#better than revenge tv intro just took me out

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

Every time i hear a re-recorded Taylor Swift song I'm like women really do just get better with age huh

#every so often she reminds me I'm part gay #better than revenge tv intro just took me out #instant ko #nice job t #i will regret tagging this with #Taylor Swift #speak now tv #speak now taylor’s version

[blookmallow]

i finally rewatched Us watching for details... I also took a bunch of screenshots, I’ve mentioned before I live in santa cruz and grew up going to this boardwalk so im obsessed with this movie, I’m going to go try to take some better comparison shots sometime (here’s a few I took before) (and here’s a Tethered mannequin that was outside of the frightwalk for a while. i havent been inside for ages so I don’t know if they moved him inside or if he’s just gone now) (i HOPE they did something with the theme considering the frightwalk is literally a horror attraction beneath the boardwalk. i dont really want to go in there by myself though lmao. not a fan of animatronics jumping out and screaming at me) 

this is a lot, i have many things to say 

-----------------

- the opening news segment is 11 at 11 

- you can faintly see adelaide/red’s reflection in the tv screen, with a toy rabbit (her shirt also has twin lines on it in multiple places but that could be looking too far lmao) 

- in the “Hands Across America” segment (aside from the obvious red figures linked together in the logo) : “from the golden gate bridge to the twin towers” another possible 11/twinning, and it starts in california, which is where the tethered revolution begins 

- on “from sea to shining sea” the exact same coastline image is just flipped 

(there’s also another 11 on the side of the TV here) 

- “This summer, 6 million people will tether themselves together” 

- brief mirroring in the boardwalk ad, not just two girls running on the beach but also two girls with upside down reflections in the ground, 

- fairly obvious one, but “find yourself” (as a sidenote there’s nothing in that spot irl, the roller coaster and the swings are real but there was never a ‘vision quest’ or a ‘merlin forest’ as far as I know and there’s no door or anything there either, the interior shots must’ve been done separately somewhere else) (nothing’s left here from the movie now either, I have no idea when they filmed it because I never saw anything or heard anything about it) 

- adelaide/red whistles “the itsy bitsy spider” when the lights go out in the vision quest - “down came the rain and washed the spider out,” it’s raining outside when her tethered comes up (and she is dragged down). she also drops her red apple on the ground before she enters 

- zora’s rabbit shirt 

- everyone else is eating fast food of some kind, except adelaide, who is eating red strawberries 

as well as being a visual cue, its possible she has an aversion to meat if she was forced to eat raw rabbit as a child

- young adelaide arranging animals in the sand (it seems like some of the tethered tend to mirror their counterpart’s movements, so it’s possible she’s mirroring red, though it’s probably not that likely she’d be planning this early/the dance hasnt happened yet so its probably just foreshadowing) 

- young adelaide very pointedly watches “her” mother crying, saying “I just want my little girl back” - she will never have her little girl back again, though she doesn’t know it (I’m not sure if adelaide still remembers what she’s done at this point either) 

its also mentioned that ‘grandma’ has passed away as of the present time, likely adelaide’s mother (i dont remember if its stated outright but since the house belonged to the grandma, and it’s in santa cruz, that would line up) so. the tethered mother, if she’s still alive, would not kill red’s real mother in the uprising. dont know about the father, or if red knows/cares about this, but. thats there. that also means the original mother will never know what happened with her daughter (likely the father won’t either, it’s not clear if he’s still alive but there’s no mention of him being around/he’s not at the house so it seems likely he passed already too) 

- adelaide, her reflection, and a (not so) itsy bitsy spider 

theres even two spiders, one a toy, one real 

- jason crawls out of a cabinet at zora’s feet and scares her while she’s looking in a mirror (which is also a very pluto-like movement) 

- adelaide finds the toy rabbit in a box; assuming the intro was chronological, we saw “her” with it in the tv screen reflection before she went to the boardwalk, so this was red’s rabbit first (she probably does not remember this, though) (red also later finds this and cuts off the head, not sure why though)

- adelaide “sees” her child self in the room with her (in her memory) learning her dance alongside her reflection

 but the reflection is the one she “sees” looking directly at her 

(she’s also interrupted by hearing her son, above her, screaming because he’s trapped, but that might not be intentional) (though when red comes down here later, she is also interrupted by her son getting stuck in the closet too)

- she’s also wearing a choker necklace with a matching gold bracelet, maybe an allusion to. the choking and the handcuffs, again i might be looking into it too much, but. the white clothes which steadily become red with blood seems very intentional so i wouldnt be surprised if the jewelry was planned specifically too 

- its really hard to see and its a split second throwaway comment but kitty goes “oh isnt that beautiful” showing her the magazine and i thhiiiink thats a white girl in a native american headdress :’  ) probably doesnt have. much deeper meaning other than ‘clueless white friends’ but 

- guy buried in sand comes bursting to the surface again and scares his friends (also eyyooooo you can see the wharf in the background im down there all the time) (sorry this is still wild to me. i grew up here ive been to that beach like 9 million times)

- i didnt catch it and was waiting for it to be shown again and it wasnt and i dont want to go back for it but anyway jason has a drawing of a bunch of people holding hands in a line like the hands across america thing in his room, theres a lot of drawings around and we see his drawing of the first untethered, so he probably drew that as well

- jason has a hard time communicating, but he seems to use drawing as a way to express himself. he doesn’t tell his mother about the encounter with the old man (and only shrugs when he’s asked about it) but he does draw it. adelaide found self expression through dance when she was a child before she was able to talk, so he probably got those traits from her. her voice also goes low and hollow on the line “I just didn’t know if you were lost, or... taken” 

- her voice also gets very strange when she’s talking about her memory of the encounter in the vision quest. low, shaky, harsh. its fascinating hearing how much alike the voices are (obviously they’re both the same actress/if the tethered are clones it makes sense that they’d have identical vocal chords but like. red’s got a fucked up voice. hearing echos of that in adelaide is wild and i didnt notice it at all before) 

- its not clear whether adelaide actually remembers what she did, or even realizes she was the copy - is she trying to protect her family from what she believes was the girl who almost took her, or trying to stop her from getting her revenge? she describes the event to gabe as if she was the one who was attacked but escaped, and im not sure if she’s lying or has convinced herself that’s the truth

something’s going on with jason and pluto too but I don’t quite know what it is. when we first see jason he’s wearing a Jaws shirt, kind of a similar vibe to the thriller shirt, and when the tethered arrive he’s wearing a white tuxedo t shirt, white matching his mother’s white outfit. the others all go off to kill their doubles but pluto holds jason’s hand, sits with him quietly, watches his magic trick, he’s told to go “play” which. obviously has a violent undertone to it but he doesn’t actually try to kill him. i dont even remember seeing him with the scissors. why are jason and pluto different. why does pluto get stuck mirroring jason’s movements even to the point of his death but the others dont. why didn’t adelaide mirror red

i guess its possible its because pluto is the youngest in the family so maybe he hasn’t broken out of his connection yet? they didnt really ever explain how they learned to do that 

and as for the connection with adelaide it. could just be that jason takes after his mom more and zora takes after her dad more but that seems too simple. i mean theres the theory going around that jason was actually switched with his clone too at some point and its got some good points (jason forgetting the magic trick, getting stuck in the closet again, etc) but theres a whole line of logic to debunk that too so its just. What’s Going On Here  

cal 11 

i took the first pic to get a comparison shot at the same place later irl but then noticed the ambulance they come across is the same one (#2) they saw earlier 

pretty obvious but the real rabbit comes out through the picture of an identical rabbit (there’s also probably a “rabbit hole” allusion here) 

i noticed this before too but now i have a screenshot of it, im the rabbit in the background just chilling on the floor during the climax here

- im sure i must have seen this before but i forgot about it. the 11:11 guy’s tethered didn’t have a sign so he just.......carved it into his head

- it never healed, either, he did it badly enough to scar

- red says “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, how you could have taken me with you” - she doesn’t mean adelaide ran off and left her there. adelaide made the choice to trap her in the underground. its possible red might have even been thinking how she would have let adelaide come with her if given the chance, which. i mean, i dont know how her parents would have reacted to suddenly having identical twins out of nowhere, but like. knowing there’s a chance red might have accepted her. and all this could have been different 

this is definitely a movie that’s not really intended to be fully explained, there’s a lot of questions that aren’t really supposed to be answered, but nonetheless one of my biggest concerns is where do the clothes come from underground. red tells us they were all abandoned down there generations ago so nobody’s supervising or providing anything. how do they end up with copies of the clothing their counterparts are wearing. and here adelaide has a messed up faded old shirt that either looks similar to red’s shirt or is the same shirt just badly damaged, she switches it with red’s before she goes out for good so that explains how she gets the new shirt, but where did this one come from. why is it different if the other clothes aren’t

and of course there’s the whole question of “where did they all get these red jumpsuits from” but again. questions that aren’t really the point, i guess

#liveblog general #Us #us movie #jordan peele #us 2019 #pinned #media analysis

[sammysreelreviews]

Counting Down My Top 20 Films Of The Decade: Part 2

Here we are y’all, the last decade list. I can’t believe I actually finished this list. This list took fucking forever and I can’t believe I’m finally sharing it! All my decade lists are listed here in my intro to the first part of my top 20! Okay so some of these choices may be crazy, I know, but I picked the movies that have made me feel things and movies that I have watched over and over and over again. I’m so glad I got to reminisce on all these wonderful films and I’m so happy to share this with the world! My next post won’t be until 2020 and the topic is still to be determined but it will be a list of television shows cause I know how much y’all love that. This past year has been a roller coaster for me but one positive is that my blog really grew! I appreciate anyone who reads or shares or likes any of my posts it means the world to me. Even when I was at my absolute worst I kept up with this blog and everyone who interacts with it helps keep me going. I hope everyone has a happy and healthy New Years! Before I forget ***THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!*** Mwah!

10. Upgrade (2018)

This past year I realized that I may like sci-fi movies more than I thought. My friend Kelsey raved about this and after I watched I 100% saw why. This action packed film about a technophobe looking for revenge is absolutely insane!!! I don’t wanna give it away cause I highly recommend you watch this so if you wanna hear more about it click here!

9. Drive (2011)

Ugh, I don’t have much to say about this BRILLIANT film cause words are not enough but that elevator scene alone deserves an Oscar. The 80’s themed soundtrack, and neon lights started a revolution in 2010 indie cinema and I stand by that.

8. La La Land (2016)

I wrote a review on this movie that you can read here so I’ll keep this brief. When I watched this in theaters I sobbed at the end because it just reminded me of how much I loved film and writing screenplays. Anytime I feel like I can’t do anything or that I’m not progressing I put La La Land on and remember a career in film is what I’m meant to do.

7. Happy Death Day (2017)

I’m really going to try to not talk about this movie in 2020 but I can not make any promises. If you follow me I am so sorry you have to see me mention this movie for the 7000th time. If you’re new here first of all, welcome! Second of all, you can read all about it here, here, and here. I love Happy Death Day so much and the sequel is just as good so please rent it or stream it! I want a 3rd movie! I need it!!!

6. Nocturnal Animals (2016)

This is one of the most underrated films ever. Like where was the Oscar nomination?! I wrote an entire review about it so you can read more about it here! All I’m gonna say is, that scene where she’s getting an abortion and Jake Gyllenhaal is waiting outside in he fucking rain for her?!?! I literally gasped in theaters. 

5. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

Let me start by saying that this is the funniest movie ever created. I know every single line to this film and every time I watch it I still laugh which is impressive because I’ve literally been watching this movie for almost a decade now. I’m kind of out of words to say because there are so many things worth mentioning but I’ll try! Let’s start with the how insane this cast is. Can you believe that this movie has Superman, Captain America, and Captain Marvel!? The best Avengers movie is this one if you ask me! Michael Cera is always hysterical but Kieran Culkin is one of my favorite parts of this movie. When this movie came out I had a crush on Jonny Simmons so he was one of the reasons I saw it but he’s underrated as Young Neil. Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza have small parts but they make quite the impact. Alison Pill deserves a damn Oscar already! She’s honestly one of the best actresses of our generation. Ellen Wong as Knives Chau kills me and I was so excited when she was a main cast member on The Carrie Diaries. Lastly, Mae Whitman says one of my favorite lines ever and although she’s in the movie for like 3 scenes she certainly makes the most of the little time she’s given. The comedic timing of this film is perfection and it’s one of the only movies where every single scene is entertaining! There are so many things I quote from this movie it’d be unfair to only pick one honestly but “Alright this next song goes out to the guy who keeps yelling from the balcony. It’s called We Hate You, Please Die.” And that song title is exactly what I think of anyone who does not enjoy this PERFECT film.

4. Like Crazy (2011)

If you know me you know how much I love this movie, movies about love, and how much I loved Anton Yelchin so this movie is a firm sucker punch to the gut. I haven’t watched it since Anton passed but it’s one of the most emotional films I’ve ever seen. A couple with an ocean between them is probably the decade’s best romance. Felicity and Anton had insane chemistry and improvised most of the movie. I would write more but I’m tearing up thinking about Anton *insert every sad and crying emoji*.

3. Call Me By Your Name (2017)

When I first saw this movie I left the theater asking myself why this movie was such a big deal. Then I got in my car and started bawling my eyes out. What I love about CMBYM is how optimistic it makes you feel about love the whole time Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) were falling in love I had puppy dog eyes. I’m a Pisces so I’m all about deep and fleeting love and every time I watch this movie it gets me in my fucking feels! When Elio cried on the car ride home after saying bye to Oliver but they couldn’t give each other a proper goodbye cause they’re gay and it was the 80’s!!! HeartBREAKING! Not only did this movie make me wanna runaway to Italy but It’s also one of the sexiest movies of the decade and I haven’t looked at peaches the same since.

