#it would have been more effective i think if they'd cut it down a bit

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

i am watching a film called 'don't blink' (2014) and i. don't care for it very much actually :P

this is probably the fourth time i've seen it and it does not improve upon rewatch unfortunately ;A; the premise is that when ppl blink or stop looking at each other.........they disappear. sometimes. not all the time tho!!! and maybe the animals too, bc there's no birbs or bugs or bunnies or anything!!! it's quiet and empty!! the fisherman is gone!!! their cars mysteriously refuse to drive!!!

um. we never actually get an explanation for it btw?? i can't remember if our group have been to this specific building before but....other ppl definitely have??? like there's half eaten breakfast and unused bath water and all, so ppl have BEEN here???? is this....a new phenomenon?? ppl just....disappearing??? has it happened before??? and NOBODY'S noticed?? NONE of these ppl had ANYONE who would miss them??? ;A;

and where did they GO??? a parallel dimension??? the underworld??? or is THIS the underworld and the disappeared ppl go back to reality???? is this some sort of.....elaborate prank???? WHAT IS HAPPENING.

i just. i just wish i UNDERSTOOD. i just DON"T GET IT. PLS IF U UNDERSTAND THIS, PLS EXPLAIN IT TO MEEEE ;A;

spoiler under cut

AND THEN!!! after establishing throughout the whole film that ppl disappear ONE BY ONE.............at the very end, when it seems like the last woman standing is about to be saved.....she looks up.....

AND THE COPS AND PARAMEDICS HAVE ALL DISAPPEARED IN ONE GO!!!!!

LIKE!!! u just did that for the EFFECT!!! the AESTHETIC!!! u ignored ALL the rules u gave us for one last lil ~spook~ !!! completely undermining the entire thing just for a lil 'gothcha!!' at the end!! i do not care for that ._.

#don't blink (2014) #birb watch #it would make a bit more sense as an episode of the twilight zone or the x-files or something like that #but stretching it out into an entire film is. a bit too much i think??? #idk it gets odd and repetitive and boring tbh :P #no hate to the actors bc they've all done their best imo #but there's just....not enough to fill the time #bc they just retread and repeat stuff instead of like. idk. OFFERING THE AUDIENCE AN EXPLANATION???????? #it would have been more effective i think if they'd cut it down a bit #anything to do away with the scenes of them saying the same things over and over #or just sitting in the place doing absolutely nothing lol #maybe it's meant to be like the weeping angels?? #but it's um. not. so....👀👀👀 #a few of the shots are kind of cool tho!! so there's that!!! #and zach ward is here!! hi zach ward!!! #u have been in some not very good films but ur always entertaining lol #the blond guy sort of looks like gary busey's son lol

[whumblr]

Half strength

“Look at that, there they are. They’re here for you.”

Whumpee thought they’d known what to expect when they’d willingly walked into this death trap, but hearing that voice, that dreaded low but gleeful voice they were sure they’d never have to hear again sent shivers over their spine.

Their shoulders, however, tensed up at what they saw, cutting off the shivers before they could raise the hairs on the back of their neck, and a searing anger briefly consumed their fear.

Whumper stood waiting for them, and next to him, kneeling at his feet, was Caretaker; all tied up and defeated. He slumped on his knees, almost doubled over, but he looked up at Whumper’s words and his expression turned desperate when he saw Whumpee approach.

He was shaking his head and Whumpee threw him an apologetic glance before keeping their eyes back on the threat.

They stopped walking, keeping a safe distance between the pair. “I’m here for him,” they confirmed. “Now let him go.”

But Whumper made no move yet, he just glanced down at the figure at his feet. “Told you they’d come. You really should have more faith in your friend, thinking they’d leave you here to rot.” He tutted.

With his chin still tilted down at an angle, his eyes slid back up studying Whumpee's determined face for a sign of weakness. He didn’t find any; all signs of fear were hidden, blocked out by the anger Whumpee felt at seeing Caretaker on his knees and the tactics he’d used to get them here.

Even when he stepped forward, towering over Whumpee and encroaching on their personal space, they met him head-on.

"You're not flinching back," he observed, the corner of his lips slightly curving.

Whumpee glared at him. Recoiling was useless. They'd come willingly, knowing they couldn’t escape his grasp anyway. And they knew exactly what was in store for them.

"Unwise," Whumper merely said, and without warning delivered a brutal backhanded slap.

Whumpee fell a step back with a grunt.

“Waltzing in here like you forgot everything.” Whumper’s words now betrayed a hint of anger, almost disappointment. “It should’ve been engraved in your very bones.”

It probably was, Whumpee had to admit. They brushed the back of their hand over their mouth, where the familiar sting made the memories and accompanying fear bubble back up.

But they refused to show it here. Not in front of Caretaker, who didn’t deserve any of this, who would take any bit of fear Whumpee showed personally like it was his fault. He’d feel so guilty, was probably already wracked with guilt, landing himself and Whumpee in this situation, and Whumpee refused to make matters worse.

Whumper however had no such qualms. His anger dissipated as quickly as it came and the grin on his face returned. He stalked backwards, standing next to Caretaker again.

"Do you know what I'm going to do to them?" he said, crouching close behind Caretaker, crooning in his ear but his eyes fixed on Whumpee.

"Stop it," Whumpee brought out.

"I think, first... I'll break their arms."

"He won't," Whumpee said firmly, looking Caretaker in the eyes.

"Won't I?" Whumper drawled, thoroughly amused. "Why not?"

"Because you like it too much when I fight back."

Whumper thought that over. "True..."

He stood, guiding Caretaker along to get up as well. "Maybe just one arm, then,” he relented. “Because you're right, I do like to see you fight. Or rather, see you struggle against the inevitable and seeing the realisation seep in every time you scramble to your feet. How hopeless your situation is. How you cannot beat me. You cannot run. You cannot escape. Not then. Not now."

Not with you taking hostages, Whumpee thought bitterly.

"One arm then...” He returned his attention to Caretaker, who was still shaking his head at Whumpee, a silent plea. “I'll start from the bottom up. A finger first. Then their wrist. Then... what do you think? Forearm? Upper arm? Choices... Forearm, I think.” He leered at Whumpee, to see the effect of his words. “You’ll need but a simple cast. And it opens up the path further to your upper arm, should you not have learned your lesson yet, then pull your shoulder from its socket…"

His eyes started to glint as he drifted away in his thoughts. Thoughts that, Whumpee knew, weren’t just a fantasy. A shiver slid over their spine again as they knew it would happen to them soon enough.

“I’ll leave your right arm unbroken, so you can struggle and flail to fight, unable to push me away from you, at half strength. Just think about it, you pinned to the floor, to the wall, struggling with all your might. With your left arm dangling uselessly at your side, and your unbroken arm trembling against me, trying with all its might to resist, but you’ll know it won’t help.”

A cruel spark lit up in his eyes.

“Willing to fight, but unable,” he almost purred. “Just like now. Struggling fruitlessly against what’s to come, but fighting at half strength,” he nodded at Caretaker, “with a broken appendage doing nothing but bringing you pain and slowing you down.”

His grin widened as he saw Whumpee’s mouth fall open and their expression twisted in rage as they caught his words. “Sending you right into my arms.”

Whumpee stood nailed to the ground. Their gaze flicked to Caretaker for a second, who’d never looked more defeated than now, and they had to suppress a snarl.

“I may have entered this battle at half strength but at least I don’t fight like a coward,” they said through clenched teeth.

To their surprise, Whumper merely chuckled at the insult.

“Well, I already knew you respond better to brute force… And here I was trying mercy for once.”

“Mercy,” Whumpee scoffed, still shaking with rage, trembling fingers now balling into a fist.

“In this scenario, no one gets hurt. If you’d rather I beat you both into the ground and drag you away yelling and screaming to dunk you in the trunk of the car,” he shrugged, raising his palms, “I’m flexible.”

Whumpee meant to growl a response, but this time they were interrupted by a soft pleading voice.

"Whumpee, don't. Please, you don’t need to do this!” Caretaker had finally found his voice. He took a step forward – stopped by Whumper’s outstretched arm – and his words kept getting increasingly louder and more desperate. “Just get away. Run, please!"

A pained expression crossed over Whumpee's features at those words. Because it echoed that voice screaming in the back of their head telling them to just run. And they wanted to; it took everything they had not to bolt out of here. But they couldn’t.

"Aw, and leave you?” Whumper crooned before they could reply. “With me? My turn I guess; they won't. Not after they came here for you."

"Won't I?" Whumpee echoed the same words, but without much zeal.

"I know you well enough by now. Besides..."

All amusement evaporated from his voice.

"As soon as you turn your back on me, you'll quickly spin back around at the sound of a gunshot. And if you turn swiftly enough you may still be able to see the light leave his eyes." He didn't raise a gun, didn’t even show it, he just lightly brushed his coat aside and rested his hand over something on his hip.

Their breath shuddered in a repressed sob. “Coward,” they muttered. But every bit of fight left in them snuffed out. They knew they were fully stuck.

“Just brute forcing my way through.” Another shrug.

“I already planned to come with you. There’s no need for this.”

“I’m very much aware.” Whumper grinned. “Shall we get going then?”

“Let him go first and I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Whumper simply said. “We leave first, and he can find his way out of here. Unharmed,” he added, as if in a reminder, but Whumpee read the hidden threat behind the words.

They glanced over at Caretaker who nodded once, but his eyes told a whole different story.

“Fine,” Whumpee said, before they’d change their mind.

Whumper drew forward and this time Whumpee did flinch back as he raised his arm.

But he merely offered a hand and he chuckled. “Always a fast learner.”

They cast a final glance back at Caretaker. I’m sorry, they mouthed, and when they turned back, their expression hardened.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you attempt to fight your way out.” Whumper took their arm in an iron grip as they refused his hand and guided them along to his car. “And when you’re lying broken on the floor, each breath bringing agonising pain…” The hand on their arm slid down, tightening around their wrist. “We’ll move on.”

-

Continued here

Tag list: @firewheeesky @myfriendcallsmeasickwoman19 @hold-back-on-the-comfort @whumpawink @painsandconfusion

#whump #whump writing #recapture #protective whumpee #caretaker #self sacrifice #creepy whumper #angst #angst glorious angst #promised violence :) #implied torture #threatened torture #threatened murder #whumplr #my writing

[valictini]

From my understanding of the situation, and from that thread by a union member, the union isn't supposed to be the one in contact with the studio to solve the problems.

They're only here to support the victims and give them tools to THEN argue for their rights by themselves. They only intervene directly if they feel the workers aren't heard.

By cutting off communication with all the members of the studios except management/high ranking employees, with no certainty as to when (or if?) they'll be allowed back, Quackity Studios is effectively preventing the victims from doing just that.

You can argue that it's an understandable move, that they want to lock everything up and reorganise with less people involved so its quicker, to then open up again when its ready to go... but the fact that we're not sure if that's their plan is precisely the problem.

And yes, the fact that no French admin is there to at least represent the french side of this management problem is a bit strange to see, too. It's not a matter of trust, its a matter of blind spots.

Who's to say that with the new system they come up with, they dont end up having a flaw that might be a problem for future french admins?

That's why Lea is denouncing this move. She was ready to argue for herself, and expected that every other victim would be heard directly too. Because that's what the union is encouraging.

You can think that she should trust Quackity more and wait. You can think that she's maybe a bit too emotional and should calm down. You can think that shes making things worse. (And personally, i WOULD prefer that she waited a bit longer and not livetweeted the situation like that) But we also need to understand where she's coming from, at the very least. She's been asking for direct communication for a while, even before getting fired, and never got it.

And lets not forget that SOMEONE is giving her this info from the inside. If this person didn't want Lea to post, they'd probably stop. So she's AT THE VERY LEAST expressing the opinion of two (ex) admins

#qsmp #qsmp discourse

[period-dramallama]

How much worse would "Becoming Elizabeth" be if the two-headed monster known as Fraham had written it?

This ask kept me awake for hours.

The key difference would be that we would go in with zero expectations, so we wouldn't be disappointed, for the most part.

I think Fraham would accidentally make the good decision to not give Tommy S too much screentime. They'd give us Gaston from Beauty and the Beast with a side order of child abuse. That's it. Whereas Becoming Elizabeth spent aaaaaaaages trying to flesh out Tommy S and his insecurities and his terrible judgement and his relationship with his brother.

....and nobody asked for that.

Having said that, Fraham would squander 110% of the benefits of this accidentally wise decision.

What does the show look like? AU below cut. You have been warned.

-Upon the death of Henry VIII, Elizabeth receives a Mysterious Box. The label tells her she must open this box on her 18th birthday. What's inside the box? Watch the show and find out.

-Someone calls Jane 'cute'.

-Jane calls Elizabeth 'a mean girl'. References! Look how contemporary we are!

-Anne Stanhope has a pointless scene of her trying on Katherine's jewels, while topless. Why is she topless? No-one knows.

-For her 16th birthday party, Elizabeth does full Anne Boleyn cosplay. Katherine does the necklace thing but doesn't tell her to change. So.... it's still pretty obviously AB cosplay.

-Elizabeth Hates Sewing and wants to be a Leader so Robert Dudley gives her secret sword-fighting lessons. Shippers are torn between thinking this is cheesy and stupid, and the need to have Content.

-While hunting, Elizabeth accidentally shoots a peasant. Robert helps her bury the body in the woods. It's a Serious Moment for Elizabeth's Journey. So naturally it's never referred to ever again.

-The scene where Katherine discovers the truth about Tommy S and Elizabeth is... more graphic.

-Katherine has a graphic C-section.... and survives. Syke! She dies offscreen of a post-partum infection anyway.

-Mary Seymour dies as an infant... because Tommy S got drunk and dropped her down the stairs.

-John Dudley is a full-on Trump expy. He's racist to Pedro for no other reason than to signal he's No Good Very Bad.

-Alternatively, John Dudley is a Male Feminist who Leans In and Respects Wamen and tells Robert that his girlbossery comes from following his mother's example unlike his father Edmund Dudley who was a Useless Loser Who Got Beheaded. This clumsily foreshadows that John will one day be the Useless Loser Who Gets Beheaded.

-either way, we still don't get Jane Dudley.

-Mary chokes on a communion wafer and is saved by Pedro, because he's a Civilised Spaniard who knows something the Backward English don't know. (Basically the Heimlich Manoeuvre.)

