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dokifluffs · 4 years

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Relieving Stress | Makoto, Rin

Pairings: Makoto X Reader (gender neutral), and Rin X Reader (gender neutral)

Genre: (angsty to??) comfort fluff

Author’s Note: Cause the free fandom needs to be fed too plus I’ve been dying to write more free!

Makoto:

You couldn’t breathe through your nose, your nostrils completely blocked, your eyes puffy and red

Tear drops littered your notes and workbooks as you sat hunched over your desk, your hands holding the side of your head as you cried silently to yourself in the room, wanting to give up so badly but knowing you would feel too much guilt if you stopped

It was an endless cycle you wanted out of

Sitting in your seat had taken its toll on your body, your back and neck killing you from how much you had been sitting, your stomach hurting from how little you ate, not wanting to waste as much time as you did before

The college entrance exams were nearing and you were demoralized seeing the results of your mock

The worst of all was seeing the disappointment that was clear as day in your parents’ eyes when they asked about your results, the light of hope vanishing from their eyes

They didn’t say it but you could feel the disappointment, and you could still feel it

Your house was still and empty, excluding you. Your parents would be coming home late from work, saving every bit of money they could to send you to the school you wanted, hoping for you to get into Meijo Chuo University

A soft knock on your door pulled- no, freed you from your miserable studies

“Y/N?” The kind voice of your loving boyfriend Makoto sounded from your doorway as he peeked his head in through the door, his olive eyes widening seeing your crying face. “What happened?” He set the plastic bag filled with snacks and drinks down beside him as he knelt before you, taking your hand in his, cupping your face to wipe away your tears with the other

“Are you hurt?” He scanned your arms and legs, trying to find a source of the pain you were clearly in, finding none as you meekly shook your head, tears dripping off your chin

“What’s wrong, then?” You bit into your lip as you nuzzled into his touch, his warmth already melting away a slim fraction of the stress that was crushing you from the inside out

“Entrance exams,” your voice cracked as you felt a hot burn in your chest just thinking about it. You and tests were nowhere near compatible and you hated it- sitting in one spot for hours in complete silence, hearing everyone else diligently working while you sat there, feeling useless with your brain

“I’m not gonna get into Meijo Chuo and- and- I just want to skip this…” you spoke, your voice shaky, your breaths uneven as you continued to struggle to breathe through your nose, making it feel even more like you were suffocating

“Hey, shhh…” He pulled you into his embrace, your head resting on his shoulder, breath tickling his neck as he rubbed his hand over your back. “Don’t say you won’t, not now when they haven’t started yet. There’s still time.”

He knew the stress you were feeling over the exams. He felt the same but he thought you were in a better boat than he was since you actually knew where you wanted to go whereas he didn’t

The reason as to why he was actually here was because of your mother. She contacted him, worried you weren’t giving yourself enough breaks and she was right seeing the state you were in

“Let’s take a break, okay? Tell me why you think you won’t get in…” The two of you sat in the center of the room on your carpet. He handed you a refreshing drink, offering you some snacks he knew you liked

You told him abut your mock, which led to multiple branches of thoughts like what if you didn’t get in as the main concern, the guilt you felt toward your parents for working so hard for the sake of your future

It was all wrapped around the concern of not getting in

He listened intently, getting a feel for how you felt

He held you close, his arm wrapped around your shoulders, hand rubbing your arm as the two of you leaned back into the side of your bed. He wipes your tears away with his tissues, telling you all about the exam and how it really would go, explaining the curves every year, financial aid, the process of applying too

“We can work through this together,” he squeezed your hand in his

It sounded like a lot more but with the way he put it, it sounded achievable but it wasn’t enough to make all your stresses disappear into thin air

“I can come over again tomorrow and we can review together, okay?” He cupped your face and rubbed his thumb over your cheek, his gentle smile spreading on his lips, widening when he saw you smile for the first time today

He wasn’t able to relieve all of your worries completely, but he was able to lighten the weight of them, staying by your side throughout the entire process til you were accepted and he kept his word to you

Rin:

The chair creaked loudly in your ear as you leaned back into it with a heavy sigh, closing your eyes to massage them after burning holes into your textbook with them

They burned in the best possible way as you massaged them, closing your dried eyes after staring at the same text, taking in information you had learned in your lecture already, but just rereading everything from the beginning of the semester to make sure you had everything down

But it was a lot more now that you were rereading through all the chapters, some things felt like you were learning for the very first time yet they weren’t when you found notes you had taken

Sitting still in your chair, resting your eyes and body, which so badly wanted to collapse into the covers of your bed, you could hear the faint shrills of cicadas and chirps of crickets outside your apartment

You were getting lost in the sound, feeling yourself slowly fall asleep but you had to keep yourself awake, no matter how many cups of coffee, tea, or energy drinks you had to down, you had to stay awake and get through at least half of the reading you were forcing yourself through

Failing this final meant retaking the class next semester but it also meant losing money down the drain

The faintest sounds of keys jingling followed by the sound of your front door opening caught your attention

Turning your head, you saw Rin’s figure as he stepped through the door, tucking his keys back into his pocket

“Hey, what’re you doing here?” You turned your head back, resting your sore neck on the back of your chair, swaying side by side ever so slightly with your foot guiding you

“You haven’t answered me at all today and I wanted to see if you were alive.” He nudged your chair as he sat himself into the seat beside yours

“Oh, sorry, my phone was off like all day.” You had told quite a few people and your parents that you wouldn’t be available all day/ as well as basically this entire week until your final had passed

“Why? Also why’re you still up?” He poked his finger into your cheek, making you flinch, amusing him

“My history final is coming up and I’ve been basically cramming.” You drew your lips into a straight line, locking gazes with him as he read you, taking in your features

He could see the bags forming beneath your eyes, how disheveled your hair looked

“Come on,” he stood, opening his hand to you. “Let’s go.” He waited patiently for you to put your hand into his, wrapping his fingers around yours securely, hoisting you up from your seat

“Where are we going?”

“To bed.” You refrained yourself from yawning when you heard him say that, pulling back your hand where you stood

“I can’t, not yet at least. I have to finish reading at the middle so I can have enough time to review.” You pulled your body as he securely held your hand, pulling you toward your bedroom at the end of the hall, your bed calling your name

As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t not yet

“Y/N, I can physically see how tired you are, baby. Let’s just go to sleep. I can help you review tomorrow and all the way up until your exam. You know I make a great study buddy,” he winked, swinging your arms as he gestured his head toward your bedroom

You stood hesitantly, facing the table as you looked at your textbooks, little slips of paper and colorful sticky notes peeking out from the edges

“I know you want to,” his breath tickled your ear as you let out a groan, almost sinking to your knees when you felt his hands massage your shoulder and neck, your muscles stiff from being hunched over your book for hours on end

“You need so much sleep and relaxing,” he kissed your shoulder from behind. You leaned back and rested your head on his shoulder, sighing for the nth time all day as you went to war with yourself