2. Gone Girl (2014)

I read Gone Girl before I saw the movie and I’ve regretted it everyday since. The book took me three days to finish, which is a lot for me, and I felt like it was too detailed. In the book you read a lot of Amy’s (Rosamund Pike) journal entries which makes it pretty obvious that she’s alive and well. I hate Ben Affleck but honestly he was the perfect choice to play Nick. This movie is one of the only movies that is better than the book. When this was on HBO I literally watched it every time it was on tv for months. The cinematography is phenomenal and the acting is even better. Fincher is a genius and in my eyes, Gone Girl is his best work.

1. Black Swan (2010)

The flavor this film has... I mean it’s immaculate. Growing up I studied at Boston Ballet School and it was very intense! Those ten years helped shape me into the woman I am today. While I did ballet I used to always go see ballets cause we got discounted tickets and my favorite was Swan Lake. The music, the story, the costumes, it’s all so beautiful and timeless. When the film came out I was so excited. I had no idea what to expect but if it’s about ballet I am in. I love this movie so much it’s dark, the acting is superb, and nothing is better than Tchaikovsky’s music blaring in the background during the most climatic scenes. Black Swan might be my third favorite movie of all time but it’s 100% my favorite movie of the 2010’s. I have no idea not know why it didn’t win best picture.

#netflix #netflix suggestions #netflix recommendations #movie review #anton yelchin #jake gyllenhaal #far from home #upgrade movie #black swan #gone girl #scott pilgrim #natalie portman #like crazy #call me by your name #nocturnal animals #happy death day 2u #happy death day #drive #la la land

[reddie-fangirl24]

Eddie, The Patient Chapter 3     (A Reddie Fanfiction)

Link to Chapter 1

Link to Chapter 2

“It’s an improv line ‘cause the first time I ever used ‘I forgot the joke’ well, you see, I actually forgot the joke and to save myself I said that I was kidding and kept going with my routine! Some audience members gave me a hard time, but it turns out that I fooled them and then they actually wrote to me apologizing!”

“That’s a funny story, Mr. Tozier,” the host laughed with him. Then she turned and looked into the camera. “We’re going to take a break now, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be back with a Day in the Life of Comedians.”

Standing up, and taking a breath, Richie stepped away from the set. No matter what, all those studio lights felt like a thousand degrees! Richie shook hands with his contender, Jack. Tonight they’d be battling off left and right with jokes. And this show interview they were filming would air in a week or so.

“Great job, Rich!” His manager, Steve gave him a pat on the back. “Except, I thought we were talking about not bringing that story up.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “So, what’s it gonna do? I’m just trying to show the real me!”

“Yes, and I agree, but I’m afraid that sharing the ‘I forgot the joke’ story could mean that you stumble your routines. You want big audiences out there don’t you, Rich?”

“Steve, just let me handle things, please? Remember what I said? And writing some of my own material has been working!” Richie walked off in a huff. Grabbing a glass of water that a stagehand offered to him, Richie walked outside for some needed air, and to wipe to the sweat off.

Ever since he told his boss that he was going to start writing his own material for shows, he felt as if his career was going in a better direction than it ever was. Eddie was right. He just needed that extra ounce of confidence that he lost. 

Thinking ahead to tonight, the crowd was still building up. Not only was he doing the comedy show with Jack, but another comedian who has been all around the world with her act. And she even called out Richie once! Oh, time for some good old revenge burn.

Feeling his phone buzzing in his pocket, Richie could only guess that it was Steve calling him back to rehearsal. Couldn’t he get a moment’s peace?

But it wasn’t Steve.

No name. Just numbers. But it was coming from right here in L.A.

Gulping, Richie flashed back to the moment where he got the call from Mike Hanlon. The call that changed his life making him step back into the nightmare from his childhood. Then again, he had to admit, that the battle changed everything for the better. 

Feeling his heart pounding, and his stomach nervously grumbled from his nerves, Richie took a deep breath. This always happened to him when a wrong number called. If it was a wrong number. 

Taking a deep breath, Richie answered the call. “H-Hello?”

“Hello, is this Mr. Richard Tozier?” A woman asked him. 

What was this, a prank call? Nobody ever called him by his full name. “Uh, yeah, Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier at your service!” Richie went with his usual intro to break some of his lingering nerves.

“Yes, hello, this is Ruth Alliston, the principal of Hathaway Middle School,” the woman’s voice said. “I’m calling to inform you that your husband is sick and I was wondering if you could come and take him home. I tried calling a couple of your mutual friends, but I couldn’t get a hold of them.”

His heart throbbing, Richie grasped the railing holding himself up. He accidentally knocked the glass of water off the railing, sending it smashing to the ground. Not once since Eddie started his teaching job did they ever call him for something like this. Did he just hear her right? Eddie. His Eddie? Sick? 

“Wait, wait, hold on! What do you mean you called other mutuals? You’re supposed to call me first, damn it!” Richie snapped at her, clutching at his phone.

The woman sighed, obviously sounding frazzled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tozier, but Eddie gave my specific instruction not to call you. Once I couldn’t get a hold of um,” she paused, turning pages. “Mr. and Mrs. Denbrough I knew that I had no choice but to call you. Oh, he’s very sick with a fever of over one hundred and needs to be taken home.”

Clawing at his hair, Richie mumbled to himself pacing the fire escape. Why was he always out here when got news like this? Of course. Of course, Eddie had to act like he was fine. You should have said something, man! “Um, yeah, you got it. I’ll be there.”

“Oh, wonderful, thank you, sir.” Mrs. Alliston sounded relieved. “Not to worry, he’s asleep right now. The worst seems to have passed.”

The worst? “Thanks, see you later,” Richie said as smoothly as he could. Hanging up the phone, Richie hurried back inside. Goddamn it, Eddie! Of course, you had to act like you were fine! You should have said something, man!

“Rich, where have you been? We’re going to start up again in five minutes!” Steve chewed him out, placing a hand on his shoulder, as he tried to keep up with Richie’s fast pace.

“Steve, I have to go!” Richie protested, hurriedly walking to the elevator.

“Go? Go where? We’re in the middle of taping an interview!” Steve argued with him, gesturing to the set. Jack overheard the situation and turned and looked at them in worry.

“It’s an emergency!” Richie said, pressing the elevator button furiously. 

“Can you tell me? Are we going to have to reschedule everything?” Steve prodded him.

Richie nodded feverishly, watching the floor numbers change. Why were elevators so slow when you needed them? “Yeah, let’s do that. I need to get over to Hathaway Middle School now! Eddie is sick!”

For a moment, Steve didn’t say anything. He noticed that Steve wasn’t that fond of Eddie whenever he was around. Still, he did his best to make polite conversation. “Right. How are you going to get over there? Barry is not available for the rest of the morning.”

Shit! How else was he supposed to get over to the school? It would take at least an hour on foot. And he had to figure out a way to get Eddie home without making him sicker. 

“Can I call you a taxi?” Steve suggested.

Of course! He felt so out of it that he couldn’t think straight. That was when the elevator door opened. “Yeah, thanks!” Richie smiled, despite himself, as he entered the crowded elevator. Ugh, somebody had stinky pits today.

“Rich, call me with an update! You should be back here by 5:00 tonight!” Steve called out to him just as the elevator doors closed. 

Waiting out by the curb and listening to the busy traffic, Richie took a moment to breathe and get his thoughts together. How could he let something like this happen? Besides the distraction with the car, did he really let the excitement of work get in the way? That was so stupid of him! Eddie was way more important! 

He knew something wasn’t right about Eddie’s behavior, but what did he do? Drive off. How could he ever ignore him like that? How could he... forget to think about Eddie? No wonder Eddie was acting so strangely. The uneaten bowl of cereal, barely saying a word and struggling to do a simple task like walking.

Smiling, Richie couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. Eddie had always been an extreme germaphobe. Back when they were students, Eddie washed down every desk before sitting in them during the flu season.

Richie even reminded him about kids getting sick easily when he was studying to become a teacher. Eddie rubbed it off like it was nothing, saying that he was full of bologna. After the first three weeks of teaching, Eddie was complaining about the number of students who were sick with colds. It was funny. But, not now.

He was just hoping that this wasn’t too serious. Whenever Eddie was sick, or he himself, they’d snuggle together. Eddie was always so doting, dropping everything to take care of him. That was the best. He could only guess how much of a helicopter husband he must have been when Eddie had the slightest cold. It was out of love anyway.

In that instant, Richie felt a sting in his gut, realizing how little time they’d spent together as of recently. When was the last time they took a walk around the neighborhood? Or went out for a drink? Or even just stayed inside watching TV? It felt like the only time they ever spent together was cuddling up when they went to bed at night. Only they were asleep. 

Whenever he had nights off, they went to the movies. Sometimes they were the loudest in the theater because they loved to laugh and argue over their own commentary of the film.

And to think we used to spend a few times a week making love... when was the last time we did that?!

It was tough working around his schedule. He worked at night while Eddie worked during the day. Even weekends didn’t supply them with enough time together. Now, he felt lucky that he wasn’t away on a trip. Then what would have happened? 

Richie slid a hand over his face, looking up towards the peaceful sky. To think it wasn’t even noon. Oh well, there was no used dwelling over it all now. Eddie needed him.

Finally, the taxi pulled up and Richie got into the back seat in a hurry.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” The cab driver roared with a smile. His little mustache creased along his upper lip whenever he smiled. “I never thought I’d be hauling Richie Tozier in the back of my taxi! I have to get a picture and frame it!”

“Yeah, later, man! I need to get over to Hathaway Middle school, now!” Richie ordered, waving him off.

“Sure, do the kids want your autograph?” The driver pulled out into the road. Traffic was bad already. Cars honking. The light turning red at the wrong moment. It was never like this. 

Richie nervously sat forward, thumping his hand on the seat, unable to relax. “I wish! It’s my h-husband, Eddie. He’s sick. And guess whose car decided to that it didn’t wanna work properly today? Did you guess me? Good for you, you won a ride with me!” Richie joked, pointing at himself.

Of course, he had to stumble over that word. He still wasn’t used to being out to the public, having ignored and feared to be gay for decades. His announcement had some negative feedback, but he felt happier than he ever did before. Especially with Eddie.

“Oh man, poor guy. The flu is terrible at this time of year. You’re a good husband, you know that?” The cab driver complimented turning back to look at him. “I remember when I showed up to work sick once, I worked in an auto place, and then my wife showed up telling me, ‘I told you so!’”

Richie laughed along, half embarrassed. He took a deep breath through his nose. “Yeah, I’m the man, what can I say?”

The cab driver laughed heartily. “I’ll have you over to the school as soon as I can.”

While making small conversation and jokes with the cab driver, whose name was Harry, the ride felt long. Too long.  Why were there so many red lights today? And did people forget how to cross the street? Richie wanted to beep the horn to get this guy who was staring at his cell phone to pay attention.

Guilt hammered itself into Richie’s heart. Looking out at the passing city, Richie tried to take his mind off everything, to no avail. Don’t worry, Eds, I’m on my way.

And finally, the cab showed up at the school. Before the car even stopped, Richie threw open the door, running out. “Hey, thanks, sorry for being impatient. I wish I could give you that picture, but I don’t have time!”

“Do you want me to wait for you?” The cab driver asked him.

Richie blinked, turning back in his tracks. “Uh... I could be a while.”

“I’m used to waiting,” he said sincerely. “Don’t you think it’ll be tough trying to get another taxi? It’ll be the lunch run in a bit.”

That’s right! Guess he never turned his brain on this morning. “If that’s alright with you, I’ll be right back!” Richie said as he flung up the staircase to the school like a rabbit.

Entering the school, Richie hadn’t roamed school hallways since he graduated from high school. Richie cringed at the thought of being back in another middle school. If it weren’t for his friends, he would never have gotten through school. He bet his dad that he could get a career out of being a comedian without going to college. Richie was still swimming in that money.

Finding the office, the instant the secretary noticed him, she almost fell out of her seat, adjusting her eyeglasses. “Richie Tozier! I was not expecting you today! My son is a big fan!” she chirped as her cheeks grew red. 

Richie smirked, winking at her, obviously enjoying the attention. Still, he had to stay focused. “Wish I could be here for better circumstances. I need to take Eddie home.”

The secretary’s face immediately softened, cracking into a heartbreaking sad frown. “Oh, the poor guy. He looked as pale as a ghost when Mrs. Alliston brought him back here. I sure hope he is going to be okay. He is a sweetheart.”

Although his heart cracked at the awful thought of Eddie’s condition, Richie leaned against the counter trying to make the secretary smiled. “You got that right! Except when he’s cranky. Some mornings he is a real joy to wake up to because he tells me that I snore!”

Laughing, the secretary paged the principal. “Okay, I’ll send him back. Go on, Ruth is waiting for you,” she said getting up from her seat and opening the door to the main office.

Richie went on his way, winking at her again. “Thanks. Oh, and I own you an autograph!”

Walking into the back office, Richie met the principal, who stepped out from her office with a wide grin happily shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Tozier. Eddie has talked a lot about you.”

“Oh yeah, I hope it’s all good things!” Richie teased.

“Don’t worry. He loves talking about you. Don’t tell him I said this but sometimes the way he talks about you makes me think of him like a school girl! It’s quite amusing!”

Crossing his fingers, Richie was just seconds away from bursting into laughter. Definitely worth a save for teasing which was basically all they did. “So, where is he anyway?”

Her face turned back to worry, leading Richie down a small corridor of the office. “He’s asleep in the nurse’s office. The poor thing, when I went to put his belongings on a chair next to the bed he didn’t even stir.”