-John Dudley tells Mary "we've had enough of your popish paraphernalia!" This line is so clunky and difficult to say that it becomes a meme.

-In their confrontation in the woods, Mary and Elizabeth get so angry they start to duel. It's surprisingly well-choregraphed. "Romola Fencing Champion" trends on Twitter. (Alicia is also pretty good).

-The duel descends into the two women rolling around in the mud and fighting. This sparks Discourse. Was it kinky accidentally, or on purpose?

-In their director's commentary of the scene Emma Frost calls the fight "their Anakin and Obi-Wan moment". She says this over a shot of Mary trying to crush Elizabeth's windpipe with her thighs.

-Edward's disease uses up presumably a large chunk of the special effects budget. He bleeds from the nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. Oliver Zetterstrom in an interview says this was his favourite bit to film because of course it was.

-John Dudley is so desperate for Edward to survive that he chooses black magic. Pentagrams, chanting, candles, sacrifices, the works. A black cockerel is sacrificed and John Dudley is sprayed with blood. Some members of the audience are kind of into it.

-Despite England being too backward for the Heimlich manoeuvre, Henry Grey performs mouth to mouth and CPR on Edward.

-No sign of Frances Grey, it goes without saying.

-Edward is dying and Elizabeth has just turned 18. Time to open the Mysterious Box! Inside are two canopic jars and a letter. The letter is from Henry VIII. He tells her that Anthony Denny is tasked with sending her the Mysterious Box. Henry says he has had a prophetic dream revealing that Elizabeth has been Chosen. He apologises for dismissing her because she was a girl and her mother was a Wicked Slut. She must wait for Edward and Mary to die as it has been foretold, then she will be Queen and preside over a Golden Age. After his death, the canopic jars will be filled and given to her as proof of his faith in her.

And what's inside the canopic jars? Why, the heart and stomach of a king! And of a king of England, too!

The End.

#the spanish princess #the spanish princess memes #shitposting #becoming elizabeth #becoming elizabeth memes

[t4llhum4n]

thanks for reaching out, responding to your ask was a lot of fun!

if you would be so kind, i'd like to humbly request an analysis of sunshine (i am captain of the blake train but think they deserve some love ^^)

cheers!!

I am so sorry about taking so long on this!

I've been itching to finish writing this analysis since I started it a bit ago because Sunshine is literally one of the coolest listeners in canon.

Well, if not a little tragic...

Analysis (and spoilers for the Balance) will be under the cut!

Let's start with the obvious; Sunshine is one resilient motherfucker. Not only did they die, they encountered a world that no human -- unempowered or empowered -- even knew about. Even more, they're connected to it in a way that no one else is. See, that sounds cool as hell on paper, but imagine the mental repercussions of that.

Dying and coming back comes with its own trauma, no doubt, but later realizing that you living might be the thing that serves as a catalyst to end everything? How do you even grapple with something like that? Here you are, having come back from dying in a terrible car accident, working through the lasting effects that had on you mentally and physically, and then finally living your life with the partner of your dreams (hehe), only to have it snatched away by a quest that determines the fate of the entire world.

Personally, I'd be bitter as hell. According to the timeline, Elliot and Sunshine were just over a year into their relationship before this all happened. That's just enough time to settle into a new normal and begin to live a comfortable life with the person you love. But, instead of reacting with bitterness (because, as I'll get to later, I do believe that there is some there), Sunshine decided to personally, in all of their unempoweredness, get involved with the investigation. Don't forget, it was Sunshine who saw the opportunity to get deeper into CloseKnit's headquarters and took it.

Pausing for a second, I want to talk about why that might be. I believe there are two reasons: 1) a genuine desire to help Brachium like he helped them, and 2) an underlying want to expedite the process. At the end of the day, I fully believe that this, for Sunshine, started as a way to repay Brachium for saving their life. They remembered what he did for them, heard his concerns, and saw that moment as a way to help quell his worries. But no one is immune to a little selfishness...

Get it done. Get back to their life. As I stated earlier, it takes some serious strength to recover from what Sunshine has been through. That coupled with them settling down into an ideal life -- it probably felt like an achievement for them. This was what they had been working toward, and now it's being put on hold for this weird, magic, counterpoint thingy. At this point, neither Sunshine nor Elliot knew how deadly serious the consequences of these counterpoints were. Furthermore, Sunshine has even less context as an unempowered, even if they are "informed" on paper. So, what's the harm in speeding it up a little? Maybe, if they get all they need from this one-on-two meeting with the recruiter, Sunshine can finally go back to that amazing life they were living.

But, of course, we all know how that went. Here, I believe, is where bitterness comes into play. I think it's internal, like they're angry with themself for getting too hasty and putting Elliot in that situation. If they'd played it safe, like Elliot advised, then they wouldn't have gotten trapped in the basement, and they could've worked slowly from the outside. Despite both Elliot and Brachium reassuring them that it isn't their fault, I fully believe that Sunshine blames themself -- stuck in a loop of "if only"s.

Their demeanor with Blake is more resigned, which could be an effect of this self-hating spiral. In Sunshine's mind, they got a second chance, they tried to do good, but their yearning to return to their life with Elliot caused them to get reckless for the sake of swiftness, and now they're here. Laying out the events like that to themself makes it seem like it truly is all their fault. It's narrow, and it blocks out the bigger picture of the real villains: CloseKnit and Blake.

So when Blake asks Sunshine to follow him out of the room, they're surprised. They question him, wondering why he's not worried about them running off. Personally, if I planned to use an opportunity like this to escape, I wouldn't point it out, so this confused me at first. Then, I thought about it. What exactly would Sunshine believe that they are escaping to? At this point in the story, they fully believe that Elliot is walking around with only rotten memories of them. Escaping from CloseKnit would be akin to starting over once again, and you know what? That's exhausting.

They follow Blake. They do what he says; sitting there until Brachium decides to make contact. This whole time, Blake has been treating them as nothing but a catalyst -- a thing that can connect to Death. Maybe that's all they're good for. Maybe this is their new start...

Or, at least, that's how I see it. Honestly, you could read Sunshine as being a badass all the way through, and it would still work pretty well, I'm just a sucker for a character who is worn down from their experiences. In my opinion, it makes them more human, and I really appreciate it when I can relate to their characteristics! Sorry about this coming so late! Break has been a LOT busier than I expected. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this, and thank you for the ask!

#i will get to the rest #i swear #i really do appreciate you guys sending them! #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #redacted the balance #redacted sunshine #redacted brachium #redacted elliot #redacted blake #happy holidays everyone! #and happy day to everyone who doesn't celebrate! #t4llt4lks

[writingquestionsanswered]

Language Issues with Isolated Village

(Question edited for length and answer...)

Anonymous asked: My main character lives in a village that’s been isolated for centuries. They believe they're the only ones left in the world. Therefore, they’re likely to speak a unique language that has been lost to everyone else in the world.

Language tends to be cultural and regional rather than unique to a single village, so it's a little unbelievable that no other villages spoke the same language prior to isolation. Even accounting for the language's evolution over the centuries outside the isolated village, it's unlikely it would change so much that it would be unrecognizable. English has changed dramatically over the centuries, but if you're fluent in English and went back to 1500s England, you wouldn't be completely lost. There would be some unfamiliar words, phrases, and slang--and the accent would be tricky--but you could get by.

MC leaves and discovers there are other cities and people etc. Am I asking my readers to suspend too much disbelief by assuming everyone speaks a common tongue, including this guy who’s been isolated all this time?

"The common tongue" in its fictional context is what's known in the real world as a "lingua franca" or a bridge language/trade language. These develop as a means of communication and administrative convenience between two or more groups who do not share a native language, allowing for the conduct of trade, diplomacy, scholarship, and religion. If there's a common tongue in your story's world, you need to consider why people in the village would have continued to learn and pass down this language once it was no longer necessary for communication's sake. (Edited to add: I see you address this in a later question, so we'll follow up there...)

1. In Game of Thrones there are several languages but many converse in the “common tongue”. Am I ‘allowed’ to assume everyone in my story speaks a universal language?

You can certainly include a common tongue in your story, but you would need to establish it in the story rather than rely on the reader to assume its existence. And you'd need to explain why your isolated villagers continued to learn the common tongue, which we'll get to in a bit.

2. What are some alternative ways my MC can communicate effectively with people in the world?

If they can't find anyone who can translate for them, they can use rudimentary communication such as gestures, pointing, and drawing pictures.

3. I thought about having books written in the common tongue in my MC’s village, which means some people are literate in it… would this be acceptable?

The mere existence of books written in another language isn't impetus enough for a people to pass it through the generations. It would be easier to just translate the books into the village's native tongue. The only way it might make sense is if there was a massive volume of books and documents written in the common tongue--too many to translate--containing a wealth of valuable knowledge that each generation would want to preserve. Even then, you'd have to explain why the protagonist happens to be one of these lucky few who are taught the common tongue. If you can make it make sense, though, it could work.

Other Things to Consider:

I think you can avoid the whole conundrum by acknowledging that other villages spoke the language when the village was cut off. That way, worst case scenario your character is a little behind the times as far as new words, phrases, slang, and maybe even pronunciation, but they'd still be able to communicate.

You could also make it so your character's native language IS the common tongue. That way they can communicate with anyone they encounter who speaks it. Again, the language might have evolved a little, but it won't be a total breakdown of comprehensibility.

I hope that helps! ♥

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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[starr-angelofnarnia]

OK OK I have to talk about Barbie!

I went and saw the Barbie movie on Friday. I don't typically go to movies when they are in theaters because my adhd doesn't handle sitting quietly still for an extended period of time. But marketing for this movie was on point and I had to go see it.

In short, with no spoilers, I loved it. There were a few bits of the story that could have better, but overall, it was a wonderful movie. So I want to discuss it but I'm hiding the rest under the cut because there are spoilers.

Also, I have to say that the criticism that the movie is inappropriate for children though it was marketed to young children is hilarious. It was not marketed to children; it was marketed to the millennial women who grew up with Barbie at its most controversial. Not once did I see a marketing campaign and think, "this is perfect for children!"

I digress...

Didn't Like: Ruth and Barbie's Conversation to the Last Joke

Getting out of the way what I didn't like: basically the ending. I appreciate the point that was trying to be made, that ideas live on, that humans live on through what they put into the world. But I personally don't feel it was done effectively. The scene where Barbie talks with Ruth is weird and doesn't flow with the previous scene. And the gynecologist joke that closed the film took away from this message. Read somewhere that the end came to Gerwig in a dream, and it honestly looks like it (but not in a good way).

Liked: References to Discontinued Dolls

All the jabs at discontinued Barbies (would have been cool if they would have had a scene of Midge giving birth like they had with growing up Skipper) were hilarious. I appreciate that Mattel didn't shy away from the cringier dolls in the collection. And I personally think that's a sign of strength, being able to learn from your mistakes. I did find an article about other dolls that could have been included, which I'll link below.

Liked: Sasha's Criticism of Barbie Being Anti-Feminist

Sasha's speech about how Barbie has set women back because it's a valid argument that many people have made. I grew up with concerns that Barbie was giving girls body image issues, that she gave men unrealistic expectations for women, and that her portrayal isn't even biologically possible. And for a bit, I fell into this line of thinking. Though it was never Barbie giving me unrealistic expectations for my body, it was images of celebrities that did. But acknowledging this criticism makes the film far more powerful than if they'd ignored it completely.

Loved: Barbie Encourages Ken to Find an Identity Outside of Her

One of the criticisms I've heard was how pathetic Ken is as a character. But I think that's the point. For one, this is how women are often portrayed in films centered around men. For once, the man was the damsel in distress. Second, after the Kendom falls, Barbie encourages Ken to create an identity for himself outside of being "with Barbie". The Barbies aren't trying to put the men down in restoring Barbie Land (a common criticism) but encourage the Kens to be more than Barbie's companion. (Side note: the word patriarchy was used too much; it became a cringey buzzword after a while.) Finally, Ken didn't get the girl so to speak. Women should be free to have men as friends without it becoming a romantic relationship. Barbie loves Ken platonically and that doesn't change.

Loved: Barbie's Emotional Confession and Gloria's Response

I've seen tons of praise for Gloria's monologue about the complexities of being a girl. And this was definitely a highlight of the movie. But I haven't seen as much praise for the events that led to this: Barbie's grief about not being good enough. I cried during this part of the movie because it was so relatable. I constantly feel this way, that I'm not good enough. This was such an emotional scene and it really resonated with me.

Final Thoughts:

I hope that this shows men some of the struggles of women that they often overlook.

I love that Greta Gerwig was able to support trans people without taking away from what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. (Part of what the gyno joke was)

The soundtrack is fire. The only thing that could have made it better is a song from queen Taylor Swift. Also don't know why Ken's cover of Push couldn't have been included

BTW, links where I got my information and pictures

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT88cVS2U/

https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/greta-gerwigs-barbie-features-discontinued-dolls-like-allan/amp/

https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/did-barbie-shade-bratz-in-the-new-movie-trailer-2159598/

https://www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion/kenough-tie-dye-hoodie-barbie-30545994

#barbie #barbie movie #margot robbie #ryan gosling #america ferrera #ken #barbieland #greta gerwig #kendom #feminism #patriarchy #opinions #review #Gloria #sasha #bratz reference #discontinued #mattel #midge #allan #i'm a barbie girl #what was i made for #barbie dreams #pink #choose your fighter #barbie world #push #just ken #dance the night #do you ever think about dying

[secretgamergirl]

Thinking About How We Talk

This is one of those subjects I bring up now and then where it feels like I'm lighting a match to inspect some powder kegs. So right up front let me say this is NOT going to be a post where I'm going to actively police the language you use, talk at all about George Orwell, or be some sort older out of touch person who just doesn't understand how younger generations talk. This is all about encouraging personal reflection, considering word choices, inoculating yourself against nasty rhetorical tactics, and history lessons here.