“Your brain is a muscle and it needs to relax before you cram more, overworking it. It’s already late, sleep will do you some good,” he promised, finally able to lead you away from your table, switching off the light as he led you to your bedroom as you let out a big yawn, your body melting into your bed and his arms

~~~~~ Thanks for reading! Masterlist for more! Please do not repost anywhere else!

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ahsien-saffari1-blog · 5 years

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Love's not Rocket Science Pt2 (1/2)

Prompt/Inspiration: (Inspired by a friend @count-woelaf) "A sequel of Virgil falling for Roman, the way he confesses is letting him use his make up and then Roman is completely oblivious to the fact Virgil is in love with him-”

Genre: Fluff, mild angst (Fear of rejection and avoidance)

Pairing(s): Romantic Prinxiety, Romantic Logicality

Word Count: 3652

Warnings: None really (Someone says ‘hell’, almost curse word)

A/N: I’ve decided to split this into two parts (in total it’s like 11+ pages long so far) so that I can at least post the first half that I’ve proof-read while I finish up the second half. Thanks to everyone who read the first one and I hope you all enjoy this edition with Prinxiety!

First Chapter (Logicality)

You are Here | Second Chapter Pt1 (Prinxiety)

Second Chapter Pt2 (Prinxiety)

“This can’t be happening.” Virgil repeated for the umpteenth time, hands pressed against his head, shoulders hunched as he paced back and forth across the carpeted floor of Patton's room.

“This can’t be real. It can’t be,” He glanced over at Patton, a look of horrified disbelief on his face as he threw his hands up into the air.

“How the hell did I manage to fall in love with an over dramatic idiot like Roman?”

Patton gave him a sympathetic smile - currently sitting on his bed nomming on a cookie - and a small shrug. Virgil had been at this for over fifteen minutes now after he’d finally realized that he’d somehow fallen in love with Roman and that this feeling didn’t plan on going away.

“Virgil, Roman’s not an idiot. And I don’t see what’s so bad about you having a crush on him,” Patton’s smile widened and he swung his legs against the bed frame.

“Logan’s already friends with him,” Patton paused, thinking, “Or, at least I’m pretty sure their friends. And I’ve been getting to know him just like you have because of that. So him being the one is a great thing!”

“Besides, if you two are together.” Patton bounced slightly on the bed in excitement, “Than we can all go on double dates!”

Virgil’s response was a low groan as he brought his hood onto his head before pulling it over his face.

“You’re not helping Patton.” He muttered as he went and sat on the bed, hood still hiding most of his face.

“Well sorry Kiddo, but I don’t see many reasons as to why you shouldn’t at least try and ask him out.”

“Because if he says no, Patton, it’s going to make everything one thousand percent worse.” Virgil motioned around with his hands as he continued.

“You’re dating Logan, and like you said Roman is some sort of friend to him. So if I confess to him and he says no or it doesn’t work out, it’ll put a strain on their friendship because I’m your friend and your Logan’s boyfriend and he won’t want to upset you by excluding me for Roman’s sake, and at the same time you would never exclude Roman, but if neither of you do anything it'll only make it more awkward and worse and I'll put so much stress on both of our friendships and so by confessing to him I could end up ending your relationship with Logan and destroying friendships!”

Virgil took in a deep breath at the end of his rant, breathing uneven and eyes frantic as his mind took him to the worst case scenarios. Patton was quick to set down the rest of his cookie and lightly grab Virgil’s hands - which had been frozen mid-air - and slowly brought them down to rest in his lap.

“Virgil, you confessing to Roman isn’t going to ruin anyone's friendships or tear Logan and I apart, alright?” Patton leaned forward a bit, trying to catch Virgil’s eye. Virgil turned his head to look at Patton from under his hood.

“The worst that could happen is that things get awkward for a bit,” Virgil hunched his shoulders, but Patton just smiled softly and squeezed his hands.

“But that’s not the end of the world.”

Patton adjusted so he could wrap one of his arms around Virgil in a side hug and Virgil leaned into him.

“And there’s way more better stuff that could happen from you confessing.” Patton rubbed Virgil’s back, trying to help him calm down.

“So take a deep breath, and let go of the worst possibilities, okay?” Virgil took in a shaky breath as he listened to Patton, tapping out his breathing pattern lightly on his leg.

Four in, six hold, eight out

“I’m right here.” Patton added softly, “And I think it’ll all work out just fine. But I’m here if you want help in figuring out how to confess to him.”

Virgil gave a small smile as he continued to lean into Patton.

“Not sure if you’re the best at that advice seeing as Logan was the one that asked you,” He mumbled into Patton’s shoulder, laughing a bit when Patton shot him a playful glare, “But thank you.”

“Of course,” Patton responded back almost instantly as he wrapped his other arm around Virgil, giving him a strong hug. Virgil sighed as he leaned into Patton, trying his best to really believe it could all work out.

It took a bit longer, but eventually Virgil pulled away, and after seeing that he was okay, Patton winked at him with a smile.

“Now, how about we bake some cookies to bring to our true loves tomorrow.”

“Patton.” Virgil groaned as he brought his hands up to pull his hood back over his eyes in embarrassment. A small smile was still visible on his lips though.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Patton said with a laugh as he grabbed one of Virgil’s hands and pulled him out of the room and towards the kitchen.

“Why would I ever take your eyeliner, Roman?” Virgil heard Logan asking as he and Patton approached the pair, “What purpose would I even have for it?”

“How am I supposed to know?!” Roman exclaimed, throwing his arms out dramatically, Logan automatically leaning to the side to avoid getting smacked by said arms, “Maybe you ran out of stupid pens and needed something to write with.”

“For the last time Roman,” Logan said, sounding exasperated, but also almost offended at Roman’s accusation, “I. Did. Not. Take. Your. Makeup. I have no use for it and if for some reason I ever needed some, I would either ask for it or purchase some myself.”

Virgil heard Patton sigh before he let go of Virgil’s hand - which he’d been swinging back and forth between them - and basically proceeded to rush Logan, jumping onto his back and koala bear hugging him while calling out his name happily.

Logan, who was still not used to Pattons hug attacks, jumped slightly before stumbling as he tried to regain his balance, arms reaching out in his efforts.

Whatever words Roman had been about to say died out on his tongue as he snickered at Logan. Patton giggled as he clung to Logan tightly.

“Hello Roman!” Patton greeted brightly as Logan finally regained his balance, one arm resting against the lockers.

“Patton,” Roman said with a nod, before he grinned at Logan.

“Still not used to his sneak attacks, are you?”

Logan shot him a look before he sighed and craned his neck back in an effort to see Patton who was quick to place a kiss on his cheek causing Logan to stiffen, his cheeks growing a bit red. Patton grinned at this before he got off him and gave him a normal hug.

"Patton, I love you,” Logan said after a moment - looking almost as if he'd had to reboot - cheeks still tinged red as he slowly hugged Patton back, “But please, give me adequate warning before jumping onto me next time. I don’t wish for either of us to get injured.”

“Okay, Lo!” Patton said brightly as he pulled away, Logan almost automatically interlacing his fingers with Patton’s before he could move too far from him.

“I just wanted to surprise you first! Cause Virgil and I have a surprise to give to both of you!”

“Oh? And what kind of surprise would that be Doom and Gloom?” Roman asked, looking over to Virgil who had remained silent and somewhat frozen behind Patton and Logan.

Virgil scowled slightly at the nickname, but walked over to stand with the group.

“We made chocolate chip cookies,” Virgil muttered, pulling the container of said cookies out of his bag as Patton nodded enthusiastically.

“Yep! Because today is our three month anniversary Lo!”

Logan smiled softly down at Patton - an expression expressly reserved for Patton and Patton only - who was giving him puppy dog eyes, before Logan gave in with a small sigh.

“I suppose as it is a special occasion, I will indulge in one of your cookies.” Patton practically squealed as he took the container from Virgil so that he could give one to Logan.

Roman seemed almost grumpier as this occurred, and looked over to Virgil again.

“That container doesn't happen to have any eyeliner in it, does it?” Virgil rolled his eyes at this, but paused as he opened his mouth to retort, only to close it again.

This was his chance.

He started slightly when Roman waved a hand in front of his face, brow raised.

“Earth to Virgil?” Virgil glared at him and pushed his hand away.

Then, still not believing he was doing this, Virgil sighed and shrugged, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

“The container doesn’t, but you can borrow mine if you’d like.” Roman’s eyes widened at this and he opened his own mouth before closing it.

“But not anything besides the eyeliner okay?” Virgil added on hastily, shoulders hunching as he waited for Roman to say something.

He stopped breathing for a moment when he felt Roman place a hand on his shoulder. His mind went a thousand miles an hour, worse case scenarios flooding his brain.

Why did he do this, why did he do this, why did he do-

“Yes please Emo, my complexion is suffering right now.” Without another word Roman grabbed onto Virgil’s arm and began dragging him off to the bathrooms. Patton waved them off, silently sending hope Virgil’s way before he turned back to a clearly confused Logan.

“Now let’s hurry before you change your mind," Roman continued, picking up speed, "I need to look my best before I head off to the stage.”

Virgil didn’t even retort or fight as he usually would, instead letting himself be dragged of by Roman, mouth slightly ajar as he just looked at him. He felt like screaming in frustration.

Was Roman seriously this dense?!

Sure three months was a good span of time, but he hadn’t asked him if he could borrow makeup since then so surely he remembered what he’d said?!

“The day I let you use my makeup Princey will either be the day that I find true love or the day that Patton actually convinces me that I’m going to heaven instead of hell.”

Virgil said nothing as he handed Roman the eyeliner in the bathroom, grumbling softly to himself as Roman began to fix his makeup and go on a monologue about something related to the play he was in.

Once Roman was finished he handed the eyeliner back to Virgil, grinning at him.

“Okay, thanks for the save Hot Topic, but what got you suddenly so willing to share your things?" Roman gave a slight chuckle, grinning as he spoke, though it seemed a bit forced.

“Patton finally convince you your soul’s not bound for hell?”

Roman’s grin faltered however once he caught sight of how irritated Virgil looked. Virgil’s teeth were grit and his eyes were burning as he looked at the sink counter as if it were his mortal enemy.

“Whoa what’s got you so stormy all the sudden? Was it something I said?” Roman asked, brow furrowed.

“Dear God you are an idiot!” Virgil finally hissed, hands shoved into his pockets as he looked over at Roman who had taken a step back, not having expected Virgil’s outburst.

Regardless, Roman responded back quickly, offended as he brought a hand to his chest.

“Excuse me, I am not an idiot I am a glorious and extravagant man and you are lucky to even know me.” Virgil just stared at him silently for a few seconds.

This idiot, his idiot to a degree, was impossible. A common thing between him and Logan it would seem.

Did he really have to make it any more obvious to him? Was he going to have to just go out and say it? Because he really, really did not want to have to do that.

A growl of frustration left Virgil, and finally just giving up, he grabbed Roman’s free hand, made direct eye contact with him, and dropped the eyeliner into Roman’s hand before he shoved his hands back into his pockets and shoulders hunched, brushed past Roman and exited the restroom.

Virgil flipped his hood up over his head, not caring if he got called out by a teacher and headed to his first class even though it was still quite early.

Dear God he hoped that Roman got the message at this point. But in all honesty, Virgil didn’t have much faith in him.

Why did he have to have fallen for someone who apparently could dish out flirts with ease, but at the same time was somehow so oblivious.

Roman stared down at the container of eyeliner in his hand, for once at a loss for words and actions. He stayed like that for some time, thoughts spinning, until the door to the restroom opened again.

He turned around to see who it was, only to find that it was just another random student of the school.

They acknowledged him with a small head nod before entering one of the restroom stalls.

Roman felt disheartened for some reason.

He’d been hoping they were Virgil.

With a small sigh, Roman curled his fingers tightly around the eyeliner, and bringing back his usual bravado - though there was something a bit strained about it - exited the restroom and headed back to where Logan and Patton had been.

Hopefully he’d find Virgil there and get an explanation. Or at least get help understanding what the hell had just happened.

“Roman! Do you want a cookie-" Patton trailed off, smile wilting a bit when he saw Roman was alone and looking a bit off, “now…”

“Oh uh, sure,” Roman said, taking one of the cookies from the container as he did his best to grin.

All the while he attempted to subtly scan their surroundings for a certain emo.

“Did Virgil come back here by any chance?” He asked as he reminded himself to take a bite out of the cookie - which was delicious.

Patton frowned, brow furrowing at the question and Logan shook his head.

“No, neither of us have seen him since you dragged him off.”

“Why? Is everything alright, Roman?” Patton asked, worry evident in his tone.

“What?” Roman asked, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights before he gave a somewhat off laugh, waving a hand to dismiss the question.

“Yes, of course, yes everything's fine. I just, uh,” He scrambled for a good excuse just as the five minute bell sounded throughout the school.

“You know what, I should probably get to class,” He motioned in the direction of his drama class and started to turn away, “Wouldn’t want to be late to my first on-stage practice, after all.” He gave another forced laugh before he quickly left, leaving a very confused Logan and very worried Patton behind him.

Roman couldn’t help but bring his hand up and look at the eyeliner again as he walked through the halls.

Could this really mean what he hoped it meant?

He didn’t know. But what he did know was that he had the same lunch as Virgil today, and he could get his answer then. Hopefully.

Roman nodded to himself and curled his fingers back over the eyeliner as he continued towards his drama class.

“Virgil, Roman inquired about your whereabouts earlier after you helped him with his makeup and once again at lunch, I believe he is wishing to speak to you.” Logan said as he sat beside Virgil, the two in the same AP high-level chemistry course.

Virgil winced at this and brought his head to rest against the lab counter, a low groan leaving him.

“Is,” Logan hesitated, not the best at dealing with these types of situations, “Has an altercation occurred between the two of you?” There had been no time left for Patton to explain to him what was going on that morning, and it frustrated him that he did not understand what was going on.

“No, we didn’t fight or anything, Logan.” Virgil mumbled as he sat back up before leaning down so he could get his notebook and textbook out of his bag, “I just did something stupid.”

“I see.” Logan said, though he really didn’t. A silence fell over them as Logan took his own materials out for the class.

Eventually though, Logan cleared his throat and spoke up again just the teacher entered the room and prepared to start the class.

“Is there anything I can do to assist you?” Virgil gave a slight smile at this, knowing this was Logan attempting to be considerate, but shook his head.

“Nah, I don’t think there’s much you can do to help me right now.” Virgil had dug his own grave with his actions and he knew he’d have to lie in it soon, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t avoid it like the plague as long as he could.

“Ah, alright.” Logan sounded somewhat awkward as he adjusted his glasses, returning his attention back to the front of the class.

“Thanks though,” Virgil added quietly as the teacher began taking attendance.

“Of course, Virgil,” Logan said with a nod, pausing to say ‘present’ when the teacher called his name.

“I consider you a friend now, and as such, I am here if you require assistance or advice.” Virgil chuckled at this.

“I think Patton’s starting to rub off on you.”

“Do you consider that a bad thing?” Logan inquired curiously.

“No, I think it's a good thing.” Logan appeared to brighten slightly at this - Virgil had gotten better at registering the small changes in Logan that indicated he was in fact feeling emotions contrary to Logan’s continuous denials that he did.

After that, however, no more words were exchanged between them for the rest of the period besides the occasional discussion about the class assignments and notes.

The final bell of the day rang and Virgil was quick to pack up his things and head out the door, pulling his hood over his head as he began to move through the growing crowd of people within the hallways.

He just needed to get out of the school as quickly as possible and get home. He was so close.

He’d been lucky enough to have successfully avoided Roman the entire day - having just barely escaped him during lunch.

He’d also been avoiding Patton somewhat, which he felt guilty about, but he knew Patton would want answers to what was going on or probably try to force him to go and talk it out with Roman.

Neither of which were things he wanted to deal with at the moment.

His luck seemed to be running out however when he caught sight of a determined looking Patton with a frustrated and frazzled Roman behind him heading straight for him.

And they were blocking his path to the main exit of the school.

Virgil skidded to a stop and quickly turned around - his fight or flight reflexes kicking into full gear - and headed in the opposite direction.

“Virgil!” He winced, feeling bad about his actions, but continued to ignore Patton calling out his name, trying to pick up his pace as he weaved in and out of the thinning crowd of students.

Was it worth setting of the fire alarm by escaping through an emergency exit?

Patton called his name again, louder this time.

The art room had an openable window he could jump out of, that was closer. But had it already been locked? The art club wasn’t today, the room might be locked already and he’d end up trapped-

“Virgil Varian, come back here right now!”

A large portion of the people in the hallway - which thankfully had shrunk in number - fell silent and turned to see what was going on and why one of the most friendly and lovable people in the school was loudly shouting and racing through the hallway after another student.

The other student being him.

Frick frick frick frick frick shi-

It couldn’t be that difficult to get over a chain-link fence that encircled the field at the back of the school, right?

Stop looking stop looking for the love of Gay why did this have to turn into such a scene-

Virgil’s shoulders hunched up and he increased the speed of his walking as much as he could, fighting the urge to break into a full on sprint. He didn’t want to draw any more attention than he already had.

He caught sight of the art room, the door to it still open, and silently thanking the universe, headed straight for it while a single word repeating over and over in his head.

Escape escape escape escape

Making it into the art room he rushed to the window and fumbled to undo the latch so he could push it open.

“Virgil wait, what are you doing?!” Patton asked, a bit incredulously, as he skidded to a stop into the art room and saw Virgil pushing the window open and swinging a leg over the window sill.

“Virgil no! That’s not safe, please come back here and just talk through the issue!” Patton said in a mild panic as he rushed over to the window to try to stop him.

Roman, who had followed after Patton - feeling worse than before since Virgil had literally fled at the sight of him for the second time that today - entered the art room to find Patton pulling an unwilling Virgil - who was halfway out the art window - back into the room.

(End of Part 1)

Part Two Link