Guilt-ridden, Richie almost stumbled into a wall. “Jeez...”

“He’s in here,” she said indicating to a room with the lights out. “His belongings are on a chair next to the bed. If I’m right, the poor dear is still asleep. You’re going to have to wake him up.”

Richie waved it off like it was nothing. “Even if I tiptoe it wakes him up and he lectures me!” He snickered.

Mrs. Alliston laughed as she walked away. “Eddie is right. You are a card!”

“A real comedian, I am!” Richie joked as his hand fell on the door. He gingerly turned the knob and slowly opened the door. The room was dark, with the only source of light protruding from the covered windows. Once his eyes adjusted, it took a moment to find the bed. Once he did, Richie came across the small, thin form of his husband sleeping soundly on the nurse’s bed in the corner of the room, with a trash can pulled up near the bed. 

Feeling his heart drop into his stomach, his legs shaking, Richie exhaled and came into the room, closing the door just a smidge. Sure enough, Eddie was fast asleep, hardly making a noise. If it weren’t for the minute rise and fall from his chest, Eddie would have looked...

No... he couldn’t think that.

Richie quietly walked into the room, and slowly sat down on the bad. Eddie hardly stirred, sleeping peacefully. For a little bit, Richie sat there, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, letting him sleep a few more minutes. That gave him the time to study how sick he was. Even in this dim lighting, he could tell how sickly pale Eddie was.

For a moment he thought that he was back in the hospital, holding Eddie’s frail hand when the doctors notified them how they weren’t sure if Eddie would make it through the night. But, Eddie showed who was stronger.

Thinking back to the call, the realization that Eddie was sick and the fact that he didn’t even want to call him first Richie’s grip tightened. Richie couldn’t blame him. Eddie felt himself like he was a burden due to the years of being berated about every little thing he did. 

Oh, course he wouldn’t tell me. He thinks that vain in my head would pop!

Leaning down, Richie kissed his forehead, tasting the sweat rolling down his warm pale face. The worry and guilt set in even further, causing his grip to tighten. He had to get Eddie home now.

“And you thought I wouldn’t come help you, huh? Man, you’re crazy!” he whispered in a loud voice to his sleeping husband as he prepared to wake him up.

#Reddie #Reddie Fanfiction #IT Fanfiction #IT Movie #Richie Tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #sick fic #cab #It 2017 #IT Stephen King #It Chapter 2

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Runes and all kinds of things

Chapter 16

Stiles risks a glance over the brim of his book at Peter and then returns quickly to the page he was reading when their eyes meet and he gets an arched eyebrow from the man. He barely contains the need to facepalm and wince at his own lack of cool and tries to cover it by shrugging as if nonchalant. The answering huffed snort makes him humph and turn his nose up in the air.

As much as he can with it still buried in his book to cover the flush he can feel rising in his face and the top of his ears.

(Smooth, Stilinski. Real smooth.)

But he can't help it, he can't read Peter at all right now. It's weird and confusing to some degree after having been so open, so raw, just a moment ago, but at the same time not. It feels as if they took a step forward and then backed that same step again right afterwards. Maybe even two, because Peter has never been this blank-faced in his presence. Or, actually, if Stiles recalls well, in anyone's presence. Peter is always sassing -provoking, testing, manipulating- people in one way or another. He uses his words, body language and facial expressions as weapons and he does it terrifyingly well. It never fails to get a response from the people around him, Stiles included, and now their absence rattles him.

Stiles stills suddenly. His eyes dart briefly towards Peter again and then go back to the page. He bites his lip and frowns contemplatively.

Maybe this isn’t a step back after all? Peter uses his words, body language and facial expressions as weapons. To defend himself, to get what he wants, to attack. Weapons. He’s used them against Stiles before, so it's not that he's an exception. It's not that he thinks Stiles harmless, useless or inconsequential either. Even back then, in that parking lot, he thought Stiles had the potential to become dangerous, a threat to him. Enough of a threat, in fact, that he wanted to have Stiles on his side and he offered when could have just taken. That not only hasn’t changed but it has gotten worse.

(Stiles couldn’t trap him and make him choke on mountain ash with a mere thought before.)

But he's blank-faced now. Or rather... relaxed? Maybe?

Stiles sighs, slouching on his seat, and contains the need to throw a dirty look at Peter for being so damn difficult. He must do a lousy job because the man smirks at him self-satisfied.

"You're such a dick," Stiles grouches long-sufferingly and Peter's grin widens even more.

Smarmy bastard.

Of course, there's a chance Stiles is reading him wrong. With Peter it's hard to tell, because he has more layers than three millefeuille combined and even more masks, but Stiles is pretty sure that it's not a front he's putting up this time. The ball is in Peter's court in any case. Stiles will have to accept whatever he chooses to do and react accordingly.

He reaches for the baking journal again and catches Peter's eyes again. The man's eyebrows go high as he eyes the already finished death by chocolate cookies -the normal kind, he knows, because he's seen Stiles take a bite and then perform an awkward dance because his mouth was burning- cooling on the tray with an skeptical eye.

“Just because I can't risk Lydia finding a way to murder me remotely," and she would, of that he has no doubt, “it doesn't mean I can't use this.”

“Hmm,” Peter hums, lips twitching. The way he reclines in his chair makes Stiles want to grumble about the unfairness of it all. Because while Stiles is slouching, you can't call what Peter is doing that. "What are you planning?"

“Revenge, what else? A petty one but equally effective in this case given whom my target is,” Stiles answers flippantly and Peter snorts. "But no, no more baking for now. It's for Monday, so I'll bake on Sunday. I don't bake any substandard goods even if it's for revenge, you know," he sniffs. "Right now, runes. I really need to crack this before the alpha pack makes another move. Like hell I'm getting chased around like a mouse again," he grumbles. "Pity I can't just poison them all and be done with it."

"Pity indeed," Peter agrees, terribly amused by the pout Stiles is sporting.

An alarm goes off on Stiles' phone and he startles. Then he remembers what it is for and he shoots from his seat towards the TV, leaving a bewildered Peter behind. The familiar intro to La Dulce Impostora is already running, so he hurries to set the recording so he doesn't miss anything. There's a pointed silence at his back and he feels himself starting to blush.

"Shut up," he grouses.

"I didn't say a word," Peter lilts.

"Stop judging me, dude," Stiles grumbles with cheeks that are starting feel really hot. "La Dulce Impostora is super addictive, ok? There's a dying abuelita that is the cutest, most charming thing ever... Seriously, that woman is a queen. All hail Queen Isabela, may she reign forever over us lowly mortals," he preaches with an earnest expression. "But yeah. There's abuelita Isabela, a fake cancer that turns out to be true and an even faker pregnancy that doesn't... but kinda does? Depending on how you look at it, I suppose..." he hums thoughtfully, turning to set the recording. "And amnesia, lots of amnesia. It's so fucking ridiculous. But finally, after everything, they're about to elope and Camila Valeria is going to ruin it all. Again. And it's the fifth time. I can't take it anymore, ok? I just want them on a beach in Bali happily drinking coconuts so I can be free and go back to my life, ok?"

"Well, I didn't really understand half of what you said. Congratulations, that must be some sort of record." Damn the man and his sass. Relaxed or not, Stiles served him that one on a silver platter and even Stiles himself wouldn't have let it pass without answer. "Also, I hate to be the bearer of bad news-"

"Yeah, your face tells me you're in despair right now," Stiles quips back drolly.

"-but according to this site, that one still has more than ten episodes left."

Stiles gapes, a horrified expression rapidly taking over his features. "You're shitting me."

"I... shit you not," Peter answers seriously.

A beat, two beats, and then Stiles is running back to the table to look at the laptop's screen. He doesn't slow down as much as he should and he collides against Peter's back with a soft grunt. He doesn't pay it any mind and he reaches for the laptop. Sure enough, there's more than ten episodes left... Thirteen to be exact.

"Oh, god, no" Stiles whispers, the whine escaping him unbidden. For a moment he feels really tempted to just read about how it ends because thirteen one-hour episodes yet to go... and so far the only thing that hasn't happened on that storyline is a zombie apocalypse. Seriously, there's even been an attempt to overthrow the current government! Just. No. Ok. No, he will not. He'll stick right to the end. Like a captain. "I will go down with this ship," he pronounces darkly, prompting a surprised laugh from Peter.

Stiles contains a petulant pout. He raises his eyebrows and narrows his eyes at the man, daring him to say anything about it. Peter smirks and looks about to speak (no doubt to sass Stiles) but suddenly, windows start opening and closing on the screen without either of them touching a thing and they both blink surprised.

"Yesss! Danny, my man!" Stiles exclaims happily, throwing his arms up in the air. Peter grabs his elbow before it impacts with his nose and rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything otherwise. "Awesome! Now we'll be able to track those fuckers without risking our necks. And who knows, I may still get to poison them."

Peter laughs again and Stiles smirks in answer.

---

Much later after Danny stopped doing his own kind of magic on Stiles' laptop, Peter is dividing his attention between something on the screen and a notebook he brought with him. Stiles is kinda itchy to know what's in there because everything Peter brings has been fantastic so far, but he knows better than to try to take a peek because Peter hasn't offered. Privacy and all that shit.

Stiles has the strong feeling that Peter is testing him. For what purpose exactly, he doesn't know, but he's pretty sure that he is. First with how he provoked him into a fight and now with this. And there have probably been more tests that he hasn't even noticed. In any case, if Stiles finds that notebook unattended later he won't be surprised.

(It all comes down to trust, doesn't it?)

Well, he'll cross that bridge when he stumbles upon it. For now, he'd better focus on runes or at this rate he'll be werewolf chow and Peter's tests won't matter anymore.

And, god, it's so frustrating.

Runework sucks. Big. Sweaty. Donkey. Balls.

He knows the actual runes and would be able to draw them with his eyes closed by now. That's not the problem. That was the easy part, actually. The problem is that the placement in the actual item matters. Placement relative to the other runes matters. Size relative to the item AND relative to the other runes matters. Meaning? One tiny mistake fucks it all.

Meaning that it's been one hour already and he has done nothing more than waste a lot of paper and bite the cap of his pen so much that it looks like a war casualty.

Because, on top of that, just because a rune has an established translation doesn't mean that the effect that rune will produce matches it. Because two runes together get a complete different meaning than those two runes separately. And if they're linked it's even worse. The meanings don't add up, they transform each other. Hence, runework sucks. Big. Sweaty. Donkey. Balls.

Stiles reaches for his phone and then takes a selfie, sporting an epic pout. He hits send and then lets his head fall onto the table with a beautifully resounding thud. Peter snorts.

(Also, Peter is a dick that finds too much entertainment in witnessing Stiles' suffering.)

(Or maybe this is another test.)

Without looking, he makes a ball from the paper with his latest failed experiments and throws it in the man's direction. With his luck, it probably falls short, but it's the sentiment that counts, right?

"You're such a dick," Stiles grumbles.

"Yes, we've already established that," Peter drawls, the tapping of his fingers against the keyboard never stopping.

And he flashes him the finger for good measure, because he doesn't need good aim for it to reach the man. Peter snorts again and Stiles pouts sullenly into the table.

Ok, ok. How do you eat a bear? Bite by bite.

He sighs and comes out from hiding reluctantly. He looks at the page where he has noted down the few functioning arrays that can be found in the many books about runes that Stiles has, and decides that trial and error will it have to be. Sorry, Master Yoda, as sacrilegious as it sounds, your teachings hold no place in here. He may get grounded for the rest of his natural life for blowing up the house, but it's not like he has any other options at this point.

He grabs a clean sheet of paper and looks at it thoughtfully. He may as well start with the simpler ones. According to his first chosen runework's specific diagram, the array should cover one third of the item he wants to apply it on. But the question is: is that proportion regarding the size or the mass of the item? Does this mean that Stiles will have to become a master at calculating the mass of things on the go? Because that could pose a big problem.

"Excuse me, Mr. or Ms. Enemy-of-the-Week, can you tell me your height and weight? And what did you say was your last meal? And the quantity of said meal? You wouldn't be constipated per chance, would you? Oh, I'm just curious, you know, ADHD, I get hung up on the strangest things. And since you're killing me anyways, why not share? Oh, you don't speak English? Yo hablo español si lo prefieres... Oh, you don't have vocal cords at all? My apologies. I'll just make an estimate, thanks for your time anyways and sorry for the inconvenience," he pipes softly in a falsetto voice. He studiously doesn't look Peter's way. "Because that would go well..."

His phone chimes and he can't help but cackle at Allison's answering selfie. She looks filthy, sweaty and her face is so red that it gives the impression that she's completely out of breath. She's sporting an equally epic pout and it's hilarious.

Stiles takes a deep breath after he lets go of the phone and shakes himself mentally. Ok, whatever, no big deal. He'll find a way like he always does. First, he has to make an array work to begin with.

Because nothing ever comes easy -and if runes are really such a rare practice as the books say, that suggests a high level of difficulty-, he assumes it's mass. Ok, awesome (note the sarcasm). So volume and density. The paper is a rectangular form, so the volume would be length x width x height. And as for density... The Internet it is. He stands up and goes to the laptop Peter is using. The man looks at him curiously but turns the screen to face Stiles. A quick search reveals paper's density, which gives him the last tool he needs to calculate the mass, and in turn the size the array should have.

Now, where to place it? Up, in the middle or down? Centered, on a side or on a corner? Left, center or right? Because the texts say nothing about that and if the size of the array and each rune regarding each other are so important, Stiles doubts the placing doesn't matter.

Experimenting it is.

(Here's to hoping that all his limbs remain in place by the time he's done.)