And before I do the whole cut thing I also want to get into a real obvious example of why all this is important. In the last couple of years, people have finally been catching up to this, but for the vast majority of my life, everyone was bafflingly cool with calling the extremists with such a hard-core anti-abortion stance they'd gleefully push policies where people were forced into definitely-a-stillbirth situation which additionally posed a serious risk to their lives and engaged in full on terrorism against people performing abortions or even just potentially pointing people towards the right resources, in a full on bombs and mass shootings in doctor's offices sort of way. And aside from just the disgusting hypocrisy involved in that, this language control was actually effective enough that a huge number of people with pretty reasonable thoughts like "well obviously I don't have a say in what other people do, but I think if I ended up pregnant, even if it wasn't a planned thing, I'd go ahead and have that baby" thought that that meant they were "pro-life" and shouldn't oppose people claiming to be such. That's the sort of terrible situation you get when you just kinda roll with the language shifts total monsters push for.

That's a real grim note to start this off on, so let me dial it back a little. As you may or may not know, just about 10 years ago now, my life went down kind of a weird road where I suddenly found myself spending basically all my time monitoring and combating really hardcore far right extremist groups and their various pushes to mainstream their garbage. The most prominent example of this was the whole Gamergate thing, and the less-publicized string of similar 4chan "ops" where a bunch of creeps from this weird insular pile of misanthropic nazis would do their best to disguise themselves as normal functioning human beings and subtley spread their hateful crap. This was obviously awful in so many ways, but on a certain level it was kind of hilarious because the vast majority of these people were just completely incapable of speaking like normal human beings. They'd be pretending to be concerned housewives or black civil rights activists but still pepper everything with 4chan post signifiers, talking about "cucks" and "fags" and doing the whole bit of ">be me >walk into a walmart >see some SJW talking about mysoggyknees >puke" and whatnot. You could spot them from miles away and see right through them. TERFs of course still work on this level, trying to talk to normal people and rambling about "TIMs" and "large gametes" and "adult human females" and all that.

Now eventually, by and large, they've gotten steadily better at masking this crap. There's some terms and typing styles that have generally dropped off, there's a lot of weird coded phrases they use now that couple plausibly come from the mouths of normal people, but more than anything else, they made this HUGE push years back to infest the hell out of youtube and other websites with a lot of unattended impressionable children. They'd do things like ramble about Minecraft and... whatever else it was 12 year olds were really into around 2015 or so, and subtly pepper in their weird rhetoric, terminology, and conspiracy theories, trying to indoctrinate kids too young to know better, and frankly they made pretty good inroads. I don't know that they were super effective at turning that many kids into full on nazis, but they did a great job of normalizing a bunch of jargon and they at least messed with kids values enough for them to age into the sort of witch-hunting weirdos you see all over Tumblr here just itching to bun people at the stake for being too sex positive or whatever other weird arbitrary reason.

Now, I don't like this because I can no longer look at someone talking about "Chads" and "cucking" and such and know without the slightest doubt that that's one of those hardcore fascist creeps talking, which bugs me but, ow well, damage done. But also, you know, words mean things. You really can influence someone's thought patterns by encouraging trends in their vocabularies. Cults know this, that's why they're so keen on actually policing the hell out of how members talk, getting them to only express certain concepts in certain ways and all, so they don't ever question certain baseline assumptions and whatnot. And that still applies when you freely choose to adopt certain language.

This isn't always a huge problem. Hardcore nazis talk about "Chads" all the time as part of this super messed up offshoot of pickup artistry where there are inherently superior "Chads" that whatever woman you're hoping to manipulate into banging you are always going to pick over you, the wannabe pickup artist loser, because ultimately women are awful contemptible things incapable of seeing your best qualities, and when you go down that rabbit hole far enough people push you into going on killing sprees in hope of the government being brought to their knees and forcing women to ignore their Chad preference and date people like you under penalty of imprisonment or something. Super messed up, but as that one got mainstreamed it seems to have distorted a bit into a general (and maybe even gender neutral) term for someone cool you should try to emulate.

Then you have terms like "cuck" getting mainstreamed. That's a word that just DID NOT EXIST in the popular consciousness until about a decade ago. It was a thing previously, but only in specialized porn circles. It's short of "cuckold," this odd antiquated term, where you have this specific scenario where some white guy walks in on his wife or girlfriend having sex with a particularly physically impressive black man, and just kind of blubbers impotently as she brags about how impressive the new guy is. I assume it caught on with the general public because ha ha, the nazis are identifying with this loser in this obscure porn fetish. Meanwhile for the nazis this is total propaganda for all their garbage about "the great replacement theory" and general threat posed by black men and the concept of women being property to be defended and all that crap, and like... that's just inherently what the concept is here? You can't deploy "cuck" as an insult without at least SOME buy-in to, at the very least, some of that idea of women showing any sort of sexual interest in other people is a sign of failure on behalf of some guy who on at leas some level owns them and needs to defend their property from others and that's just a really messed up world view to enforce? Particularly when you're doing so as an alternative to just calling some pathetic loser a pathetic loser, or any number of other things that get that same point across.

Worse than that though? Cringe. To cringe is to physically recoil in instinctive disgust as an involuntary reaction to something profoundly terrifying or unpleasant. Like opening the door to a closet and having a wall of maggots suddenly collapse down from behind it or something. Fascists love to use this to describe the various sorts of human beings they intensely dislike and want to exterminate. "I can't articulate just what it is about just seeing this queer person existing in public that makes me shudder in revulsion, and that's cool because I love not thinking about my reactions and just acting on them" basically. And when someone who isn't a fascist refers to someone or something as "cringe" they... also mean it in exactly that fashion. The whole concept behind turning the word into an adjective like this is to externalize personal feelings of disgust and turn them into some objective flaw in the source, rather than analyze why you feel that way. It's really just not a concept you should have ANY term for, let alone this specific one. Like it's fine to be disgusted by someone, but you should always be able to clearly articulate why you feel that way. Like, say, "ugh, look at these disgusting losers who set up a whole message board just to stalk a bunch of random queer people. Could you ever imagine having such an inability to find joy in anything that that would seem like the best way to spend your time?" That's totally fine. But if you're ever in a situation where you're disgusted by someone and can't put a finger on why? There's some chance you're being groomed into irrationally hating people over some signifier they're a member of a group hate groups want wiped out. So you know, maybe strongly consider just dropping that one from your vocabulary?

Or how about the real big obvious one, "woke?" I feel like out of all of these, this is the one people are most likely to toss around without really thinking about what it actually means. So history lesson! Back in 2014 there was this absolutely horrific incident where a cop absolutely brutally murdered a child who was walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri. Shot him six times, in front of a good number of witnesses. When questioned on it spouted off some absolutely WILD BS about him having superpowers, being a demon, and "bulking up" when shot. These are actual quotes, I want to be clear. Not only did he face no actual repercussions for this, he wasn't even charged with a crime, and there was a rather profoundly large number of people in law enforcement lining up to back up this murderer's story that he absolutely had to completely unload his gun into an unarmed child with hands over his head in the head to keep him from using his demonic super strength to tear him limb from limb.

Being such an astonishingly clear cut example of... this thing that cops are constantly doing to black children all over the country and all, there was a good deal of press coverage and protesting over this, and for a VERY brief period, maybe a month or two? People who were on the scene being terrorized by shockingly militarized police while they tried to hold candlelight vigils for this murdered child were referring to themselves as "woke." As in "this incident woke me up to the fact that racist cops really do have complete institutional protection any time they feel like straight up murdering an innocent child like this." Right wing monsters didn't quite immediately co-opt the term. There was a bit of workshopping from the more media savvy/TV show hosting far right types, particularly this whole embarrassing effort to try and make "black lives matter" sound in some way threatening, before they eventually settled on making "woke" into this slur that definitely and specifically does refer to "anyone who objects to police being allowed to murder innocent black children without fear of consequence" but is obfuscated enough to have some plausible deniability.

Now, I'll admit there may have been a bit of linguistic drift amongst the far right with the specific definition of the term. The edges may have blurred some on who it can be applied to, since we are talking about a crowd who relies pretty heavily on growth through emotional appeal, frowns on self-reflection, flattens terminology, and really prefer vague blanket catch-alls to targeting specific minorities because it's just easier that way. The spirit behind it has never changed at all though. It's still a declaration of seething hate and a demand for a general social status quo where it's basically OK for state agents to murder the sort of people they consider to be undesirable.

How about the usage of the term amongst people who aren't complete monsters? Well, the people who were originally self-describing themselves as "woke" stopped using it pretty damn quick, I think around the second time one of them was found with a fatal bullet wound in his chest, in his car, which was set on fire. As in more than one person protesting the whole police murdering innocent people deal was murdered in this specific ritualistic way. Serious stuff went down in Ferguson and we really should talk about it more. Then though, more recently, there are a hell of a lot of people you would maybe think should know much better who are... also tossing the word "woke" around in a sneering slur-adjacent fashion? Sometimes it's in this vague mocking contempt sort of way like "ooh, I guess this movie that just came out is 'woke' right, because there's a black woman as a major character?" Maybe more often though it's in some context of throwing people under the bus? Like, "hey, I consider myself left wing, but I'm not part of that woke crowd!" Which, you know, that's just a whole category of crap people say that should raise a red flag that they're trying to talk fascists into considering them good people before we even get into how you're actually saying you're OK with cops murdering innocent children. Again, I'm not saying you HAVE to immediately completely drop this term from your personal vocabulary, but, you know, I'd really appreciate it if you put some thought into it and whether there's a good reason you shouldn't?

For that matter, it's worth a bit of examination on how the hell this is even an issue in the first place? Like, how do people who aren't just the absolute worst pieces of human garbage constantly getting into a positon where they're talking like creeps making posts on obscure insular hate sites a decade ago? I'm pretty confident guessing it more or less always starts off with some sort of attempt at mockery. Maybe a few instances of trying to talk to people on their own level. And this all almost certainly comes from some kind of weird elitist viewpoint where people end up thinking far right monsters talk the way they do because they're stupid, unlike them, sophisticated well-educated people with refined sensibilities and a snappy sense of humor and wordplay or something.

Now... I'm not going to say that hardcore nazis AREN'T breath-takingly stupid. You have to be a pathetic loser with an extreme inferiority complex to sign up, and once you do you marinate in an echo chamber of propaganda slogans and extremely discouraged from ever taking time to really think about what you're doing or questioning anything you're told and all. That's going to dull your wit quite a bit. But here's the thing. Let's picture someone who just sits in a little shack somewhere who never talks to anyone, never reads, never thinks about anything of any sort to any degree except for forging axe-heads. He's got a forge in there, he was trained in how to do this one specific thing, it's the only thing he does, and he does it all day every day. Odds are pretty good you could beat this guy handily at any sort of battle of wits, trivia contest, philosophical discussion on the nature of humanity, etc. But I think we could all agree that it would be incredibly stupid of you to assume you could forge a better axe than this guy.

Fascists are like this, but instead of forging axe heads, the one thing they do at the expense of everything else is normalizing extreme bigotry. You're not going to beat them at the game of screwing with norms and language usage. You're not going to "own" them by using the terminology they use. You're going to internalize that hateful crap to SOME degree and poison your own thinking with it. Don't ever let them define any terms or otherwise control a conversation. Don't ever assume out of hand you have a shared understanding of what words mean with them. Really try to avoid ever speaking to them at all.

And hey, if you do make it a point like I do of being actively mindful to never use the same vocabulary as fascist pieces of garbage, and get into it with people around you who do, aside from everything else it makes it damn near impossible for any sort of cryptofascists to get a foothold trying to recruit you or mess with you (by which I mean nazis trying to hide that they're nazis not nazis trying to get you into NFTs or whatever but honestly WOW is there a lot of overlap).

All of this being said of course, I again remind you, hey, don't turn into some weird purity purging creep policing people's language. This isn't exactly an adjacent concept to what I'm talking about here. There's a pretty wide gulf. But just in case, I'm emphasizing it here. I've seen people do weird witch hunts over things like someone praising a fictional character as a good representation of someone on the autism spectrum or whatever and not liking the specific language they used to do so. Or like, hell, do I need to get into a whole sidetrack about the big campaign from TERFs to try and convince people that the word queer is a slur and try to ban queer people off sites like this one here for using it? Yeah don't have any part in that sort of crap. Just try to personally not parrot crap fascists say is all I'm getting at here.

#language #linguistics #civil rights #Ferguson #abortion

[onyxbird]

Got around to watching Damsel (2024), and overall enjoyed it and thought they did a lot of interesting stuff.

Detailed thoughts (and major spoilers) below the cut.

Aesthetically, I really like the dragon design. It clearly conveyed "dragon" in overall shape and behavior, but with a novel spin that did not look like a giant lizard with wings or closely based on any other real animal, but a different type of creature entirely. Its level of agility felt believable for that body shape, and also think not having it closely resemble any real animals gives a lot more freedom to use facial expressions/speaking without it looking really weird.

I also thought they did a good job of foreshadowing some of the developments, e.g., during the first scene with the old-timey king, the visuals were too obscured to see what was actually going on, but the sound effects, etc., were enough to make me suspect (but not be certain) that they'd killed baby dragons. And the apparent route out on the map? It would be a really selfless princess to get all the way to the exit and then go back to update the map for future girls.

The prehensile tail was particularly brilliant, because it added a completely new danger/dynamic to dealing with the dragon that isn't part of the standard pattern. I also liked that the egg fluids surrounding the hatchlings looked like molten gold--that feels like there was some worldbuilding about the typical link between dragons and gold going on there that just wasn't relevant to the current story.

(Also, for some reason I did not expect this dragon to talk! Even though they'd said they made a deal with the dragon, I was still shocked when she spoke to Elodie for the first time.)

There are a few aspects that I'm kind of side-eyeing.

1) The dragon claims to know that the princesses are from the royal family due to the smell of their blood, and that's supposed to be entirely from the little bit of Henry's blood that got transferred over by pressing their cuts together? I don't recall any indication that the humans can perform magic, but that plot point only works if 1) the ritual literally transforms all of the princesses' blood into "royal blood" identifiable by smell (Elodie bled a lot more than that cut while the dragon's caves, so that smell should have been clear) or 2) the dragon has never figured out that all she's smelling is human blood, despite seeming to understand that there are "royal" and "non-royal" humans.

3) While I'm all for the dragon and Elodie teaming up to eliminate their mutual enemy, is Elodie seriously bringing her home with them? Yes, the dragon was horribly wronged, but not only did she demand to murder young women who were not responsible for killing her babies (in huge numbers given this has been continuing for centuries), she also made it clear that them dying too quickly is disappointing and she wants to hunt them slowly and maximize the physical and psychological torment. I.e., whatever she says about making the royals feel her pain, that's not what she's actually prioritizing--the people sacrificing the girls dump them into the pit, walk away, and move on with their lives, never having to know what actually happens once they're down there or how quickly or slowly they die; everything after that is gratuitous torture of the princesses, i.e., the ones standing in for the babies she is supposedly avenging. Elodie seems to forgive and forget awfully quickly.

