was how he would possibly regret it all.

“If you’re trying to decide whether you should tell me or not, I vote for the first option,” you say. Renjun hates how you can read him like a book—well, except for his feelings for you. If you could, then this entire situation would have been easier to handle.

Renjun searches the empty hallway as if there would be an answer written bright and clear on the walls. He’s stuck and he needs to act quick. He doesn’t have all the time in the world anymore.

Then, his eyes land on your hand still holding onto his wrist.

Swiftly, Renjun slides his wrist down towards him. But instead of taking his arm back, he makes the impulsive action of intertwining his fingers with yours, holding your hand as if it were made of glass.

“What’s wrong is that I can only do this,” Renjun gulps nervously. He hasn’t made the effort to look at your reaction just yet, eyes trained on his hand holding yours. He’s slightly relieved that you haven’t pulled your hand back. But then again it could just be you in shock.

He gains the confidence to hold your smaller hand tighter before tugging you towards him. The two of you are practically chest to chest, so close that if Renjun simply leaned down, he could plant a kiss on your forehead. “This.”

Renjun’s heart is pounding right against his chest and he knows you can hear it. But he continues and brings his forehead down to graze your own, “And… this.”

Renjun pulls away and it’s like all of his confidence is sucked out of him, “…as stupid characters in that stupid play while I’m here wishing that it could be more!” A brief silence lingers between the two of you before he turns to leave, but you’re quick to yank him back by the elbow.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Your brows furrow. Although it may come off as you being completely lost, you truly weren’t. You just wanted clarification and words that will confirm what you think Renjun is meaning to say.

A huff leaves Renjun’s lips and he searches the walls once again. He can’t repeat the same things he’s already done, so now he needs to resort to words.

“Y/N, we’re co-leads in a romance story!” There’s a hint of frustration in Renjun’s voice and at that point you can tell that this has truly been bothering him, “We practiced our lines together, hung out after, hell, I’ve learned the weirdest facts about you—that you open chip bags from the bottom because that’s where all the flavour is, how you take pictures of green onions in soup that look like hearts, that you’ve watched the second Shrek movie a bajillion times just to watch the fight scene at the end… Y/N, everyday for the past few months I was practically handed the opportunity to fall for you… and I would be a fool to not fall for you.”

Renjun lets his head fall forward and his bangs flop over his eyes, “I was planning on waiting until after the final show to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin the hard work that everyone’s put into the production just cause of my feelings… but I guess my feelings won.”

He waits for you to reply, bracing himself for the worst ever possible reaction from you. Renjun’s already imagining a rejection—a gentle one, of course—but when he sees your hand reach out for his own, he feels a pang of hope sitting deep in his chest.

Renjun feels you hold his hand tight, squeezing it before using it to draw him towards you. He lets himself stumble forward before planting his feet right in front of yours. Your toes are almost touching, so you shuffle forward so that they are. With this gesture, Renjun finally allows himself to make eye contact with you.

There’s a sense of relief when he catches a proper sight of your face, a soft smile sitting upon your lips. And when you finally see that Renjun’s looking back at you, your smile grows ten times larger.

“Well, then I guess I’d also be a fool if I hadn’t fallen for you, either.”

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1moremilgram-enjoyer · 8 months

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Okay hold on you know that name on Kotoko's cap in HARROW? Jacques Roulet?

I always thought that was just a brand or something, but I looked it up and- it's a story about a supposed werewolf that killed a child?! Kotoko what the fuck-

CW Gruesome murder, werewolves (???), clinical lycanthropy (?), mentions of drugs

Okay so here are the sources I'm using for this:

-WordPress by Jim McNeill

-Monstrous.com

Because this shit so obscure it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

Here's a summary of the story, though be warned, it's gruesome.

Basically, a few villagers in Angers, France, found the warm corpse of a fifteen year old boy being mauled by two wolves. The boy's father was the first to run up after his screams were heard, apparently. They chased the wolves off, but after they lost track of them, they found Jacques Roulet, half naked. He had long hair and beard, and his hands were dyed in fresh blood, his nails "long as claws."

Roules was "a beggar from house to house", and had been staying in a neighbouring village with his brother John and his cousin Julien, though he'd disappeared eight days before the murder. He admitted to having killed the boy by smothering him, and that the only reason he didn't fully eat the corpse was because the wolves scared him off.

In court, he claimed when he rubbed an ointment given to him by his parents on his skin, he could turn into a wolf. He claimed his hands and feet were those of a wolf when he killed the child, but he wasn't sure what his head looked like. He also claimed to have killed many more children. Adittionally, he said his brother and his cousin were the (other?) two wolves at the scene, but his parents actually proved the two had an alibi. You know, in case anyone was considering whether or not that was true.

He was originally sentenced to death, but he managed to appeal it, and in the end his sentence was reduced to staying two years in a mental institution.

The WordPress article mentions the salve Jacques claimed to rub on himself could have possibly had hallucinogenic properties, or alternatively, it's possible his diet included bread infected by the Ergot fungus, which contains chemicals similar to LSD and can also cause hallucinations. This can serve as a possible explanation for his belief of being a werewolf.

... What the fuck does this have to do with Kotoko.

Like, okay, I get the werewolf thing. She's a furry, we get it. But, she doesn't kill children though. If anything, one would assume the one supposed to be Jacques is Kotoko's victim, the dude that killed ten middle school children. But he's not the one wearing the cap, and he's... okay he's sorta connected to wolves.

It's always looked to me like his shadow vaguely resembles a wolf's snout, but maybe I'm just going crazy.

I honestly don't really know what the deal is with this. My best guess is that the HARROW serial killer is meant to be Jacques, since Kotoko believes he deserved death (as evidenced by the fact she killed him) like the original sentence given to Jacques. Maybe you can read into something about the murdered boy's father in the Angers story being the first to find the body, if you're inclined to believe one of the HARROW killer's victims was part of Kotoko's family. Or maybe the idea of two wolves scaring off Jacques? Like, Kotoko and some kind of partner in vigilantism?

I got no idea. The issue with that is that the wolves in the Jacques story also ended up mauling the boy's corpse, but maybe that's not 100% off-brand? Seeing her distorted quote in the second trial voice reveal trailer.

[Kotoko] From the beginning I've never asked for your understanding! My actions, one by one, are bringing Earth closer to peace. Useless Weaklings should just shut up and let me protect them!

Uh, yeah, I don't know.

I feel inclined to point out, regarding that last point, the line that plays when she first shows off the cap is:

Feeding on food so I don't burn out

Which is- not the greatest line to say as you show off a cap referencing a story about mauling a fifteen year old. (And yes I do think the Japanese lyric explicitly references eating)

To be clear, the cap is in other scenes: at the end of the second verse before the pre-chorus-

[HARROW] Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion “I didn’t mean to offend”, “I won’t do it again” How many wins in a row?

-and at the very end, where it infamously lays on the ground right next to the murder scene.

But it's still introduced with the line about eating, which I find worrying.

I really am not sure what's going on with this one. If any Kotoko scholars out there have better ideas, please let me know, because I am very curious to know what the deal with this is. Take care!

#milgram #milgram project #milgram theory #kotoko yuzuhira #harrow mv #literally what the hell is happening #please help me harrow is already giving me a headache as it is #im sure this has to have been pointed out before whats the consensus

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incorrectbatfam · 2 years

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Batfam interacting and bonding with Bernard, if it's not too much to ask?

Dick: Hey, Bernard! Tim's not here right now. Bernard: That's fine, I can come back late— Dick: *drags Bernard inside* Dick: Sorry I didn't get around to it sooner, but I've been meaning to ask, what do you do? Bernard: Huh? Dick: What do you do for a living? How do you plan on paying for that engagement ring that you'll be getting Tim in ten years? Bernard: Ten years is a long— Dick: Speaking of rings, have you seen that new Lord of the Rings show? Barbara said I should skip it, but there's something weirdly amusing about bad shows, you know? Bernard: I've heard of— Dick: *tightens his grip on Bernard's shoulder* Dick: What's your favorite bad media, Bernie? Can I call you Bernie? Bernard: Actually, I prefer— Dick: Sweet. Anyway, Bernie, lemme show you my collection of Dreamworks movies that people claim are flops but are actually cinematic masterpieces. —————