He picks up the pencil and copies the array right on the center of the paper. He concentrates on activating it and gets a cloud of mountain ash to the face for his troubles when Pikachu comes out to play so to speak. He sighs and has to concentrate on getting him back to his skin instead. He tries again and gets the same exact results. After the sneezing attack ends, he pouts but gives it another go. By the tenth time this happens, he's ready to tear his hair in frustration and the ash is moving around agitatedly from limb to limb and then even to his face, which gives him another uncontrollable attack of sneezes.

"Are you for real?" he grunts frustrated at Pikachu and his ears seem to flop down, just like dogs when they don't know what they're doing wrong because they think they're obeying what you told them to do.

Stiles blinks. Maybe he's not directing his spark belief whassit (what, he doesn't have a name for it) at the paper but at the ash instead? He hums thoughtfully and makes a soothing gesture at Pikachu, prompting him to return to his skin again. He closes his eyes and concentrates. His magic works with belief, right? So believe he will. He opens his eyes and looks at the paper again.

"Yes!" he crows happily when he picks up the sheet of paper from a corner and instead of flopping down like it should, it remains rigid. "Look at this, Peter! Hah! I'm a genius! Bow down in my mighty presence!"

"I'll be right on that, give me a minute," Peter deadpans drolly. He waves a hand towards the oven trays. "Here, meanwhile have a cookie."

"I made those," he grunts at the man, his face falling into an unimpressed expression.

"Are you saying they're bad and that's why they don't qualify as a prize for your success?"

"Don't you dare!" Stiles gasps, scandalized. "Everything I bake is superb!" Peter raises an eyebrow. "Well, there might have been a few FUBAR situati-" Peter raises the other eyebrow. "Damn you," he grumbles. "Gimme the damn cookie. I deserve it. Because my cookies are totally prize-worthy. You heard that? Totally and without a doubt. Nothing beats them."

"Maybe add a glass of milk to be sure? And two cookies instead of one? Added value, you know. It was a big success after all," Peter quips, picking up the ball of paper Stiles threw at him before and throwing it with all the rest pooling at Stiles' feet without even looking.

Smarmy bastard.

"Stop dissing my wonderful cookies," Stiles grouches, throwing a narrow-eyed glare at the man.

"Me? You wound me, sweetheart," Peter replies amusedly, getting up to prepare a couple of cookies and a glass of milk and put them in front of Stiles.

"Smarmy bastard," Stiles mutters, this time aloud, as he takes a bite. "Just for this, you're not getting any-" Stiles voice becomes an intelligible grumble when he hears the tattletale crunchy sound to his right, where Peter is leaning to pick up the paper with the functioning array.

Stiles humphs at Peter, whose smirk widens, and he rolls his eyes. Then he covers an amused grin because he knows the man's impressed because he nearly forgot to leave the paper behind when he went back to his seat... and because he snatched another cookie on his way.

Stiles goes back to the paper and sets off to finding out if the array can be turned off. It takes him a few tries but it's possible. If he erases the array, it stops working, it seems. Or is it because he stopped believing it would work? He'll have to ask Peter to participate later. In any case, awesome, success! Now more tests, he thinks rubbing his hands excitedly.

He writes the array, turns it on once again and then he sets it aside. He spreads more sheets around the table as he starts changing the placement of the array on them, activating it as soon as he writes it and noting down the time on a separate notebook. That way he'll kill two birds with a stone and he'll be able to check a few things: the time it lasts once activated and how many he's able to activate at the same time.

(Because he knows that a spark works with belief, but is this power of his finite? Druids depend on outside forces to practice runework and rituals, but where does a spark's power come from?)

Once he has twelve variations of the placement, he tests them against each other. Then he makes size variations and, after that, size and placement variations.

Two hours later, he has reached several conclusions: yes, size matters; yes, placement matters; yes, his spark is finite to a point.

The size sets the range of effect of the magic and the placement sets the point of impact. So, with the hardening array he's testing right now, if Stiles sets right in the center a smaller array than the one-third ratio the book said to use, the edges of the paper don't harden and flop down like they should. Stiles feels giddy with the possibilities this brings to the table. Of course, this experiment was done on a pretty simple form, it will obviously be more complicated with other more irregular ones. But it's a start, right? Stiles has a feeling that he won't be needing to calculate everything's mass exactly, just have a general idea to work with, unless he's doing a very precise work. Of course, to get to the point of not needing to calculate it every time, he'll have do at lot of testing and practicing.

And as for his spark being finite... Even with the snack he had before (which he suspects Peter gave him on purpose because he somehow knew he'd need the extra energy and it kind of makes Stiles want to grin), he's ravenous right now and it has nothing to do with the hour it is. It feels like when he comes back after one of those gruelling lacrosse practices and he'd eat all the fridge's contents... and then the actual fridge itself. So this means that using it tires him as exercising would. It remains to be seen if working out (so to speak) will raise his stamina or if his power is a set value that he'll have to work around.

All in all, not bad for two hours of work. Now that he knows some of the rules (because he's sure he'll find more as he goes) he can start experimenting. But first.

"Dinner?" he pipes looking at the lasagne like a man would at water in a scorching hot desert.

As if on cue, his stomach emits an epic growl that lasts way longer than it should and he feels himself start blushing. Peter smirks at him.

Stiles flips him the finger again.

(Peter is way too smug about that, the smarmy bastard.)

---

"Mmm," Peter hums contemplatively as he takes the first bite.

"Mmm?" Stiles replies, already on his third bite. So sue him, he's starving, ok?

"Mmm," Peter continues humming, almost reluctantly.

"Mmm, huh?" Stiles replies again, smirking.

"Mmhm," Peter says as if unimpressed.

Stiles grins and Peter rolls his eyes.

---

Just after dinner, Stiles gets to work with the second simplest array he has available. The first one was a hardening one (to put it simply, the explanation in the book was way more technical and complicated) and this one is an elasticity one. Whether it augments or reduces elasticity remains to be seen though.

Just like with the hardening one, this array consists of four runes. Stiles' guess is that that's the simplest it can get. Because probably just putting one rune would be too open and thus, the effect would be unpredictable and uncontrollable. So basically there's a primary rune and then at least three secondary ones that delimit the first one. The placing and the size respecting the primary rune define the extent of the effect they have on it. That's probably why there are some subtle differences between both of the arrays that he has, even if they have the same diamond structure.

Ok, good, he can work with that. And since he now knows what effect the placing has, he writes the array exactly on the center of the paper and activates it. He picks it up and looks at it thoughtfully. At first glance there's no apparent change on it. Then he pulls from both ends.

"Whoa!" he exclaims surprised when it stretches out like gum.

Well, it's a little harder than gum and unlike it, when he stops pulling it immediately goes back to its original form with no evidence of what happened left behind. It has a limit of how much it can extend though, so Stiles guesses that the runes alter the original characteristics of the item they were placed on, as opposed to giving it a new set value. So if the original item had been stretchy to begin with, it would have extended even more than the paper. Conclusion: arrays alter the items exponentially.

(Oh, god, the possibilities.)

So the primary rune is elasticity and its size right now is the perfect size to have an effect on the whole paper, but what if he plays with the secondary ones? From what he has gathered, those only alter the primary rune, not the actual item itself.

He has two different arrays with the same structure and, save from the primary rune, the same runes in that structure. And those secondary runes have the same size respecting the primary rune on both arrays. What do those runes do? Because the meaning they have doesn't shed any light on that.

So if he gets the left side one and makes it bigger, what happens? And what if he changes the one at the bottom? Or the one on the left? What if he changes two of them at the same time? Or the three? What if...

---

Stiles startles a little when the lights of the kitchen are suddenly on. He turns to look at Peter perplexed, but the man isn't paying him any attention at all. He squints around and takes in the sun's position in the sky. He hadn't even noticed he was starting to struggle to see.

He lets the pen he was keeping in his mouth fall into his hand and looks at the mess he's made. Maybe it's time to tidy up a bit, he thinks grimacing.

Well, it was worth it, he supposes... or at least a necessary evil.

Some of his tests were a complete bust and some weren't, but he's learned a lot. He now knows that this type of structure is used to alter the physical characteristics of the item it's placed on. -And it has to be an object. All the books were adamant about that, about runes not being used on living beings.- He's learned what each of the runes in this particular array is for and how their size relative to the primary affects it. He's also knows now that, at least in this kind of structure, all the runes need to have the same orientation or it won't work. The secondary runes are set ones that can't be changed and the primary is the one that sets the characteristic the array will alter. Moreover, two runes can be linked as the primary rune, but anymore than that and it fails, which he supposes is where the more complicated arrays come in. Furthermore, just because those particular runes are set ones for this kind of array, it doesn't mean that they can't act as primaries too.

And all of that was just from two different arrays that have the same structure. He has three more structures to go through. And then he has to experiment with items with different sizes, forms, compositions...

(This is not a bear, it's a damn whale.)

He kind of wants to scream but, hey, he still has all his fingers and the house is not only standing but hasn't been damaged at all. Only a full stack of papers has been sacrificed to the cause. Yay for him.

"Ah, father, you man of little faith," he mutters, slouching on his seat and closing his eyes tiredly.

There's no way he can-

Really loud rock music blares suddenly from the laptop's speakers, startling Stiles into almost falling from his chair. He looks at Peter, who looks as surprised as Stiles and is also trying to lower down the volume as fast as he can.

"What the hell, Peter," Stiles gasps, one hand still over his thundering heart and the other grasping at the chair in a trembling iron fist.

"I was trying to put the soundtrack to your little moment there, but this is not what I expected," the man explains perplexed. "I mean, the song is called Crushing Defeat, but I wouldn't say a crushing defeat sounds like that. Not that I would know, but." And then the man has the gall to shrug nonchalantly before continuing speaking. "I should have definitely gone for my first option."

And he hits play.

Maybe I'm foolish

Maybe I'm blind

Thinking I can see through this

And see what's behind

Got no way to prove it

So maybe I'm blind

But I'm only human after all

I'm only human after all

And he stops the music right there.

Stiles, whose face had gone from startled to unimpressed in the blink of an eye, goes right into the evil eye territory equally fast.

"Remind me again who's been dead before?" Stiles says, his voice saccharine sweet.

"Sure! Anything for you, sweetheart," Peter answers, equally sweet. "I'll remind you anytime you want that not even Death could win against me. Anything to inspire you when you're feeling low."

And he turns back with a self-satisfied smirk to continue whatever he was doing before.

That.

Smarmy.

Bastard.

Stiles will show him a crushing defeat.

(Just for that, he's hoarding all the cookies, dammit.)

---

It has somehow turned into a contest.

It's way past 4 a.m. and neither of them is bowing out. Stiles has gone through three more structures, gained more knowledge and even more rules. Peter has at least filled ten pages of that journal of his and Stiles has caught him covertly eyeing the coffee cupboard more than once. At this rate, John Stilinski will arrive to see them either conked out over their respective works or stubbornly resisting but about to pass out.

At this point Stiles wishes his dad would appear so he could order him to bed and he'd have the excuse to bow out, but he'd rather face another run around the pool with all the alphas chasing after him than admit to that.

He eyes the cookie plate and mourns its empty state. Then, with a sigh, he turns his attention back the last structure that he has. So far he has confirmed a lot of the things that he already suspected. The more complicated an array gets, the more things you're trying to change on an object... or the more complicated the object's composition or the being you're placing it on is. But so far Stiles has gathered that if you place an array on a living being, you better brace yourself because it's so complicated that it has disastrous effects more often than not. Which is no good... unless you're banking on it going wrong to get out of a pinch. Stiles certainly wouldn't mind making an alpha go boom with failed runework, that's for sure.

Well, in any case he now has an idea of how the arrays are expanded and of how to link different arrays to cover the more irregular objects or to make domino effects. Of course, he just has the theory and he'll have to experiment a lot but it's something that's not a "crushing defeat".

He just wants to die.

Stiles barely refrains from hitting his head repeatedly against the table to wake himself up forcefully, but only because he still has some dignity left. He looks at the stress ball that he got out to fidget with by hour... whichever it was, he's lost count. It used to belong to Scott, from when he hurt his hand and he needed to strengthen his muscles. It's fuchsia with green polka dots all over it and it couldn't be uglier even if it tried, so it wouldn't be a big loss if Stiles accidentally murders it.

The material is polyurethane, if he's not wrong. The thought of getting up to check its mass on the laptop is too much to bear, so Stiles uses his phone to search for it. When he finally has it, he muses over what he needs to change on it to make it bounce. Elasticity, for one, of course. Resistance maybe? And what else to generate the kinetic energy he needs? How much does he need to add or subtract to its original characteristics to get what he wants?

It takes a while, but he decides what structure to use and the runes that form part of it in the end. Then he calculates the size it should have and, after fretting over it for a bit, he decides that you only live once is the attitude to have and starts writing it directly on the ball. After a moment he realizes that pencil is not the way to go and changes to a sharpie. Either the ball is really old or the sharpie is too pointed, but instead of just writing on its surface, he's partially etching the array. He bites his lip but decides to go on. Then he activates it.

Something catches his attention at the edge of his vision and he turns to find Peter about to fall asleep. Stiles grins triumphantly and picks up his phone to get the visual evidence to lord his victory over the man when he wakes up later. Because he's going to sleep once he has the picture, dammit, he's dying.

Right as he's snapping the picture, the stress ball rolls over the edge and falls to the tiled floor before he can catch it...

... then it ricochets silently but with deadly speed towards the ceiling, where it rebounds again, gaining even more speed than it already had.

"Oh, fuck," Stiles whispers wide-eyed. "Peter!" he screams right before it hits the man's head, sending him sprawling to the floor. "Oh, fuck!"

