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cauldronofmorning · 3 years

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I just needed to get one more Piercintyre meta out. “How Season Three Broke Up Hawkeye and Trapper before Welcome To Korea Happened” under the cut:

Disclaimer that while I don’t know if the MASH writers knew that Wayne Rogers was officially leaving at the end of the season, this is based off the assumption that they knew where the wind was blowing. If not intentional, there’s enough connecting evidence here anyway.

In the first season, it takes them until Bananas Crackers and Nuts to have their first ten second fight, over being in surgery for too long to fill up the still. Even just a short spat upsets them because Hawkeye is the reigning champion of co-dependence (Trapper would like to pretend he’s not) and that leads to eventually exaggerating a mental health episode. They sit in each other’s laps, banter like a couple and Hawkeye makes even bigger heart eyes when Trapper can’t see him.

It starts going a little wrong at Mail Call. They’ve argued before, talked past each other and Trapper’s been worried about Hawkeye’s sanity, but after male wife adorableness where Hawkeye loves Trapper talking about his kids, Trapper starts family spiralling that BJ perfected to an art form and steadily gets more drunk/depressed about not getting to see them grow up. Hawkeye eventually finds him manically packing a bag to go AWOL (naturally he’s jokey-scared that he did something wrong because the man is already a mess) and internally falls apart when he realizes Trapper is serious. It ends up okay because laughing at Frank is a good distraction, but they don’t talk about it outside of ribbing over a hangover, and Hawkeye nervously locks the bag away.

A lot of good and a lot of foreshadowing happens in Check Up. For the good, they love each other so much. Hawkeye is delighted to make Trapper laugh at the end when he’s taking care of him like he did in Carry On Hawkeye, they do manage to talk at least a little; Hawkeye being brave and proving “I’m the only one who can handle him” in BCN as having a lot of truth to it, and Trapper wanting to stay because of Hawkeye.

But that last part is also Trapper’s problem, and what hurts Hawkeye later on (and in turn BJ). He can’t say in earshot that he wants to stay “with… with…” [joke about the camp to diffuse the tension], he can’t dance for real with Hawkeye only when it’s for a joke, he can’t actually be scared and worried for Hawk’s mental state to his face in Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, and twice in Dear Dad and Aid Station, he reassures Hawkeye that there’s nothing to worry about and only lets the mask fall when Hawkeye is gone. Neither we or Hawkeye see the seventy two hours where Trapper and Radar try and contact him, so with all that, you can’t blame Hawkeye for having a (not the whole story) pattern of proof for thinking he wasn’t worth it.

Two episodes on, and after the homoerotic fever dream image of them riding a pony together, is Alcoholics Unanimous. Alcohol has already been the cause of some of their fights, the aforementioned Bananas, Crackers and Nuts, and the end of Iron Guts Kelly; where Hawkeye calls out Trapper for ignoring reality through booze, Trapper replies reality is up for grabs, and they both get distracted by nurses, which is really their problem summed up, but they end up going for the throat in more ways than one when alcohol gets taken away.

The first half of the episode is them being cute and co-dependent, well, alcoholics, but after the adorable boozing with Margaret and being left to their hungover, they start to feel claustrophobic with each other. It’s Hawkeye who starts being cruel first, as he often does when he’s trapped in a corner and wants to lash out (see the finale). He goads Trapper into a fight, casting himself as the girl again (borrowing Trap’s razor to shave his armpits) and digging in that Trapper is macho and boring for reading hunting and repair magazines.

Trapper eventually gets sick of him, and gives the attention Hawkeye’s been brattily aiming for. His problem is that Hawkeye’s never at a loss for words, something that Trapper has and will struggle with, and always the shot, always the needle. And after more needling, he loses his temper and gets shouty. When they’re about to throw breakable shit at each other (Hawkeye grabs Trapper’s ukelele that he’s been using to chill himself out this season) he’s the one that can stop and introspect a little that they might actually be alcoholics, while Hawkeye makes a crack about renting himself out to a firing squad if he thought that were true. Trapper either struggling or conflicted, while Hawkeye’s in denial or fine when he gets reassurance he needs, comes up a few times throughout the season.

They’re still fighting when it comes to Mulcahy’s sermon, to the joy of Margaret and Frank until it ends up with Frank getting hurt (and if you ever wanted to know who wins in a Trapper vs Hawkeye fight, it’s easily Trapper, though Hawkeye can flail his legs in interesting directions) and needing booze. Like Mail Call, Frank is a distraction both of them can use to not talk about what’s bothering them.

Next up is Adam’s Ribs. While they don’t fight in this one, it’s a much lighter version of Dr Pierce and Dr Hyde, with Hawkeye running around having a manic episode and both Trapper and Henry looking concerned in the background. They’re worried he’s losing it and they’re right; when they leave (Henry dying, Trapper having to go while Hawkeye is on R&R), a piece of Hawkeye is gone no matter how much he and BJ lean and love each other. “Trapper went home; they're still coming. Henry got killed and they're still coming. Wherever they come from... they'll never run out.”

But it’s not even just about the ribs. Hawkeye barely hides anything in this episode; the “I love her”/”it’s a him”/”I love him” without missing a beat, that he’s always been a hedonistic mess when Trapper is faintly disgusted with him, that he thinks letting a stewardess force him is an acceptable thing to just casually shrug about and definitely not being subtle about his interest in “Big John”. Like he often does when Hawkeye gets too serious, either in general or about their relationship, Trapper looks concerned when Hawkeye leaves.

Mad Dogs and Servicemen goes into mental illness again, and there’s a big contrast between Hawkeye; who while still having to administer the tough love approach that the not there Sidney advises, does that thing where you try and empathize but end up foreshadowing… I mean making it about your issues and not helping by talking about how many breakdowns he has a day, and Trapper. Trapper is both seconds away from killing Frank when he dismisses mental illness and only Hawkeye manages to calm him down, and also manages to get the soldier to open up about his trauma by letting him talk about Boston and sports. The macho less good with words-just being the rock thing that Hawkeye needles him about actually helps this time.

Trapper struggling comes up again in Bulletin Board. He knows how Henry is feeling when he talks about there’s no point distracting yourself if the war will kick you in the teeth later. He also writes a letter to his seven year old daughter (Becky), telling her a kid-friendly version of saving kids with frostbite. She’s complained that he never tells them what he gets up to and of course he can’t because how can you put your at home children through that? But it also proves he doesn’t just hide from Hawkeye, as unlike most who wrote letters to their family, he chooses the most secluded times possible, and he tells her all he can do is make the best of things before turning the record off and looking haunted.

Like Dear Dad in the first season, Aid Station has Hawkeye having to go to the front again. Klinger and Radar giggle over his dresses, Margaret doms Frank and tells him she’ll kill him if he goes out with other nurses, and it immediately goes to Hawkeye telling Trapper he should go out with other doctors. It eventually gets serious in the only way they know how: Hawkeye looking afraid of the reaction he might get, bringing up his will, and when the mood is down, making a joke about his sluttiness. When he has to go, Trapper again does his job of reassuring (like he will Radar and Henry later on) and then his face falls in worry. On the other end, by the episode’s finish, Hawkeye has a connection with Margaret that Frank and Trapper assume could only be sexual, so they get closer while both pairings drift off.

The last time they fight is Pay Day. Hawkeye is trying to have a date while also trying to not get arrested for supposedly stealing money, while Trapper is as usual losing badly on a game. Hawkeye can’t give him fifty dollars, even an appeal to their friendship doesn’t work, and so Trapper steals his watch for stakes. When Hawkeye finds out, they have a short but explosive yelling session, and in a rarity for them, they do kind of talk about it, ending the episode on Hawkeye proving to Trapper he’s bad at card games.

Then it’s Abysinnia Henry, the last time we see Trapper and Henry. Henry’s plane gets shot down before he manages to make it home, and Hawkeye and Trapper try desperately to contact each other while Hawkeye is on a bender of an r&r and before Trapper’s plane leaves Korea. Trapper can’t find the words for a note, leaves Hawkeye with a kiss, and Hawkeye never gets closure. A season of drifting and it ends like that.

#hawkeye pierce #trapper john mcintyre #piercintyre #mash

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trashcatsnark · 3 years

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Oh, let me continue the subject of the jealousy of these two. You're saying that Johnny isn't the type to hold back when it comes to emotions. And it really is. But... there is a moment in the game when V talks about his exes or about stupid compliments in a conversation with River. And Johnny doesn't say anything. I would write it off as a scenario move, so as not to shift the focus from the River. But this isn't the only time Johnny ignores events in this quest line. See the second question

Part 2 for context: So... I continue. Do you remember the moment when you watched brain damage and lost consciousness, when you and River were searching for clues about the mayor's murder? Johnny never ignored the moments when V passed out. Here River comes to the rescue, and you would think that he knows that there is someone to help and nothing to worry about ...But in similar situations with Judy and Panam, he would appear and deliver his moralizing remarks or make snide comments. 🤔

Personally, I do believe this is sort of a meta issue. I’ve talked about it a little bit before in a general post; how given his characterization, Johnny does not in my opinion talk as much as he should. In a more comedic example, I mentioned how could anyone honestly look me in the eye and say that Johnny wouldn’t have a comment on the guy with the exploding penis implant???? Like Johnny is majorly characterized as a guy who can’t leave well enough alone and always has something to say; yet theres a fairly large percentage of gigs and missions and moments where you’d think Johnny would have something to say and he doesn’t. There’s also times where lines are blatantly reused and in a jarring way.

Like, I could be wrong, but I think they reuse him saying “There it is” with both V getting Nibbles and a man committing suicide in a gig. Like?????

Meta wise, I do think it’s partially a fear of over incorporating Johnny to the point players found him annoying. Because even now, some people find him irritating and wish he’d talk less. So, that could be a factor. The idea of not sidelining love interests is a factor of course. While, he has commentary through out each love interests questlines. He always does mostly bugger off during the romantic lead up and the actual kiss then sex. Because well, it might be a bit of a buzzkill and if you’re trying to get laid and Methed Out Future Keanu Reeves is yelling at you from the corner of the room. I mean, it’d probably enhance my experience but some people aren’t into that.

As for why stuff like, him ignoring V getting zapped by the braindance in River’s quest. I’ve always thought that was ooc. Like, short of potentially the bd having fried him up for a bit, kinda like the emp blast does when V and Panam take down the AV. But overall, over and over again, Johnny is shown to be the first one there when V gets hurt. Even if its to yell at them for going into the toxic water or he waits a beat to appear once Panam is done looking over V.

And that could be because they potentially again wanted to give more attention to River or... and I always hate to get into this sort of discourse, cause I know it aggravates some people. It was an oversight, something not caught, something not thought of, just because to be fair...River has the least polished questline of the love interests. The male love interests in general imo were sidelined more. But, River A) has the least amount of quests to build up to his romance, B) is the most easily missable love interest since he’s not even required to meet for the secret ending the way Kerry is. and C) this could just be my own personal experience, maybe cyberpunk 2077 provides unique bugs for everyone, but his quests are the buggiest for me.

And to be perfectly clear, this is not me being a dick to River. Do, I think some aspects of his character are kinda tone deaf, sure, but I like River. I think he’s a sweetheart, who’s usually pretty stiff, but has his cuter jokey moments and is a puppy dog underneath. I love doing his quests because they’re truly very emotional, being able to help his family. Like, being able to save Randy is one of the best feelings in the game to me, knowing you saved him and so many other young boys. That’s why it honestly breaks my heart to see how little polish and attention his quests were given. From the calls glitching, him not staying on comms in the first quest, Johnny in my game doesn’t even give the dialogue warning my V about River wanting to sleep with her, like it just does not show up for me, The cobbled together family photo. The weird pacing of the romance that goes from 0 to a 100. Randy’s face glitches and clips through the mask when you’re saving him. Like the concept, the investigation, the intense stakes, and the emotional impact of his quest are all so good; but CDPR just did not in my opinion take enough time with it.

So, maybe they didn’t bother to script and put Johnny in that scene despite it being something he’d most definitely pop in for; cause they just didn’t take their time with it like they could have/should have.

And in regard to Johnny in universe and talking; while like I said he’s more upfront and direct with his anger and side comments that he uses to hide his real feelings. I do think, especially if its post oils field convo, a part of him tries desperately to bite his tongue and just sit with his feelings if he think its best for V. In the more love dovey romance moment with River, I could see him being like, “okay, V wants this, as much as it pisses me off, V deserves to have some good in their life” and tries to hold back and be good and then five seconds later “CANT BELIEVE YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME FUCK A COP” cause he can only behave for so long.

And I do wanna note; I am by no means consider myself a Johnny Silverhand expert. I’ve said this before, his characterization and just him as a person can be very messy, very all over the place, and contradictory at times. He can try to kill V and then the next day pop up to chat with them in a diner and be like “why aren’t you happy to see me?????? you still mad?????? its been a whole ass 5 hrs since I told you to kill yourself and bashed your head into a window, gotta learn to let shit go dude.” So, sometimes I worry I’m making him ooc, but its fun nontheless, so.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #johnny silverhand #silverv #kinda???? i spent a lot of time complaining about how they did river's quest dirty so #not tagging him though cause uhhhhhhh me no wanty discourse #idk if i said anything discoursable but just in case #orly-view

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morfinwen · 3 years

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1 for Angela, 2 for Christopher, 3 for Reagan, 4 for Neal, 5 for Lanzo, 6 for Ash, 9 for Connie, 10 for Aidan, 11 for Q, 14 for Nate, 15 for Amanda, 19 for Niner, 20 for Elise, 23 for Julie, 25 for Jerome, 28 for Kayla, 29 for Hannah, 31 for Knife, 33 for Elarin, 37 for Meaghan, 38 for Leah, 40 for Avery, 47 for Ian, and 50 for Lauren, please!

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1. What is Angela's reaction to a minor inconvenience? Such as getting her sweater caught on a door handle?

If it’s minor enough, she’ll barely react at all. If it’s slightly more disruptive, she’ll still only react insofar as is necessary to handle it -- that is, clean up a spill, change her shirt, restack the fallen papers, etc.

Internally, Angie is rarely as calm as she acts. She puts thought into everything she does and always has an idea of where she’s going and what she’ll do next, so even a small inconvenience can throw her plans into disarray. But she learned from a very young age to control her emotional reactions: outbursts made kind people uncomfortable and gave unkind people knowledge of how to hurt her. So she keeps a very close eye on her emotional state at all times and has a list of tried-and-true methods to calm herself down: breathing exercises, a song to hum to soothe herself, little reminders to herself, an imaginary ‘happy place’ she pictures, etc.

Not that a minor inconvenience usually requires an extensive amount of calming down, of course. But enough little things can add up.

2. For Christopher, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or other?

In the morning, coffee. Usually straight black, or with an ungodly amount of sugar. He always regrets adding the sugar, but sometimes he needs the rush.

In the evenings, tea. Green if it’s close to bedtime, but he always gets a wide variety and is regularly trying out different versions. He has preferences, but he doesn’t feel strongly enough about it to get boxes of specific types. He’ll usually add cream and honey to tea, unless it clashes with the tea’s flavor.

On winter nights, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and whipped cream on special occasions.

3. What does Reagan's safe space look like?

Her safe space is her bedroom, which is small but not cramped, somewhat messy but in a sort of organized fashion -- there might be a few dirty clothes on the floor and a mostly stable stack of clean ones on top of the dresser, but you can see the floor and aren’t likely to trip over anything. Apart from the bed and dresser, there’s a nightstand by the bed, with a lamp and a stack of graphic novels on it from the last time she couldn’t fall asleep for half the night, and an armchair in the corner with her guitar next to it. There’s a couple windows with curtains -- light, gauzy ones to let in the light, with thicker, darker ones she can pull closed to keep out city lights at night if she feels the need.

Usually after work Reagan watches TV or uses the computer in her living area, but if she’s spent too much time around people lately, she’ll go back to her bedroom and play guitar, or lay on the bed and listen to an audiobook, or read one of her graphic novels while she listens to music through headphones.

4. What does Neal consider to be an unforgivable action? Why?

Neal has a hard time with violence or cruelty towards children. If you do anything to hurt a child, or even just yell at them, he’s not going to be comfortable in your presence for a long time, even if you sincerely apologize.

5. Does Lanzo have any nicknames or pet names or other aliases?

Nicknames: Not at present. Honestly he’s not really a nickname kind of guy, though sometimes his names have been long or odd enough that he just accepted people would use a nickname because it’s easier.