2) The royal family of Aurea seems awfully big on depictions of dragons (e.g., the gigantic dragon sculptures at the harbor entrance) considering that the one that lives on their island hates their guts and the deal seemed to be purely "regular sacrifices in exchange for the dragon not burning your whole kingdom down" without any other dragon-provided benefits, which doesn't seem particularly endearing--even if the Aurean royalty has no moral qualms about the human sacrifice whatsover, it's got to be expensive between finding the candidates from faraway lands, throwing the fancy weddings, and paying apparently-large bride prices for the girls they're just going to sacrifice the next day.

(I'm also curious what the timing is on the sacrifices--my guess was every generation, and that works if they have a male heir to marry off to three sacrifices and then marry a "real" spouse, but what if they only have girls for a generation? Same-sex marriage? Have at least four daughters and actually sacrifice their own that generation? Do the royal-blood stunt on some random boy and make him an adopted prince long enough to marry and sacrifice three princesses?)

#damsel (2024)

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Here be Monsters - A Bangel and Buffy & Faith and Angel & Faith Fanfic

Summary: When Faith tells Buffy she's been assaulted by a supernatural being--someone that Faith at first believes is an Incubus--and Giles then sends Buffy and Angel on a quest to destroy the Rugarus in town, it puts them on the path of a mystery that no one could have expected. Slight mystery. Canon compliant. Post-Helpless. Bangel. Buffy and Faith. Angel and Faith. Slight Fuffy.

For @bisexualblckcanary

Here be Monsters

Angel’s PoV

Angel didn't know what he was doing helping the Scoobies carve stakes, exactly. He wasn't a people person: that was a fact. And ever since he had lost his soul and terrorized the Scooby Gang, he knew they hated him: something he couldn't blame them for that at all. He hated himself.

So why hadn't he made one of his usual quick exits, like always, when he found that Buffy wasn't in the library yet, to save everyone the awkwardness here?

"…and anyway, I'm really starting to wonder if maybe we should start looking into buying stakes on Ebay, so we don't have to do this," Willow was rambling, in trying to fill the otherwise strange silence, Angel thought. Bless her. "Surely it would be more cost effective, like if we need to make stakes and research at the same time or something. But hey: this is just a crazy idea this wacky girl has had. Don't listen to m-"

"I think it's a good idea," Angel cut off her self-loathing thoughts, though he may have partially been lying here. He wasn't entirely sure he felt this way. Though maybe Willow had a point. And Lord knew the sweet girl could use some confidence. "I mean, you can find about anything on the Internet these days… or so I've heard. And if anyone thinks it's weird you guys are buying a lot of stakes, they'll probably just think you're vampire movie fanatics."

Angel threw the last bit in, figuring that Harris would be longing to say something about the FBI--or someone--thinking their actions were strange (as if they'd ever even look into them. Actually, they'd surely think the Watcher's Council, who Giles would get to flip the bill for this if they did do it, were gardeners), so he'd thrown that in there before Xander could say anything. He didn’t want to give the boy any more reason to speak, after all.

"Thanks, Angel!" Willow beamed.

"No, problem," Angel allowed, giving her a small smile.

"Yeah," Xander moaned, sarcasm clearly in every inch of his words. "Thanks, angel eyes." Well, it seemed Xander had talked, and—as always—was annoyed with him. Oh, well. It couldn't have been helped, Angel supposed. The boy just loved to run his mouth, didn’t he?

Out of the corner of his eye, Angel saw that Giles was also irritated, maybe in thinking that Angel would warm Willow up to him again, only to turn evil again and then try to murder her once more.

Resisting the urge to sigh—since his soul wasn't going anywhere any time soon, if he could help it—Angel reminded himself that these reactions were only natural.

It was just when he was thinking of leaving after all, when his pile of fifteen stakes were complete, that Buffy arrived on the scene.

And just like that, Angel had to remind himself he was a fool to doubt that his soul might not be going anywhere: Buffy was far too tempting: she wore a sparkly, yellow tank top, black dance pants, and orange flip-flops.

And while lately Buffy seemed to be wearing her hair up all the time—almost to contrast with Faith, who always seemed to have her locks loose—at the moment she seemed to have found a compromise: at the top of her head she had part of her tresses in a bun, while the rest of it hung down in curls.

As always, she was Angel’s stolen sun. And also, temptation incarnate. As she walked over to him, Angel spied chandelier earrings in his girl's ears that were somewhere between her shirt and shoe color. Tangerine?

"Angel," Buffy whispered breathlessly the moment she saw him.

And he, keeping up their game, smirked at her and said, "Buffy."

Giles cleared his throat then, tearing the former lovers apart from each other—to Angel's relief and chagrin—and Buffy seemed to remember where she was and what she was doing, as she jumped atop their favored library table and began working on a stake herself. "Sorry I'm late for patrol, guys. There was this whole thing with Faith. Would you believe that there was actually a guy she didn't want to sleep with, but somehow, he still manipulated her in to doing so? Anyway, she thought he was an Incubus, so I was being Research Girl for her. But an Incubus hasn’t shown up in Sunnydale in more than a thousand years, so… Now Faith is even more upset. I tried to convince her to come patrol with us tonight, that we'd be there for her, but she said no…"

A pen could have dropped in that moment and everyone would have heard it. That whole thing was rough. At lest the way that Buffy had described it, It didn't exactly sound like rape to Angel—and if it was, he would find down this man who had done this to the second Slayer and kill him. He and the demon, of course, were tempted to do so, anyway—but who could say for sure? And Angel winced, knowing that Liam and Angelus had used similar tactics with girls in the past, and he once again despised himself.

He also knew that part of the reason Faith wasn't here was because of him… the new Slayer had lost some of her trust in Buffy when she'd learned his girlfriend had lied to protect him, or so Buffy had told him.

"That's- that's horrible. Poor Faith!" Willow exclaimed. "Is there anything we can do?" And even though Angel knew that Willow had her problems with Faith, he knew that right now she would give the girl the shirt off her back to make her feel better if she could.

"You know how Faith is with emotions, Will. I imagine anything we say might make it worse. But if I think of anything, I'll let you know. Thanks.

"But right now, I definitely want to kill something. Giles, please give me something to kill!"

"I second that," Xander said, with a certain fury on his face, looking as though he were mere seconds away from punching the table or all the stakes they'd just worked on.

"Oh, umm, yes," Giles said, fixing his glasses—though Angel also noted the concern (as well as calculating) look in the Watcher's eyes. "Buffy, how do you feel about fighting Rugurus?"

"As long as I can hit them, I'm there."

And as the answer to that seemed to be a resounding “yes” for the most part, it looked like they had their itinerary for the night.

…

 "Do you have any ideas on how I can help Faith, Angel?" his Slayer asked him, as the two of them went out patrolling looking for said Rugurus.

In the end, not everyone had ended up going with the duo, since there was a chance Rugurus might not be a group that Buffy "could kill" as much as she might have liked—for the most part, one turned into a Ruguru when they were bitten by one, similar to how a vampire or werewolf were created. But where they differed, was while the bite would give the newly bitten an unbelievable craving for raw meat—to tempt them to sink their teeth into human flesh: their real desire—if they could resist that urge, they wouldn't fully turn. So there was a chance that some (or all) they would meet tonight could might only be in the process of transformation, and could return to normal if they refrained from their craving.

A.K.A. some they faced tonight might be innocent... And with tempers flaring after what they'd learned about Faith, Giles had decided not to send everyone on the warpath, just his Slayer and reluctantly Angel, since theoretically he should be able to sniff out a Ruguru and a half-turned.

"I wish I could give you better advice than giving her presents to distract her right now," Angel said, wincing, thinking of how often since he'd regained the soul, he'd sometimes used distraction as his own means of coping. Often with alcohol. "But… Oz had band practice tonight, right? And Faith likes music. What are the chances that Oz would be kind enough to write Faith her own song now?"

"I think that that's mainly a romantic thing he does for Willow—when he's not just trying to come up with songs for the band to hopefully make moola with someday--but I don't know, Angel, maybe," Buffy replied hopefully.

Really, Angel had known that. He'd been grasping at straws with his statement, and he knew it well… but what could he say? He wanted to help the other Slayer in some way. Whether it was because he still felt guilt over what happened with Kendra, or because he hated that Buffy had somewhat lost her friend because of him, he wasn't sure.

But before he could think it over much more, they were upon the nest. "Buffy," the vampire whispered in his Slayer's ear, not wanting to give their prey a head's up by his voice carrying. "Ruguru at twelve o'clock."

And they were, indeed, Ruguru they needed to be hunting, because they were currently tearing two girls apart. The one girl, unfortunately, was already dead. And while the other wasn't far behind her, Angel could still detect a faint heartbeat within her.

"Buffy… the blonde is still alive. If we can get her out of their clutches, one of us can run her to the hospital."

It was seeming like the best option here would be to split up, of course, even though Angel was loath to leave Buffy fighting Rugurus by herself for the first time, he thought he could make it to the hospital faster than she could…

There was a cave behind these three where un-turned could have been located, and Angel knew it wouldn't be fair if Buffy came across them and fought them, if they truly were un-turned and she thought they fully were. But what was the best choice here?

"Take her to the hospital then, Angel! I can handle a few monsters, who are just a bit hungrier than vampires!"

And if to demonstrate her point, Buffy had already charged into battle and had driven her stake along one of the Ruguru's arms, almost separating the lower part of said arm from the upper with her movement (the Ruguru howled out in pain with her action). Angel knew if she made said motion again, she probably would manage to do just that, and then that one wouldn't be much of a fighter at that point, at least…

He still hated to leave her like this, for a few reasons—one of them of course being that his demon was tempted to drink this already bleeding girl instead of seeing her to safety, but he knew he could fight that urge—but he wasn't really seeing any other options here.

Without any more preamble, Angel lifted this other blonde into his arms and wished his own golden goddess good luck—a scene that was somehow better and worse than the first time he'd said that to her. Then, he disappeared into the night.

…

Truth be told, Angel hated hospitals almost as much as Buffy did. He despised the illnesses that he could smell in the patients, and the hopelessness that he could detect in their family and friends.

He, perhaps, even moreso despised some of the games he'd played at hospitals before he'd gained his soul: letting some of his victims think they'd escaped him as they ended up at one, only for him to drag them away from their only hope…

He also recalled how just last year, he'd been responsible for Buffy, Willow, and Gile coming here. So, yes: if he never saw another hospital, it would be too soon. So he was glad that his business with the girl—Saya Baker, it turned out—didn't take long, and it seemed she would be okay.

Angel was just about to leave the building and see how Buffy had fared with the Rugurus, when he noticed Faith of all people in his peripheral vision.

Angel quite honestly couldn't believe that Faith was at the hospital. She didn't look injured enough to need any medical assistance that her Slayer healing wouldn't take care of (and Angel thought that if that insipid Watcher Wesley [who was sick right now] got word that Faith had come here for the doctors to look at some of her scrapes—if that was why she was here—he wouldn't be too happy about it… which was just ridiculous). He also didn't smell anything deeper in her, like cancer, thankfully. Hmm… could she be here because she had friends or family who were ill?

Truthfully, Angel really didn't know what to do with the other Slayer. And while his heart went out to her for what she was going through, according to Buffy, Angel knew that anything he said or did would just prove to set her off: he was her enemy. And furthermore, the one who was responsible for her decision to leave the Scoobies. Yes, it might have been best if he still decided to risk it all and talk to her, even with all of that. But despite everything Buffy had said and thought she had realized on Christmas, Angel of course knew he was a far cry from a good person.

So he'd decided to try and sneak past her, and hope that her Slayer senses hadn’t developed enough for her to sense him, when he noticed that his first assessment of her has been wrong as he sped past the girl: it looked like a rather strong creature had clawed her arm. And knowing that Faith wasn't the type to take that laying down—or at all—Angel had to stop and ask, "Faith, what happened to you?"

The new Slayer seemed to wake up from a trance, and with a vengeance, at Angel's line of questioning. And he felt that if they hadn't been in a hospital with people all around them, Faith would have thrown herself at him to stake him then and there. "I don't need your nose in my business, Angelus!"

Angel may have been crazy—actually, he knew that he was—but he was starting to put some things together here that he really didn't like. And he truly didn’t want to bring it up: he knew it would go over about as well as his telling Buffy that their dating could get out of hand had… But knowing that all that it took for evil to prosper was for good men to do nothing, he couldn't just leave it alone. He wouldn't.

Speaking softly and gently, the way he might have to a wounded animal—and maybe, just maybe, unintentionally the way he had when he'd attempted to thrall people in the past (which wouldn't work on a Slayer, since he’d never been great at thralling, so it was just so great that that was his voice for this)—Angel found himself pointing at Faith's arm. "I know you're not that reckless, Faith. I'm also aware that no one, in bed, can force a Slayer to do something they don't want to do…"

Faith was looking at him with eyes that said she positively wanted to dust him, and Angel thought she just might, but like a fool he swallowed and pressed on, anyway. "Has some abuser sweet-talked you into thinking he's not an abuser, and that… well, the things he's doing to you aren't abuse? Are you here hoping to talk to someone, because you know deep down that you’ve gotten in too deep?"

Angel was willing to bet the farm that whoever it was who had hurt Faith wasn't human, to be able to injure a Slayer the way they clearly had Faith here--maybe the demon had some type of compulsion, which could have explained a lot; if it was a vampire with thrall, it would be only too ironic. Though it was the slightest bit possible that they were human. However, that would make it all the worse. Because the amount of force they would have had to purposely put into their touch to be able to harm a Slayer… Angel didn't want to think about it.

At once, Faith exploded on Angel--pulling on his ear the way a mother might their misbehaving child. And with her strength—and his lack of it, since returning from Hell—he knew she was likely to pull it off. He thought she probably wanted to.

In the back of his mind—while Angel fought the urge to scream, as he already saw a few flecks of blood falling to the linoleum floor--he was somehow reminded of Buffy's one motion she’d done earlier tonight with the Rugaru…

"Nothing happened to me, Deputy Do-Right! Now how about you do me a favor and keep your inane observations about me to yourself, before I have to remind B that she was crazy to think that she couldn't make it through life without you? Capisce?"