#sanders sides fanfic #prinxiety #logicality #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #ts logan #ts patton #ts roman #ts virgil #fanfic #fan fiction #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #roman prince #virgil varian

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takusanno · 4 years

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BLOG UPDATE: 25.04.2020

This blog has been under re-construction for some time now and it’s finally about done, so here’s what it involves:

Muses:

As mentioned many moons ago, I decided I didn’t want to mix my canon muses and ocs, so i have moved the ocs onto individual blogs @firecreated ( fire-make mage, Frankie ) and @crimsoncurated ( Archive mage spy/informant, Mags ). They will be very low and sporadic activity ( just like this blog ).

I also mentioned I decided I don’t like to have more than 6 muses per multi, so I have cut this blogs muse list down to 5 ( i hate having an uneven number so there may be another muse added at some point but it wont be one that was on here before because Reasons ).

The muses left on this blog are: Gray, Loke, Macbeth, Rogue, and Frosch.

The muses cut from this blog were Millianna, Jenny, Chelia, Siegrain and Ophiuchus. The girls may end up on their own multi in the future, while Sieg is likely to get his own blog because he is Different.

Interpretations and Divergences:

I am starting to reread FT very slowly to spark ideas and motivation. I did finish reading the manga way back when it did end, but I’m not very familiar with the later arcs, which is another reason why I’m planning the reread.

As I go through the manga, some ideas and aspects of my portrayals may be adjusted, especially towards the end of the manga as some characters get destroyed by bad writing and I decide which parts I’m wanting to keep as canon and what I want to change. Below is a brief bit about where my portrayals are sitting at the moment.

Gray: i like to focus on his observant and artsy side but also the darkness that comes with having demon slaying magic. In order to use the demon slaying magic, he has a demonic element himself, which was activated by Silver during Tartaros. Gray now struggles with his new aspects and abilities and he is not as close to Fairy Tail as he was, because 1. he’s trying to deal with his problems on his own and doesnt want to risk hurting anyone from the guild, and 2. the fact the guild disbanded really threw him off and made him question things.

Loke: the lion aspects are more of a Thing and i will die with him being a gentlemanly knight. Him balancing his animal side and his gentlemanly ideals are my focus. He still flirts and can be playful but he knows where to draw the line, as his responsibilities are important to him. And any canon instance were he was inappropriate is excluded, see my divergence post here. I plan on some serious Celestial World building and the whole time-difference thing is going to be adjusted somehow, I just have to think some more on it.

Macbeth: The biggest thing with my guy here is that he still very similar to how he was in the Oracion Seis Arc ( also see this post regarding his hair, i dont do the fluffy style his more recent appearance had ). He does not care for ‘redemption,’ he is with Crime Sorciere for convenience and because the other OS members are there. I also ignore the Jellal vs Oracion Seis fight. Mac is Bad News right down to his dark and twisted core, he has always been this way, even before being a slave at the tower. There is no changing him.

Rogue: he is haunted by the evil ‘shadow,’ a demonic entity and the struggles he has because of this is important to note. He is doing his Best. I’m kinda 50/50 on a divergence where he is the Sabertooth Master so I think I would leave it flexible depending on Sting RPers ( as some would hc Rogue to be guild master instead of Sting ). The whole Welcome Home Frosch chapter didn’t happen.

Interactions/Ships:

This re-construction also act as a soft-refresh on some things.

Some bonds were started or plotted but are now dropped/reset as those blogs have deleted or reset themselves.

Some old ships ( as discussed with the relevant muns ) will be reset in light of shifting portrayals and also to keep organisation of blogs clean for both parties.

Activity/Following:

I want all my blogs to be relaxing, fun, no-pressure spaces, so that means limiting the blogs I follow, so no hard feelings if I don’t follow back!

It also means I’m not going to let myself get stressed about being ic here or even being here in general. I have other blogs and IRL stuff going on ( as everyone else does too ), so the activity here will be low and I’m prone to disappearing for a month or so at a time. If you don’t want my brand of Inconsistency around, feel free to unfollow/softblock at any time ( i know some people prefer to keep following only people who are active a certain amount, and that’s absolutely fine ).

I think that’s everything (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

#long post #this rpc is dead but here i am #(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧#( ♡ ⋮ OOC. )#( BLOG UPDATE. )

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johnnymundano · 5 years

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Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) (AKA 4 mosche di velluto grigio)

Directed by Dario Argento

Screenplay by Dario Argento

Story by Dario Argento and Luigi Cozzi

Music by Ennio Morricone

Country: Italy

Running Time: 104 minutes

CAST

Michael Brandon as Roberto Tobias

Mimsy Farmer as Nina Tobias

Jean-Pierre Marielle as Gianni Arrosio

Bud Spencer as Godfrey

Aldo Bufi Landi as Pathologist

Calisto Calisti as Carlo Marosi

Marisa Fabbri as Amelia, the Maid

Oreste Lionello as The Professor

Fabrizio Moroni as Mirko

Corrado Olmi as Porter

Stefano Satta Flores as Andrea

Laura Troschel as Maria

Francine Racette as Dalia

Four Flies on Grey Velvet is considered by the chalk-and-elbow-patches crowd to be the third movie in Argento’s Animal Trilogy, which is a bullshit after-the-fact attempt to thematically tether The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970), Cat O’Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet together. Is a fly an animal? No. Is there a cat in Cat O’Nine Tails? I can’t remember, actually, there might be; Italians love them some cats. Anyway, a cat o’nine tails isn’t actually a cat. More importantly Four Flies on Grey Velvet was intended to be Argento’s sayonara to the giallo. His next movie was The Five Days (1973) a comedy-drama set during the anti-Austrian revolt of 1848. Unluckily for Argento it bombed, luckily for Argento and the world of cinema he would then make Deep Red (1975). As a movie four Flies on Grey Velvet is very uneven and not a little ridiculous, but taken as a giallo, it’s the real deal. Ultimately, though, its greatest value is as an artistic step on the way to Argento’s masterpiece, Deep Red.

Dario Argento is by no means the greatest director ever, he is, however, arguably the greatest giallo director ever. And as arguments go it’s a short one: it’s either Argento or Mario Bava. But no matter who you personally adore, Argento is very much at the top of the heap and any of his giallo up to (and including) Opera (1987) are among the very best the genre can offer. Obviously this includes Four Flies on Grey Velvet , but equally obviously his best movies are still giallo, possibly more giallo than most. Argento’s movies are not venerated because they are great movies, they are venerated because they are great giallo. Although with Four Flies on Grey Velvet you can expect one of the greatest giallo ever, you should not confuse that with expecting a great movie; certainly not one of the greatest ever. Just trying to manage expectations for giallo newbies. Look, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is an amazingly entertaining, visually inventive and thoroughly bizarre time, flaws and all.

Big-haired rock drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) is persistently stalked by a creepy dude in sunglasses. One night after laying down some sweet beats in rehearsal, Roberto snaps and tracks the dude to a deserted theatre where a violent confrontation occurs; there is a scuffle, a knife is drawn, and when the kerfuffle is over Roberto is stood over a body. A spotlight snaps on and a figure wearing a freakily vacuous mask captures Roberto’s compromised form on film. Unsettled by the incident, at night Roberto dreams of a ritual beheading in an arena while during the day his already strained relationship with his wife, Nina (Mimsy Farmer), erodes further. When Roberto is attacked in his own home by a mysterious assailant he confides in Nina and, unable to go to the police due to his accidental murdering, enlists the help of his friend Godfrey (Bud Spencer) and The Professor (Oreste Lionello), both of whom are weird hobo types, for reasons known only to Dario Argento. Things get (more) complicated quickly with blackmail, a flamboyantly gay detective, adultery, stylish murders, a dead cat in a bag, a machine that can photograph the last thing a dead person saw, Ennio Morricone’s syrupy score, and a cumulative air of feverish irrationality as Roberto attempts to unmask his tormentor before death silences his cymbals forever.

Roberto’s cymbals are a crucial element in Four Flies on Grey Velvet’s incredible opening; it’s a full frontal assault on cinematic complacency, a dynamic reminder that when it comes to giallo Argento is simply on a different level. It’s one of the most thrilling pieces of cinema I’ve sat through; I hope it is taught in ivied halls of learning; it should be. An incredible amount of information is thrown into the viewer’s face, so much so that in any other hands it would just be a perplexing mess. But these aren’t just anyone’s hands, these are Dario Argento’s hands and so pin sharp editing, meticulous pacing, visual rhythm and a sly wit carry the day. Any viewer who fails to be enraptured by Argento’s showmanship in this opening hasn’t got a chance with the rest of the movie. Because, unfortunately, Four Flies on Grey Velvet never gets that good again. But a lot of movies never get anywhere near that good, and a lot of directors can only dream of being that good, so let’s not get too rainy faced about it.

Any tears on offer should be shed over my being an idiot, spending the last few decades reading about this movie and thinking “Michael Brandon” was just another screen name designed to fool American punters. You know, like George Hilton (Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara) or, more pertinently here, Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli). But no, it is indeed Michael Brandon (Michael Brandon), a familiar sight on TV during my youth in “Dempsey and Makepeace” (1985-86). And he’s very good in Four Flies on Grey Velvet, being curiously detached in a wholly suitable fashion for the peculiar cinematic confection he inhabits. “Dempsey and Makepeace” was shit, though. Mimsy Farmer has a good time, delivering the acting goods and, unknowingly, limbering up for her headlining triumph in The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974). Even though I found the humour as funny as bad news from the doctor, Bud Spencer proves to be a ridiculously affable screen presence, if perhaps a bit too “normal” for the folderol unfolding around him. Thankfully, Jean-Pierre Marielle is great as the gay detective, Gianni Arrosio. Usually a gay character in a giallo is where you have to grit your teeth and mumble something like “Um, that’s sure not aged well. Cough!” But, while slightly overplaying the falsetto, Marielle presents a gay character who is funny, fearless and, alas, just a bit too smart for his own good in the end.

Like any Argento movie, Four Flies on Grey Velvet isn’t perfect, but it is perfect in parts. Argento isn’t interested in every scene, so the movie kind of flops bonelessly in-between set pieces. There are a few too many party scenes involving hirsute men telling creepy jokes, and the unfunny comedy hobos seem to have stumbled blithely in from some other movie (a Bud Spencer movie, naturally enough). If it weren’t for the intrinsic entertainment value of the 1970s, via its preposterous clothes and spirited hair stylings, a lot of the movie would fall a lot flatter. As L. P. Hartley didn’t say: The past is another country, they look like children’s entertainers there. And there aren’t really that many set pieces, or there are a lot of really small set pieces; Argento seems to take a disproportionate amount of pleasure in trying to find the most stylish way to shoot the most innocuous of actions. Which is nice and very entertaining, but you wish he’d expended as much artistic energy on some of the dialogue scenes as he does on a letter being received. Argento has his own artistic priorities which viewers are not privy to, and which seem shaped by his own idiosyncrasies rather than the needs of the movie as a cohesive narrative. He’s all over the place, basically. But when he’s on, well then, bang a gong. And Argento’s on far more than he isn’t. When he is good he is very, very good and when he isn’t you’re not too bothered because in a minute or so he’ll be very, very good again. You can’t get more giallo than that.

A note on the print: Four Flies on Grey Velvet is the least familiar Argento giallo to me as it was “lost” for a while prior to 2009, but it is now freely available. I watched the Shameless UK Blu-Ray of Four Flies on Grey Velvet. This is a gussied up print which looks a little soft, but pretty great. You can see just how much work has been done by choosing to view the version with the “missing 40 seconds” included. These 40 seconds are untouched and are…horrible. So horrible I guess they can’t be salvaged. Luckily they are also pretty trivial, so you can watch the version of the movie which excludes them and enjoy a lovely picture, secure in the knowledge that you’re missing nothing. Well, missing nothing except evidence of the astonishing job Shameless’ technical homunculi have done. [Ticker tape parade erupts out of a side-street!]

#four flies on grey velvet #movies #horror #giallo #dario argento #4 mosche di velluto grigio #italy #the 1970s #1971 #michael brandon #mimsy farmer #bud spencer #jean-pierre marielle #ennio morricone

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whottheactualfudge · 6 years

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kiss

pairing — kwon soonyoung / hoshi (svt) | reader

genre — friends to lovers | fluff | non-idol au

warning — drinking (of age) + a lot of kissing

word count — 3892

summary — moving into a new apartment wasn’t the only thing that was going to change for you

The night was only beginning as your two friends waltzed into your living room, shouting to announce their arrival in your new apartment.

“Y/N!” one of your closest friends, (F/N (friend’s name)), yelled.

“In here!” you responded from a nearby room, poking your head out to smile at them before hurrying out to greet them swiftly. “Sorry, I’m almost done.” You knew that many more people were about to arrive, so you air-kissed them quickly and ran back to your room.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, you sighed, seeing that your makeup still needed a little bit of adjusting, as well as your hair.

"Ahh Y/N, you have to relax," your male friend, Soonyoung, commented. "It's just a party. You've had them before."

"But I'm super late —"

"You're not late at all!" He interrupted, smiling, but shaking his head. "No one's here yet."

You let out a groan, beginning to curl your lashes. "That doesn't mean that I'm not late!"

"Soonyoung’s right," F/N said as she stood to your left and looked at you in the mirror. "Chill. It'll be great."

"Easy for you to say," you retorted, applying mascara. "You're ready." A smile stretched across your face when you glanced at her for a brief moment. "You look great, by the way. I love your hair."

She grinned before lightly punching you in the shoulder. "Thank you! It took about two hours!"

To your right, Soonyoung grumbled and rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, you both look good and it takes you both forever to get ready; we get it."

"Shut up." You scoffed, adding finishing touches to your hair as you looked at him. "Besides...you also look good, Soonyoung."

"Ha, I always look good." He joked, doing a hair flip that didn't exactly work since he had short hair.

“I think it’s great that you’re having this party,” F/N mentioned before you could sarcastically reply to Soonyoung. “It’s the best way to announce, ‘this is my new home. Come on over and trash it whenever you want to’.”

It was your turn to roll your eyes. “It’s a housewarming party, F/N. It’s not like you guys were gonna throw one for me.”

“If you had asked, we would have!” Soonyoung countered, overreacting offense.

“Whatever.” You said. “Let’s just clear the boxes before anyone else shows up. There’s room in the back.”

Without a word, F/N walked out of the room. You started to follow when Soonyoung abruptly stopped you by putting his arm around your waist. He looked at you and smirked, flirtatiously raising a brow.

With a nervous chuckle and a slight shake of your head, you curiously looked into his brown eyes. He had been acting quite strange recently; flirting with you a lot and doing a lot of things he never did at first. You were giggly and full of butterflies whenever he did so, therefore it wasn’t much of a problem — but, you couldn’t help but feel like it was a bit odd, and wonder, why now, after 3 years of knowing you and being a close friend to you?

A part of you didn’t like it since that part of you worried that he was only doing it for a reason you hated to admit to yourself.

(Just. Sex.)

“What?” you smiled, feeling a blush creep into your cheeks.

“Are you going to wear heels tonight?” he questioned, removing his hold off your waist.

“Most probably…why?”

“Argh,” he threw his head back as he groaned. “Nothing, nothing…just don’t wear anything that would hurt your feet. Whenever you wore heels somewhere, you always end up taking them off. Do I need to remind you?”

“Soonyoung, that would only happen after hours upon hours of walking. This is my apartment; I think I can manage to walk around in here as much as I want to without feeling the need to remove them.”

He seemed unconvinced. “Are you going to get incredibly drunk?”

For some reason, the question bothered you. “No, not tonight; I’ve got early plans tomorrow.” You answered with a frown, and he took notice.

“All right,” Soonyoung nodded. Looking away, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry for all the questions. It’s a new neighborhood…”

A part of you felt like it was an excuse for something you couldn’t quite understand, but you let it go. “It’s fine, Soonyoung. I appreciate it.”

Looking up, he smiled at you unevenly, and you couldn’t help but return it.

“…D-did I tell you that you look beautiful?” he murmured, clearly nervous as he inched closer to you, making you take a step back.

“I think so,” your smile almost faded as your blush deepened; a part of you held your ground while another part wanted to back off. You weren’t exactly sure which part of you was louder – or rather, which was the right one to listen to.

“Am I third-wheeling here?” F/N exclaimed from behind Soonyoung, carrying plastic plates and cups in both of her hands.

Soonyoung visibly jolted and looked over his shoulder at her, but didn’t say a word.

“N-no, no, sorry, F/N,” you stuttered, walking past Soonyoung and joining her. “He just wanted to discuss something about the apartment.”

“OK, good. Let’s get started, then.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Finally, the party had come to an end.

The apartment felt warm and smaller than it actually was, and you felt comfortable; as though you had been living here for an entire semester already.

“I’ll see you next week!” you called out after your last guest departed your new home. “Bye!”

You closed the door and leaned against it briefly before striding over to your couch, dropping onto it with a smile on your face. You weren’t sleepy, but you were tired, and you couldn’t wait to go to bed.

Scratch that — you didn’t want to go to bed; you barely wanted to move. You pulled the blanket on the couch over your legs and let out a deep sigh, letting go of the stress that had been sitting on your shoulders the entire night.

“Aaaand done!” Soonyoung appeared to your right, clapping his hands together as though he had just finished building something. You faintly jumped at his exclamation, thinking that you were alone in the flat until he showed up. “Your apartment is now as clean as it can be, after its first party. Congrats! It has been deflowered.” He snickered at his silly joke.

You groaned as you sank further into your couch, kicking off your heels and putting your legs up. “Thank you so much, Soonyoung. You’re a godsend.”

“So I’ve been told,” he shrugged, joining you on the sofa and placing the blanket over himself as well. A couple seconds passed before he turned to you and asked, timidly, “Do you mind if I…?”

He meant to put his arm around you as he gestured to your shoulders. His slightly uneven jawline made his small, unintentional pout even cuter than it already was.

Without hesitation, you replied with, “No! Of course not; why would I? I mean, not from you, at least.”