Pet names: His third wife Évelyne called him “mon chéri”. His first two wives weren’t close enough to him to have pet names for him, at least not ones he cared for, and his fourth wife wasn’t a pet names kind of woman. Amanda probably isn’t, either.

Aliases: Lanzo has so many aliases. He’s got a notebook where he’s got them all written down -- vampires have excellent memories, but after a couple hundred years, it can be a bit tricky to hunt down the exact memory you want without some kind of nudge. Most of them are variations on family names, but a couple (like Lanzo, for example) are just ones he liked the sound of.

He’s used a few of them more than once. The only one he’ll never use again is Alexander.

6. What kind of books comfort Ash? What books help him heal after a hard day?

Ash has to be in the right mood for poetry. A bad mood is usually the right mood, at least with the right kind of poem (nature ones, mostly). There’s an old, thick hardcover he keeps in his bedside table that’s got a lot of poems he really likes the cadence of, and he’ll often read them aloud to himself before going to bed, almost like meditation.

9. What is Connie's trigger point? What makes him angry, sad, or makes him go off?

Angry: Bad science practices. Violence against others, especially women and children.

Sad: Poor familial relationships. Ostracization from one’s community.

10. What kind of jokes make Aidan laugh?

Aidan’s sense of humor is not sophisticated -- he’ll laugh at just about anything: slapstick, puns, black humor, dirty jokes, etc. Nothing hurtful, though.

11. Does Q enjoy pranks or hate them? Is he likely to fall for a prank?

Q does not like pranks, but he’s learned to tolerate them -- one of the costs of being close with his cousin. He can fall for the more subtle pranks, or ones that rely on knowledge outside of his wheelhouse, but he’s certainly not an easy mark.

He has found enjoyment occasionally in pranking other people. He’s got a latent mean streak that comes out if someone angers him badly enough or over a long enough period, or if he’s been forced to spend too much time with his aunt and uncle recently. So his pranks have usually been a form of revenge, less fun and jokey and more humiliating or painful (though not debilitating or permanent).

14. Is Nate a simple person to please or difficult?

Deceptively difficult. He doesn’t have a lot of interest in expensive or complicated things, but though he may be satisfied with cheaper and simpler, he still has high, exacting standards for those things.

For example, Nate will be much happier if you order a pizza for dinner than if you offer to take him to a five-star “experimental” restaurant, but he has very particular ideas about what is and is not acceptable on a pizza, and a detailed hierarchy of delivery pizza joints. It might almost be easier to go with the fancier options -- at least in that case, his expectations will be lower.

15. What is the first thing people notice about Amanda?

Her green eyes. She’s always been proud of them, since she’s the only one in her immediate family who ahs them, and likes to wear makeup that highlights them or makes them stand out.

19. What does Niner consider to be her lowest point?

As noted here, Niner and Marrow, another werecat, split off from the group they were with when they started a romantic relationship. They were together for about two years, during which time Marrow became increasingly controlling and abusive. After Niner finally reached her breaking point and got out, she spent several weeks effectively on the run, avoiding other people and civilization in general out of pure fear. She’s never been that desperate or scared in her life, and she never wants to feel that way again.

20. Does Elise have a comfort item?

Not anymore, though as a child she had a tiger plushie that she never went to bed without. Bandit the Tiger is still in her house in a box somewhere -- she set him aside after college, hoping to give him to one of her children someday.

23. What is Julie's favorite food and who cooks it best?

Chicken alfredo. Kayla cooks it the best.

Kayla cooks most things the best, especially in the Allwinter household.

25. What are some things Jerome finds difficult to do? Or say?

Jerome doesn’t find it difficult to trust, per se, but it takes him a while to do it, especially with regards to his family’s -- particularly Hannah’s -- safety. Similarly it can take him a long time to warm up to people he thinks he shouldn’t trust or like, even if they don’t do anything that even hints they shouldn’t be trusted.

28. If Kayla was in today's world, what social media platforms would she avoid? Or be prominent on?

She wouldn’t have much of a presence on any social media platform, really. She’d have a Facebook (or something similar), mostly to keep in touch with friends and family, share photos, and to be a part of groups for moms and local organizations and the like. She’d almost never update her status, though.

29. Is Hannah an organized person? Or more laissez-faire?

Hannah isn’t the neatest person, but she does like organization, after a fashion. She color-codes her schoolwork, practices her music in a particular order, eats her meals one food item at a time, etc.

31. Knife has been invited to a masquerade ball. What mask does she wear?

A fox mask, like this one.

33. How does Elarin act around people she doesn't know? Is she shy around strangers or dismissive of them?

Elarin is very, very careful how much of herself she lets show around people she’s unfamiliar with. That includes how much she’s guarding herself. Unless they’re unusually observant, they probably won’t even notice her treating her friends differently.

She’s not naturally a suspicious person, but she was never the most trusting, either, and she’s learned to be much more guarded. Several years post-war, she loosens up. A little.

37. Meaghan has been kidnapped. Who has kidnapped her and how does she escape?

If Meaghan has been kidnapped, it’s almost a guarantee that she’s allowed it to happen somehow. Either she hopes to talk to the person kidnapping her, or it’s part of a bigger plan.

Jedi have a lot of enemies, particularly in her era, though the list of ones that would kidnap her rather than try to kill her is probably considerably shorter.

She could certainly escape on her own if she wanted to, or she might wait for her friends and allies to come for her, depending on the situation.

38. How does Leah unwind after a long day?

A hot meal, around the campfire at one of ‘her’ settlements or at her house in Diamond City with Mac and their boys, followed by a long, hot bath. Then she’ll sit up for a couple hours listening to the radio, or sharing entertaining stories with friends.

After that, it doesn’t matter if she goes straight to bed or has to stay up and keep watch for a few hours. So long as she doesn’t have to get up and shoot something, she unwinds almost as much from watching the stars as she does from a good night’s sleep.

40. Avery's friend has just been mugged. What's her reaction?

It depends on the friend. Someone tries to mug most of her friends, there’s probably not much left for her to do except laugh at the idiot -- assuming they’re even still alive, of course.

If for some reason her friend couldn’t handle the mugger themselves, then Avery will take it upon herself to hunt the mugger down. Considering that this means the mugger targeted someone who couldn’t properly defend themselves, if Avery tracks them down, the consequences will be worse than if the friend had dealt with them on their own. The consequences of hurting one of Avery’s friends are very, very serious.

47. What is Ian's reaction when someone does something nice for him?

Big grin, attempt to hug the person (unless it’s very clear they won’t appreciate it), “Aw, thanks!”

If it’s a big enough gesture, you can actually make him speechless. It’s happened once or twice.

50. How does Lauren sleep at night? Is she a heavy or light sleeper? Does she dream or have nightmares? Does she find it easy to sleep or is she more a night owl?

Lauren rarely has trouble falling or staying asleep. She’s a fairly heavy sleeper, but sufficiently loud thunder or other disruptive noise can wake her. She dreams occasionally, more often when she’s stressed or sick, and has had a couple nightmares in her life, again when she was really stressed or sick. She’s not a night owl, but she’s not a morning person, either.

Thanks for asking!

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gavillain · 3 years

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Thoughts on the Loki tv show then?

Short version: I'm liking it! I fully expected to hate the show given that I hated almost everything they did with Loki in the MCU after Dark World. However, they're doing a pretty good job. I think overall, it's a mixed bag for me, but a mixed bag is so much better than I was expecting that I'm very happy with it. Episode 3 really was a big step up after the first two eps and I hope future episodes continue.

Now if you want the long version, I've been writing up my thoughts after each episode to share on a private forum, so I'll copy and paste under the cut. Also spoilers galore past this point:

Ep.1 "Glorious Purpose" Loki himself is the big important thing so I'm gonna talk about him first, and I was both happy and disappointed with his characterization here. Let me explain. Tom Hiddleston obviously plays everything perfectly, and he did a great job on every moment. But the writing on Loki's character is pretty inconsistent. There were a LOT of moments that genuinely felt like they were right out of the golden era of MCU Loki that captured his speech patterns perfectly, his mannerisms, his world view, his humor. Those moments were legitimately there, and they were there more often than I was expecting. Ragnarok had Loki written wrong down to the dialogue and his manner of speaking, and so it was actually very refreshing to see him written generally well, particularly in his conversations with Agent Mobius. However there were multiple moments where he was blatantly written out of character to pander to jokes or to dip into that Ragnarok jokey joke tone. I audibly groaned at the "Am I robot" bit, which was SUCH low brow human and so not in line with the fact that Loki literally knows exactly what he is and had a "species reveal" that was very important to his character. I also would have liked him to be a little more violent. This man came out of a portal, saw SHIELD agents threatening him and immediately went into kill mode in Avengers. Yet this guy stands around and lets himself be taken and forced into situations a lot. But overall, I was happy with his general characterization because I expected the bad stuff to be much worse and it wasn't and the good stuff was more plentiful than I expected. I wasn't fond of the "I don't enjoy hurting people" bit because it's weepy and wrong, but it also was an expected development and I do appreciate that they're at least delving deep into his character on an intellectual level and playing off that "Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself" line of Frigga's. There's potential to do something interesting with him here, so I'm intrigued if not convinced. The Time Keepers concept I hate, but I think I hate it because Loki ALSO hates it and we're a bit too alike in a few regards even here XD I just kind of wish it was less bureaucratic and "we're a joke about corporate offices" and was something more mystical and other worldly. I feel like if it was more science fantasy and ethereal feeling, I would probably be a lot more down for it. But I guess you gotta save money somehow. Agent Mobius is likable, and I like how he can go toe to toe with Loki and how he's kind of morally neutral. I called that Loki was the dangerous time variant disrupting the timeline before it was revealed, but I have to wonder why in the final scene they kept his face hidden. That would have been a great opportunity to show Hiddles hamming up the evil bloodlust, and I am HUNGRY for that. But they kept that Loki hidden in shadows for a reason, and I have two theories regarding why: 1. It actually ISN'T Loki and Agent Mobius is wrong and our villain is someone else. 2. Our villain is LADY Loki and they're saving the reveal that villain Loki is a woman for a later episode. We'll see if I'm right. I HOPE it's number 2 if they kept him in shadow for a reason. So yeah. Not exactly what I wanted but we're on the right track at least for now. I hope this track leads somewhere interesting.

Ep.2 "The Variant" So, first things first, this episode had "I Need a Hero" during a fight scene and TOTALLY botched it. It was way too early to play that card, the action didn't sync with the battle, and it was between a few nameless TVA agents and the evil Loki with the evil Loki still masked in shadow and not really doing much. It just lacked the OOMPH that I felt was necessary for it to be satisfying. This should have been done better. Loki characterization update: less good and less bad than episode one at the same time. There was no "Am I a robot?" cringe, but there was a lot less of the really good Loki dialogue that caught my attention in episode 1. His seemed to have kinda settled back to the mediocrity of Ragnarok Loki with occasional moments of intrigue such as his whole bit about a wolf's ears and teeth. Loki's obviously planning to overthrow the time keepers and to become the new master of time, and he even says as much to his alternate counterpart this episode. I have a sick feeling they're going to have him grow to like the TVA and to save the time stream, but I really want him to follow through with his plans because I think that's much more interesting than the alternative. Will they do it? Time will tell. I also like how much he utterly does not give a shit about Mobius's condolences about Ragnarok happening. That was a good touch. Speaking of Mobius, I still don't care for him or the TVA. They're all just very boring to me, and I don't like Loki being caged to follow their bidding. It's restraining a hurricane of excitement by forcing it to play within this very structured framework instead of burning through freely. With Loki escaping into the timestream to chase after the other Loki, hopefully that will change for the better next episode. Mobius himself gets his character expanded a bit, but his expansion is literally that he is just a cog who doesn't question his purpose and does what he does because it's what he's told to do. And that's just not compelling to me. Sidebar: Ravona, Kang the Conqueror's lover, is the head of the TVA. A fun tidbit but where's Kang? I like the way the episode explored how time variants can't happen during massive catastrophes and apocalypses because everyone dies and everything gets destroyed, so they're safe places for time variants to hide and interact with history. I enjoyed Loki and Mobius going back and messing with Pompeii right before Vesuvius erupts to test that theory. That was fun (though I wish Loki would have, instead of just acting silly and making a scene, would have done his "Kneel before me" bit on the Pompeiians or something more villainous). And I liked the whole aesthetic of them exploring a massive hurricane in Alabama in 2050 and the whole aesthetic going on there. It gave the episode an epic quality. The evil Loki was revealed in this episode, and the twist is that she's Lady Loki. Yeah, I called it. She hasn't done much herself yet and we haven't seen her do much except posses the bodies of various others and then break the timeline with multiple sprawling timeline variants, both of which is very cool. I'm excited for her, though my biggest complaint is that she has blonde hair. No. Lady Loki has BLACK hair. Why didn't they stick her in a black wig or have the actress dye her hair??? AMORA is the blonde Asgardian villainess. Lady Loki has the same hair color as Loki. And... look, I know it's a dumb detail to get hung up on, but the black hair matters to me because Loki has black hair and his beautiful female form does too and I always liked that for personal reasons. Also, she doesn't want to be called "Loki" apparently which is weird but okay, so what DOES she want to be called? I swear if they name her Amora or Sigyn, I'm gonna throw something.

But yeah, the next episode I think promises to be a change of pace, and we can see if Loki can truly spread his wings free of the TVA. I hope he does.

Ep.3 "Lamentis" This was the best episode yet! And for MULTIPLE reasons. This episode sees Loki and Lady Loki Sylvie stranded together in time. It was away from the TVA and it's boring qualities, which was great, and it put two very interesting characters in a situation where they had to rely on each other. This is more of what I was HOPING we'd get from the show. It's a lot more engaging and fun. The TVA always feel like they have their boot on our necks, and having that boot gone, it's amazing how much easier it is to breathe. And I honestly think that was intentional too with regards to how Sylvie outright calls them tyrannical fascist time police. The whole thing with Loki and Sylvie being stranded on the planet Lamentis during its apocalypse is super cool too. First of all, Lamentis is BEAUTIFULLY designed. I can tell they relied on desert locales to save on the budget, but the purple sky, the colorful train, and the neon alien city are all really pleasing to look at. And with the sky literally falling around them, it looks even cooler and the stakes feel cosmic and intense because they ARE. A very good setting that felt refreshing after the very mundane TVA headquarters and Earth scenes. Loki continues to be a sort of mixed bag with weird moments of humor that feel like they were written by someone else for another character, but those moments were a lot more sparse this time around too. Tom is still unmatched in the role, and I love the way he got to be serious, smug, manipulative, and sincere in this episode. I've kinda accepted and settled into anti-hero Loki for this series, and I'm honestly pretty okay with it here. See, I think my issues with Loki being "good" is that it comes with making amends with Thor or working for the TVA. Seeing him pursuing his own agenda on his own terms and collaborating with a kindred spirit who he seems to genuinely like is a lot easier to stomach because it feels a lot more true to the freedom that is so potent about his villainy. I loved him talking about Frigga and how she taught him her magic. That was a genuinely powerful moment. Also even though his dagger metaphor for love got kinda undercut by a joke, I think it was quite good writing and really cut to the point of what makes Loki tic. Also this episode marks a VERY important moment: Loki was canonized on screen as being bisexual in the MCU. He is the FIRST queer main character in the MCU and the first queer main protagonist of a Disney show. And I like the way they did it too! The way Sylvie asked about if he had any dalliances with princesses and then adds "or princes" and Loki says "a bit of both." It was simple and direct and unambiguous, and I love it because Loki has always BEEN queer in the MCU and the writing for him has been very queercoded. Even if that little moment is all it amounts to, it really matters and means a lot to me that they did it and I'm so happy for it. I hope they give him a boyfriend though. Like PLEEEEASE Marvel. Sylvie I'm more okay with this time around. She IS established as Sylvie and not really identifying as Loki anymore, so I can separate her from my preconception of Lady Loki and not mind the BLONDE so much. Sylvie is the name of the second Enchantress in the comics, an Enchantress that Loki himself created. I'm interested to see where they go with her backstory and who she is and what her deal is because they've been implying that she differs from the main Loki quite a lot to the point where she barely even remembers who Frigga was. I also like that Loki's response to the bisexual question implies that Sylvie is bi too. Get that MLM/WLW solidarity. I hope they don't ship them, but I hope they DO stay friends and allies because I'm loving their friendship chemistry. Also, a minor thing in the grand scheme of this episode, but Loki SINGS in this one! And I love it! Tom's always had a very pretty voice that he's gotten to show off in other roles so I'm glad he got to show off his singing in this role too. The Norse folk song he sings was both jovial and somber all at once, and I

loved it. We deserved this Minor nitpick: please give Loki his Asgardian clothes back or something. Because this TVA suit is fucking ugly and I hate it. Sylvie looks so good next to him, and he deserves to be just as stylish. This was a GREAT turning point. PLEEEEEASE keep it up. F&WS failed to. But I genuinely believe that Loki can do it.