Jason: This is the kitchen. It's where we keep the knives. Bernard: *sweats* ————— Damian: You must be my brother's lover. Bernard: Yeah, I guess. Damian: Do better. ————— Bernard: Wait, so everyone in your family is a vigilante? Duke: Pretty much. Even Jarro. Bernard: Who's Jarro? Duke, whispering: We don't talk about Jarro. ————— Bernard: Let me get this straight. Cullen: I've tried. It's best not to fight it. ————— Stephanie: You must be Bernard! I'm Steph. Bernard: You're Tim's ex, right? Stephanie: Oh, yeah, but don't worry, it won't be awkward. 'Cause you know what we got in common? Bernard: What? Stephanie: We're the only two people who know about eight-year-old Tim's Honey Boo Boo parody where he puts on his mom's dress and pretends to be a pageant princess called Timmy Toot Toot. Bernard: Proof or it didn't happen. Stephanie: *pulls out her phone* ————— Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: Um, hi? Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: Can I help you? Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: Oh, you must be Cass! I'm Bernard. Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: *visibly uncomfortable* Cassandra: *stares* Bernard: I think I'll head out... ————— Bernard: Hey, sorry I'm late. Barbara, in front of her laptop: No worries, Bernard Dowd of 8255 Cypress Avenue, it's not your fault your Uber surreptitiously stopped at the Ben and Jerry's on Main Street for 11 minutes. That must have been frustrating, but at least you could use your 50% off coupon for a Cherry Garcia and only had to charge $2.65 to your MasterCard ending in 3363. ————— Harper: You know how to use a blowtorch? Bernard: No. Harper, handing him a blowtorch: You do now. ————— Carrie: Your name's Bernard? Bernard: Yep. Carrie: Why? ————— Kate: As an elder gay, I've always felt a tug of responsibility to protect my kin, and there's no baby gay more precious to me than Tim. Bernard: I'll treat him well. Kate: I know you will. But just in case, have you ever heard of the Secret Union of Toolbox Lesbians? Bernard: Can't say I have. What exactly, uh, do they do? Kate: Normally they go around fixing things. Cars, door hinges, you name it. But sometimes they'll take on... additional duties. Bernard, nervously: Like what? Kate: *squeezes his shoulder* Kate: I hear you're a fan of unsolved mysteries. Bernard: ————— Alfred: Take a seat. Master Tim will be out shortly. Bernard: Thanks. What are you cooking? It smells good? Alfred: Oh, just a traditional English soup. A diplomat once told me it was the best thing he ever had. Bernard: Really? Alfred: Indeed. Alfred, whispering: The secret is a little touch of arsenic. ————— Selina: You like cats. Bernard: Sure. Selina: This one's a keeper. ————— Bruce: You be good to Tim, or else. Bernard: I will, I promise. No need to gut me with a batarang. Bruce, confused: What are you talking about? Bernard: Nothing, don't worry about it. Bruce: I won't. Bernard: Phew. Bruce, sipping his coffee: But you should. ————— Tim: I'm so sorry about my family. Bernard: They're a lot, but it's okay. They remind me of you. Tim: Aw, I love you. Bernard: I love you too... Timmy Toot Toot.

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softguarnere · 9 months

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It Will Have Been Worth It

David Webster x reader

Soulmate!au in which the first words you ever hear your soulmate say appear on your skin when you turn thirteen

A/N: Out of everything I've ever written for this fandom, this fic has been one that has given me the most trouble. According to my notes, I started it on October 31st of last year 😬 None of my ideas for it felt right when I had them on paper, and I eventually just left it sitting in my drafts. Randomly got inspiration for it a few days ago, and now it's done! Better late than never, I guess A very special thank you to @brassknucklespeirs (welcome back babe, I missed you!!!!) and @liebgotts-lovergirl who both chatted with me about this fic last fall when I started it, and who both helped me with ideas all those months ago 💕 As usual, this is written for the fictional depictions from the tv show - no disrespect to the real life veterans! Warnings: alcohol, mentions of war, the author using every impressive high school vocab word she could possibly remember

Just because David has a large vocabulary doesn't mean that he's in total command of it at all times. Throwing around words that make other people furrow their brows as they try to ascertain what he means brings him some sense of satisfaction, but he also has a habit of flashing his arsenal of expressions when he's particularly nervous, hoping to throw off whoever has made him feel as if he's lost his footing. And when he's had a few drinks? Forget about it – all the words he once had at his disposal are suddenly either strung together to form nonsensical sentences or are nowhere to be found.

Is he pretentious? Perhaps, although he would argue that there's much more to the story. An elementary school teacher taking a liking to a poem he wrote when he was eight and exclaiming, "David, I think that you could be a great writer some day!" may have started him down that path, but he ultimately blames the words that appeared on his skin when he was thirteen.

He used to love looking at his parents’ soulmate tattoos. "What a lovely name" on his mother's wrist and "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" on his father's. It always seemed so romantic to him, the thought that those had been the first words that his parents ever heard each other say, and that they got to flaunt those beautiful lines that they had given each other.

"If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it" appeared on the inside of his forearm on his thirteenth birthday. A beautiful line, really.

It's haunted him ever since.

"Make sure that you give your soulmate a tattoo that's just as pretty." His father had winked at him and slid him a piece of birthday cake – strawberry with vanilla buttercream frosting, he still remembers – unaware of the panic he had just set off in David's chest. Because that was the first time he had realized that, yes, he was responsible for giving his soulmate a poetic tattoo. His own is a beautiful turn of phrase. Whoever his soulmate is, they deserve a line that looks just as pretty on their own skin. It’s a duty that he comes to take very seriously.

Every person he meets, Webster makes sure to compose an amiable greeting for them, just in case. He’ll quote Shakespeare if he finds they’re particularly attractive, invoking his parents’ first meeting, since you never know. So what if some people push hard sighs through their nose whenever he opens his mouth to speak? He’s a student of literature; producing striking sentences is half of his job.

And, he reminds himself, one day he’ll find his soulmate, and he won’t have to worry about creating turns of phrase that are unequaled and unforgettable – except for his novels, of course. But whatever words he provides for his soulmate’s mark, he’s determined to make them as dazzling as the bright light thrown from a suncatcher on the clearest summer day.

. . .

It’s at seventeen that he learns that not everyone finds their soulmate. The library is quiet, save for the sounds coming from the diligent scratching of pencils, the turning of pages, and the soft breathing of focused students. He turns a page in his own book and is confronted with the staggering statistic that only twenty percent of people are recorded to find theirs.

“That’s less than one fourth of the population!” He exclaims to himself without meaning to, disrupting the tranquility of the study space and garnering several peeved looks for his outburst. A seemingly unnecessary one to everyone else, but justified in his own mind.

Twenty percent! He’s still aghast as he gathers his own books and escorts himself from the library. The cool breeze blowing through the late afternoon can’t even distract him from the train of thought that has now run off the rails, chugging along through his mind with no sign of stopping.

Because now, come to think of it, people get married all the time, soulmate tattoos or not. And there’s no law or anything stating that you have to marry your soulmate once you meet them; they’re simply the person who would be the best suited for you. You could go about your lives as nothing more than just friends – or worse, nothing at all, even if you did find each other.

To say that the conclusions reached that afternoon astound him would be an understatement of epic proportions. He’s never quite the same after that. But it doesn’t stop his extraordinary expressions.

. . .

War breaks out. He leaves college for the experience. He volunteers for the paratroopers because, even though they’re new, they’re the best. If he wants to write about war – or write anything good, really – he’ll have to get his hands dirty with experience so that the sentences that stain his pages can be clean, clear, concise, and indelible to his readers. Honestly, it’s not until he hears one of the other men in his company point out that the new migrations and travel opportunities given to them by the conflict may well improve their chances of finding their soulmates that he realizes that statistic he once read will soon be incorrect.

For a brief and terrifying moment, Webster – as he is now called amongst his fellow soldiers – thinks that maybe Joe Liebgott is his soulmate, and that he’s responsible for giving him a really awful line. Webster had made an offhanded comment about the quality of the eggs one morning at breakfast, and the Californian had given him such a perplexed look that Webster’s panic led him to believe that the cab driver must have “What do they season their eggs with around here? Sawdust?” somewhere on his person, and that the reason he remained so quiet around him was due to not wanting Webster to hear him speak so that they would never know if they were actually soulmates. Luckily those fears had been laid to rest when Webster caught a glimpse of the words “Cabbie, if you drive any faster, I think the car will start flying” on his leg during a run up Currahee. It turned out that he simply didn’t agree with Webster’s observations on the quality of the eggs. Still, Webster remembers to be more careful with his words.

When he can be, actually. Which is not when he’s been drinking.

The British pub is loud with the sounds of servicemen singing and laughing well into the night. The general consensus that they’re finally going to be thrust into combat soon has filled many men with a renewed zest for life, and from the sounds and sights all around, people are relishing the nights like these while they can. And who can blame them?

“What did they even teach you at Harvard?” Hoobler wants to know as Webster downs a shot. “I mean, as a literature major, and all.”

“Is it just reading?” Skinny Sisk questions. “’Cause if so, then anyone with a library card can probably get a degree.”

Webster purses his lips, his glass returning to the table with a harsh slam that announces the displeasure that he’s trying to keep out of his voice. “Ha ha ha. Very funny.”

“I was being serious,” Hoobler clarifies. “You know, just out of curiosity, and all.”