Chuckling, he placed his arm around you as you leaned onto him and located your head on his chest, wondering whether or not you could put your arm around his waist this time. You kept thinking of asking him, but the words never came out, and you didn’t know if it were because you were tired, or shy.

Endless thoughts began to race through your head; it was the first time you and Soonyoung did something like this. Suddenly, he asked, “What are we watching?” interrupting your train of thought.

“Flip through the channels.” You smiled, when in fact you weren’t even remotely focused on what was on the TV ahead of the both of you.

What did this mean, if it meant anything at all? You wondered, somewhat anxious. Has Soonyoung liked me the entire time we were friends, or is it something recent? Does he even like me at all, or is he just being really nice? Are we going to start dating now? Or is this some sort of ‘sign’ of extreme friend-zoning me…? Like when girls are extra touchy with their gay best friends?

You never thought of Soonyoung in that way; there were a few times when the thought would cross your mind, but you never actually – seriously – considered it. And at that moment, you asked yourself, why didn’t I?

The notion intrigued you, in a way. Your train of thought returned, bringing forth endless scenarios as you recalled all the times you spent with him. It’s not like you two had been close friends since childhood – no; you two met and became close right before the two of you graduated from high school. Speaking to him and spending time with him was the highlight of your days, especially since he could always find ways to make you laugh.

Still — there was a lot to go on.

You questioned every move he made. And then began to question yourself. This was what you had in mind as the minutes passed:

Dating Soonyoung PROS:

• He’s so!!! cute!!!!!!!! But also sexy?

• SO talented. I could listen to him singing forever

• Always making me laugh. Hilarious

• Is my closest friend!! <3 thankfully. I’m so lucky to have met him

• One of the BEST people I know. Seriously. So open-minded and accepting.

• Supportive and encouraging. Wouldn’t have done so many things if it weren’t for him

Dating Soonyoung CONS:

• Can be obnoxious and mean. It hurts me, sometimes

• Will totally make F/N the third wheel – which is the worst thing!

• Is my closest friend…

• So…it might ruin the friendship if it doesn’t work out. Maybe there’s a way to avoid ruining it?

• Often childish (((((not immature))))) but still annoying in a way

• Not always available…busy. So many times when I wanted to talk to him, he was busy

“Closest friend” ended up being on both lists since you didn’t know if it were an actual con or a pro. Talking to him about what’s been going on in your life was the only stress reliever you knew you needed – there were not many people you could open up to the same way you opened up to Soonyoung, excluding F/N, since you could tell her anything.

Still; with Soonyoung, it was different.

Maybe deep down, I always knew there was something more, you thought.

“Aw hell yeah!” he abruptly exclaimed as he adjusted himself on the couch beside you, which resulted in his hand finding its way to your waist — again. “I love this movie. I hope you don’t mind me restarting it.”

“No, go ahead.” You looked at the TV but your mind was elsewhere; mostly, you were focused on him. The sound of his voice and his steady heartbeat, the way you shifted when he laughed, and the way his thumb was rubbing your elbow and his fingers clenching around your clothes – like he wanted something a bit more.

✧ ✧ ✧

“Psst, Y/N. Wake up. It’s almost 3:30. I gotta go.”

You felt a soft tap on your cheek as Soonyoung gently shook you to consciousness. “Why are you still here…so late?” you asked, slowly lifting yourself off of him and faintly opening your eyes, looking at him. Even though you had just woken up, you immediately took note of your arm around him. “And why did you let me fall asleep?”

“I was watching the movie,” he said, as-a-matter-of-factly. “And…I couldn’t wake you. Not right away. You deserved to sleep – even if it were just for a little bit – after such a busy day.”

You sighed, feeling yourself cave in from his thoughtfulness. “You’re so sweet, Soonyoung. Thank you.”

He chuckled, removing his arm from around you as he glanced away briefly, and then looking at you again. It was quiet; you watched his eyes dart from your own, your lips and your surroundings. For a moment, it appeared as though he wanted to say something, but nothing came out of his mouth.

It felt like the both of you were slowly inching closer to each other. You watched as his eyes began to close —

And then, it happened. Your nerves took over, making your heart pound and your insides shake.

You didn’t know who exactly initiated it, or who leaned in first; all you knew was that…it felt so wonderful. It felt like something you had been wanting for the longest time, and now, you finally have it; like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in a closed-off room for hours.

When the kiss was over, it was silent again. Soonyoung’s cheeks were visibly pink as he gazed at you, only inches away from your face; the tips of your noses still touching, along with your lips. He said your name, but you only hummed a response.

You breathed in his scent as your eyes closed once more, enclosing the space that separated the two of you. Placing your hand on his neck, your fingers entwined with the tips of his hair as you continued to kiss – slowly, as though you had all the time in the world, as though you two had been in love for the longest time and the truth had finally revealed itself. In a peculiar way, you felt liberated.

He’s kissing me back, you thought. For the second time. It must mean something, right? He didn’t reject me, after all. Didn’t change the subject. Didn’t awkwardly move away or dig up an excuse to leave. Could this be the beginning of something new between us?

His hand roamed your back as his other hand ran up your thigh, delicately pulling you closer. You took notice of the way he was kissing you; like it was something he had always wanted to do as well, breathing you in and gripping you close, wrapping his arms around you tightly.

And you did the same: stayed as near to him as you could be, your fingers in his hair and your hand on his neck, unable to detach yourself from him as you fell for the way he moved and the way he smelled.

He took one deep breath before reluctantly parting from you, however still placing small kisses on and around your lips.

“U...um…” he breathed, leaning on his shoulder as he watched you through tired eyes. You separated, becoming two individual beings once more. “I should get going.” He continued, rubbing his eyes before ruffling up his hair. He looked down at where his hands were now resting on his lap, and glanced up at you again. For some reason, you felt as though he were upset.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at you, and smiled softly before turning and standing. “Sorry if I kept you up.”

“No, Soonyoung,” you peeped and then cleared your throat. “You didn’t…what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he sighed, disheveling his hair again and shaking his head, looking at the front door as if he wanted to leave right then and there. “I just…I thought it would be different. I wanted it to be different.”

You blinked. “…Different?”

Had he been planning something…? And how long was he planning it for?

“Yeah,” he admitted, glancing at you. “A bit more…romantic, I hoped. Not after a party…”

“Romantic?”

“Yes.” He sighed heavily, plopping back down onto the couch and rubbing his face. It looked as though he were preparing himself to say something. “I’ve…” he was staring at his hands, playing around with his fingers, looking for the right words to say. “I kind of…really enjoy being around you…and… maybe, like you, in a way, so I wanted to confess differently. Do things a bit differently.”

You couldn’t say anything, especially when he looked at you. You didn’t know what exactly was going to happen after the kiss, but things were abruptly clearer to you, and in your head, you kept telling yourself, I should have thought about it more; about what would happen once the kiss was over.

“It’s okay…” you managed to say, not entirely sure that you, yourself, believed in it. “These things usually happen when you least expect them to. I think that makes it romantic, in a way, too.”

He looked tense. “…And?”

“And…? And what?”

“What do you think?” he looked at you, back at his hands, and back at you, continuously, nervously. “Do you like me…?”

Only a part of you knew the answer to that, but at the same time, you weren’t sure. Still, you felt the need to reassure him. “I mean…I kissed you, didn’t I?”

I do like Soonyoung, you told yourself. He’s my closest friend. And maybe…maybe something more, from now on. I’m certain that I like him.

“…You’re not drunk…or tipsy at all, are you?” he questioned carefully, almost seeming like he regretted the question as soon as the words left his mouth.

You chose not to complicate it. “I did drink a little bit from here and there, so I am a little tipsy, even after a nap…but I’m being honest, Soonyoung.”

At the sound of your words, he grinned. You saw the happiness reach his eyes and you wanted to do nothing more than embrace him tightly, caress his hair and continue to kiss him.

He bit his lip, holding back a laugh, still looking at his hands.

He’s so cute.

“Okay…” nodding slowly, he chuckled, appearing relieved. “Okay, then. It’s not exactly what I had in mind…but I’m okay with this.” He turned to you and smiled, making you blush and smile in return. “I’ll come back later, okay Y/N?”

“Where are you going?” you snickered, unable to stop smiling. It was unexpected, but you were happy, too; it was as if his presence made you all warm and fuzzy, for the first time.

He must’ve seen the sad look in your eyes since he started talking faster – but he also laughed. “Not-not because I don’t want to stay…I want to, I really do, but I have to go. I have an early shift tomorrow and it’s almost 4 AM…my shift starts at 8.”

“I like you, Soonyoung.” You blurted, not thinking about it. Your confession caused his eyes to momentarily widen. “I really do.”

“I like you, too, Y/N. I like you a lot.” He was stopping his mouth from stretching out into a smile by pressing his lips together and leaning towards you to place a soft kiss on your cheek. As soon as his lips left your cheek, he started to giggle impatiently. “I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” you grinned, half confused, half excited. “Me neither. But I’ll see you later…right?”

“Of course,” he beamed widely, standing up and gathering his things. Clearly, he couldn’t control his facial expressions anymore. “Call me before you come to visit, okay Y/N?”

It was a dopey smile that drew you into him a lot more – more than you thought was ever possible, with Soonyoung. The fact that the feelings you were feeling were directed towards him was strange and new, but utterly thrilling.

I can’t wait to see him again, you thought, genuinely feeling that way.

“I will.” You smiled back, abruptly feeling lightheaded as you turned off the TV and went back into a lying position on the couch, closing your eyes. I guess I’m still tired and sleepy. “I’ll…I’ll call you later, Soonyoung.”

He let out a loud groan and suddenly, his arms were under you. “You don’t expect me to leave and let you just sleep out here, do you?”

Before you knew it, you were off the couch and airborne as he carried you into your room. Giggling, you put your arms around him, feeling his fast heartbeat against you, making you blush. You reached up to kiss him, which he didn’t return since it took him by surprise.

But to you, it already started to feel natural, as though it was something you were supposed to do and something you should’ve been doing for a long time.

“One, two,” he counted, still grinning from ear to ear as he placed you down on the bed and began covering you up with the blankets. “Stay warm and sleep well.”

You hummed, looking up at him with a sheepish smile. He turned to leave, but you stopped him. “Wait. Why don’t you stay the night?”

“You want me to sleep over?” he hesitated, already standing near the entrance to your bedroom.

“Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time you do.”

“I told you…as much as I’d love to stay over, Y/N, I have to go in early tomorrow,” he explained, slowly striding in your direction. “I don’t think it’ll work out tonight.”

You didn’t want to force him, even though, if you had, it also wouldn’t be the first time. Still, you groaned and rolled your eyes. “Okay, I guess…just…”

“What?” he chuckled, stroking your cheek. “It’s only a few hours.” He joked.

“Not that, Soonyoung. It’s just that…I have one key. If you leave and lock the door, taking my key, I’ll be locked up in my apartment.” It wasn’t a lie, but it was definitely the perfect excuse to have him sleep over — or so you thought, at least.

“Ha-ha, you’re cute.” He shook his head. “You’re forgetting that you already gifted F/N and I extra keys to your new place?”

Your eyes widened, and then you sighed as the memory hit you in the face. “…I remember.”

Dammit.

“Y/N, I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?” he said, giving you a kiss on the cheek and turning away again.

You whined, intentionally. “Soonyoung…”

He rotated back to face you, throwing his hands up in confusion before understanding what you wanted.

“If I had known you felt so strongly about me…” he teased, leaning down to you once more. “I would’ve planned for this more carefully.”

“Shut up,” you grumbled, putting your arms around his shoulders and pulling him closer for another kiss. It resulted in him sitting on the bed, trying not to fall over when he was standing.

I could kiss him for hours…

“I’m not staying over,” he breathed heavily once he forced himself out of the kiss, pushing his hair back as he sat up. “You can’t make me.” But you both knew that that was a lie.

“Fine,” you gave in, rolling your eyes. “It was worth a shot.”

He groaned. “How do you expect me to leave like this?”

“Hey,” you shrugged. “It’s not my fault.” A giggle escaped your lips, and Soonyoung perceptibly clenched his teeth.

“I’ll get you tomorrow,” he warned, pointing a finger at you as he stood up and hurried towards the door. “Same time and place, yeah?”

Nodding, you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing. “Yeah, same time and place.”

Once again, he shook his head, and finally waved a goodbye. “Goodnight, Y/N!”

“Goodnight.” You smiled, watching him vanish in a flash. “Soonyoung.”

You hummed to yourself, repeating his name and attaching a cringe-worthy nickname after it, such as ‘gumdrop’ or ‘cupcake’, smiling and laughing yourself to sleep as though he were still in the room.

And, for the first time in a long time, you felt like you were going to explode from happiness.

I can’t wait…to see him again.

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utopianparadoxist · 7 years

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Love, Faith, and Fantasy - Just what (and who) does Jake English want?

UPDATE: Sorry about the dissapointing news on 4/13 today. I imagine many fans won’t be in the mood to read this right now, but I thought it’d be a better way to spend the day than being dissapointed. So maybe you will. Either way, I put a lot of love into this. I hope it helps.

I want to begin this post with a mea culpa.

In the wake of the last post covering Jake’s awareness of events unfolding around him, I was lucky enough to receive feedback from a number of really great people. Among that feedback was the idea that I was kind of overstating things with regards to Jake’s intelligence to the opposite extreme. I feel that this is true! Not because I don’t think Jake is aware or that he was an actively getting Jane to lean one way in her answer--I still think that’s correct, and in fact I have more evidence to present in favor of it under the cut. But I worry in my zeal, I presented a skewed image of how I think about Jake--essentially, I was trying to correct what I perceive as the fandom problem of invalidating Jake’s intelligence completely and painting him as a moron. I think it is a fair criticism to say I overcorrected in that endeavor.

I’m hoping that admitting that my choosing to tone down certain claims is a direct result of valid and insightful criticism will allow you to give me the benefit of the doubt, and make it easier for you believe I am being genuine in approaching this subject and interested in and willing to incorporate feedback where I find it logically consistent. This is important to me for reasons that will soon become obvious. That disclaimer out of the way, please click on the cut to see what I have to say.

If you do, by the way: Thank you. It means a lot to me.

There was originally an author’s introduction here. In the interest of brevity I reposted it to it’s own post, so click here to understand my motivations for writing and my desire for the fandom. Otherwise, please enjoy.

Knights and Pages - Servitude and Ownage

In my last post, I advanced the idea that Pages are an Active class and Knights are Passive. In so doing, I made the mistake of implying Pages are all secretely hyperintelligent supergeniuses who use everyone knowingly. That wasn’t exactly my intent, but that’s fine--sloppy execution on my part. My bad. What I didn’t do is discuss the potential key verbs Knights and Pages might operate under--because I honestly didn’t have one I felt confident in. In the wake of discussing the piece with @theworstpersonintheworld (misleadingly named), he made a suggestion that struck me deeply, and once I started thinking about the story in those terms everything truly fell into place.

I think it will be useful in explaining the dynamic between Jake and Dirk as I see it, so I’d like to make the case for it here before we move forward.

The key verb for both Knights and Pages is ‘Serve’. This puts them in direct thematic opposition to Rogues and Thieves, who ‘Steal’, which lines up with those dual systems Sburb loves so much--after all, if Princes and Bards are ‘Destroy’ classes, it’s reasonable to assume there is also a ‘Create’ set, right?

Knights Serve their Aspect to others. Pages use their Aspect to Serve themselves. To establish this and contrast against Jake’s actions later, let’s take a look at some of Dave’s actions in this context to establish what this verb can mean.

From the outset, Dave has a reputation for providing his friends with his Time, serving them long rambling diatribes to consume and enjoy--often far exceeding the time they’re willing to spend on the conversation.

His primary contribution to the Beta’s game is to run loops around the session, constantly gathering all relevant resources possible so that his friends don’t need to worry at all about limitations like money or access to weapons and can do whatever they feel like. Essentially, Dave takes care of the minutiae.

This predisposition to serving others is also likely why Knights seem to end up helping out with Frog Breeding duties so often. This is essentially the most important game objective, and so serving the Space player in completing it is also Serving every other player in step.

And then there’s this. Serve is a word with double connotations. It can indeed imply servitude or service, and Dave definitely does that. But there’s a colloquial definition of Serve that derives it’s use from the term “Get Served”, which Urban Dictionary defines as: To be completely owned or shown up by someone. Kinda like Dave does to us here--which Karkat also does, by the way.

This is also something Dave does repeatedly--he overwhelms Tavros with a time-consuming and epically sassy document, and makes Time-based power plays against Karkat gestures of antagonism. To serve someone in this sense essentially means to defeat them in rhetorical or literal battle, explaining why Aradia describes Knights as a Warrior class.

I’d like to posit a corollary attribute that I believe holds true for all Classes, as well. This one is not explicitly advanced textually, but I believe I can back it up. It takes place along a different axis. I posit that just as the classes affect their Aspect, so too they are affected BY their Aspect.

So in addition to the Active/Passive distinction, we could read both Knights and Pages as ones who are Served by their Aspect.

This is true of Dave, as he gets owned by his Bro in an explicitly time-consuming fight. And the trend continues as he then gets saved by his future selves over and over again throughout the session--being served in both senses:

If this reading of Knight happens to bother you because it means that the Beta session has an uneven distribution of Active/Passive classes, consider the dynamics of both sessions:

In the beta session, Rose essentially takes and follows orders from the Horrorterrors and Doc Scratch, whilst also distributing orders to Dave and John (who each take further orders from Terezi and Jade and Vriska, respectively). All of this is ultimately in support of the plan Jade commits to herself, plans herself, and executes herself--taking Active control of the entire session in one fell swoop at the last instant.