#Loki #Loki series

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spacehologramcollection · 5 years

Text

NSFW Alphabet for Rain;

The rains have been blessed down on Tumblr. Here it is, the NSFW alphabet about Rain. Next up is Bi-Han on the list enjoy. Not sure how well requested this one was, but here it is, some top tier trash. Warnings; Sex, bondage, coitus and general smuttiness. 18+ Under the cut. GIF does not belong to me/ I found it on google/ credit where credit is due.

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex) For a cocky man, he does do aftercare properly. Prepare to be treat like a queen, because you’ve fucking earnt it. He’ll make sure you’re pampered, have his servants bring you whatever you want to eat/drink. Make sure a bath is run for you. He’d do it himself, but he wants to spend the majority of his time with you. Since he’s not around as often as he’d like to be. B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) Can he say every part of himself? Because he does love every part of himself. Arrogant little bastard. But, if he had to pick one he would say his chest. He’s worked hard for it, he likes to show it off and he knows how much people admire it. He’s definitely an ass guy. There’s just something about having you sit on his lap, whilst he’s having a glass of wine; one hand resting on your ass, giving it the occasional squeeze. C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person) For someone he’s regal and godly, he does like to make a mess of you. He doesn’t mind finishing inside of you, on your face, on your ass, on your chest. He fucking addicted to making a mess of you. But if he had to choose one, he’d opt to cum in your mouth, pulling out and letting it drip down your face. He’ll always sit back and watch you, sat there, covered in his cum. Smug smile gracing those lips. D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) Going against his regal and arrogant nature, he’d love for you to sit on his face and do as you please. He’s never going to admit that though. But the thought of you sitting on his face, riding it and using him to please you, turns him on immensely. He’ll never admit it. E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?) He’s fairly experienced, enough to know what he’s doing and to do it well. He’s had many offers, but he’s very particular about who he sleeps with. He mainly likes the attention and ego boosting; rather than actually sleeping with many people. Gotta inflate that ego of his. Only confirming what he already knows is true. F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual) He’s going to be into Doggy. He wants access to your hair, ass and back. If you’re into rough sex, be prepared to have your face pushed into the mattress. In addition, if you’re into it rough, he’ll pull you back by your hair, so your flat against his chest. One hand squeezing your ass he pounds into you. G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc) He’s not afraid to have a few jokes to lighten the mood, or to put you at ease. He’s not extremely serious, he has an air of arrogance about him, so he’s going to be slightly humorous and jokey. He’s allowed to be. He’s godly remember? It’s never at you more with you. H = Hair (How well-groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.) Extremely well groomed and well kept. He’s got a high standard to live up to and he maintains that air of grace at all times. His grooming routine is maintained and strict. He’s not completely shaved but it is trimmed down. Making it easier to access… that, and it makes his cock look more impressive. I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) He can be intimate and romantic when he wants to be. But he tends to lean more towards rough and fast. That’s his default. He’ll save the romantic and intimate moments for your anniversaries, or special occasions. Also, sometimes there’s an itch that the fast and rough mode cannot scratch, and that’s when he’ll be more intimate and romantic. He will worship your body no matter what, but he expects the same in return. J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon) He’s not afraid or ashamed to admit he masturbates. He’s a fairly high sex drive. Sometimes the need arises, and he’ll take care of himself. He’s not going to suffer when he can deal with it. He does prefer you though. Will often tease you with it. Having you watch him stroke his cock before having you beg to take over. Gotta stroke the ego before you get his dick. K = Kink (One or more of their kinks) Hair pulling, bondage, rough sex, potential to be a little degrading, body worship. He totally has a praise kink too. He’ll cater to your needs so if you’re not into any of the above, then he will understand. His ultimate kink is the praise one, he wants to be worshipped, made to feel divine and heavenly sent. He’s the greatest and wants to hear it. He wants the reassurance that he’s pleasing you like no man has done before. And that no man will ever match his skill. In return, you’ll receive a similar amount of praising. You and you alone get to fuck the God that is him, you’re divine, beautiful and worthy to share his bed. Prepare for some serious confidence boosting when fucking him. L = Location (Favourite places to do the do) He can do as he pleases, so that means, he can fuck where he pleases. His chambers and his throne are two of his go to places. He’ll fuck you in his chambers when he’s feeling more intimate or wanting to maybe do something more erotic. He’ll save fucking you on his throne, for when he’s feeling more adventurous, or maybe wanting your mouth wrapped around his cock urgently. When he asks for others to leave the room, and for the two of you to be left alone, they leave, promptly. M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going) Stroking his ego, wearing any of the lingerie/outfits he’s bought for you. Begging. Begging for his cock really gets him going. All linking back to the inflated ego he owns. He fucking loves watching you crawl to him, rubbing his thighs and coaxing him to let you suck his cock. You’ll always get to do what you want, because he’s a sucker for you when you bat your eyelashes at him. He’s also going to be turned on when you strip for him, doing a full routine and erotically removing your clothes. Bonus points if you’re wearing his mask and the finest dress you own. N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) He doesn’t like to be degraded himself, or be injured heavily. So that’s off the table. He’s not into being dominated overly either. There’s a difference between you sitting and riding on his face, and him being tied down and spanked. He’s not into that, at all. He also doesn’t like someone who’s more arrogant and uppity than him. Please don’t shame him, degrade him or act higher and mightier than him. You’re equals, he treats you as his equal outside of the bedroom. You’re always his equal inside his chambers too. The acts and the things he says are all between you two, fully consented to, and always acted out and nothing else. There’s nothing real about him degrading you, because he views you as his equal. Don’t ruin the balance by acting like a cunt. O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) VERY talented at giving, and as seen by his Dirty Secret he does love to give. But he does love to receive. So, he’d prefer a fine balance and is not opposed to a sixty-nine. He’d be a sucker for it in fact, pun totally intended, when you’re both getting off together. He’d also die if you gave him oral whilst he was lounging on his throne. There’s something so sinful and god like, about being given head whilst sat so regally. P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.) Whilst he’s adept in both paces, he does prefer fast and rough. He lives his life fast and rough, so his sex life is no different. He prefers, fast, hard and rough fucking. There’s just something so sinful about it, almost un-regal like, his chance to rebel slightly. Even though he sets his own standards. He’s always been rebellious, and he loves to incorporate that into your sex life. He saves the intimate, slow and sensual stuff for special occasions, as mentioned prior. Or when you’re having a low confidence day. He’ll boost it back up, by showing you how wonderfully divine you are, and how your body is like a fine marble statue. If he’s worshipping you, then there must be something special about you. What a sweetheart… an arrogant sweetheart, but a sweetheart none the less. Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.) His schedule is ridiculously busy, be prepared for it. Quickies are sometimes all he can manage, though he doesn’t enjoy them more than proper sex. With proper sex, he and you can be as devilishly sinful as you like. Taking your time, teasing, exploring and fucking. He hates to rush jobs, because a job worth doing, deserves to be done right. And you, are no exception. So, he prefers proper sex over quickies. R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.) He’s down to experiment and take big risks. Any good General/Leader takes risks, and he’s proven himself to be adept in both areas. A master tactician, he’ll calculate any risk to see the costs V benefits. If something has little costs, to his reputation, he’ll be down to take the risk. Fucking in public is a little iffy. He’s meant to be regal and above others, placed on a high pedestal, as a gleaming example. So, he cannot jeopardise that. S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…) Stamina for days. He can last an extremely long time and he loves it. Long, drawn out sex is his favourite type of sex. Enough time for him to worship you and you to worship him. Mutual worshipping is required. He can go as many rounds as he likes and last up to an hour/two hours. He’s recovery rate is quick as well. He’ll be ready to go after half an hour, though he’ll always aim to tire you out in the first round. Expect some light mocking and jokes, on how a mortal can’t handle a god, it’s all in good taste and humour… which links with his teasing. T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?) He’s vain and arrogant, so don’t expect him to want to use toys. He will fill your every need, whim and want. Without the use of something to aid him. A Regal God is above any man and therefore any piece of plastic. U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) He teases. A lot. It’s also a challenge with him. He wants to see if a mortal can take the cock of a god. If you’re giving him head, he’ll be moaning and egging you on. Teasing with every word that leaves his lips. “Are you going to show your God some proper worship?” His teasing always amounts to challenging you. Or making you beg. He’ll never beg but he will boost you up in exchange for your eternal worship. V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make) He makes some sinful noises for someone so divine and holy sent. The moans are often long, but on the quieter side. He tries to stifle them, but he can’t control his volume yet. He’s not overly loud its gross, but he has had to white knuckle the arms of his throne a few times when you’ve been riding. W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice) NSFW; If you were down, he’d probably be into collaring you. But not just in the bedroom. Like a solid gold collar, draped ever so elegantly against your neck. Showing to the world, that you’re his and he’s yours. You’re his queen and he wants others to know that… plus it will turn him on, so there’s two advantages to it. Also, he’s not called Rain for no reason, he can and will make you squirt. SFW; He has thought about marrying you. Marriage is something that is required of someone with his status. Though, he always presumed it would be like his Engagement to Kitana, something to strengthen the bonds of their people. Mutual benefit with little to no love. He never thought he’d find love either, especially not in a mortal, but you changed that. His respect for you is un-ending and his love for you is the same. He’s got quirky ways of showing it, but around you, he’s less of an egotistical bastard. You see his softer side. A side not many people see. X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words) He speaks and acts like he’s Big Dick Energy; he’s also got the goods to back it up. His cock is impressive, pushing 7” so it’s above average. He’s proud of it and proud of the way it makes you blush. He knows how impressive it is as well. He just hopes you can take it, that’s another one of his teasing challenges. Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?) He isn’t sure if its him being a (Demi) God or just him, but his sex drive is ridiculously high. Maybe its just you, being an insatiable Partner who he cannot resist. Even though its high, if your yearning cannot match his, he’s not going to pressure you, he’s not a monster. He accepts that it probably won’t be as high as his, not even a boast, and will turn to masturbation. He can’t expect his queen to constantly be ready to fuck. It’s just not Kingly or Godly. He respects you and you’re his equal, remember that. Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) Yeah, his head is hitting the pillow, its lights out, nighty night. He falls asleep fairly easily. He’s exhausted most of the time. So, sleep comes to him easily. That, and he doesn’t really have too many cares in the world. Well, he does, but they can wait. For now, he wants to fall asleep, whilst his queen plays with his hair, and you call him pretty. Please call him pretty. It’s all he wants.

#rain #mortal kombat rain #mk rain #mk rain x reader #rain x reader #mortal kombat rain x reader #mortal kombat 11 #mortal kombat 11 x reader #mortal kombat x reader #x reader #mortal kombat #mk #mk11 #mk11 x reader

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thesubtextmachine · 6 years

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Holy crap your odaat fic literally gave me life. You’re writing is absolutely fantastic! I definitely need more Elena x Syd in my life. If you’re taking prompts how about Syd and Elena being all cute and fluffy whilst going out on a date together to see a horror movie?

Here you go!! I’m also going to post it on AO3. Hope you enjoy!

The sun is setting outside as Syd and Elena walk, fingers entwined, into the cavernous movie theatre. It’s the kind of aimless Saturday night in February that warrants a trip to the movies, and it’s the perfect date night for the two.

“So, do you promise that you’ll comfort me during the scary parts?” Syd asks, leaning into Elena with a dopey smile as they walk through the doors.

“Of course! I’m no heathen,” Elena leans back, giggling a bit. She feels like a complete and utter teenager, giggling with her girlfriend (girlfriend! Her heart still jumps at the thought) and being carefree as they get in line to buy popcorn. They’ve got candy in Syd’s bag, and soda in Elena’s, so all they need is a medium popcorn to share. It’s an off night, with no openings or major releases, so the line is thankfully short.

Elena’s pulling up the tickets on her phone, Syd holding the popcorn with great care, when she is struck with a realization.

“Wait, Carmen used to work here, right? I could’ve gotten a friends and family discount!”

“Does it work with former employees?” Syd asks, smiling at the guy who scans at Elena’s phone since she’s too caught up in her train of thought to even think about it. They head to their theatre, and fall back in step with each other.

“I don’t know. Carmen was a very treasured employee, though, so maybe she would be,” Elena says, and her eyes catch on an interesting-looking poster as they walk down the carpeted hall.

“Was she? I’ve FaceTimed with her and she doesn’t really seem like the customer service type,” says Syd, picking out a small piece of popcorn.

“You’d think! But I saw her in action, once, and it was crazy.”

“Was it like Wednesday in Addams Family Values? In the beginning of the play scene? That’s the image coming to my head,” Syd opens the door for Elena, who begins laughing lightly.

“That’s it! Oh my god, I think Carmen is just Wednesday with a bob!”

They’ve got a seat in the back, and after a climb up the stairs, they get settled in the rickety seats.

Their movie is low-quality horror, with a frighteningly low Rotten Tomatoes score and a basically empty theatre. There’s only one other person in there, and she’s in the middle of the theater and on the verge of falling asleep by the commercials alone.

Syd pulls out the candy, and splits it up among them (Elena prefers more chocolaty candy, while Syd is a lover of the sour), and Elena follows by reaching into her messenger bag for their sodas, smoothly as if it were all choreographed. She unscrews the plastic cap of her bottle, and holds it up for a toast.

“To scary movies and Saturdays.”

“Amen,” replies Syd, and they clink their plastic bottles together before having a swig of the soda in sync. They lean back into their chairs, and Elena pulls up the cup holder between them and puts the popcorn in its place.

“So, what have you heard about this movie?” Syd asks.

“Other than it being bad? Not much. Also, there’s going to be a lot of shaky cam.”

“That may be the scariest part about the whole thing,” jokes Syd, and the lights go down before Elena can come up with another joke, so they both just turn their attention to the big screen.

There’s the customary set of commercials, before the movie starts. It begins with, as predicted, shaky cam, as a 30 year old actor playing a teenager runs through the woods, looking over their shoulder in fear, before the camera pans away, and screams are heard. Elena is holding back a heckle, and turns to see that Syd has their lips shut tight, trying to keep from laughing.

“So scary already, do you think you can handle it?” Elena whispers as the title card comes up on the screen.

“With you by my side? I can handle anything,” they answer, and as jokey as it should be, it comes out sincerely, and Elena is struck with such a strong jolt of affection that it takes her breath away.

“Even this very, very scary movie?” she asks, a bit breathlessly.

“I think so,” says Syd, and they smile widely, before the pair leans into each other, kissing softly and sweetly, smiling in a way that kinda-sorta gets in the way of the kissing. It’s so unbelievably nice that Elena isn’t totally surprised when they are shocked apart by a very loud, very high pitched scream, because the universe is like that sometimes.

They look back to the screen, light blushes dusting their cheekbones, and watch on as a blond lady gets stabbed by a masked man. Morbid curiosity about the scene takes over, as the score begins to ascend into weirdness, with guitar riffs paired with what might be a flute?

“I think this might be genius,” whispers Elena as they watch the scene, transfixed by the way that it gets weirder and weirder. The score reaches its climax, the stabbed girl holds her punctured stomach as if that would do anything at all to help the situation, and the blood runs syrupy and light red.

“Am I hallucinating right now? Is there something in my soda?” whispers back Syd, who shoves a full handful of popcorn in their mouth for emphasis.

“I’m seeing this all too.”

“Why is it still going on? This scene is so long and nothing new is happening?”

“Wait, why is he leaving? Is he going to take anything? What is happening?”

“When is this scene going to end? It’s just her rolling in her own blood. Where can the story possibly go from here?”

“Downhill.”

This causes Syd to break out into giggles, which Elena promptly follows. This lasts until the scene miraculously ends, and cuts to one of the lady’s friends, having a conversation with some new character. Their attention fades as a result of the bad writing and bad acting, and they turn back to each other.

“So, do you have a favorite character?” Syd asks, trying to quietly open a package of Sour Patch Kids and failing.