"What the-!" Peter groans, somehow managing to look both like a spooked kitten and as if a train has just rolled over him at the same time.

"Down!" Stiles warns him again as it comes back like a tiny missile. Peter, the idiot, tries to grab it as it passes by. "NO!" he shouts but to no avail.

Peter gets thrown forward and out of the kitchen, where he proceeds to crash onto the living room's lamp before he can finally stop the momentum, successfully managing to not make another victim out of the TV. The ball continues bouncing and gaining even more speed.

"Oh, fuck," Stiles whines.

---

When the sheriff comes back home, he's greeted by a very odd sight. There's a trash bag full of things in a corner and several items, which includes two lamps, several pictures and a small side table, are missing. There are a lot of round marks over several pieces of furniture, the walls and the ceiling, and quite a few of those round marks look carved in and scorched. From where he is, he can see that the glass from two of the kitchen cupboards is gone and that there are two perfect holes on the dishwasher's door. There's a plant without its pot just sitting there on the living room's table and the missing pot is right at the center of the same table, downturned. Last but not least, Peter Hale and Stiles are completely out, one over the other, on the couch, dark bags scarily prominent under their eyes.

John blinks. And then he blinks even more.

"Well, the house is still standing," he mutters as he reaches for the pot to take the plant off of the table, because he has to start somewhere to fix the mess, after all, and this is really the only thing he can do right now. The rest he'll take care of after he wakes up.

"NO!!!!" both Stiles and Peter shout, snapping awake and bolting, just as he lifts the pot from the table.

---

The plant is still on the living room table but the pot holding the ewok -what, it's a small and harmless looking (fur)ball that's really dangerous when provoked, dad, where's the lie?- is in the toilet, with the door closed for good measure.

(There's another hole in the dishwasher's door and they've lost the two vases that had survived the first assault. Only Peter's speed saved the laptop and it was only by a hair's breadth.)

(Stiles is secretly happy that the TV and the recorder haven't been casualties. He had to pull a The Bodyguard™ move and there's a round shaped bruise already showing on his stomach, but it was well worth it. He'd die if he missed yesterday's episode of La Dulce Impostora.)

(Not that he'll say that aloud, of course.)

It's mid-afternoon and they're having breakfast and not feeling any shame about it. Stiles feels like a limp noodle and is ravenous. He has probably already eaten his weight in pancakes with an obscene amount of syrup, but he has no intention of stopping any time soon.

He looks at Peter's plate covetuously and the man's lips twitch, but he makes an offering gesture (sassy and a little mocking, but still offering) instead of lording his remaining pancake over Stiles. It takes a lot to not descend over it like a rabid beast, and even more to rise from his seat and make more instead. He even shares them with his dad and Peter, so someone should give him medal for the feat.

Just as he's taking the first bite, the cupboard's door, which was barely hanging from its hinges, makes a piteous sound and falls first to the counter and then to the ground, dragging a plate to it's ultimate demise with it. The lack of door reveals that almost all the mugs inside said cupboard have been smashed to smithereens at some point.

"So," his dad says, looking caught between horrified amusement and resignation.

"You said I'd be grounded if the house wasn't standing," Stiles points out, mouth full and all.

Peter snorts and takes a sip of his coffee. Unlike Stiles and John, the bastard doesn't look tired at all. He's sitting on the chair as if it's his throne. Stiles is a petty creature and he really wants to call bullshit because he knows that's the man's third cup of coffee, so he can't be feeling as good as he's making it look. The need to shoot a dirty look at him for the unfairness of it is almost overwhelming.

"I said I'd definitely ground you if it wasn't standing, not that I wouldn't ground you for any other damaged property."

"What- You- I claim false advertising!" Stiles gasps with a hand over his heart.

"Terribly sorry about that," John deadpans. "I'm sure I have some complaint forms somewhere. I'll make sure your reclamation reaches the proper authorities." He takes a long swallow of coffee and sighs contentedly. "Which would be me, so reclamation dismissed."

"Abuse! I claim abuse! No, don't hand me another imaginary reclamation form!"

🌚 Previous

#runes and all kinds of things #teen wolf fics #my writing #teen wolf #steter

[cinnalin-roll-blog]

hooked (part one)

a/n : lol okay so i know that this beginning is different than the beginning in descendants 1, but i felt like this would be a bit better so you can get an intro to maverick’s character a little more.

summary: mal and her gang leave mal’s sister, maverick, back on the isle and mav has a little chat with uma and her pirate crew about it.

warnings : i don’t think any

+++

maverick : mav-er-ik, noun, a person pursuing rebellious, even potentially disruptive policies or ideas (dictionary.com)

+++

“Maverick! Mal! Come here!” Evie yelled as Maverick stood by her bed trying to figure out where to put her next graffiti piece.

She walked over to her desk and gasped. “Evie!  This dress is amazing!” Mave said, looking down at Evie’s book. The dress was a dark emerald to match Maverick’s hair.  The dress also had seashells and gems. The skirt was up to the mid-thighs in the front and in the back went down to the knees. There was a matching necklace with diamonds strung onto black string and lace up high heel boots. “Is this for me?” Maverick asked.

Evie said, “Of course! It's just your style!” She giggled.

Mal walked up and groaned. “Really sis? Seashells? I don't get it. Why don't you just go hang out with Uma?”

Mav playfully hit her sister and said sarcastically, “Maybe I will.” Her sister rolled her eyes. “Aw Mal, have some fun. You know I love you. But come on, we’re surrounded by water and you also know how much I love swimming!”  Maverick said as she grabbed her sister’s hands and dragged her over to the window. “Just look at that water and that sunset! It's gorgeous!”

Evie walked behind them and said, “Mal, I love your sisters style! Everyone has their own! You have your purple and I have my mirrors and blue. Give her a break.” She winked at Mave.

“Whatev-” Mal started until Jay and Carlos walked in.

“Hey ladies!” Carlos said.

The three girls nodded their heads in greeting. Jay said, “Look what we found, or stole…” and held up five candy bars.

“Oh yeah!” Mal said as she took one. “This is what I’m talking about! Not sunsets and clothes.” Her eyes went over to Mav and Evie still at the window, pointing out some dolphins.

They immediately turned their heads towards the other three who were now mocking them.

“Look at this dress…” Carlos said in a high pitched voice.

Jay took it from Carlos and batted his eyelashes then giggled mockingly.

“Boys look! There’s a dolphin! Wow! I would love to meet Ariel!” Mal said sarcastically. Then she asked, “What's next. Dating a prince?” Mal scoffed.

Evie glared at Mal. “I hate you guys.”

Maverick laughed. “Whatever.” She flopped down on her bed and yawned. “Jesus...I'm tired.”

“Before you go to bed you might want to see this,” Carlos said as he stared intently at the TV.

Prince Ben was standing at a podium. “I’m going to be King soon as you all know, and I am as excited as you are. My first act is going to be to bring four villain kids to Auradon Prep.” The crowd gasped, and so did Maverick and her friends. “I know this sounds crazy, but if we want to live in a world without villains, we have to teach them how to be good. Starting with four is easy, then we can bring over more. I ask you to have an open mind, as I am too. We have to remember that these villains’ children didn’t do anything wrong. We have to give them a chance to make their own decisions be good. Thank you and goodnight Auradon…” he said.

Mal just laughed. “Oh my gosh, that’s the dumbest idea ever! Why would you villains at Auradon?”

“Wait, don’t they have princes there? I’m going to find one for me so-” Evie started.

“So you can break his heart?” Mal interrupted.

Evie looked down and said, “Right…”

Maverick just shook her head. Mal was so rotten that she wouldn’t let anyone have any goodness in their life. Evie was raised to rely on a prince, and here she is, excited about maybe getting the opportunity to meet one, and Mal ruins it. Mal just cares about herself, not even about Maverick. If she even cares a little bit about Maverick, it’s hidden way down in Mal’s heart.

“Whatever, I don’t even want to go,” Carlos said.

“Guys we don’t know if they’re going to pick us. Hopefully they pick Uma and some of her crew. Then we don’t have to deal with them anymore,” Jay said.

“Okay, well I’m going to bed. I am too tired for this. Evie, thank you so much for the dress; I love it!” Maverick said as she blew Evie a kiss.

The others nodded and some mumbled that they were going to bed too. “I’m going to stay up for a while. I’m not tired,” Mal said.

“If you say so,” Jay said.

+++

Mal was spray painting her wall with outlines of her mother yet again, when she heard a voice from behind her. “That is just wonderful...really brings out the horns don’t you think?”

Mal turned. “Mom?”

“Yes, I have news for you and you friends. Did you see the proclamation that snooty prince made?” Maleficent asked and Mal nodded. “Well you, Jay, Evie, and Carlos have been chosen to go to the Isle, and I have a job for you four.”

Mal was confused. “What about Mav?” She asked.

It was almost as if the villain forgot about her youngest daughter. She said, “Oh, well, she’ll live. You’re the oldest, so I imagine that’s why you were chosen. Just get your friends, she won’t notice. Maverick is a heavy sleeper.”

Mal stared at her mother in shock. “O-o-okay.” Truth is, Mal was scared of her mother sometimes and really did love her little sister. She just couldn’t show it, because then she wouldn’t look as evil. And then her mother would be mad. Mal gathered her friends and shook them awake. Soon enough, their parents were there too.

“Mom, I can’t go to Auradon. There’s dogs there!” Carlos said to his mom, Cruella de Vil.

“Oh Evie, you aren’t going anywhere without fixing that unibrow of yours!” The Evil Queen said. Evie gasped.

“Oh my goodness! This is our one chance! Our kids have to take that wand! Do you want out of here?” Maleficent asked, and the other villains nodded their heads. “Well, we have to do this! Mal, if you refuse, you’re grounded for the rest of your life…” She winked, then looked out the window. “Ah! Your ride is here!”

All of the kids ushered downstairs and into the limo after they said goodbye to their parents. They were off to what would be one of the most eventful years in their life.

+++

Unusually, Mav woke up without the help of anyone else. There wasn’t anyone jumping on her bed or throwing shoes at her. She woke up and walked around the room, and didn’t see anyone. She found a note on Mal’s desk.

Look, we really had to go. I didn’t want to hurt you. But me, Jay, Carlos, and Evie were chosen to go to Auradon. Sorry you couldn’t come. -Mal

Just a note? Mal didn’t even think to wake Maverick to say goodbye? Mav had to talk to someone about this. She put on the outfit that Evie gave her last night. Maverick made sure to put the pirate hat and boots on in spite of her sister. She folded up the note and marched over to Ursula’s Fish and Chips.

Maverick walked in and over to where Uma herself was standing with Harry and Gil.

“Well look what the tides brought in…” Uma said and Gil snickered.

Maverick rolled her eyes and said, “Just turn on the tv to the news. There’s something you’ll want to see.”

Uma nodded at Gil then turned back to stare at Maverick. The television turned on and showed Mal and the rest of the VKs getting out of a stretch limousine. Uma gasped, but then looked back at Maverick and said, “Looks like you’re all alone, kid.”

Maverick cocked an eyebrow and said, “Really? Kid? How original. And last time I checked, I’m not the one everyone calls ‘shrimpy’.” Mav laughed as she saw Harry smirking from behind the counter.

“I like this one. Good attitude,” He said in his thick accent.

“What do you want?” Uma asked, ignoring Harry’s last comment.

“I want to join the crew. I’m tired of Mal getting her way all the time. I want revenge, and I know you do too. Come on, she left us here! Aren’t you mad?” Maverick questioned, raising her voice.

Uma let out a huff of air, but said nothing.

Harry hopped over the counter and swung his arm around Maverick’s shoulder. “Aw, Uma, please? And even if she doesn’t prove herself worthy of being on the ship, I suppose she could help me with other things,” he said then turned to look at the Maverick, who had caught his eye.

Maverick just winked at him and said, “Maybe, if you’re lucky.” Then she leaned into him to whisper, “According to Jay, I’m very good.”

She pushed his arm off and he scowled. Maverick laughed and stood on her tippie toes to kiss him on the cheek. He blushed and said, “Welcome to the crew.”

+++

a/n : okay! part one is out! let me know what you think! also part 2 of blown away is coming up soon!

#harry hook x reader #harry hook #disney descendants #descendants #descendants 2 #descendants oc #descendants series #harry hook x oc #harry #maverick daughter of maleficent #evie #mal #carlos #carlos de vil #jay #auradon #auradon prep #isle #the isle #isle of the lost #original story #does anyone even read these

[feelingsdusk]

Runes and all kinds of things, chapter 16

Stiles risks a glance over the brim of his book at Peter and then returns quickly to the page he was reading when their eyes meet and he gets an arched eyebrow from the man. He barely contains the need to facepalm and wince at his own lack of cool and tries to cover it by shrugging as if nonchalant. The answering huffed snort makes him humph and turn his nose up in the air.

As much as he can with it still buried in his book to cover the flush he can feel rising in his face and the top of his ears.

(Smooth, Stilinski. Real smooth.)

But he can’t help it, he can’t read Peter at all right now. It’s weird and confusing to some degree after having been so open, so raw, just a moment ago, but at the same time not. It feels as if they took a step forward and then backed that same step again right afterwards. Maybe even two, because Peter has never been this blank-faced in his presence. Or, actually, if Stiles recalls well, in anyone’s presence. Peter is always sassing -provoking, testing, manipulating- people in one way or another. He uses his words, body language and facial expressions as weapons and he does it terrifyingly well. It never fails to get a response from the people around him, Stiles included, and now its absence rattles him.

Stiles stills suddenly. His eyes dart briefly towards Peter again and then go back to the page. He bites his lip and frowns contemplatively.

