#well whatever it is there’s SOMETHING fundamentally wrong with you but we have neither the time nor tools to unpack all that. so

[greelin]

yeas i am a triple threat. mommy issues. daddy issues. Issues

#well whatever it is there’s SOMETHING fundamentally wrong with you but we have neither the time nor tools to unpack all that. so #under the rug it goes!

[inkdemonapologist]

A buncha scribbles from session 15 of the BatIM Cthulhu game! including:

Prophet swapped Sammy in for a brief moment of awareness before the final ritual to release the muses, in which he was relieved to see Susie okay and Susie was glad to see him... back to normal! Oh geez. Sammy doesn't actually know what Prophet's interactions with Susie were, but he's sure he probably regrets them

Susie hummed a little bit of a new version of one of the Bendy songs Sammy had been working on and oH YEAH THATS RIGHT SHE'S STILL KIND OF POSSESSED,

Back when the Coney Island ride they were underneath was flooding, I specified that Prophet was going to climb up the stairs "on all fours" to minimise chances of slipping and falling and I just wanted to try to draw this lmao. i forgot he was wearing a vest here

with Joey exhausted, Allison was the only one who could conduct the final ritual, and Sammy ended up calling out Prophet to keep an eye on her. i was just way too amused by the idea of sammy just TAKING A SWIG OF INK WITHOUT BREAKING EYE CONTACT TO DO THIS

also in addition to me drawing just so many scribbles of sammy lawrence i DO have some out-of-context quotes for you!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[GM] It kind of jolts, and turns – assumedly – towards you, [Sammy] *laughs* YOU CAN’T TELL which direction it’s looking in, just, IT HAS MOVED

[GM] And some tentacles are gonna come at you guys! Like they do. [Jack] #JustTentacleThings

[Joey] This IS Joey’s arm, which means if it does get destroyed by the circle, Joey’s going to be missing an arm…! [Jack] I can fix it, it’s fine, [GM] It’s fine! Yeah! [Sammy] How many limbs would you like to be made of ink, Joey Drew?! [Joey] I dunno if he’s gonna have a CHOICE! [Sammy] You’re going to have fewer working limbs than Moonlight.

[Sammy] These guys might all be those goop people, who are harder to fight than humans – [Henry] I don’t think Henry’s thinking about that. I think Henry just heard Bendy and Joey scream and is in Go Mode. [Sammy] Well-- [Henry] I mean, it’s a smart thought! I don’t think Henry’s having it right now.

[Sammy] Leon, if you want to surprise us all and do something really heroic, PLEASE go for it [Jack] I thought you were going to say “please DON’T” [GM] “Don’t be a hero!!” [Sammy] No no, I think it’s fine, if he wants to be a hero, I think he should do it. [Joey] I mean, if he wants to grab Colette and RUN, that would be great, [Sammy] Yeah, nobody can DRAIN INK out of HIM! [Jack] Unless we’re about to learn something,

[Sammy] No, wait, that was Colette’s parents. I can keep all my minor NPCs straight! [Jack] Straight? In this campaign?! [Sammy] *startled laugh* [GM] Tell me about it…! [Sammy] We can’t keep ANY of our NPCs straight! We’re fundamentally terrible at it.

[Jack] I’m imagining it like, you know when you try to use an item in the wrong place in pokemon? [Joey] THE MASKED MESSENGER SAYS: IT ISN’T THE TIME TO USE THAT!

[Joey] Hold on. I was going between two normal ideas, and then I had a really weird one, so I need to check something. [GM] Joey? Making bad decisions in the finale of a scenario? What a thought! [Joey] hIS SANITY IS NINETEEN, SO!!!!

[Joey] Okay. I have an idea. >:3 [Sammy] Oh NO. [Henry] Oh no. Have you got a Joey Plan™? [Joey] *cackling* [Sammy] *muttering under breath* We really should’ve just… waited for Henry…

[Joey] Joey is going to realise the ink is being siphoned from them for use in whatever this guy is trying to do, and he’s not pleased about that, [Sammy] Yeah, neither am I. So far we’re on the same page – [Joey] It’s HIS ink–! [Sammy] It, it’s not – okay. [Joey] So, remember when Joey was visited by the Masked Messenger, and they had the little battle over ink possession? Joey is going to take over the Ink in the circle -- [Sammy] OKAY! This SURE is a Joey Drew™ Plan, [Joey] -- and reclaim it for himself, and take over the magic! [Sammy] Well, the LAST time we had a circle dedicated to doing something with the Yellow King, and Joey switched it to be himself instead, that went SO well, why WOULDN’T you do the same thing again!! [Joey] Listen, he has 19 sanity, I don’t know what you’re expecting from him. *rolls* …….He has 18 sanity, I don’t know what you’re expecting from him!

[Henry] Henry is going to shove the blade of his axe against this guy’s throat and tell him if he does anything fishy, he’ll kill him. [Joey] (This includes turning into a fish.) [Joey] (No more tentacle monsters, no more fish monsters, none of that!)

[Henry] 32, which is a hard success. [Sammy] …What’s your intimidate skill?!? [GM] Oh, y’know, :) [Henry] 85. [Sammy] *nervous laughter???* [Jack] Normal amount. [Henry] Normal amount! [Sammy] YEAH, the same number as Sammy’s musical skill??? OKAY COOL!!!

[Sammy] Does Sammy look like his mascara is running? I just want to know.

[Joey] Can I… *quietly* ...grab Colette and toss her out of the circle? [Sammy] … YEET HER? [Joey] yEAH,,, [Henry] Can’t be more damage than falling over a fence. *everyone giggles except for Sammy* [Sammy] …Okay.

[Sammy] I can’t believe Joey is stealing Prophet’s nemesis. Rude. [GM] I mean, Joey DID stab Moonlight. They can share! [Joey] …I don’t know if they can share. They’ve been doing very bad at sharing.

[Jack] Also she’s not an ink creature, so, big win for you, Leon!

[Sammy] It grabbed me in the leg, right? [GM] Yeah! This is the cool leg scar. [GM] Not to be confused with the not-cool leg scar, [Jack] He’s just never going to live that down, huh. [Sammy] He COULD, if everyone would stop bringing it up! [GM] Sammy wakes up and hopes dearly that Prophet tripped over a fence so at least it’s both of them, but no…

[Joey] So – hold on, let me see if a thing existed back then. [GM] Oh boy…? [Joey] 18th century. Great! Okay, so I’m going to drain the rest of my magic points, to do a new toon action – you know those, circular saw blades? [GM] BUZZSAWS???

[Henry] Henry’s gonna do something suuuuuper risky,,, [Henry] He’s going to drop the axe and summon the scythe. [Sammy] ….OKAY, [Joey] Okay…! I’m very curious what’s going to happen if Henry uses the scythe on the mirror. [Henry] Oh, I wasn’t thinking that. [Sammy] UM, [GM] This is fine, this is great! [Sammy] Nervous chuckle, I’m in danger, [Henry] Henry is going to say “Sammy, duck!” and, swing the scythe [Sammy] OH, OKAY, I WILL DO THAT, [GM] Make a dodge roll! [Sammy] OhhhHHH THAT’S NOT GOOD… THAT’S NICE, BUT IT’S NOT GOOD,,,, My dodge is 55 and I rolled a 69, [Joey] Nice [GM] Nice! [Henry] And since it’s in close quarters, I’m guessing it’ll go through both of them. [GM] Yeah! Roll damage! [Sammy] CAN I,,,, PUSH THAT ROLL MAYBE,,, [GM] [GM] No. :) [Henry] *cackles*

[Jack] THAT’S trauma for future Sammy!!

[Jack] He’s gonna see if Sammy’s okay! See what’s going on. [Sammy] Sammy still looks pretty shaken up, and will tell him, “Stay back my sheep – I will join you soon.” [Henry] “I’m not going to hurt him!” [Sammy] jUST GIVES HENRY A LOOK,

[Sammy] So that’s seven damage! [GM] Okay! You see that the shadowy figure on the other side is ALSO trying to hit the mirror. [Sammy] Huh. Can I tell anything about the shadowy figure, now that I’m right up next to the mirror? [GM] Yeah! :) Uh, looks kinda familiar. It’s maybe somebody you’ve seen before. [Jack] yEAH I thought it might be,,, [Sammy] …wait, what? [GM] Maybe somebody… last scenario… [Jack] Who’s in Carcosa… and wants to break the mirror… [GM] Yeah, someone like that maybe! [Sammy] ………….. Is it… is it Moonlight…? [GM] Yeah! Yeah it is! ...Anyway, the mirror breaks. :)

*successful dexterity check to avoid getting knocked over* [GM] Okay, you keep your feet! [Sammy] Thanks, I like my feet.

[Joey] Joey is going to start scanning for his people, who LEFT HIM while he was being thrown around by tentacles, [Sammy] You were a great distraction, thank you. [Jack] You’ve gotta keep a better eye on your people, one of them just stabbed another! [Joey] EVERYONE ABANDONED ME! [Sammy] I TOLD YOU WHAT I WAS DOING! [Joey] Oh, yeah, no, Prophet gets a pass. Everyone else ran off, and – [Henry] YOU LEFT HENRY! [Joey] ….eh, ‘strue. [Joey] …Left Henry with others! [GM] Bendy’s still there! [Joey] Yeah. Bendy’s got me. [Sammy] Joey, any time he’s trying to leave by himself: “No, I’m never alone, I’m with Bendy!” Joey, as soon as we figure he’s fine, because he’s with Bendy: “HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME ALL ALONE?!” [Jack] Betrayed, Abandoned,

[Joey] And the water is coming in fast, [Henry] These people are going to have SUCH a mold problem when we’re done…

[Joey] Does Bendy have any magic points…? [Sammy] “I spent all of mine turning my arms into buzzsaws!” [Jack] As you do!

[Sammy] Poor Leon. I’m so sorry. You’re going to have to go straight into an asylum.

[GM] You’re pretty sure you’re not in Carcosa. [Jack] Okay, good. I needed to know if Jack would be panicking about things… [GM] He’s got plenty to panic about, but that one is currently good!

[GM] I wonder if Sammy… from Sammy’s point of view, Jack was driving when he lost consciousness, and then he’s still driving when he comes back! Like… he doesn’t even know they went to Coney Island, I don’t think? [Sammy] No, I guess not! Joey was just like “I know where they’re taking Colette” [Sammy] And now we’re going back to the Studio so it’s like, I guess we got Colette! And got wet, for some reason! [Jack] At least he didn’t end up seeing The Great Bertrum Piedmont. [Sammy] There are SO many things it’s good that he didn’t end up seeing.

[GM] Bendy is going to chime in that it was busy, but they went to an amusement park! [Joey] Joey’s going to correct him that they did NOT go to an amusement park. That was not what that is. [GM, as Bendy] “That’s what you said it was last time we went!” [Joey] “Was it like last time we went?!” [GM] He’ll think about that, go quiet for a minute, and then be like, “No, I guess not, huh!” [Joey] “EXACTLY.” [GM, as Bendy] “Yeah, he’s right, we didn’t!” [Sammy] Hm. Hmmmm. Sammy’s squinting at you both.

[Sammy] He might still cough up blood, just not embarrassingly so. Just, in a cool way!

[Henry] Henry will… “pull” is too strong of a word? But Henry will… physically encourage Joey to step back from the circle.

[Sammy] Ehhhhh, I don’t have a lot of hitpoints… [Joey] Who needs hitpoints? [Sammy] I do, I need them!!

[GM] *rolls* …hm. *mumbling to self* What do I do with that…? [Sammy] Troubling reaction! [GM] ….huh…. [Joey] Not getting less troubling!

[Henry] I don’t want to keep using the scythe spell, but it keeps presenting itself as the best option! [Joey] DO YOU HAVE, ANY OTHER OPTIONS,, FIRST???? [Henry] These things have a bajillion HP! [Sammy] I mean, you COULD do the scythe thing, but maybe don’t hit anybody else with it! [Jack] I think you should hit Sammy with it again. [Sammy] NO I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD

[Henry] Well, my strength is higher… oh no, it’s not, I’ve been doing too much mAGIC, [Sammy] That’s what happens when you do the scythe spell constantly!!! [Henry] Uggghhhhhhh... [Sammy] “Been doing too much scythe spell, better do some more scythe spell!”

[Joey] Do we have any bonus dice left? [Sammy] *sarcastically* Well! If we end up at the hotel, I DID scout it out ahead of time!

[GM] And Joey is feeling all the way better, except for all the ways that he is not!

[Henry] I just want to say, I did not expect Weird Henry to go on for FOUR SESSIONS. [Sammy] He went out with a bang, too, sliced a scythe RIGHT THROUGH THE PROPHET, [Henry] Yeah, everything has been working out so great!

#sammy lawrence #prophet sammy #susie campbell #sammy x susie #allison and henry are here too #call of cthulhu: haunted hijinx #when in doubt just keep drawing #cthulhu game quotes #paper texture from lostandtaken.com

[gatorinator]

SO I just watched the miraculous movie and I would like to say two things:

1) I really enjoyed the movie

2) it’s a very bad movie

Spoilers

The movie, as a miraculous fan, was fun to watch. But it’s not because it was a good movie. In fact, I think fundamentally this movie failed both as a movie, and as a movie musical.

Bad movie

The animation was absolutely gorgeous. But the writing was bad, and even looking past that (I haaaate how the beginning of the movie was like the beginning of every single kids/tween movie ever) the pacing of the movie was abhorrent. Lots of the jokes didn’t land, the moments they tried to set up cut away scenes didn’t have enough set up or flow (the back and forth of adrien telling plagg how much ladybug prolly liked him vs Marinett saying how dumb chat was, the back and forth of Alaya and Nino talking to marinett and Adrian) and felt weird and disjointed, and any time it felt like a scene was finally starting to flow, the movie would cut away to something else.

I’m just trying to imagine being a new viewer of the movie who hasn’t seen the show, and it feels like a nightmare. Gabriel is set up but somehow both too much and not enough. The final battle doesn’t last long enough. There’s a lot to complain about (don’t get me started on the fart jokes I can’t. I was in HELL).

Bad musical

The most egregious of crimes was the fact that this was a movie musical. I am sad that my friend told me it was a musical right before we started watching it because that would have been hilarious, but still. When marinett started singing I got jumpscared because I completely forgot.

Sarah Z has talked about how in musicals, when characters emotions are too overwhelming to say, they sing. When their emotions are too overwhelming to sing, they dance. Fundamentally, if you are going to have characters burst into song, that song should be led my emotions. Most of these songs felt led by a “ah this is a musical we need to have them sing a song.” That’s why the music always surprised me. The emotional buildup wasn’t there.

Yes, marinetts voice (am I spelling her name right? Oh well) sounded wildly different, but I’d be able to forgive that if the songs felt driven and not just inserted.

The other problem is: most of the songs are bad musical songs.

The greatest showman has the same problem. The songs are so bland and generic, all these “I want” songs where the character never clearly defines what they want, or sad songs about loss that don’t have any substance to them. The movie tells marinett over and over again to chase her dreams—but what are her dreams?? The opening number shows her sketchbook come to life—but she doesn’t sing about wanting to be a designer, or help others, or be able to fit in with her classmates and not endanger her life every time she leaves the house bc of how clumsy she is.

The songs sound like generic songs that would play nicely over the radio, and that means they fundamentally fail as a musical song because musical songs should drive the plot forward or deepen our understanding of the character, and most of these songs do neither.

Don’t get me wrong

I had so much fun watching this movie. I squealed at adrien and marinetts (I am so spelling her name wrong this is embarrassing but I cannot be bothered to change it I’m so tired) interactions, i wheezed over whatever the heck Gabriel was doing, I awwed over the lovesquare moments. I also LOST MY MIND at some absolutely wild moments (looking at you, careless whisper. Also at long-haired Gabriel). But the movie was so . . . vague about having any sort of message aside from “be yourself, be true, don’t be afraid, follow your heart, be a hero, saving lives is good, also love is awesome.” All true things, but how does this apply specifically to marinett? Love is powerful, but it isn’t going to save me from getting crushed by a runaway Ferris wheel, ladybug. Also, why are you singing this has nothing to do with the moment.

TLDR

It was beautiful, fun, cheesy, and bad. 10/10.

#miraculous awakening #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #listen. is it a good movie? no. is it a good musical? also no. was it so fun to watch with a friend who also watches miraculous? absolutely! #there were moments that were SO GOOD so I absolutely think it’s worth it for that #there were also just a lot of moments that were so bad and I was like. who is in charge of this. #budget and time was all spent on animation so. we’re gonna get some GREAT giffsets

[detectivehole]

I feel deep catholic guilt and discomfort whenever I see art that glorifies satanic stuff or even posts that are anti-God, even though I wasn't raised catholic. Is this normal for people. I'm personally very pro God even though people think I'm a devil worshiper based on my appearance and interests

it's fine that you vented, i don't mind

ftr im just some dude i can't offer significant advice (i'll take a shot) or speak for other people. im not particularly smart or insightful

tldr: you're not abnormal for it but religious guilt that interferes with your life is not good for you. you should speak with a therapist and take time for considerable introspection

catholic guilt is not the only form of religious or even christian guilt; many religions, notably (because i am from the west and most familiar with them) abrahamic ones, can cause or even deliberately wield guilt as an extension of ensuring faith. catholic guilt is often a distinction made because the catholic faith is notorious for its weaponization of guilt in its practice. if you experience religious guilt, but were never or are not catholic, it is not catholic guilt- this isn't, like, a defense of the concept, i just think making that distinction is important for someone struggling with religious guilt. knowing exactly what you're dealing with is important, you don't want to confuse it easily with something else

feeling religious guilt either because you were raised religious or because you live in a culturally christian (im assuming based off the question) society is not good for you, but it is arguably pretty normal. that being said it is absolutely something you should focus energy on and work towards overcoming and processing- there is no reason to feeling guilty and afraid of innocent, innocuous, and harmless behaviors, things, and actions, just because a flawed doctrine has demonized them arbitrarily. your moral compass, and the convictions you hold that's violations might cause guilt, should be held 100% of your own volition after your own careful consideration- not held because of fear, forced faith, or exclusively because of outside influence

religion itself is not a evil or bad, neither is it good and just. it is a neutral concept that is capable of an immense amount of beauty as well as an immense amount of ugliness. religious people are, the vast majority of the time, totally normal people with totally normal senses of right and wrong- whether it's strictly in-line with their faith or not; identical in this way to any non-religious person, or another person of any other faith

all i mean is that you should be considering what you belive and why- if you find it has no conflicts with your faith, that's perfectly fine. if you find it does, that's fine too. just make sure you make the choice on how to move forward in life for reasons of genuine conviction, compassion, and logic- nothing else. do not let anything else control you

if god remains important to you, then that's just fine. just make sure you have a healthy relationship with the concept- no nonsensical, arbitrary guilt

--

im not entity certain what "pro god" means but whatever it is i am likely not myself. i was raised with religious influences but i hold no genuine religious convictions of any kind. i resent aspects of christianity that have hurt myself and others, as well as many fundamental aspects of the christian interpretation of life and the world, so despite complete lack of faith, i frequently take jabs at the concept and often with a "pro satan" tone. this is all to say i don't think we can entirely empathize on that front, and whatever ive told you has been said with a low backing drone of resentment to the concept of of a christian god. i tired to be impartial in the above text, but it's important to make you potential biases known

hope all that texts literally anything at all to you 👍 sorry it makes little sense

#mine #ask

[variousqueerthings]

Margaret and Hawkeye really just Happened on this show!

it’s interesting that in an episode in which Hawkeye is bouncing off the walls, because he feels lonely/underappreciated/left out

and Margaret is finding out that yet another man she thought actually liked her for her is expecting her to fundamentally change for him 

the two of them meet right in the middle (after some initial, very interesting miscommunication that sort of isn’t miscommunication):

Hawkeye: Scully and I are completely different kinds of guys, but you and I didn’t get along so hot either.