“The knife, probably.”

“I don’t know, the lamp definitely has some good lines. So much charisma.”

“That’s true. Both of them are just so complex, so it’s definitely hard to choose,” Elena says, her body completely oriented to her girlfriend, not sparing a look to the screen.

“It’s just such an interesting movie! I love the metaphors about the patriarchy. The lamp’s monologue about subjugation really got to me,” says Syd, trying to speak through laughter.

“If this movie doesn’t get every Oscar, I’m organizing a walkout.”

“I’ll run the social media campaign, you hit the streets. We’ll make it happen.”

The scene on the screen changes to something else in a forest, but the couple in the back couldn’t care less. The scenes change, and apart from some moments of attention (usually when the half-hearted gore happened), they usually just paid attention to each other and their winding conversation. By the credits of the movie, they have a bucket of half-finished popcorn on the floor and a bunch of candy wrappers. They pack up their stuff, and make their way out. They dump the wrappers and empty soda bottles outside the door, and get outside.

It’s nighttime, and the stars are out. Some smoky grey clouds run along the sky, but the bright white dots still shine through. Syd knocks their shoulder against Elena, ducking their head as they smile.

“Wanna wish on a star?” Syd asks, hands shoved into overall pockets. Elena feels flutters in her stomach, and copies Syd, looking down.

“Sure.”

“What do you wish for?”

“Well, I already got my wish, so…” Elena answers awkwardly, tilting her head up to the stars as Syd stops in their tracks. Elena’s only a few steps ahead when this is clear, and she swivels around to face her.

“You’re such a nerd!” Syd exclaims, eyes wide and smile gleaming. Elena feels love so strongly in that moment, looking at her grinning girlfriend, tinged pearly white under the starlight.

“As long as I’m your nerd, I think I’ll be okay,” says Elena, and she thinks that this moment is the smoothest she’s ever been.

“Come here and kiss me, nerd.”

And then, for once in her life, Elena doesn’t rebel against a request.

#one day at a time #odaat #odaat fanfiction #sylena

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jads1000 · 7 years

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Steroline Appreciation Week 2017 (#scaw17) The Snow Globe: An Origin Story

What do you do when you can gif for toffee and your photoshop skills are woeful, but you want to still appreciate your OTP?

This story has been buzzing about in my mind for a while so I decided to write it down. It’s set some time in S1, Lexi is dead, Grams is alive.

Thank you to @lightninginmyeyes for the encouragement (you’re my writing inspiration!) and @mediocreplayweight for all the crazy fic ideas we have come up (one day I might actually finish something). This is dedicated to you two.

***

"Take a name!" Caroline waved the envelope aggressively under Stefan's nose.

"I'm sorry?" He replied, confused.

"Don't be." She snapped. "Take a name."

As Caroline Forbes was a force of nature, he decided to do as she said and meekly drew a slip of paper from the envelope. He unfolded it, taking in the name written in neat cursive hand.

"Don't tell me. It's meant to be a secret as in SECRET Santa. Didn't they have that in whatever podunk place you were living before? Whatever. It's a $15 limit.” She waved a hand dismissively and sauntered off.

Used to her hostility, partly due to his rejection of her advances and partly because Damon was his brother, he wondered how the hell he was supposed to buy something half way decent for so little money.

***

It was T minus two hours to the Secret Santa gift exchange. Stefan felt a bit of a heel leaving it so damn late, but he had had to order something from eBay and the seller had been slow to post. Fortunately, he just about had time to sort it. Stefan had decided to get creative; his room, full of nick knacks, was a treasure trove of cool stuff carefully collected over 150 years.

Sat at his desk, his fingers brushed over the vintage Disney snow globe. He remembered buying it in Florida with Lexi who had told him he was the biggest cheese ball ever and he needed to get over himself. It still hurt to think about his best friend. The tale of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, had spoken to him since the 1900s when he had read J M Barrie's first edition. The globe contained his favourite character from the film and was the absolute best fit for the recipient of the gift. She had had a hard time recently and deserved something special.

Unfortunately, being nearly 40 years old, the contents had turned murky with slime so Stefan had carefully levered it open, emptied and cleaned the glass globe and just needed to refill it with a concoction of glycerine and glitter. He grinned as he slid the bung back into bottom, his task complete. The globe was the good as the day he had bought it.

"For pity's sake, Stefan." A sneery voice echoed from across the room. Why did he constantly forget to shut his door? "You're a vampire, not an eight-year-old girl."

"Well, brother. You wouldn't know a classic tale if it smacked you in the face." He snarked back. "What do you want?"

"Aside from ensuring your eternity of misery continues, I wanted to find out how far you had got with the Bennett witches. Have you found the grimoire?"

"No." He half lied. "Not yet."

"I don't believe you." Damon's lips twitched nastily. "You never were a good liar, Stefan." He vamped into the room and snatched the snow globe from his brother's hands. "I'll ask you again. Where is the grimoire?"

"I. Don't. Know." He replied trying to keep the tremble from his voice as he attempted to swipe back the globe.

"Tut tut. You know it does work like that. You have something I want and I have something you want. Care to trade?"

"For the last time, I don't know where the grimoire is. Now give that back." Stefan growled.

Damon smirked, knowing he had him. "Too bad. I'll just have to hold onto this..." He tossed the ornament up into the air. Stefan took his chance and flew in trying to grab it, but Damon was quicker and he batted Stefan away. It fell to the floor shattering into a thousand pieces.

"Oh dear." Damon smirked, over his shoulder as he left. "Someone's not getting their Secret Santa gift. Remember, I know everything. You don't want to cross me."

The threat still lingering in the air, Stefan attempted to clean up the mess while frantically wondering where he was going to get a new gift from at this late stage.

***

Caroline kept a tight ship when it came to event planning. She expected perfection both from herself and everyone else involved. She had eye rolled when Elena had suggested including the boys in this year's Secret Santa exchange. Caroline had made sure that her friend hadn't pulled Stefan's name and vice versa. Other than that, she had no idea who had who. For her, finding out who the identity of the mystery gift giver was as exciting as receiving the gift itself.

So, she was beyond pissed that, Tyler, Jeremy, Elena and Stefan were all late.

"Quit stressing, babe. They'll get here when they get here." A pair of arms wrapped around her waist. She found it more irritating than comforting.

"It's just..." She sighed. "Why can't people follow instructions?"

Matt didn't bother answering as Tyler walked into the Mystic Grill and he obviously felt bro hugging him was more important.

"Sorry, Care. I'm sure Stefan, Elena and Jer are on their way." Bonnie was trying to placate her, but at least, she was being kindly about it.

"Thanks Bon. How are you...." Her question was interrupted by Elena and Jeremy. Everyone gathered round the Gilberts greeting them warmly.

"Where's Stefan?" Caroline huffed, desperate to get the show on the road.

Elena tossed her hair. "He called me earlier to say there's been some sort of emergency." She replied vaguely.

"Well, if he's not here in five minutes, we'll have to start without him."

Elena blinked her big doe eyes and cocked her head to one side. "But surely that will just ruin everything."

Caroline seethed. Elena was right, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Bonnie, scenting drama, quickly stepped in. "How about we order some chilli cheese fries and play some pool while we wait for Stefan?"

"Good idea, Bon. He won't be long." Elena breezed off to the bar to order, all self-assurance and annoying perfection.

Caroline felt her face twist sourly, but she kept her true feelings at bay. This was supposed to be fun. So why didn't it feel that way?

***

Half an hour later, Bonnie was crowned the undisputed pool champion. Tyler had vowed to 'go easy on her' so Caroline had her suspicions about just exactly how Bonnie had won, but she kept it to herself. Finally, Stefan appeared and dropped an attractively wrapped gift into the box Caroline had prepared to aid anonymity. Clapping her hands, she gathered the reluctant participants around and started to dole out the gifts,

As the present pile got smaller, Caroline's hope that Stefan would be the one who bought her gift started to rise. She was excited, he was great at that kind of thing, thoughtful and sweet. The other boys had gone jokey. Matt had bought Tyler a mankini and a bottle of lube, what Tyler bought Elena should never be talked about in polite company, even Jeremy who had the unenviable task of buying for the guy who has everything bought Stefan a joke book to go with the latest John Grisham. Caroline, however, couldn't imagine Stefan not taking this seriously.

"Last but not least." She squealed as she picked out her gift, even if the rest of the table had since lost interest. Eagerly, she opened the box and started to root around in the shredded tissue paper. It wasn’t easy to locate, but her fingers finally located something round and plastic-y. She frowned a little, but gamely persevered lifting out the object.

It was a key chain.

A snow globe key chain.

Of Mystic Fucking Falls.

"Oh dude." She heard Tyler say.

"Cheers Stefan. You just made my life so much easier, setting the Christmas present buying bar that low!" She could hear the smirk in Matt's voice.

She composed herself. "Thank you, Stefan." She said tightly. "At least, it's useful." She let out a tinkly laugh, hiding her humiliation. "Who's up for another game of pool?" She heard whoops and hollers and felt Matt press a distracted kiss to her cheek.

"I love my bracelet. Thanks again. Are you okay?" Bonnie asked, the only one left behind.

"Of course." More tinkly laughter. "Why wouldn't I be? Go on, Bon. You have a title to defend."

When everyone was gone, she picked up and twirled the snow globe. Her mom would probably say 'you don't give to receive', but that didn't make this feel any less shit. As no one was looking, she decided to get some air. As soon as she left the Grill, the mask cracked, she buried her head in her hands and let the tears roll unchecked down her face. She had had such high hopes for junior year. Where the hell did it go so wrong?

"Caroline?"

Oh fuck. The one person she did not want to see was stood directly in front of her. She kept her hands to her face hoping he would take a hint and sling his hook.

He didn't.

In fact, he put his hand on her forearm and said her name again.

She looked up.

"I'm sorry. Look, I screwed up. I had another gift and I misplaced it. Quick Stop aren't the best for last minute gifts." He smiled apologetically.

"It's alright." Being mad at Stefan was hard work.

"No, it really isn't.” He said earnestly. “So, I bought you this as well, but it was a bit over the limit and I didn't want to embarrass anyone." He seemed to magic a huge box of her and her mother's favourite chocolates out of thin air. She imagined the two of them sitting down together watching Dancing with the Stars while passing the box back and forth. "The snow globe was a bad idea?"

Surprised to see the offending item still in her hand, she held it up. "I mean maybe if it was from London or Stockholm or Rio de Janerio, it might have been cooler."

"But Caroline." He fixed her with his serious look. "In 18 months’ time, high school will be over and you'll be leaving Mystic Falls, off to college, travelling or just taking on the world. I guess I thought this way you could take a bit of home with you."

She looked up at him and they locked eyes for a second. Her heart fluttered under the warmth of his gaze. Looking at Stefan Salvatore should not feel this good. He was out of bounds and she had a boyfriend.

"It's still a shit gift!" She exclaimed, breaking the tension.

He chuckled. "Come on, it's cold out here. Let's go and watch Bonnie kick Tyler’s ass again. Her talent is almost supernatural." He winked at her. And despite the chilly in the air, Caroline felt warmer than she had in a while.

AN: I have an idea for a second part. Let me know if you guys are interested.

#Steroline #scaw17 #steroline fanfic #Stefan Salvatore #caroline forbes

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muddyevil · 7 years

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Raijinshuu Appreciation Week - Day 3 - Evergreen

A/N - This is set when Bickslow is around 20 and Evergreen is around 18, just so you know!

Bickslow had always prided himself on his ability to read people. Of course, his soul sight helped with that. The better he knew someone the easier it was for him to pick up the minute shifts in their soul, and by this time he could read Freed and Laxus like a book. But Evergreen was a different story.

She had always been such a closely guarded person, and that reflected in her soul. Often Bickslow couldn't detect the change until it was too late, or the outward emotion was too obvious to be ignored.

The two of them had an odd relationship, to say the least. Bickslow lived to entertain, and part of that was making jokes about his fellow teammates. He just wanted to make them laugh. Evergreen treated him with respect, although she would never admit it. He was powerful, and he really had tried to teach her to control her eyes. But other than that she tended to avoid him, sticking to Freed and Laxus the majority of the time.

That's why Bickslow couldn't figure out why, when he woke up with a pounding headache from whatever he had pumped into his system the night before, Evergreen was sat at the end of his bed. He groaned, rubbing his forehead as he pulled himself up to sit at the head of the bed. The girl looked over, passing him a magical pill and some water to help him out.

"The drugs never actually work do they, Bickslow?"

Bickslow groaned again. Evergreen wasn't usually the motherly type, in the five years he had known her she had never cared.

"Why are you here, Evergreen?"

Evergreen scoffed, sitting back in her chair as she crossed her arms.

"'Oh, thank you for coming and helping me, Evergreen. I'm really grateful'" Bickslow narrowed his eyes at her impression of him before she continued. "Don't go getting any ridiculous ideas, I came because Freed asked me to."

Bickslow remembered then. Freed had gone the night before, off on a mission that was going to take him out of town for at least a week. It would be the longest they had ever been without each other, and Bickslow had tried to drink to forget. Well. He had started off with drinking. He couldn't remember what happened after that.

"He sent you to look after me after one night?"

Evergreen looked up at him incredulously, and the worry in her eyes set him back for a moment. Evergreen's voice was quiet, and she leant forward to speak to him.

"Bickslow… You've been out for three days." Bickslow froze. That would explain why his head hurt so much. And why the babies we still asleep. Their tolerance had always been much lower than his. He didn't stand a chance of speaking before Evergreen did.

"How much did you take?"

Bickslow sighed, lying back down on the bed and pulling a pillow over his eyes. He didn't know. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

They had spent a lot more time together, when they were younger. Although it did take a long time for Evergreen to be comfortable around Bickslow. He was older than her, never as kind as Laxus had been the first few years. His emotional state could change on a dime, going from being jokey to suicidal in minutes and she never knew what would set him off. Not to mention the little wooden cylinders that floated around him constantly were downright creepy. But after a few months Evergreen had realised he had something she desperately wanted, a moderate control over his eye magic.

She was convinced he could teach her, but Bickslow had never been sure. And now, as she stared at the perfect stone statue of him in his ridiculous clothes for the uncountable time that week, she thought he might just be right. At least she'd gotten practice of cancelling her magic pretty instantaneously now.

She knew that the practice was over when he bent down to pick up his mask, still shuddering at the transformation he had gone through. Her magic was less painful now, sure, but it still felt weird. He made his way over to the door, letting his babies in before collapsing to the ground.

"You need to give me more instruction than just 'I think about it', Bickslow."

The boy groaned, rolling onto his back and letting his babies settle on his stomach. Evergreen went and sat on one of the sofas in their living room, resting her head on the arm of the chair as she looked at him through her glasses.

"And I keep telling you that I can't put it any better than that! I just concentrate really hard on not using my magic. Just be thankful I'm still letting you do this to me, alright?"

Evergreen really was thankful. No one had ever done anything for her as much as her new team had. They had welcomed her in with open arms, despite the fact she was weak.

"I'm sorry. It's just… maybe it's too different to mine. Trust me when I say I know why you want to turn it off." Bickslow continued, raising one arm in the air as his babies span around it lazily.

He was right, of course. Out of everyone else in the world either of them had ever met, the two of them understood the curse of their eyes the most. They had to stick together.

When Bickslow woke up again Evergreen was out of the room, although he could hear her moving around in the living room. He groaned, a noise echoed by his babies out loud as they protested waking up in his head, and shuffled to the end of his bed to head out.

He scratched his belly as he walked into the living room, stretching out as he noticed Evergreen about to leave the apartment. She paused as she heard Bickslow stepping out, before turning the doorknob anyway.

"Where're you going?"

Evergreen sighed, knowing she wasn't going to be making the quick escape that she wanted to.

"I came to look after you like Freed asked, and now I've got better things to do with my time."

Bickslow took a few steps towards the centre of the room, and Evergreen started to turn around before regretting it when she realised he was still only in his boxers.

"Like what?"

Evergreen sighed, she didn't really have time for this. If she was honest she hadn't had time to go and look after Bickslow at all but here she was.

"A job. Fitting for the queen of the fairies. Definitely more than babysitting an overgrown child."

Bickslow paused, looking legitimately hurt and for a second Evergreen regretted being so short with him.

"Ouch, Ever. What did I ever do to you?"

Evergreen sighed, opening the door behind her and about to step out before she heard Bickslow talk in an even smaller voice.