In the Alpha session, all three Active players flounder and stifle themselves and each other with nothing meaningful to do and no way to receive substantial benefit. Ultimately, it is the Passive player--Roxy--who rises above the constraints of her session and achieves more or less competence at understanding her role and powerset by the end of the session.

In the session that requires constant action and change, there’s Three passives to one Active. In the session that requires patience, introspection, and connecting with each other, the inverse is true. The incentives and natural skills of the players are set at odds in both cases, stacking the cards against them.

That’s enough on Knights for now. To save on length, I’ll explain how the other Classes are affected by their Aspects elsewhere. I think we’ve established this framework well enough, so let’s pick up where we left off with Jake.

Faith and Fear

So basically, I was never exactly trying to argue Jake was some kind of secret supergenius manipulator. What I tried to say, rather, is that he’s pretty much about as aware and capable as his friends are. Whatever mental hiccups he has that can be attributed to mental shortcomings on our part are a red herring--Jake’s problem is actually similar to Jane’s:

Willful ignorance coupled with an intense aversion to confrontation. Before I start talking about those, here’s some extra evidence in favor of my view that Jake manipulating Jane into denying her feelings was intentional.

Last we talked about Jake, I mentioned how soon after Roxy messaged him and let slip about Jane’s crush, Jake messaged Jane in order to talk to her about it. What I missed was that that conversation with Roxy happens much earlier, and Jake and Roxy actually have a SECOND conversation on the subject...immediately preceding Jane and Jake’s conversation.

Note here that Jake slips up and describes Jane’s pinings as “unrequited”. Jake broaches the subject, and then rambles a bit about how he wonders if people really do feel that way. Then Roxy is interrupted by something and has to go, which results in...

I’m not really vouching for the idea that this “Hmm.” is definitely Jake being given a line of quiet contemplation before he decides to do what he does next--talk to Jane--but I will advance it as a possibility. At the very least, the line is ambiguous. This kind of understated response is a little bit odd in the context of Jake being worried about Roxy’s danger, and he seemed lost in his own thoughts right before she left.

Regardless, moving on to the next page. Nothing I said with Jane was fundamentally inaccurate, so I won’t cover that subject matter again. What I do want to answer is: Why?

If Jake knew how Jane felt, why not just answer her? And why does he seem to forget Jane ever liked him in the first place once she says No--to the point that even with Brain Ghost Dirk, his literal own brain, telling him better, he still claims ignorance?

And the answer is that Jake conflates believing in someone with believing the things they say, and Jake very much wants to be a good friend to his loved ones. And what Jake fears more than anything is that he may have to confront or disappoint anyone. That he be forced to find out he accidentally hurt his friends’ feelings--or be forced to choose to do something that would do so himself.

This is why his big solution when he becomes a Trickster is to become a doormat and date everybody, explicitly so that he can make everyone happy--not because he wants to date everyone himself. (though he makes it a point to include Dirk when the girls exclude him) And he admits his reasoning himself once the session falls apart:

So it’s more convenient for him if it turns out he really was wrong about Jane liking him--despite literal evidence to the contrary--and once he has it, he serves himself through Hope and believes it wholeheartedly.

He then puts Jane in a situation where she ends up Serving him by acting as a confidant for months, all the while talking her up as such a great and understanding friend and thanking her. (This is an approach Jake constantly uses, by the way--think of his “standup gent” gratitude spiel in his first log with Hal. Why does Jake give it? He wants uranium--ie, Dirk’s service.)

And implicitly uses the head trauma he received during session entry as a plausible excuse for his lack of foresight, just as he uses his Hotheaded Adventurer persona to ignore possibilities he finds inconvenient. He does all this because on some level he’s genuinely convinced it’s all true, so this isn’t exactly active manipulation. But he convinced himself it was true in the first place because it was conducive to his preferred fantasies.

This reluctance to confront his friends when he thinks there’s a chance he messed up also explains a question barely anyone seems to have asked: If Jake was having so much trouble with Dirk, why did he always go to Jane or Erisol? Why never Roxy, over the course of six months? The answer is because Roxy knows a secret (hidden information-Void stuff), a fact that Jake cannot square with his constructed identity: That he knew Jane liked him all along. Because she told him about it. (Roxy has her own reasons for not advancing this information, which we’ll get to someday.)

But because of all this behavior, Jake’s friends find it extremely difficult to approach him about subjects he doesn’t want to be approached with, which coupled with their own issues ends with everyone bottling up their feelings until they burst, always ending in Jake getting breathtakingly....

Devastatingly...

Served.

But I don’t want to harsh on Jake here. It’s not that he doesn’t love his friends--it’s just that he’s kind of selfish about it. But that isn’t always a bad thing, as we’ll soon see. For now, do you know what Jake is more comfortable doing for Jane than letting her down gently over her unrequited feelings?

Literally dying for her. After she threatened him with sexual slavery. And she’s not the one he chose to be with romantically--we’ll get to Dirk later. This is not a boy who cares only about himself--it’s a boy who is so scared of disappointing the people he cares about he would rather lie to them and himself forever rather than face the possibility. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt them, obviously.

In the words of so many people who have told me about their perceptions of Dirk: “Intent does not invalidate abuse.”

And there’s no one this habit of Jake’s hurts worse than it hurts Dirk Strider.

Fearful Heart

We get exactly one pesterlog with Dirk and Jake, and in my opinion, it is the single best pesterlog in the entire story of Homestuck. For those who forgot: The log I will be quoting from is a memory from Jake’s 13th birthday, the day Dirk sent him the Brobot and confessed to being from the future.

It is indicative of the nature of their relationship, since it is immediately after Jake remembers he’s dreaming that Brain Ghost Dirk adopts the sassier approach-- likely a reflection of Hal’s effect on Jake’s perception of Dirk, brought to the forefront once Jake remembers his situation in the real world.

The first thing worth pointing out is that Dirk doesn’t buy Jake’s Hothead Adventurer persona at all. Don’t get me wrong--Dirk takes Jake at his word when Jake talks about liking adventure and fighting and all of his interests, but when Jake tries to talk himself down intelligence-wise, Dirk flips his rhetoric to compliment him.

And when he brings up Rose’s book series, Dirk opens by asking if Jake’s read it. When Jake dodges and tries to lean on not being able to understand it (and asks Dirk to help him keep the secret--more of his hiding stuff to spare people’s feelings), Dirk ignores the comment and launches into a diatribe on the book’s underlying themes--knowing Jake will follow every word of it.

This perception into Jake’s true nature links into Dirk’s role as a Heart player--Nepeta similarly saw right through Karkat’s angry bluster and unpleasantness into the deeply emotional and gooey Heart underneath.

And when Jake leans on his dumb (and coded straight) adventurer’s persona to deliberately avoid letting his conversation with Dirk skirt too close to gay territory...

Dirk actually snaps at him, coming off pretty critical. It’s important to note this conversation takes place while Dirk is in the process of sending Jake the Brobot, a project he’s worked on for months and which we learn was meant to be a romantic gesture on Dirk’s part, judging by the ‘tender’ comments. So it’s safe to assume the dude’s got romantic thoughts on his mind right now.

And fairly intense ones, too: The Hal describes his memories about feeling for Jake as ‘heavily arresting’ periods of remembering ‘conflicted, incipient preteen episodes’ on the subject. This tells us that the episodes were getting started before Dirk was 13, that they involved conflicting emotions, and that they were intense enough that Hal is still essentially paralyzed by them--even removed from their original biological context.

Especially because he brings up sexuality again soon after, only to once more be shut down--and with Jake taking ‘gay’ as a mean-spirited pejorative, no less.

Soon after that, Jake says something that could be read as flirty and Dirk immediately jumps on it, escalating things to thinking about actual physical proximity. When Jake points it out, Dirk gets flustered and quickly changes the subject. He then starts talking DOWN how capable he is--a sharp contrast from later Dirk talking himself up in front of Jane. They talk some more, the conversation turning to Dirk doubting his own ability to make the AR, and...

There’s two things to note here: The first is that Dirk is clearly and transparently moved. The second is that Jake explicitly notes that he appreciates Dirk being helpful--being of service. This exchange is linked to Jake’s faith, and arguably leads directly to the creation of the AR. It also leads to this:

In this way, the boys nearly exchanging their true feelings for each other is linked to the creation of new life--a concept (reductively) considered the domain of heterosexual couples. Alas, it veers off into the future talk, where we learn something else important:

This moment is important to Dirk. Jake’s faith in him is important to Dirk. So much so that the moment reverberates three years later, as Jake dreams about it, through Brain Ghost Dirk delivering a line that is actually unique enough to jar Jake out of the memory--essentially, Dirk’s feelings slipping through the Ghost to wake Jake up to his reality.

Brain Ghost Dirk implies Dirk thinks Jake’s faith is impressive, further undercutting the fake reasons Dirk gives Jane for letting Hal hassle him. This moment means a lot to Dirk, and it comes at a time when his emotions are likely already running high. Which makes it a real shame what happens next.

Jake reacts horribly to the Brobot’s design, which Dirk responds to with a question. Jake spends most of his life up until now talking up his love of fights, challenges and adventure, so Dirk asks for clarification. He then asks Jake to trust him, trying to sell the idea--but Jake makes it pretty clear he dislikes the idea.

Which is why I really can’t parse him changing the subject as some cold-blooded act of manipulation. This conversation has been a rollercoaster for Dirk--he’s been built up, torn down, and sent a ton of mixed messages. The big romantic overture he had planned blew up in his face, and I think there’s an argument he can no longer do anything to fix it without knowingly exposing Jake to danger. Dirk wants to be done by this point, I think, and I would be too.

And the tragedy is? I don’t even buy that this was Dirk imposing some Training Program on Jake out of his personal perspective that Jake needs to improve. At this point, I’d need a strong argument to convince me of the reading. It leaves too big a plot hole, and there’s a more obvious canonical explanation for it anyway.

Because if Dirk was willing to unilaterally impose training on Jake because he needed to be stronger, then it begs the question: Why not the same functionality for Jane? Are we putting it down to some completely canonically unaddressed misogyny? Jane is in as much danger as any of them, and far more unprepared. If he felt that strongly and was that willing to control, does it really make sense to think he’d stop short of training her personally to ensure their success?

It’s much more reasonable to assume the obvious: That when trying to romance his best friend, Dirk approached the situation logically. Jake talks about loving adventure all the goddamn time. Dirk knows he doesn’t actually do any adventures. But he believes Jake that he wants to. The answer? Simple.

Set up an elaborate scenario in which Jake can experience all the adventure he wants--while also keeping him safe from monsters. Essentially, Dirk is trying to enable Jake to actually start living out his fantasy in a safe environment, and Jake inspires in Dirk the desire to help him in this way through Hope for romantic reciprocation.

Dirk isn’t interested in controlling Jake English at all. He’s trying to Serve him.

Which he succeeds at! Over the long run, Jake does indeed grow to view the chase as an adventure, and admits to finding the whole experience of the Brobot kind of exciting in confidence with Jane. I’d have to hear explanations if someone wanted to square this with Jake perceiving it as abusive, personally.

Hence why Jake levels up when he’s trounced. Which makes these lines Dirk delivers three years later, directly to the audience:

Straight up lies. It’s Dirk hiding from his hurt and confusion by destroying his own perceived fuckups with his fabricated Stoic Coolguy Warrior persona--the same way Jake hides from his own by burying them under his beliefs.

In reality, all Dirk wants is to try to make what Jake wants possible. Which is very fitting, because there’s only one thing Dirk wants more than Jake himself. What Dirk wants is to be believed in. To be valued and wanted. To be of service, to be necessary, to be good. And specifically...

To be like Dave Strider.

As you Wish

I’ve already laid my case for why Dirk definitely did not set up the events of [S] Unite Synchronize, but with this context it’s worth noting the note Dirk was trying to play while setting up the session--essentially, he was trying to live up to Dave’s legacy and mythological role, acting to Serve all his friends complete session entry.

He fails at this. Miserably. But Hal, who is also a Dirk trying to emulate Dave, succeeds--by the end, it literally take’s over as EVERYONE’S server player, even Dirk’s. He even takes Dave’s text color during the process AND literally takes charge of--his words--metatemporal mechanics.

That established, let’s refocus a bit and note the nature of Dirk’s relationship with all of his friends by the time they start playing.

We just took stock of how badly Dirk’s last attempt at approaching Jake romantically went, and soon after this the AR is created and begins attempting to intercept, manipulate and solicit Jake on Dirk’s behalf--I already went over how Dirk had no control over this, didn’t want it, and grew to hate Hal for it. Several times over.

To make matters worse, we learn Jake essentially toyed with Dirk’s heart with jokes he--again-- never confronted Dirk to correct, although he correctly deduces it left lasting damage on Dirk’s feelings.

Partly as a result, he views Jane as a competitor with an unfair advantage. Her complete ignorance about his sexuality doesn’t help matters, so he can’t talk to her.

All the while, Roxy is actively and willingly pressuring him into romantic interest in her and directly comparing him unfavorably to Hal for his lack of romantic reciprocation. And Hal not only harasses Jake and positions himself as a better friend to Jane (this particular act I do not view as malicious), but uses Dirk’s very insecurity about failing Roxy against him.

And while Hal claims to be on Dirk’s side in the Jakestakes, Dirk is pretty much right to be suspicious of his intentions:

So essentially, Dirk has no one to talk to about his sexuality and gets ignorance or cruelty on all sides with regards to it. Is it really reasonable to demand of a teenager to come forward to his best friend--who he last heard voice rejection of the very CONCEPT of gayness--not only to admit his sexuality and explain how it factors into his alternate self’s abusive behavior, but also to confess or try to talk around his soul-searing, cosmic romantic love for the guy?

And that is what it is, make no mistake about it. The AR is either getting carried away with the feelings it says are distant and diluted for it, or confessing those feelings on Dirk’s behalf.

Heart is the aspect not just of love, but of any intense attraction between two or more people, and thus shipping. At first, these elements may seem disparate, but they’re more connected than they seem.

After all, what do you do if you ship two characters? If you think they’re in love? Typically they’re shown as close together as possible, trading attention and feelings. Placing their two souls in proximity to one another’s and implying a give and take between them.

Which is why it’s no surprise that Dirk expresses love by trying to close physical distance, or that when he and Jake hook up in the session, Dirk tries to compensate for his fears that Jake is straight and acting out of obligation by trying to stay as close as possible--thus being clingy and needy but with no real exchange of emotions taking place.

And in [S] Unite, we get shown the degree of Dirk’s feelings. When Jake revives him with the only romantically coded corpsesmooch in the comic, Dirk’s Heart symbol lights up and takes over the screen before he pulls off amazing feats while racing to Jake’s side. And in the panel just before, the lamp representing Dirk’s literal life lights up and overflows so brightly that it literally breaks, unable to contain the force of his passion.

Dirk’s Prince of Heart role does reflect how he destroys his relationships, but not the way most people think. It’s not that Dirk is willing to erode the selves of his friends to fit into his molds, but rather that Hal positioning his Self between Dirk and his friends undercuts Dirk’s ability to reach out and trust their perceptions, or even tell where he begins and Hal ends.

At the same time, Dirk’s intense fear of rejection keeps him away from broaching his problems with Jake the same way Jake’s fear of disappointing others stops him from broaching his--his Love getting in the way of honesty as much as his constructed Persona.

Save for the trickster log--which he recants--Dirk never once even thinks to consider his friends as aggressors towards him. His instinct is to assume he’s somehow failing them instead. Just like with Jake, Dirk sees into the core of all of his friends, and what he really sees at the end of the day is this:

Dirk thinks Roxy is noble. He sees her as she really is--as one of the Nobles of the session, as they ALL are, seeing right past their flaws and mistakes and straight to the shining hearts of their intentions. Again, Roxy’s not even the one he wants to be with romantically, and we saw the intensity of how he feels about Jake. He wrote Jane entire books and sent her personal bodyguards crafted out of heirlooms taken from the Bro Dirk essentially wants to become. What would he have to say about them, if asked?

Dirk’s problem is his perception of his friends’ nobility leads him to erasing all their hurtful behavior, and his own perceived hurtful behavior stops him from seeing any nobility within himself. Dirk’s response to all of the complicated ways he’s been hurt in trying to manage the Hal and Jake situation as ethically as possible by all of his friends is to internalize responsibility for absolutely all of it. It never even crosses his mind to hold Jane or Jake or even Roxy accountable. Only his own identity.

When things finally explode on him, he turns all his pain inwards and projects it both onto Hal and onto himself. Dirk’s Prince of Heart role nearly culminates in his most literal destruction of himself--Dirk being nearly Destroyed by Heart.

Jake’s love is no less complicated, but thankfully less drawn out. And Jake does love Dirk, again--I feel this is canonical. But I want to qualify this final section with a disclaimer, because I really don’t want to invalidate anyone.

So to be clear: I think reading Jake as aromantic is copacetic with the canon. Obviously I don’t share this reading--I see him as Bi--but all I’m going to argue here is that Jake deeply, truly, profoundly loves Dirk back. I’m going to describe the angle of that love, too. But whether that love is romantic or platonic is irrelevant to me. You can read them as lovers or best friends or whatever shade of grey between is most pleasing to you, in my humble opinion.

That said, I don’t feel the need to deconstruct Jake’s every line to determine why he didn’t mean each and every one that could suggest a lack of romantic interest. You can pretty much put almost all of them down in one of four categories:

His worries about other people’s perceptions and early discomfort with queerness, his later discomfort with feeling unsafe and sexually threatened/objectified, his (willfully ignorant) lack of surety regarding the nature of Dirk’s feelings for him....

And the one I actually want to talk about.