Margaret: That’s exactly my point! You different men are all alike! Frank Burns. Donald, my former unwedded husband! You! And now this ninny.

Hawkeye: We-ell, excuuuse us all for not being perfect.

Margaret: Perfect? Huh, none of you even tried.

Hawkeye: Margaret it’s not that easy to become something else that somebody wants you to be, believe me I spent a lifetime not doing it! I couldn’t do it in med school for the woman I loved and I won’t do it now for an army I hate. You can’t order people according to your own specifications, you have to take them as-is.

-

Margaret (to Scully): I’m me. Sometimes a nurse, sometimes a Major, sometimes a woman in love. Sometimes all three at once.

Scully: Sounds like it’s crowded in there.

Margaret: And sometimes it’s lonely in there.

Hawkeye says these things as if he didn’t fundamentally change his understanding and respect of Margaret in exactly the complex ways she expects (and deserves to expect) other men to do so! 

In the beginning he wasn’t respectful of any of her, diminishing her self as a woman, as a nurse, as a Major, because he didn’t respect the army and saw her as a representative of everything wrong with it, but he chose to convey this disrespect through not perceiving her personhood (this tracks with how he engages with people generally of course -- see Charles in the beginning -- but it’s especially obvious with Margaret, because of the ways it’s grounded in misogyny).

And! He! Changed! And they’re both feeling quite rough in this scene for their own reasons, so neither of them is acknowledging this fact in that moment, but then!

Margaret: The latest Mr Right just left. I’ve got the only heart in Korea with a revolving door. Well, no more Buddy-oh, from now on I check them first to make sure they meet the Minimum Standard Requirements.

Hawkeye: And what are they?

Margaret: 20% my father. 10% Scully… about 10% of you.

Hawkeye: Oooh, thank you.

Margaret: 3% of Frank Burns and 2% of my ex-husband.

Hawkeye: Hmm.

Margaret: … 1% of my ex-husband

Hawkeye: Uh-huh. Mm. Maybe you and I are just too choosy. We’re both waiting for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world.

Margaret: Sounds like a loooong wait.

Hawkeye: Well I have just the thing to pass the time away. You ever play double-solitaire scrabble?

Margaret: Double-solitaire?

Hawkeye: Yeah. You make whatever you can outta what you got, and I make whatever I can outta what I got. And we don’t score off each other. And if you need any extra letters, like a Y for sympathy, you can borrow one of mine.

There they are! Those kindred spirits! “I’ve got the only heart in Korea with a revolving door,” she says to Hawkeye who knows exactly how that feels (and I choose to read it as if she kind of knows this, but he’s letting her get this off her chest).

10% of Hawkeye is such a big compliment, I love that, because it also shows how she changed in terms of what she considers it right for a man to be -- and of course, a lot of her perception of the army and war and Right and Wrong has changed because of Hawkeye.

And when Hawkeye mentioned Carlye (another episode with some ghosts - Carlye, Frank, Donald...) as someone he didn’t change for earlier -- it’s so fascinating that he did do that for Margaret.

They’re so easy with each other. There’s no doubt there, no need to posture/perform, no need to fear how vulnerability will be taken. 

Hawkeye sat with her after Kyung Soon left and Margaret had discovered the first of Donald’s affairs. Hawkeye was the only person to notice she was upset about the dog. Margaret shared that she’s afraid of loud noises to help him feel better about his claustrophobia, and then he distracted her as they were doing surgery during a shelling. (Also in hindsight, the two of them having sex, because they’re having a panic attack during another shelling where they’re afraid the house they’re hiding in might cave in... makes the claustrophobia/fear of loud noises wonderful Texture in hindsight). 

(Hawkeye knew she was thinking about Joan of Arc, because He Knows Her)

They may be talking about finding love in the future, but whatever they are to each other is an example of one of the deepest relationships I’ve ever seen on TV, and it fills me with endless delight!

(I wonder as well how much of that delight is watching two people who care deeply about one another in real life getting to let that shine through onscreen)

#im watching MASH #MASH #margaret houlihan #hawkeye pierce #their brain patterns match and who woulda seen that coming in s1! (me... or at least... I hoped!) #there's also something about the ways they're fucked up matching -- which ties into the lack of needing to perform as well #they don't need to build up walls to pretend to be okay with each other for the others sake #they can just... be #also my partner and I were just comparing ourselves to their relationship -- apart from the fact that we liked each other immediately #lot of later-seasons similarities there

[riddles-n-games]

The Art of War-V3

    “Why would you do this?” I asked Thea, amending my question.

    “It’s what Emily would have wanted.” Thea pulled a tube of lipstick out of her purse. “If it’s any consolation,” she said, once she was finished turning her lips a sparkling ruby red, “I didn’t do this to you.”

    She’d done it to them.

    “The Hawthornes didn’t kill Emily,” I spat. “Rebecca said that it was her heart.”

    Technically, she’d said that Grayson had said it was her heart.

    “How sure are you that the Hawthorne family isn’t trying to kill you?” Thea smiled. She had been there this morning. She’d been shaken. And now she was acting like this was all a joke.

    “There is something fundamentally wrong with you,” I said.

    My fury didn’t seem to penetrate. “I told you the day we met that the Hawthorne family was a twisted, broken mess.” She stared at the mirror a moment longer. “I never said that I wasn’t one, too.” Like that was a good excuse. I told her as much, “That’s no excuse for what you did. Who are you to decide? Who gave you that right?” I would tell her that she needed therapy, but what good would that do? It was way too late for that and all the same, she was too far gone. She was too deep into Emily’s cult of followers and instead, what she really needed was a mental asylum. Luckily, I could offer that to her or even force her into it; it would be beneficial for everyone involved. It would do the world a load of good.

    “Perhaps it’s not an excuse, but they deserved it. They killed my best friend.” Her voice sounded bitter.

    “No, they did not. It was her own fault and you know it. Don’t pretend she’s innocent, that she wasn’t capable of using her mind rationally and not only in sick, twisted ways for her stupid games. If she was manipulative enough to get Jameson and Grayson competing over her, I think that’s enough to say she was definitely not dumb. She brought her own death upon herself.”  

    Thea stared at me incredulously, blinking slowly in disbelief.  “And who do you think you are that you get to say that? You didn’t even know her. You don’t.” At that, I scoffed and rolled my eyes, shaking my head.

     “Get over yourself, Thea. Like I don’t? Listen to you; those are the words of a hypocrite who just likes to talk and think she has the upper hand every time. Well, news flash; you don’t. Ever since I’ve arrived here, all of you have made some sort of conscientious effort to compare me to her or put me in her place in similar situations. You’re simulating a false reality but face it, she’s gone. The whole reason why I look like this tonight is because you made me, to be their so-called penance. I may be dressed like her but I’m not her. The only reason this problem exists and continues to persist is because you can’t let go; you’re possessed by her and think that by making me look like her, you can get back at the boys. They’re already grieving, reminded by her death constantly and I’ve seen it for myself. Stop it. I’m not Emily, I’m pretty sure I can safely say I’m a better person than she ever was and whatever you do, won’t succeed in the end.”  I was finally done holding back and holding everything in but still held back the idea of throttling her. “Here’s some advice; go to therapy, stop messing around and put that mastermind of yours towards something useful in your life. It might just do you a favor in helping you move on because something tells me you were just as manipulated by her as the rest of them.”

    Seeing as we were getting nowhere, no matter the justification of my points, I decided to leave before Alisa made it her job to hunt me down. Thea just wouldn’t give. At best, she was trying to get under my skin and I wasn’t about to let her; I may not know her well enough but neither does she me. She underestimates me and that’s a grave mistake on her part. “You know, maybe in another world we could’ve been friends but seeing as there’s a slim chance of that happening, I’ll leave you with this. I hope you find peace, really I do.” And then I left.

#avery kylie grambs #thea calligaris #a very risky gamble #the inheritance games #tig #pissed avery #chaotic neutral thea

[punkscowardschampions]

Ruster pt.2

Buster: It would be seriously cruel of me to wait until we’re alone to touch you when we’ve talked about what everyone knowing you’re mine means to you and how closely you want to be kept

Buster: whilst we’re sitting with my parents, I’ll make sure we’re no more than [the length of his longest finger like when he told her his dick measurement because again just saying he’ll be inside her all the time, this time via fingering under the table] inches apart at the most

Buster: [and then because he is a big nerd doing some maths of his own about it, here measuring the exact length of every finger he is gonna use and adding them together and finding an average or something idk, you know what I mean, it’s shamelessly an excuse to give her all the reminders of earlier and how he’s gonna touch her when he finally can but writing it down as a sum with all his working out and everything so she can follow his thinking exactly]

Rio: 😳😳😳 I feel so

Rio: Why would you do this to me?

Rio: I can barely be quiet here alone, and you think I can in front of your parents, fuck 😿

Buster: What do I always say? Practice makes perfect, baby

Buster: if you can do it now, you’ll be able to do it then

Rio: I’ll need to

Rio: [whatever lesson you’re in] is as deadly silent as it is boring

Buster: Think about the length of my tongue and how it’ll feel inside of you when we’re finally alone and you’re lying on top of the same table

Rio: You can’t think about anything else 

Buster: It’s an obsession

Rio: Yours

Buster: Mine

Rio: My hands should be in your hair right now, that’s mine, how unfairly beautiful you are

Buster: We’ll share each others once they’ve been allowed to happen

Rio: I want to share everything with you

Buster: You know I won’t hesitate to give you everything you want

Rio: I know

Rio: The issue is knowing when to stop asking

Buster: That’s simple, don’t ever stop

Rio: You say that now

Buster: I’m not going to change my mind

Rio: I’m scared that you will

Buster: Well, I’ll prove to you that isn’t true

Rio: You don’t have to

Rio: There has to be space for either of us to change our minds

Buster: Not about something that fundamental, I’d become a different person

Rio: Aren’t you scared?

Buster: There’s nothing to be scared of, if something goes wrong again, I’ll find a solution, that’s what I do

Rio: Basically every example you gave had things go wrong, for years at a time sometimes

Rio: I don’t know if I can handle it, letting you go

Buster: We aren’t letting each other go, no matter what

Rio: Do you mean it

Rio: will you mean it when you’re in America? [however many miles it is] away from me?

Buster: If I go to America, you can hold me to it even harder because I’ll mean it more

Rio: I don’t want to be crazy but I feel it

Buster: What you are is in love

Rio: I know 

Rio: I know because nothing else is registering, this lesson, what’s being said by my friends, or by everyone else, even

Buster: I can’t concentrate either, and you know how unlike me that is

Rio: Do you want to? 

Rio: I’ll find a way to resist messaging you until your next break

Buster: No, I want to focus on you until you’re here with me and I really can

Rio: You have changed

Buster: I haven’t, you just didn’t know how much time or attention I devoted to you before 

Rio: Well, I do think it’s pretty rude of you not to have told me

Buster: I told you as soon as I could

Rio: Just saying, there’s so much time to be made up for

Buster: Yeah, I’ve said it too

Rio: This half-term is a start

Buster: Tell me how long we have again

Rio: [do in every measurement of time you can break it into]

Buster: You’re incredible

Rio: I want you for [and pop off with infinity maths nerdiness, you know the vibe because forever]

Rio: All your seconds

Buster: They’re all yours

Rio: You are

Buster: I am

Rio: No one else's

Buster: I wouldn’t dare and couldn’t be dared

Rio: You can’t want anyone else, it’s impossible

Buster: I never have, not for a second

Rio: Neither have I, never will

Buster: You’re all I want, I’ll keep repeating myself until you’re not scared

Rio: All I’m scared of is that one day not being true

Rio: I could never be scared of this, it’s so mutual, this want

Buster: You still believe I’ll get bored of you, could fall out of this, but that’s impossible, you said it yourself

Rio: I know that life can throw things out that we can’t expect to see coming at our age

Buster: Life already did and we’re closer not further apart

Rio: And I hope that’s what happens every time

Buster: Share my faith that it will, you want us to share everything

Rio: My nan would love you

Rio: but okay, I will

Buster: Good

Buster: because I love you

Rio: I love you, Buster

Buster: And I miss you so much

Rio: I know, but I like missing you with you much more than missing you alone

Buster: Me too, even though shared means it should be halved, but in fact it feels doubled, if anything

Rio: We’re finally acknowledging it, before, we could lie to each other, everyone else, it at least works partially on ourselves too

Buster: We let ourselves properly feel this, no holds barred

Rio: Missing you still feels better than the alternative of ignoring you, a hundred times over

Buster: No going back, you could barely ignore me before, you’d have no hope now

Rio: Um, you were actively trying to get my attention, excuse you

Buster: I always will be, including in the hypothetical rewind

Rio: You’re pretty worthy of attention, honestly

Buster: Thankfully, as I badly need yours

Rio: You’ve had it all your life, who else can say that’s true

Buster: A hundred lives wouldn’t be enough

Rio: You’re being poetic again, I already need you

Buster: I can’t help how true it is

Rio: I’ll be yours in every lifetime, I promise

Buster: If you’re as flawless in every one as you are in this, you have to

Rio: I’ll find you

Rio: we’re born to always be connected, however that happens to be, I believe that

Buster: So do I, I’d fight for you

Rio: You already are, against what everyone wants

Buster: I don’t regret anything, remember that

Rio: I’d do it all again, no matter what

Buster: We will, every life, like you promised

Rio: Even if we were twins, you’re my soulmate before you’re anything else

Buster: I wish could swap you for her, for longer than [however long they have]

Rio: Me too, I used to be so jealous of how close I thought you were, ‘til I quickly realised you weren’t

Buster: It took me ages after we moved here to rid myself of that association, everyone assumed we were

Rio: It’s usually not the case, the girls aren’t

Rio: we would be but we’re special

Buster: Ours would, they’d be special as well

Rio: They’d learn from the best

Rio: we’d all be the closest

Buster: We’d all be perfect

Rio: I need to give you so many babies

Rio: the most perfect family

Buster: I need to give them to you

Rio: Waiting will be sweet agony

Buster: We’ll practise a lot

Rio: It’s necessary 

Buster: We want to do it right, after all

Rio: Perfect, like you said

Buster: I like our odds

Rio: Me too

Rio: I just understand why everyone struggled to wait before us

Buster: What you said about things not being easy but being doable for us nevertheless applies here, yeah

Rio: We’ve waited this long for this part, there’s no rushing

Buster: I’d hate to, you should be savoured, every part of this with you

Rio: We’ll learn how together

Buster: You’re the only person who’s managed to teach me some patience thus far 

Rio: I’ll take it 🤓

Buster: You’re supposed to tell me what I’ve taught you

Rio: Oh, hmm

Rio: You might have to wait a minute 

Buster: I see, you’re testing what I said a minute ago

Rio: That and the list would take me too long to write, obviously

Buster: You’re obviously not writing what you’re meant to be, go ahead

Rio: Of course you want it unabridged 

Buster: I’ll wait

Rio: Now you’re being kinda hot

Rio: definitely hotter than [your actual teacher right now lol]

Buster: That’s definitely the most backhanded compliment you’ve ever paid me

Rio: You don’t know, maybe [teacher] is extremely attractive but still no match for you

Buster: Are they?

Rio: No, sadly not but the sentiment is still there

Buster: Don’t be too sad about it or I’ll get jealous and possessive as my sentiments

Rio: How terrible

Buster: For [this poor teacher lol]

Rio: 😍

Buster: Future lawyers know better than to incriminate themselves, but you know me, use your imagination

Rio: You know me and my imagination

Buster: Intimately 

Rio: You’ve taught me what that actually feels like

Rio: not forced and pretend

Buster: I’d put that pretty high on my own list of things you’ve taught me, maybe at the very top

Rio: It’s a good one

Rio: I feel different for knowing, but in a good way

Buster: We’re only changing in the best ways

Rio: Promise that’s true?

Buster: Worse isn’t an option, ever

Rio: It could be, so easily

Buster: I swear, I won’t let it be

Rio: Thanks

Buster: You don’t need to thank me, babe, you’re doing the same for me

Rio: I feel closer to the edge of complete fucking mess than you, babe but

Rio: Yeah, of course I swear too

Buster: Right now, but as you’ve pointed out plenty of times, we can’t be completely sure what the future holds, my turn could be coming next

Buster: and as I’ve pointed out, I need you regardless

Rio: But I only want you to think I’m incredible 

Rio: I only want to be perfect for you

Buster: Which is what I do think, Rio

Buster: you’re the furthest from being a mess, you’re holding it together when many others in your position would’ve folded and given up

Buster: you’re such a strong and resilient person, I want you to realise that

Rio: I wish I felt that, felt strong

Rio: if anyone could make me, it would be you 

Rio: I just don’t know if it’s possible right now

Buster: It’s okay, trust me, that I know you and I see things in you that you don’t, it’s something else you already do for me and can be mutual for us

Rio: I see you, you see me, that’s true, always has been

Rio: I somehow feel exposed and invisible to everyone here now, my name is only brought up with theirs 

Buster: In London everyone’ll be staring at you for the right reasons, all they’ll know is how beautiful you are, maybe they’ll be wondering where they’ve seen you, but that’s because your likeness belongs in a gallery on a wall or as a statue

Buster: and they’ll only hear your name the way I say it

Rio: Even your compliments are refined

Rio: How do you come up with this stuff?

Buster: It comes from you, I’m stating the facts, that’s all

Rio: You’re my favourite nerd

Buster: I’ll take it

Rio: You’ve heard the rest

Buster: Have I?

Rio: Okay, not everything but haven’t I complimented you a lot in the past [however many hours you’ve been together]?

Buster: You do the maths, you’re very good at it

Rio: I’m hearing no amount of compliments is enough for you, I understand

Buster: Other people can stop, but not you

Rio: I can’t stop

Buster: Don’t

Rio: I never will

Buster: Promise

Rio: You deserve constant praise, I mean that and swear to treat you exactly how I should for our whole lives

Buster: I really hope you put that in your bath vows

Rio: As you like it, of course

Rio: I’ll make a shortlist instead of doing [whatever lesson you’re in]

Buster: I’ll write mine in the margins of [whatever expensive af textbook you have for your lesson because love to put things in books clearly we remember that with the childhood photo]

Rio: I’ll get to spend even more time in your mind

Buster: Even [whichever lesson you hate the most] will be bearable

Rio: The time is going to fly by

Buster: And soon you’ll be flying to me

Rio: It seems crazy that everyone thinks it’s such a good idea, that I’m allowed

Buster: Of course they do, it is such a good idea

Rio: As far as they’re aware, sure

Buster: As far as we’re concerned too though

Rio: We’ve got the full picture

Buster: So do they, like I’ve said before, they see what they want to

Rio: It is obvious I’m not going for Nance right now

Buster: You should hate her, from a POV as detached as theirs that’s apparent

Rio: Hate might be strong but her lack of tact is known, before this even, it’s not a reach to imagine how she’s being

Buster: Going to her birthday party as though she isn’t tactless and self-centred would be more inappropriate than anything we’re going to do

Rio: I hope not, like

Buster: You know what I mean, nothing about this is a mistake and that would be

Rio: You want me to say how right it is

Buster: You have, but I’m not opposed to hearing it again, obviously

Rio: Nothing or nobody else makes sense for me, we’re a perfect match

Buster: Perfect isn’t the word, we do need a stronger one

Rio: Soulmates

Buster: Yeah

Rio: We need a stronger word than yeah, definitely

Buster: Well, that depends how I’m saying it

Rio: Go on then

Buster: [do such an indecent voice note about this, I hope you’ve gone somewhere where there isn’t a class full of peeps in earshot, knowing you probably the corridor outside of it because you have no patience or chill lol]

Rio: 😍😍😍

Rio: IOU a truth or dare

Buster: Save yours for the plane

Rio: Don’t forget

Rio: You do need to keep me entertained the entire hour and 25

Buster: You could nap, you owe me one of those, remember

Rio: Now?