“How do you even use a literature degree?” The conversation has caught the attention of Joe Toye and George Luz at the next table, and they turn to join Webster, Hoobler, and Sisk, suddenly very interested in the academic intricacies of studying literature.

“Well, I’m studying literature because I want to be a writer,” Webster admits.

“And write about what?”

Webster makes a vague gesture, trying to encapsulate their environment, the lives they’ve lived since enlisting, the world itself – everything. “War,” he says instead, an understatement.

“Hey!” Luz says brightly. “You could review books. There’s an idea.”

Toye cocks an eyebrow. “Is there money in that?”

“You could review Hitler’s book,” Luz continues. “Really tear it apart on it’s word choices, and all that.”

“Hitler can read? Who knew!” Skinny asks, making everyone laugh.

“What do you think he even would read? In all his spare time, I mean, when he’s not invading countries and forcing men like us out of our homes to come and stop him.”

All eyes immediately turn to Webster, expectantly awaiting an answer. The literature student freezes with a bottle of beer halfway to his lips.

“What?” He asks.

“It was a question, Professor,” Toye says. “You gonna answer it?”

“You were serious?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

Despite himself, Webster can feel his eyebrows shoot up, betraying his surprise. “How would I know?”

“Well, in your expert opinion,” Luz suggests.

Skinny nudges Hoobler. “He just doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know.”

Heat rushes to Webster’s face, and it’s not entirely from the warm glow of the alcohol. If it weren’t for the dim lighting of the pub, the tips of his ears would probably be glowing a bright pink with his ignominy.

“They didn’t teach me that at Harvard,” he says.

Hoobler smirks. “Uh huh. Sure.”

“Awe, come on!” Webster exclaims. “I’m just trying to fight a war. I am not prepared to make speculations about Hitler’s literary preferences!”

“Excuse me,” a new, much sweeter voice cuts in. At once, all the men’s defenses are down as they turn to see two prepossessing women standing at the edge of their group. They look familiar, somehow, and if it weren’t for the dim lighting and the alcohol, Webster would swear that he’s seen them in passing before. “Hi, I’m Evelyn, and this is my friend (Y/N).”

The second woman, seemingly a little shyer, offers them a small wave and a smile as her friend takes the lead. Perhaps it’s the darkness playing tricks on Webster’s eyes, but he could swear that she’s looking at him, and that she suddenly looks a little fidgety as the introduction goes on.

“We’re with the Red Cross,” Evelyn continues, her words providing explanation as to her familiarity. Then, implausibly, she fixes her gaze directly on Webster. “(Y/N) here has been watching you for a while, so I decided it was high time that we came over and introduced ourselves.” She leaves the obvious unspoken – because war is an uncertain thing and it’s better to die with no regrets than to always wonder what could have been.

Me?! The other paratrooper’s eyes flick between (Y/N) and Webster as he stands, his friends struck with the same sense of wonder. With Skinny or Tab, this sort of scene is not infrequent, but nothing of the sort has happened to Webster – if he’s being completely honest, not even in college.

He clears his throat. So focused on willing his hands not to feel sweaty through sheer force of will, Webster extends his for a shake, not even bothering to watch his words.

“Hello. I’m David Webster,” he says, noticing how soft your hand is in his. “It’s nice to meet you.”

You beam at him. “If it takes fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it.”

He freezes. Behind him, he can feel his friends tense up as well. “Oh my God,” he whispers, for it’s all he can do. The words that he’s been waiting his entire life to hear have just come out of your mouth – and he’s just recited what must be the blandest line in the history of soulmate tattoos!

Webster rolls up his shirt sleeve and reveals his tattoo, the beautiful line staring up at him in confirmation. Air vacates his lungs, leaving him breathless as his heart pounds in his chest.

You begin to roll up your own sleeve, and Webster winces at the anticipation of seeing his introduction on your arm. But when the ink on your arm is exposed, you glance up at him, something like a smirk playing at your lips.

“Oh my God,” Webster says again, wanting to kick himself, and for a completely different reason this time.

“It was the first thing that I ever heard you say,” you tell him.

Evelyn gasps, then slaps a hand over her mouth, though it does no good to contain the giggles that still pour out. The other Easy Company men crowd around, trying to catch a glimpse of your arm.

There in the pub, in front of everyone, the first words that you, Webster’s soulmate, ever heard come out of his mouth stain your arm, making several people laugh: I’m just trying to fight a war. I am not prepared to make speculations about Hitler’s literary preferences!

At least now he doesn’t have to waste the rest of his life being so cautious with his words.

#david webster #david webster x reader #band of brothers #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers fanfic #band of brothers x reader #soulmate au #my writing

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bestworstcase · 22 days

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Hi again. I've continued to read through... well, whatever the almighty algorithim feels like suggesting (searching here is hard even when you have an idea where to start, which I don't), and my mental state can be best represented by this little gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWK5IBuVMM&t=298s (Is this necessary? No. Do I think it's funny and worth sharing? Yes, and to an extent that's kinda what this site is all about)

Anyway, a pretty common thread I've noticed in your theories is "Summer is an up-to-now-offscreen agent of Salem by choice." While you definitely make a good case even from the limited amount I've seen, I have to ask: when and where did these thoughts originate from in the first place? I mean, I can *kinda* see where you connected some of the dots, but it's still a huge leap compared to the initially perfectly sensible conclusion of her being dead or otherwise incapacitated.

(Oh, and if this could be answered similarly to my last question, then I can at least say that I have loose plans for a thorough notepad-and-magnifying-glass rewatch of the whole series over the imminent summer after a warmup with Spirited Away, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll look back at myself a few months from now and laugh at my relatively foolish ways; wouldn't be the first time, anyway)

i’d joke that it’s about the Vibes TM but what it comes down to really is the way rwby handles foreshadowing. as for the "when and where" part i couldn’t remember so i went looking.

let me take you on a little journey

these messages on 7/27 are my first direct reference to the idea of summer joining salem but i think (based on my phrasing) that i must have had it in mind for a while prior, which given that this was eight whole days after i’d finished watching the show at all. well. if i had to guess i’d say i probably went "okay so yes but also no" after ruby went "that’s what happened to mom" in 8.11

and the reason for that is pretty simple:

there is a lot of build up in v1-8 to summer’s fate being a Big Fucking Deal; this, in combination with the careful phrasing the narrative always uses regarding her disappearance—she "never came back” or she was "taken," it’s never said that she died—means she’s still alive.

salem met summer rose 12-14 years ago. the hound is a novelty to everyone, including salem’s own inner circle, and salem herself describes him as an "experiment." ruby jumps to a conclusion that doesn’t add up with information the audience knows that she doesn’t.

but, it’s unlikely that ruby is entirely wrong: think about tyrian waxing poetic about his "goddess" and ruby with no hesitation saying "cinder." she was both incorrect (his "goddess" is salem) but partially right (cinder is salem’s protégée and tyrian is here at all because cinder asked salem to deal with ruby).

in v4 we get a look at salem’s evil boardroom (there are two seats conspicuously left empty) and then see salem receiving a seer call from someone stationed at beacon, after it’s been firmly established that none of the agents we know about is there. we don’t see who is on the other end of this call, and we only hear salem’s side (note the incongruity with how seer calls are depicted in every other case; the identity of the beacon agent is withheld from the audience deliberately).

in v5 raven is so scornful of summer rose that she decides "you sound just like your mother" deserves an immediate fireball from cinder fall to the face. in v9 she was big goofy grins at summer. SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAPPENED. and i don’t think this dramatic change is explicable by raven simply watching summer fail and die or be captured; else she’d just be calling summer a fool the same way she does qrow and tai. that says betrayal.

so we know that summer met salem. we know that she did not die and cannot have been made into a hound-like creature (because he’s a new experiment). summer being alive probably rules out her being a ‘failed’ experiment, since that would undoubtedly have been fatal. ruby’s assumption that summer was twisted into a grimm-thrall by salem is incorrect but likely not too far off from the truth, and we know SOMETHING happened during that last mission that shattered raven’s trust in summer, and the simplest answer there is that summer is with salem but willingly.

and salem has a Mystery Lieutenant who’s been stationed at beacon since it fell. math! to my mind the only real questions are why and if summer might have been partially grimmed a la cinder, because in v8 the narrative starts telegraphing "summer is with salem in some not-enslaved-or-imprisoned capacity" without any subtlety at all.

now if we add in to the mix certain things v9 did ("an invincible monster who took your mother!" OH BOY) ("she lied, she left with raven! why would she–?" OH BOY!!!), there’s a clear narrative trajectory developing in the direction of summer rose not having been the Perfect Martyred Fairytale Paragon that everyone has put on a pedestal for the last 12-14 years; like anyone else she was a real person with flaws, and narratively the strongest way to drive that point home is to present to us (and to the characters who’ve been mythologizing summer as a flawless hero for more than a decade) a summer rose who decided that siding with salem was the right thing to do and then exploring why she did it.