This is in response to Roxy talking about feeling like it hurts to let Dirk down. The thing is, Roxy--like Dave--is a Passive player, who predominantly feels inclined to help others. Of course failing someone she cares about is going to sting for her more than it would for Jake.

That has nothing to do with Jake’s capacity for love, it has to do with the fact that Jake is selfish. It has to do with him regretting his self-absorption. Jake does love, and he loves intensely--he loves enough to die for it, which is pretty much as intense as it gets. He’s just deeply, deeply selfish about it.

And I love that selfishness about Jake. Because it turns all doubts about whether Jake loves Dirk back to ash in one fell swoop, in one single, brilliant, shining moment. In this moment all of Jake’s plot threads come together--his sexual abuse and lack of agency, his growing fear, his certainty none of his friends wants him anymore, his selfishness and fantasy indulgence AND Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave’s image are all build up to one single, spectacular moment.

A cinematic moment. A moment with deep philosophical implications.

Everything about Jake and Dirk’s narratives builds up to this. Dirk’s desire to live up to Dave and Jake’s inherent selfishness are complementary, symbiotic forces. I mentioned earlier that when Dirk’s lamp lights up and overflows he performs incredible, unbelievable acts whilst rushing to Jake’s side.

And when Jake is lit up by Aranea, removing his agency as a person COMPLETELY while also making him the brightest object in the sky, Jake manages to find a way to turn his power against her. And what he chooses to create reveals everything about his character. Because what he chooses to do is call Dirk to his side, to protect him and keep him safe from his perceived threat.

Both of the boys literally LIGHT UP with their feelings for each other, in a comic where the concept of Light is explicitly linked to relevance, importance, understanding, and the concept of reaching Enlightenment or Nirvana. (Stay tuned, I’ll flesh this out more in my next three videos.)

I’ve gone over the inherent romance in Jake choosing to create Dirk over literally any other option imaginable. But with the new context of Jake explicitly looking to serve himself through Hope, it takes on an added edge. What Jake wants more than anything else in the world is Dirk, but not at all to make Dirk happy or because it’s what Dirk would want. No.

Jake wants Dirk because he’s selfish. Because he wants life to be happy and easy and adventurous but carefree, and he believes he can always rely on Dirk to take care of things or bail him out when things get too intense for him to handle. Jake wants Dirk as a best friend, a bodyguard, a partner, a rival and a servant all rolled into one.

Jake’s feelings for all of his friends have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself. He’d rather die than live in a word without Jane, and that’s why he saves her--not because he thinks he owes it to her for past slights.

All of this is textual by implication. Dirk’s line:

”I am Brain Ghost Dirk. You kissed my boyfriend. Prepare to Die.”

Is indicative of the Dirk Jake wants and believes in in his head. This line is a movie reference to The Princess Bride, a romantic fantasy adventure comedy with a very curious dynamic between the romantic leads. No shortage of people have pointed out how Jake seems to see himself as or end up in the positions of sexualized and marginalized female protagonists, but I think there’s a cause to be made Jake’s “arc” draws from this specific one--Buttercup--above all others.

Buttercup’s dynamic with Westley is simple. She issues requests to him, and he responds “As you Wish.” This As you Wish is an explicit I love you, and the power of love is put forth as the source of Westley’s power and endless competence and ability throughout the entire story. It doesn’t matter what needs to happen, Westley finds a way to do it. And he does it because he believes in their love.

Buttercup, however, struggles to hold on to her faith that love can overcome all things possible and wavers in her commitment to living for it, ending up nearly trapped in an unwanted marriage. Buttercups’ arc is resolved when she chooses to believe in love even at risk of love, promising never again to hide what she truly desires--Westley.

This is the essence of Jake’s fantasy, and we know that’s what it is because when Caliborn threatens to kill Dirk in the Masterpiece (which the Credits suggest we’ll soon see once again), Jake responds by shifting his and Dirk’s fundamental power dynamic--once again Lighting Up with love to save him by delivering Caliborn his destined serving.

Jake’s victory ends up giving Hope to all those opposing Lord English, but Jake himself doesn’t give a shit about that. Jake’s stated motivation for trouncing Caliborn is one thing and one thing only: Saving Dirk. Serving his own desire to see Dirk safe. Caliborn is hurting his friend, and Jake is mad about it. His motivation is essentially identical to his desire to save Jane, though--he doesn’t want to live without Dirk.

And on Dirk’s side, this dynamic ultimately validates the idea that he became everything he wanted to become by emulating Dave through a bit of understated environmental storytelling. I already argued in favor of Grandpa being able to on some level remember his relationship to the Alphas, so click here to read that argument or accept my premise here and move on.

This dynamic answers a question that didn’t even need asking--why the Knight sitting on the Derse side of Grandpa’s house wears a suit suspiciously similar to one of Dave’s most well-known ones.

It suggests an explicit linkage of the idea of Knighthood and the idea of Dave, and suggests that this is the imagery that comes to Grandpa’s mind when thinking of Dirk. In one way, you could view this as Dirk managing to destroy his own thematic legacy in Bro and choosing to live up to something different--a sort of ultimate manifestation of his Prince of Heart role.

And just for the record, this is a connection that has held true across not only the entirety of the Homestuck, but through Hiveswap as well, with a Knight standing right in front of a smuppet.

Which suggests to me that WP has approached Grandpa’s memories and the Alpha’s arcs with the same attention to detail the comic itself gave them, and makes me extremely confident in what’s to come. Hopefully now you are too. Hiveswap’s attention to detail speaks to the quality of the story they’ve crafted, and we should all be excited beyond reasonable belief, in my humble opinion.

Conclude.

So that’s it. That’s pretty much all my evidence for this reading of Dirk, Jake, Dave, and the wider story surrounding them. I look forward to hearing your responses. Personally, putting this together was revelatory for me. I hope it was for you, too. If it wasn’t quite, I hope you want to talk about it and keep track of the ongoing conversation I hope takes place here as a result.

This series has been a passion project, but also essentially a side project to my youtube series aimed at welcoming and explaining Homestuck to new, incoming Hiveswap fans. If you find yourself trying to make it easier for a Hiveswap fan to understand what Homestuck is about and how it connects to the game, I hope you think of me.

If you like my writing and have a buck to spare, you could also really help me out by enabling me to focus on putting more of this content out there through pledging on Patreon. Doing so will also give you access to my private community of enthusiasts trying to advance new and interesting readings of this wonderful property.

That’s really all there is to say on the matter. My next essay, if my current whim sticks, will be on Jade and Davepeta--and why Jade’s character arc isn’t as badly handled as many seem to think. If not, I’ll certainly get to it later.

If you read this far, then all I want to say is thank you. Thank you for being interested and open-minded enough to grant me the opportunity to share these ideas. I love you for it more than you could believe. I think people like you are what will save humanity from itself.

See you again soon, everyone. Until then,

Keep rising.

#Homestuck #Classpects #Dirkjake #Jake English #Dirk Strider #Dave Strider #Knights #Pages #My MSPA Analysis

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voidsettle · 5 years

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København: Christmas Markets

December 2017

I hate traveling during winters to anywhere that's not over +20. Excluding Copenhagen. Because really, how can you not fall in love with it immediately?

Christmas decorations on display and for sell at Tivoli

Have you ever experienced a Julemarked? You should; it's here that you get the best holiday spirit even as a grown-up. Sweets, hot wine with spices, knitted sweaters. They have everything to keep you warm, body and soul.

Who wants to be happy anymore when there's hygge? That's special Danish word that means you don't care there's cold and wind that get everywhere - you still feel warm and totally relaxed. Gløgg for everyone!

Plan your trip tight but relaxed - Denmark is not the country that likes to be treated touristy. Copenhagen has it all: castles from different eras, vivid architecture, traditions big and small.

But don't forget to relax just like the Danes do. Grab a beer or a gløgg. Take a blanket. Sit outside. Apparently, you have no right to call yourself a viking if you're afraid of cold.

Walking Down Strøget

We arrived to Copenhagen deep into the evening. Our hostess lived quite far away, so we decided to take a walk in search for some food into our empty stomachs - and were immediately enveloped in the soft warm lights of the night city.

Kronprinsensgade, Copenhagen

The bad thing about most European cities (especially as you move north) is that life nearly dies out in late evenings. The pedestrian zones that are usually crowded seem abandoned and empty - but there are brightly lit window-cases and Christmas lights to keep you company.

This first glance at the night Copenhagen is probably why I fell in love with the night city - that's what I remember best when thinking of the Danish capital. Next morning was dull and grey, as winter mornings tend to be. We fought through the chilling wind with coffee and Danish pastries from the small local store.

Downtown was busy and bustling as we took a walk around before our free tour started. I love these tours since guides are usually really enthusiastic about their cities. (And somehow they are usually not natives? Part of the charm I guess). Our guide, a youngish boy originally from London made us remember a couple of things about the city. First, the fires ravaged through it near half a dozen times (we were literally asked to cry out loud what happened to the city in that year or the other, and it was always 'it burned down!'). Second, written Danish is as far away from spoken Danish as possible. And, finally, Copenhagen is full of angry cyclists who will definitely crush into you if you stand in their way - and they'll be right.

I can still see the image that was painted before my eyes: a guy mounted on his bike, with a Christmas tree clasped under his arm, screaming 'What do you want for dinner!' into a cell-phone while trying to navigate the busy crowds of downtown. You don't want to be in his way, whether he wears a horned helm or not.

The rest of the city is just what you know about old European cities. Narrow winding streets, slim brick houses in bright colors glued together, peaking churches as you move from square to square heavily clad in history. You will lose yourself somewhere in between them - I'm not sure I remembered the name of at least one of the squares aside from Kongens Nytorv. But at least it's easy to find your way in the triangle between the domineering castles (count in the gloomy Baroque-Neoclassical Christiansborg, the witty Renaissance Rosenborg, and the current royal residence, Rococo Amalienborg).

And then the're's the city's symbol, Nyhavn. This place looks like an open-sky museum piece - which it actually is. The popularity of the place is nearly frustrating (even outside of the summer season you cannot get a decent photo without other people popping into the frame).

Nyhavn, Copenhagen

It appears the Danish superstar Hans Christian Andersen fancied Nyhavn so much that he moved from one house to the next - we've counted three of them where he lived during his life.

Oh yes, Andersen. There's no place in Copenhagen you can go without his name mentioned. Museums of his name, sure; we've seen the places he lived in, the shops he frequented, and dined at one of his favorite places. One of our favorite places now, as well.

Evening Entertainments: Street Food and Tivoli

Smørrebrød with smoked salmon and cream cheese

Copenhagen in early December is a place of winds, but also street food - they have a whole island dedicated to that purpose alone. We walked along the river bank to get to PapirØen, or the Paper Island and get us some of those delicious smørrebrøds. The only dispiriting part was the crowds - we had to wait for half an hour to get our hands on a couple of those beauties. Maybe we should've planned our visit outside the weekend.

And we didn't stop on sandwiches. The best part of visiting old Europe in December is that, roaming the streets, you will find food, and the smells beckon you to eat all the time. For some time we completely forgot about the architectural beauties of the city, too busy enjoying the food. The Christmas market on Kongens Nytorv got us tipsy and happy with some gløgg and lots of sweets, from caramelized apples to nougat, the Danish specialty.

As our sated bodies finally refused to accept any more food, the night fell, and we headed off toward Tivoli, the oldest amusement park in Europe. I'm not usually a big fan of this type of attractions, but Tivoli is famed not only due to its rides but also the beauty of the Christmas decorations. It's like falling down into a fairy tale - the attention to detail and the craftiness is astonishingly meticulous.

If you're like me (not a fan of rides, that is), there are still things you don't want to miss in Tivoli: the food, the souvenirs and the absolutely gorgeous light-and-water show that runs every hour from dusk till 11PM. This year, they staged Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, so beautiful that it strung every string in my heart. Or maybe that was gløgg speaking.

The Three Castles

Frederiksborg Slot, Hillerød

Three castles in one day is a bit too much. Alas, when you only have 2 and a half days in Copenhagen and a burning desire to 'see it all', you sacrifice your comfort in favor of your curiosity.

We started our castle run at Rosenborg, a former summer residence of the Danish royalty. Veiled in a sleepy atmosphere, the palace boasts an impressive collection of armory, artworks and some really spectacular crown jewels in the dungeons. Curiously, it does have the feel of a summer house, with its surrounding gardens and cozy secluded rooms at a stark contrast with the bustling city outside its walls. We were eager to see the next castle to make our comparisons, and that's when a sudden challenge struck us.

Keep mispronouncing the words. That's the Dane way.

Despite the cold winds, people in Copenhagen are surprisingly relaxed. That's probably why they don't bother to pronounce the whole word - they start saying it, and than, meh, you know what I mean. For tourists, that's exactly the trap you don't want to fall into. Riding on a train, we had to learn how our stops are written - and read the names on one of the many scoreboards. We would never get off where we needed otherwise.

Do I even need to spell out my happiness at the parking habits of the Danes?

It's a miracle we didn't get lost in the whole train system - but we arrived at Hillerød and even found our way to Frederiksborg Slot.

Mind the names. Frederiksborg Slot (castle) is not the same as Frederiksberg Palace. Yep, I'm still confused.

The castle is huge (the largest Scandinavian Renaissance residence), full of impressive artwork, architectural decoration and - my personal favorite and an addition to the collection - features the sculpture of Uranus consuming his child. Gives me the tingle every time.

Also, Hillerød is that typical small European town full of medieval-to-renaissance architecture that we all love so much. Definitely worth a stroll.

Yet it was the next place that served as a cherry on the top - Kronborg, the famed castle of Hamlet. Well, not really, but that's what they advertise it as, so let them. Besides, it was an extremely thrilling experience that I wouldn't expect from a marketing trick like this one.

The reason's simple: it was genuinely spooky. We left it for last since it was open the longest, already after the sun set and the spectacular dusk fell onto the small town of Helsingør. The wide roadway to the castle was aligned with large bowls of cracking flame, a fine replacement for the torches under the seaside winds. The castle itself was engulfed in the Christmas atmosphere - but given it's huge chambers, it was half empty, with people clustering in the small souvenir rooms. The place looked ghostly, adding to its charm. We wandered around the half-lit rooms set in medieval entourage, looked through the fogged windows upon the gulf facing Sweden (with cannons aiming at the potential attackers) and listened to the loud echoes of our footsteps. As the darkness settled in, we came out to the square courtyard. The soft sounds of Christmas carols from the warm tents, the set of windows with flickering lights inside, the gusts of wind throwing snow into our faces - the ambiance of the place was impossibly authentic.

And that's not to mention the dungeons. We went looking for the legendary giant Holger sleeping under the castle - the one destined to wake up to protect Denmark from the foes. I found him in one of the rooms (although I am tempted to describe it as an underground cave), and then I got lost in the dungeons. Low ceilings, dirt-to-sand ground, no lighting whatsoever and a labyrinth of uneven rooms used for storage of food and prisoners. In the middle of my way through the labyrinth there were footsteps behind my back, and a convulsive beam of light chasing the shadows: the castle was closing for the night, and the officers were tasked with catching all the tourists out of the premises. But well. It literally was running through the dungeons away from the castle guards.

That sticky feeling at the back of your head when you're drowning in the darkness and feel the chill creep up your spine - yes, that's what all castles should have.

It was only natural that after such a thrilling chase I needed to wash away the adrenaline. So, teaming up with another tourist, we found our way to the shore and dipped our hands into the freeing waters of Øresund. Quite satisfying and integral to our north experiences.

The Weed Freetown

There's a place in Copenhagen that absolutely screams of modern democracy. I've seen some freetowns around Europe (the idea's gaining popularity, eh?), but it's Christiania that made me think they might've gone a bit overboard. Can you even imagine a whole neighborhood selling weed just like that, in the open? The air in this place is sweetly intoxicating.

Don't try to take photos of people selling the goods. You'll be asked to delete the photos if not stripped of your phone.

Church of Our Savior, Christiania, Copenhagen

But that was not the main reason we came to Christiania. Instead, our major goal was the Church of Our Savior and its winding staircase.

Proceed with caution! The staircase around the spire is dizzying. It narrows down with each step, the rails are frail - looking down is not for people afraid of heights.

Jamming away our ennui on leaving Copenhagen with some Danish flæskesteg sandwiches, we roamed the streets for the last time. Wandered into some nerd merchandise stores, bought some sweets for souvenirs, and gave away our last krone to the carol singers just because they were that good. Truly a trip worth of a lingering nostalgia.

What to see:

Nyhavn

Tivoli

Strøget

Rundetaarn

Frederik's Church

City Hall

Kongens Nytorv

the Little Mermaid (but only if you want to be disappointed)

St Alban's Church

Copenhagen Opera House

Amalienborg

Rosenborg Castle

Christiansborg Palace

Kronborg (the famed castle of Hamlet, the Dutch prince)

Frederiksborg Castle (Hillerød)

Freetown Christiania

Church of Our Saviour

Copenhagen subway (it's not fancy but it's autopiloted)

Paper Island (this one strictly for street food)

What to eat:

traditional roasted pork with a crispy crust (flæskesteg)

apples in caramel

gløgg (spirited, naturally; otherwise you cannot experience hygge or anything close to comfortable)

pickled herring

smørrebrød (Denmark is the birthplace of this fishy sandwich)

traditional nougat

Pickled herring

So what?

Danish nougat. Christmas market at Kongens Nytorv

Not sure how this happened but I would definitely repeat a trip like this. Despite the cold weather, the wind under your coat, and (let's be honest) the crippling prices, it's one of the warmest experiences I've ever had. In short: you don't need to spend months in Denmark to learn about the most important part of the Danish culture. Just Keep Calm and Hygge.