Buster: I was thinking to kill 25 minutes of the flight, but I suppose you have more time to kill now

Rio: Why do you want me to nap so bad?

Buster: You hardly slept

Rio: I’ve had worse nights sleep

Rio: I promise I’m fine

Buster: Not since you’ve been my girlfriend

Rio: You’re the most loving

Buster: I’m responsible for looking after you

Rio: When am I meant to stop getting turned on by it? Because I never want to

Buster: Also never

Rio: Even when you’re a real daddy?

Buster: Especially then

Rio: I’ll only share you with our kids

Buster: I’ll only make you share with them

Rio: Mine first

Buster: And always

Rio: Did you keep my picture as your background?

Buster: [show her that you have because ofc you have]

Rio: The idea of that being seen over your shoulder 🥴

Buster: I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas about the photos we can take together

Rio: We need some updated ones, to go with [your fave childhood ones you’ve mentioned]

Buster: That’s a nice thought, recreating that one when I’m back in Dublin for your birthday

Rio: We have to

Buster: Don’t worry, I’ve made a mental note 

Rio: I’ll recreate my outfit

Buster: Your mum probably still has it stored somewhere

Rio: God, probably…

Buster: Whereas, mine definitely doesn’t

Rio: I bet you still have something near identical in your big size though

Rio: you haven’t changed

Buster: My impeccable style has no need to

Rio: Nor your cute face

Buster: You want me to be red-faced in [whatever lesson he is in], but that’s something I can only do in front of you

Rio: 🤐 promise

Buster: Unlikely, unless you are planning to go to sleep

Rio: Cheek!

Buster: I love it about you

Rio: You don’t think I’m like your sister, do you

Buster: Christ no, that comparison couldn’t be further from what I think

Rio: I’m never speaking for the sake of it, especially not with you

Buster: Every word you say, or type, is worth listening to, and I want to be the person who is

Buster: first, like you said

Rio: I love you, talking with you

Buster: When was the last time we talked in person?

Rio: Summer? Maybe?

Rio: Not enough in forever

Buster: I owe you so many conversations

Rio: It’s mutual

Rio: all the minutes wasted stopping myself and hanging back from approaching you 

Buster: Do the maths for me

Rio: Tell me how high up the list of obsessions it is first

Buster: You know how obsessed I am with this

Rio: [do try and work it out from all the angles you could because giving how much you wanted to talk to him and how restrained you were this whole time etc, obsessed is certainly the vibe however you look at it]

Buster: Fuck

Buster: you truly never disappoint

Rio: Thinking about how long we’ve wanted and waited is another obsession

Rio: the answers come easy, honestly

Buster: Almost as easily as the solutions have and will

Rio: We both know what a good idea it is

Buster: I’ve got what I’m going to do to you down to a fine art

Rio: You’ve thought about it for so long, every way you can have me

Buster: Over and over, as if I’m incapable of having any other thoughts

Rio: That’s how it feels, once I let myself go there, I don’t know when I’ll be able to stop

Buster: I forget where I am, who I’m with, how much time has passed, everything

Rio: We’ve already seen the sun come up together so many nights 

Buster: Which is just as well, because the last time I can be certain I’ll notice anything else is [the night before she arrives]

Rio: We don’t need to, we need to be together

Buster: I need to look at you for hours

Rio: I want to memorise you, every second

Buster: Commit me to memory, I want us to commit to each other in every possible way there is

Rio: I want that too, badly

Buster: Write my name on you again

Rio: [do that, somewhere you can cover with your skirt but get to right now without fully flashing so it’s at danger of peeking out at any moment lowkey more than if you left the room and did it somewhere really private]

Buster: [likewise do hers, I’m imagining on his wrist cos we know how this boy feels about a wrist grab being a child of baze, so that it’s covered by his shirt sleeve but is in the same danger of peeking out because they love it, deliberately using a pen with more staying power than the fountain pen he used before to match the temporary lipstick vibe cos gotta see how long we can keep this]

Rio: I’m going to look so obsessed with myself, going between staring at my own thighs to my name on you 

Buster: You should be obsessed with yourself as well as with me

Rio: You’re always number one to me

Buster: Make me happy by validating my great taste then, love yourself as much as I love you

Rio: You’ll make me blush

Buster: Look at yourself once you do and that’ll prove my point

Rio: I don’t not like myself, it’s just complicated right now

Buster: I know, but I’m determined to uncomplicate it

Rio: I’ll let you

Buster: You won’t regret anything you let me do

Rio: You know there are no limits

Buster: The only rules are the ones we decide together

Rio: We’re 👑

Buster: Exactly, I told you, it’s simple

Buster: you’re royalty, treat yourself like that

Rio: I feel better for having your name on me

Buster: Wait a few years and you can have my name permanently on you

Rio: How will we ever decide where to put it permanently though

Buster: By putting it everywhere in pen until then and seeing how each place feels

Rio: How it makes you feel, that’s what I care about

Buster: I’ll show you

Rio: [drawing a B on your hand and doing lovey-dovey doodles]

Buster: [sending her a selfie of his heart eyes as if he isn’t in class lol, defs doing it so she can also see her name peeping out on his arm]

Rio: [change your background to that picture immediately and show him]

Buster: I’ve never smiled in [this lesson] before

Rio: That makes me happy, I want to make you smile everywhere

Buster: You’ll completely ruin my reputation, babe

Rio: You did say you were ready for that

Buster: I feel ready

Rio: I’m prepared to be yours in secret if we change our minds

Buster: I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to keep you, as a secret or not

Rio: Exactly

Rio: don’t think I’ll leave if everything doesn’t go exactly as we’ve said, because I won’t, the reality is more important, whatever it is

Buster: The reality is, I love you and I want this, us

Rio: I love you

Rio: the only thing standing in our way is other people but we can only pretend they don’t exist for so long

Buster: And those people can only stand in our way for so long

Rio: Your friends know how to overstay a welcome

Rio: but they should be so out of it you won’t need to be shy about it

Buster: I know how to make someone feel unwelcome, if you want them to leave rather than stay for how bold I am

Rio: I’m not scared

Buster: You’re a brave girl

Rio: Your brave girl

Rio: who makes no promises of being able to leave you alone

Buster: You promised not to leave my side

Rio: I can’t, I need to celebrate with you

Buster: And I need to celebrate you more than I do my birthday

Rio: It doesn’t bother me at all what your friends think, you’re my boyfriend

Buster: They’re barely my friends, their opinions don’t matter

Rio: I’m only slightly concerned that Nance won’t be as drunk as we think, that’s it

Buster: Think of as many drinking games as you can, I’ll do the same

Rio: I’d feel bad, if it wasn’t what she wanted

Buster: Keep in mind her lack of sympathy for you or your family

Rio: I am, she’s getting blackout

Buster: And sleeping it off in [whichever room in the baze gaff is the furthest from his but still somewhere he could feasibly leave a drunk Nancy]

Rio: Then I get you, all to myself

Buster: Finally

Rio: The others were always there, it’s never been just us

Buster: Rewriting it in my head could only achieve so much

Rio: Because everyone knows, what’s going to happen the second we are, it’s always been this way

Buster: Inevitable

Rio: No one is getting between us this time

Buster: We’ve planned for all eventualities, learnt lessons from each of those frustrating previous times

Rio: I can’t care, how I did, I can’t pretend that I’d stop for anyone

Rio: Only you can tell me no at this point

Buster: I’m only going to tell you yes

Rio: Even if I want to touch you right back under that table with your parents?

Buster: Emphatically if that’s what you want to do

Rio: I can’t let you just get me off when I know you’ll be aching too

Buster: Maybe I’ll get used to it once I’ve sat at this desk all day

Rio: I should be under it

Buster: You’re small enough to fit perfectly

Rio: I would stay there all day, I’m serious about how much I would love nothing more

Buster: You love to be hidden in plain sight

Rio: I know how happy it would make you, I can imagine your face perfectly

Buster: I can imagine yours, happy isn’t the word

Rio: My mouth would be too busy to smile, it might be an obsession 

Buster: Your eyes would, I’d have to change my phone background immediately

Rio: You know I’d have never looked better, happier

Buster: Neither of us have known happiness like that yet

Rio: But we’re going to know it every day

Buster: I refuse to let you go to bed upset like last night

Rio: You’re responsible, my favourite man

Buster: You’re precious to me

Rio: I’m your baby

Buster: Until you give me one

Rio: But after too, your biggest and most jealous

Buster: You said you’d share, no jealousy

Rio: Fine, no jealousy, just feed me your cum whilst you feed our baby

Buster: Going from princess to queen isn’t something to pout about

Rio: You have to love me most your whole life, I belong to you

Buster: My whole life will revolve around you, you’ll have given most of it to me

Rio: I’ll follow you, to America, I’d follow you anywhere

Buster: America’s just a possibility, you’re not

Rio: I’m sorry for last night, just let me say it because I am, I freaked out because it’s so clear what I want

Buster: I understand, I’ve been there myself 

Rio: It’s bound to happen, who wouldn’t worry when they know that they’d be so fucking happy shackled to their cousin’s bed if that’s what he needed

Buster: It’s a lot to want, but you don’t need to worry, you know that now

Rio: I meant that, I’m not scared, of you, of this

Rio: You love me, the only thing to be really scared of was that not being true

Buster: As soon as I knew what love meant, I knew I loved you

Rio: I’ve been yours since that moment, I knew I could rely on you like I couldn’t my other daddy

Buster: He doesn’t deserve to be called that

Rio: I know, old habits

Buster: If I ever hurt you like he does, I’d hurt myself way worse somehow

Rio: I never want you hurt

Buster: Then I better not let you down

Rio: You’re incapable, I swear, you love me too much

Buster: Yeah, I do, I swear

Rio: I want it to be our 18th, now

Buster: I’d marry you now, you’d have no time to plan anything

Rio: Our school shirts are white, what else do we need?

Buster: Mine won’t be if I bite my lip as hard as that idea makes me need to

Rio: If it were the olden days, I’d have to bleed for you

Rio: and everyone would agree I’m your rightful bride

Buster: Everyone would be stood around the bed watching you not bleed because of how much you want me

Rio: Imagine how they’d go and copy what we did, how many people we would have cumming

Buster: How many babies would be born

Rio: Our family even bigger, all because of us

Buster: I don’t think anyone else could actually copy a single thing you do though, not really

Rio: That’s why you want me, no mistresses

Buster: I’d send them all away

Rio: They can watch, only as punishment

Buster: Very fitting

Rio: Clean me up, not you

Buster: Why am I being punished by not being the one to clean you up?

Rio: You made the mess, you’re king, you don’t have to

Buster: But I do have to

Rio: You should be here when I get up

Rio: I know this chair is going to need licking clean

Buster: I’m jealous of whoever sits in it after you, they don’t even realise yet how lucky they are

Rio: You want me to leave it? 

Buster: As the alternative is me getting on a flight and telling you not to move a muscle before the plane lands, which I unfortunately can’t

Rio: I’ll let you clean my dining room chair before you put me on the table

Buster: Promise not to fall off while I’m busy

Rio: I’ll be mesmerized, easy promise

Buster: I’ll hold you still, I’m never that busy

Rio: You’re going to make sure you get every last drop

Buster: Of course, every drop is mine

Rio: You’re such a cumslut, I am obsessed

Buster: I don’t share my toys and you’re my favourite

Rio: You never have to share me again

Buster: You know I won’t, anyone who looks at you for too long at the party is dead to me

Rio: 🥰

Rio: You’ll have to check alone because I’m not looking away from you

Buster: You can watch what happens to them by staring into my eyes

Rio: That’s the hottest and most romantic thing you’ve said simultaneously 

Buster: It would kill me to deny you anything

Rio: You would never, you could barely keep to it when that was the unspoken agreement 

Buster: That bullshit was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do

Rio: Hard agree

Buster: Tell me how many hours we have left, because this waiting game honestly feels like a ridiculously close second

Rio: [tell him] 🙄 

Rio: How do we usually go months? I’ve forgotten every trick I knew to make it okay

Buster: I’ll think of new tricks, you’ll be okay

Rio: Will I?

Buster: I’ll make sure you are

Rio: Okay

Buster: And you’ll make me proud

Rio: Shh

Buster: Absolutely not

Rio: Have you gotten any work done today?

Buster: My work’ll all get done

Rio: Hmm, not an answer

Buster: You don’t need to worry about me, there’s your answer

Rio: You worry about me, isn’t it meant to be mutual?

Buster: Come on, I’m going to be offered admission to Harvard, school isn’t a concern 

Rio: That’s years away, nothing is guaranteed, boy 

Buster: I’ll guarantee it with years of hard work and good grades

Rio: Good, then I don’t need to worry, do I

Buster: I told you

Rio: Don’t be a know-it-all

Buster: Don’t be rude

Rio: You’re ruder

Buster: I am not

Rio: You are

Rio: What about my work? You’ve not even asked

Buster: Because we’ve already discussed priorities, I trust you to behave, in school or anywhere else, with or without me

Buster: I don’t call you my angel for no reason

Rio: You haven’t called me that in ages

Rio: Far too long, in fact 

Buster: Do your work and I won’t have a choice but to

Rio: 😒 FINE 

Rio: I don’t know where I am though, just with you

Buster: If you can’t follow the lesson, I’ll help you with your homework later

Rio: I’m not surprised that’s a fantasy you have 

Buster: Don’t you want to study with me?

Rio: Didn’t say that

Buster: Say you do

Rio: Of course I do

Rio: you’re one of the smartest people I know

Buster: You’re one of the smartest people I know

Rio: It’ll be easy work for us

Buster: Easy isn’t the word

Rio: What is

Buster: Perhaps I’ll write you a list

Rio: Perhaps you ought to focus on tutoring me

Buster: Okay, tell me the last thing you remember being able to focus on from this class

Rio: 😶

Buster: Come on, there must be something

Rio: Haven’t we been talking this entire time? You come on

Buster: I’m flattered

Rio: As you should be

Rio: don’t worry, nothing important is being learnt, I can tell that much from everyone else

Buster: I’ll teach you everything you need to know anyway

Rio: We can make time to do all the work you need, within reason, of course

Buster: Nothing unreasonable, this is your holiday

Rio: Our birthday

Buster: Yeah

Rio: Let’s do everything together, whatever mundane everyday thing we can think of

Buster: I can’t think of a single thing that wouldn’t be better done with you

Rio: It’ll be like playing house, but

Rio: realer

Buster: We both need real

Rio: Everything has been so real it all seems fake, distant now

Rio: not my real, you know?

Rio: We’re the right kind

Buster: I’m glad I can be that for you

Rio: No pressure, yeah

Rio: that sounded less intense in my head

Buster: I thrive under pressure, remember

Rio: No, not cool of me

Rio: I have to rein it in

Buster: Don’t

Rio: Not pulling away again but enough

Buster: Enough for what?

Rio: Enough to be fun and not scary

Buster: I’m not scared, you know that

Rio: That doesn’t mean I want to be scary to test you

Buster: You don’t have to rein yourself in to protect me

Rio: I don’t want to lose myself, my grip on reality and feet on the ground

Rio: except, I do want that but it’s a dangerous thing to want and I know that now

Buster: You aren’t going to lose anything, there’s only everything to gain

Rio: How do you know that?

Buster: Call it ego if you like, you definitely would’ve before

Rio: If the shoe fits, like

Buster: On the other hand, I’d prefer to say I like you too much to let any parts of you go

Rio: I like you 

Rio: I’m not spiralling, not here 

Buster: Curl around me as soon as you’re here, we’ll create our own spiral

Rio: God, [countdown] go faster 

Rio: I need you like that

Buster: I need all of you not some watered down version, if you feel like you have to do that bullshit, I’ve failed

Rio: It isn’t you, you know it’s not you 

Buster: No, it’s you, how indescribably great you are

Buster: But I have to let you know that or I’m not doing enough

Rio: You are letting me know that

Rio: it’s not us, it’s everything else, how that weighs

Buster: Shrinking yourself smaller will just mean you’ll struggle to carry it

Rio: No one expected it to happen to her

Rio: unspoken but undeniable I’m the ideal candidate 

Buster: You think it should’ve been you because you want the chance to take her place, she’s your sister and you wish you could spare her what she’s been through

Buster: that’s a normal response, there’s no more to those thoughts, and there certainly isn’t truth to them

Rio: [a moment to excuse yourself from this lesson real quick because you gotta]

Rio: I’m still here

Rio: I don’t know what to say though, and that’s to you, what will I say to her? When she wants us to visit her, if she ever does

Buster: You’ll find the words

Buster: but if you couldn’t at first, Edie wouldn’t hold a temporary silence against you, not after asking to see you

Rio: She isn’t going to ask, not for me

Buster: Come on, you don’t know that

Rio: I do, when has she ever?

Buster: Things have changed

Rio: You could certainly say that

Buster: All bets are off

Rio: That’s not going to be comforting, however you put it

Buster: I’ll be here to comfort you whatever happens

Rio: I know

Rio: as long as she’s getting help and support, it isn’t about me

Buster: You’re allowed to want to visit her

Rio: If she doesn’t want it though, I won’t, not for my own sake

Buster: Obviously not, you’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met

Rio: You really think so?

Buster: Thinking about it used to make me really angry

Rio: You thought it was holier than thou, I get it

Buster: But now I do get it

Rio: Being any other way makes no sense to me, it wouldn’t occur 

Buster: You take after your mum

Rio: I guess so

Rio: I don’t know how she carries on though, every time

Rio: I don’t have that in me

Buster: You are carrying on

Rio: Am I?

Rio: I came running to you the second I could

Buster: She has people she leans on too, everyone does, even my mum

Rio: This time, for now, sure

Rio: but how great did those people turn out to be, you’ve already pointed out happily that my da sucks too

Buster: You’ve undeniably got better taste

Rio: It isn’t funny

Buster: I’m not joking, I’ve already also pointed out we have the luxury of learning from their mistakes

Buster: no one’s happier than I am that I’m not as traumatised as my parents are

Rio: You don’t have to be so arrogant about it

Buster: I’m being honest, I haven’t exaggerated my importance or capabilities, I don’t need to

Rio: It’s just smug, alright

Buster: It’s excessive in your opinion, I disagree

Rio: Good for you, disagree on your own

Buster: Fine

Rio: [oop, at least that shut y’all up I guess lmao]

Buster: [we did need to lol, soz though lads]

[khalixvitae]

urngh... (i flop onto your doorstep like a dying fish) please.... do you want to brainstorm for that vil fic of yours with the gay people in your phone im so sane about vil...

Hi anon! Sure thing, I’m still trying to nail down a few major bits of the plot line but I’m willing to share what I have!

To begin with, I think I want to make the setting somewhere very innocuous. A book shop, a cafe, something completely mundane and away from NRC. The basic premise is that Vil is going to this off campus hole in the wall destination to read/annotate scripts for an upcoming role. The reader is an employee of whatever business he’s started to frequent! Kind of tropey, I know, but if it ain’t broke, yk? But I’m trying to get it. A little off the rails.