Maybe this isn’t a step back after all? Peter uses his words, body language and facial expressions as weapons. To defend himself, to get what he wants, to attack. Weapons. He’s used them against Stiles before, so it’s not that he’s an exception. It’s not that he thinks Stiles harmless, useless or inconsequential either. Even back then, in that parking lot, he thought Stiles had the potential to become dangerous, a threat to him. Enough of a threat, in fact, that he wanted to have Stiles on his side and he offeredwhen could have just taken. That not only hasn’t changed but it’s worse.

(Stiles couldn’t trap him and make him choke on mountain ash with a mere thought before.)

But he’s blank-faced now. Or rather… relaxed? Maybe?

Stiles sighs, slouching on his seat, and contains the need to throw a dirty look at Peter for being so damn difficult. He must do a lousy job because the man smirks at him self-satisfied.

“You’re such a dick,” Stiles grouches long-suffering and Peter’s grin widens even more.

Smarmy bastard.

Of course, there’s a chance Stiles is reading him wrong. With Peter it’s hard to tell, because he has more layers than three millefeuille combined and even more masks, but Stiles is pretty sure that it’s not a front he’s putting up this time. The ball is in Peter’s court in any case. Stiles will have to accept whatever he chooses to do and react accordingly.

He reaches for the baking journal again and catches Peter’s eyes again. The man’s eyebrows go high as he eyes the already finished death by chocolate cookies -the normal kind, he knows, because he’s seen Stiles take a bite and then perform an awkward dance because his mouth was burning- cooling on the tray with an skeptical eye.

“Just because I can’t risk Lydia finding a way to murder me remotely,“ and she would, of that he has no doubt, “it doesn’t mean I can’t use this.”

“Hmm,” Peter hums, lips twitching. The way he reclines in his chair makes Stiles want to grumble about the unfairness of it all. Because while Stiles is slouching, you can’t call what Peter is doing that. “What are you planning?”

“Revenge, what else? A petty one but equally effective in this case given whom my target is,” Stiles answers flippantly and Peter snorts. “But no, no more baking for now. It’s for Monday, so I’ll bake on Sunday. I don’t bake any substandard goods even if it’s for revenge, you know,” he sniffs. “Right now, runes. I really need to crack this before the alpha pack makes another move. Like hell I’m getting chased around like a mouse again,” he grumbles. “Pity I can’t just poison them all and be done with it.”

“Pity indeed,” Peter agrees, terribly amused by the pout Stiles is sporting.

An alarm goes off on Stiles’ phone and he startles. Then he remembers what it is for and he shoots from his seat towards the TV, leaving a bewildered Peter behind. The familiar intro to La Dulce Impostora is already running, so he hurries to set the recording so he doesn’t miss anything. There’s a pointed silence at his back and he feels himself starting to blush.

“Shut up,” he grouses.

“I didn’t say a word,” Peter lilts.

“Stop judging me, dude,” Stiles grumbles with cheeks that are starting feel really hot. “La Dulce Impostora is super addictive, ok? There’s a dying abuelita that is the cutest, most charming thing ever… Seriously, that woman is a queen. All hail Queen Isabela, may she reign forever over us lowly mortals,” he preaches with an earnest expression. “But yeah. There’s abuelita Isabela, a fake cancer that turns out to be true and an even faker pregnancy that doesn’t… but kinda does? Depending on how you look at it, I suppose…” he hums thoughtfully, turning to set the recording. “And amnesia, lots of amnesia. It’s so fucking ridiculous. But finally, after everything, they’re about to elope and Camila Valeria is going to ruin it all. Again. And it’s the fifth time. I can’t take it anymore, ok? I just want them on a beach in Bali happily drinking coconuts so I can be free and go back to my life, ok?”

“Well, I didn’t really understand half of what you said. Congratulations, that must be some sort of record.” Damn the man and his sass. Relaxed or not, Stiles served him that one on a silver platter and even Stiles himself wouldn’t have let it pass without answer. “Also, I hate to be the bearer of bad news-”

“Yeah, your face tells me you’re in despair right now,” Stiles quips back drolly.

“-but according to this site, that one still has more than ten episodes left.”

Stiles gapes, a horrified expression rapidly taking over his features. “You’re shitting me.”

“I�� shit you not,” Peter answers seriously.

A beat, two beats, and then Stiles is running back to the table to look at the laptop’s screen. He doesn’t slow down as much as he should and he collides against Peter’s back with a soft grunt. He doesn’t pay it any mind and he reaches for the laptop. Sure enough, there’s more than ten episodes left… Thirteen to be exact.

“Oh, god, no” Stiles whispers, the whine escaping him unbidden. For a moment he feels really tempted to just read about how it ends because thirteen one-hour episodes yet to go… and so far the only thing that hasn’t happened on that storyline is a zombie apocalypse. Seriously, there’s even been an attempt to overthrow the current government! Just. No. Ok. No, he will not. He’ll stick right to the end. Like a captain. “I will go down with this ship,” he pronounces darkly, prompting a surprised laugh from Peter.

Stiles contains a petulant pout. He raises his eyebrows and narrows his eyes at the man, daring him to say anything about it. Peter smirks and looks about to speak (no doubt to sass Stiles) but suddenly, windows start opening and closing on the screen without either of them touching a thing and they both blink surprised.

“Yesss! Danny, my man!” Stiles exclaims happily, throwing his arms up in the air. Peter grabs his elbow before it impacts with his nose and rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything otherwise. “Awesome! Now we’ll be able to track those fuckers without risking our necks. And who knows, I may still get to poison them.”

Peter laughs again and Stiles smirks in answer.

—

Much later after Danny stopped doing his own kind of magic on Stiles’ laptop, Peter is dividing his attention between something on the screen and a notebook he brought with him. Stiles is kinda itchy to know what’s in there because everything Peter brings has been fantastic so far, but he knows better than to try to take a peek because Peter hasn’t offered. Privacy and all that shit.

Stiles has the strong feeling that Peter is testing him. For what purpose exactly, he doesn’t know, but he’s pretty sure that he is. First with how he provoked him into a fight and now with this. And there have probably been more tests that he hasn’t even noticed. In any case, if Stiles finds that notebook unattended later he won’t be surprised.

(It all comes down to trust, doesn’t it?)

Well, he’ll cross that bridge when he stumbles upon it. For now, he’d better focus on runes or at this rate he’ll be werewolf chow and Peter’s tests won’t matter anymore.

And, god, it’s so frustrating.

Runework sucks. Big. Sweaty. Donkey. Balls.

He knows the actual runes and would be able to draw them with his eyes closed by now. That’s not the problem. That was the easy part, actually. The problem is that the placement in the actual item matters. Placement relative to the other runes matters. Size relative to the item AND relative to the other runes matters. Meaning? One tiny mistake fucks it all.

Meaning that it’s been one hour already and he has done nothing more than waste a lot of paper and bite the cap of his pen so much that it looks like a war casualty.

Because, on top of that, just because a rune has an established translation doesn’t mean that the effect that rune will produce matches it. Because two runes together get a complete different meaning than those two runes separately. And if they’re linked it’s even worse. The meanings don’t add up, they transform each other. Hence, runework sucks. Big. Sweaty. Donkey. Balls.

Stiles reaches for his phone and then takes a selfie, sporting an epic pout. He hits send and then lets his head fall onto the table with a beautifully resounding thud. Peter snorts.

(Also, Peter is a dick that finds too much entertainment in witnessing Stiles’ suffering.)

(Or maybe this is another test.)

Without looking, he makes a ball from the paper with his latest failed experiments and throws it in the man’s direction. With his luck, it probably falls short, but it’s the sentiment that counts, right?

“You’re such a dick,” Stiles grumbles.

“Yes, we’ve already established that,” Peter drawls, the tapping of his fingers against the keyboard never stopping.

And he flashes him the finger for good measure, because he doesn’t need good aim for it to reach the man. Peter snorts again and Stiles pouts sullenly into the table.

Ok, ok. How do you eat a bear? Bite by bite.

He sighs and comes out from hiding reluctantly. He looks at the page where he has noted down the few functioning arrays that can be found in the many books about runes that Stiles has, and decides that trial and error will it have to be. Sorry, Master Yoda, as sacrilegious as it sounds, your teachings hold no place in here. He may get grounded for the rest of his natural life for blowing up the house, but it’s not like he has any other options at this point.

He grabs a clean sheet of paper and looks at it thoughtfully. He may as well start with the simpler ones. According to his first chosen runework’s specific diagram, the array should cover one third of the item he wants to apply it on. But the question is: is that proportion regarding the size or the mass of the item? Does this mean that Stiles will have to become a master at calculating the mass of things on the go? Because that could pose a big problem.

“Excuse me, Mr. or Ms. Enemy-of-the-Week, can you tell me your height and weight? And what did you say was your last meal? And the quantity of said meal? You wouldn’t be constipated per chance, would you? Oh, I’m just curious, you know, ADHD, I get hung up on the strangest things. And since you’re killing me anyways, why not share? Oh, you don’t speak English? Yo hablo español si lo prefieres… Oh, you don’t have vocal cords at all? My apologies. I’ll just make an estimate, thanks for your time anyways and sorry for the inconvenience,” he pipes softly in a falsetto voice. He studiously doesn’t look Peter’s way. “Because that would go well…”

His phone chimes and he can’t help but cackle at Allison’s answering selfie. She looks filthy, sweaty and her face is so red that it gives the impression that she’s completely out of breath. She’s sporting an equally epic pout and it’s hilarious.

Stiles takes a deep breath after he lets go of the phone and shakes himself mentally. Ok, whatever, no big deal. He’ll find a way like he always does. First, he has to make an array work to begin with.

Because nothing ever comes easy -and if runes are such a rare practice as the books say, which suggests a high level of difficulty-, he assumes it’s mass. Ok, awesome (note the sarcasm). So volume and density. The paper is a rectangular form, so the volume would be length x width x height. And as for density… The Internet it is. He stands up and goes to the laptop Peter is using. The man looks at him curiously but turns the screen to face Stiles. A quick search reveals paper’s density, which gives him the last tool he needs to calculate the mass, and in turn the size the array should have.

Now, where to place it? Up, in the middle or down? Centered, on a side or on a corner? Left, center or right? Because the texts say nothing about that and if the size of the array and each rune regarding each other are so important, Stiles doubts the placing doesn’t matter.

Experimenting it is.

(Here’s to hoping that all his limbs remain in place by the time he’s done.)

He picks up the pencil and copies the array right on the centercenter of the paper. He concentrates on activating it and gets a cloud of mountain ash to the face for his troubles when Pikachu comes out to play so to speak. He sighs and has to concentrate on getting him back to his skin instead. He tries again and gets the same exact results. After the sneezing attack ends, he pouts but gives it another go. By the tenth time this happens, he’s ready to tear his hair in frustration and the ash is moving around agitatedly from limb to limb and then even to his face, which gives him another uncontrollable attack of sneezes.

“Are you for real?” he grunts frustrated at Pikachu and his ears seem to flop down, just like dogs when they don’t know what they’re doing wrong because they think they’re obeying what you told them to do.

Stiles blinks. Maybe he’s not directing his spark belief whassit (what, he doesn’t have a name for it) at the paper but at the ash instead? He hums thoughtfully and makes a soothing gesture at Pikachu, prompting him to return to his skin again. He closes his eyes and concentrates. His magic works with belief, right? So believe he will. He opens his eyes and looks at the paper again.

“Yes!” he crows happily when he picks up the sheet of paper from a corner and instead of flopping down like it should, it remains rigid. “Look at this, Peter! Hah! I’m a genius! Bow down in my mighty presence!”

“I’ll be right on that, give me a minute,” Peter deadpans drolly. He waves a hand towards the oven trays. “Here, meanwhile have a cookie.”

“I made those,” he grunts at the man, his face falling into an unimpressed expression.

“Are you saying they’re bad and that’s why they don’t qualify as a prize for your success?”

“Don’t you dare!” Stiles gasps scandalized. “Everything I bake is superb!” Peter raises an eyebrow. “Well, there might have been a few FUBAR situati-” Peter raises the other eyebrow. “Damn you,” he grumbles. “Gimme the damn cookie. I deserve it. Because my cookies are totally prize-worthy. You heard that? Totally and without a doubt. Nothing beats them.”

“Maybe add a glass of milk to be sure? And two cookies instead of one? Added value, you know. It was a big success after all,” Peter quips, picking up the ball of paper Stiles threw at him before and throwing it with all the rest pooling at Stiles’ feet without even looking.

Smarmy bastard.

“Stop dissing my wonderful cookies,” Stiles grouches, throwing a narrow-eyed glare at the man.

“Me? You wound me, sweetheart,” Peter replies amusedly, getting up to prepare a couple of cookies and a glass of milk and put them in front of Stiles.

“Smarmy bastard,” Stiles mutters, this time aloud, as he takes a bite. “Just for this, you’re not getting any-” Stiles voice becomes an intelligible grumble when he hears the tattletale crunchy sound to his right, where Peter is leaning to pick up the paper with the functioning array.

Stiles humphs at Peter, whose smirk widens, and he rolls his eyes. Then he covers an amused grin because he knows the man’s impressed because he nearly forgot to leave the paper behind when he went back to his seat… and because he snatched another cookie on his way.

Stiles goes back to the paper and sets off to finding out if the array can be turned off. It takes him a few tries but it’s possible. If he erases the array, it stops working, it seems. Or is it because he stopped believing it would work? He’ll have to ask Peter to participate later. In any case, awesome, success! Now more tests, he thinks rubbing his hands excitedly.