"Hey, you two! Take it outside!"

"I'm leaving," Angel assured the nurse, pulling away from Faith with all of his strength. But not before the Slayer older than Buffy gave him a loo that clearly said, "you've picked the wrong battle," but what exactly she was trying to tell him with that, he wasn’t sure.

…

Visiting Buffy's house in the evenings was pure Hell now. In a sense, Angel supposed it always had been like that… being in close quarters with Buffy—especially in her bedroom, with her scent closing in all around him—made the man in him rise up and want to take her (it also made the demon go crazy for her blood, but he was thankfully good at forcing that back… even if it would be delicious Slayer blood).

Before her seventeenth birthday, her stuffed animals had seemed to look at him accusingly when he felt this way (her mother's thundering heartbeat just a floor below also reminded him that he was wrong to feel what he did for someone so young and full of life like Buffy). But that was nothing compared with now: when he knew he could never once lose control and act on his desires, or it would mean the cruelest vampire the world had ever seen back in action once more.

So, yes: being with Buffy in her room now was Hell—and Angel knew a thing or two about Hell—but sometimes he just couldn't avoid it.

Like right now: when he wanted to make certain that she was alright after her fight with the Rugurus—and apologize that he had had to leave her—and tell her some of his suspicions about Faith.

Thus he climbed up her tree and quietly slept into her window, perhaps expecting to find her sleeping, relaxing, doing her homework, or maybe even exercising… he hadn't expected to find a tired looking Buffy lying in bed—wearing a lovely pair of navy-blue pajamas, he might add—reading one of his favorite books: The Phantom of the Opera.

Her name was out of his mouth in question before he could stop it (wondering if he should go, because he didn't want to disturb her). "Buffy?"

"Oh, Angel!" she started, clapping a hand over her heart.

"Way to go, Buffy," the blonde Slayer admonished herself in a whisper then, with a shake of her head. "Wake up Mom, why don't you?" But then, with her attention back on Angel—a place he always wanted to be, even though he knew it shouldn't be there these days—Buffy got out of her bed and crept over to where Angel was still standing beside her window. "What are you doing here, Angel?" And the moment she was beside him, her left hand was instantly seeking out his own hand to hold. Angel couldn't help marveling at how natural it all felt.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were alright after I left you tonight," Angel wanted to add that leaving her was the last thing he’d wanted to do when she was still hurt by Giles' betrayal of her during her recent Cruciamentum—even if she was over it—and of course there was his becoming her enemy a year ago to think about… but knowing that saying either thing would just hurt Buffy more, Angel left his thought where it was and pulled Buffy into the safety of his arms, kissing the top of her head.

"Yep. Buffy is of the good and still the Little Engine that could. It was Buffy two, Rugurus zero. I kind of don't get why you and Giles were wigging about them earlier. They were no big. But knowing that my Watcher and my Angel care about me is certainly a treat I'll take any day. Mmm," Buffy voiced the last thing right as she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his exposed collarbone. And Angel would be lying if he said he wasn't affected. But he tried to keep his mind on business.

"It was more because we know you don't want to accidentally hurt an innocent, Buffy… And speaking of innocents… I ran across Faith while I was at the hospital… And, well, I think you were definitely right in saying more of her innocence has been stolen from her recently."

Buffy looked at Angel with concern in her eyes then. And as she disentangled herself from him, he saw her gently put her book back down on her bedside table before she sat down on her bed, in order to better regard him. "Tell me everything," Buffy said tiredly.

And Angel did, hating that he had to make Buffy's impossible load even more thus. But was there anything else for it? Especially since Buffy might be one of the few who might be able to help the dark Slayer. And Angel knew how his girl longed to aid anyone that she could.

"Buffy… I saw Faith at the hospital, and she was really hurt. And you know how hard it is to harm a Slayer. And sure, she could have gotten the injury during patrol, but she hasn't been patrolling lately, has she?

"I think this ties in with what you were telling me earlier. And I think that Faith has fallen into an abusive relationship. But even then, it would be hard to bring physical harm to a Slayer. But abusers can be manipulative." And how Angel loathed his own manipulative past as Angelus. If he could go back and stop himself from being sired, so it would never happen—or keep himself from even being born—he would. "This manipulator also is not human, I’d guess."

Buffy nodded. And though it was simple action, the storm going on in her eyes was anything but. Angel was starting to see this from her more and more lately since her Cruciamentum, and he wondered if the tasks she had already had to face were too much for her to bear. It was unfair what the fates expected any one Slayer face, which was why he would lighten her load as much as he possibly could.

"Right…" Buffy muttered, running a hand under her chin, "because no Joe Schmoe could hope to leave marks on a Slayer…"

"Buffy-”

"Angel, did you happen to catch the scent of the culprit when you were around Faith?" Buffy questioned, completely catching Angel off-guard and interrupting the train of thought he’d had. He honestly hadn't thought that she would think to ask him that. Not because she forgot the abilities of the vampire, of course, but because he knew that thinking about what he could and couldn't smell from her had to make her uncomfortable.

"No, Buffy," Angel said, sitting beside her on her bed now—a risk, to be sure, but he hoped that the subject matter would keep both of their heads in the game. "Either I was too wrapped up in rescuing Saya,” ‘and not killing her,’ he thought but didn’t say. “Or the culprit could be a warlock who is masking their scent."

"Okay. Then we'll see if Will or Giles can do a locator spell on this person tomorrow. Either that, or I guess I'll be Research Girl again." Buffy sounded satisfied with her plan, and Angel found he couldn't blame her for that. It was, after all, a rather sound one.

He also knew that this should have been the end of their conversation here, and one of them really ought to have been finding an excuse for him to go, while they were still treading water… but that wasn't happening.

Instead, Angel crossed over and picked up Buffy's "Phantom of the Opera" book and gave it a once-over. He was relieved to see that she had the David Coward translation, even though he wasn't a fan of this cover for the novel.

"Interesting choice for a light read," Angel couldn't help remarking, a slight smile lighting up his face. "Where are you at in it?"

"'Poor, unhappy Erik,'" Buffy answered, her eyes having taken on a tragic look. And Angel knew why, of course. That was certainly one of the saddest parts of the story.

"You've gotten really far into the novel, then! That's great, Buffy! In a college interview, you might get asked about recent books that you've read, and this would be a good one to list. So, do you think Erik is redeemable?"

Only after the words had left Angel's mouth did he regret them. He'd honestly meant what he'd said: that this could be a great stepping stone for Buffy's future, and a part of him had wanted to help with that.

And, maybe, just maybe he'd been excited at the possibility of talking great literature with the love of his life.

But now he saw his mistake, of course. Because Buffy would say that Erik was irredeemable in the story: there was no way she couldn't. And he had done so much worse than the Opera Ghost. So what did that say about them? Why, something that Angel had known all along.

"I think, Angel, he wasn't irredeemable. He did regret his actions and let Christine go in the end. Though I do think that she should have ended up with Raoul. If things had been somewhat different with Erik, then maybe… but Erik frightened Christine and he started their relationship out with a lie." And Buffy looked Angel deeply in the eyes then, letting him know that that's what the difference was—Angel thought –since she, after all, had never been afraid of him and he'd never outright lied to her.

"I also agree with the author,” Buffy continued on, “that if people had just been nice to Erik, he wouldn't have become what he did. Instead, they could have benefited from his genius. But they weren't nice… I may have accidentally skipped ahead and read the part where Leroux said all of that," Buffy laughed.

Now it was Angel's turn to chortle. "More like: you jumped to the last pages early on, because you wanted to know the ending, right?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, no doubt for the fact that he thought that she would still do something so childish. But Angel noted that she didn't, however, deny the claim.

The vampire was about to say more: maybe something about how he loved Buffy’s heart and that she should never change, but then she yawned.

"I'm keeping you awake. You should get some sleep."

"No!" Buffy protested, grabbing onto Angel's arm the moment he got up from the bed that he’d only recently rejoined her on. "I'm awake. I'm Wakey-McFlakey. I could get up and do jumping jacks right now. I could-"

"Buffy." Angel gave his girl a look, before setting her favored book at the moment back on the table where she'd had it.

"…I guess I could probably appreciate this one night where I'm in bed early, yeah."

"That's what I thought. I'll see you tomorrow night." And Angel dropped a kiss to the crown of her head again, trying not to breathe in her sweet vanilla scent before he headed back towards her window.

“Angel?” Buffy asked, just as Angel’s knees were on the window frame.

“Yes?” he asked, curious about what Buffy could possibly have to say to him now when he could already tell that she was half-asleep. He wondered if she would be coherent. He was somewhat amused to find out.

“Don’t forget that you’re also the Raoul of the story.”

Angel did a double-take at that. He might have said more to Buffy’s kind words, but she was already asleep.

Raoul, huh? He wanted to believe he was Christine’s hero—though she herself was the hero of the story—and her great love, but he wasn’t sure he could. Though it was still a nice thought.

Smiling once more, Angel jumped first into his favorite tree and then leapt down from it. Then, it was back to the mansion for the rest of the night and day.

…

Angel had a feeling of déjà vu walking into the library to greet the Scoobies the next evening, and most importantly Buffy.

He supposed he shouldn't have, since tonight was starting off somewhat differently than the previous night—after all, he was here after Buffy, like he usually was—so perhaps what he was feeling was a sense of things returning to normal. Their normal, anyway.

And yet… Angel found he almost preferred making it to the library before Buffy did. Not because he much valued the time with any of her friends (except for perhaps Willow. And maybe Oz a little bit, even though they were both too laconic to speak to each other), but because he knew he was spending every second with Buffy that he could when he beat her here (for instance, if she was caught up with that Principal Snyder who seemed to abuse her, keeping her from the library so that she got here after him). But if he arrived late, he might have missed some precious moment of her time that he could have been a part of, if he'd been but a moment sooner, but would now never get back.

Angel was just about to try and explain some of these thoughts to Buffy, who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, but he was interrupted from doing so by Cordelia's loud complaint of, "Giles, I'm not putting were-pumas into the file! The odds of Miss Slays-a-Lot facing them again has to be googolplex-in-one, compared to the trillion-in -one chance she had when she faced them the first time!"

Angel blinked. "You faced were-pumas, Buffy?" He wondered where he'd been during this scenario. Had it been the time Giles had sent him away to deal with one of his favorite cousins (read: one of the last followers of the Master) in Florida?

"It was at the same time that I had to deal with the Muses here in Sunnydale," Buffy explained, waving away his concern. "No big."

Except at the time, it had been a big deal. Angel hadn't been there for it—as that had been his trip to Florida, he knew now—but he remembered well how Buffy had fallen into his arms with relief the moment he returned to Sunnydale, and the tales she had told him. The fact she could laugh about it all now said so much about his Buffy's strength. How he loved her.

"So, about those were-pumas," Oz continued the inane comment Cordelia had made as she worked to recreate the Slayer database that Willow and Giles had once made, but had since been destroyed. "Do we think one of them could be what hurt Faith?"

"I just said-" Cordelia started, appalled, continuing to tap on the computer keyboard one key at a time, as she sat behind everyone else who was at the library table now. "Oh, whatever. You losers never listen to me, anyway. Fine. Think it's were-pumas, even when the chances of that are-"

"I doubt it," Angel cut in, breaking up this fight before it could really start, since he knew that both camps were probably completely off base. "I would have smelt it on her. I think-"

"Yeah, because we all know how reliable your nose is, Dead Boy—and how gross it not is to talk about that—and that we can trust you."

"Xander!" Giles admonished the boy, honestly surprising Angel. He knew what it must have cost the Watcher, of all people, to defend him. "Angel has come to our aid numerous- numerous times now, every time that he has his soul. So I will advise you not to take such a harsh tone with him. And as it is, his abilities are very much of aid to us when it comes to finding out what's going on with Faith."

"Thank you, Giles," Angel said earnestly, looking the older man directly in the eye for a moment, so he would hopefully know how much stock he was putting into the words "Xander does have one point, however. If it's a warlock, he could be messing with my sense of smell."

"Are we thinkin' it's a human who hurt Faith, then?" Willow ventured nervously, a crestfallen look on her face. And it didn't take a genius to figure out why. She'd figured out just as he and Buffy had how near impossible it would be for a human to hurt a Slayer, and that they'd really have to try to do it.

"I doubt it, Will," Buffy promised her friend, reaching across the table to where she sat beside Oz and patting her hand once. "They'd really have to be cooking with oil to manage that. And there's no law saying only we mere mortals get to play with magic, right? …Even though there should. Because a demon doing so, even when they're already overpowered, is just not fair."

What Buffy didn't say, of course, was a Slayer could also be a witch. Not that anyone suspected that Buffy had harmed Faith or that she was a witch, of course (nor should they), Angel knew. Or that Faith was a witch who had done this to herself. But Angel did know for a fact that there had been at least one Slayer witch… or one who had been suspected of being a witch, at least. He supposed the question was whether or not the Watcher's Journals did…

"So what you're all really saying here, is you have no clue what's going on with Faith and you're wasting time distracting me with your pointless theories. Gee! Why am I not surprised?" Cordelia piped up, while looking at one of the Watcher's Journals herself now.

"I hate to admit it… but Cordy may have a point here, Buff. I know we all ruled out talking to Faith. But you’re her Sister Slayer. That has to get you some street cred, right, and maybe get you in the door. Do you think you could try it?" Xander asked sympathetically, laying a gentle hand on Buffy's shoulder now.

And though Angel knew this was done in friendship—it was—and surely was what was needed to get them all where they needed to be now, he couldn't help a moment of jealousy, as he once again remembered that Xander could see Buffy in sunlight and he couldn't… and that Xander could go all the places he couldn't with Buffy. Thankfully, the jealousy passed quickly.

Buffy buried her face in her hands for just a moment, seeming helpless—and how it pained Angel to see it—but she was at once herself again. "Yeah. I can try shooting the breeze with Faith. I mean, what's the worst that can happen?"

Angel hated that the smile she painted on her face now for everyone to see, and how it broke at the last moment.

And he promised himself that no matter what, that somehow, he would be there for Buffy when she confronted her fellow Slayer… whether she knew it or not.