The idea is that the reader basically just. Ignores who he is. He’s a customer, after all. I’m leaning into the idea of them being a bookseller more than anything else- the idea that they could want to provide him with any additional literature related to whatever role he’s playing/essentially help him hone his craft feels important. This is another one of those situations where my own life events may seep through as well- the idea that maybe the bookseller doesn’t really know what they’re doing with their life. Maybe they’re trying to earn enough money for a graduate level degree program? Something along those lines, like they have aspirations but don’t know how to achieve them.

Vil intends on keeping their interactions minimal and very professional- he refuses anything that he could consider preferential treatment until he sees the reader offering other people similar services. Then he has a moment of oh, they’re just kind. The reader tends to go above and beyond for customers that need assistance, or even for those that they just think could benefit from more information. Then Vil is a little less hesitant. Still professional, but maybe he’ll accept their offer to keep the shop open a little longer when he’s in the middle of a reading, or he’ll agree to have a cup of tea since they’re already making some. Naturally they get to talking. And yea, that’s Kind of the broader premise! I’m trying to nail down the role he’s playing. The one idea I’ve got floating around is kind of a weird one, but I recently reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I’m spitballing Vil participating in a retelling of the story. Not as Dr. Frankenstein, but as the monster. Hear me out: in the book, he’s described as being intentionally crafted with beautiful features- which is what makes him all the more haunting to look at. He basically triggers the uncanny valley effect. Something incredibly beautiful and human and yet distinctly wrong. And the original monster is really an emotional and intelligent creature that seeks to be loved - only after repeated abuses does it actually become “evil”. It’s a story where the protagonist (Dr. Frankenstein himself) is frankly far more sinister than its antagonist. He plays god, creating a creature solely because he wants to know if he can. Then once he does, he just abandons it because he’s horrified at his own creation. Neither the monster nor the doctor are without their faults, and it’s one of those things where the reader is meant to be conflicted on who to root for. Anyway, I think a retelling that’s more sympathetic towards the monster (I.e., that characterizes it was Shelley did in the source material) would catch Vil’s interest. Yeah he’d be an antagonist, but he’d be a heart wrenching figure meant to conflict the audience and their perceptions of both him and the character he’s playing. And it would be a challenge for Vil, something he doesn’t seem to get often. It’s fundamentally different from any other role he’s played that we know of, and to play a creature so beautiful that it drifts into the territory of abominable? WHEWWWWW. idk I think. He’d be intrigued when it’s pitched at him and he’d accept this get out of type casting free card before his reps could shoot down the offer. Anywho! I would love feedback or other ideas if you or anyone else have any to bounce around !!!

#hehe I love when people ask me about writing !!! #twst #khalix rambles ! 💞 #khalix writes （＾＿＾）☆ #asks !! #Vil posting ！(◎_◎;)

[lunastwilightblog]

The Volturi are the good guys and Bella is the up-and-coming villain

I’m on my computer for this as I know it might be long, but bear with me (insert Emmett pun here) 🐻

So wait - the Volturi are the good guys? But didn’t SM write them as the bad guys? 

Well, yes, SM did write Aro and co in as the antagonists of the series, but bear in mind that originally she didn’t write most of New Moon to happen, or the entirety of Eclipse. There was Twilight and Forever Dawn, which we’ll sadly never read. Her vision of the Volturi and their role as the evil villains who wanted to separate Edward and Bella became distorted as she had to flesh them out more and show their role as the governing body.

Then she wrote the Illustrated Guide and revealed their history and the horrors of the world without their authority; with the Romanians being as brutal as they were, the constant terror humans lived with and the fracturing of the world into many unstable and violent vampire-ruled empires (plus with way more children of the moon running about, probably as far west as - at least - central Europe). 

When the Volturi were coming to power they were laughed at with the idea of their law, a significant reason the Romanians didn’t take them seriously. But now they are extremely popular.

This isn’t just because Aro created vampires to go out and sing his praises. Volturi rule has been a blessing for both humans and vampires.

For humans it’s the obvious: they are not living their lives in fear, they are not subject to massacres (except if caught in newborn warzones), their population has been able to grow and expand, modern medicine and technology have been able to flourish, society is much more stable, people need to flee areas much less (if ever) so they can stay put and complete research/live to meet their grandkids/etc, and not have to serve a vampire in the local castle. 

For vampires it’s actually quite similar: with the human population growing to as large as it is today when at the time the Volturi came to power it was (estimated to be) only 210 million globally, vampires have been able to grow to even greater numbers also, and feed more often than before. If a vampire 2000 years ago killed 5 people in a town it would be an outrage the humans would certainly have noticed, however kill 5 people in a place as big as London, LA, Paris, Singapore, Bucharest... it would likely not be noticed very much, if at all (depending on who you kill).  

Humans like to measure things in percentages. Those 5 people is a huge number to a town of 2000 - that’s 0.25% of the whole town’s population. It would be talked about, and relatives of the dead/missing would all know each other. Yet kill those 5 in a city of 12 million (as is London), that’s only 0.00004167% of the population. And chances are, the dead humans’ families don’t even live in the area (or could be in another country entirely) never mind know each other to realise there was a mass murder.

So vampires, as long as they hide from humans, as is the only law (besides no immortal children or consorting with werewolves), they have a lot more freedom nowadays than they did before the times of the Volturi. There are so many people that they can easily get lost in a crowd, move internationally, and not be pressured for allegiance by a local vampire warlord (before meeting Aro, Caius ran afoul of the Romanians, and he barely escaped with his life).

With there only being one authority, and one that does not interfere with your day-to-day life, is a dream come true. As long as they don’t break this law that is very easy to abide by, they can do whatever the f*** they want.

Carlisle would have never been able to get a job as a doctor if he was known to be a vampire, nor could any of the Cullens have entered education of any form. They’d be stuck sneaking into libraries after closing, and googling. Edward would have never met Bella (neither would Edward’s ancestors have immigrated to America - in fact, Europeans may have never discovered America in the first place. The whole Cullen coven aside from Carlisle might never have been born).

So what the Volturi have done (despite many of them having not-so-savoury personalities corrupted by hunger for power or violence) is bring peace to the world, get rid of tyrants, increase the food supply, allow a greater amount of freedom, and the first kind of trials and justice ever seen in their world. Sure, Aro uses trials to find new talent, but it’s still a world away from before.

Which leads me on to the events of Breaking Dawn, and Bella.

So. Maybe controversial, but: the Volturi did absolutely nothing wrong in Breaking Dawn.

They turned up thinking a serious crime had been committed. They stopped to talk (which Vladimir certainly never would have done!), considered the evidence and processed new discoveries and discussed their legality, decided there was no crime to punish, and left with only the informant dead. Yes, Irina had been innocent in the way that she strongly had believed she had been telling the truth and her memories must have presented good enough evidence to Aro initially, but their witnesses had come to see justice being served, and in the vampire world that is execution. Aro could have continued with prosecuting the Cullens for something he now knew was false, or execute Irina instead.

(Side note: she did kind of deserve it too. She didn’t bother to check her evidence, she wanted revenge for Laurent’s death so her accusation wasn’t coming from a place of good intentions but instead she was willing to have her friends and family killed for Laurent. She was also forcing Aro into a position where he had to prepare himself to kill Carlisle, whom we know he cherishes. Remember also that Aro turned down Laurent’s application to the Guard because he’d followed the Romanians for a while, so he won’t have been entirely trusting of Irina anyway, her having been Laurent’s mate).

Anyway. Onto Bella.

So Aro’s impression of Bella after New Moon seems to be positive. Why? Well, through Edward’s thoughts he saw that Bella was able to keep The Secret. He had heard how much she wanted to be a vampire. In addition, Marcus showed him how strong Edward and Bella’s bond is. Both of them knew, that if E & B’s love was almost as strong as Marcus and Didyme’s, that no matter what Edward currently said or thought about Bella being turned it was invalid. If Bella were dying, he would turn her for sure, which happened. Then the obvious, that Edward had already proven he could not live without her.

Bella was trustworthy and probably going to be turned. Alice showing proof was just a formality so Aro could say he had evidence rather than admit he’d just made assumptions (and Alice having had that vision may act as proof that his assumption was correct).

Therefore, from Aro’s perspective, Bella was a human who wanted to become immortal so much that she would rather die than not, and she was already following his law. She was no issue. 

Yet.

Bella, knowing the law, should have been very grateful that she was left alive. Edward not being executed and she not being killed or forcibly turned on the spot... Aro had been very nice to them.

And again, in BD, he was very nice to them. Some people will inevitably say that he was weak in not killing them all. I mean, they stood beside Vladimir and Stefan! They have an army of wolves fundamentally opposed to vampires! Aro has lost Good Reputation Points by sparing the Cullens. He held as close to a trial as vampire society has ever had, and rightfully pronounced the Cullens innocent.

So shouldn’t Bella like him? He has spared her life and the lives of her loved ones more than one, and proven that he can be spoken to and conversed with properly and is willing to admit he was wrong. With Aro, we know it’s important to look more at what he does than what he says, and what he has done is be very kind to the Cullens (though who knows about the future?).

Yet Bella was creeped out by him when they met and interpreted him as a threat to Edward’s life. As she loves Edward, she’s always going to be of this mind, and first impressions are important.

Vampires are stuck with the mindsets they had when turned. An example of this is Esme, who was turned after her baby died and she tried to die too. She is permanently feeling maternal. She was turned only days after giving birth. Before knowing this, Bella even describes her as maternal and the mother of the family. Huilen also has a lot of care for Nahuel, being his aunt, because of her love for Pire, and while she was dying, Pire begged Huilen to raise him. Joham does not seem to have this parental love for his son and daughters; he never really knew Pire and was never affected by her love for Nahuel, and did not meet him until years after he was born. He’s only genetically a parent. He doesn’t have the protective mindset. When he was turned, he was a curious scientist (in fact, it was even why his creator turned him). He sees the world and people as things to study.

Anyway.

When Bella was turned, all she was thinking about was Renesmee. She begged Edward to get the baby out and didn’t care for her own life.

And she will be forever stuck in this high alert, must-protect-my-baby mode. Then for weeks as a newborn vampire, she was thinking of Aro as a threat and preparing to fight him. Compounding that, he was a threat to her daughter.

Both of these things will have had a significant effect on who she will have become after her newborn phase ended. It is impossible for Bella to ever like Aro now, even if she tried.

Her dislike of him, and willingness to fight against him, will be forever engrained in her brain.

This is dangerous.

Bella found the Romanians weird, but she didn’t dislike them per se. She would probably be willing to stand with them against the Volturi again.

We can take an educated guess and assume that sometime they will rise up again - and Bella might stand with them (though I highly doubt any of the other Cullens would).

Bella was not a problem for Aro until she stood beside Vladimir and Stefan. 

Here is this vampire who can block most of his coven’s gifts, stuck with an intense dislike of him, who he has seen with his own eyes stand with his enemies. He has every right to be nervous now. Her love for her mate is almost as strong as Marcus’s bond to Didyme - how strong is her bond to Renesmee? Likely more. Aro knows the threat in that. He knows that Bella may be viewing him in the way Marcus feels when he thinks of taking revenge on whoever killed Didyme.

Nobody wants the Romanians back in power. Those who lived under their reign and those who have heard first hand stories told to them all know very well that life under Vladimir would be horrible, brutal, awful for all beside his close coven members (though considering he had a very large coven that was often squabbling amongst itself, it was probably miserable for a lot of them too).

But Bella is young. She has no memory of the world before the Volturi, and knows no one with first hand experience of that world other than the Volturi. She will have heard that it was horrible, but she has no emotional or personal connection to the near-ancient past, and vampires who lived during that time are disappearing. No one lives forever.

Then, she is American. Like Garrett, she values freedom, and the Volturi are the only oppressive vampire force either of them has ever known. Despite them being the least oppressive in vampire history, Bella and Garrett haven’t experienced the alternative. They are a government that is at times harsh, is corrupt, and executes people. They go to war and they obliterate their enemies. Bella doesn’t see that the Volturi is the least bad government her world is ever going to get, and that they’ve granted her so much freedom. She is unable to see that because, in her youth, she has nothing to compare them against.

By standing against the Volturi, Bella isn’t just standing against Aro, Caius, and Marcus. She is standing against the peace they have brought between vampires, against humans living without fear, against modern civilisation itself. She stands a representative of the next world order, and Aro can sense it.

#bella swan #bella cullen #aro volturi #volturi #the volturi #the volturi coven #volturi coven #edward cullen #esme cullen #pire twilight #huilen twilight #nahuel twilight #Joham twilight #garrett twilight #irina twilight #Irina Denali #carlisle cullen #cullen family #cullen coven #THETWILIGHTSAGA #twilgihtsaga #twilightsagaedit #twilight renaissance #twilight revival #twilight renewal #twilight resurgance

[sepublic]

           I love how by the end of The Third Temple, Sasha no doubt thinks she’s being super-clever and conniving, because Marcy mentions going to Newtopia first, so of COURSE Sasha agrees with this, takes advantage of it, she’s such an opportunist and the girls have no idea they’re playing right into her hands…

           Except! She’s actually being outwitted by MARCY, who’s the actual smart kid… And it’s MARCY who’s thinking that Sasha’s playing into her own hands, and it’s probably Marcy’s gambit that will win out in the end with Andrias and his master; But it’s so damn hilarious because like… They’re both manipulating and playing into each other’s hands, but neither knows the other is up to something! Sasha underestimates Marcy and doesn’t know enough about Andrias, and then Marcy’s just blindly trusting of Sasha, like she probably is of friends who also serve as authority figures in her life in general (case in point Maddie Flour).

           It’s legit hilarious, and the writing’s so clever; Because they both have their own agendas but underestimate the other, and they just so happen to align perfectly… And you can see one being dumb, but really they’re BOTH being simultaneously smart and duped, and amidst the tragedy and betrayal, it’s gonna be low-key funny when Sasha and Marcy’s plots collide into one another awkwardly, as they realize- Oh WHOOPS, we sort of had the same plan, but didn’t? I love it, I love seeing how these characters can have their hidden agendas and how they play into each other at the same time, clashing and conflicting, lowkey agreeing upon the one thing they both need to take down the other, and neither of them even realize it!

           It’s such a complex web of events and intent, and it’s even better that they’re utterly oblivious to the whole thing… Unless Marcy is actually more aware than she lets on, and/or Andrias suspected all of this and told her. Then meanwhile you have Anne caught in the crossfire and confusion and betrayal, and no doubt Sasha and Marcy will ask if SHE had any ulterior motives, and she doesn’t, and it’s so confusing and hard to keep track of… Though I can also see Marcy kind of suspecting it, again from Andrias, but because she also knows about what Sasha did at Toad Tower from Anne, whereas Marcy herself has had no betrayal precedent established.

           But yeah, it’s so damn funny that Sasha is probably thinking “GOTTEM” at poor dumb Marcy who she loves, but actually Marcy’s been four parallel universes ahead of her this whole time, freaking MARCY, and while Anne and Sasha duel it out… They’re totally missing out on the ACTUAL girl who’s playing them all for fools, and her con is likely aided by the fact that she legit doesn’t mean malice, nor does Marcy even think what she’s doing is wrong and manipulative! Again, it’s SUCH clever, twist-and-turns writing that overlaps and sews across, little plot threads coming across… Utterly brilliant, I love it!

          Now we’ll have to see who adapts to the chaos and the heat-of-the-moment better… Or at least, who’s able to get Anne on THEIR side, and that answer’s likely a lot more obvious. In addition to Sasha also having to deal with Andrias and HIS machinations, which are guiding Marcy’s… And the Toad Rebellion ain’t looking so good, if that one shot of Yunnan and a bunch of downed Toads is any indication. This is just taking Suspicion Island to a WHOLE new level, and Marcy’s the one that everybody missed and overlooked, they thought SHE was the fool, when in reality she was playing them all… Not maliciously nor super intentionally, but she’s operating on Andrias’ orders, so y’know.

          Even if Sasha could come toe-to-toe with Marcy, it’s a different issue if she doesn’t even anticipate the attack to begin with, doesn’t even realize Marcy’s a combatant and player in the ring herself; And THAT surprise is going to blindside her, before Sasha has the chance to adapt and make use of her own strength to win what should normally be a straight-forward conflict. Grime praised Sasha for playing Flip-Wart while the rest did Bog-Jump, but it seems it was MARCY who was actually doing this the entire time; Fitting, how she’s the only one we see who knows about the game and actually played it!

          Sasha could easily take on Marcy in a battle of strength, but that’s why Marcy has Anne to do this for her… Sasha, alas, for all of her seeming manipulations, is fundamentally more brute force than anything else; Which means she’s no match for Marcy’s wit, at least in conjunction with Andrias’ scheming! Marcy won’t meet Sasha on the battlefield, it’s Anne who’ll do that for her, leaving Sasha vulnerable on the tactical front… Hopefully Grime can help, but when there’s also the hidden ace-up-the-sleeve that is whatever Andrias is serving, and things don’t look too good for the Toad Rebellion!

          Just when we thought it was Marcy who was the mediator who’d turn the tides between Anne and Sasha… It seems it’s actually ANNE who’s the mediator, to turn the tides between Sasha and Marcy! It’s all up to, and all down to, Boonchuy… And alas, I don’t think Sasha can count on Anne for support at such a crucial moment junction, not when Anne can’t the same in return. It’s always the ones who seem silly and harmless that you gotta look out for… Well, them, and the giant Newt King who’s been alive longer than anyone else; Him, AND whatever’s in that basement…!

           I’ll say it again- But the way this all overlaps and fits perfectly into a place like a puzzle, all of it no doubt painstakingly planned out, so it all seems perfect and obvious to each person to do this... It’s SUCH fiendishly clever writing, and I admire it! I can almost see this as being additional karma for Sasha, who possibly low-key looked down on Marcy, or thought of her as dumb, given her apathy to Marcy’s own antics back home, and even mentioning that she’d get herself killed. Well, Sash, look who’s blindly following the path into danger, and will need to be saved by Anne, THIS time...! Guess you shouldn’t have underestimated Marcy and given her as much consideration and time of day, and respect, as Anne did... In general you need to take cues from Anne, actually. For all of Anne’s issues, she’s somehow the most well-rounded of the trio, and that is of course a CONCERNING relativity...

It’s just this total clash and train wreck of differing interests, circumstances and opportunities, accidents and twists that nobody could account for, and blind spots, all coming and crashing together into utter chaos, a mess nobody can predict, debris and shrapnel of characters and new plot points flying all over the place, and you can’t tear your eyes away from it as you watch in fascinated horror, utterly engrossed. I look FORWARD to this, the drama and weaving of threads makes me excited for the final picture and the completed puzzle...!

#amphibia #amphibia marcy #marcy wu #amphibia sasha #sasha waybright #amphibia andrias #king andrias #amphibia anne #anne boonchuy #meta #speculation

[mokutone]

sorry if this is random but i was just curious about your thoughts on sai? i know you have a lot of thoughts on yamato fhdjdlfn and his and yamato’s relationship always seemed so interesting and really underdeveloped :[ theyre both really similar but yamato was able to get out of ROOT before sai was, and i was just wondering if you had any thoughts on that/him to share. sorry if this is weird or out of the blue djshfkfj love your art!!

that's not weird at all!!! actually the day u sent this question in i had finalized the thumbnails (and started on the pencils!) for a comic wherein Yamato comments on how Sai is handling his transition out of ROOT differently than Yamato himself did! I don't want to lay all my thoughts on that out here, because I think i'm much more clumsy with textposts than with comics, but I appreciate the question and I will share some thoughts!

under a readmore tho bc. this got Long...comics force me to be concise but w/ a keyboard under my hands i just chatter

here's something I've been thinking abt! I think they had fundamentally different experiences in ROOT, and this is reflected in their attitudes towards Danzō, as well as the way they interact with the people outside of ROOT.