summer being with salem of her own volition also makes it a lot easier to get to the narrative turning point of negotiating with salem; summer is the bridge, someone who has people she cares about on both sides. it is much harder to form a truce with salem if she tortured two of the main characters’ mother to death and/or enslaved and/or imprisoned her (because then you need to have an arc about saving the mother and that pushes further down the dead-end road of trying to defeat salem, who can’t be meaningfully defeated). but if summer chose to side with salem she can open that door to "maybe we can reason with salem."

so thinking about it just from a writer perspective… if i were the one writing this story and making these creative decisions with regard to the summer rose mystery, the reason i would set things up in this specific way is to develop toward a twist that summer freely chose to join salem with the intention that this precipitates the negotiation. that was true in v1-8 and then v9 ticked off literally every box on my mental checklist of things i would expect v9 to do if this was the direction they were headed—another hint about salem "taking" summer in conjunction with a reminder that salem is "invincible," surfacing ruby’s self-identification with The Idea of summer rose and how very harmful this is, a peek through the looking glass at The Person summer rose who is flawed in ways that shock and distress ruby, and an explicitly-stated "who knows why?" in reference to summer’s flaws and her final mission.

shrug. it’s just the explanation that makes the most sense taking into account all the clues that we have.

as a further point of interest, neither summer nor tai have an obvious ozian allusion (in contrast to qrow and raven who are the scareqrow and the woggle bug respectively)… which by process of elimination with the cast of marvelous land of oz, probably makes them general jinjur and jellia jamb. jinjur conquers the emerald city and occupies it for most of the story; jellia is a serving girl in the emerald city’s palace who remains with jinjur until very near the end when she gets roped into mombi’s schemes. which tracks with the idea that summer is holding beacon on salem’s behalf and tai is…there.

and i am kicking myself for not clocking tai-as-jellia until B4 dropped because it’s so. obvious. in hindsight. lol

(bonus first time reaction to 7.2

because it made me snort)

#this is more a writerbrain ''i know this technique'' theory than an analytical one

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smallrunningmachine · 11 days

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guess who's back!

hey everyone, i'm back (for at least a little while)!

it's been a hot minute but when i logged on i saw that a lot of posts on my other account captainhawkeyepierce were still getting notes long after i went on my little multi-year hiatus.

anyways, i logged on to thank you lovely people for providing the grounds for the paper that just saved my psychopathology grade, aka eight pages of me psychoanalyzing hawkeye to hell and back. the foundations of a lot of the arguments i made came from headcanons and generally-accepted theories i've read in the community on here and that was what i built my final paper around. so i just wanted to say thank you all for giving life to the theories that became my psychopathology final paper. couldn't have done it without y'all.

since it's been a while, i figured i'd do a little life update below the cut; also i might try to get back into posting on here. content warning for discussion of depression/mental health challenges.

for starters, i'm back to using my legal name (kelsey) and they/them pronouns, but i'm looking into other possibilities as well. ideally it'd be something with a gender-neutral or slightly masc connotation, starting with a k, one or two syllables, and something less common but not unheard of to most people. feel free to drop some ideas!

when i stopped posting, i was either a sophomore or junior in high school. now i'm an incoming junior in college (started college early) on my way to a double major in psychology and theatre.

i stopped posting due to a serious depressive episode i dealt with for about six months; upon starting to pull myself out of that, i began making some major life changes that somehow led to me starting to work professionally in theatre, meeting one of my absolute favorite people, transferring schools, and building a career out of the job that i originally took because i was broke and bored.

i'm working in the technical theatre industry and hoping to apply to join iatse (theatrical/stage employees union) in the next few years. right now i'm master electrician for a small theater in my home city and a carpenter and electrician at a larger one.

i stage-managed a show at the edinburgh festival fringe back in 2022!

fear not, i'm still a massive m*a*s*h nerd, in case writing an entire paper on hawkeye pierce wasn't enough of a hint /joking

i found the most phenomenal group of friends in college (all of whom are also queer). i might post some more about my experience as a queer college student in the future, who knows?

enough of that; i'd love to hear what's been going on on here since i left and what you lovely humans have been up to!

#mash #m*a*s*h #mash 4077 #guess who's back!

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mostofthingsmostofthetime · 12 days

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I finished the second episode of Heartstopper last night (wanted to post about it yesterday, but I was too tired from work), so here are some of my thoughts in no particular order for you now.

Good on Nick for checking up on Charlie after what happened. I found it odd, though, that he seemed more emotional about it than Charlie, but I guess they're in two very different places, mentally. One being 'why do I seem to like this guy way more than my other friends?' & the other being 'omg stop being so nice to me, your straight!' lol. Plus, I get that everyone deals with stuff in their own way & poor Charlie is probably so used to being mistreated that he might just be repressing the full weight of how his feeling as a copeing mechanism. It was also probably very cathartic to finally tell someone everything that happened between him & Ben (as I'm guessing he kept most if not all of it a secret from his friends & sister).

WE FINALLY MEET NELLIE!!!! And she is as cute as I'd hoped (though for some reason I expected her to be a different colour).

Sorry, Charlie, but Tori's right. Your hair looks exactly the same. Also, love that they kept the gag from the novel about her scaring him with her, always showing up suddenly without warning.

Nice to see that the outfits are on point for our boys so far with the plaid/black jeans (trying to impress someone, I see Charlie) & T-shirt/joggers (also what product is Miss Nelson using coz Nick's tops look soft as hell).

Wait, what season is it supposed to be because it looked really sunny when Charlie was walking to Nick's house (I know he was wearing a coat & hat but Charlie is always cold) but then suddenly it's snowing? Idk when Alice first came up with this story, but as a Brit, I haven't seen proper full on Snow since I was probably around eight years old. But hey, maybe in the Heartstopper universe, global warming doesn't exist.

I don’t care what anyone says, I will never get the fun of a snowball fight. If I go somewhere with a friend & they start throwing stuff at me, I'm leaving! Also, picking it up with your bare hands? One, it's been on the ground 🤢, and two, where are your gloves? Do you not feel the cold? Snow angles do look fun until I think about how my entire behind would be frozen/damp. Sorry if that makes me a "stick in the mud", I don't care 😝.

Damn, that is one photogenic dog & and aww, they already look like a couple. Also, give it up for Nick's freckles, the real star of the show 👏.

Omg, being in the same group as someone you hate must be so hard, but I get why Nick can't really say anything about what Ben did, at least not right now. Also, what is up with that Imogen girl? Mind your damn business.

I think it's good we get to see Elle longing for a bond with other girls that she just can't get from her male friend group. Makes her transition feel more fleshed out (for lack of a better word), you know?

Yay, we finally meet Tara & Darcy & they're exactly how I thought they'd be (except I imagined Darcy with brown hair for some reason). Ooh I didn't know Elle was artistic. I wanna decorate pencil cases now. Tara's pink puffa coat is so cute. What is up with adults dictating how long kids' hair can be? Like who gives a fuck! Also "gal pals" had me 😆.

Oh, thank god, it's just misinformation. For a second, I thought Tao was making shit up just to make Charlie get over his crush. Are kids really like that, though? I can't imagine kissing someone once & having people insist, I'm madly in love with them to this day, like move on already.

Ok, I officially really like the gay teacher, lol.

Love Charlie's sweater & Nick's coats are also very nice. Where are these kids getting their clothes? Coz I'm embarrassed by most of the stuff I wore as a teenager.

The big hoodie moment should be cute, but I just can't help thinking about how skinny Charlie is, which makes me ☹️.

Ok, so I didn't care much for the leaf animation in the first episode, but omg, the little fire crackles when Nick was trying to hold Charlie's hand? Screaming, crying, throwing up!!!!!!! & the hug before he left? Fucking crops watered for life, bitch!

Was digging Elle's outfit, very 70's vibes.

Ah, so their "secret" is out. Also obligatory: 🗣 LET'S GO LESBIANS LET'S GO 🗣

Can't wait for the next episode, but I practically passed out after watching episode 2 (manual labour is hard, kids 😭), so maybe I hallucinated, but did that Imogen girl ask Nick out? I thought she was daiting Ben? Or is that a different girl?

PS. I found out Aled won't be in the show, which I accept & the only reason I haven't talked about Isaac is because he hasn't really done much yet

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darklydeliciousdesires · 3 months

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London Will Burn - Chapter Fourteen.

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen

Tag list - In the comments, please DM to be added/removed

Words - 3,313

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. Minors DNI.

It bloomed through her, desire unmatched, the feel of him, the scent of his aftershave, the crush of his beautiful lips against hers. Mindlessness held her fast already, the chemistry too strong to fight; not that she wanted to, not even for a single moment.