"Please don't leave me. I'm Ever so lonely."

Evergreen paused, but didn't make any move to close the door. She really did want to help Bickslow out, but the job was more important. It took a while for her to realise why Bickslow had suddenly started grinning maniacally.

"Did you just make a pun out of my FUCKING NAME!?"

All sympathy that Evergreen had for him had gone, and he simply shrugged at her.

"You've been conscious for what, an hour since Freed left? How are you lonely already?"

Bickslow's babies groaned, and he moved over to stand behind her in the doorway. She could feel him try and reach out to her, but he knew that she hated any sort of personal contact and unlike Freed she didn't even put up with it for him.

"But I know he's not going to be right back. Please, Evergreen?"

Evergreen turned around, seeing the angry red scar across his chest and wrenching her eyes up to his.

"You've got your babies, haven't you? Unlike some of us you are literally never alone."

The totems all chirruped at her mentioning them, starting to spin in excitement around them. Bickslow smiled, a warm smile that no one but his babies got, before looking back down at Evergreen. He had shot up since they had met, and now she had to properly tilt her head in order to look into his eyes.

"... you do realise that's basically talking to myself, right? Freed says that I shouldn't do that or people will think I'm crazy."

Evergreen looked at him incredulously. She didn't think anyone thought Bickslow was sane after knowing him for more than five minutes.

"... Alright, crazier."

Evergreen sighed, rubbing her temples. Bickslow was obviously upset, but…

"I promise you I will come straight back after I've finished this job. I'll stay here with you until Freed gets back, is that good enough for you?"

Bickslow's face lit up, and finally allowed Evergreen to leave the room. She grimaced as she walked down the stairs, she had lied to him. She didn't think she would be coming back at all.

If Evergreen had thought Freed was royalty when she first met him, this house would be the kind of house he would have lived in. It looked like it had more bathrooms than inhabitants, sprawling across an even larger garden of apple trees.

She closed her wings as she landed softly on the driveway, flying had always been much easier than walking, and she much preferred it. She smoothed down her dress as she took a few steps towards the door, and raised her hand to knock.

The man who answered the door was maybe a few years older than her, and immaculately dressed with blonde hair slicked back across his scalp and the most piercing green eyes she had ever seen. She felt her own heart speed up, and he smiled sweetly down at her.

"Ah, you must be Evergreen. I've been expecting you."

Evergreen chuckled slightly as he stepped away from the door to allow her inside, and she slipped through as she tried to stand proudly. She needed to give the impression of confidence, at all times. She was Queen of the Fairies, she could do this. This was obviously the man she had been talking to, and he had seemed nice enough throughout all the times she had spoken to him through the lacrima.

"My family are just through here, if you'd like to follow me?"

The man led her through a maze of corridors that she didn't think she'd ever be able to remember even if someone drew her a map. Everything was beautifully decorated with white walls and gold leaf, and Evergreen knew that any one of the paintings which hung around her would cost more than she made in a year. The man made small talk as they walked, and she fell easily into a comfortable conversation until they brought her to a large room which she guessed was in the centre of the house, with large flat lacrima showing pictures of tundra, and deserts, and lush green forests. A table lay in the middle, easily large enough to seat twenty people but only four places at the far end were made up. Two men sat facing the door, slightly older copies of the man that had walked her in and they both stood to their feet as they entered the room.

"Ah, Miss Evergreen. It's lovely to meet you."

Evergreen bowed slightly as the first man placed a hand on her lower back and guided her over to one of the chairs. The youngest man pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down before he took his own seat next to her. The two older men joined them, uncorking a bottle of wine and pouring it into their own glasses before offering some to her. She nodded, and raised the liquid to her lips to drink it. It tasted fruity and sweet, unlike the wine that they kept at the guild.

"I am unsure if my son here explained our family business fully, so I shall take you through it."

His voice was soft and pleasant to listen to, and Evergreen wondered whether or not he sang. It sounded like a singer's voice.

"We are magic distributors. Our magic allows us to take magic from one person and allocate it to someone else, for a price of course. My son here tells me that you are interested in giving your magic to us."

Evergreen nodded, and the man was just about to speak before she built up the courage to speak.

"If you didn't mind, Sir, I was interesting in joining the business as well. It sounds like good work."

The men looked between each other, and the younger one next to her laughed softly. Evergreen looked at them in confusion, before the one man who hadn't spoken yet spoke up.

"Although that would be wonderful, Evergreen, your magic is much more valuable to us."

Evergreen's head started to spin, and she looked down at her drink. Had they… drugged her?

"And unfortunately, no one ever survives the process of having their magic ripped out."

Evergreen started to panic, standing to her feet and trying to reach up to her glasses. Her arms felt like lead, and she couldn't lift them any higher than her shoulders. She turned to try and leave the room, taking a few shaky steps before she fell to the floor and she lost consciousness.

Evergreen woke up when someone started to mess with the rope which bound her wrists. She started to scream, kicking her legs out to try and connect with whoever it was and received a very familiar shout in return.

"Woah, Evergreen. Calm down. It's me, it's me."

Evergreen tried not to cry, but she still sobbed slightly as she fell to the ground, rubbing her wrists as she felt Bickslow pass her her glasses. She held them ready as he started to undo the bandages that were strapped across her eyes, and she slipped her glasses on to look around.

Five men were lay on the floor in their own blood, the three that she had seen before along with two more. It looked like they had all been fighting each other, and she knew that with Bickslow around that was exactly what they had done. His totems floated around him as he grabbed onto her shoulders, his mask back over his face but she assumed he was staring at her.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

Evergreen shook, and Bickslow wrapped his arm around her shoulders as he guided her towards some stairs that she hadn't noticed in the corner of the room before.

"Did you… follow me?"

Bickslow went quiet, looking away as he led her through some of the corridors. She saw a couple more bodies here and there, each of them burned by what she knew to be the blasts from Bickslow's totems.

"I was worried about you. Do you know who these guys are?"

Evergreen went quiet, looking at her feet as he led her into a large office. This wasn't going to go well.

"The Mob, Evergreen? What the fuck were you doing taking a job for the Mob?"

The room was filled with bright green magic from both of their eyes as their anger grew.

"Why are you even here, Bickslow!? I could have handled this on my own!"

Bickslow started laughing that maniacal laugh, almost doubling over as all of the babies echoed the noise. She wondered if they knew what they were laughing at.

"The fuck were you gonna do, Ever? Seduce them? You were tied up and blindfolded."

Evergreen crossed her arms in defiance. They had stopped in the office, and she leant backwards against the desk. Not that anyone would care anymore.

"I would have done something!"

Bickslow turned on her then, standing over her as she tried to stay leaning casually on the desk. She couldn't show him just how scared she was, both from how close she had just come to dying and the fact that he seemed legitimately angry.

"What, Evergreen? What would you have done?"

Evergreen stood herself up, her brain desperately trying to think of a solution to her problem that didn't involve Bickslow helping her out but she couldn't think of one. Instead, she just shouted back in Bickslow's face, standing up on her tiptoes to try to look more imposing.

"Stop treating me like I'm weak!"

"I'M NOT!"

Bickslow's voice rattled the lamp on the desk, and forced Evergreen backwards. They stood staring at each other for a moment before the door to the office swung open, and two men ran in. Evergreen didn't even skip a beat, dropping her glasses down her nose to turn the men to stone. Two of Bickslow's totems dropped to the floor, the newly formed statues toppling for a moment before they fell to the floor and shattered. Bickslow was torn out of his gaze, all five babies returning to him before he started to pace the floor.

"I'm calling you fucking stupid. Babies, go and make sure there's no one else in the house, would you?"

The totems all squealed excitedly, flying out of the room as Bickslow continued to try and wear a hole in the carpet. It was a way of saying without words how strong he thought she was. Bickslow was awful at any close range combat, and sending his babies away mean he trusted her to protect him. He continued to talk, counting off the options on his fingers as he went.

"You could have tried flirting with them long enough to get close and then petrify them. You could have used your glittery shit to blow them to smithereens before they saw it coming. You could have just kicked them in the dick. You could have come in with your glasses off and petrified them without flirting with them first, but what did you do instead?"

Bickslow stopped then, staring her down as she just looked back.

"No seriously, Evergreen, I am actually asking. Because I really can't figure out what you did to end up like this."

"THEY PROMISED TO FIX ME!"

Bickslow didn't know what he had been expecting but it wasn't that. He stood in silence for a moment, and Evergreen just kept going.

"They promised to fix me, and I wanted a family. I thought if I helped them I could join their family and…"

"So what are we to you, Evergreen? Do we mean that little? And what about me? Am I broken too? Do I need fixing?"

His voice was quiet, and Evergreen almost had to strain to hear him as his questions went on. She shuffled her feet on the floor for a moment, before he shook his head and his voice returned to something that reminded her strangely of Freed.

"Don't answer that. Any of those. We need to kill all of them, now we've killed some of the family they won't stop until we're dead. I'll come and help you because I still see you as family, whatever that means to you now. You can make your decision later, whether to stay or go."

With that he turned and left the room, shouting for his babies as he went. Evergreen stared at his back, debating whether to go or not. After a few seconds she followed him, knowing that as much as it hurt to admit she really did need the Sieth's help.

In the end the remaining members of the gang had been easier to track down than they thought. For all of the show there were only a few members left that hadn't been in the mansion, and their details had been held in one of the offices at the mansion. It had taken Bickslow a few hours to find all of the information, and less than forty-eight hours later the entire gang was eliminated.

They hadn't spoken for the whole time, not anything except battle tactics anyway. It wasn't until they got back to Magnolia, Bickslow automatically turning to walk Evergreen back to Fairy Hills that she stopped. The Sieth noticed she wasn't beside him within a few seconds, but didn't turn around to face her.

"Can I come stay with you tonight, Bickslow?"

The man didn't speak again, simply starting to walk again but this time he was heading to the apartment that he shared with Freed. The two of them had gotten in the door in silence, Bickslow pouring the two of them a cup of hot chocolate before disappearing into Freed's room. Coming back out he threw some of Freed's pajamas at her,heading into his own room and stripping down to his boxers, getting into the bed.

It had been a while since the two of them had shared a bed, but somehow Evergreen knew that tonight she wanted to revive the tradition. She changed into Freed's pajamas quickly, they didn't fit right but they would do, before crawling into bed next to the Sieth. He sipped his cocoa for a while, his babies floating lazily around them and chattering in between themselves.

"I didn't follow you because I thought you were weak, Evergreen."

His voice startled her, and she simply stared at the dark brown liquid in her cup. Both of them still had their eye protection on, and she was glad of it. It'd be too dangerous the mood they were both in for them to take them off.

"I followed you because I'm weak. Both Freed and Laxus are gone and… I just can't swallow maybe losing you too."

Evergreen ignored the water hitting the inside of her glasses, angrily wiping away the tears out of her eyes. Bickslow finished his drink, moving one of the totems into the cup to take it outside before slipping off his mask and sliding further down into the bed, turning away from where Evergreen sat.

"Bickslow, I…"

Bickslow didn't turn around at her voice, it was far too risky.

"I love you. And Freed, and Laxus. It's just… don't you sometimes want more than… this? I don't want a life of fighting, I don't want a life always on the run. I just want to settle down, adopt a few kids, I don't know."

Bickslow sighed. Of course Evergreen wanted to adopt. She couldn't fathom passing her curse onto someone else. He turned onto his back, calling his totems to him as they all littered the front of his body and snuggled up to him. Peppe slowly made his way over to Evergreen, and for the first time in a long while she let her hand drift down to stroke the top of his head.

"I had a family once, Evergreen. It didn't end happily. But if that's what you want, I swear I will do everything in my power to help you. But please, please don't kill yourself getting rid of your magic in the process."

Evergreen sobbed again, and Bickslow raised his arm up to pull her into a hug. She cried into his chest for a while, him rubbing over her back before he started to sing. Evergreen chuckled, whereas Freed had a beautiful voice Bickslow sang like a strangled cat. The Sieth huffed as the babies started to shush him, rolling his eyes behind his eyelids.

"Alright, I tried singing for you. You get nothing now."

Evergreen smiled. Freed always told her stories, but she knew that he sang to Bickslow. Maybe the Sieth thought he sang for everyone.

"Bickslow, about Freed…"

"I won't tell him." Bickslow's voice was quiet, and she felt it vibrate through his chest. "Or Laxus either. Now come on, go to sleep. Those two are due back tomorrow, and we have to go back to pretending to hate each other."

Evergreen chuckled. She really didn't hate Bickslow, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't pissed off by him almost constantly. Because what were brothers for, except to piss you off?

#raijinshuuappreciationweek #raijinshuu appreciation #raijinshuuappreciation #raijinshuu #raijinshuuweek #raijinshuu week #Evergreen #bickslow

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kierongillen · 7 years

Text

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 26

Spoilers, obv.

This felt like a big issue to us. I mean, in a literal sense it was a big issue. We normally are 20 pages of art (plus cheats). This is 23 pages of art, due to me completely fucking up and writing a 22 page script extremely early, thinking I'd go back to it and work out a way to compress it to 20. Except I forgot I had extra work to do on the script, so didn't leave enough time to rework it before Jamie had to get it. And then Jamie insisted on expanding a sequence by a page, because he loves you guys, or at least loves the comic.

I don't really think I could have compressed it without hurting the comic either. I compress the action at the start, and it leaves a reader cheated. I talked about false drama of cliffhangers last time, and if you don't have at least some manner of satisfying that promise, it's a cheat, and not in an interesting way people would thank us for. However, at the same time, that's not what we're really doing here. Equally, losing stuff from the back of the issue would move it into the next issue... and that is also sub-optimum, for reasons you'll see next time.

Put it like this: Jamie joked “can we split this issue in two?” and I took it entirely seriously, and started doing the math on making this a seven issue arc.

But no.

There's also one change which should be mentioned – we've gone up to $3.99 from $3.50. Why? Image suggested we should. There are very few Image books that are $3.50 now. The vast majority are $3.99. We've had our price set at $3.50 ever since 2006, with the exception of Immaterial Girl. We figured we should listen to our publisher. 50 cents across a decade seems reasonable, especially in an industry where $3.99 seems standard.

Anyway, let's do this thing...

Jamie/Matt's Cover The Norns, and they are kind of core to this issue, so more of a connection between cover and contents than for most of the issue. For reasons that become clear this issue, The Norns and Baal step forward as alternative protagonists for the story structure. They are key.

There was considerable EEEK! Over the wearing of masks.

Nicola Scott's Cover

Nicola's wonderful. I've wanted a candid photo cover for most of WicDiv, and I'm surprised it's only turned up now. It's also delineating Sakhmet and Persephone, which is a key note towards the end of the issue.

The Image 25th Anniversary Cover

It should be stressed, this was Eric Stephenson's idea.

You may wonder how we did it.

This is how we did it.

In short: we did it like an episode of Playschool. The lighting being a lamp, gaffataped to a wall is a particular highpoint.

And then Katie-west worked her magic.

All the good jokes on the covers are Jamie's, which is very annoying, but makes me feel better when I laugh at it, as at least I’m not laughing at my own crap.

Page 1

I love the first panel. I almost put it in the newsletter, but decided we should save that thrill for context. It's very much in the establishing shot mode, and a promise. Jamie and Matt executing things like Minervas concussive wind blasts out of the swirling body is lovely detail too.

I did have something akin to a NOT AGAIN! As a line of dialogue from Minerva here, but was obviously killed for breaking tone. See later in the notes for other thoughts on that whole sequence.

And by the end of the page, we've changed direction entirely. No, this isn't going to be a straight fight. We have other narrative fish to fry.

Page 2-3

RISING ACTION was basically four issues of straight punchy, with a middle act of woe. We're not the sort to do that again, and immediately try and make this feel different. That first panel where we get a very human observation of a superhero event. A glance out the window, and shit is going down out there. There is a lot to try and ground this as we go on, even as it escalates...

I suspect Amaterasu's realisation is one of the cruellest lines I've written for her.

Heh. Okay – want to hear another example of me messing up? I knew I needed Amaterasu here, ASAP. But I had also set the scene at night, so her long-range-teleportation doesn't work. This led to a rewrite to bring in the Woden-designed-arm-piece from Rising Action. And it helps in other ways – we get the interaction with her mum, which says a lot about Amaterasu. I do like the idea of Amaterasu having left this piece of fancy armour lying around on her bedroom floor and her mum tidied it up.