…

Buffy's PoV

Buffy wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of trying to meet with Faith. She knew she should have been: she should have been chomping at the bit to be there for her sister-in-arms, the way that Buffy often times wished that her friends could constantly be there for her. And she did feel that way. Truly.

…But it was just so hard with Faith. There had been a strange tension between them ever since Faith had found out that Buffy had lied to her about Angel—something that had never gone away.

But even before that, things hadn't always been easy between them. Buffy could never get over the sense that Faith was trying to steal what was hers—ridiculous, she knew—and she had to wonder if there would ever be a feeling of ease between them.

But Faith deserved someone in her corner. Especially now. So Buffy was putting on her big girl panties and doing what needed to be done… but the moment she walked into Faith's apartment—seeing her deal a killing blow to a Ruguru herself, with tears streaming down her face—Buffy wondered if she'd made the right choice.

"…Faith?" Buffy choked out her companion's name.

Faith whirled on Buffy then. And if Buffy had actually caught it (and she wasn't entirely sure she had), she thought that Faith might have looked some sort of mix of embarrassed and traumatized before settling on angry.

Scrubbing at her eyes, seemingly to stop her tears, Faith snapped, "Well, I guess you figured it out now, huh? Figures."

"Figured… what out?" Buffy echoed back, feeling at a complete loss. She thought she was getting pretty good at figuring out mysteries, but what Faith was talking about was completely beyond her. They slayed Rugurus, as they did all kinds of Hell beasties. And it was traumatizing that they were once human, yes, like a lot of their job was, but Buffy couldn't fathom why Faith was getting so bent out of shape over this.

…Wait a second. Wasn't that the girl that Buffy had had Angel take to the hospital? Had she been bitten without either of them knowing it, after all… and had then fed and fully turned? Was it possible that Angel couldn't smell half-turned Rugurus to have known she'd been bitten?

"That I lied to you, of course, Pollyanna. And was never assaulted. And man, do I just love that I had to get to a place where I would lie about something like that when I hate liars," Faith snarled, with a faraway look in her eyes. Was she remembering what had happened before and what had caused her to lie?

"Faith… I don't understand," Buffy admitted, feeling very small and vulnerable, as she crossed her arms over her chest now. But she already didn't like where this was going. It, after all, could only end in heartache for Faith.

Faith sighed. And that, at least, made Buffy feel somewhat better, because it was closer to the sadness she should have been feeling here, in having lost someone she cared about, if Buffy was guessing things correctly. Faith trying to hide it in being livid couldn't possibly be a good thing.

"I don't know why I'm going to tell you this now, B. Me not wanting to tell you before is the whole reason I probably fell into this mess. But I didn't want to be compared to you and Angel—and your shipwreck of a story—and I knew that's what everyone would say-"

Faith was clearly getting going off the deep end again. And she backed away from Buffy—to try and get a handle on her temper, the blonde Slayer guessed—before she continued with, "It all started when I stole a car. A real great choice, I know. But I was capable of doing that, but somehow not smart enough to know how to put gas into the clunker. That's how I met Saya. She saw me struggling and helped me out.

"We talked a little bit then—and she liked me right away and wanted to hang sometime—but I wasn't that trusting. Knowing she used that gas station to get groceries, I decided to go out of my way to another one to get my goods. But one day, wouldn't you know it? She happened to be there. Shopping for a nice card for her sister's birthday, or some shit.

“At that point—even though I'm really no romantic, B, I'm thinkin' maybe there's something to this. So, we go out. And then we go out a few times. We watch the ‘Clue’ movie at my crappy apartment, ‘Fight Club’… and the whole time, Saya doesn't even pressure me for sex. It's kind of nice. I should have known it was too good to last, because she-"

"She got bitten by a Ruguru," Buffy figured out. Of course. And she had come to Faith, probably freaking out (maybe Faith had even told Saya she was the Slayer so she knew she could confide in her). The two of them would have been convinced they could make it work, as long as Saya didn't feed. But even a semi-Ruguru must have had some strength, which explained the marks Buffy had seen on Faith's shoulders.

And when Buffy had asked her about them, Faith had said she'd been assaulted because, in so many ways, she didn't want to be told her and Saya's story was like Buffy and Angel's. Would Faith have been afraid she'd have to face the fact they were doomed if she told the Scoobies the truth, the way everyone seemed to think she and Angel were? Did Faith think she might have told Giles on her if she knew the truth, and then he might have pressured her to slay Saya even if she hadn't gone full Ruguru?

The night Angel had seen Faith in the hospital… had Faith been seeing about getting a psychologist for Saya, in hoping that would help her fight her urges and the change?

In the end, despite their best efforts, it seemed Saya had given in and fed and now Faith had been forced to slay someone she'd started to love.

"Faith, I'm so so-"

"Save it and get out, Buffy. I don't want your pity!"

Of course Faith would see it as pity, Buffy thought—tears starting to sting her eyes now—when she still had Angel.

"At least let me help you bury he-"

"I said leave! This is something I have to do, and me alone. And I swear to God, Buffy, if you get in my way. I will kill you."

"Faith," Buffy started, walking towards Faith because she knew her sister Slayer couldn't mean that. She just couldn't.

But suddenly Angel was there, standing behind the threshold of Faith’s room, and imploring of Buffy the same thing that Faith was.

“Buffy, let Faith have her wish. We can check on her later, when she’s feeling better.” That was the last thing Buffy wanted to do now. She knew that Faith needed her; Faith was raising up her castle walls even higher to protect herself. Pretty soon, no one would be able to reach her within them. Not even Faith herself.

But there was a certain urgency in Angel’s tone that Buffy didn’t understand, but trusted all the same. So, despite herself, Buffy joined Angel outside the small apartment and let him begin leading her away.

“Faith, if you need anything-” Buffy begged, but Faith was already cutting her off with, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You’ll ever be the perfect little girl scout and help me out. I can handle this, like I handle everything. Including your Boy Toy, if you don’t get out of here, Buffy!”

Buffy hated to admit it, but Faith threatening Angel was the last straw. Threatening her was one thing, but alluding to making an attempt on Angel—when he was still weak from Hell—terrified her. Buffy didn’t know if Angel would at all survive a fight with the other Slayer, if Faith really put her mind to it. And in her grief, Buffy thought that Faith might actually attack him, if she thought that it was unfair that Buffy got to keep the one that she loved and she didn’t.

“Okay, we’re leaving.” And with that, Buffy led Angel out into the night, almost wishing that she’d never come to Faith’s to be confronted with this tragedy in the first place. For so many reasons did she wish this.

She felt numb now—not unlike how Faith herself was now, which Buffy hated—and she didn’t know how long she’d been walking, or even where she was going, until Angel grabbed her hand to halt her. “Want to go to the park?” he asked with a shrug, far too innocently for someone who had surely witnessed everything that she just had. She should have known that he’d been spying with her.

And really, Buffy was glad Angel had been watching out for her in this situation, because she didn’t need to get into a fight with Faith (something he had saved her from)—and she knew she’d been getting close to that with Faith’s temper—but part of Buffy couldn’t help feeling that it made everything worse, because now instead of there being even more bad blood between her and Faith (something she wanted to believe she could have handled), it was now between all three of them. And so someone else had even moreseo joined the “Let’s Hate Angel” club.

“I want to kill something, Angel!” Buffy argued, finally noticing that her popping hot anger had subconsciously led her to Restfield Cemetery where she could get some action.

Buffy pulled out Mr. Pointy from her pocket, and was about to run towards the vampire that she thought she could feel pinging on her radar aways away, but Angel had wrapped his arms around her waist to stop her before she could move an inch.

“No, Buffy,” he whispered into her ear. And if she shivered at all, it was because of the chilly night air, not because she felt any of the things for Angel that she wasn’t supposed to. Not at all. “Your anger is making you see red, so you going after vamps tonight would just be asking for trouble.”

Buffy wanted to argue that she’d used this to aid her in slaying vampires and other nasties many a time, thank you very much, but deep down she knew that Angel was right. She was too distracted to do any serious damage.

Slumping in his arms irritably, because she felt a bit like a kid being told they couldn’t have dessert until they ate their veggies (and whoa. Since when had she enjoyed slaying so much?), Buffy relented with, “Fine. The park, you said?”

Angel nodded without a word, but he did take Buffy’s hand into his own. She’d appreciate that little wonder, at least. Then, as if they’d been walking hand-in-hand together their whole lives—if only they could, Buffy thought with a broken heart—he began leading her towards their intended destination.

Idly, Buffy wondered why he didn’t suggest going back to the mansion for this discussion they were inevitably going to have, but Buffy supposed he must have had something up his sleeve.

Before much time had seemed to pass it all (Sunnydale really was too small. Didn’t it know she needed any excuse she could get to be with Angel? Especially right now?), the two had reached Hammersmith Park.

Angel untangled his hand from Buffy’s, which was definitely a disappointment, but only to hop on the first swing that he saw before him and begin swinging: something that was so bizarre and hilarious to Buffy, that she could almost forgive not being in his arms any longer. Almost.

He indicated with a head motion that Buffy should take the swing next to him; and who was Buffy to deny this strange whim of Angel’s?

Once the two of them had swung together for a few minutes, and Buffy had amused herself by trying to catch Angel’s hand a few times while they did so, they both came to a stop and finally began discussing the Heavy.

“It was my fault, Buffy. I should have known that—Saya, was it?—had been bitten. Twice, it sounds like. I’d never faced Rugurus before, but I’d read about them a lot and I assumed I knew everything there was to know. But I should have guessed that those half-turned would be different… that maybe they wouldn’t have a smell to them. If I had, I could have pieced this all together. Maybe I could have stopped her from changing and Faith could have avoided this whole awful story. You sent me to take care of Saya that night, and I should have done a better job at it.”

Right in front of them, a mother was tying a balloon onto one child’s hand while handing another one of her children a snow cone. It was a cute sight. Buffy figured that this had to be the reason that Angel had wanted to go somewhere, rather than just going to the mansion: so that they would hopefully see people out and about and remember there was still good in the world, even if right now it didn’t seem like it.

“It’s not fair to blame yourself like that, Angel. I mean, who would have ever guessed that. Everything else has a scent, like full-fledged Rugurus. So who would have thought those first bitten wouldn’t? Life just sucks.”

Angel had nothing to say to that, as he seemed to suddenly find his shoes very interesting, and Buffy hoped that he had taken her words to heart and believed her. But knowing him, he had found a new thing to forever beat himself up about.

“What are we going to do about Faith?” Buffy finally asked the dreaded question, tightly grabbing the chains of her swing and—for whatever reason—refusing not to look at Angel right now. Was it because she thought that Faith’s story ending so badly was further proof that she and Angel were destined to forever be Romeo and Juliet themselves? “Should we tell the others that we found out what was going on with he-”

“I wouldn’t,” Angel answered right away, with what almost sounded like a scoff to Buffy. “At least not right now. She won’t thank you if you do. Maybe later… If you tell anyone, I’d tell Giles and try to get him to talk to her. Though I don’t have much love for the Watchers’ Council—and you certainly wouldn’t know it from anyone else but Giles—they’re somewhat trained in psychology. Maybe, once she’s healed a little, he could talk to Faith. But for now, I think the best thing to do is to try and let this whole thing blow over…”

There was something in Angel’s tone at the end there that hinted to Buffy that there was more than what he was telling her—she wondered if it had to do with his past—but she had the feeling he wouldn’t tell her if she asked. And she really didn’t feel like digging up more skeletons tonight, so she let it go. For the moment.

“You think everyone will be satisfied that I couldn’t crack Faith, and to just leave the ‘mystery’ unsolved?”

“On the Hellmouth? Yes, unfortunately.” Again, it seemed like there was more Angel wanted to say here, but whatever it was, it seemed his lips were sealed for the night.

Later, when Buffy was feeling more on her game and like her punning self, she’d really have to do something about that.

Buffy had suffered a few losses since becoming the Slayer, but until tonight, she’d never found one where she’d have to be quiet about something. She wasn’t a fan of it. At all. And if Faith wasn’t so unreasonable, she knew she wouldn’t be taking to such a thing, and rather be charging in like a bull in a china cabinet.

“Well, I hate this,” Buffy tried to laugh, attempting to get closer to her usual self. But it might have sounded more like a cry. She wasn’t sure.

“Ditto,” Angel agreed, seeming to try for a strained smile himself, as it appeared that he was in complete accordance with her.

“Angel… do you have anything to make this night better?” Buffy wailed, swinging closer to him so that their legs brushed. She knew that she was begging and probably sounded like a child—even after Angel had gone to the trouble of bringing her to the park here, in order to improve things a little bit—but right now, she just didn’t care.

Buffy’s favorite vampire didn’t seem to have an answer for a long time. Buffy was even about to mention that maybe he should give up on trying to think of anything to improve this night and just walk her home, but finally he seemed to have come up with something and he offered her a small smile. “Well, in the musical adaptation of Phantom of the Opera, Christine comes back while the Phantom is alive to give him back his ring. It sort of serves as an extended goodbye for them. And in some versions, depending on the actress, she might kiss his hand.”

Huh. In the novel, there was something similar to that: Erik had asked Christine to come back and bury him when he eventually died, and she did. And she buried him with said ring. Truthfully, Buffy liked Christine being kind enough to return in both endings, but maybe she did prefer this musical one. Perhaps she’d have to check this musical out sometime.

“That is a nice little epilogue. Thanks, Angel,” And Buffy blushed, despite herself, before she kissed her boyfriend on the cheek, for she knew too well what he’d been trying to get at with his explanation, after all.

Maybe there was a bit of hope for those who loved monsters, after all.

Author's Note: Rugarus were a monster from the TV show “Supernatural” that I used here.

I tried not to use any references to the Buffy novels for this fic, and I succeeded for the most part except for in two places: The first is that Buffy does fight the muses in the book “Power of Persuasion” and Angel is gone until the end of the book, for he was a mission Giles gave him (and Buffy is very much relieved to see him at the end, resting her head on his shoulder). Though we don’t know what that mission was. I made one up here.

The other is that in the novels, Willow and Giles do create a Slayer database to try and better figure out stuff that Buffy might face on the Hellmouth: A.K.A. they give it all of the stuff Buffy’s faced, and they hope it’ll spit out data for them, like, “It is likely that Buffy will face X on this date.” At one point, Cordelia ends up working on it, after her dad gets caught cheating on his taxes (because Willow is too busy to at the moment) and Giles offers to pay her to, which is why she does it (though I forget if this is before or after the database is destroyed—yes, it gets destroyed—like if she’s adding to a working one or trying to rebuild it). I have Cordelia working on it in this story, as it’s a good reason for her to be there after she and Xander have broken up and she’s left the Scoobies. Yep.