“I have a room here.”

She nodded, her mouth falling back to his, Sean pulling from her kiss to take her hand, leading her down the long corridor to the side door that opened into the foyer of the Dorchester hotel. Rubbing Jonathan’s nose in it would have been a coup, he couldn’t deny it. Being with Rin as quickly as possible overrode his need for one upmanship, though.

Her heart thundered as he led her across the polished floor towards the lift, the thrill of it, the unspoken, the fact there was no rules, only games she was beginning to very much enjoy. Waiting for it to descend, he squeezed her hand in his, winking when she turned to look at him, his mouth upturning.

“In case I am too bowled over by lust, I must tell you now, I don’t think I have ever seen you look more beautiful than you do tonight.”

She rolled her eyes, stepping into forward when the lift doors slid open, attempting to release his hand. He held on tightly. “You’re only telling me this to get into my knickers. You’ve already accomplished that.”

“No.” He pressed the button for the seventh floor, turning to her, Rin feeling herself pulled into the vortex of his blown pupils, falling deep. “I’m telling you because you deserve to hear it.” His mouth met hers, the kiss so soft, it took her by surprise. Her stomach flipped, her nerves feeling sliced open by the intimacy of it, his fingers softly raining over her cheeks.

Suddenly, she was eighteen again, in the sun filled luminescence of her bedroom, just staring at him fondly. No cares, no betrayal, no second guessing; just them. It frightened the hell out of her.

“I can’t,” she protested, pushing him away, needing space.

His face twisted in confusion. “But...”

“I just can’t!” Her voice tremored, turning from him, resting a hand to her forehead as the maelstrom hit her fully, everything she’d been desperate to supress. “I-I can’t do this, Sean! I said I never would again, and now it’s twice, about to be three times, and nothing is clear, and...” Suddenly, everything that had excited her was now bearing down upon her emotionally, and she couldn’t bear to withstand it.

“No, something is clear,” he spoke, hitting the stop button, the lift grinding to a halt. “For me, it’s very clear, and it always has been.” His hand pressed to her shoulder, attempting to turn her. “Look at me, Catherine.”

“I can’t!”

“Well, you fucking have to!”

“No, I don’t, Sean! I am not a malleable ball of fucking clay for you to prod and mould as you please!” She finally turned then, her eyes glassy, shaking her head. “I can’t do this.”

He steeled himself, knowing he had to speak it, what he’d stuffed down so deep, and for so very long. “And I can’t go another day without telling you that I love you. I love you, and it’s killing me.”

She shook her head, unable to believe her ears. “What?”

“I have loved you for seven fucking years, Catherine. If this is because you’re scared that this is a game, then don’t be. Leave that behind, because to me, this is no game, no power play. Just a man in love with a woman he knows he never, ever should have forsaken.”

Her lip wobbled, and his thumb dragged it softly, resting his forehead to hers. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” And god, how he did. “If you can trust me, I will show you. I love you.” He kissed her, and she tried to fight it, but her heart, Her heart. “I fucking love you, you gobby little twat.”

In an instant, she was crying but laughing, scared but hopeful, the juxtaposes too exhausting to fight against any longer as they fell into a kiss, Sean reaching to hit the lift button and resume their ascent once more. He had no idea whether she truly believed him, but her being in his arms and upon his lips was good enough for that moment. Anything else could wait, and his actions going forth would show her; if of course she let him.

Arriving in his room, she gladly kicked off her shoes, placing her bag down on the table, his hands all over her as he unfastened the zip of her long, elegant dress. She looked just as sensational in Oscar de la Renta as she did Dolce and Gabbana, but truly, he liked her best in nothing at all.

His fingertips stroked over the black, scalloped lace of her underwear, reading the goose pimples that rose over her skin like braille, their message clear. Their undress of one another was deft, yet slow, savouring it, Rin pushing him back onto the bed, straddling his thighs as her mouth met his once more, slowly descending.

She needed it, to control the moment, so stirred by her emotions, embarrassed that she’d cried in front of him. Power shouldn’t have come into it, and she knew it, knew she was falling back into her relentless need to have the upper hand where he was concerned. At least this time, that upper hand was making him the receiver of something he’d actually enjoy.

Grasping his cock, she laid kisses to his hip, moving her mouth and running her tongue up the fat vein inflating the underside of his bulky shaft. She elicited a deep groan from him, Sean tangling his fingers in her hair, his head softly thudding back on the bed.

That groan only deepened when she took him slowly into her mouth, his cock twitching the deeper she sucked him back, pulsing her lips around him before dragging her lips back up his shaft, pausing at the tip and kissing it as she winked at him. God, that woman. What she did to him with only a fucking wink, circling her tongue around the head of his cock a few times before repeating the same thing all over again.

Watching himself disappearing again and again into her pretty mouth, his thighs quaked as her lips tightened around him, her nails trailing down his chest stirring a flush of goose pimples to rise over his skin. Pleasure crackled through him, his cock like iron as she continued to suck on him with aplomb, moaning softly around him, her noises of contentment sending tingling sensations through his thick shaft.

It was about all he could stand without encroaching upon coming much sooner than he wanted, shuffling back before reaching to grasp her waist, throwing her into the middle of the bed. Pinned beneath him, she stared into his eyes, her throat tightening. He loved her, and her heart knew it, but her head...

He read her like a book. “So much for vowing not to put my cock in your mouth.”

The way he raised an eyebrow had her chuckling softly, stroking his chest. “I suppose a lot can change in two days.”

Kissing the tip of her nose, his mouth wasted no time in descent. “Seems so, darling.” His lips etched a heated path over her beautiful body, careful attention shown to every single spot he knew made her glimmer before finally settling between her legs.

“Ohhh.” The sigh fluttered from her mouth softly, her cunt sucked upon greedily, Sean groaning deeply as her wetness bathed his tongue and chin. Her hums and murmurs of pleasure floated through the air like sweet music as he sucked at her, the addition of the gentlest of nibbles making a soft prick of pain melt down her spine, gasping when his tongue began to roll languidly over her clit.

It was a delicate, slow circle he drew upon her bud, watching her undulate against his mouth, his hands stroking her silken legs, entranced by the sight of her losing herself to him. The blade of his tongue soon cut through to the marrow of her, all that was gentle pressure now replaced by keen licks that ignited her bones, making her feel as if embers were burning on her nerves, her thighs brushing his face, squirming in ecstasy.

“I think you’re ready for my cock now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but that means you stopping your tongue, and it’s too good!”

He chuckled at the compliment, continuing to lash her clit with fast licks. “It does, but maybe this...” Pausing, he moved to kneel, pushing her thighs down onto the bed and gently gliding his hardness into the aqueous velvet of her cunt, “is better?”

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

His abs juddered in response to her trailing her nails down them gently, one hand slipping between her legs to feel his cock as it plunged in and out of her steadily, his eyes flitting between hers and where they were fused. “Feeling how wet you’re getting me? Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Bringing her fingers to her mouth, she sucked on them, making him burn. “Mmmm, yes. It really does.”

“Watching you do that is making my tongue jealous.” Slipping out, he moved back to lie between her legs, mouth clamping around her and sucking hard, his tongue sweeping through her folds. Her back arched off the bed, her body wholly at the mercy of his staggering sexual talent.

He lapped at her keenly, his hot breaths adding to the stimulation, her clit soaked from each eager swirl of his tongue before he moved back to arrow into her once more. Inching in steadily, he filled her entirely, remaining totally still, his thumb rubbing at her clit as he watched her slit spasm from the strong clenches of her inner walls around him, the sight transfixing to him.

“Fuck, you feel too good,” she breathed, flexing on him as he remained completely still, pulling him down to bestow kisses of heated need. “Fuck me, please just fuck me.”

Moving his mouth to her neck, he chuckled deeply, sprinkling kisses. “Do I detect begging?”

“Yes, I’m out of my fucking mind here! Please just pound me into the bloody bed!” Her desperation amused him, Sean having her think he was about to sate her by beginning to move, a single thrust given before he pulled out once again, kissing his way back down, biting her pubic mound with a playful growl before sliding his tongue into her soaking slit.

“God, you taste amazing.” Laving over her clit, he winked at her, her nails gliding through his hair and over his scalp, watching as he ate her fervently, his short beard prickling her soft folds, a deep grumble of arousal causing her flood his tongue. Sitting back up, he pushed inside her again, her little whimper making his insides tingle.

She lay at his mercy, Sean resting her legs over his shoulders as he began to give her exactly what she wanted, centring his weight down through his pelvis, each thrust delivered with more pressure, making her wail as he stroked her shins, turning his head to kiss her ankle and softly bite her toes.

Just when she was getting used to being ploughed, though, he switched cock for tongue once more, pushing it into her burning hole, licking her opening while his nose nudged her clit, her legs virtually knotting around his head.