#copenhagen #denmark #hillerod #helsingor

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womanaction · 7 years

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btvs/ats/community (hope i'm not doing too much lol) for the fandom meme

are you kidding me anon i live for this!!! thank you!

buffy

the character i least understand: like...anya probably? from a storytelling standpoint i don’t think the writers really agreed on what to do with her and from a relating standpoint she’s 1000+ years old and a former-then-again demon. they just didn’t really go into her character enough for me to say i understand her, and i think it’s easy to write her on a shallow level.

interactions i enjoyed the most: the easy thing to say is probably my ships right, and it is true that spike/buffy is my otp maybe mostly because i’m endlessly fascinated by their dynamics, but i also really love the og scoobies hanging out and especially the willow/xander friendship. beyond that i also loved tara&dawn and spike&dawn. and buffy&cordy, which i do ship but i brotp it more than otp most days. either way is good though.

the character who scares me the most: willow bc of below answer

the character who is mostly like me: willow. definitely willow. i’ve thought about making a photoset w characters i id w the most and she’d be dead center. i sometimes can’t even enjoy her character, especially at cringey moments, because of that, and i recognize that her worst qualities are some of mine too. i don’t think i’d try to destroy the world but thankfully i shouldn’t ever have the opportunity.

hottest looks character: faith? i totally change my answer every time bc i’m a cheating bisexual (this is the one scenario where that stereotype is correct)

one thing i dislike about my fave character: i’m going to use buffy as my fave here bc i’ll talk about cordy below. (i like to think about myself as having 3 types of faves in each fandom: the fave to watch, the one i id with, and the one i’d die for. buffy’s the latter.) writing-wise i dislike how we lose a lot of access to buffy’s inner mind. person-wise i guess her black-and-white thinking? it’s pretty necessary to her work and it’s obviously not as bad as like...riley’s but i think it’s detrimental to her in that she doesn’t seek out the help she needs. she wants to be all-slayer or all-buffy, she wants things to be all bad or all good.

one thing i like about my hated character: i guess my hated character is riley bc using a villain seems cheatish (i thought saying warren, and he makes star wars references). i actually have a lot in common with riley, which i’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but i really like how he tried to be involved with buffy’s family? like obviously later in s5 that turned into him acting weird and entitled about it but at the beginning when he’s trying to befriend dawn and such is sweet and good.

a quote or scene that haunts me: ummm all of them tbh. but to pick a random one i think a lot about the scene of buffy just staring at the water coming out of the faucet. also another water-related one, when i watch the body i’m always struck by the weird water purifier/cooler thing you see in their kitchen bc we had that exact same one in the house i lived in before my father passed away. getting personal i guess but the first time i watched it that floored me.

a death that left me indifferent: all of them affected me a lot i feel but jonathan’s definitely had less impact than i feel like it should given he’d been on the show for like 5 seasons by that point. and i like him as a character! i guess it got really subsumed into andrew’s character arc which kinda sucked, and it was played up more as a villain moment.

a character i wish died but didn’t: none of them i love my kids

my ship that never sailed: faith/buffy!!!! why...

angel

the character i least understand: maybe lorne? again like with the anya thing this is a character with a potentially fascinating backstory and a very unique perspective and we get just a little taste of it. love him though

interactions i enjoyed the most: i really loved the whole gang’s interactions tbh but wesley&gunn’s friendship deserves a special shout out. also doyle and angel did so much with that bond in so few episodes. and i also really liked lindsay’s interactions with angel for some reason, idk. maybe because he brings out angel’s petty side.

the character who scares me the most: probably angel, right? not angelus but when angel himself teeters into Badness territory. i’m both scared of him and scared for him.

the character who is mostly like me: either fred or angel. i get compared to fred a lot irl and online from people who’ve seen it mostly bc i have the same vague face concept as amy acker and also a southern accent, and i am in stem and whatever but i never felt like there was a lot there for me to latch onto. imo fred was a major missed opportunity too, they didn’t flesh her out nearly as much as they could have. anyway they’re both kinda awkward and introverted and same.

hottest looks character: uhhh it’s cheating to say faith here again i guess but i’m doing it anyway.

one thing i dislike about my fave character: so i love cordy to death (obviously) i loved her almost immediately on buffy and only managed to love her even more but obviously she is very self-centered and could be a better friend sometimes...i guess...and i’m not gonna mention the travesty of her writing in s4.

one thing i like about my hated character: i guess that’s gonna be wesley? who i don’t hate at all i just felt like everything started getting drawn into the Orbit of his Manpain in the later seasons BUT i love dorky!wes to death. like “rogue demon hunter” wes. that’s the wes for me.

a quote or scene that haunts me: like not to be obvious but the “nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do” MURDERS me every time like i honestly find so much meaning in that. but i also think about cordy accepting the demon at the end of “birthday” and almost cry every time she’s just so brave and strong and willing to be better and i’m upset.

a death that left me indifferent: wes again? i’m sorry y’all are gonna murder me. it’s not that it left me indifferent but after cordy and fred died...and not long after lilah either and lorne is over here shooting lindsay...i didn’t have many emotions left sorry

a character i wish died but didn’t: uhmmm none of them honestly except if s4 was a character

my ship that never sailed: WELL honestly angel and cordy never got to be together at all...but they did admit they loved each other...but my only other real ship here was wesley/lilah so idk, they were both tragic and barely happened so take ur pick, joss whedon hates my happiness :/ oh wait snap! i was actually a little invested in angel and kate before that arc got thrown out the window. so them i guess.

community

the character i least understand: excluding like...todd...of the main cast probably shirley. not that i don’t understand her exactly but it’s yet another case of writers not really knowing what to do with a character and her writing sometimes being very uneven. obviously it’s a comedy so i’m not expecting in depth explorations of every detail but i did feel like there were lots of blanks about her past/motivations/etc that just got ignored. still love her though.

interactions i enjoyed the most: well obviously i love annie/abed platonically or romantically...and i also ship britta/jeff so them too. there wasn’t nearly enough britta/annie which i also ship both ways. i also loved the weird dynamic with annie being pierce’s favorite...and shirley&jeff!! underutilized but always good.

the character who scares me the most: hmm i was really worried about jeff for a while there.

the character who is mostly like me: annie tbh her perfectionism and drive and anxieties are just.....right there in my brain....always.

hottest looks character: annie, alison brie is a flawless goddess of sexiness and humor. that said thanks to aforementioned identification i can’t crush on annie per se? but divorced from personality she wins for sure.

one thing i dislike about my fave character: so my favorite to watch is britta and i had a really hard time with some of her cringier psych-major material bc i’ve known so many irritating psych majors like that. mmmmmmmmnnnnnnnuuuugh. hard to sit through. good stuff but cringey

one thing i like about my hated character: i really don’t hate any of the characters? i guess picking pierce out of the mains i liked his moments of kindness and especially whenever he tried to bond w jeff. good stuff

a quote or scene that haunts me: the whole ending of “virtual systems analysis” honestly...some Strong Identification w both annie and abed happening there.

a death that left me indifferent: i mean i guess if hickey really died in s6 as implied in that one screenshotted email or whatever that, since they didn’t go into it, but otherwise i guess when star burns [fake] died

a character i wish died but didn’t: uhhhhh none i love my kids

my ship that never sailed: annie/abed, i can’t shut up about it (that said i’m glad it didn’t sail tbh bc i don’t think i would have liked what the writers would have done with it probably but still)

#i just love everything too much lmao #btvs #ats #community #anons #conversations with living people

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

After a crowded and lengthy contest for the Democratic presidential nomination, the party fell in line on Super Tuesday, effectively choosing Joe Biden as the best nominee for the 2020 election. But it would be a stretch to conclude that he was the best competitor in that contest.

His debate performances in 2019 and early 2020 were uneven and punctuated with awkward gaffes. He changed stances on some high-profile issues. And he’s never been a particularly distinguished public speaker or fundraiser. Also, unlike other candidates, such as Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, Biden lacked a passionate following.

So how did he end up defeating everyone else?

If we want to understand how Biden won the nomination, we first need to understand the Democratic Party in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Biden won the 2020 nomination, arguably, because of the way Democrats interpreted Hillary Clinton’s loss four years ago.

As detailed in my upcoming book, “Learning from Loss: The Democrats 2016-2020,” one of the most consistent and consequential lessons from my conversations with Democratic activists, Democratic National Committee members, officeholders, and other party insiders, was a post-election narrative that blamed Clinton’s loss on her use of “identity politics.”

That’s obviously a loaded term, but I am using it to refer to Clinton’s outreach to women, people of color, the LGBTQIA community, and other marginalized groups during her 2016 campaign. According to many think pieces published shortly after the election, this is why Clinton lost. The argument went that by talking about race and identity bluntly, Clinton excluded working-class white people from a party they’d previously embraced. In turn, they responded by voting for a candidate who was very explicitly courting them: Donald Trump.

Of course, “identity politics” wasn’t the only explanation for the surprisingly close results of the 2016 election. A number of other theories propagated too, including that Clinton campaigned poorly or in the wrong places, that the party’s messaging was deficient, and that Russia and other outside actors tipped the scales for Trump. “She should’ve gone to Wisconsin,” “Bernie would’ve won,” etc., were all common post-election refrains. These sorts of narratives are common when a party loses, and, in many ways, are ultimately healthy in helping a party decide how to move forward from loss.

An important caveat to these explanations, however, is that they often aren’t based on very much hard data. That is, just because a candidate had a certain message and lost doesn’t mean that the candidate lost because of that message. In fact, we know that most campaign decisions have pretty modest effects, if any, on actual voting outcomes.

Politicians and parties still crave these narratives, though, especially when they lose. Winning, explains political scientist Marjorie Hershey, has a “fairly blunt, conservatizing effect on campaigners.” As long as they’re winning, they’re going to assume that whatever they’re doing is right, and they’ll continue to do it. Conversely, Hershey argues, those who lose an election will be very open to making changes the next time around, figuring that at least one of the actions they took last time was responsible for their loss.

To understand how these explanations of the 2016 election sat with Democratic Party insiders, I spoke with 65 Democratic activists — including party leaders and staff, campaign workers and donors — in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. on a regular basis.1 And over the course of these conversations, a pattern emerged: Nearly a third of the party activists I spoke with cited “identity politics” as one reason for Clinton’s loss.2

Now, this doesn’t mean this was the only explanation they gave. In fact, more activists said that the campaign messaging and strategy were defective, or that Clinton herself was to blame. A separate study I conducted of newspaper coverage in the wake of the 2016 election found that about a third of news stories and op-eds argued that Clinton lost because of her focus on identity politics.

This is significant because post-election narratives are one way a losing party can reassess its strategy. If a party believes, for instance, that Clinton lost because she was a bad candidate or because her campaign was flawed, it can pick a different candidate or improve its campaign tactics without needing to dramatically rethink what the party stands for. But believing Clinton lost because of identity politics is a much harder pill to swallow. Namely, because accepting that means undermining something many Democrats believe in — the importance of promoting diversity and enhancing the power of underrepresented groups.

There’s a long history of this narrative being used to explain loss within the modern Democratic Party, too. Pretty much any time it has lost at the presidential level, a substantial segment of the party is quick to blame its focus on diversity, and, in turn, urges the party to refocus on working-class white voters, who have been part of the Democratic coalition since the New Deal. After Walter Mondale’s loss to Ronald Reagan in 1984, for example, Tennessee’s Democratic Party chair said, “The perception is that we are the party that can’t say no, that caters to special interests and that does not have the interests of the middle class at heart.” A national Democratic leader complained about the emphasis the party placed on Black voters, lamenting that “White Protestant male Democrats are an endangered species.” The post-2016 environment was no exception, with Democratic leaders warning the party not to abandon the white working class.

Even the Democratic activists and insiders I spoke with who strongly support the party’s historical role in advancing underrepresented groups emerged from the 2016 election frightened and confused by its results. As one New Hampshire activist — a lifelong feminist — told me in early 2017, “Based on what happened with Hillary, I think we now need to nominate a man.” She added, “[Former President] Barack Obama is an incredibly strong man. He can’t do what he did and not be a strong man. But he didn’t project raging masculinity, and I think you kind of have to do that [to go up against Trump]. I hate to say that … I’m gonna get kicked out of the women’s club.”

Biden, then, was in many ways a logical choice for a party in this condition.

Surveys among Democratic voters and activists repeatedly showed that, even when they didn’t see Biden as their top candidate, they saw him as the most electable, and overall, they prioritized electability to a far greater degree than they had in recent elections.

Biden was also, in some ways, a relatively easy choice for party insiders — he was broadly popular among the party’s voters, performed well in general election matchup polls, was closely tied to the Obama administration as its former VP, and was one of the only candidates who received widespread support from Black voters. But, at the end of the day, Biden also represented a safe choice for a party that had tried something new in 2016 and, in the eyes of many, had been punished for it.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Seth Masket

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ember373 · 4 years

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June 17, 2020 2:21 am

I cut my hair. Whacked it off to just below my chin. It was irritating me being so long and floofy, but there was another reason I cut it off. I have this hairdresser and she moved away. I had every intention of driving the long distance to see her and make trips out of it. But the more time passed, the more I realized the oppressor would never let me. It would be a fight every time. A fight I don’t know that I want to bother with. I also don’t think the hairdresser cares if she sees me again or not. I’m just a client. Not a friend. And what if she really didn’t want to see me but was just being nice? Even if that’s not the case, I don’t really feel like bothering her in her new world. G can go there and they can be small town together and have fun. I don’t feel like I belong anymore. I guess it’s because of that whole thing with my birthday. Ever since then, I’ve felt like an outsider. Not that they exclude me from anything, I just don’t feel a part of the group. They are so similar and then there’s me. I noticed I’d been getting more aloof with every visit. Withdrawing more and more. Talking less. So when I looked in the mirror and saw my mess of hair on top my head, I thought ‘Well, I’ll just cut it. Not like I’m going to see my hairdresser ever again. And I hate finding new ones. So I guess it’s just me again. I’ve done it before, I can do it now.’ And with that I cut it off. At first it was shoulder length. But when I looked in the mirror a couple days later, I decided it needed to be shorter. So I lopped it off. I turned into a triangle head. I almost cried. Google helped me out with that tho, and pretty soon I was shaping it and it looks much better. Uneven, but better. Does it look like I just went to the salon? Definitely not, but it’s liveable. I don’t know that I feel like going to the salon anymore. I hate small talk. They don’t really care, they just want a good tip. I thought my last one cared. Yeh, I’m pretty stupid.

The weather is getting warmer now. It’s that season where I can roll the windows down and feel the wind tug at my hair. I don’t have to worry about it getting in my mouth. After so many years of long hair, I really do love it short. I think I only kept it long because everyone said how special it made me and the guys I dated loved it long. Screw them. I’ll do with it what I want. Myself. I don’t need anyone’s help. I never did. I guess it was nice while it lasted. But the illusion faded and it’s time to move on. Maybe I’ll get a box dye and dye it black again. Hahahahaha! Hairdressers really love that. (I’m not going to. I’d fuck it up. Lol) Cutting off my hair I guess was symbolic of cutting off that relationship. Maybe even G. I don’t really want to deal with anyone anymore. Not even him. Or so I tell myself since he went silent again. I’m done reaching out. I never get what I want anyway. What’s the point? It’s better if I just stay in my own little world. Less disappointing that way on certain levels. Last time I felt like this, I kept to myself for a couple years. We’ll see how long it lasts this time. Maybe forever. I’m having trouble finding my give a fuck about that, so I’m not gonna try.

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ginnypotterlightning · 6 years

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Ranking of the Harry Potter Movies

After I reread the books I am hoping to binge watch the movies (most likely post grad). Have I bing watched the movies since the last one came out????? I don’t think so. Now I normally just watch them when they come on TV, that tended to be the case I have flashbacks to watching it on ABC but now that it’s played on Freeform a million times I’ve seen certain scenes a million times. It’s hard not to watch them. Being at school and Freeform deciding to cut Harry Potter weekends will give me the break that I need. I like waiting a year in between watching films but clearly, HP is an exception. Taking time in between watching things can give you a new point of view and always brings the emotion back which can be less meaningful if watching in a short amount of time. There is an uneven distribution of how many times I have watched each of the movies. I think I have seen Order of the Phoneix the least and then the Half-Blood Prince, I have watched the Deathly Hallows a significant amount more than those two (I am not sure which one I’ve seen more because again I mainly watch them on FreeForm even though it would take less time watching them on a DVD player that isn’t connected to a TV).