Sai seems to have no real loyalty to Danzō. He does what Danzō says because Danzō gives him his orders, when he practices his fake smile in front of Danzō, Danzō immediately tells him to cut that shit out. I don't think there's a lot of love lost there—when team Kakashi catches up to him in orochimaru's hideout, and they kind of confront him, and. also kind of. "give him the option" of abandoning his mission (and ROOT along with it) or. you know. facing shinobi consequences. he doesn't really seem to think much of it? honestly. i imagine he was probably a little more relieved than anything else. Add to that him remembering how he wanted to finish the drawing of his brother—

actually wait hang on thats another point I want to talk about. Sai was pitted against the person he was closest to in order to traumatize him into numbness! wack! I think that's kind of at the root (help.) of why I see him as a fundamentally angrier character than I see Yamato—and why I interpret some of his behavior not just as Not Knowing How People Work (although he does have trouble with this! it's a very different vibe. like. him trying to comfort Naruto and Naruto thinking Sai was coming onto him was an entirely different kind of situation) but as like. intentionally inflammatory sometimes...like. he's insulted the bodies of most of the people around him in one way or another, he knows it pisses them off, he does keep doing it. I think him Causing Problems On Purpose is sometimes just a way for him to try and experience catharsis for a fury he doesn't really know he's repressing. Like. idk. it's one thing to be forced to hurt yourself, that's deeply upsetting, disembodying, traumatizing, but it's another to be forced into a situation where you're to hurt somebody you love (regardless of the outcome) like. idk. its a kind of powerlessness that hits different at least ime, and frustration and resentment are extremely normal reactions to a situation like that. i think. a number of things could be appealing to him abt trying to get others to get angry at him—whether it's Him being the one to Cause another persons anger (which could confer a kind of. feeling of control) or him seeing himself reflected in their anger (like a "boy howdy i recognize this emotion. it's very clear. very understandable") or even seeing how they handle the anger. kishimoto definitely doesn't care nearly as much about Sai's anger. but i found the implication of it compelling as a kid, and I find it more compelling as an adult! anger can be an incredibly healing and protective force sometimes when dealing w/ trauma...and I wish kishimoto knew what he was writing about or that we got to see it explored more!!! ack!

yamato (as kinoe) had a wildly different experience when he was in ROOT.

we know he knew how to fight against sharingan, which. I think implies he was training in combat with Danzō, or that he worked closely with Danzō, or at the very least that Danzō used his sharingan on him. We also saw that (unlike Sai, who was rebuked for even fake-smiling) that Kinoe (at first) was not told to feel nothing, but instead instructed on how to feel by Danzō specifically. Like, mostly telling him to Feel Grateful etc, but I think him being told to experience specific feelings according to what Danzō thought was appropriate would lead to a different relationship with his emotions than Sai, who was told explicitly to repress them all at all times, and to not even attempt to preform them.

He also like. Thought. Highly. of Danzō, not just as a leader but as a person...it's kind of undeniable that Kinoe saw him as right, was willing to brand his own feelings and intuition wrong if it crossed Danzō's, openly sought Danzō's approval, when he fails his mission to secure Kakashi's eye, his reaction is. essentially immediately to return himself to Danzō to face whatever new dehumanization Danzō's got for him— even when Kakashi and Hiruzen drag him out of there he thanks Danzō for everything, and he seems genuine about it, despite. everything. He's more expressive than Sai for sure, He had like. a moment of anger, when he said that he wanted to be Tenzō, and Danzō denied him that basic self identification...but it's quickly squashed. Messy. Messy. I think. I think he has a little more trouble getting in touch w/ his anger than Sai bc of his emotional closeness to Danzō.

i think. because yamato knows that he was something more like Danzō's favorite, and that conveyed a vastly different experience than Sai's, he might feel a little complicated about being like "So...ROOT trauma, huh? Hell of a thing!" but. i also like to think that he's very quietly kind of trying to observe and support in a way which mostly allows Sai to figure himself out—I think when they are older they would probably talk about it more (also because then their tongue-seals will have finally disappeared. Thanks sasuke!), once Sai has close friends in the village and everything

Just a lot of like. "I have friendships down. I have teammates down, easily—but what am I to the old woman I buy my cabbages from. What degree of friendliness do I exhibit to her."

"I think...whatever you're comfortable with is fine. I know neither of us had particularly normal upbringings, but you don't have to execute every interaction perfectly for people to care about and respect you."

anyway god this is so long and soooo based in my own personal HCs. I hope there was something in here that was interesting to you!

#artagans #yamswers #sai #sai yamanaka #he was my favorite character as a kid and the only character i actually remember #as a ND kid i obviously definitely related to the social issues. also he had a crop top and was a bit of an asshole #so i was like fuck yeah this guy rules and he DOES and i still love him a lot #also. sakura and naruto are really good influences on him i think and contribute to him learning quickly #both of them have such BIG feelings #and also are quick to say ''HEY the way I'm being treated SUCKS and I've HAD IT!!!!'' #which is really good for sai to witness and experience #they both also like. are quick to express anger but its very healthy...they set boundaries #and they also like. clearly know he's having trouble with some things and forgive him the small stuff #idk i have a lot of feelings abt his relationship to the other team seven kids. its nice... #all of this under the disclaimer that like. this is only my experience of sai and naruto #even if kishimoto WERENT an incredibly inconsistent writer (which he is) my interpretation is not gonna be to everyones taste

[ghosthunterbuck]

fundamental pieces

buddie (1.6k) (read it on AO3)

Eddie’s knees hit the ground with a dull thud that he doesn’t feel.

He doesn’t feel anything, actually. He can’t. Because if he feels something, he’s going to feel everything, and if he feels everything, he’s going to come apart at the seams.

He can’t look away from the smoldering pile of rubble in front of him. Dimly, he’s aware that there are other people around, people who could be hurt, people who might need his help. He’s frozen, though. Stuck on his knees, might as well be fossilized in amber.

Buck.

Buck is—

Fuck, Eddie can’t even bring himself to think it. The house was standing and now it’s not. The ground was stable and then it wasn’t. Buck was—

And now he’s not.

The flashing lights from the fire engine cast strange moving shadows across the debris. Eddie tracks each one of them, unable to stop himself. It can’t have been more than a minute — the dust from the collapse still lingers heavily in the air, and no one’s started shouting orders yet — but time is stretching and folding in on itself and Eddie’s pretty sure he’s going to be stuck in this moment for the rest of his life.

And then, his radio crackles to life.

“Buckley to 118, I could use a little help down here.”

Eddie can’t help the wounded noise that falls from his lips. His entire body sags, a marionette with strings cut.

He allows himself a count of three, then stumbles to his feet. Buck needs him. He shoves the past few minutes in a box he knows he’ll never want to open again. Buck needs him.

The next half hour is a blur filled with structural engineers and thermal cameras and half hearted jokes over the radio. Buck’s okay, just trapped in a pocket beneath one of the house’s sturdier beams.

It’s maddening, knowing that Buck is less than a hundred yards away and not being able to get to him. Eddie feels trapped in his own skin. He wants to say to hell with it and just start digging, but the engineers say that any wrong move could collapse the bubble that Buck’s in. So he clenches his jaw and waits.

His radio crackles again. “Hey Eddie?”

Eddie fumbles to press the button down so he can respond. “Buck? What’s wrong?” Eddie can hear the tension in his own voice, barely covering the panic that lies beneath.

“I’m fine,” Buck answers immediately. “I just… never mind. It’s stupid.”

“Tell me what it is,” Eddie says, as soft as he can manage right now.

There’s a long pause. “Can you talk to me?” Even over the radio, Buck’s voice sounds small.

Eddie lets out a breath. “Yeah, Buck, I can do that. What do you want to talk about?”

“What, uh, what’s Christopher doing at school this week?”

Eddie knows damn well Buck already knows the answer to that question, but he indulges it anyway, telling Buck about the history fair coming up and the diorama Chris wants to build.

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to conscript you for that one,” Eddie chuckles. It’s a little forced, but it’s the best he can do under the circumstances.

“Well someone’s got to help him with the papier-mâché, and we both know it’s not going to be you,” Buck says.

“Hey!” Eddie says, mock-affronted. “I helped on the last one! With the solar system?”

“Eds, you popped the balloon before the sun was dry. It looked like a weird yellow raisin.” The amusement in Buck’s voice is good to hear.

He’s about to defend himself when Bobby claps him on the shoulder. “We’re moving in,” he says. “Let Buck know.”

Eddie swallows. “Buck? Still there?” It’s a stupid question. Nothing’s changed in the last 30 seconds, but waiting for Buck’s response still feels like standing on a precipice.

“Nowhere else to go,” Buck confirms.

“We’re on our way to you,” Eddie says roughly.

“Roger,” Buck replies. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just hang tight and keep your helmet on straight,” Bobby says.

“You got it, Cap.”

—

Digging through the rubble is delicate, and frankly terrifying, work. They’ve got airbags holding up the points that the engineers identified as load bearing, but every time something in the structure shifts, Eddie’s breath catches. Eventually, though, they’ve got a path cleared right up to where Buck should be.

“Nash to Buckley,” Bobby says into his radio.

“I read you, Cap.”

“We’re right on top of you. Keep your face covered and don’t try to help.”

Eddie swears he can hear the cheeky smile Buck must be wearing when he says, “No help from me, got it.”

It’s another agonizing ten minutes, then finally, finally, Eddie’s got one of Buck’s hands clasped in his, and he’s pulling him from the house’s crumbled remains.

“Shit,” Buck says, surveying the damage. “You must’ve thought—“

Eddie unintentionally tightens his grip on Buck’s hand. It’s the opposite of what he should be doing, but he can’t let go. Buck squeezes back.

“I’m fine, Eds,” he says softly.

And Eddie knows, he does, but he’s not going to believe it until he’s checked every inch of him over himself.

—

“Thank you,” Buck says, out of the blue.

It’s a few hours later, and they’re back at the station. As intense as the call had been, Buck had gotten out of it without a scrape, so they’re all still on duty.

“For what?” Eddie asks.

Everyone else is asleep, so it’s just the two of them sprawled out on the loft’s couch. There’s some nature documentary playing on the TV, but Eddie’s fairly certain neither of them is watching it.

“For distracting me. Earlier, I mean. I, uh. It helped.”

Eddie gives up his pretense of paying attention to the hyenas on the screen and turns to look at Buck.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he whispers. It gives away far too much, but he’s so far past the point of worrying about that.

Buck swallows heavily, like he’s heard everything that Eddie didn’t mean to reveal with those five words. He shifts until he’s pressed against Eddie, ankle to shoulder.

“I was scared,” Buck admits, toying with the sleeve of the LAFD hoodie he’s wearing. Eddie wants to take his hand all over again.

“I thought—“ Eddie can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. “I was scared, too,” he says instead.

Buck looks at him. He bites his lower lip and frowns. “I just kept thinking that I didn’t want to tell you over the radio,” he sighs finally.

“Tell me what?” Eddie asks.

Buck looks away again. He’s starting to hunch in on himself the way he does when he’s feeling vulnerable. Eddie gives into his earlier urge and takes Buck’s hand in his own.

“Whatever it is,” Eddie says softly, “you can tell me. I promise.”

Buck’s eyes shoot back up to Eddie’s, searching. Whatever he’s looking for, he must find.

“I love you,” he says simply.

He can’t mean it the way Eddie wants him to. The way Eddie’s wanted him to for months, years probably. He squeezes Buck’s hand tighter for want of words.

“I’m in love with you,” Buck clarifies. “I just… couldn’t not tell you.” His expression is almost resigned.

Eddie’s frozen all over again, but this time he let’s himself feel it all. Because Buck’s okay. Buck’s sitting right in front of him. Buck loves him.

“Evan,” Eddie breathes, unable to keep the name from slipping between his lips.

The resignation on Buck’s face shifts to hope, and he holds Eddie’s gaze. Lit by the blue glow of the television, he’s never looked more beautiful.

Eddie can’t wait another second. He ducks forward and brushes a feather light kiss across Buck’s lips. His intention is to lean back, to assess Buck’s reaction, but then Buck makes a strangled noise and surges forward, capturing Eddie’s mouth with his own.

The hand that isn’t otherwise occupied lifts of its own accord to cup Buck’s jaw. Buck’s free hand fists in the material of Eddie’s uniform. It’s like no kiss Eddie’s experienced before, fire and passion underlined by aching tenderness, and over all too soon.

Eddie leans his forehead against Buck’s breathing harshly.

“Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Buck pants.

“I think I might,” Eddie says.

Buck pulls back, just far enough to look Eddie in the eye. “You…”

Eddie wants to laugh. Even after that, of course Buck’s still not sure. Eddie’s not one for speeches, but Buck… Buck deserves to know exactly what he means to him. “Earlier, when I thought… it was like the whole world stopped. And I didn’t want it to start again, because I was terrified it’d be starting without you. I can’t do any of this without you. I don’t want to. I’ve been in love with you for so long it’s a fundamental part of who I am.”

It’s Buck’s turn to freeze.

“I love you,” Eddie says. He squeezes Buck’s hand.

The soft pressure must break him out of his stupor, because he lunges at Eddie again, this time throwing his arms around Eddie’s neck and burying his face in his shoulder. Eddie wraps his arms around Buck’s waist and buries his nose in Buck’s hair.

“I love you,” he whispers again, just because he can.

—

Bobby finds them the next morning, tangled together on the couch and snoring softly. He smiles, and resolves to make breakfast quietly.

#buddie #911 #9-1-1 #guess what! #this is neither my prompt nor one of my 13 wips! #my brain is really just Like This huh #anyway this is 90% fluff with just a little angst at the beginning #I'm physically incapable of writing an unhappy ending you will literally never have to worry about that with me #fic #abbie writes #also I'm posting this at like 1 am because I am ~wildly impatient~

[lokiondisneyplus]

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

#Loki #spoilers #episode 5 #review #Rolling Stone #Alan Sepinwall

[adifferenttime]

Andrew Ryan vs. Robert House

On almost every House post I make, someone in the notes will reliably reference Andrew Ryan. I totally get it - they look similar, they're based on the same guy, the parallels are so clear that the NV dev team added an achievement for killing House with a golf club - but I think these commonalities tend to engulf both characters, blotting out some of their more interesting ideological/personal differences. It's useful to examine them in relation to one another, but part of that is figuring out what distinguishes them, which is just what I’ve attempted to do.

It's difficult for me to talk about Randian objectivism because I don't think it's sound enough to address on its own terms, but considering this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan has adopted, I kind of have to. What I’d identify as the core premise of Randian ethics is this: altruism is a moral wrong. Some Randians have argued that isn't really what they believe - that the real point is anything resembling altruism is self-interest in disguise - but they're departing from the beliefs of their icon when they make those claims. Per Rand:

The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice – which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction – which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

The way Rand defines altruism is by linking it to self-sacrifice, which she uses to differentiate it from kindness or benevolence. Aiding others at no cost to yourself is benevolent, but not altruistic, and therefore not evil. Sacrificing your happiness to help another human being is, from Rand's perspective, evil, as is any philosophy that prioritizes the other at the cost of the self. This whole idea has been broadly rejected by most scholars on account of it being really fucking stupid. What justifies the leap from "man is naturally selfish" to "selfishness is good"? If selfishness is moral, wouldn't the most moral behavior be to exploit others through whatever means necessary, favoring force over the market? Rand defines happiness as "using your mind’s fullest power," achievable only when you "do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal," but why is this the only definition? What if your only options are self-sacrificial in nature? How do you weigh them if neither sacrifice is linked to values, individual achievement, or "your mind's fullest power" at all? Rand didn't care because she was too busy trying to ethically justify cheating on her man with her best friend's husband, but nonetheless, this is the philosophy Andrew Ryan’s adopted. He claims that "Altruism is the root of all Wickedness," in what's almost a direct quote from Rand herself.

To that end, Ryan builds a system that doesn’t just accept selfishness but actively incentivizes it. Every other principle he expresses is subservient to the ideas that selfishness rules man, and that for Ryan to act on his own selfish impulses is the highest good in the world. His lesser political principles (individual liberties, negative rights, the creation of a stateless society) don’t matter to him as much as the central precept from which they stem: that selfishness is his moral imperative.

What is the greatest lie every created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery? The Holocaust? Dictatorship? No. It's the tool with which all that wickedness is built: altruism.

It doesn't come as a particular surprise to me when he starts imprisoning dissidents or executing rivals or banning theft (standard practice in most societies, but not what an egoist would pursue; if you can get away with taking it, you deserve to have it, or so the thinking goes). I’ve seen him described as a hypocrite, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true considering everything he does is in line with his opposition to altruism. He'll adhere to his other principles only if they don’t sabotage his pursuit of personal power. This is evident in the fact that he only adopts a negative perception of Fontaine when his own interests are threatened, but doesn’t give two shits what Fontaine might be doing to sow conflict and harm people before that point. A guy named Gregory asks Ryan to step in against Fontaine early on before Fontaine's fully established himself as a threat to Ryan's power, and Ryan's extremely blase about it.

Don't expect me to punish citizens for showing a little initiative. If you don't like what Fontaine is doing, well, I suggest you find a way to offer a better product.

Contrast this with how he reacts when Fontaine has risen as a genuine business rival. This is from the log titled "Fontaine Must Go."

Something must be done about Fontaine. While I was buying buildings and fish futures, he was cornering the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences. Rapture is transforming before my eyes. The Great Chain is pulling away from me.

This double standard is the natural outgrowth of his prioritization of self-interest. If your most deeply-held belief is that you should never give up your interests for others, ancillary rules become flexible in times of personal crisis, and Bioshock makes the case that putting someone like that in charge of a city will leave you with a crumbling, monstrous ruin.

Superficially, House has some similarities. Ryan executes political rivals; House has you blow up a bunker of his ideological opponents. Ryan is the highest authority in Rapture; House is the absolute monarch of Vegas. Their goals and moral codes, though, are almost diametrically opposed. When you ask House why you’re expected to trust him when he’s openly admitting to installing himself as the despot of the New Vegas Strip, he says this:

I have no interest in abusing others... Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine-god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions.

Most of his resources are devoted to large-scale, impersonal projects, aimed either at building the power of Vegas or securing his long term goal of “progress” as he sees it. He’s rejected selfishness as a moral good because House is very far from Randian objectivism. He's a Hobbesian monarch.

In that respect, he shares an outlook on human nature with Ryan that I deeply disagree with (that human beings are essentially selfish), but in terms of what that means for the structure of a utopian society, House takes a very different position. From his perspective, human nature breeds suffering, not industriousness, and the only way to stamp out conflict - and, in a post-nuclear age, ensure the continued survival of the human race - is through a strong sovereign. The purpose of a state as laid out in Leviathan aligns very, very closely with the one House expresses.

...the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men...

The monarch's successes are reflected in his society and the well-being of humanity as a whole. To subvert his goals is to subvert society's goals, and to doom humanity to the war, death, and suffering that exist in a state of nature. When you destroy his Securitrons/kill him, he doesn't plead for himself or get offended on his own behalf. He accuses you of betraying not him, but mankind.

Single-handedly, you've brought mankind's best hopes of forward progress crashing down. No punishment would be too severe. Fool... to let... personalities... derail future... of mankind? ...Stupid! Slavery... the future of... mankind? What... have you... done?

An important corollary of this idea which again distinguishes House from Ryan appears in Leviathan’s description of the political/moral responsibility of a monarch to his subjects:

...that great Leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority... he hath the use of so much power that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.