How? How could one person be this illimitably thrilling in bed? He was everything she’d ever looked for in a lover, so attentive, very much getting off on being the instigator to her losing her mind to him. She’d never been with a man who was as much of a giver as Sean. His mouth ate her to near ruin before finally, he sheathed himself in her heat and this time, didn’t pull away.

He gave her long strokes, pulling right to the edge before invading back to her depths, three slow thrusts followed by two quick and sharp, Rin’s eyes rolled back in her head as she shook under the pressure from his cock, heavy as it dragged throbbing heat out of her, her mouth dropped open as she panted and wailed.

“That’s it. Come around my cock, beautiful.” Those words were the catalyst to it, her body trembling all over as she shattered for him completely, sparks blazing, her hips driving strongly as she ground against him, greedy for more friction.

He had no idea how she didn’t drag the orgasm from him as well with the force she came with, but he focused on not succumbing to it, the tingling in the pit of his groin, slowing down to both contain himself and give her a little recovery, bending to suck her nipples in turn.

Moving onto his side, he pulled her leg up over his hip, stroking her thigh as they shared steamy kisses, his heart hammering madly. God, the things she stirred in him, the way her flesh felt pressed to his, the tight hug of her molten centre around his throbbing cock as he fucked her slow and deep.

Each of his lust saturated groans vibrated her lips as she tucked her head under his chin, kissing his neck, her nails grazing his chest, lost in the tempest that was the two of them together. Their bodies collided, slow and rolling, hot and tight with erotic euphoria, a few more strong thrusts seeing Sean through to his burning finish, shooting ribbons of cum deeply into the snug clutch of her cunt.

In the aftermath, she lay against his chest, her nails circling his nipple, his hand idly stroking up and down her back, tickling her spine. enjoying the afterglow of their releases, the quiet stillness, the peace. War felt good between them, but this? It was on another level entirely.

It was what they’d both needed for years.

They shared a level of intimacy through silence like never before, stroking one another, Rin moving to rest her head on her hand while looking down at him, her thumb skimming his cheek.

“I like this, just us, no complications. I can’t trust it, though.”

Turning his head, he kissed her thumb, but didn’t break his gaze for a second. “I know, darling.” Moving his hand to the back of her head, he pulled her near, clasping her face with his other hand, kissing her softly, but with more feeling than she could ever remember experiencing. “I shan’t ever hurt you again either. I know you won’t believe me, or trust that I won’t for a while. I more than expect to have to work for that trust, but I want you to know that I mean it.”

More than anything, she wanted to believe him, too. Caution abounded, though. She couldn’t feel pain like she once had because of him. Not again. Nodding, she kissed him, resting her head back down upon his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat while the past rose up once again in her mind.

She’d not shed a single tear for him at the time, not until a few days after she’d given birth to Tiger, lying in her bedroom with her baby sleeping beside her, imagining Sean lying in the bed with them. Visualising him there, smiling just as adoringly as she was at their newborn had finally prompted her to break down completely, yet it wasn’t the arms of the man she finally had to admit she’d fallen in love with to comfort her, her beloved dad hearing her cries and coming to bundle her in a hug.

Her family had flown out there to be with her, so she wasn’t completely alone at such an important time. There had only been one person the scared, nineteen-year-old new mother had ached for, though.

“Shhhh, what’s the matter?” he asked, hearing her beginning to sob. “Come on, darling. It’s alright.”

“It wasn’t, though.”

He closed his eyes. God, if her heart had matched his back then, as he strongly expected it had. The pain he must have put her though. “Tell me. I think I need to hear it. I need to understand fully, and I want to.”

As soon as she opened her mouth, the floodgate burst forth, and for the first time in years she truly allowed herself to be vulnerable. “I loved you, that’s the only reason why against all logic I decided to keep Tiger. Because she was ours, because she was yours. She was the only beautiful thing to bloom from something that broke my bloody heart, but being out there in Africa with her, watching her grow and look more and more like you every day, it fucking killed me, Sean.”

His forehead creased, blinking hard as he held her face in his hands, kissing her forehead. “I’m so sorry. I truly am, Rin.” He wrapped her in his arms, holding her. It might have been seven years too late, but she felt comfort for finally feeling it. “I should have done what I was going to do and deleted the video, instead of trying to please my fucking father, when such a task was never short of impossible.”

A shuddered sigh left her mouth, nails stroking a circle at the side of his neck. “I wish you had, too. I suppose I should have told you...”

“I understand now, why you didn’t,” he interjected with, Rin continuing.

“You missed so much of her life, all the things she should have had her dad there for.”

He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose. “I’m here now, for the rest of it.”

In her mind, that remained to be seen. Nodding, she excused herself, going to the bathroom to wash her face as free from her smudged makeup as she could with the soap provided. Ugh. She needed her things, her skin feeling tight in the wake of it, crying out for moisture. She also had no intentions of being seen the next morning in the clothes she had worn the night before.

“Feeling better?” he asked from his place now moved beneath the luxury bedsheets, Rin nodding as she reached for her bag and pulled out her phone.

“A little. If you’ll excuse me a second. I need to call home.” She rang directly to the staff quarters, reaching Alexis, their head of house. “I need an overnight bag packing and delivering to The Dorchester, room two one seven. My black jeans, my camel cashmere sweater, a black blazer, my beige LK Bennett shoes... yes, the suede ones. A toothbrush and paste, my moisturiser and my small makeup bag in the ensuite... yes, that’s it. Oh, and some clean underwear. Thank you, Alexis.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she turned to him, puzzled. “What is that face for?”

“You women and your perpetual need for so many items,” he spoke, reaching to stroke her cheek tenderly. “And yet how I always remember you is with simplicity, in your big sweater and socks when I came to your house that time.”

That time, that time so long ago, a time that had never truly left either of them, etched into their memories. “I’m not her anymore, Sean.”

“Yes, you are.” He pulled her closer to him, resting his forehead to hers. “Only I see her, though.”

As they fell into kisses again, Rin felt herself bloom to know that while so much had changed, the part of her she thought long gone still remained visible to the man who held her against him tightly. Perhaps she hadn’t become as lost to the pain he’d caused her as she’d once thought.

#sean wallace fanfiction #sean wallace smut #sean wallace x ofc #gangs of london fanfiction #sean wallace fanfic #gangs of london #gangs of london fanfic #gangs of london fic #joe cole #sean wallace fic #london will burn #sean and rin

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sequinsmile-x · 11 months

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I'll Work for Your Love

Emily and Aaron take some time to reconnect and spend some time just two of them when life gets a little busy.

-x-

Hi friends!

This is a birthday present for my dear friend @jetaime-jespere! I love you so much, and meeting you through this fandom will always be one of the best things thats ever happened to me. You're one of my best friends and you deserve the world.

I know this next year will be your best one yet <;3

-x-

Words: 3.8k

Warnings: Smut, 18+

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

Emily groans as she sits down on the couch, her exhaustion feeling almost bone deep. Aaron chuckles from his place next to her, and he hands her the glass of wine he’d had waiting for her.

“Did Mason go down ok?”

She nods as she takes a sip of her wine, moaning at the taste of it against her tongue, a treat that she desperately needed after a long week at work.

“Yes,” she says, smiling as she thinks of their three-year-old son and how he’d insisted that she was the one who put him to bed just like he did most nights, “Although, he did scam two stories out of me.”

Aaron smiles and puts his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer, “He’s got you wrapped around his little finger.”

She scoffs and looks at him with her eyebrow raised, “Says the guy who let our eight-year-old paint his nails last week.”

He makes a show of being mock offended, well aware from his wife’s demeanour and the way she was holding herself, the tension clear in her shoulders, that she needed cheering up.

“I’ll have you know that Isabella said that ‘Cotton Candy Pink’ is my colour,” he replies, watching her intently as she smiles, her heart clearly not in it, before she takes another sip of wine, “Are you ok, sweetheart?”

She blows out a steady breath, cursing him for knowing her so well, for picking up on the mood she’d clearly not covered as well as she’d hoped.

“I’m fine,” she says, smiling tightly at him, “Just tired I think, it’s been a long week.”

It had been a long few months if she was honest. Work had been busy and she felt like she had no energy to do anything beyond her job and doing her best to be a good mom. After she had Mason, she left the BAU. It ended up being good timing more than anything, the Unit Cheif position for the Counterterrorism team became available as she was due back from her maternity leave and her experience with Interpol made her the prime candidate. It was largely office based in comparison to the BAU and it gave her more flexibility, more time with her children, and ultimately led to where she was now - a Section Chief in the FBI. At first, she’d worried that being promoted over Aaron, that becoming his boss, would make things tense, but he’d been nothing but supportive. A proud husband who never once indicated that he didn’t like working for his wife.