With no question, Chamber of the Secrets is my most watched film. At one point I knew the first two movies by heart and knew most of the 3rd movie. I’ve seen the Prisoner of Azkaban more than I think. And since the later movies came out I think it lowered my overall view counts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

8th Place - The Order of the Phoneix. I watched part of this film the other day and I really don’t hate this film as much as I talk about it being my least favorite. Maybe I was blinded by dislike. But it is good. There’s a reason why JKR is BRILLIANT. I think this one is just my least favorite when it comes to the characters and the storyline. Similar to my Ranking of the books, I hate Umbridge and Harry is a bit Hormonal in this one. The story, in general, isn’t as memorable compared to the others. The other day I realized that I had forgotten that Voldemort and Dumbledore duel in this one, how does someone forget that?? I think the DA montage is one of my favorite parts of this film. This lighting in this one, as in the Half-Blood Prince is a bit awkward and even makes the viewing more difficult for the audience at times which is a shame. But it is definitely better executed in this film than it is in the Half-Blood Prince. I remember Sirus being a bit more annoying in this book and I like that they excluded that in the film because I feel like it makes the death more heartbreaking.

7th - Half-Blood Prince.

5-7 are the only books I read BEFORE watching the movie but I feel like this is the only movie that was truly impacted by it. In the fifth movie, I feel like non-readers may be a bit confused by the prophecy but it is still explained. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is where they pull out a lot a lot of the backstory making it difficult to understand. It’s sad because I love this book and maybe it’s because I love this book so much that I am so critical of the movie. I think they just focus too much on the relationships and yet not enough. I remember Ginny being one of my favorite characters. But years after not having read the books and only having watched pieces here and there of the movies it almost makes me question why. The movies don’t give it justice. As I have mentioned in another post I’ve never really cared about the relationships and yet I must have to a degree because I found it entertaining in the book. But it was cheesy in the movie. Which I mean could also be said for the books but I prefer the books some of that could be because we are inside of Harry’s head and know what he’s thinking which naturally is the downfall of those style of movie, you have to display thoughts in a non-overt way. I’ve never been huge on comedies so that’s another reason why I’m not the biggest fan of this film which they clearly try to do. It’s the specific style of comedy too that I’m like ehhh I would rather do without. With that said I think that the Felix Felicis scene is done brilliantly.

Here on out it’s more difficult to rank them ...

In 6th place, I will put Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. I love this movie and ofc it has the magic of first coming to Hogwarts. I will say that the chamber of secrets is the movie that has the most nostalgia for me. Also when I was younger sometimes I would watch the ending scene through my fingers because Prof Q unraveling his turban is creepy. I would say that this film encompasses a magical feel that some of the others don’t. But that Daniel still brilliantly portrays in almost all of the movies. The CGI on the other hand. Haha. I didn’t notice this when I was younger but once the technology improved it was very evident and even distracting.

I was surprised by my ranking for this next film. I wasn’t exactly sure where to place this one on my list. Some people don’t like this film but I do. In the grand scheme of things, I feel like you could do without this film if you had to and so I’m 5th place is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. You can tell they went all out with the last two films and I am forever grateful for that. Besides watching something that reminded me that there was some background that could’ve been easily included in the beginning of the story I have nothing bad to say about the movie. It was well acted and that is saying a lot considering there isn’t much action to hide behind, most of this movie focuses on relationship...this was a real testament to the actors knowing their character. While I have watched this movie on its own multiple times I would say it is the movie that is least suited to do so. You could also argue the same for part two regarding the plot but I think that is where the action wins out, and you can at least kind of tell what is happening (this is pretending like I didn’t know rest of the story line)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes in at 4th place. There was no question that this one is near the top. This starts with a heartwrenching death, it gives you the outstanding performance of Helena as Hermonie, Breaking into Gringotts (in the book the enchantment stole the show, in the movie it’s the dragon) (does anything else happen before they get to Hogsmeade besides the dragon landing because I feel like it’s not much besides I flash to Voldemort) so basically from there on out it goes to Hogwarts. There we get the reunion of the characters, Snape’s story, sad deaths, McGonagall, resurrection stone, Harry's death to the end of the film lol... Nevil and Mrs. Weaseleys bad ass moves. More death and the part that probably made me sob the most the epilogue, it’s over and there's not a time I don’t cry over that scene. *the only reason to have kids, to pass on my love for Harry Potter* Ok but I do actually have a complaint about this movie and it is that I don’t like the visuals of how VOldomort died (or Bellatrix), yes it’s better than his body lying there but, I don’t know, I get what they were trying to do but ehh I just wasn’t a huge fan mainly in how it starts in his face, the face he makes, then he kinda melts, I don’t know. Oh also how Voldemort flys.

Over the past couple of hours my top three films have switched orders landing me with the following

In 3rd Place is Harry Potter and the

Prisoner of Azkaban. Young me would be surprised by this. When I was younger it was striking how dark this was, I always liked Goblet of Fire better, even though someone dies in that one. But over time I phased out of that. The movie is brilliant, and honestly puts most of the other films to shame, it is so well done. Like ugh this one so hard to explain and yet its so different from the rest. I love what Alfonso did with it, the dementors are well done, I love how you can see more of the castle, the music is brilliant, visually it’s probably the best film. This movie is hilarious. But it’s not trying too hard like the 6th one is...Wow I just wow.

In 2nd Place is Harry Potter and the

Goblet of Fire. When I first put this list in order this film was in 1st place because I couldn’t have 2 in 1st place mostly due to nostalgia, but that’s exactly what I am doing. Then it got demoted to 3rd place, but it’s pushed up to 2 because I like the storyline more. It’s so interesting and unlike any other year at Hogwarts. This one 4 up they all have angst, 4 & 5 have the most, I think, but this is an angst that I can deal with (and actually enjoy in the storyline) because it’s a little bit here and there and spread among the people. I just love this movie I think the only thing that would’ve made it better was if OG Dumbledore was in it, but death is inevitable, can’t do anything about that. Maybe it was because I did watch the movie before I watched the film but I didn’t care too much about things that were left out. But even then I wasn’t phased too much by the things 5 left out and I read that one before I watched it. Obviously, I would’ve loved to have a Dobby appearance but we got him in the deathly hallows and that’s all that matters. Let's be real my favorite music is also in my top three minus the weird wizard punk band, yeah that’s my one complaint, I wasn’t a fan of that, that was just weird.

And last but not least in 1st place is...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The acting and the CGI won’t get better than the last film (minus the flaky deaths) but this one encompasses the magic that is Hogwarts (The CGI is significantly less distracting in this movie than in the first). I feel like the 2nd movie is what the 1st movie is to so many others but I like the second one more because we are already introduced to Harry’s world. I loved Richard Harris’ rendition of Dumbledore, so I will first give a nod to that. I knew every single word to this film, me and my friend would act it out. We get to see the BUrrow and Harry’s relationship with the Weasely’s is strengthened. I like that it is a school round horror occurring, a mystery to be solved, there are amazing quotes in this film Harry Ron and Hermione will always be a team even when she petrified. I love the ending scene I sob like a baby when I watch it. ... I just love it <3

Ranking of the Harry Potter Movies

1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

8. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoneix

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cathygeha · 7 years

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Synopsis:

HE CAN TAKE THE HEAT. Hot, hard-bodied Sixten Rapp is a former SEAL who’s raring to begin his brand-new civilian life. He and his Navy “brothers” start a security firm that offers the kind of services only a team of military-trained professionals can provide. But nothing prepared Six for his new client: an innocent woman on a mission to improve thousands of lives. . . unless someone takes hers first.

CAN SHE HANDLE THE FLAMES? Dr. Louisa North knows time is against her as she tries to create a “miracle” medical treatment for a disease with no known cure, until she creates a sample so powerful that the wrong people want to use it as a chemical weapon. At first, Six is unwilling to accept Louisa as his client. But soon he realizes that the danger is real and that there’s much more to this plain-Jane scientist…including a burning passion between them that neither of them can resist. And now that an enemy is on Louisa’s trail, Six will do whatever it takes to protect her―or die trying.

Buy Now: Amazon US | Amazon UK | B&N | Chapters Indigo | iBooks

Review: Under Fire by Scarlett Cole

Love Over Duty #1

Scarlett Cole can write! She took my breath away with her Second Circle Tattoos series then with Preload, a spin-off series from Second Circle Tattoos, I became even more committed to her writing SO when I saw a retired group of men to star in her third series I wondered if she could pull it off. She definitely did!

As an introduction to the Love Over Duty series we meet Mac, Cabe and Sixton – the founders of Eagle Securities. They have saved money while in the military with the idea of opening a business when they retired from the Navy. And, with all three finally on the ground in San Diego and ready to work together they are hiring men to be on the team, spending time together and busy, busy, busy. One night Sixton “Six” Rapp is working a fundraiser as security where he meets brilliant nerdy Louisa “Lou” North. He supports her as she faces speaking to the group willing to donate money toward her research (and other projects) and then they meet again when out on a trail and she helps him with a bit of PTSD. So, both have some issues with hers being anthropophobia and his PTSD. I always enjoy learning something new and this term was new to me (severe timidity and trouble dealing with people). I also learned about “box breathing” and though I have done breathing exercises THIS was new to me.

Anyway, the two hit it off but really get together when Louisa approaches Six with her fears that the lab she is doing experiments has been compromised. The stakes are increased when papers and more go missing from the lab and then Louisa is targeted for kidnap. With Six and his team paid to keep Lou safe and on the job to find out what is going on the case is solved and resolved (mostly) by the end of the book AND there is a HEA for Six and Lou to look forward to as well as the reader getting to contemplate what will happen next in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4 Stars

UNDER FIRE Excerpt

“Tell me again why you are here.”

She was cute when she was prickly. He reached forward and pulled Ocean’s Eleven, the original one, from a category titled Capers, and handed it to her.

“I heard it’s movie night at the North house, so figured I’d come hang out.” He moved to the sofa, flopped down, and placed his boots on the glass coffee table.

Once the movie started, she came and sat by him, and he did his best to ignore the way her shorts rode up her thighs. He spent more of his time with company in his bed than not. And that company, whoever she was that given day, usually had no issue whatsoever dropping her clothes the moment she stepped through his door. So naked skin he was totally down with. Yet somehow, just that tiny bit of extra flesh had him feeling giddy, like he was the boy who’d lost his virginity in less than two minutes giving it to Jessica McKade.

Louisa slapped his thigh. “At least take your shoes off,” she said before she stuck her hand in their popcorn.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sitting forward and toeing his boots off.

A week ago, he couldn’t have imagined himself ready to take orders again so soon, but back then, he hadn’t met Louisa North.

Excerpt Two:

Excerpt from Under Fire by Scarlett Cole

“Now that you’ve got a little more color in your face, and you’ve stopped shaking, you want to tell me who those men were, or what they wanted?”

Louisa smoothed her hands down the front of his chest to fix his rumpled hoodie and then straightened the hem. Six grabbed her hands in his and stilled them. His hands were the size of baseball mitts compared to hers.

“I don’t know for sure. They beat you in here by a minute or two at most. They told me that they wanted me to go with them, and that was about it. I don’t want to think this has something to do with the missing sample.”

Thoughts crowded in almost too quickly to process them all. Things like this didn’t happen to her. It went against the rules. Her rules that said she would spend her life doing research away from all the horrid stuff that went on in the world. And shit like this certainly didn’t happen in Mission Hills. She wondered if it was smart to keep the fact that she’d swapped the two samples and disposed of the one they seemed to be after five days earlier from the police when they finally arrived. But this was a golden opportunity to find out where the police were with the theft in the lab. Obviously Six had saved her life, but she didn’t want him to get into trouble for shooting one of the men. She wasn’t even sure how that would work. It wasn’t like he was defending his home. He was defending hers with a gun he’d brought with him which she wasn’t sure was even legal. Crap.

“It’s all such a mess,” she whispered against Six’s shoulder.

“I know. But I’m right here with you,” he said softly.

Her heart pounded again and her head felt groggy, like mud, as though she was hungover. What she really needed was some silence. She tried to pull away from Six, but he wouldn’t let her move. “Let me go,” she said, blowing her bangs out of her face.

Six shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ll walk the police through it step by step, and I’ll tell them what I know. Then we’ll figure out how to make you safe tonight. Then in the morning, I’ll help you figure out what you can do to remain safe while this gets sorted out.”

What if they came back? Oh, God. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She could go to her mother’s home, but that might lead the people that were after her to her family. Damn. Why had she already decided it was about the sample when it could have been an abduction attempt or an armed robbery, which didn’t make her feel less vulnerable but did quash all the conspiracy theories in her head? What if she was excluding options that were important? She was the daughter of a very wealthy widow. Ransom could be a possibility.

Six squeezed her shaking hands, bringing her back to the present. “And just so you know, staying safe means learning to protect yourself, sweetheart.”

“I did just fine,” Louisa huffed, unwilling to take on the mantle of victim she was constructing in her head.

“You held a rolling pin,” Six said, shaking his head at her. “What were you going to do, Betty Crocker them to death?”

She pushed her hands against his chest, and this time he let her go. It had never occurred to her that someone would violate her home, but Six was right. If she looked at it logically, she obviously needed to upgrade every element of her home security. She couldn’t even remember when she’d last opened the window in the dining room, but she’d obviously become lax in locking it afterward. And none of her external security lights had come on, which meant they either weren’t effective or the sensors were pointing at the wrong places. And her alarm had the ability to be on for just the doors and windows when she was home but awake, yet she never—

“What’s going on inside that head of yours?” Six asked. “Because you disappear inside it sometimes and I worry when I see you start messing with things.”

Louisa looked down at her hands and realized she was restacking the coasters she had placed on the marble. “I was just thinking through what you said. I guess I’ve become a little lazy … I’ve stopped worrying about home security because nothing ever really happens here.”

“Okay, we’ll look at two things. One, how you protect your home, and two, how you protect yourself in the event that someone makes it past all of your other defenses.” He parted her bangs with his finger, and it made her shiver.

Since her father’s death, she hadn’t had anyone to count on. Not like this. “Why are you really here, Six? It’s not about my uneven shelves, is it?” she asked quietly.

Six studied her face, taking in her forehead, her cheeks, and even her neck before meeting her eyes. It was a moment that felt much longer, filled with … something. Potential, maybe. “Because you asked me to help, and—”

He stopped talking at the sound of wheels pulling onto the gravel. Quickly, he shut off the kitchen light, and it became apparent that the exterior lights were on. With a swift jog, gun drawn, he hurried to take a look out the window. Blue and red beams of light flashed onto her kitchen wall. They were the best thing she’d seen all day, well, other than seeing the door to the kitchen burst open and Six rolling in, looking as deadly as any soldier she’d ever seen. In hindsight, now that the danger had passed, she realized he’d looked hotter than any Hollywood action star in a big blockbuster movie.

Even as she wondered what other reason he’d been about to give her for being there, she realized that none of his words, or the arrival of the police, meant she was safe

Praise for UNDER FIRE…

"Fantastic characters, scorching sexual tension, and non-stop action make this one of my favorite reads this year! Highly recommend!" —New York Times bestselling author Laura Kaye

"Scarlett Cole's characters pull you in from the very first page with real emotion and sizzling chemistry. Don't miss this action packed thrill ride."—Cherry Adair, New York Times bestselling author

“Non-stop action and heart-pounding romance...a must-read for romantic suspense fans!” —Cynthia Eden, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author

“Cole has done a wonderful job of giving her characters depth and unique personality traits. She has a way of drawing a reader into a story with interesting descriptions, and the sizzling-hot romance is a huge draw. This series looks to be a good one that readers will anxiously want to get their hands on.” —RT Book Reviews

About Scarlett Cole

The tattoo across my right hip says it all really. A Life Less Ordinary. Inked by the amazingly talented Luke Wessman at the Wooster Street Social Club (a.k.a. New York Ink). Why is it important? Well, it sums up my view on life. That we should all aspire to live a life that is less boring, less predictable. Be bold, and do something amazing. I’ve made some crazy choices. I’ve been a car maker, a consultant, and even a senior executive at a large retailer running strategy. Born in England, spent time in the U.S. and Japan, before ending up in Canada were I met my own, personal hero – all six and a half feet of him. Both of us are scorpios! Yeah, I know! Should have checked the astrological signs earlier, but somehow it works for us. We have two amazing kids, who I either could never part with or could easily be convinced to sell on e-bay.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a really long time. Check through my office cupboards or my computer and you’ll find half written stories and character descriptions everywhere. Now I'm getting the chance to follow that dream.

Connect with Scarlett: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

#Scarlett Cole #Love Over Duty 1 #St. Martin's Press #SMP Romance #Barclay Publicity #Romantic Suspense #Military Veterans #PTSD #Huntington's Disease #anthropophobia #security #biological weapon

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