#bangel #buffy and faith #angel and faith #buffy summers #angel #faith lehane #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #season 3 #series 3 #season 3/series 3 #canon #canon compliant #mystery #slight mystery #angst #romance #fluff #friendship #set after helpless #missing moment #kind of #filling in the blanks #btvs #buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #mine #my work #shanna writes

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Finished the One Piece Live Action and overall I'd give it an 8/10. Most of the actors are great at portraying their roles, and despite a few small (and two not so small) criticisms I had with the show, overall it still felt like One Piece, albeit a different version of it.

I sincerely hope they do a season two, despite my criticisms. I think they could easily do the Alabasta arc, even in just eight episodes, though I'd hope for more.

Logue Town

Reverse Mountain / Crocus / Laboon

Whiskey Peak

& 5. Skip Little Garden and go straight to Drum Island

6. , 7., & 8. Alabasta

Would be so awesome if they did that.

Spoilers below where I go in-depth about my criticisms, mainly for my own benefit.

Starting with the biggest criticism I had, I think it was genuinely a mistake for them to cut the Don Krieg fight because of how it really makes both Sanji deciding to join the crew, and Nami's iconic "Luffy, help me" scene kind of fall flat.

It messes up Sanji joining the crew because, without it there's really no reason for Sanji to even consider joining his crew. At that point, Luffy was just this random wannabe pirate captain who had been forced into becoming a dishwasher for the Baratie, and whose crew consisted of a half-dead swordsman, a liar, and a thief who betrayed them. Not to mention, said-wannabe pirate captain just had his ass handed to him and was looking to presumably get his ass handed to him again by the same guy while presumably going after a woman who stated clearly that she wanted nothing to do with them anymore. What about that screams: "Ah yes, I should quit my sure thing of a life and job to go hangout with these all-powerful, super intelligent, upstanding people!"

It also just sort of lessens the Nami moment later on because at that point she has no reason to even hope Luffy can beat Arlong, and literally every reason to believe he can't given that she'd literally just seen him lose to Arlong at the Baratie. Instead of it being an inspiration of hope at her lowest point, it became this pathetic last-ditch effort to beg for help from someone who she has every reason to believe can't help her.

This isn't to say that scene wasn't done well, for what it's worth. I thought Nami did a good job of recreating the scene pretty well honestly. It was just the setup to that moment that I had an issue with.

Beyond that, I had an issue with Sanji overall, but this is again connected to the fact that they cut the Don Krieg fight. Honestly, while I thought the Syrup Village was easily more enjoyable in live action than it was in the anime, I really wish they'd cut that arc down to just one episode and given Baratie the time it deserved to be what it needed to be. I know they had a lot to cram into just 8 episodes, but I really don't think they did the best of jobs deciding what was worth keeping and what was worth tossing.

Of course, I have to assume this was mainly due to budget and effects, hence why they also decided to cut out easily the best character in Arlong Park (probably hard to depict an 6-armed octopusman), Hatchan, who I would argue is far more important as a comedic relief character than one might expect, but I digress. His role in Arlong Park really helps relieve some of the tension, reminding everyone that this is supposed to be a goofy pirate show and not always some ultra serious, depressing drama series.

Other than all that, the show was great I thought. You really have to open your mind a bit and not be such a stickler to the source material, as I often find myself being. I really hope they do a season two though. I can see it being somewhat feasible for them to do an Alabasta Saga next. 1 ep for Logue Town, 1 for Reverse Mountain/Crocus, 1 for Whiskey Peak, skip Little Garden since ultimately it's not super important and just have Nami get sick some other way, 2 eps for Drum Island, and then I think Alabasta itself probably deserves 3 episodes so we can maybe see at least a couple of the fights.

I'd love to see Zoro solo the Millions, and especially his fight against Mr. 1 since I think that's a pivotal power-scaling moment for him when he cuts steel for the first time. Of course, you can't have Alabasta without Bon Clay, so seeing him and Sanji fight would be good. And then obviously, Luffy vs. Crocodile. I'm not sure where Nami, Usopp and Chopper would fit in, since I'm trying to think of how you'd keep this budget-friendly, and having them all fight their actual opponents I think would just be too much (especially Usopp & Chopper vs. Ms. Merry Christmas & Mr. 4).

#random #One Piece #One Piece Live Action #Netflix #tv shows #anime #review #no spoilers

[aikoiya]

LoZ: Wild - BotW VS TotK Weaponry

I'm honestly a bit upset that they took out the Silverscale Spear (technically, it should've been called a bidant), Moonlight Scimitar, Serpentine Spear, Vicious Sickle, Demon Carver, & such. The Moonlight Scimitar & Silverscale Tridant were especially pretty.

Interestingly, Demon Carvers are a weapon pretty unique to BotW that might be inspired somewhat by feng huo lun or wind-and-fire wheels. Unlike Chakram, which are made to be thrown, feng huo lun are used in melee. However, feng huo lun do not possess handles the way that Demon Carvers do. Rather having a bar inside the rings that you're supposed to grip. However, realistically speaking, this weapon wouldn't really be very effective as niether were feng huo lun. It think that they'd be called Oni-hori Enkama (Demon-Carving Circular-Sickle, 鬼彫り円鎌). - As opposed to the canonical name of Oni Enba (鬼円刃, Ogre Circular-Blade) as not only does it seem more like a sickle weapon, but I just wanted to keep the kanji for "demon-carving" in there.

I also kinda wish that they traded the Golden Claymore for something like a Dadao (maybe with some inspiration from the Greek Kopis). Just something that would more resemble a large, 2-handed scimitar.

Maybe add things like Kodachi, Naginata, Kunai, & Zanbatō to the list of Sheikah/Yiga weapon sets, then maybe name the Eightfold Blade an Ansatsu Wakizashi (1-handed assassination sword) or Sheikatō (after the Ninjatō) & the Eightfold Longsword a Sorikaze Katana (2-handed windcutter sword). Also, they should've kept some of the aesthetic from the Windcleaver with the Eightfold Longsword. I loved the look of that sort of wavy groove in the middle that lit up & the holes. Like halves of 2 different blades fused together!

I mean... I suppose that the Gloom Spear is technically a Naginata now that I think about it, but still.

It'd also be really neat to have an Urumi or Razorchain Sword type of weapon too. Maybe add in some hand & a half swords.

Also cool to add would be a Dadao or whatever type of massive, two-handed sword it was that Koloktos used. Or a sword inspired by the Sword of Manjushri, a.k.a. an old Khagda Wisdom Sword.

Khopesh for the Gerudo would also be cool!

Another cool thing would've been cutlasses. Like, seriously, one of Hyrule's ancient princesses was an effing PIRATE QUEEN!! Why are there no cutlasses??

I mean, sure, you could probably call the Moonlight Scimitar a cutlass if you wanted to, but it's just not the same... ;_;

Also, the various types of Lai'o'manō for Lurelin weaponry! Like the most commonly known Lei'o'manō, a Palau Papanihomanō (sharktooth club) or a Pahoa'i'a'me Lei'o'manō (sharktooth spear) or Ku`eku`e Lima Lei'o'manō (sharktooth knuckles). And maybe some other stuff like an Ulimasao (paddle club used to end war & steer towards peace) or Nifo'oti (cane knife) or an Aufana (bow)!

It would've also been cool for the Zonai to have something like a Macuahuitl. Or wooden war club with obsidian razors down the sides.

---

Can we also talk about how interesting it is that the Gerudo are inspired by Egyptian/Middle Eastern cultures, yet their weapons are very powerful, but not durable? Because, this very much contrasts with how actual Middle Eastern weaponry were historically.

It suggests that the Gerudo don't really have access to very high-quality iron in the desert, so the advantage of their weapons comes in their design & forging method which, due to the curve of the blade, results in more cutting power. (Which itself is actually accurate to the Middle Eastern sword design of pattern welding.)

Contrast that with the Middle East having ready access to things like Damascus Steel, which is made from extremely high-quality iron, while also having wonderfully designed blades, thus making them both deadly & durable.

Which, when I look, the Yiga's weapons are more durable than the Gerudo's. This suggests that their weapons might be made of better stuff despite their main base being in the Gerudo Highlands & thus right next to the desert.

This implies that my theory that the Desert doesn't have very good forging material (instead having an abundance of high-quality jeweler's metals), but the Highlands do, might be correct.

Which would make the metal that the Yiga are working with, most likely, the Hyrule equivalent of Damascus steel.

However, at the same time, the Yiga's weapons aren't much more durable than the Gerudo's weapons. Which could mean that the Yiga aren't really very good blacksmiths & if the Gerudo got their hands on this steel, then it could increase the durability of their weapons by leaps & bounds.

LoZ Wild Masterlist

LoZ Cultural Masterlist

#loz #botw #totk #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #weapons

[voidthewanderer]

2 22 31 84 and 88 for Arsenic and Crow?

@bleumanouche || OC Relationship Asks

84 and 88 under cut for length. Originally, I was just gonna do 88 because I kinda wanted to do a small expansion on the secrets, but I also like the idea of going over them in more detail in the oc-centric ghoul story I've been trying to work on.

2. Who is the one who fusses the most? Does their S/O mind very much?

Arsenic is the fussier of the two; everything needing to be perfect. Crow personally doesn't mind, so long as he's not specifically bothering their projects and belongings (and really only specific things). They knew what they were getting into with the relationship. He does try to not be so meticulous about every little thing, but it's difficult to.

22. What is something- either character- doesn't like about the other?

Arsenic: He really doesn't like how much of a pushover Crow is; especially when it comes down to how other people approach them. Crow just lets people do what they please and it bothers him, having led the duo into some... unsavory... predicaments. He tries to not let it bother him, as he's their scary dog privilege, but still. He's not always going to be around.

Crow: His being quick to anger. No, he's never directed it to them, at least not the full blown side that they've seen. But not everything needs to be responded to with anger. Since the bombs, it has seemed like it's gotten worse, which is both reasonable given how he'd spoken about how he was treated, but at the same time he's going to wind up on the wrong end of a gun at some point.

31. How would they describe one another?

Arsenic: He would point out that Crow has a beautiful soul, someone who hasn't deserved all of the hardships they've gone through. He'd get tongue-tied on the proper terminology to use, being it beautiful, handsome, pretty; he wouldn't know exactly, but then go on to explain how he very much so loves watching their eyes light up when they talk about things they enjoy; their little smiles when he talks to them. Gentle, kind-hearted, if not a bit too lackadaisy for his liking.

Crow: Commanding, poignant, and meticulous. A man who, despite his rocky past, is fiercely loyal and protective. That, despite his not being inherently outward with his affection, he is beyond affectionate and loving. Passionate and attractive, even if other people find it more to be being a hardass and self absorbed.

84. Have they ever almost lost one another? How does it effect their relationship?

Yes. Outside of the "having been separated and thinking the other was dead for 200 years" thing, if Crow was a far more jealous person, he could have ruined everything based on the events of the linked story. Crow was able to keep a level head about it, but it's something that they both know is something they need to keep working their trust back up with. Eventually they do move on from it, with the mutual understanding that it was a one time thing under the belief that he thought they were long since passed, but the two do have issues when they're first back together.

88. What's the darkest secret they have ever told one another?

This question is genuinely difficult, as the two agreed early on in their relationship that they'd be open with one another about their feelings and things going on in their lives. The closest thing Arsenic has to a dark secret was that he originally intended Crow to just be another body, really only telling them to let them form their own decision knowing his original intentions. Crow's is more on the sexual side; despite being uncomfortably ace, they're extremely curious about performing kinky things with Arsenic (which is relatively tame in the kink world anymore but they're trying). This was quickly asked to be shelved for when they were more comfortable with more vanilla interactions, as Arsenic didn't want the temptation, fearing potentially hurting them.

#shut it void #friend talk #oc: crow holiday #oc: arsenic #bleumanouche #y'all i really struggled with number 88 these two don't keep secrets from each other they really don't #it was the best i could really come up with without needing to withdraw the conversation from a different life

[stranger-marauders]

repaired

seventeen: she's got you

chapter summary: Steve and Robin finally are relieved of the effects of the truth serum, but Kate fears some truths have yet to be uncovered.

chapter warnings: language

word count: 2.1k

series masterlist | masterlist

ROBIN AND STEVE entered different stalls that were right next to each other in the bathroom, both of them not hesitating to puke their guts out. Kate waited only a moment before running behind Robin and holding her hair back.

"Steve, babe, you okay?" Kate asked as Robin still vomited—she only heard the sounds of retching in return. It felt like every high school party they'd ever been to all over again.

It had only lasted about a couple of minutes or so more, the constant sound of retching and smell of vomit almost making her throw up with them. Once Robin had finished, Kate let her hair go, and the younger girl spat in the bowl one last time before flushing it down for good.

Kate and Robin sat next to each other on the floor in the same stall, Kate leaning against the wall and Robin on the floor with her legs leaning against the stall. Meanwhile, Steve sat in the stall next to them, the wall divider cutting him off from being able to see anything but Kate and Robin's Converses.

"The ceiling stopped spinning for me," Robin finally said. "Is it still spinning for you?"

"Holy shit," Steve replied. "No."

"You think you puked it all up?" Kate asked. There was no way that they hadn't at least gotten most of that shit out of their system. They'd both puked a lot.

"Maybe. Ask me something," Robin said. Then her voice shifted to a bad Russian accent. "Interrogate me."

Steve chuckled. "Okay. Interrogate you. Sure. Um... When was the last time you, uh, peed your pants?"

"Today," Robin answered.

Kate laughed in shock, turning to look at her. "What?"

"When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw," Robin explained.

Steve and Kate laughed. "Oh my God."

"It was just a little bit, though."

"Yeah, it's definitely still in your system," Kate said, making the three of them laugh.

"All right, my turn," Robin said.

"Okay. Hit me."

Robin knew what she had to ask. She figured if Steve wouldn't start the conversation with Kate, she would help him. "Have you... ever been in love?"

"Yep. Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year." He imitated a gunshot, then he chuckled.

"Oh my God," Robin said. "She's such a priss."

"Hm," Steve said. "Turns out, not really."