It worked for them. But between their jobs and raising Jack, Isabella and Mason she felt like she barely got any time with her husband. She missed him, and whilst she loved their life, their family, a part of her missed those early days when they still worked on the same team and they spent all their time together. When their relationship was still a secret and they’d sneak into each other's hotel rooms when they were away on cases, nights spent just the two of them as they’d discuss everything from the case to Jack to anything that one of them had on their mind.

She missed her husband, even though he was right next to her.

“Sweetheart-” he starts, knowing that this was one of those times when he had to push her, when she’d simply curl back in on herself without his intervention. A defence mechanism she’d never quite been able to fully let go of no matter how long they’d been together.

“I just…miss you, I guess,” she says, cutting him off because she knows he won’t stop. She shakes her head at herself, the admission sounding as ridiculous as it feels. She looks up at him when he places his hand on her thigh, his palm warm even though the material of her pants, and he frowns in confusion at her.

“I’m right here, Em.”

She sighs and places the glass of wine down on the side table next to her before she puts her hand over his on her leg, their fingers automatically linking together.

“I know,” she says, her smile shaking a little, “I know that but, when was the last time we had any time just the two of us?” She asks, the question followed by a laugh, “Or went on vacation to somewhere that wasn’t DisneyWorld?” She shrugs nonchalantly, her eyes drifting down to their joint hands “I don’t know. Jack starts high school next year and that will come with a whole new load of activities and soccer games, and we’ll have even less time,” she looks back up at him, “I love our family and our life so much, Aaron. More than I can put into words, but...I miss when we had time just for us.”

Her words hang in the air between them, and she watches as he tries to work out what he can do to make her feel better. He always wanted to fix everything, and it was one of the many reasons she loved him. Whether it was something like this, or Isabella’s bike or Jack’s gaming console, he’d do what he could to mend what was broken. She often liked to say that he’d started with her. He’d helped her put herself back together in the fallout of Paris and Ian Doyle, and he hadn’t stopped since.

“Why don’t we go somewhere, just you and me?” He asks eventually, his hand wrapped tight around hers, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the heel of her hand.

She smiles at the thought of it, “That would be lovely, honey, but we have the kids and work-”

“You know Jess wouldn’t mind watching the kids for the weekend. And as for work, my boss really likes me so I know she’ll approve my leave request,” he says, his eyes sparkling as she shakes her head lovingly at him, “Actually, it’s a little inappropriate sometimes. I’ve caught her staring at my ass more than once.”

She rolls her eyes at him but she can’t fight her laugh, loud and full of love, “You’re an idiot.”

“But I’m your idiot,” he says, reaching for her hand and linking their fingers together. “We should do it, sweetheart. We deserve it.”

She thinks about it, and dozens of reasons why it wouldn’t be practical flood her mind. The kids had soccer games and piano lessons. Mason struggled to settle if she wasn’t around, his separation anxiety worse than it had ever been. Work was busier than ever and it wasn’t slowing down any time soon. Despite all of that, despite everything she’d have to organise, she finds that for once she doesn’t care.

She wants this. She wants to spend time just with him. To be Emily and Aaron for a few days instead of Hotch and Prentiss or Mom and Dad.

“Ok,” she says, nodding, her smile widening to match his, “Let's do it.”

___

She almost changes her mind one month later as they leave for their long weekend away, when Mason has to be taken from her arms by Jessica, the little boy’s grip tight on his mother’s blouse when it became clear he wasn’t going where his parents were. The all too familiar mom guilt burning inside her chest as she can still hear him crying through the solid wood of Jessica’s front door. When she turns to look at Aaron, any thought about getting the kids and going home goes away.

He’s standing a few feet from her, as casually dressed as he ever was in jeans and a black polo shirt that never failed to make her stomach flip, and she’s reminded of why they were doing this in the first place.

“We should go if we want to avoid traffic,” he says, reaching for her hand and squeezing it, his soft smile letting her know he knows what she’d been thinking.

“Yeah, let's go,” she replies, letting him lead her back to the car, “If you’re driving, I’m on DJ duties.”

Aaron chuckles and pulls her in for a kiss before they separate to get into the car, “As long as you play at least some of the music I like I’m sure I can accept that.”

After bickering over The Beatles and Siouxsie and the Banshees, they settle on Bruce Springsteen, both of them singing along as they hold hands over the car’s centre console. ___

Years ago, when they were booking their honeymoon, they decided that she would always be the one to book hotels. It made sense for a lot of reasons, not limited just to the fact she’d travelled more than he had, but it was mostly so she could book somewhere without Aaron asking how much it cost. There were few things that Emily would actually label herself a snob over, but hotels were one of them. During her time at the BAU, they’d stayed in some questionable places, so during her time off she always wanted to ensure they were somewhere nice. And she had the money, they had the money since Aaron had full access to all of it, even if he rarely used it. She wanted to spoil him, to make sure they could fully relax, and this weekend was no different.

They’d settled on Virginia Beach for their weekend away. It was close enough to home that they could go if they needed to for an emergency, but far enough away that it actually felt like a break from everything. The hotel was beautiful, and the suite Emily had booked was amazing. It had a huge private balcony and a sea view, and they’d slept with the door to the balcony slightly open so they could fall asleep to the sea breeze.

The weekend goes far too quickly for Emily’s liking. The time melting away as she spends desperately needed alone time with her husband. Good food, great conversation and incredible sex easing the tightness in her chest that she hadn’t realised had been building for weeks. She can see a difference in him too, a lightness that she hadn’t expected, and she wants to talk to him about doing this more often, about making sure that they prioritise them when they can.

On their last night before they head home, they go to a nice restaurant down the street from their hotel. Emily decides not to have any sides, claiming she’s just content with the meal she’s ordered, and Aaron orders extra because he knows from experience that she’ll always help herself to his. A smile on her face as she claimed that fries tasted better from his plate.

They walk slowly back to their hotel hand in hand. She has her other hand wrapped around his arm, wanting him as close as possible for as long as she could, well aware that by this time tomorrow, they’d be back home. Whilst he’d still be there next to her they’d have everything from their beautiful ordinary life to take into consideration too, their time alone limited to when the kids had gone to bed and stolen moments around everything they had to do.

“We should do this more often,” he says out of nowhere, breaking the silence they’d fallen into. It makes her stop, and she turns to look at him, smiling as he puts his arm around her and pulls her close.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” she replies, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips, “It would be nice.”

“I mean it, Em,” he says, not missing the wistful look on her face, how she was acting like it was nothing short of a pipe dream. He tucks some of her hair behind her ear, smiling as he sees a flash of grey hair at her temple, a sure sign that she’d dye it again soon even though he’d told her a long time ago he didn’t care if she let it grow out. He knew she was considering it, that she spoke of going to the salon every six weeks with nothing short of disdain, but that she’d have to come to the decision herself, “We should.”

She chuckles, “Aaron, we both know it’s not that simple.”

“It could be if we wanted it to be, sweetheart,” he says, his hand on her lower back, “It could be exactly that simple. I’m retiring next year and that will open up more time. If we wanted to we could.”

She bites her lower lip, trying and failing to contain her smile, and she nods. She knows once they are home and the vacation high wears off, practically will mean that it won’t be that easy. But right now, standing in the fading sunlight with the man she loves, she lets practicality fall away.

“Ok,” she replies, kissing him before she pulls away and reaches for his hand, re-starting their journey to the hotel, “We’ll do this more often.”

When they get back to their hotel room she watches him as he double-checks the lock on the door, a side effect of when he’d walked into his apartment a lifetime ago to find Foyet waiting for him. They exchange a small smile when he turns to look at her, and she places her purse on the table near the door. Aaron walks over and kisses her, crowding her against the wall as he presses his hands into her lower back, pulling her impossibly closer as she kisses him with just as much ferocity, her fingers tight in his short hair.

He pulls back, ending the kiss as quickly as he’d started it, and he grabs her hand, linking their fingers together as he walks her towards the bedroom of their suite. Somewhere in the short walk the tempo changes, his gaze soft and loving as he turns to look at her, although there is no less fire in his eyes.

They undress each other, clothes slipping to the ground and left in piles on the carpet. She lays back on the bed, watching him intently as he crawls up over her, his gaze as intense as she’d ever known it.

She shivers as he runs his hand down her side, his fingers catching on her scars and faded stretch marks that she’d escaped when she had Isabella but had not been able to when she had Mason. Her skin was looser than it used to be, her hips wider from two pregnancies, and at first it had made her more insecure, but these days, so many years later, she never even thought about it.

Aaron was different too. He was softer, a little thicker than he once was, and she loves it. Loves that it makes his hugs even more all-encompassing, that he makes her and their children feel safe with nothing other than his embrace and soft reassurances.