He writes the array, turns it on once again and then he sets it aside. He spreads more sheets around the table as he starts changing the placement of the array on them, activating it as soon as he writes it and noting down the time on a separate notebook. That way he’ll kill two birds with a stone and he’ll be able to check a few things: the time it lasts once activated and how many he’s able to activate at the same time.

(Because he knows that spark works with belief, but is this power of his finite? Druids depend on outside forces to practice runework and rituals but where does a spark’s power come from?)

Once he has twelve variations of the placement, he tests them against each other. Then he makes size variations and, after that, size and placement variations.

Two hours later, he has reached several conclusions: yes, size matters; yes, placement matters; yes, his spark is finite to a point.

The size sets the range of effect of the magic and the placement sets the point of impact. So, with the hardening array he’s testing right now, if Stiles sets right in the center a smaller array than the one-third ratio the book said to use, the edges of the paper don’t harden and flop down like they should. Stiles feels giddy with the possibilities this brings to the table. Of course, this experiment was done on a pretty simple form, it will obviously be more complicated with other more irregular ones. But it’s a start, right? Stiles has a feeling that he won’t be needing to calculate everything’s mass exactly, just have a general idea to work with, unless he’s doing a very precise work. Of course, to get to the point of not needing to calculate it every time, he’ll have do at lot of testing and practicing.

And as for his spark being finite… Even with the snack he had before (which he suspects Peter gave him on purpose because he somehow knew he’d need the extra energy and it kind of makes Stiles want to grin), he’s ravenous right now and it has nothing to do with the hour it is. It feels like when he comes back after one of those gruelling lacrosse practices and he’d eat the fridge’s contents… and then the actual fridge itself. So this means that using it tires him as exercising would. It remains to be seen if working out (so to speak) will raise his stamina or if his power is a set value that he’ll have to work around.

All in all, not bad for two hours of work. Now that he knows some of the rules (because he’s sure he’ll find more as he goes) he can start experimenting. But first.

“Dinner?” he pipes looking at the lasagne like a man would at water in a scorching hot desert.

As if on cue, his stomach emits an epic growl that lasts way longer than it should and he feels himself start blushing. Peter smirks at him.

Stiles flips him the finger again.

(Peter is way too smug about that, the smarmy bastard.)

—

“Mmm,” Peter hums contemplatively as he takes the first bite.

“Mmm?” Stiles replies, already on his third bite. So sue him, he’s starving, ok?

“Mmm,” Peter continues humming, almost reluctantly.

“Mmm, huh?” Stiles replies again, smirking.

“Mmhm,” Peter says as if unimpressed.

Stiles grins and Peter rolls his eyes.

—

Just after dinner, Stiles gets to work with the second simplest array he has available. The first one was a hardening one (to put it simply, the explanation in the book was way more technical and complicated) and this one is an elasticity one. Whether it augments or reduces elasticity remains to be seen though.

Just like with the hardening one, this array consists of four runes. Stiles’ guess is that that’s the simplest it can get. Because probably just putting one rune would be too open and thus, the effect would be unpredictable and uncontrollable. So basically there’s a primary rune and then at least three secondary ones that delimit the first one. The placing and the size respecting the primary rune define the extent of the effect they have on it. That’s probably why there are some subtle differences between both of the arrays that he has, even if they have the same diamond structure.

Ok, good, he can work with that. And since he now knows what effect the placing has, he writes the array exactly on the center of the paper and activates it. He picks it up and looks at it thoughtfully. At first glance there’s no apparent change on it. Then he pulls from both ends.

“Whoa!” he exclaims surprised when it stretches out like gum.

Well, it’s a little harder than gum and unlike it, when he stops pulling it immediately goes back to its original form with no evidence of what happened left behind. It has a limit of how much it can extend though, so Stiles guesses that the runes alter the original characteristics of the item they were placed on, as opposed to giving it a new set value. So if the original item had been stretchy to begin with, it would have extended even more than the paper. Conclusion: arrays alter the items exponentially.

(Oh, god, the possibilities.)

So the primary rune is elasticity and its size right now is the perfect size to have an effect on the whole paper, but what if he plays with the secondary ones? From what he has gathered, those only alter the primary rune, not the actual item itself.

He has two different arrays with the same structure and, save from the primary rune, the same runes in that structure. And those secondary runes have the same size respecting the primary rune on both arrays. What do those runes do? Because the meaning they have doesn’t shed any light on that.

So if he gets the left side one and makes it bigger, what happens? And what if he changes the one at the bottom? Or the one on the left? What if he changes two of them at the same time? Or the three? What if…

—

Stiles startles a little when the lights of the kitchen are suddenly on. He turns to look at Peter perplexed, but the man isn’t paying him any attention at all. He squints around and takes in the sun’s position in the sky. He hadn’t even noticed he was starting to struggle to see.

He lets the pen he was keeping in his mouth fall into his hand and looks at the mess he’s made. Maybe it’s time to tidy up a bit, he thinks grimacing.

Well, it was worth it, he supposes… or at least a necessary evil.

Some of his tests were a complete bust and some weren’t. He now knows what each of the runes in this particular array is for and how their size relative to the primary affects it. He also knows that, at least in this kind of structure, all the runes need to have the same orientation or it won’t work. Also, this kind of structure is to alter the physical characteristics of the item it’s placed on. -And it has to be an object. All the books were adamant about that, about runes not being used on living beings.- The secondary runes are set ones that can’t be changed and the primary is the one that sets the characteristic the array will alter. Moreover, two runes can be linked as the primary rune, but anymore than that and it fails, which he supposes is where the more complicated arrays come in. Also, just because those particular runes are set ones for this kind of array, it doesn’t mean that they can’t act as primaries too.

And all of that was just from two different arrays that have the same structure. He has three more structures to go through. And then he has to experiment with items with different sizes, forms, compositions…

(This is not a bear, it’s a damn whale.)

He kind of wants to scream but, hey, he still has all his fingers and the house is not only standing but hasn’t been damaged at all. Only a full stack of papers has been sacrificed to the cause. Yay for him.

“Ah, father, you man of little faith,” he mutters, slouching on his seat and closing his eyes tiredly.

There’s no way he can-

Really loud rock music blares suddenly from the laptop’s speakers, startling Stiles into almost falling from his chair. He looks at Peter, who looks as surprised as Stiles and is also trying to lower down the volume as fast as he can.

“What the hell, Peter,” Stiles gasps, one hand still over his thundering heart and the other grasping at the chair in a trembling iron fist.

“I was trying to put the soundtrack to your little moment there, but this is not what I expected,” the man explains perplexed. “I mean, the song is called Crushing Defeat, but I wouldn’t say a crushing defeat sounds like that. Not that I would know, but.” And then the man has the gall to shrug nonchalantly before continuing speaking. “I should have definitely gone for my first option.”

And he hits play.

Maybe I’m foolish

Maybe I’m blind

Thinking I can see through this

And see what’s behind

Got no way to prove it

So maybe I’m blind

But I’m only human after all

I’m only human after all

And he stops the music right there.

Stiles, whose face had gone from startled to unimpressed in the blink of an eye, goes right into the evil eye territory equally fast.

“Remind me again who’s been dead before?” Stiles says, his voice saccharine sweet.

“Sure! Anything for you, sweetheart,” Peter answers, equally sweet. “I’ll remind you anytime you want that not even Death could win against me. Anything to inspire you when you’re feeling low.”

And he turns back with a self-satisfied smirk to continue whatever he was doing before.

That.

Smarmy.

Bastard.

Stiles will show him a crushing defeat.

(Also, just for that, he’s hoarding all the cookies, dammit.)

—

It has somehow turned into a contest.

It’s way past 4 a.m. and neither of them is bowing out. Stiles has gone through three more structures, gained more knowledge and even more rules. Peter has at least filled ten pages of that journal of his and Stiles has caught him covertly eyeing the coffee cupboard more than once. At this rate, John Stilinski will arrive to see them either conked out over their respective works or stubbornly resisting but about to pass out.

At this point Stiles wishes his dad would appear so he could order him to bed and he’d have the excuse to bow out, but he’d rather face another run around the pool with all the alphas chasing after him than admit to that.

He eyes the cookie plate and mourns its empty state. Then, with a sigh, he turns his attention back the last structure that he has. So far he has confirmed a lot of the things that he already suspected. The more complicated an array gets, the more things you’re trying to change on an object… or the more complicated the object’s composition or the being you’re placing it on is. But so far Stiles has gathered that if you place an array on a living being, you better brace yourself because it’s so complicated that it has disastrous effects more often than not. Which is no good… unless you’re banking on it going wrong to get out of a pinch. Stiles certainly wouldn’t mind making an alpha go boom with failed runework, that’s for sure.

Well, in any case he now has an idea of how the arrays are expanded and of how to link different arrays to cover the more irregular objects or to make domino effects. Of course, he just has the theory and he’ll have to experiment a lot but it’s something that’s not a “crushing defeat”.

He just wants to die.

Stiles barely refrains from hitting his head repeatedly against the table to wake himself up forcefully but only because he still has some dignity left. He looks at the stress ball that he got out to fidget with by hour… whichever it was, he’s lost count. It used to belong to Scott, from when he hurt his hand and he needed to strengthen his muscles. It’s fuchsia with green polka dots all over it and it couldn’t be uglier even if it tried, so it wouldn’t be a big loss if Stiles accidentally murders it.

The material is polyurethane, if he’s not wrong. The thought of getting up to check its mass on the laptop is too much to bear, so Stiles uses his phone to search for it. When he finally has it, he muses over what he needs to change on it to make it bounce. Elasticity, for one, of course. Resistance maybe? And what else to generate the kinetic energy he needs? How much does he need to add or subtract to its original characteristics to get what he wants?

It takes a while, but he decides what structure to use and the runes that form part of it in the end. Then he calculates the size it should have and, after fretting over it for a bit, he decides that you only live once is the attitude to have and starts writing it directly on the ball. After a moment he realizes that pencil is not the way to go and changes to a sharpie. Either the ball is really old or the sharpie is too pointed, but instead of just writing on its surface, he’s partially etching the array. He bites his lip but decides to go on. Then he activates it.

Something catches his attention at the edge of his vision and he turns to find Peter about to fall asleep. Stiles grins triumphantly and picks up his phone to get the visual evidence to lord his victory over the man when he wakes up later. Because he’s going to sleep once he has the picture, dammit, he’s dying.

Right as he’s snapping the picture, the stress ball rolls over the edge and falls to the tiled floor before he can catch it…

… then it ricochets silently but with deadly speed towards the ceiling, where it rebounds again, gaining even more speed than it already had.

“Oh, fuck,” Stiles whispers wide-eyed. “Peter!” he screams right before it hits the man’s head, sending him sprawling to the floor. “Oh, fuck!”

“What the-!” Peter groans, somehow managing to look both like a spooked kitten and as if a train has just rolled over him at the same time.

“Down!” Stiles warns him again as it comes back like a tiny missile. Peter, the idiot, tries to grab it as it passes by. “NO!” he shouts but to no avail.

Peter gets thrown forward and out of the kitchen, where he proceeds to crash onto the living room’s lamp before he can finally stop the momentum, successfully managing to not make another victim out of the TV. The ball continues bouncing and gaining even more speed.

“Oh, fuck,” Stiles whines.

—

When the sheriff comes back home, he’s greeted by a very odd sight. There’s a trash bag full of things in a corner and several items, which includes two lamps, several pictures and a small side table, are missing. There are a lot of round marks over several pieces of furniture, the walls and the ceiling, and quite a few of those round marks look carved in and scorched. From where he is, he can see that the glass from two of the kitchen cupboards is gone and that there are two perfect holes on the dishwasher’s door. There’s a plant without its pot just sitting there on the living room’s table and the missing pot is right at the center of the same table, downturned. Last but not least, Peter Hale and Stiles are completely out, one over the other, on the couch, dark bags scarily prominent under their eyes.

John blinks. And then he blinks even more.

“Well, the house is still standing,” he mutters as he reaches for the pot to take the plant off of the table, because he has to start somewhere to fix the mess, after all, and this is really the only thing he can do right now. The rest he’ll take care of after he wakes up.

“NO!!!!” both Stiles and Peter shout, snapping awake and bolting, just as he lifts the pot from the table.

—

The plant is still on the living room table but the pot holding the ewok -what, it’s a small and harmless looking (fur)ball that’s really dangerous when provoked, dad, where’s the lie?- is in the toilet, with the door closed for good measure.

(There’s another hole in the dishwasher’s door and they’ve lost the two vases that had survived the first assault. Only Peter’s speed saved the laptop and it was only by a hair’s breadth.)

(Stiles is secretly happy that the TV and the recorder haven’t been casualties. He had to pull a The Bodyguard™ move and there’s a round shaped bruise already showing on his stomach, but it was well worth it. He’d die if he missed yesterday’s episode of La Dulce Impostora.)

(Not that he’ll say that aloud, of course.)

It’s mid-afternoon and they’re having breakfast and not feeling any shame about it. Stiles feels like a limp noodle and is ravenous. He has probably already eaten his weight in pancakes with an obscene amount of syrup, but he has no intention of stopping any time soon.

He looks at Peter’s plate covetuously and the man’s lips twitch, but he makes an offering gesture (sassy and a little mocking, but still offering) instead of lording his remaining pancake over Stiles. It takes a lot to not descend over it like a rabid beast, and even more to rise from his seat and make more instead. He even shares them with his dad and Peter, someone should give him medal for the feat.

Just as he’s taking the first bite, the cupboard’s door, which was barely hanging from its hinges, makes a piteous sound and falls first to the counter and then to the ground, dragging a plate to it’s ultimate demise with it. The lack of door reveals that almost all the mugs inside said cupboard have been smashed to smithereens at some point.