Hobbes and House give the monarch virtually unlimited power but match it to the monarch's duty, which he lives to fulfill. His obligation is to speak for the people, act for them, and protect them from all threats, internal and external. House generally abides by this, orienting his decisions around his goals for society irrespective of the personal cost (the negative consequences of his actions are a product of his fucked evaluations of what’s best for society, not personal greed). It’s not just a departure from Ryan’s philosophy but a complete refutation of it. He's almost died for what he's misidentified as the greatest good.

Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was…. I spent the next few decades in a veritable coma.

This is not the behavior of an egoist. This is the behavior of an extremely arrogant but marginally altruistic (from a Randian perspective lmao) guy. This is some distorted “from each according to his ability” shit if you’ve managed to convince yourself your abilities exceed those of everyone else who has ever lived and that you can get the Mandate of Heaven by being really good at statistics.

The reason these guys develop such similar structures and hierarchies despite the ideological gulfs between them is because both of them are elitists who’ve experienced a massive failure of self-consciousness. They’re unable to conceive of other people as being fundamentally like them. Ryan separates people into the clearly-delineated classes of “producer” and “parasite,” ignoring the fact that everything he’s ever “produced” was reliant on a huge, coordinated effort between workers, architects, accountants, middlemen, and others, all of whom, in conjunction, contributed more to the realization of his dreams that he ever could have alone. Rather than realizing his own position is more parasitic and reliant on other people’s labor than that of anyone else in Rapture, he adheres to his doctrine of selfishness even when it’s not reflective of reality and is ruining the the lives of an entire city of people. He deludes himself into believing he’s a superman among ants instead of one flawed man who is reliant on the goodwill of others to help him survive, as are we all.

House, too, thinks he’s exceptional. Unlike Ryan, he acknowledges the necessity of the worker to a functioning society, but while he’ll accept his reliance on that labor, he doesn’t trust the laborer enough to share political power. House knows he’s invested in humanity’s survival and the creation of a better world, but he refuses to consider that he might not be alone in this goal. He chalks up the existence of the Legion to fanaticism/the ambitions of a sultanistic dictator and attributes everything the NCR has done to greed, without it ever occurring to him that the massive harm these nations have done was partially motivated by the same goals he’s devoted himself to - and that the atrocities he’s committed since his rise to power are, in some respects, very similar. House knows himself to be invested in the well-being of humanity, but he’s too arrogant to ask himself if his methods are wrong or trust other people to build a new path, one that doesn’t necessitate his complete control over the land and people of the Mojave. Ryan and House’s worldviews are distinct, and their flaws, as highlighted by their respective narratives, say some interesting things about how each set of devs view power and the pitfalls of elitism.

Anyway. If you put these two men in a room, they would probably try to murder each other, and I think that’s great.

#Robert House #Andrew Ryan #fallout meta #bioshock meta #fnv #bioshock #fallout new vegas

[firstdegreefangirl]

“After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t think that I love you?” i would love this prompt for Chenford!

Love your writing!!!

Anon, you KILLED me with this one. I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, then a tiny inkling of an idea, then I wrote close to 1600 words in one sitting. Even though I try to keep prompt fills under or around 1k, it is what it is, and I like this so much that I’m not going to make myself pare it down. So thanks for the ask, and enjoy!

Oh, and spoilers for 3.09, if you haven’t at least seen the Facebook promo that got me to watch the full clip even though I still haven’t seen the whole episode. I’m working on it, I swear.

---

“Look me in the face and tell me you don’t think I have the killer instinct to do undercover work.”

It had taken longer than Tim cared to admit before he could school his features enough to meet Lucy’s eyeline and sneer at her. Even then, it had only lasted a second before he couldn’t stand to look at her any longer.  

An entire year they’ve spent together, Tim testing his rookie at every step of the way.

Not once had he imagined that she’d have the audacity to test him back. And today, of all days.  

And like this.  

He’s got to ignore it. He has to make it at least through the end of the shift without constantly thinking about how she’d laughed mere moments after saying she had feelings for him.

It’s not weird. He’d been honest when he told her that.  

And I appreciate your honesty.

It’s not weird. It’s so much worse.

Because for the rest of the shift, every time he catches sight of Lucy, Tim’s stomach starts to churn. Every time he hears her voice, his heart beats double-time in his chest. Every time the light fragrance of her perfume wafts across the shop into his nose, he wants to go buy a dozen of those stupid cardboard trees and duct tape them to every air vent.  

Because every time he so much as thinks about Lucy, he thinks about what he’d almost said to her, before she’s started laughing at him.  

And he still has to turn in her final evaluation, so he’s thinking about her a lot.

He’s thinking about the last year of their lives, all the ways she’s grown into her career, all the ways she’s grown on him.

And he’s thinking about how for just a second, the barest breath of an instant, the world had stopped turning around him this morning.

I have feelings for you.  

He hadn’t known what to say to that, how to respond without losing one or both of their jobs. And then she had suggested that he might have feelings for her too, had come way too close to the only card in his hand Tim had known he could never show.  

Had he been showing it this whole time?

But she’d started laughing, and the whole thing had been a ruse. Lucy had been fucking with him, and it had worked, and now he can’t shake the way the nausea burns in his stomach. He hardly eats his lunch, even though they both know how much he loves the food truck, blames it on a big breakfast and anxiety about the AMBER Alert.

And somehow, by nothing short of a miracle, he survives the shift. Baby Young is reunited with her parents, Lucy gets promoted to P2, and Tim handles it all without passing out, throwing up, or punching any walls.  

All in all, it’s a good day.

But it’s over before he knows it. Before he’s ready, he’s standing in the parking garage, holding a box and sporting a face full of white powder.  

She got him again, and he can’t even bring himself to be upset about it.  

“It’s been a blast, sir,” she says, laughing again. He loves the sound, even though it feels like a knife in his gut as he thinks again about earlier.

“It has,” he says, then surprises himself. “I can … buy you a drink? Now that you’re not a rookie anymore, there are some things we need to talk about.”

He tries to make it sound like he’s getting ready to give her more career advice, the kinds of firsthand accounts that aren’t relevant until she’s cleared the academy. And he’s got those too, decades of stories about truly helping people who need it and rules bent for the right reasons.  

But that’s not what he’s going to say, and he knows it. He feels it deep in his gut as he leads the way across town, sitting right next to the lingering panic from the morning as he watches Lucy’s headlights behind him.

Then they’re sitting across from each other, crammed into a tiny booth, knees knocking together under the table, no matter how many times they try to rearrange themselves. He waves a bartender over, asks for a pitcher of whatever domestic is on tap, and two glasses.  

Neither of them say anything until the drinks arrive, until they’ve each downed half a beer. But Tim knows it won’t last, so for once today, he’s not surprised when Lucy breaks the silence.

“We need to talk?” There’s hesitation in her voice, and for a moment, Tim feels a little bad. He wonders what she thinks he’s about to say, even though he knows she won’t be right.

“What you said earlier … in the shop, you know …" He’s stammering again, stumbling where he's usually brash and a little overconfident, and he hates how easy it is for Lucy to throw him off his game. She doesn’t even have to try, and she’s changing the very fundamentals of his personality. But she nods, so he soldiers on. “I don’t think you were being honest with me. Um, dishonest. Ah, at the … at first. Before you …"

Before you took away everything I’ve known the last 12 months.

“So I … wasn’t lying?” Lucy furrows her brow, trying to untangle everything Tim’s said.

“No, you were.” Tim takes a long drink, but his mouth is still dry. “When you tried to convince me that it was just a show of your undercover skills. I don’t think it was. I …" Here goes everything, Bradford. “I hope it wasn’t.”

“You — I — What?” It’s Lucy’s turn to be speechless now, and Tim can see the way her fingers tighten around her glass. “You — you hope?”

“You deserve my honesty,” Tim says simply, mirroring her words from earlier, just before she’d pulled the rug out from under him. He leans forward. “Lucy, when you said … I didn’t get a chance to respond before you switched gears. Not honestly. And the truth is … you were right. When you said I’m protective of you because I have feelings for you.”

Her eyes narrow.

“This isn’t some Revenge Tim Test, is it?”

“No, it’s not.” Tim holds his hands out on the table, palms up, a physical representation of how open he’s trying to be. “I don’t know when it started, or really even when I noticed. But you’re right, we’ve been through a lot this year, both of us. A lot of it together, but all of it as partners. And somewhere along the way, it became more than I’d bargained for.  

“In a good way,” he hurries to add. “I like it. You. I like — I like you. A lot.” Dammit, he’s stammering again. “And I think you were honest when you said you had feelings for me.” Lucy nods slowly, but makes no effort to speak, and he can’t read anything definite in the gesture. “You’re right, you’re not my rookie anymore. It might be complicated, but in my experience, the best things usually are. And I think that if there’s something here, between us … it’s worth pursuing.”  

Tim lets the rest of the air out of his lungs, drains his glass in one swallow and pours himself a refill. Lucy still hasn’t said anything, but he’s determined to let her say her piece, even if she needs a second to process everything. The longer she’s silent, the more worry builds up in his chest, but he knows he’s done the right thing. She deserves his honesty; he’d meant that when he said it.  

“Tim …" Lucy starts, then trails off. “You really thought I —” She laughs, but there’s nothing funny about it. “I really should go out for undercover work. After everything we’ve been through, you still don’t know that I love you?”  

“I know that I want you to.” It’s somehow more honest than anything else he’s said tonight, putting it all on the line. Tim sets his hand on the table again, and there are no words to express the way his chest swells when Lucy reaches forward tentatively to tuck her fingers between his. “I know that I’m crazy about you, and that maybe if we’re on the same page about that, some of this year will have been worth it.”

“Only some?” Lucy smiles, and he’s pretty sure she’s trying to flirt with him. Now that he’s letting himself look for those signals, they’re clear as day in front of him.

“Yeah, well, you really shouldn’t have had to get kidnapped for us to work this out.”  

“Fair,” She laughs, and for the first time all day, the sound doesn’t turn to molten lead in his stomach. Now he feels warm, comfortable with everything that’s hanging between them. “But however we got here, I’m just glad we made it.”

Lucy leans forward, eye flicking down to look at his mouth, and yeah, he’s picking up the signals. He squeezes her fingers, half-stands in the booth, just far enough to close the space between them and brush their lips together.

It’s a fleeting moment, the angle all wrong and Tim’s back already starting to ache from the strain. None of that matters when he sits back down, though, because he knows there are many more moments to come, just like this and even better.

“Me too, Lucy.”

#this was SO MUCH FUN to put together #I had a blast too Lucy #*rimshot* #chenford #chenford fanfic #the rookie #lucy chen #tim bradford #lucy chen x tim bradford #tim bradford x lucy chen #the rookie s3 #otp: just doing my job #katie writes #kw21 #katie answers #prompt fill #anon love #anonymous #Anonymous

[punkscowardschampions]

Jali Pt.1

Ali: Remember I’m not gonna be ‘round tonight

Ali: but I left some [treats of some description] in the ‘van for you earlier

Johnny: [do your usual thing of not replying until you’ve finished work and are on your way back]

Johnny: No

Johnny: I’d forgot & now I’m reckoning you should be ‘round

Ali: I can’t be, Carly and Meena are already here getting ready

Ali: I don’t know when it’ll finish but I could see you before work

Johnny: I’m to wait up for you like a role reversal, is it?

Ali: I can wake you up, if you’re not loving that idea

Johnny: And trouble yourself? Not your idea of how the night’s to be spent

Ali: Come on, it’s a family thing

Johnny: Your pal Carly’s not your family & mine who I can see moving themselves to get ready aren’t neither

Ali: I had to make it bearable

Ali: if you could come, you’d be invited too

Johnny: Ronan’ll do that for you, sure enough

Ali: He’s still my mate

Johnny: He’s my cousin & I’ve said he’s not to be your mate

Ali: Why not?

Ali: Your brother is also my mate and invited, by the way

Johnny: You’ve the knowing why not, smart girl

Ali: I’ve stopped leading him on, can ask him

Johnny: He’s not stopped wanting to be led

Ali: Maybe not yet but it isn’t gonna happen, give him time, like

Ali: he’ll get over us

Johnny: What are you after being friends with a lad who’s in love with you for?

Ali: Well he’s not in love with me, he just has a crush

Johnny: Put whatever words to it, it’s only so as you don’t have to handle how he feels and why you’re keeping him ‘round you still when you’ve known it

Ali: He’s not done anything wrong, there’s no reason we can’t be friends

Ali: it’d feel like punishing him for it to ice him out

Johnny: It’s not proper for you to be friends, least of all with this between yous as well

Ali: He’s not grown yet

Ali: by then I’m sure he’ll be long since done with me, why’s it not proper for now?

Johnny: I’ve told you why, Ali

Ali: He’s to decide for himself, if he can hack it or not

Johnny: Yeah, his decision won’t make you unpopular, here we are again

Ali: It’s not about popular, three people, I’ve invited three people

Ali: it’s just a bonfire

Johnny: What it’s about is you needing his crush on you to keep on

Johnny: bigger picture than the bonfire

Ali: Why would I want that? It’s really fucking awkward, actually

Johnny: It’s what you want off everybody

Ali: Is it

Johnny: I’ve had that right about you this whole time, said it then and I can still stand by it now

Ali: How’s it feel to be right?

Johnny: Ah give over

Ali: Come on yourself, you wouldn’t say it if you didn’t have a point to prove

Johnny: My point’s proving itself, you can’t leave him alone

Ali: There’s no need to, he knows we’re never happening, that’s all that needs to be said to him and I have

Johnny: The need’s in listening to me

Ali: I do

Ali: What do you think I should do then?

Johnny: Send him home where he belongs

Ali: What about Bart?

Johnny: Same rules apply, like

Johnny: you’ve no more need of him as a pal when you’ve Carly and that other girl there already

Ali: So I can only be friends with girls, that’s convenient 

Johnny: It’s what you are

Ali: It’s no different though

Ali: you should be as jealous of girls as you are lads

Johnny: I’m jealous of nobody

Johnny: Why am I having to go back over what I’ve said before?

Ali: ‘Cos we just fundamentally disagree that I can’t be mates with them, I guess

Johnny: You can’t be told unless it’s something you had your own mind to be doing, that’s where we disagree

Ali: Not if I’m wrong, I can admit, it’s happened

Johnny: You’re wrong here

Ali: You think I’m using him

Johnny: You like it or you wouldn’t encourage it

Ali: I like him, he’s a nice person, they both are

Ali: It’s mutual, that’s all

Johnny: No, you like his attention

Ali: I don’t want anyone else’s attention, not like that

Johnny: Sure, so uninvite him

Ali: You can’t be here

Johnny: What’s that to do with it unless his attention’s the same as mine?

Ali: Just that I have to be here and if you can’t be then I want friends around

Johnny: There’s no have to, you do as you like, it’s the 1st of what you told me about yourself more or less

Ali: And you told me family is important

Ali: my sister wants me here

Johnny: Playing the family card only works if you’re bothering yourself with them & you’ve just there said you are your friends

Ali: It’s complicated

Ali: She’s mad at me but also mad at the rest of them so she’s kind of doing a silent protest

Ali: but if I’m not there, she’ll be madder than she already is

Johnny: Not where it involves Ronan or Bartley, they’ve no business being ‘round your sister or none of the rest of your family, same as I’ve no neither

Ali: That doesn’t stop us

Ali: this is the first night I haven’t been ‘round you in forever

Johnny: Stop them or I will

Johnny: it’s the last night there’s this carry on

Ali: Seriously?

Johnny: Seriously, it’s gone on too long

Ali: It don’t effect you, or them negatively

Ali: I’m not stopping them doing what they ought to

Johnny: Enough

Johnny: do as you’re told

Ali: Don’t try and play that card now

Johnny: Someone has to

Ali: I hate letting you down

Ali: Do you think I’m going to give us away, is that what it is?

Johnny: It’s nothing to do with us

Ali: You don’t trust me, do you

Johnny: You don’t behave respectable, you can’t even listen, you’re only wanting to say your piece and be done

Ali: I listen, if I wasn’t trying to see your point, I’d have stopped replying ages ago

Johnny: My point is, have all the friends you want, none need be related to me

Ali: It’s weird for you, okay

Johnny: I’m trying to keep ‘em in line & you’re fucking it up with your other pals and your parties

Ali: That’s what they want to do, whether I’m there or not

Ali: beside the point this is a family bonfire, it couldn’t be more wholesome

Johnny: You’ve no reason to involve yourself in what they’re doing, that’s what you want

Ali: I want friends, yeah, I’ll admit that

Johnny: We’re going round and round

Johnny: you’re not 1 of the boys, quit your acting up with them and find some new friends

Ali: Alright

Johnny: There you go then

Ali: Tonight’s still happening regardless of what I decide so

Johnny: The last night, yeah

Ali: You know I’ll have less reason to be on-site if we’re not friends, yeah

Johnny: That won’t work, you know

Johnny: you still are with Carly and you’ve been coming on and off without being seen

Ali: Suddenly you’re Carly’s biggest fan, like

Johnny: Ah what, you don’t reckon she’s as good excuse ‘cause and when you want to use them as yours instead of?

Ali: I don’t want to use them, I don’t know if I’m prepared to lose them as mates yet

Johnny: When you know, let me in on it

Ali: It’s your ultimatum, ‘course I will

Johnny: Your party, off you go and host

Ali: In a bit, Johnny

Johnny: [rudely leave her to it for now sir]

Ali: [when this party is over, thank god, honestly]

Ali: Are you awake?

Johnny: No

Ali: Ha ha

Johnny: What is it?

Ali: Partys over, brother burned his hand

Johnny: I’ll expect my brother soon, right

Ali: Probably, though he had a better night than most

Johnny: I’ve no need to hear it

Ali: I’m just saying, I didn’t check where he was headed, no, as my fam were rushing off to A&E

Johnny: Not my business, he is

Ali: Wow, okay

Johnny: You didn’t invite me, don’t act like I’m to care

Ali: Don’t act as if you’d have come

Johnny: It wouldn’t be my place to

Ali: So why would I invite you, I know the answer

Johnny: Maybe ‘cause you don’t speak for me

Ali: I’ve no need to humiliate myself 

Johnny: I don’t want it, humiliating you

Ali: What do you want?

Ali: The party was pretty shit in the end, you can have that

Johnny: Why would I be after having it?

Ali: You can admit you were after it not being an amazing night for me

Johnny: Come on, Ali

Ali: You

Ali: She hates me and she won’t eat and I think she’s going to die

Johnny: Who, your sister?

Ali: Yes, Ro

Johnny: Your parents should put her in [the psych ward’s name] with your brother, you’re not to be worrying yourself if she’ll die, they’ve that wrong

Ali: I don’t even think that place does fuck all, not from Joe’s reckoning

Johnny: Maybe they don’t, but the little girl you are can’t do it all herself

Ali: Don’t make me cry

Johnny: I’m getting on the bike, you won’t cry then

Ali: I’m not focusing on her, doing anything, you said that yourself

Johnny: I’ll admit I never meant some of what I said, both of us care about our family

Ali: I wish I knew what to do

Johnny: Maybe I can ask [his grandma that he mentioned in one of their other convos for being with his grandpa forever, calling her by whatever pet name he do] I’ve no need of hospital ‘cause of her, none of us do

Ali: You would?

Johnny: Yeah

Ali: That’s really nice of you

Johnny: It’s important, your sister to you and you to me

Ali: I thought you were mad at me

Johnny: You’re mine and you weren’t with me, be why

Ali: I would’ve missed you, even if it went well, you know that

Johnny: Not enough

Ali: It’s constant, it makes me act like a bad person with everyone else because I don’t want to be around them as much

Johnny: I can’t be away

Ali: I feel wrong here now

Johnny: Our place is the place for you

Johnny: I couldn’t wait there on my own

Ali: What have you been doing?