Jamie pushed a panel from page 3 onto page 2, which is obviously a smarter call, letting him keep a steady angle on the three teleportation panels, which nails the effect. The breaking up dialogue to show that things are instantaneous is obviously one of our tropes.

The lettering on this sequence involved some messing around with layers to get work, and to make the fade in operate. Nice work, Clayton. This is also an area where my suspicion of sound-effects was entirely over-ruled.

Page 4

And hulllllo Baal's family.

This strikes me as a very WicDiv take on a reveal. It could have worked with just a reveal of his family – we'd want to see that. But to reveal that, and juxtapose it to the creeping monsters, so mixing the excitement of meeting new people with the fear of losing them? That's WicDiv, innit? Sigh.

This was also the page which went through the most colouring notes. Getting the exact level of reveal on the Great Darkness creatures, of how much they're in the light or not took quite a few takes. We're very happy.

Page 5

We are totally not rated PG.

Page 6-7

If you follow me on twitter, you'd see me doing a crowdsurfed suggestion for a line of dialogue for someone to say when they're pulling someone out of the way. That was this page, and Persephone pulling the tentacles. I decided that any dialogue was too much. It even makes it jokey (clearly not the intent) or slows down the action. Even a “NO!” felt too much for me.

We're heading more towards action here, and doing a beautifully rendered fight-scene in someone's garden. This feels a very us thing to do.

I believe I described the Amaterasu laser beam shot in the mode of a Quietly moment, that sense of a still moment in time. Jamie and Quitely don't have a huge amount of overlap as artists for me – Quitely is all about the 3D space of a shot, which Jamie simply isn't – but this captures something really furious. The colouring from Matt on the heat vision is particularly A+.

The push and pull of Amaterasu is very much her thing. Her bravery is an open question, as is her capacity for anger and violence. From Persey-Poo to incinerating her foes in a couple of pages doesn't exactly make me feel comfortable about her. So nice work, J ane M.

Also Good Job Baal's Brother on spotting the baddies.

Page 8

Jamie and my debate on exactly how to (er) Biggify the Darkness creature was quite a thing. Of course, the creatures are granular. We can't just make the grains bigger.

We were a little worried that Persephone firing red thorns being a little confusing, when red is Amaterasu's signature. We may end up tweaking them green in the trade. Not that we've seen anyone complain about it.

I think Amaterasu's living-Darkseid-stary-beam is my favourite regular power signature in this book.

Lots of careful unpacking on what is said on the phone, to ensure clear storytelling. That we never actually show the Great Darkness Creature back at the shard defeated is an unsusual choice... but we need to make sure that people know it HAS been defeated and Minerva rescued. Equally, we come back to the nature of cliffhangers we mentioned earlier. We've promised a fight against the Great Darkness, but are much more interested in introducing Baal's family, showing Amaterasu's complicity in this, Persephone's powers, etc. So you DO get a great darkness fight, just not the one you were expecting, which is hopefully okay as the one you were expecting is a lot less interesting than this. Hopefully.

The Phone is a Woden design, as referenced later in the issue. Baal can't just go down any phone. You'll see one on his living room table in last issue.

Page 9

This is the sort of page I'd have ended up cutting if I tried to reduce the issue... and why would I want to do a thing like this?

There was a discussion of whether ALL I DO IS WIN was too much. It eventually worked around to obviously it's too much, but WicDiv is too much, so that's all fine.

This is a lovely set of colouring from Matt here. The white and purple is just a delight.

Notice tiny Scarab-esque thing shooting off in the top right panel. In a moving medium the Great Darkness' nature would be a lot cleaner, but we do stuff like this.

Page 10

And we're back to grounded colours. Just turn this page and see how things change. Isn't that a delight? Matt Wilson For Eisner, etc.

Yes, Baal's name is Valentine Campbell. Obviously we chewed it over a bunch. Valentine has so many connotations seemed to be useful.

I find myself thinking that in the first half of the issue Persephone is almost back to volume 2 Laura. She's primarily an observer, one who is taken places and sees thing. That does tend to make Amaterasu's final line particularly pointed.

Lovely pair of expressions in that final panel.

Page 11

The title for this was originally ONCE MORE, leading directly into Baal's first line, and hitting the beat again. That changed when I realised I wanted to do the whole sequence as a nine panel grid.

This is the first time all the surviving gods have been in a scene together, and it's a circular table. Luckily, when I mapped the gods to the seats, the ones who are most important to interact are actually sitting beside each other – imagine how difficult it would have been if Baal and the Norns weren't seated by each other.

(We'd have done something else, clearly, and had the Norns standing like Persephone is.)

So I was trying to work out how to panel all this political-meeting style chat, and hit the bit where the gods vote. And I realised that as there were nine gods voting, it'd work really well as a nine-panel grid. That rapidly expanded to... wait, especially with Baal/Norns sitting by each other (so minimising the need for wide shots) I could do the whole thing in a nine panel grid. That allows you to cut between individual characters speaking, and not have to worry about the interactions for most of it.

That unlocked the way to best dramatically sell the Persepone's final line. If we build a structure, we can get an aesthetic effect by demolishing it.

It's not the first time we've done a Nine Panel Grid in our work, but its' certainly the longest. And if we're doing Nine Panel, it brings it back to Watchmen, which means that we should highlight that. Hence, the title altering to THE WATCH, which obviously has all kinds of connotations.

I go through this to primarily show how much fun this job can be. Stuff builds on top of other stuff, and you eventually end up with something much more full than the original idea. For me, pretty much nothing is as good as writing is when it's going right.

Which is the sort of thing I'll get depressed about if I think too much about it, so let's not for now, eh?

Page 12

If we're going to do the nine panel thing, we need to establish the scene properly. Two panels, built on a nine-panel grid superstructure.

Obviously this was a heavy described panel, as we had to cram in all the character beats for all the people. Baph's slouch is particularly on point. The coffee that Dio is hanging onto for dear life another. The Norns not getting a seat.

One thing I particularly like about this page? It forefronts the visual element of the table with twelve gods around which people may not have noted. This, on a page after a big title saying THE WATCH is more obviously a clock face.

Yes, Watchmen was a big influence on me as a writer. Did I mention it? I may have mentioned it.

Page 13

Oh man – look at Matt's use of shadow here. Baal in the darkness on last page was great, but passing from the shadow to light in the first panel.

When I first saw Jamie had put Minerva in plaid I worried for him. “Er... Jamie. Drawing Plaid is a lot of work.” He noted that as there was only a few panels with her in, it'll be fine. Jamie is not entirely foolish.

The page does show one of the things about the nine panel – as in, you get more beats... but you have to be pretty particular to choose those beats. 9 panel is good for a writer, for certain things (most important: timing), but you can do less with any one panel. On the plus side your beats are more deliberate, more delineated.

In this case, showing Persephone's is relatively “expensive” in page space, but clearly necessary – Baal is saying the stuff he's never said before. We need to see her response.

And yeah... Baal finally lays out his main motivation. I suspect for close readers or re-readers, things make a lot more sense.

The seventh panel is one of four two shots I can see in this whole sequence, to get an idea of how sparsely we tried to use them. Maybe 5 if you include the one with Woden asking “Does she get a vote.” Though I say this having only skimmed quickly, and am sure I must have missed one..

The non sequitur panel of the 8th is one of my fave things you can do with a rigid panel like this. Drop a silent panel and break it up.

Page 14-15-16

Honestly, this kind of shit is stuff I love. Just lock characters in a room and let them argue. Political dramas. Legal dramas. It's just a fascinating writing challenge – who speaks next and why. How to delineate the information, how to lampshade information is questionable, etc, etc.

I mean, in some ways this sort of debate is pure exposition – here are some statements – but the fact that each is immediately interrogated turns it into something else.

Basically, if left to my own devices, I'd have just done a 40 issue series in the style of 12 ANGRY MEN called 12 ANGRY GODS.

In terms of my outline, I knew that the pantheon would have a schism at this point. Until Brexit happened, I didn't realise that it would be by something as clear and true as a simple democratic vote.

The hand on Cass' shoulders is the sort of thing I'd have only done in a nine panel grid.

Yes, Baphomet, there was a time for jokes, and it was in the first arc.

PAGE 17

This issue, for reasons which we'll get to shortly, had some consultants' eyes on. That bit was fine. The thing which was tweaked then, and tweaked time and time over is trying to delineate the sides. The first draft simply hadn't sufficiently. Hell, the second or third lettering tweaks didn't do the trick completely. At least from the comments we've seen, no-one seems lost, so the effort seems worth it.

The problem is that each member of the debate wants to phrase their position in the best way possible and their enemies in the worst way, which actually leaves it hard to say what's actually go on. This led to Baal in the final panel actually bringing it together – the PRIORTISE THE GREAT DARKNESS vs STUDY is the key thing. ANARCHY had to be introduced explicitly by cass to describe someone else's position as a label before it could be used here too.

In terms of minor fact drops? One of the things people always ask is what's going on with the skulls. Here we just let people know they're ornaments.

In terms of the nine panel grid, I think the single hardest decision was letting go of showing the Norn's response to Sakhmet's threat. Alas, everything else is more important.

The second one would be Baal doing something like counting people around the room, to ensure that the reader knows that Baal thinks he's won. In the end, we highlight that later, and with the ellipsis in the eighth panel. And, of course, as always a Jamie McKelvie expression goes a long way.

Er... I'm writing too much about this stuff, but I hope it's useful for people who think about comic craft. And to double-triple stress, as always in these notes, I really am just telling the surface level storytelling basics.

Page 18

And the vote page. As said earlier, was where the 9 panel grid came as possible.

These lines were especially tweaked to sell the positions and why.

And Dionysus, for the first time in the scene, speaks. Obviously a key issue for Dio, where we move him into an explicit new position in the plot.

Page 19

Man, I don't even want to unpack this page.

But I can easily imagine how both Baal and Cass are feeling in the last panel. Uh... wait...

Page 20

Formalism doing its formalism thing.

This was written in a nine panel grid, but with descriptions of which panels are covered by Persephone's hair.

Page 21

And then we go into our quick cuts to move to the new status quo, the nine panel.

It's very much our aesthetic that we show the break-up but don't show the getting-together.

I suspect it's the sort of scene I'd like to talk about further down the line, but not now.

The gold prize for Jamie here are panels 3 and 4. For me, that's comic, and that's why I love comics.

Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

Page 22-23

Cass continues to be a gift for those who like reaction images.

The strangest rewrite of the issue for me was the “What's the saying about stopped clocks?” line, which was originally a lot more suggestive and less explicit. But 2 of the first 4 people to read it didn't get it in its more suggestive form, which meant that I was always going to dial back for clarity's sake.

So, yes, this is a Cass/Dio/Woden team-up for the Study side. Splitting your cast into smaller narrative units is a good tactic in a team book (I sort of learned it properly when I was writing my 9-core-person Uncanny X-men team). You also see it all over the place – if you listen to Community notes, you'll see how they split their cast into different arrangements and see how the characters interact. Having three characters who, on the surface, appear to have very different priorties come together under a larger banner is an interesting one.

In terms of the explicitly delineating at least part of the sexualities, this has been considered for a while. Let's start with Cassandra.

Early on in WicDiv, I saw a random comment of someone annoyed with something I'd said. Specifically me saying something akin to “I sometimes need room to discover a character's sexuality.” Her response – and one I completely get – was annoyance with suggesting people don't know their own sexualities. The “No, I know I'm Bi – don't say it's a phase. Don't say it's something I'm discovering.”

As I said, I get it, but that's not what I meant. I meant characters. Writing often feels like excavation. Not always, but sometimes, and especially in a book like WicDiv. You get to know them by writing them, sometimes in actually fundamental ways, ways which were always there but now come to the surface. For all my planning in WicDiv, it's also a living creature.

So when starting off, I always had a few feelings about Cassandra. There was the possibility that she was actually asexual. It would fit with her for a few ways, and the evidence for a reading of that was certainly there. However, I rapidly realised it caused huge problems inside the narrative in terms of what it was saying about asexuality. One of Cassandra's primary traits is that she doesn't experience the performances. If she's asexual, that implies that it's linked to that – especially when the performances have been linked so strongly to sex at various places in the narrative. I thought that'd be true even if we had another asexual character in the primary cast to show the contrary. I continued writing her and thinking, and having an awareness of the various potentials I saw in her. I didn't have to make a choice yet.

The flashpoint was issue 20, where I realised that it just was untenable for her to be asexual. Because if performances are linked in the readers' mind to sex, that eventually Cassandra does response to a performance is a sign that asexuals just haven't met the right person yet.

No. I'm not writing a book that suggests that.

There is also the real world thing that trans women are viewed through a hypersexual lens or an asexual one, which is certainly one feeds into the final dialogue on the page.

So everything re-arranged and solidified in the other way I saw them – a stable lesbian polyamarous triad. I saw with Imperial Phase ahead, that felt more and more necessary. WicDiv is... not a book where relationships are healthy. Every single romantic relationship in the book is openly dysfunctional. Relevantly, there is a lot of people doing polyamory very badly. It comes to a point where it looks like the book saying this behaviour is bad rather than this specific practise is bad. The Norns would be the counter-argument. In this issue, we show them in an private, loving supportive relationship that's arguably more unconventional than any other in the book.

We don't get to see any of the sex, of course, as it's none of our business and they're not there for the readers' pleasure. But with them in our story, it shows there's nothing implicitly wrong with kink, or polyamory or anything else... as long as you don't act like sentient burning trashcans.

That was the thinking. Some of it, anyway.

Oh – on the note of discovery, I only realised that she'd lean submissive as I wrote the page. It was a surprise to me as well, but seemed to align with everything else and make a lot of things make more sense.

In Dio's case, it was there as a possibility even as I first wrote him into the bible. I see myself writing around it in my notes, saying that I just didn't feel like sex was a big drive for him in the way it was for so much of the cast. The problem eventually came for the place to introduce it, and how, and in the same action where we move Dio towards the centre stage (or at least primary supporting characters) seemed to be it.

We've had a lot of supportive messages about both of these, so thank you. And thanks again to our consultants, who we will continue to high five at the slightest encouragement.

Page 24-25

This was originally written as a page, but Jamie insisted on MOTORBIKE DRAMA!

And how could we resist that?

I actually wrote a first draft of this, and wondered if it was too much, and then did a completely different end scene based on Persephone leaving the Shard. Arguing it over with Chrissy, we came down strongly on this. It's WicDiv. We crash motorbikes into walls for the sake of it.

Worth noting: this is a return to a non-cliffhanger ending structure. The “read the next issue” comes from the whole of the issue rather than a specific beat. This is about leaving it with a mood.

Favourite thing in colour – the circle of light on the wall, a half second before impact.

I'll give you one for free: Persephone is on the phone to one of her people, probably an agent. I could have put an explicit call in that to the dialogue, but it was too crass and fake, and the specific identity doesn't really matter that much. It's just someone who's clearly going to get her a new bike.

Also: the main reason why I wondered whether this scene wasn't too much, is because it is literally the lyrics to Icona Pop's I LOVE IT.

Page 26

“Hey, C, is referencing Kesha too much on the interstitial? It sort of is a trashy pop take on Watchmen's encroaching apocalypse feel.”

“No, that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you do.”

“Cool.”

See you next month, where we reach the penultimate part of IMPERIAL PHASE (I). It's just being put to bed, and we like it a lot.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #Nicola Scott #writer notes

219 notes · View notes

phanromaniac · 7 years

Text

Take Your Chances, I'll Take Mine. (Chapter 5)

Pairing: (Phan) (I mean) (My Name Kinda Gives It Away)

Summary: Dan Hates Phil. Phil Lester, the boy who, frustratingly, got the best marks in the class yet never actually studied. Dan’s hands clenched in anger just thinking about it. Phil Lester, who was always surrounded by friends, despite being part of the chess club, debate team, and practically any other nerdy extracurricular activity you could think of. Everyone, even the stereotypical 'cool kids’ liked, or at least respected him. Dan definitely didn’t hate him because of the way him, biting his lips, didn’t distract him. Dan definitely didn’t hate him because of the bubbly feeling he didn’t give him in his stomach because Dan definitely wasn’t gay.

Alternatively: It’s on Wattpad, too (Now on AO3, as well)

Warnings: Sexuality Crisis, Financial Insecurity (Not Too Much), Arguing (And like a crap tonne of swear words), Eventual smut

*Important* Tell me if I didn’t tag something.

*Important No. 2* Co-written with @xinyanhowell who is gr9 and should definitely be looked at 100%.