Nancy Wheeler had been Steve's first serious girlfriend from high school. They'd started dating back at the beginning of junior year, when Steve had really liked Nancy. When he and Kate had stopped being friends, he dated Nancy, and the fight that started the end of their relationship had also caused Kate to talk to him again. She had known how brokenhearted he must've been, all because she knew how much he had loved her. They had had a nasty breakup after Nancy had essentially cheated on him with Jonathan. Kate and Steve had started dating about a month and a half afterward, just about a week before Christmas, but it wasn't like she hadn't known that he had cared about Nancy.

Robin scoffed. "Are you still in love with Nancy?"

Steve shook his head, but he realized the other two couldn't see him. "No."

"Why not?"

"I think it's because I found someone who's a little bit better for me," Steve said.

Kate's breath hitched in her throat. This was it. Steve was going to break up with her and was going to tell Robin how much he loved her. Robin was going to feel the same way about him, and Kate would be left alone on the curb, because Steve didn't really love her. How could he? She was just... Kate. There wasn't anything special about her, nor would there ever be, and one of the only things that mattered was about to be taken away from him.

Steve's chuckles pulled her out of her downward spiral. "Dustin's been saying since he got back that I need to find my Suzie, or something, which I don't even think she's real. It doesn't matter though—I found something who's absolutely perfect for me." He sighed, stifling a chuckle. "It's crazy, you know, this girl isn't even someone I would have dreamed about a few years ago, not like that. If I did, I didn't realize it was her. But I... I don't know why I didn't ever think of her, because now I know I should've been with her this whole time.

"It took her ignoring me for a year for me to even realize it, really. Even when I was with Nancy, it wasn't the same without her, you know? This girl... I didn't know it, but I've been in love with her since I met her. She had these cute pigtails and these pretzels, and—" he exhaled loudly— "I was a goner. She's always been way out of my league. First of all, she's hilarious. She's so funny. I've never laughed harder with anyone in my entire life than I have with her. Even when she almost died, she was cracking jokes.

"She's such a dork. I mean, absolute dork, okay? I mean, she'll talk your head off for hours about music and books and stuff, and you just... she's adorable, but, Jesus, I'd never tell her because she'd kill me if I did. That's what happens when she gets embarrassed, you know, she just acts like she's heartless, but she's not. She cares so much about everyone, like, I can't even count the times she's screwed herself over for someone just so they could be happy.

"I mean, I don't even have to mention how beautiful she is. She doesn't think so, but I think she's perfect. She's got this perfect smile, and her eyes, they just... glisten, especially when she's worried, they get so big, and I feel like I'm just... just drowning in them. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever met.

"And she's so smart—way smarter than me. You should see the bookshelf in her room, it's ridiculous how much she's read. You know, she can crack, like top secret Russian codes and... and be valedictorian, or whatever, and leave my stupid ass here when she leaves for school and... You know? I could go on and on about her. She's honestly... unlike anyone I've ever even met before."

It was silent for a while after Steve's long, heartfelt speech.

Kate didn't know what to say. She didn't know whether to start sobbing or to try to come up with a response, just something. Her heart ached when she thought about how wrong she'd been about everything. Steve wasn't going to break up with her because of their fight. He wasn't going to break up with her at all: when he had spoken to Dustin about them breaking up, it had been Steve thinking she'd break up with him, not the other way around. He'd been preparing for her to break up with him before she left for school, and that had been why he was acting so strangely, why they'd fought. She had been entirely wrong: Steve Harrington loved her a lot more than she thought he did.

Steve knocked on the stall to gain both Kate and Robin's attention, but neither of them answered. Robin had sat up next to Kate; realistically, she had been surprised that Steve could even think something so intelligent, never mind say it, but she thought that it was sweet he cared so much about her. He didn't need to be on truth serum for anyone to know that.

He slid himself under the crack of the stall, squeezing his legs between the two girls as he leaned against the stall, and although Kate wasn't looking, her knees currently pulled to her chest as she buried her face underneath her arms, Steve only stared at her, waiting for her to say something.

"The floor's disgusting," Robin said.

"Well, I already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so..." He trailed off. "What do you think?"

"About?"

"This girl," he responded, nodding and shifting his eyes back to Kate. His heart seemed to pound harder every second longer she didn't look up. He didn't want her to break up with him right now after everything they'd been through, not after everything he'd just said.

"I think she's...," Robin paused for a moment, trying to find the right word as she glanced to the girl next to her. "Amazing."

"I think so, too," Kate said, finally looking up. Her eyes had been glazed over, and she had almost been smiling. It hadn't taken long for him to return the same smile to her, and Kate felt a weight lift off of her shoulders—they were okay. "You're such a dork."

He sighed of relief, stifling a chuckle. "Love you, too, Kathy."

Kate shook her head, wiping her eyes and turning to the girl next to her. "Robin, what about you? You ever been in love?"

She sighed. "No, I... It's complicated."

"Complicated?" Kate asked, almost for clarification. "I think we can handle complicated, Robin."

She shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. "Not like... Not like this, okay? You guys won't understand."

"That's not true," Steve said. "Come on, it can't be that bad."

"No, I—"

"Robin," Kate said, touching her shoulder. "We love you. No matter what, we're not going away. I promise."

She sighed again, hesitating. "Steve, do you remember what I said about Click's class? About me being jealous and, like, obsessed?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah."

"It isn't because I had a crush on you," Robin explained, tears brimming her eyes. "It's because... she wouldn't stop staring at you."

Kate's lips parted, only watching her in worry. She felt horrible that Robin felt like she couldn't tell them something like that. She felt even worse that she just assumed that Robin had been crushing on Steve.

Of course, while Kate had caught Robin's drift, Steve hadn't. "Mrs. Click?"

Robin chuckled before she went on. "Tammy Thompson. I wanted her to look at me. But... she couldn't pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair. And I didn't understand, because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor. And you asked dumb questions. And you were a douchebag. And—And you didn't even like her and... I would go home... and just scream into my pillow."

"But... Tammy Thompson's a girl."

"Steve," Robin said softly.

"Yeah?"

Robin only stared at him in response.

"Oh."

"Oh...," she repeated softly.

"Holy shit," Steve said.

"Yeah. Holy shit."

Kate shook her head. "You know, don't take this the wrong way, but... that's really not the craziest shit I've ever heard."

Robin looked at Kate, her eyes still glossy. "What?"

"I'm serious! You guys were just kidnapped by Russians after we snuck into their secret base under the local mall, and you're scared we're not gonna be friends with you just because of that? Come on, we're not that stupid."

Steve shrugged. "And Tammy Thompson? I mean, she's cute and all, but... I mean, she's a total dud."

"She is not," Robin said defensively.

"Yes, she is. She wants to be, like, a singer. She wants to move to, like, Nashville and shit."

"She has dreams!"

"She can't even hold a tune," Steve countered. "She's practically tone-deaf. Have you heard her?"

Robin and Kate chuckled.

"All the time!" Steve started singing, terribly imitating the girl Robin had been so hung up on. "You see me now tonight, you see me now—"

"She does not sound like that," Robin said.

Kate tried to hold in her laughter. "She totally sounds like that."

"She sounds exactly like that. That's a great impression of her."

"She does not!" Robin said.

"You sound like a Muppet," Kate said, almost crying because she was laughing so hard.

"She sounds like a Muppet," Steve corrected. "She sounds like a Muppet giving birth!"

All three of them started singing, quite horribly and sounding like Muppets at that, "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Before they could continue on any longer, Dustin and Erica burst into the room. "Okay. What the hell!"

Instead of actually responding, the group of three just laughed even harder, laying on top of each other and laughing so hard they started crying.

next chapter

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#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x hopper!reader #stranger things 3 #steve harrington headcanon #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington series #steve harrington stranger things

[kayla-crazy-stuffs]

You mentioned you like protective vore situations. If you're looking for new requests maybe it's unsafe for the tiny(ies) and the giant without thinking scoops them up and noms them? Maybe an accident in the nether?

Here it is :) also a bit short.

I probably have deviated a bit from the request but the protective is actually there

Tw: Safe/soft vore, accidental fearplay, digestion mention (not really, I think)

To say that Skeppy was naughty was an understatement. He was always with his friend Bad and although he had warned him that going to the nether alone was not a good idea, Skeppy did it anyway.

Skeppy was going to show him that he could go it alone, even though he was 3 1/2 inches tall, without him needing any help from his demon friend.

Maybe… It really hadn't been as good an idea as he thought it would be. He had managed to break a netherrack block and slide into the hole before the piglins kept trying to hit him.

"Oh shit, I should have listened to Bad… Because now these stupid piglins surrounding the netherrack, they're not going to let me out. They'd probably kill me first…"

Suddenly, all the piglins moved away from his hole, probably having found another threat to kill. 'What would have bothered them? Not that I care since now I could escape… '

He was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts as something grabbed him. He gasped as everything around him changed to a slightly hotter, more humid environment. Skeppy shivered, suddenly freezing as the realization began to creep into his head.

A mouth, he was inside a mouth… He began to squirm, not wanting to end up being lunch for whatever that was eating him, he tried to make it spit him out. That only had the opposite effect.

The tongue under him quickly pushed him down the throat. Skeppy desperately tried to hold on to something but couldn't. "H-Hey! No, no, no, no, no, wait-" His words were cut short as a loud 'glk' sounded from all around him, the tight muscles of its throat pulling him down toward the horrible fate that awaited him.

Another swallow was heard and Skeppy finally entered the stomach of whatever had eaten him. Quickly, without wasting a second, he began punching and kicking the walls in an attempt to make him annoying enough to be pushed up again, causing the stomach walls to close in on him more.

Skeppy squirmed, stopping in his tracks when a familiar voice sounded from around him. "Skeppy, stop, you muffinhead… I'm sorry I scared you, but stop squirming." "W-what? Bad?! B-but… Bad, you ate me!" he heard a sigh coming from the demon.

"I've swallowed you, not eaten, there's a big difference. Plus you're in my storage stomach so nothing will happen to you. By the way… What did I tell you about the nether?" Skeppy complained. "Oh, come on! It's not a big deal! Surely I could have survived on my own."

Bad giggled. "Yes, yes, whatever you say 'Geppy'. I'd recommend you rest, you're going to be there for a while." Skeppy gave a small complaint in response, lying down against his smooth muscles. Maybe, in the end, not everything turned out so bad.

#mcyt g/t #mcyt gt #mcyt vore #tw vore #safe vore #soft vore #protective vore #Accidental fearplay #Unintentional fearplay #giant!bad #tiny!skeppy

[horsegurltrainor]

I would love for some headcanons about Silver and Edith's relationship if you don't mind! I'd love to imagine them together more.

Ooo, okay! Sorry I took so long, but I had to refamiliarize myself with the character, as it's been a while since I thought about or written for her!

It's a lot so all you want is below the cut! 💝💖💕

Personalities: I think their personalities would fit very well, especially since Silver seems to become more attached to quirky individuals. I think Silver would appreciate Edith not being afraid to get dirty, and those two could potentially have a lot of fun together just going wild! Edith might present herself as more calm, and prefers to ignore or act dismissively towards other when confronted unfairly rather than start a fight, they are still very enthusiastic about their hobbies, and a friendly/cheerful individual that is easy to get along with.

I think Edith's mellowness doesn't come off as the judgmental kind of mellowness, but more of, an open-minded kind of mellowness that shows they love to listen to the people around them and love a good back and forth, which I think Silver would appreciate with his quick tongue and interest in discussing the people and things around him in a thoughtful manner. You can definitely see how Edith was inspired by her brother in that way.

Both Edith and Silver would be able to rant to each other about their more proper upbringing, and having that one familial figure that actually understood them and wanted them to be themselves. Edith had a kooky father, similar to the one in the movie Epic for those that have scene it, that gave Edith her love for exploration and learning! They're very cute together, I imagine, and still very close even though Edith has since moved in with Lacy.

Hobbies: Following up what I said above, I think Edith, however, could calm Silver down in a good way, thanks to her connection with nature. She loves feeling engrained in the world around her, and I've always thought was Silver needed was just to be allowed to roll around in the grass and feel the beauty of being free in the privacy of a beautiful forest. I actually headcanon Edith and Rocky would get along very well for this reason! Edith would also love to help Silver present as the man he wants to thanks to her knowledge of fashion.

On the other side of things, Silver could open Edith up to becoming more interested in less textbook like literature, and I think Edith would grow to love romance stories thanks to Silver's beautiful descriptions of them. Not to mention, I think Edith would love The Great Gatsby and its themes as much as Silver, after Silver helps Edith realize just how colorful text and metaphors can be!

Quirks: I think Silver could help Edith open up to being just a little more assertive. I also think it might take Silver a while to adjust to Edith's quirks, and Edith's to Silver's in turn, but, I think they'd both be very respectful of each other and willing to calmly explain their point of view or why they act the way they do to prevent the other from being hurt. They're both people pleasers and this would definitely effect their communication in the relationship. In this case it's for good, but, in other cases, they may be too polite with each other and need a third party (probably Edith's brother or Mordecai) to speak honestly and break down those barriers for them.

Crushes: I do think Edith and Silver might clash a bit in this area. Yes, as someone who is biologically female, like Silver, it is kind of a big deal she is going out with another woman. So, I think she might misunderstand Silver's individual struggles because Mordecai and him are straight presenting a a couple. I think Silver might have to take Edith down a peg a little and explain to Edith how bad it can feel to be mistaken as a heterometric couple and constantly denied the euphoria of being seen as a man.

I also think Lacy probably doesn't like Mordecai for the same reasons Mitzi is a bit weird about them. She probably views his behavior as creepy, and, being a bit of an avoidant individual, Edith might be inclined to agree. Even when Edith does meet Mordecai, she would probably misunderstand some of his behaviors.

I think getting Mordy and Edith to connect through some of their neurodivergent quirks (both being a bit particular about their environments, textures, and obsessing over certain topics) would make Edith realize that Mordecai doesn't mean any harm. He just has difficulties expressing himself, and she'd probably feel really bad for not realizing that earlier, to be honest.

I hope that answered your question! I would love for some input on Silver's side of things, especially with how he'd react to Lacy and the situation with Mordecai! 👍🏻😽 /p

#chippedbutterfly🦋💙 #laceinthedress🎀 #my friendies #lackainsilver #lol so many tags for this one!