Johnny: I made you something

Ali: Really

Ali: I said no crying, Jesus

Johnny: It’s a new mate for you, when I’m not about

Ali: … Frankenstein? 

Johnny: I don’t know my handiwork’s as bad as that, the disgrace of his exposed bolts and everything

Ali: 😅 you’re so hot

Johnny: I am, been busy

Ali: I like that about you, you’ve always ideas and know what you’re doing next

Johnny: I like that about you, girl, you know

Ali: Can we just stay together

Johnny: It’s what’s to happen, I’m on my way

Ali: I’m sorry, for all of it

Johnny: All of it will be put right

Ali: It has to, not everything can be so fucked up

Johnny: Whose are you? I’ll see to you, I have to

Ali: I trust you

Johnny: Good, I mean to look after you

Ali: If it were down to just you, everything in my life would be right

Johnny: It is, I’m keeping you with just me

Ali: In our place

Johnny: Under lock and no key ‘cause I’ll have made you swallow it for proper this time

Ali: I don’t need to be nowhere else

Johnny: I’ve a need to be inside you myself, nothing more

Ali: The rest of this night is yours

Johnny: All your nights are mine

Ali: Yes

Ali: nothing else is touching the sides, no one else gets through, It’s always you in my head, that I want with me and on me and inside of me

Johnny: It has to be me

Ali: Tell me I don’t have to go back, deal with any of it

Johnny: You’re with me, I’ll handle whatever’s to be handled

Ali: I wish you could’ve been here

Johnny: I’ll be there in a minute

Ali: I’m sorry I didn’t invite you

Johnny: I’d have had to tell you no and you don’t want to hear that

Ali: yeah but you might’ve wanted to say it, rude of me not to give you the chance

Johnny: I don’t

Ali: Never?

Johnny: You need telling sometimes, but not the now

Ali: You’re too nice to me

Johnny: It’d be like behaving as a eejit to a baby if I wasn’t

Ali: I feel like an idiot baby right now, you can have it

Johnny: I don’t want it

Ali: You know how it feels, better than anyone else I know

Ali: I just want to force some food down her but that wouldn’t work ‘cos she has to want the help herself, to do the right thing

Johnny: I’d force the lot of my family to do right, were as easy as that

Ali: Exactly

Ali: me too but we can’t, can we

Johnny: She believes you said, tell her she’s not to act up like that, if you’ve the worry she’s killing herself, it’s wrong

Ali: Not a bad idea… if she’ll let anyone guilt her

Ali: I don’t know if she thinks she’s killing herself, or if she reckons she’s invincible 

Johnny: She’ll not get to be one of his angels reckoning that

Ali: S’a smack in his holy all-powerful face, reckoning you’re on his level, yeah

Johnny: It’s a start, to say ‘til you get going and find the rest of the words you’re after

Ali: You’re so good

Ali: don’t lose faith in me, I’m not totally useless, just one of those nights…

Johnny: I wish I could’ve been there too

Ali: It’ll be your brother’s birthday soon

Ali: bound to have a fire, we’ll both be there

Johnny: Both there’s different from there together

Ali: Yeah

Ali: we’ll go be alone, when we can

Johnny: Then he’d end up burning himself, all the sense of your little brother

Ali: 😏 Mean

Ali: you won’t last a whole night though

Johnny: Oh, won’t I?

Ali: No way

Johnny: I went months before

Ali: And that was a bad decision

Ali: plus I wasn’t right there like I will be

Johnny: You was, you’re right there all the time

Ali: but you deserved it

Johnny: Maybe I deserve a bad night on his birthday for the 1 you’ve just had

Ali: It’s my fault, that I thought it’d be different, you did warn me

Johnny: I can’t fault you for wanting it to be different

Ali: I don’t want you to have any bad nights now

Johnny: I’ve none with you

Ali: If all my nights were like ours forever

Johnny: Say the rest, go on

Ali: you know the rest, you make me the happiest I’ve been in forever

Johnny: [show up to bring back the eerily good timing you’ve had on other occasions]

Ali: [me like you should’ve changed babe because that all leather fit you are rocking is going to be impossible to get in lmao, but you did not have time to think about such things when you’ve just been on the doorstep since your parents and Rocky left, sadly lamenting until this boy showed up and you can run over to him with all the !! in your heart rn]

Johnny: [when she isn’t giving you the chance to get off this bike even before she has appeared but this boy is the opposite of mad about it, using one of his rare but always very feelsy hugs to bring her up onto it like they are gonna leave rn immediately because it’s the mood and the vibe]

Ali: [tucking yourself under his arms like you intend to stay there and never leave because how you feel right now, only emerging enough to be able to look at him like it’s been years because of course we have to, silently trying to ascertain how he feels because you feel slightly bad about the SOS call you lowkey made without intending to be that dramatic; me also like I just KNOW Leesha be peeping out her window rn, nosy cow]

Johnny: [looking back at her for what would feel like years because he has always been an intense boy but it’s been an intense night for Alison and the first one they’ve been separated since they got back together, finally manoeuvring her however necessary to hold her face how they do, gently but deliberately pressing into the bruise there however faded it may be a week later, enjoy the show Leesha you big bitch]

Ali: [you probably wouldn’t have had such a mare if not for that fact lowkey, like you did NOT wanna be separated but also you had to so it put you in a tense mood anyway before anything went tits, here nudging your cheek harder into his hands, resting on him and closing your eyes with a sigh, putting your own hands in his pockets to pull him closer somehow]

Johnny: [lowkey GRABBING the entire lower part of her face via her cheek like !! because the control he never has and the need to pull her closer and into such an extra kiss is immediate despite the fact he has no idea where the rest of her family or anyone else invited to this party is rn cos he has not asked and peeps could so easily be loitering]

Ali: [thank god we would’ve thought to mention if your family and Carly were still knocking about at least, as per, just expecting our own fam to mind their business thank you, which realistically, they should be considering Rosaline is sulking and Baze have gone out, just Thomas who might and he knows what’s up to a degree so; have your moment, the noise we make at you grabbing our face just getting lost in how suddenly and feverishly we gotta kiss you because there’s no chill to be found ever, definitely making to say you’ve missed him and you’re sorry and you love him but the actual sounds that come out between your kisses might not be that understandable ‘cos making no attempts to be]

Johnny: [me like, you’re gonna feel awks being this nosy Leesha because this makeout sesh is gonna be going on way way way too long for being in her driveway or wherever and jali don’t give a fuck, as per they’ve forgotten where they are]

Ali: [what you get, miss thing, we wouldn’t be sorry even if we had any idea you were being a weird lil snoop right now, but we simply do not because all we care about is making up for lost time and showing this boy how much we appreciate him despite the drama, taking one of his hands from your face to hold with yours, specifically the ones where you did blood brothers because y’all did that, tracing your thumb across the scar on his]

Johnny: [mhmm, you and Rosaline should’ve stayed friends clearly cos you are both lil weirdos, this boy is gonna scare you off one day gal but rn he’s just trying to reopen Alison’s wound by force of will despite his non existent boy fingernails like they gotta retake their vows right here and right now, whilst obvs continuing to kiss in the most feral way ever]

Ali: [not the power struggle, very GoT of you, girl Ro, you stay away from your window, lady because you’d be so jealous of these scenes if you knew what was going down, GASPING into this boy’s mouth, refraining from kissing him back whilst he’s opening you back up like this because got to hear every involuntary reaction it elicits from us, will have to press our body harder against yours though, obviously returning the favour as frantically ‘cos both have to be bleeding for this to work and you simply need it]

Johnny: [we can also be kind and say Thomas is still in the middle of getting Meena and his 2 friends home as well as then himself back because you don’t need to be stumbling upon these antics as you’re just trying to go into the house and chill lol, cos jali have absolutely none and his reactions are all as involuntarily dramatic as hers, MOANING her name like y’all are alone in your caravan hideaway rn which you absolutely are not]

Ali: [it tracks honestly, again, not that y’all are clocking or checking for anyone right now, simply do not care, the ‘yours’ that comes out of your mouth with no hesitation, so insistent almost like I GOTTA BE, bringing his bloody hand and pressing it against your exposed stomach because your top is cropped with this outfit]

Johnny: [the way he moves when she says that as if they can start fucking right here by the same force of will that managed to make her bleed but a moment ago, as insistent as the way she spoke, hence keeping the hand there on her stomach but his other is trying his hardest to get into her oh so tricksy outfit, balling into a fist when it thwarts him, grabbing at the material like how dare you, slapping her stomach with that hand, finally, not hard but !! and loud in the quiet of whatever PM it is]

Ali: [making an attempt to pull him towards your house, jumping down off this bike only making him taller and hotter as you’re tugging at this outfit your own self, knowing damn well it ain’t happening but you too want it to so desperately you’re like well maybe, the ‘please’ being halfway out when this loud slap hits and you’re giving him the most !! turned on silent stare of all time]

Johnny: [STARING at the bloody hand print you’ve essentially left on her stomach for again what would feel like forever until he can’t cope any more feeling that stare of hers so he has to give INSANE levels of eye contact while he’s getting off this bike himself before LAUNCHING himself at her how he do meaning that both of them are falling over in this drive, him on top of her doing the absolute MOST for a minute there until they are all but crawling and dragging each other towards this front door]

Ali: [doing the walking backwards thing you do whilst he is giving you this EYE CONTACT but the steps are so minuscule because you genuinely feel like he’s stopping you from functioning on any level right now so your legs are shaky as hell, the noise you are making when y’all hit the ground is giving when cats are fighting outside, there is no other word, feral behaviour is happening, you really had intentions to just nip and change but all coherent thoughts have left the chat by the time you reach this door]

Johnny: [we love to see it all, Leesha who knows but by the time y’all are falling through this door and hitting the deck on the other side she’s lost her ability to spy anyway, doing even more when y’all are on the floor this time because he continues to be frustrated as hell that her clothes are still in his way, the boy has literally removed his as though hers will magically follow suit cos of how easy it was in comparison, pressing himself against her exposed and bloody stomach because ofc]

Ali: [can put your phone away gal, no doubt that’s your vibe, you’re not getting no more of a show with it, though we feel like we are and we’re not even putting on the way our mouth is hanging open about it, as frustratedly pushing these trousers down but you’re sweaty by this point because of course you are and you can’t do it whilst you continue to be grinding your bodies together, go to focus on the buttons on your vest thing because at least you can get that bit off, fumbling as you are with the effort]

Johnny: [me cackling at the NOISE he’ll make when she gets her top off at least and there’s more exposed skin to press his erection against because y’all have not closed this door and are lowkey still in the doorway practically, soz not soz everyone, they are animals, pushing the boobs she doesn’t have yet together with his hands in that crushing way he always do and then really going to town with his 🍆 antics to try and relieve some of the painful levels of turned on y’all are feeling, whilst also kissing her like he intends to steal all her oxygen]

Ali: [you know you’re in deep when instead of continuing to try and get these damn trousers off, you’re doing the most to help him fuck your chest, including drooling all over him and yourself so there is simply no friction, of course using this insane kiss to make the most mess, pushing your fingers down your throat whilst still kissing this boy to trigger your gag reflex, get more spit happening, whilst you’re trying not to double over with how turned on you are and you can’t even get a hand down your pants, RIP girl, this edging KILLING you]

Johnny: [Thomas stay away thank you because the feral scenes are only getting more feral here as per, this boy’s hands are literally doing everything possible to bruise and make bleed his name on her chest rn with absolutely frantic energy, on top of everything else, swearing in PANTS and GASPS about everything they are both doing]

Ali: [I’m sure these gals all live in different areas, a casual trek for you, and thank god because the lack of consideration here and now has never been higher, the way we’d simply have to bite your lip is yet again mixing our blood together, pooling in the pocket you’ve made on our chest has us LOSING IT, pulling your hair the hardest we’ve ever so this kiss is so much more headbutt than it is anything else, moaning/shouting your name into your mouth here is also unavoidable]

Johnny: [Most importantly, Rosaline you stay in your lane because you are definitely upstairs and you’ve done enough without cockblocking these two as well and the way he’s likewise LOSING IT atm means he wouldn’t be able to stop even if you did appear like a ghost, catch him using his soft secret lingo word for ‘baby’ rn but similarly forcing it fully !! into her mouth, going at it on her chest SO loud and hard]

Ali: [mhmm, ain’t no way we could stop and no one here can pay for your therapy, girl so if you know what’s good, stay up there right now because again the ‘my daddy’ is LOUD and we’re putting so much emphasis on that my with how we’re grabbing at your chest ourselves, intentions to make your name bruised and bloody again too but you can’t be still enough with everything y’all are doing on her chest rn]

Johnny: [this isn’t the time for that gal to be causing scenes, they’re unfolding between jali thank you and everyone has to mind their business until either they manage to get upstairs to the attic or away on his bike and neither is going to be occurring yet so, in the here and now he’s using whatever part of his body he can get near her crotch to rub it whilst staying in the position he’s in and continuing to do the most on her chest]

Ali: [the way we couldn’t move if we tried right now, literally crippled with how turned on we are and how unable we are to properly do something about it beyond what we can see and do to this boy, the lowkey crying at what he’s tryna do for us because literally any touch is sending us over the edge at this point, thus getting our hands involved with how hard he’s fucking our chest because can’t leave him alone]

Johnny: [when you were breathing insanely and only making noises of excursion like grunts because of what you’re doing with yourself and trying so hard to do for her but then she starts touching him and it turns into quiet !! UNHOLY noises and he can’t stop saying things like ‘good girl’ or ‘that’s my girl’ + little in there sometimes, however incoherently because he’s being sent too]

Ali: [the EYE CONTACT has never been more indecent because he sounds and looks so incredible right now and we could not be any more 🥺 about it if we tried ‘you won’t fit’ shaking our head and tickling your with our hair as a result because that level of turned on we’re like even if you could get inside us, I don’t think you could right now]

Johnny: [RIP to this outfit for real because as soon as she says that he’s stopping what he’s doing and trying to, intending to succeed even if he has to literally rip these trousers from her body, however he has to contort and potentially hurt her to do so and he’s really trying every way and position he can think of, all of which I like to think is eventually taking place on the stairs for that throwback]

Ali: [we will be kind and allow the effort and the mess y’all have got in to get there finally let these damn things come off, again a time of him having to stop us immediately stacking it because the relief is unholy at this point, never mind when he invariably does get inside us, catch our brain melting at this and here making noises like y’all have never heard, not soz to the neighbours or to Rosaline ‘your little girl, around you like that’ as the main actual words that get out]

Johnny: [y’all are v welcome because the RELIEF cannot be overstated, on that first successful thrust his eyes would be watering from it and how tightly they are squeezed shut, mirroring how she’s clenched around him, GRABBING her arse to go deeper to the point her cheeks are spread so far apart it’s ridiculous, ofc making those initials there bruised and bleeding too, the noise he makes basically a sob with how it’s forced out and so extra]

Ali: [at the point where you can’t believe you’re still alive, or conscious or anything close to holding on because everything feels like your nerve endings are on fire and screaming in the best possible way and you see no way it can get any better or stay this good without you just passing away, CLUTCHING his head to yours because what else can you do]

Johnny: [mhmm, hard same, catch this boy talking like he’s praying, sometimes in whispers and sometimes purely mouthed because he’s reached that point of being so !! he has no volume anymore and it’ll be that way until you do both cum and/or pass out, no notes]

Ali: [rip to y’all sliding back down these stairs, the casual crashing thud, so glad no one else is home because none of this is ignorable to anyone but Ro who is choosing to stay where she is; forever come ‘round from your sex coma and having that moment of wondering if it was all some fever dream so then you’re being the most snuggly about him actually being here, the way your breathing is still ragged af even after the forced timeout of passing out there]

Johnny: [when she’s assuming it’s cali being drunk high messes because in fairness that is what the party devolved into before Rocky called time on it, oh but if only you knew, babe, this boy is here holding Alison tighter than he ever has even though y’all don’t have any further to fall down these stairs]

Ali: [patting his head all over, silly but really softly about it, like you’re checking for big bumps because you literally don’t know if y’all fell gracefully or literally took a proper fall there but you couldn’t feel bad in this moment if you tried but of course you care about him, nuzzling into his neck and drawing a question mark like how is you, my love]

Johnny: [shaking his head like oh you but mostly to tickle her with his hair because we all know that’s loose and the hair tie is either lost or snapped or both rn, taking hold of the key that’s always just hanging there bebopping letting more blood get on that too because it’s everywhere else by pressing it hard into his palm on that hand, to ground him for a sec cos still trying to recover physically and emotionally, running his other hand through her hair, letting his fingers really get tangled there by her neck, massaging the muscles at the back with said fingers without removing the strands of hair from them, taking the kind of breath that’s like a lil happy sigh]

Ali: [smiling so dozily but happily at him, especially when he’s massaging our neck because it is needed and we’re already like putty from everything so we’re genuinely feeling like we’ll fall asleep here, twisting his hair around our fingers with the level of concentration required to likewise try to come back down to earth here ‘we should-’ not even bothering to finish your sentence because too nice but yes, you should get changed and either get up in the attic or leave but for now, giving him a kiss on each cheek as if you’re saying hi just now]

Johnny: [doing one of his wifey style on the cheek but more extra kisses back as he says ‘I should’ like a correction, meaning either carry her upstairs or carry her to the bike and ride off, grabbing her to him like he’s gonna do that but ending up just holding her in your arms where you are as if you’re cradling her like a baby or a Clove]

Ali: [just here embracing as if this is the time or the place and y’all don’t look insane to the people who are thankfully not here, by the grace of god at this point ‘in a bit’ like you have endless time to be playing with, too content in this moment to be together again]

Johnny: [standing up as if you’re like no now to be petty and give don’t tell me what to do vibes when really it’s the realisation that y’all have left the door open because there’s a cold breeze hitting you both and giving her goosebumps/making the hairs on her skin stand on end as you hold her/the realisation that you have no idea how long you’ve been here or where anyone is, holding her even closer to you as you get up though so you really can carry her ‘where to?’ looking out the door towards the bike and also up the stairs]

Ali: [just STARING out the door, in a way you would assume we’re now shitting ourselves that someone/anyone saw/heard that but truly, we’re not and the staring is pure !! vibes that we’re having to shake off less our goosebumps double here, tightening your grip on his biceps and pointing upstairs because you need clothes and fuck putting that outfit on again lol]

Johnny: [take her to her room, you know where it is from the time you were in there before, me just remembering when cali had that convo and Carly was like get him back in there and get him to do it all again without the end bit where it went wrong lol lol]

Ali: [remembering this but also when you were in here last time and thus started your two-month break, the emotions, thank the lord you got a job to do, aka finding whatever clothes are on your floor, which are probably numerous because y’all were getting ready here earlier, putting them on and hoping you don’t end up looking insane lol]

Johnny: [me being mean thinking that she should accidentally put on something of Carly’s from the floor which he recognises as such because realistically Carly is poor and doesn’t have many outfits so she’d have to be a repeater, making SUCH a face like no because he hates her, taking whatever it is off like that’s a no from me, try again haha]

Ali: [you’re so real for that boo, poor Carly getting ruthlessly dragged, finding the nearest tote to shove these clothes she has left behind in, scuffing his disgusted little face like oh you]

Johnny: [she dresses cute you rude hoe, I’m already looking to see what lewk I can serve for this bday, picking her up again, and throwing her onto either her or Ro’s bed, whichever is nearest, for a lil playfight moment]

Ali: [making it be Ro’s because I can, fight me, you’ll need to eat first, here letting him pin you shamelessly easy so you can stare up at him as shamelessly ‘dress me then’ raising our brows like it’s a challenge and y’all don’t love it]

Johnny: [we gotta, it’s too good of an opportunity to miss, fuck you girl Ro, doing the thing where he lies on her with his full weight for a second just staring back at her, but of course he’s then fully going to her wardrobe or chest of drawers or whatever and going through her clothes to find something he deems to be proper and then is dressing her in it like she’s a baby or a doll]

Ali: [me trying to picture what you would pick and having a marvellous time tbh, catch us chilling and watching you because likewise could not be more intrigued and then just shamelessly about this energy he loves to bring ‘better?’]