Chapters: one, two, three, four

The first thing Dan noticed when he woke up was his lack of pants. The second thing he noticed was his lack of a shirt. The third thing he noticed was voices, talking in low murmurs across the room. Dan wanted to go back to sleep.

His head pounded like a kickdrum and he groaned aloud, bringing the quiet conversation across the room to a screeching halt.

“Time’sit?” Dan slurred, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth.

“8:15” a voice, Phil’s voice, said gently. Dan cracked one eye open.

“Why am I naked?” Someone across the room chuckled, but Phil’s voice was as gentle as ever when he responded: “Do you not remember what happened yesterday evening?”

A montage straight out of a movie flashed through Dan’s head in full panoramic colour, from his migraine to his and Chris’ fight to the fact that he puked all over Phil. Oh fuck, he puked all over Phil.

“Anything I say about that’s probably just gonna dig me deeper, isn’t it?” Dan asked. He could almost hear Phil’s nod from the corner of the room.

“Don’t worry about it. Honestly.” Phil walked into Dan’s field of vision, smiling softly.

“Sorry about vomiting on you,” Dan said, his voice sounding as if he was disappointed in himself more than anything else.

“Hey,” Phil softly reassured, as if he were approaching a wounded animal, “it’s okay, it wasn’t your fault. Couldn’t have been, you blacked out immediately afterward.”

“Oh, and sorry for complaining yesterday when you did my work, I really should have thanked you.”

“Not a problem, but, if I may ask, what caused the change of heart.”

“I’m too tired to argue.”

“Fair enough.”

“I can do more of the project today, if you want.”

“Dan, please don’t take this the wrong way but-”

“Grades?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“No, it’s a fair point, and the reason I was paired with you.”

Phil giggled, and Dan noticed something: this is one of the few times they had been civil and he would much rather hear Phil laugh than fight with him. This realisation was quickly followed by blushing, and vehement mental denial.

“What’s with the blush you’re sporting?”

“Thoughts.”

“Might they be thoughts of the sexual variety?” Phil said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, my god, you’ve been spending way too much time with Chris.” Dan joked, but he seemed to choke on Chris’ name. “Uh, how is he, by the way?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, haven’t talked to him since before your guys’ fight. Though, I must say it was odd of him to turn down a fight, he seems like the type to always stand his ground.”

“He is, that’s what worries me.”

Phil just nodded silently as he packed up his stuff for the field trip that day, mostly just a notebook and pens tossed into his backpack, which he then slung over his shoulder.

“What the fuck even are we supposed to be doing?” Dan asked, sat on the edge of his bed and swinging his legs in an almost childish way.

“We’ll know when the teacher does her lecture– fuckery of a thing,” Phil said, scrubbing his hands over his face. He was just so tired, and the events of the past day had done a lot to drain his usually boisterous personality.

Dan got ready in silence, trying but failing to keep his eyes off of Phil’s face. He felt less than, somehow. It wasn’t something he was use to feeling, this nauseating combination of guilty and inadequate. Phil made his way to the washroom to get dressed and ready. In a way, he felt Dan might appreciate it more if he didn’t have to explain himself to Phil.

Dan did appreciate it; it made him relax, for a bit at least, until he started questioning why he was so relaxed that Phil left to change. He picked up his phone, having already changed, so that he could avoid falling further into his spiral of thoughts - and for a while it was working - then Phil came out wearing glasses of all things. Dan tried his best to keep his jaw from hitting the floor (or his dick, more appropriately).

“What?” he asked. If Dan didn’t know better, he would have thought Phil sounded self-conscious.

“You- I didn’t know you needed glasses,” Dan confessed, mildly impressed that his voice only breathily wavered instead of cracking. Phil tossed a lopsided smile to the floor, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

“Yeah, my vision’s pretty shit, but I wear contacts most of the time.”

“How bad is it?” Dan asked. As someone who had 20/20 vision, Dan couldn’t imagine being dependent on some lenses to be able to see across the room.

Phil frowned, thinking. “Like, negative three and a half in both eyes?” Dan cocked his head. Like a puppy, Phil thought, then immediately tried to forget. He pulled the black frames off his face. “Here. When you wear it, it’s about what I see when I’m not, I think.”

Dan took the extended glasses, careful not to brush Phil’s fingers with his own. He slid them onto his face, blinking hard when they rested on his nose.

“Fuck,” Dan sputtered, looking up at Phil’s blurry face, “you’re blind as shit.”

Phil snorted, squinting down at Dan. Which, in hindsight, was a terrible idea because Dan’s eyes were impossibly magnified by the lenses, bright and shining and something in Phil’s chest twinged painfully with how good Dan looked.

“Take a picture of me, so I know what I look like,” Dan asked excitedly.

“Sure,” Phil said, trying to contain his own excitement as he reached into his back pocket and phil fumbled for his phone. His phone, not Dan’s, because he needed to keep that photo and Dan sure as hell wouldn’t be willing to text it to him.

Dan smiled, and Phil’s hands were almost shaking too hard to hit the button, but he pulled himself together enough to manage - knowing in the long run he would benefit immensely by having the photos (as blackmail material… obviously… No other reason. None at all).

“Okay, there.” he said as he snapped the 12th photo on his phone, “now give them back to me, I want to be able to see again.”

“Alright, alright,” Dan said in mock-defeat, and Phil almost felt like letting him keep them. As he put his glasses back on he heard a small gasp omit from Dan’s lips, but he decided not to comment on it - to save both of them the conversation. Staring at each other for a few seconds until Phil broke the silence. “”So, uh, you want to see the pictures?’

“That’s why I asked you to take them isn’t it?” Dan giggled, slightly ashamed to what Phil fucking Lester and his fucking glasses reduce him to.

“Sorry,” Phil said, sarcastically shrugging his shoulders, putting almost enough emphasis on each syllable to be cartoonish. “So, uh, here they are,” Phil extended his arm, hoping that Dan wouldn’t go through anything on it.

Dan giggled for what was probably the 50th time that day, and it wasn’t even nine am. “I look like a mole.” The smile he had made a dimple that was only slightly visible, but enough so that Phil’s heart sped up.

In order to not get caught by Dan (and himself) he spoke up. “We should probably get down to get some breakfast, or something. We have to leave in like twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, and I should probably talk to Chris too, you know, about yesterday.” Dan said, his jokey demeanor almost completely disappearing. Seeing Dan like this made Phil swallow his comment on how he’s not sure that Chris would want to talk to him after how pissed of - or rather, embarrassed - Chris was in regards to yesterday’s events.

They were only halfway to where they were sitting yesterday when Louise singled Dan out. “You broke him,” she venomously whispered, and Dan’s blood froze in his veins when he noticed the full force of the fire in her eyes, completely and totally serious.

“What?” Dan was perplexed, trying to figure out why Louise would be mad at him He said nothing to her, in fact she should be apologizing to both him and Chris for how she had treated them like children the night before, but before he could start arguing with Louise she extrapolated.

“Look! Look at him!” she said, pointing in the direction of a Chris who wasn’t making any passes at anyone - in fact, he wasn’t even talking to anyone at all, and he was looking down at his food without eating it, as if he couldn’t bear stomach it. “You broke him, Dan!”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Louise.” Dan scoffed.

“Fine, then you go talk to Mr. Cheerful Chris and his totally not-there personality!” Louise snapped, very poorly masking her worry.

“I will!” Dan barked back, but if he were being honest with himself, the fact that Louise was worried scared him. She had an intuition with people, especially with her friends. Dan shook that thought off and stormed off in Chris’ direction before remembering that he wanted fix things and not fight, then he changed his footing, making it a lot lighter, as if to dance as delicately around the problem with as with his worry that Louise was right.

“Hey, Chris!” He attempted to stay enthusiastic, but awkwardly failed.

Chris looked up from his food to Dan. He nodded and smiled, but it wasn’t a smile that Dan knew from Chris, it was one Chris gave his mum when she said his father would be coming over. Looking up from his smile Dan noticed the dark bags under his eyes, and the lack of mischievous light.

“So, about yesterday,” Dan started, intending to get an apology in, but Chris interrupted him.

“I’m sorry, Dan, what I said was out of line I will refrain from doing that again.”

Dan tried his hardest to find an ounce of sarcasm in Chris’ voice, but failed. Instead he found a tired, scraping sound that he had never heard from Chris before. Chris apologizing for being out of line was one thing, as he had to ask for forgiveness for his faux pas every day, but he always followed it up with a joke, or a jab. Dan waited, but Chris said nothing else. That wasn’t the only worrying thing Chris said. Chris was saying he would try to not be honest to Dan again, or at least he wouldn’t say what he perceived.

Dan wanted to get Chris out of whatever the fuck he was going through, so he offered up something Chris could never have resisted: the opportunity for a “Your Mum” joke. “So, uh, Chris?” Dan started, smirking stupidly as if he had figured out a cure to Chris’ stupor, “what are you doing?” Dan was preparing for the remark, making sure Chris heard the innuendo by putting too much emphasis on doing.

Dan’s smirk quickly fell when met with Chris’ energy-drained eyes as he slowly looked up.

“I’m not sure, you?” He sounded almost like a stranger, like Dan was someone he had spoken to twice before and they were paired together to work on something. Dan noticed Chris raise his eyebrow and look behind Dan. After following his line of view Dan saw that Phil and Louise were intensely looking at the two of them, and only to pretending to be deep in conversation when caught staring.

Dan directed his gaze back to Chris. “Can I sit here?” He hoped against hope Chris would say something perverse as usual, like, “no, but you can sit on this dick,” before laughing wholeheartedly at Dan’s mock-disgusted reaction. But Chris just nodded, keeping his chin tucked to his chest and his eyes glued to the floor. Dan sat, cautiously, waiting with bated breath for Chris to erupt at him.

It never happened. Chris kept his eyes down for a few moments longer, his gaze slowly climbing until it rested just below Dan’s chin, but he never really met Dan’s eyes.

Louise was right; Dan had broke him. Dan’s threat went dry at the thought. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He closed it again.

A teacher came into the dining hall, barking for everyone to finish up and be out front with their partners in ten minutes. Chris abruptly stood, pressing his palms to the table and letting his hair fall in a curtain around his face. He opened his mouth, then shook his head minutely and closed it again, grabbing his plate and depositing it in the bin with more force than really necessary. Dan’s eyes followed his hunched shoulders as he exited the room, shoving the door with enough force to send it slamming into the wall. Dan looked to Phil, then to Louise, helpless.

“What the fuck happened?” he whispered, afraid of speaking too loudly and somehow setting Chris off, despite the fact the boy was nowhere near Dan. Louise shook her head softly, staring blankly at the door even as more classmates chatted their way through it.

“What the fuck indeed,” she said, and if it sounded too much like a cheesy teen movie line Dan didn’t say anything.

~-~

Dan and Phil worked in their room in silence – well, Phil worked, Dan just did his best to stay out of the way – for the entirety of the field trip, only speaking to each other on the bus ride back, six hours later. Since their departure from the hotel that morning clouds had gathered, thick and heavy in the sky, and Dan rolled his eyes. It was just like a novel; the weather synced perfectly to his mood. Did that make him the protagonist? Dan had never wanted to be the protagonist, he’d always related more to the best friend, or the love interest. Useless, but with enough clumsiness and witty remarks to unfailingly get into and out of terrible situations with or without the help of his friends. So then that made Chris the protagonist? Dan snorted and rolled his eyes, biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud at the idea of Chris being the selfless hero type.

“What?” Phil asked, breaking their day-long silence. Dan pointed to the sky.

“Chris is the protagonist.”

Phil just looked confused. Dan waved a hand dismissively. “Not important.”

They were silent for a few tense minutes. Dan picked his nails. Phil stared out the window.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked, then flinched at the sound of his own voice. It was too forced, too empty, too unsympathetic. Phil’s lips pulled down and Dan tried again.

“I mean. I know it’s a lot between me and Chris, but that doesn’t mean other people aren’t affected by us. You and Louise and stuff. And I know you, in particular, because you and Chris are- umm…” Dan trailed off stupidly. What were Phil and Chris? Boyfriends? Fuckbuddies? Friends-who-made-out-that-one-time-and-swore-to-never-speak-of-it-again? He flapped his mouth dumbly, eventually giving up and hoping Phil would fill in the now-awkward silence that stretched between them. Phil turned his hundred-yard stare from the window to Dan, and Dan winced.

“I don’t know,” Phil said, his voice so small and so, so sad. Dan’s heart broke a little bit just listening to him. “We haven’t spoken since yesterday.”

“Oh,” Dan said intelligently, frantically searching for something to follow that up with. In a part of him he would never like to admit, he was a bit relieved that Chris and Phil hadn’t talked about the event, that it wasn’t too soon for something to prevent them from getting together. It also put him under a bit of stress, were they following the classic ‘will they-won’t they” trope? Dan honestly didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say, so he decided to wait for Phil to charismatically brighten up the conversation, as he so well knows how to do. When nothing came, Phil turned back out the window, and Dan let him, silently cursing himself for trying to initiate a meaningful conversation. He glared at the tear in the back of the seat in front of him, searching for the answers to life in the fabric and stuffing. The clouds broke overhead. Dan wiped away frustrated tears.

In attempt to distract himself from the constant mess of a knot that was his mind, Phil tried to change the topic to something, anything that might have the prospect of diverting his thoughts in any other direction. He spoke up, “so my mum has been getting on my case about what I should do with my life, like I have a fucking clue. She says I’m wasting such potential for not going into law or medicine or other things of that variation. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know, I might want to go into film writing, or acting or something, maybe even drawing, I’m pretty good at that, but I’m most likely going to just stick to the arts, what with not being good at maths and sciences and all.”

“That sounds fun. More fun than like. Neurosurgery or something.”

“If you could wake up tomorrow with a job, what would it be?”

“I mean I guess I’d want to go into graphic design, or directing a movie or something like that.”

“Really? You could go into any of the ‘parent-respected’ jobs with your marks and yet you would chose an unstable art career?”

“You sound just like my mum, honestly,” Phil sighed passively, as if he has had to explain this more frequently than he breathed, “being good at memorising it doesn’t mean I would like to have a career in it, in fact, I would go as far as to say I would hate it. Do you know how depressing it is to stare at those god-awful medical books? God, I would rather die.”

“Do you even read the textbooks for school?”

“No. Why?”

“How the fuck do you memorise all those things?”

“I’m an auditory learner, I just remember it when it’s read to me. That and mnemonics whenever I have to memorise a list or something.”

“Could you teach me, honestly it would spare me so much time”

“If you want me to actually tutor you, I could try.”

“You know a few days ago I would have probably gotten mad and claimed you were a conceded piece of shit-”

“Which I am-”

“Shush I wasn’t finished,” Dan giggled, wildly looking into Phil’s blue eyes - that were totally gross, what was he thinking, “but that would be nice.” Phil looked mildly surprised, but then his face pulled into a warm smile that made Dan’s heart skip a beat.

“Okay,” Phil said slowly, testing the waters. “I think that would be okay.”

An awkward silence fell and Dan was first this time to break it, “so, what is are project on? You’ve yet to fill me in on it.”

Without thought, Phil replied, “I thought we could do residential areas and housing in urban areas versus the ones in suburban, and rural, and in the future of the residential areas due to population increase.” Dan looked estranged. “What?”

“Why would you pick something that’s going to take that much effort‽” Dan worriedly whisper-yelled, “I mean how are we going to accurately predict stuff like that‽”

“It’s not going to take that much effort. I mean, look at it this way: Population increases, housing needs to increase, cities take up less space and more people live and are moving there, therefore higher density housing will most likely become more popular,” Phil shrugged as Dan gaped at him. “You said you were pretty good at art, yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean I’m no Picasso but-” Dan started before his mind turned on and started questioning things, “wait, why, aren’t you the person who just said he wanted to go into graphic design?”

Phil rolled his eyes. “Photoshop is different than a sketchbook, asshole. I can’t draw for shit, so I figure -”

“Where’s the rubric,” Dan asked. Phil handed it over, and Dan glanced over it. “Okay, this isn’t too bad, five pictures and a clear title.”

“See, and I saw that as the worst part, especially considering I couldn’t do computer stuff. Everyone has their strengths.”

Dan handed the rubric back. “Then you have fun with your six full paragraphs, sadist.”

“Only if you’re into that,” Phil said, almost as an afterthought. Dan snorted.

“You have got to talk to Chris less, he is really influencing you.’