She lies there as he maps out her familiar hills and valleys, her breath catching in her throat when he presses his lips to the brand mark on her chest before he leaves a trail of kisses down her chest to the blooming scar under her ribs. It was different now than when they’d first got together, the scar itself faded, silver and pale against her skin, but it had warped when she had Isabella and then Mason, the scar tissue stretched out in a way it had never quite recovered from. There were still moments, even now, when she wishes she’d given into her baser desires long before they got together. That he’d known her body before what it had endured at Ian’s hands, but she also knows if she’d slept with him then, if she’d fucked him in his office as she had so often imagined, it would likely have never turned into anything more than sex. And she wouldn’t have the life she now had, something that seemed impossible to even think about.

Aaron groans as he presses a kiss just above her pubic bone, the sound muffled by her skin as his fingers drift between her thighs, moving through her slickness as she moans again.

“Always so ready for me, sweetheart,” he says, shifting so he’s laying between her legs, his hands on her inner thighs as he pushes them apart. He presses his lips to a bruise he’d left on her skin on their first night here, and he smiles when she jumps, her thighs tensing around his head in anticipation, and he does it again, “So needy.”

“I swear to God, Aaron if you ever want me to-”

Her threat is cut off as he licks through her, the words dying in her throat as she whines instead, her hands in tight fists in the soft sheets they were laying on so she can hold onto something. She looks down at him, and her arousal only deepens when their eyes meet, his gaze intense as he watches what he’s doing to her without stopping. It was like he had an instruction book for her body and it always had been. The first time they’d done this explosive in a way she’d always known it would be. She thought she would miss those days, when they were desperate for each other, fucking at every and any opportunity, but she doesn’t. She much prefers this, the gentle intimacy of it, of being with the person she had been with for a decade now, with the man she loves.

He builds her up slowly, using his tongue and fingers to bring her to the edge, every touch purposeful.

“Fuck,” she says, the word catching in her chest, her breath stuttering around it, “I’m going to-”

“Come for me, sweetheart,” he says, his voice thick with his own arousal, the way he was always blown away by the fact he could do this to her. She does as she’s told and she lets go, her elbows giving out from under here where she’d been leaning on them, her head falling back to the pillow beneath her.

“Holy shit,” she breathes out as her vision clears, every nerve ending tingling as Aaron climbs back up her, stamping kisses on her skin as he goes, making her laugh as he nips at her rib cage. She catches his head in her hands and pulls him upwards, “Come here.”

He smiles as she kisses him, groaning as she tastes herself on his tongue, her legs falling even wider apart around him, letting him settle in the cradle of her hips. He pulls back and places one of his hands next to her head, picking up one of hers on the way and linking their fingers together, as the other grasps one of her thighs, hiking her leg over his hip. He notches over her, sliding back and forth for a moment in a way that makes them both shiver, her breath catching in her throat as he moves over her clit. She pulls him in for a kiss as he pushes forward, moaning into it at the familiar stretch of him as he enters her slowly, making her feel every inch of him.

It’s gentle. Slow and loving as they kiss, their hands exploring well-known skin as Aaron sets the rhythm they’d long since established. He hikes her leg up high around his hip, and it makes her gasp, breaking the kiss as she clenches around him, his groan lost against her collarbone as he presses his face into her skin. He never could get used to it, the way she felt around him was still as incredible as it had always been. There were moments even now when he couldn’t believe that she was his, that she was the mother of his children. That out of everyone she could have fallen in love with, she’d fallen for him.

He feels himself starting to lose control, so he builds her up again, the hand that had been in hers shifting to be in between them, his thumb gentle against her clit as he gives her the push he knows she needs to go over the edge. He follows quickly after, his hips stuttering against hers as he comes, his moan of her name lost as he bites down on her chest, well aware he was leaving a mark she’d wear for days to come.

He tries to roll off of her but she stops him, her arms tight around his shoulders and one of her legs over his hip. She pulls him in for a kiss, their noses pressing into each other's cheeks as they enjoy each other.

He moves first, always wary that he could crush her, and he helps her up, smirking proudly as her legs wobble as she stands. She rolls her eyes at him but lets him guide her towards the bathroom anyway, well aware that she was still shaky. They shower together, gently cleaning each other before they climb out and dry off. She stops him from pulling on his pjyamas, and he raises an eyebrow at her, his amusement clear.

“We literally just showered.”

She scoffs at him and walks past him to the bed to climb into her side, “I know that you asshole,” she says, her tone letting him know she was joking, “But we never get to sleep naked anymore. I want to take the chance when we have it.”

He smiles and nods, walking over to the bed to join her. Mason snuck into their room most nights, just as Isabella had done when she was his age but still did occasionally, and it meant they always had to pull clothes back on after sex. The simple pleasure of being pressed up against each other like that was something they had gladly lost, both of them well aware that they’d miss their children seeking them out like they did when they got older.

Aaron climbs into bed with her and wraps his arm tightly around her, his bare chest against her back. They both sigh, contently and she reaches for his hand, linking their fingers together before she lifts their joint hands to her lips to kiss his knuckles.

“Maybe next time we should go to Atlantic City,” she says idly, the thought of having this time alone with him more often more appealing than ever.

“Yeah?” He asks, pressing a kiss to her damp hair, the smell of her shampoo as strong as it ever was.

“Yeah,” she replies, tilting her head back to capture his lips in a kiss, “I could show you what I used to get up to on my sin to win weekends.”

He furrows his brow and pulls back from her, his confusion making her laugh, “Your what?”

-x-

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zorasthoughts · 5 months

Text

some thoughts for the holly jackson fandom

so, some people have been wondering about when the agggtm show might be coming out and i've been thinking *deeply* about it. also, the universe is laughing at me, because i had an urge to check ig last night, and holly had posted a reel joking about everyone wanting to know when the trailer is coming out, which makes me think that she knows that everyone is (im)patiently waiting, but it might be still be a hot minute before we get anything. anyway, these are my thoughts. this is all speculation, with a little bit of logic, so don't take this as gospel

on the show's release

first things first: a couple of weeks ago, holly reposted a reel from one of the bbc accounts on her ig story where we got our first look at pip (she's in a dark room with lots of pink and blue led lights, i think this could be from the calamity party). this reel was a montage of clips, that you also see on tv that the bbc show during the holiday period to advertise shows coming out in the new year. from memory, these are usually for shows that are coming out in the first half of the year, so the show might come out in the spring, like april

why april? well, if you've read the book then you might remember that it all starts in april (the andie & sal case happens in april 2012), so if the show came out then, it would be a neat tie-in to the book

another reason why i think it could be april is because of another tv show: heartstopper

obviously, there are differences, hs is a netflix show, so is available to watch all over the world, agggtm is made by bbc so is only going to be available to watch in the uk (and i think also the us). it may become available to stream elsewhere later on, but that's another story

anyway, hs and agggtm are both ya book-to-tv show adaptations set in britain. hs had eight episodes per season with episodes being roughly 30 minutes each. agggtm is going to have six episodes, roughly 45 minutes each. so hs totals around 4 hours of content, agggtm will have 4 and a half hours of content in total. pretty similar

i did some further research (a lot of scrolling through instagram) to try and calculate when we might get some content. the hs ig account posted some stills on 1 march, just giving a first look at the main characters

on 16 march, they released some more stills, with some of the other characters, and also released the teaser trailer later that day

the full trailer came out 13 april, and the show came out april 22

sooooo, this is all speculation, and bbc will probably have different ideas from netflix to promote their show, but if the dates are similar and agggtm were to come out in late april like heartstopper (again, this would put it around the dates of the andie & sal case from the book), but i reckon we could maybe expect content to start dropping in march. we will see.

a final thought, which i'd forgotten earlier: if the show is successful, which i think it will be, then it would probably get renewed for a second season, then they'd want to film over the summer (the majority of events in ggbb happen in april/may, after the andie & sal memorial, which happens around the six-year anniversary of their deaths, which happened in, oh yeah, april)

some other thoughts:

holly posted on her ig grid a few days ago, mentioning stuff that will be happening this year, and i have a couple of ideas about that

her new book, the reappearance of rachel price is coming out on 2 april (this made me wonder if the show would come out later so that one isn't overshadowing the other, but the people deciding when a book is published and when a tv show comes out are going to be two different groups of people, and if i'm right with my guess, then start of the month and end of the month releases gives trorp enough time to get the hype it deserves)

book tour for trorp/holly doing appearances at book festivals this year. holly and her books are popular, and this popularity is probably going to increase after the show comes out, so i could see this being pretty likely

lastly, and there is no real evidence to suggest this, but it could happen: film adaptation of five survive. i'm not the first to say this, but it would be a great thriller, and as people have joked, would be pretty low-budget given that most of the action happens in an rv with just six people. if we do get this though, it would be probably be much later in the year

#holly jackson #a good girls guide to murder #agggtm #a good girls to murder tv show #agggtm tv show #the reappearance of rachel price #trorp #five survive

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