Johnny: [honestly, I’m totally picturing something she almost forgot she owns because she only wears it in a more formal setting and when are the mcvickers fam rocking like that, cos he always wants her to be more covered up than she is, it’s fun to think about, hence this boy is here smiling at her like yes it is]

Ali: [it would seem like the most random choice and you are so amused by it but also endeared because of course, shaking your head as you smile back, giving him the whole twirl fashion show moment about it]

Johnny: [having a lovely time and I love it for you, this boy draping himself all over her like he’s the accessory she needs to finish the lewk because have to be that close to her and touching her all the time]

Ali: [when you’re kinda dancing because of your carry on and obviously that is not a thing y’all have done together so you’re !! at it in a way you didn’t foresee, doing a sharp intake of breath about it, covering it with a lil lol]

Johnny: [that occurring to him as it’s occurring to her ‘Who’d you dance with at this party?’ in a tell me about it and show me kind of way so they have an excuse to actually do this properly together]

Ali: [‘everyone’ because it’s true and the vibe was we’re all friends here, despite Erin’s best attempts to the contrary lol, hence playfully pushing him back like you’re way too close for starters, boy]

Johnny: [pushing her towards where’s there’s a record player or whatever as he says ‘what to?’ like go on, put a song on]

Ali: [pick out a suitably witchy and autumnal bop because I am sure that was the playlist for this soiree, dancing back over to him somewhat shyly, how you would actually approach him because he isn’t giving dancer and we all know this, serious boy]

Johnny: [raising his eyebrows but in an amused oh okay you committed to setting a vibe with your soundtrack way not like he hates it and is judging, tell me why I think he should secretly be a really good dancer but in that specific way of when you were young your mum taught you how to partner a girl in that cute cliche manner of then those being the only kind of dances he can do, giving like the summer I turned pretty kind of energy]

Ali: [doing a laugh and raising your own brows back like what because we told you it was a family affair, giving did you not believe me lol vibes, you are the realest for that it somehow makes total sense for you, you sweet serious boy, when you’re not sure what you were expecting but that is obviously not it so you’re actually speechless]

Johnny: [it fits so well for who he is as a character and also the vibes I imagine for his mum so, have your adorable slow dancing like you’re at a ball moment, it’s an immaculate vibe]

Ali: [I love it and so does she, looking at him as a ? like explain yourself but without being that pushy with it because sometimes his family is a no-go area and where else has this come from, we cannot imagine]

Johnny: [set the scene for her, telling the story of however old you were when your mum taught you how to do this and the where and the amusing mishaps, probably roping the older sister or sisters we said you had in to help as well, cos it’s a family affair always, when the fun time it was and how happy he was is like radiating from him as he recounts this and all these deets and truly that’s the first time he’s ever really mentioned his mum other than the haircut story which was also cute so you’re really getting a lovely impression of her]

Ali: [when you love getting to know people as a rule and no one more than this boy right now, and imagine, getting to hear a childhood story from someone that isn’t tinged with some sadness, what a concept, resting your head on his shoulder so you can just listen to him so happily ‘they’d be proud’ because you’re slaying the game here and we are impressed]

Johnny: [Alison sadly cannot relate but you clearly had a slay childhood sir it’s only as you’ve gotten older you feel all the pressure you do, so yeah, it’s nice to talk about and remember I’m sure, giving her such a genuine smile, no notes, we’re here bonding and getting to know each other better and opening up and falling in love]

Ali: [‘you really are too good for me’ at least you know how to dance yourself so you can keep up and not shame yourself here]

Johnny: [shaking his head ‘good enough’ cos using enough in a good way for a change like when I got to use I can’t in a good way, progress is important and we’re here for it]

Ali: [going to say something but reconsidering, pulling him back onto Ro’s bed with you instead, kissing him in a way that matches the romantic energy of that dance]

Johnny: [have a soft makeout sesh on Rosaline’s bed, you gotta, she’s welcome for them both being fully clothed cos he didn’t get that undressed for the hookup, only what was necessary, and he’s dressed Ali in whatever he chose, even if his hands are going underneath said outfit]

Ali: [‘you know you can come, if you want’ when you’ve decided to be kissing down his neck and across his shoulder, you mean to this house, when people are here, like the vibe of this party but you aren’t taking time to be any more specific here and now]

Johnny: [‘Sure, you’d have me do whatever I want to and with you’ because he cannot bear to say I can’t again so keeping it saucy and not sad and serious]

Ali: [‘you did’ because there was no pulling out on those stairs earlier and you predicted the non-answer hence you stopped and started this sentence before now, go back to kissing his neck and being more saucy about this now]

Johnny: [likewise be going under this outfit more than you were, to properly touch her in the way the previous one would not let you do]

Ali: [the gasp directly onto his skin and a hot lol like okay ‘good choice’ as if that was his sole criteria for this ‘fit, running your own hands over his body, really gently stroking your name on his chest because y’all have fucked each other up again on all the scars/bruises available]

Johnny: [doing a little hot lol of his own as he carries on touching her and also gives her a lovebite somewhere that this outfit and how y’all are moving rn has uncovered some exposed skin for you whether that’s like her shoulder when your bestie robin is always peeping or her collarbone or wherever, like yep, my plan all along]

Ali: [‘this isn’t my bed’ in his ear that you’re shamelessly licking the outer edge of as you say this because do you REALLY care, you did literally bang him in the entryway, several times lol but okay, have to nibble your lobe hardcore at this lovebite of course]

Johnny: [we all love how her saying that is shamelessly spurring him on to add another finger and do even more than he was doing, he’s that sort of bear]

Ali: [covering our mouth by PUSHING our face into your chest because have to pretend we’re suddenly concerned about being loud and thus you can only appreciate the effect that has on us via muffled moans]

Johnny: [not this boy pulling her head to his with a hair grab, doing a forehead touch as he STARES at her like no no, I gotta hear everything because again, that sort of bear, doing the absolute MOST he can to be make her be loud in that moment just because]

Ali: [when it’s even louder than it would’ve been as a result because of how into that move you are, straining to kiss him and QUICK, again, like no, I simply MUST quiet my reaction somehow, including using your mouth to dampen it like you’re not also here obscenely making out about it]

Johnny: [catch them fighting again because I imagine this boy using his free hand to push her away like no no you can’t quiet your reactions but then she’s sneakily and cheekily using Ro’s bed that he’s shoved her against to try and quiet them, so then he’s pulling her away from having her face against either the pillow or covers and is holding her head and face, all the while still so shamelessly hardcore fucking her with his other hand]

Ali: [that is absolutely what she would do and thus what has to happen, when you can’t even help but move against what he’s doing, despite this act you’re putting on of trying your hardest not to react, thus your reactions when he’s leaving you nowhere to go are beyond 🥺 and LOUD, swearing like ‘please!’]

Johnny: [out here being like ‘that’s it, be my good little girl again’ no notes, full proud daddy vibes at how 🥺 and LOUD she’s finally being]

Ali: [‘tell me what you want’ like it’s not fully obvious with how he’s refusing to let you stfu here in any way, ‘cos if we’re out here being exposed we’re gonna make it mutual]

Johnny: [‘you know what’ because it is obvious and he’s gonna point that out lol cos he’s that sort of bear]

Ali: [shaking your head like no I don’t or that’s not the point, not clear but you can’t stop yourself reacting to what he’s doing to you still so it’s like you’re answering your own question]

Johnny: [mhmm, hence him going in harder so she has to react even harder like yeah you do, it cannot be overstated the way he is looking at her the entire time is just SUCH intense heart eyes]

Ali: [doing the thing where you are blatantly going to say something really insane and extra so you have to bite your lip whilst STARING into his eyes right now, moaning through your clenched teeth, gripping onto his shoulder, where he gave you the lovebite on yours and digging your nails in]

Johnny: [when that inspires you to go back over said lovebite like oh yeah that exists lemme make it even worse really quick, this poor girl just a walking bruise at all times in this era truly]

Ali: [when you’re thinking about that fact and instinctively push against him harder because ‘You’ve made me look such a state’]

Johnny: [‘I’ve not’ because as close as telling her she looks beautiful actually as this boy is going to get until he’s ready to, taking her face in his free hand again and literally twisting her towards a mirror in this room like no look]

Ali: [the GASP, simply have to make indecent eye contact with this boy via the mirror because we can’t cope with looking at ourself right now, we simply can’t, smiling at him with the biggest heart eyes ‘you’re so handsome’]

Johnny: [have your lil mirror moment lads, I love it for you, his intense af dark eyes and her giant blue ones is such a mood and a vibe, the way he is LOOKING at her RIP to all of us but especially Alison, catch him trying to force her to look at herself by following where he’s looking and his mischievous smile as he does is everything]

Ali: [incapable of resisting or saying no to him, even non-verbally, thus truly dying at looking at what he’s seeing and also what he’s currently doing to you, resting your forehead against your own in this mirror purely ‘cos you need to steady yourself and also be looking THAT closely ‘your hands-’ as a full sentence because we know why you’re here losing it]

Johnny: [Not a full GASP but a big breath at how closely she’s then looking because he’d have to be a robot not to be affected by that + how hard she’s obviously losing it, when she makes the hand comment putting his free one to her throat like I GOTTA pull her away from the mirror now actually cos I can’t deal even though it was my idea and at my insistence, which is true but also he just wants to do that and squeeze a lil bit like yes my hands]

Ali: [leaving your own fingerprints on the glass you were obviously fogging up by being that close, relaxing your body back into his as much as you humanly can because got to be clear you love this and always want to be as close to him as possible, putting your own hand over his, helping him but also compare and contrast the size difference]

Johnny: [we love a size difference compare and contrast and so does this boy, he’s here shamelessly into how small she is, not soz everybody that it’s because she is 12 and my brain reminds me of the fact CONSTANTLY lol ‘you’re a baby’ just saying it, in that quiet disbelieving kind of way like I’ll never be over how little you are in some ways but big in others, like he said before]

Ali: [‘yours’ however difficult this is to say, letting him feel it vibrate through us into his hand because we’re too turned on for it to sound anything but feral, standing on your tiptoes to strain, trying to turn your head to be able to kiss him]

Johnny: [a nod like yep true at what she said and at watching her struggle to try and kiss him because again, so into it, and thus intentionally holding her throat harder, using it as a hot move to manoeuvre her via it so he can kiss her]

Ali: [the way we’re refusing to catch our breath and are throwing ourselves into a dramatic makeout, like we’ll steal your air instead here, when you’re finally allowed to, coming at him with enough force to probably knock y’all over again, doing a !! kinda growl about this]

Johnny: [me just imagining the carnage this dramatic makeout sesh is gonna cause in this v cluttered room because he will be throwing and rolling this gal about EVERYWHERE, Rosaline will be thinking Cali or ghosts are causing scenes lol]

Ali: [RIP to your bed and possessions rn, even if we were super precious about our things, which we’re not particularly, we’re forever too lost in this boy to give a shit and are thus playfighting with abandon rn]

Johnny: [I’ll be here hoping something of girl Ro’s gets broken and y’all don’t even realise never mind care because it’s deserved after how she treated Ali at the party, also this boy should end up with some kind of injury to mirror the bruise she’s been rocking for this past week whether it’s a bruise too or a scratch from her nails or a lil bloody nose/lip moment from a headbutt, whatever and to be decided by Winola gay, the point is, immaculate vibes are necessary]

Ali: [even though I know Alison is the type of bitch who would feel guilty/fix whatever she broke, I still demand it happen, purely for the not giving a fuck in this moment of it all, in comparison to the immediate kissing it better we’re doing of whatever injury you sustain]

Johnny: [you don’t need a boatload more guilt Alison so we can say it’s something easily fixable/replaceable before this gal is back sharing a room with you again to realise, what’s more important is her antics rn are making this boy feel a type of way because he’s thinking about what a good mother to his children she would be and so IMMEDIATELY pulling her back to him to kiss her like his life depends on it because we have too many feelings we have to POUR into this kiss]

Ali: [I also vote that the record you put on gets knocked and is just skipping/scratching away there and y’all are doing nothing about it, for the chaos and Rosaline’s annoyance only thank you, we’re here putting all our love into this, ‘scuse us, also not at all subtly putting your hands down his pants because you wanna be touching him too by this point]

Johnny: [I second that vote because that’s cinematic and anything that’ll even slightly muffle y’all’s feral sex noises can only be a good thing too because even Rosaline’s blinkered hatred of Carly can’t be blaming her for all those if heard haha, catch this boy saying ‘the mammy in you’ like that’s a full sentence/she asked what was that kiss for, which she absolutely did not, cos can’t stop himself blurting that out clearly, it’s fine it’s nbd]

Ali: [pausing kissing him to make an adorably confused face, trying to backtrack in your head and work out what he means because you’re too into what y’all are doing for that to be immediately obvious to you, I feel, when you do put it together, the undeniable effect it has on your body is just that, even if you didn’t make a !! noise and start kissing him again, harder and more insistent]

Johnny: [THINKING about it had obvs already had an undeniable effect on his body from the kissing it better moment until now but knowing she’s also thinking about it and the effect it has had on her would just be KILLING him, hence in no world is he not instigating a hookup regardless of where on the floor/whose bed/where in the chaos of this room they are, he simply must while returning her kissing energy]

Ali: [you’ve simply gotta lads, no world in which you’re not, it isn’t going to take much because been touching us forever at this point and the shameless way you love what has been said and thought about here on this day, the d word coming out in full force]

Johnny: [he’ll be here shamelessly trying to put a baby in her whilst ofc a secret lingo word comes out of his mouth that said baby would call her if she was its mother, which she will have heard from all his nieces and nephews who are little af running around on site when they go running screaming for their mothers and the like, so this one he’s not even trying to pretend he thinks she won’t know, it’s ALL FINE, said like ‘you’re after being a … [secret lingo word here] too, aren’t you?’ cos he called her a baby not long ago]

Ali: [when all you can do is nod and 🥺 because you feel #exposed and caught here with how shamelessly you want it and you don’t even understand why honestly, you just know that you do, searching for his hand to hold about it]

Johnny: [doing his intense double hand hold pinning her down to whatever surface they are on move because he REALLY wants to hold her hand about it, SO tight I’m sure both their hands are bleeding anew again which is only spurring him on to fuck her as hard and deep as he physically can]

Ali: [‘what if it happens?’ flying out of your mouth, almost as if it’s a reaction to how tightly y’all are gripping each other's hands right now and how hard he’s fucking you]

Johnny: [‘you’re mine to take care of’ the exact words he said in the previous jali convo when they were talking about getting married, said too seriously exactly like they were then]

Ali: [‘you will’ as a statement and reminder, not a question, also no getting away from how you sound saying it at this point, panting and whimpering at the contact you’re not gonna be able to bear for much longer]

Johnny: [‘you’ll be so good at it’ nbd just telling her she’ll be a good mother like when they told each other in the previous convo they’d be a good husband and a good wife, it’s FINE, we don’t need to talk about how he likewise sounds saying it or the way he’s somehow doing even more to try and make it happen after he’s said this]

Ali: [when this couldn’t mean more because you know this shit means something to him and thus you believe him when he’s saying it because he has no reason to lie, it’s hardly standard chat at y’alls ages, barely being able to say the ‘you’ you simply NEED to, soz y’all don’t get to have a baby together lads but that’s the way it goes]

Johnny: [don’t mind me sat here absolutely distraught that she has a baby with Ronan and not him, thanks I hate it, let’s focus on the here and now where he’s saying ‘I want it to be you’ which perfectly echoes that first kiss interaction when she said ‘I don’t want it to be you’ and he said ‘it isn’t going to be me’ because POETIC CINEMA and I am here dying about the fact he’s admitting he’d have a baby with her on top of already saying he’d marry her and run away with her, we’re just piling insane things on like she isn’t a child and he’s a teen]

Ali: [points you in the direction of Django like if you wanna be distraught lmao, it’s all so wrong on so many levels but right now, everything is SO right and the ‘it will be’ said with such confidence because not playing games here, we mean every single part of this]

Johnny: [GIRL, do not, we can’t even discuss that, I shall stay in the moment where jali are living and thriving and he’s doing the boy thing of kissing her so hard as an answer because too much to say we don’t even know where to start and too many feelings he cannot process so instead he’s just fucking her absolutely senseless about it]

Ali: [repeatedly and shamelessly telling him to ‘cum in me’ making deranged eye contact that only breaks when you yourself are cumming and can’t keep your eyes open, every muscle in your body is contracting at once and the way your body spasms beyond your control means that however far you were through your sentence, you’re just making PURE noise now, no thoughts]

Johnny: [we all know he will, if he wasn’t close enough when she’s telling him to over and over, the body spasms will make it unavoidable, this boy feeling like he’ll never stop cumming because of how unhinged y’all are being and thus how much of it there is when he finally does]

Ali: [when you still cannot speak but the noise you make over the feeling of him cumming inside you with that much intensity is simply UNHINGED, feeling your own second wave of orgasms hitting you purely over this boy having his own, GRABBING at his back so frantically and pushing him into you harder, not letting him leave, snaking a hand up to his hair and using it to also drag his head down to yours to kiss him as senselessly]

Johnny: [making his own UNHINGED noise about her not letting him leave antics cos we LOVE that, half in her mouth because of the then ensuing makeout sesh that he likewise keeps going forever and won’t let either of them take a breath]

Ali: [‘fill my mouth too’ each word punctuated with the loud pause of you two sloppily and aggressively kissing, spitting in his mouth to illustrate your point ‘I need you everywhere’ crossing your legs across his arse, again, as if there was any chance of him going anywhere, not now]

Johnny: [the absolute scenes, soz if y’all were on the floor for this because her head will be absolutely hitting the hell of out whatever surface they are on repeatedly with how hard he’s going at giving her what she wants, his hands so tangled in her hair to be pulling her head all around because so feral about it, she’s gonna have a headache]

Ali: [just another thing to deal with in the morning honey, there’s no stopping or being even a little bit sensible right now, have to focus on letting your mouth get as full as you feel, however much the natural instinct to gag and choke come upon us, gotta do this, no fucks given]

Johnny: [lowkey you’d be buzzing if she threw up sir because you know damn well she was drunk and high from this party when you first arrived so any gagging she does will only spur him on, pop off problematic king, too real of you even if you’re not fully consciously aware of it being part of the reason you’re being this extra rn]

Ali: [you are indeed either still drunk and high or somewhere between there and it wearing off, I’m sure you’re trying somewhat to not let that happen because you already did that one time and at least that was outside because you clearly think he might be grossed out, little do you know lol]

Johnny: [my boo says y’all don’t need to trash this room that hard or be that feral and she’s so right for that haha, do stop when you restrict her airway enough that you’re like okay time to calm down and then take some actual time to recover that you both need]Ali: [we both know y’all would but you might have a little freakout should it happen right now, given the night it has been lmao, you both calm down for now and try to get your breath back ma’am, your legs would’ve naturally weakened their grip so you can also let him go]