Phil’s easy smile melted away into a vaguely uncomfortable expression.

“Right,” Dan sighed. “I forgot we aren’t all exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”

Phil shrugged, but he didn’t meet Dan’s eyes.

The rest of the day was uneventful; Dan had sat on his bed and sketched out an outline of the poster, while Phil outlined the essay on Dan’s phone. Well, he started on the archaic desktop of the hotel’s tiny office, but eventually moved to his phone. The data expenses were more than worth having a typing speed of above one word per eon.

Phil peeked up over the screen of the phone and, seeing Dan fully immersed in his sketching, clicked to the ‘messages’ app.

Hey chirs he said. It’s phil

He immediately clicked back to google docs, his heart racing as he flicked his eyes back up. Dan had shifted his sketchbook ninety degrees on his lap, but he didn’t show any interest in Phil. His tongue peeked out from between his teeth, his brows furrowing in concentration. He muttered something to himself, picking up the eraser from the sheets beside him.

Dan’s phone buzzed in Phil’s hands minutes later, and Phil cringed. It was Chris.

“Anything interesting?” Dan asked, not even lifting his eyes from his page. Phil shook his head.

“Younow notification,” he said by way of explanation.

“Oh, so I should be prepared to hear another twenty buzzes in the next two minutes.”

“Can I silence it then?” Phil asked, glad he got away with it.

“Do whatever you want,” Dan said, hunching his shoulders in what was probably a terribly uncomfortable manner, his pencil making quick, light strokes over the page.

Phil chuckled a bit and raised his eyebrow, and Dan scoffed, “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it, you dickwad.”

“No more furry porn, got it,” Phil said with a totally flat voice. Dan scoffed, then paled slightly when he met Phil’s totally serious face.

“You wouldn’t,” he said, but his eyes narrowed suspiciously anyways. Phil just stared back at him, but as soon Dan started moving closer to Phil, the corners of his lips twitched up, betraying him. Dan sat down next to Phil.

“No, I didn’t, but next time…” Phil said, trailing off with a waggle of his eyebrows. “No promises.”

“Was that supposed to be ominous?” Dan asked, referring to Phil’s eyebrows. “Because it really just looks like you’re trying way too hard.”

“Well, your mum.”

“Ooh, what a great retort.”

Phil quickly pulled up a picture of an atlas on Dan’s phone and turned it around so Dan could see it, “show me where I asked.”

“Pfft, shut up,” Dan giggled

“Make me,” Phil said, his face falling serious. Dan’s eyes widened at the words, slightly moving in, his eyes moving from Phil’s eye to his lips, slowly moving in until Phil started laughing. “Alright, time to work,” Phil sighed, not noticing a flushed Dan.

Dan awkwardly shuffled away from Phil and back to his plan for the poster, tripping in the process, nervously laughing as he did so. “Yeah, l, uh, I shou- we should, uh, get back to, uh, working.”

Phil turned back to Dan’s phone, turning to check the text from Chris.

,,, hi phil,,, gotta say youre terrible at pranks

Never claimed to be good at anything

Also i have a question, whats with you

Oh nothing much you?

No i dont mean ‘whats up’ i mean what is with you today

Nothings up with me

Yeah? Whered your personality go then?

You need to talk to dan

I mean we should talk too

About. The kissing, and whatever, i guess

Okay gotta get back to work tho we’ll talk after lunch see ya

See ya

Phil quickly deleted all the messages and returned to document, looking up at Dan every now and again. Phil finished the basic summary of two of the paragraphs, and told Dan he would be heading down to the cafeteria, thinking he’d be able to talk to Chris alone. However, Dan had simply joined him, claiming that it made more sense for them to just go together.

“So, how do you think I should go about talking to Chris?” Dan implored.

“I don’t know, I guess I could ask you the same question. How should I go about talking to Chris?” Dan blanched, realising what Phil meant. He felt something eat away at him as he thought about Phil with Chris, but it was only because he didn’t want his best friend dating someone as annoying as Phil Lester, obviously.

“Well I guess we’re in the same boat, then.”

Phil sighed heavily. “Yeah. I guess so.”

They passed the elevator ride in tense silence. The doors dinged and slid open.

Dan cast his eyes around the room, eventually finding Chris curled in on himself on a couch in the corner. Dan tried not to worry, but Chris was one of the most extroverted people Dan knew, and if he didn’t want to talk to anyone something was definitely up. Dan’s hand found Phil’s and he tugged the boy forward, dropping his hand as soon as he realized what he had been doing.

“I, uh, didn’t mean, uh -”

“Dan, I know, chill.”

“Right.” Dan nodded decisively, leading the way. Chris didn’t even look up, just curled further in on himself. Dan scoffed, dragging Chris up by his wrist.

“What the fuck do you want?” Chris said, but it lacked any of his usual venom. It was cold, flat. ‘Emotionless’ isn’t a word Dan ever thought he would use to describe Chris, but here he was

“You’re coming with me,” Dan said. Planting his feet and puffing out his chest and putting as much authority into his words as he could. Chris just stared through him, but Phil made a small noise of surprise from over Dan’s shoulder.

“We need to talk,” Dan said, and Chris swung his blank gaze to Dan’s face.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” he said tonelessly, yanking his arm back and pressing his face into the pillow again. Dan’s shoulders deflated a little, and he sighed.

“Well I have something to say to you, and you’re gonna listen.”

Chris didn’t even grace him with a response.

Dan stared down at him.

“Phil, help me carry him.”

Phil’s startled noise was louder this time, and incrementally closer to Dan’s ear.

“Excuse me?”

Chris didn’t move.

“We’re gonna carry him back up to our room. I’ll text Louise when we get there. Get his legs.”

Dan slotted his forearms under Chris’ armpits, tugging him upwards. Chris went boneless, his head lolling back onto Dan’s chest. Phil hadn’t moved.

“Get his legs,” Dan said, trying and failing to keep the smile out of his voice. If Chris wanted to be difficult, then fine. Dan’s the most stubborn motherfucker he knows.

Phil hid his own smile behind a small cough, stepping awkwardly between Chris’ legs and hooking one knee over each of his arms. Their classmates and even a few random people were staring, but Dan didn’t care. It’s not like he had a reputation to protect, at this point. That ship had sailed long ago.

The trio awkwardly shuffled to the elevator. Phil tripped over his own feet, peeking back over his shoulder to avoid running over any more walls. He hit the ‘up’ button, and readjusted his grip as they waited for the elevator.

“You can put me down now,” Chris said, but he wasn’t angry. His eyes were lighter, a hint of a smile gracing his lips.

“How do I know you won’t just run away again?” Dan said suspiciously, leaning over and looking Chris in the eye. Chris huffed out a laugh. It didn’t sound entirely genuine, but at least he was trying.

“You are permitted,” Dan intoned, nodding at Phil to drop his legs. Phil let him down softly, extending a hand to help pull Chris to his balance. Chris stood up and leaned forward, buying his face in Phil’s shoulder. Phil’s arms wrapped around his waist, and he swayed slightly. Dan swallowed against the lump that grew in his throat which felt suspiciously like his heart.

“Thanks,” Chris said, his voice muffled against the fabric of Phil’s shirt. Dan wasn’t sure who Chris was talking to, so he stayed silent.

“For caring enough to force me,” Chris clarified, lifting his head briefly to meet Dan’s eyes. Dan forced himself to keep eye contact, nodding once.

“You’re my best friend,” he said, his voice a little bit shakier than he would have liked. Chris nodded, pressing his face back into Phil’s shirt and inhaling deeply. Phil’s grip was a little tighter, and a little bit stiffer.

“And I went too far yesterday,” Dan hazarded. Chris looked up, thinking, then pushed off of Phil’s chest. He raised his eyebrow, prompting Dan to go on and Dan’s mouth went dry. He had no idea what the fuck to say. “I guess I’m mostly trying to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“Mostly?” Chris said, his smile tired. “What’s the rest, then?”

Dan’s mouth went dry. He wanted to do something stupid and dramatic, like throw down his gauntlet and swing Phil into his arms, riding off into the sunset while dramatic music swelled behind him. Well, except for the fact that Phil was too heavy, and it was three in the afternoon, and he didn’t know where to get a horse. And, you know, he’s straight and hates Phil. But he couldn’t quite squash the surge of possessiveness that erupted in his chest when Chris sidled into Phil’s arms like it was nothing, like Dan’s heart didn’t involuntary twinge in his ribcage. He settled for a wry smile and downturned eyes, spreading his hands in a placating gesture.

“Not important,” he said, bringing his hand up to scratch the back of his neck. He raised his chin, looking anywhere but Chris eyes.

Chris’ smile dropped a few degrees, but he let it go.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess- I guess we should.”

“Maybe- Maybe I should just, for the beginning, you know, just – um – leave, or something?” Phil offered, his right hand tapping out a nervous tattoo on the wall of the elevator. The doors slid open as Dan met his eyes. Phil’s were wide with what looked to be panic. Dan opened his mouth, but Phil shook his head.

“O-okay,” Dan said, and Phil mouthed ‘thank you’ before dashing – well, speed walking – down the hall. Chris watched him leave, keeping his eyes off of Dan for as long as possible.

“Well,” Chris said with a sigh as Dan opened the door to his and Phil’s room. Dan moved to sit on his own bed, toeing off his shoes and crossing his legs underneath him. Chris moved to sit on Phil’s bed, but thought better of it at the last second and instead sank down in the uncomfortable armchair in the corner of the room, by the window.

“So,” Chris said, and a smile tilted up at that exact angle, the smooth, suave, shit-eating angle Dan hadn’t realized he had missed so fucking much. “I do believe my only job requirement is to listen you grovel for my mercy?”

“Fuck,” Dan said, and his eyes and the back of his nose prickle with unshed tears. “I’m so glad you’re back.” His entire sentence felt like a sigh of relief.

Chris smiled, genuine this time. His voice was thicker than usual when he responded, “I’m not hearing any begging, Howell. Get on your knees and do it right, and then maybe I’ll do you right.”

“Shut up.” A giggle slipped out along with the words, and Chris’ smile lifted up at the edges. Dan rolled his eyes and slid off his bed, ending up on his knees. Chris’ eyes widened and his chest shook with barely-contained laughter.

“I missed you too,” he said, his voice soft and fond. But then he laughed again.

“If this is how you repay me, you should get in trouble more often.”

#phanfic #phanfiction #phan #take your chances I'll take mine

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The Best and Worst Moments of the 2019 Emmys

The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards began with awards for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and ended with a final big win for “Game of Thrones.” But between those expected results were plenty of genuine surprises and exciting outcomes.

“Fleabag,” Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s biting and moving Amazon series, dominated the comedy category, including beating out the longtime Emmy favorite “Veep” for top comedy. Unexpected but welcome acting awards went to Jodie Comer and Waller-Bridge. Billy Porter made history as the first openly gay winner for best actor in a drama. Michelle Williams and Patricia Arquette gave memorably heartfelt acceptance speeches.

Inevitably, some bits flopped hard: A misguided announcing gimmick tried people’s patience and Masked Singers infested the Microsoft Theater like gigantic, colorful vermin. Here are some of the highs and lows of Sunday’s Emmy extravaganza. — JEREMY EGNER

Homer and Friends Fill the Host Void

Much of the pre-ceremony coverage focused on the fact that the Emmys were going hostless this year, and sure enough the night opened with none other than Homer Simpson, who appeared to stroll across the stage (augmented-reality-style) before getting leveled by an animated piano.

The bit went on with Anthony Anderson, star of “Black-ish,” leaping from his seat. “We’re going to go without a host tonight!” he said, making it his mission to save the show. He found his savior in the multi-Emmy winner Bryan Cranston, who introduced a montage of clips by saying: “Television has never been this damn good.”

The opening was A-list enough that some viewers may not have even realized there wasn’t a ringleader. Or at least, didn’t care.

But some people did, or at least pretended to, which prompted plenty of laughs from the audience. In a bit later in the telecast, the late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel dragged the show’s format. “Well, well, well, how’s the old no-host thing going?” Colbert said.

“What a dumb idea,” Kimmel responded. “You know what has a host? Applebee’s has a host.”

We’re “the real victims,” Colbert said. “If we let this slide, the next thing you know, they’ll start using Alexa to present the nominees.” Which, of course, cued the voice of Amazon’s smart speaker assistant, Alexa: “O.K., here are the nominees for lead actress in a comedy series.” — MAYA SALAM

Thomas Lennon Sort of Agreed With His Critics

At least he was self-aware.CreditMatt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

In lieu of a host, the actor and comedian Thomas Lennon was on hand to offer commentary and jabs between segments. But the jokey announcing just did not work, which he himself seemed to admit at one point, saying “This is why people don’t do this, because it sucks.” Part of it was the material — I’m not sure Chernobyl jokes are the way to go — but a bigger issue was how tacked on it felt, too separate from the actual broadcast. Some comments felt like a mic was accidentally picking up snark, and the timing never seemed quite right, so it never developed a real rhythm. — MARGARET LYONS

Phoebe Waller-Bridge: The Pervy, Angry Belle of the Ball

“This is a love story.” The line introduced the staggering second season of “Fleabag,” and it fairly described the Emmys’ reception of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who won awards for writing and starring in the Amazon series, which beat out “Veep” for best comedy and also collected an award for comedy directing. And Waller-Bridge, with the casual, quick-witted charm she displayed in the series, was the insouciant queen of the awards. “It’s really wonderful to know, and reassuring,” she said, “that a dirty, pervy, angry, messed-up woman can make it to the Emmys.” And this year, she made the Emmys her own. — JAMES PONIEWOZIK

Billy Porter Makes History

Billy Porter, who stars in “Pose,” the FX drama set in the New York City ball scene during the 1980s and ’90s, broke ground on Sunday. The actor became the first openly gay winner for best actor in a drama, and true-to-form, his speech was soul-stirring and heartfelt. As Porter quoted James Baldwin and asserted that “We all have the right” to exist, the ceremony took on a new layer of significance. — AISHA HARRIS

Did you know there’s a show called “The Masked Singer”? If you watched this year’s Emmy ceremony, you certainly know now.

It’s to be expected, of course, that the network showcasing the awards will find opportunities to plug their own content. But the shilling for Fox’s bizarre-o competition show — in which celebrities of varying stature and relevance sing pop songs while hidden behind ridiculously elaborate costumes and masks — was next-level.

Before the ceremony began, the disguised contestants for the upcoming second season were trotted out on the purple carpet. During the show, they popped up onstage, as a logo in the corner of the screen and in multiple commercials. Perhaps worst of all was a too-long and very unfunny bit between the “Masked Singer” host Nick Cannon and one of the judges, Ken Jeong. It’s doubtful this overkill converted the once-blissfully oblivious into believers. — AISHA HARRIS

About That Bit …

Social media segments are common at awards shows these days, but they’re always a complete drag. No one quite seemed to get Jeong and Cannon’s tedious TikTok routine, which included making a video of the audience. It was also awkwardly sandwiched between Alex Borstein’s speech about her grandmother surviving the Holocaust and the award for best comedy writing, which went to Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was a lousy bit unto itself, but the placement made it seem even worse. — MARGARET LYONS

Michelle Williams Brings the House Down

Michelle Williams, named outstanding lead actress in a limited series for “Fosse/Verdon,” had one of the most enthusiastically received speeches of the night. It was a rallying cry for giving women in Hollywood the same money and resources as those granted to male actors. “When you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value, and then where do they put that value?” she asked. “They put it into their work.”

Williams has drawn the salary short straw before: She was slated to earn less than 1 percent of what her co-star Mark Wahlberg was getting for the film “All the Money in the World.” — NANCY COLEMAN

Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Bill Hader presenting the award for best actor in a limited series was bright, silly and short. “What’s a limited series, Bill?” “A limited series is a show that’s been canceled.” The show didn’t suffer from a lack of hosts per se, but if the Academy wanted to go a different way next year, consider these two for the gig. — MARGARET LYONS

A Poignant Moment for the Exonerated Five

Jharrel Jerome’s win as best actor in a limited series, for playing a wrongfully convicted youth in Ava DuVernay’s “When They See Us,” was a welcome surprise enough. But the most striking moment of his acceptance speech came when he called attention to the Exonerated Five — the men whose story of injustice and racist stereotyping the series brought to life — who stood, free and vindicated, in the audience. The Emmys is always a celebration of entertainment and imagination, but for a moment it became something else: history. — JAMES PONIEWOZIK

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