“So,” his dad says, looking caught between horrified amusement and resignation.

“You said I’d be grounded if the house wasn’t standing,” Stiles points out, mouth full and all.

Peter snorts and takes a sip of his coffee. Unlike Stiles and John, the bastard doesn’t look tired at all. He’s sitting on the chair as if it’s his throne. Stiles is a petty creature and he really wants to call bullshit because he knows that’s the man’s third cup of coffee, so he can’t be feeling as good as he’s making it look. The need to shoot a dirty look at him for the unfairness of it is almost overwhelming.

“I said I’d definitely ground you if it wasn’t standing, not that I wouldn’t ground you for any other damaged property.”

“What- You- I claim false advertising!” Stiles gasps with a hand over his heart.

“Terribly sorry about that,” John deadpans. “I’m sure I have some complaint forms somewhere. I’ll make sure your reclamation reaches the proper authorities.” He takes a long swallow of coffee and sighs contentedly. “Which would be me, so reclamation dismissed.”

“Abuse! I claim abuse! No, don’t hand me another imaginary reclamation form!”

Welp, this took more than a year. I’ve lost count of how many versions of this chapter I’ve written… and how many times I rewrote each one of those. Sigh.

Thanks @ssree and @nineorfour for proofing this.

⏪Previous

#phonefic #teen wolf #steter #my fanfiction #runes and all kinds of things

[stokan]

Grammys 2017: Adele’s Revenge

Who gives a damn about a Grammy? Other than Chance the Rapper hopefully no one. But what I DO give a damn about is the Grammys telecast. It’s great! Sometimes for the wrong reasons, but whatever! I love watching it. So, as always, here are some thoughts on each of this years performances:

Adele (Hello) “Heeeellllooooooo from 12 months ago” - Adele

Nothing like showing how you have your finger on the pulse of music like starting your music awards show out with a song from 2015. Keep up the good work Grammys!

James Cordon opening James Cordon is the best case scenario for a musical theater kid.

The Weeknd The Weeknd is the best case scenario for selling out.

Also, The Weeknd is great in any situation, but definitely the situation The Weeknd is best in is when Drake cancels on your awards show last minute.

Keith Urban/Country Music Barbie Is this country music is now??? If so I guess it’s true what they say: one generation’s dance-influenced guitar pop is the next generation’s country music.

Either that or genre is now officially dead.

Ed Sheeran Fun game I like to play: Former Harry Potter Actor or Ed Sheeran Fun fact that is definitely true: No one over the age of 26 can name a single Ed Sheeran song Fun thing to watch on The Grammys: Not this performance

Lukas Graham/Kelsea Ballerini It’s been fun not knowing you Kelsea Ballerini. Best of luck with everything.

HOT TAKE SO HOT THAT IT’S ON FIRE: “7 Years” is a good song and I enjoy it. (Feels good to get that off my chest)

Beyonce In retrospect Destiny’s Child is the most fitting name possible for a young-Beyonce fronted group. This Beyonce is where the last 20 years of popular music have been building to. If 1998 Lauryn Hill, 2008 Lady Gaga, and 2010 Kanye had a daughter, that daughter would want to be 2016/17 Beyonce when she grows up.

Having the platform, permission, vision, and talent to give this performance is really the final level possible of popular artistic success. Clearly Beyonce is there and it’s awesome to see. But mostly I just enjoy how Solange Beyonce is now.

Bruno Mars Bruno Mars paradoxes: -Bruno Mars remains somehow both incredibly overrated and incredibly underrated at the same time. -Bruno Mars is one of the most charismatic performers in history, yet also somehow has no discernible personality. -Pretty much everyone would agree that a Bruno Mars concert seems like it would be awesome, yet I doubt there’s a single person I know who would ever actually want to go to one.

Bruno Mars remains a great live performer and an even greater enigma, and the Earth will now die and crash into the sun before The Grammys will ever again happen without a Bruno Mars performance.

Katy Perry I don't know if its acceptable to unironically love Katy Perry yet or not, but regardless, I audibly expressed excitement when her performance was introduced. Listening to new Katy Perry singles is my heroin. I know I’ll never get back that original high of “Teenage Dream” but I’m addicted to trying anyway. It just makes me feel so good inside. And it will somehow probably lead to my death.

Also, how quietly Katy Perry is winning the Perry/Swift civil war is so Katy Perry. And as much as I like Taylor Swift I’m gonna be one of the first people off the boats at Katy Perry’s Normandy.

Gary Clark Jr. Gary, you're great and I'm sure that was lovely, but I gotta be honest, I was still Perry drunk for your whole performance.

Alicia Keys/Maren Morris I feel like we as a society have failed Alicia Keys. She’s some parallel universe’s Beyonce.

And I had no real idea who Maren Morris was coming into tonight but I have a strong feeling her album sales just picked up significantly. So way to Ricky Martin that thing Maren!

Adele (George Michael tribute) In an existential twist, messing up made that way better than it would have been had everything gone according to plan. (Wake up sheep! Adele’s Sound Issues were an inside job!)

And the in-the-moment confusion over how much of Adele’s post-song emotion was about George Michael and how much was about the restart is why there's still nothing quite like watching live TV.

Lady Gaga/Metallica Wow Lady Gaga’s country phase sure just took a dramatic turn.

Pretty sure Lady Gaga is the first person to perform on the Grammys with both Metallica and Tony Bennett, but I’ll have to check on that. All I know is I’m looking forward to next year when she performs with Wu-Tang Clan.

Sturgill Simpson Dwight Yoakum introducing Sturgill Simpson feels even more on the nose than Beyonce being introduced by her own mother.

After that performance Sturgill Simpson easily retains his title as My All-Time Favorite Live Performer That I Had Never Even Heard of Two Months Ago. Also there's literally nothing in life The Dap-Kings don’t make better.

The Bee Gees Tribute I know that literally no one in the world needed or wanted that, but hey, good news, Little Big Town covering “How Deep Is Your Love” is now the official theme song of CBS. So there’s that.

A Tribe Called Quest and Friends My review 1st Half: ….honestly? Kind of a mess. 2nd Half: ALL THE FIRE EMOJIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you kick it? I’m pretty sure you just did. The ONLY bright side to the next four years is the hope that we might get to experience even more shit like that.

Prince Tribute Bruno Mars and The Time doing the Grammys' Prince Tribute is the occam’s razor of Prince tributes. It also feels like the last word. Although I also think we’d all be totally fine with just continuing to do Prince tributes forever.

Chance the Rapper There was a 100% chance that was going to be transcendently great, and indeed it was. I don’t believe in God, but Chance the Rapper is so great that he makes me think that I do.

John Legend/Cynthia Erivo HOT TAKE SO HOT IT CAN MELT STEEL BEAMS: I’m over awards shows doing solemn In Memoriam segments.

Neil Portnow NEIL PORTNOW BITCHES!!!!! James Cordon thought he could upstage Neil Portnow with his Neil Portnow intro but NOTHING CAN UPSTAGE NEIL PORTNOW!

Real talk: At this point I legitimately don’t know if my excitement about Neil Portnow is even ironic anymore. This is my cry for help.

The fact that The Grammys ended the performance section of the night with In Memoriam and Neil Portnow #ThatsSoGrammy

#Grammys #beyonce #lady gaga #katy perry #bruno mars #chance the rapper #a tribe called quest #adele #the weeknd #neil portnow

[henrytcasey]

Watch This Wrestling 6 (2/10 – 16)

Welcome back, and yes, I’ve changed the name of this gimmick from the imprecise “Don’t Miss This” to “Watch This Wrestling.” So without further preamble, here’s what you need to see from the last week of pro wrestling.

WWE Match of the Week:

John Cena vs AJ Styles vs Bray Wyatt for the WWE Championship

WWE SmackDown Live, 2/14

While the 2017 Elimination Chamber is the match that got all of the attention this week, I prefer the WWE Championship rematch that took place two nights later. Why? The Chamber match had a slow, stilted pace, or at least it did until it was just these last three.

So, not only did SmackDown Live’s triple threat match between John Cena, AJ Styles and Bray Wyatt rule, it did so while playing on our expectations.

That “A Wild Luke Harper Appears!” moment at the top of the match existed in-part to toy with fans worried that Wyatt’s run would last a mere 47 hours. Further, while we knew to expect great things whenever Cena and Styles face off, this confirmed that Wyatt and Styles is a top-flight pairing that will do well in the future. I look forward to their post-Mania program.

Non-WWE Match of the Week:

Tetsuya Naito vs Michael Elgin for the IWGP Intercontinental Championship

NJPW, The New Beginning in Osaka, 2/11

Pop some popcorn folks, because this one goes long (more than 35 minutes). And sure, some might not like it for its length (time constrained viewers should check out Shibata/Ospreay or Kamaitachi/Dragon Lee) but I believe the reward is worth the investment. Naito’s detachment and chill make for a perfect pairing with “Big Mike” who plays ever the angry, straight-forward, revenge-driven babyface.

The match shows Naito taking a ton of punishment, and makes Elgin look incredibly powerful. It even has a couple of surprising moves in it that I won’t spoil, just look out for Naito going for a Tope Suicido.

And while this match shows Naito working over Elgin’s injured knee and eye socket, the match isn’t overburdened with the moments where Elgin’s knee isn’t able to support him. Elgin’s expressions are great, too, especially his look of exhaustion and surprise when Naito kicks out later in the match after a sit-down powerbomb. 

Available here with NJPWorld Subscription .

WWE Segment of the Week:

The Festival of Friendship

WWE Monday Night Raw, 2/13 

I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but hot damn this was good. 

Haven’t watched it yet? Watch these clips and then read. In that order.

Even the intro, Jericho’s colorfully-lit pre-taped message that welcomed “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, grandmothers and grandfathers,” to “The Wrestlemania of Camaraderie” was confoundingly weird.

I’ll be honest, I got lulled into a sense of security. Just as Graves looks startled by all the fireworks, I got bewildered the second I saw Jericho’s super-huge, extra-doofy smile. He wears that smile to close the video and as he walks out to split apart his feather dancers, and he just had me scratching my head.

Even knowing what we now know, Owens’ look of boredom doesn’t telegraph the ending, it just gives viewers this sense that he’s as confused as they are. From the blatantly homoerotic sculpture by Ralph Guggenheim (a name borrowed from a graphics designer from Toy Story) to The Creation of Kevin (“it’s art, you don’t need pants”) this segment is chock-a-block with laughs.

Also, note the Jericho line “true art grows on people,” because you need to rewatch this segment. Its pacing is perfect, with Jericho’s rapid-fire dialogue and Owens delivering deadpan line after deadpan line (“scarfs are your thing,” “Chris, where did you find Friendship The Magician?”).

You don’t even need to know about Triple H pulling Owens aside erlier and speaking likely-evils into his ear. But that added layer, that puppet master moment, gives the little flakes of humanity in Owens, which you see when he’s shaking his head wearily, hoping Jericho delivers Goldberg, to redeem the utter silly stupidity of this all. And the utter disappointment on Owens’ face when freaking Gillberg shows up. Yes, that’s how much Jericho cares about his best friend, he called up The J.O.B. Squad’s finest: Gillberg.

So as Owens says “I don’t understand!” to Jericho, he’s saying “What do you expect me to do? Triple H was right, you’re making me into a joke!” And then Jericho goes and says it all:

“For the last year, I gotta tell you, listen, I’ve had such a great time working with you, being your partner, it’s made this last year in the WWE one of my favorite years of my entire career.

And a lot of that’s because of you.

I’ve had a lot of friends in this business and a lot of partners but I haven’t had the chemistry with any of them like I have with you. It’s been a joy. You’ve made my job here and my time in the WWE here a better place, and I wanted to thank you for that.”

So when Jericho ends that emotional unfurling by promising Owens a Fast Lane win over Goldberg, we now know Owens cannot retain his title. We know that this friendship is doomed.

We don’t know who made The List of KO. It could be Owens, it could be Triple H. But once Owens decides to ask for it, it’s all over, and he’s relishing in the moment. Kevin Owens may have humanity (I think I see hints of him feeling guilty) but he also derives a terrible joy from destroying those who trust him.

So we heard the words

“How come my name’s on this?”

Then, after the brief beatdown, this gets the signatures of KO and Jericho. First, Owens giving Jericho the ring-apron powerbomb (Sami Zayn is chuckling somewhere) and then putting Jericho through the TV, just like Jericho put Shawn Michaels through the TV, as Michaels put Janetty through the barber shop window.

Oh, and check out the Samoa Joe interview with Michael Cole and Emmalina’s return if you missed those.

Non-WWE Segment of the Week:

The Broken Hardys in Tijuana Part 2

Impact Wrestling, 2/16

It’s almost as if everyone else saw the festival of friendship and thought, “well, no bother trying to top that.” Except that both the ROH and Impact this week were pre-taped and NJPW doesn’t really do non-match segments.

So, I can’t really credit Kevin & Chris for this one, but this segment (which I’m not even a huge fan of) is another Broken Matt bit that beats the field. Here’s part 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 .

I can’t stand The Wolves Breaking Up stuff, the Mini Moose & Big Moose setup for Jealous Cody’s Return, and especially Braxton Sutter’s Bachelor Party and Laurel Van Ness’s Bachelorette Party. Even Eli Drake & Titus’ segment stank.

#wrestlewords #watchthiswrestling #dontmissthis #smackdown live #wwe #john cena #aj styles #bray wyatt #njpw #new beginnings #michael elgin #tetsuya naito #monday night raw #chris jericho #festival of friendship #impact wrestling #broken matt hardy