#...but then she ends up spending the entire time going on and on about her crush(es) because what's the hypnotized bot gonna do? leave??

[lamiadrowned]

what if Jinx had an affectionate girlfriend? I want to assume Jinx is touch starved so having a girlfriend that loves cuddles and holding hands is a dream come true

*:･ﾟ✧ jinx with an affectionate girlfriend

jinx x fem!reader | sfw

i love her so much :(

it would take her a bit of time to get used to this dynamic.

her entire life, she’s never put much thought into relationships, nonetheless ever believed she’d end up in one, and she’s so happy she did!

especially with someone who seems to love her so deeply, despite how chaotic and difficult she can be at times.

the first few times you guys go out together, you’re always touching her, and she picks up on that quickly. you’re either holding her hand, fidgeting with her fingers, placing your arm around her waist, or playing with the loose strands of navy blue hair that frame her face.

she has no complaints. it makes her feel… warm. safe. appreciated.

but she doesn’t really think of reciprocating this until a small altercation between the two of you.

one day, you’re sitting on the edge of her workbench, listening intently as she shows you the scribbled blueprint of a new invention she’s working on. you can’t remember the name and you have no idea what any of it means, but you’re nodding like you understand so that she’ll keep talking.

“alright, what’s the problem? is it something i said?” she asks you suddenly.

you tilt your head. “what?”

“don’t play dumb! you haven’t touched me at all today!” she grumbles. “you’re always touching me. i mean, did i do something wrong? or–”

“jinx.” you cut her off firmly. “stop that. you didn’t do anything wrong.”

she looks stumped. so, you continue. “i don’t know. it’s just… you never do it to *me,* you know? it’s always me, touching you. i thought, maybe, you didn’t really like it. something tells me that’s not the case.”

your explanation is met with silence, and she stares at you like she’s seen a ghost.

she can’t believe you feel that way. this whole relationship thing is new to her! she had no idea her own self doubt could end up hurting you the way it did.

her first instinct is to apologize. to reassure you that, going forward, she’d be sure to give you as much as you give her, because she really does love the affection.

in no time, she’s just as cuddly as you!

each night that the two of you spend together is spent wrapped up in each other. legs crossed over legs, arms tangled with arms, faces pressed to chests with a constantly growing need to be closer to each other.

i saw somebody else post something about this, but she’d definitely be the type to say something like ‘i wish i could crawl inside you’. she truly can’t get close enough once she learns how good it feels.

and one of many good effects of this is that when she’s having a particularly bad day, you can calm her down in an instant.

if it happens to be one of many days where she’s hearing voices, seeing things that you can’t see, berating people who aren’t really there, all you need to do is put a hand on her shoulder to make her aware of your presence. it’s grounding enough that you can pull her into a tight hug and stroke her hair as she cries into your shoulder.

if it’s one of those days that she’s just angry, where she feels like everything is horrible and everyone else is rotten, you can change her mind in less than an hour by simply leading her to bed and convincing her to lay down for a bit while you undo her braids and scratch at her scalp.

when you play with her hair, it makes her melt, so you’re careful to preserve that effect– you only do it when you feel like she could really use it.

and as for you, if she finds out you’re having a bad day, jinx has learned from the best and she puts her knowledge to good use.

if you’re alone, she’ll pull you into her lap and caress your back, guiding you to rest your head in the crook of her neck because she knows how much you love to be there. if you want to talk about it, she’ll listen. if you don’t, she’ll pick a random topic to ramble about in hopes to take your mind off of things.

if you’re in public, she’ll grab your hand and squeeze it, stroking your palm with her thumb.

unless it’s somebody in particular that’s bothering you. she has no second thoughts about leaving you for a few minutes to go teach them a lesson. either way, the problem gets solved.

given how long she’s gone without any sort of physical affection, it’ll all be very new to her for a while, but jinx is a quick leaner.

sooner than later, your relationship starts to feel more like a constant competition over who’s more touchy and who can get the last kiss.

it’s so mushy! she hates it.

(she loves it).

[beforetimes]

planning a modern/fame timebomb au in my head where jinx is a celebrity recovering from addiction after a public meltdown who's lost contact with most of the people she knew when pre-breakdown/pre-fame. and in completing her recovery program she reaches out to ekko to offer a direct apology for anything she might have said/might have happened in the depths of her addiction, but doesn't hear back from him.

following this she decides to go out and sign up for a program to help at-risk kids like herself—after reflecting in therapy and realizing that a lot of the issues that lead to her being in such a volatile state of mind was because of the lack of support she had in childhood when dealing with losing her family [haven't planned what would work as a stand-in for the powder factory explosion so lets skirt past that for now] she decides that she wants to be that support for other people that she didn't have herself, after spending about a year trying to get better.

basically, she signs up as a volunteer to this big brother/sister-esque outreach program after a few months of anonymously donating to see if she can help someone in person rather than continuing to isolate herself. which is where she meets isha, who immediately imprints on jinx and insists on following her around. and jinx, who is unused to being at the centre of someone's attention without larger expectations that come with her status as a celebrity attached as caveat, starts relaxing by the very nature of her interactions with isha not being as loaded as others. like, this is just a kid! she doesn't know about jinx's issues or how she freaked out and lost it on stage/on a set/made headlines before disappearing from the public eye and ending up here. all isha sees is someone with cool blue hair and nails she wants to try her hand at painting.

after a few months of building a rapport with isha through this community mentor program, jinx accidentally bumps into the last person she really expected to see here—ekko.

ekko is also very surprised to see her here, because the last time he saw her, she was freaking out on him because he wouldn't enable her self-destructive behaviour, their final and most explosive fight resulting in their subsequent falling out where jinx threw a lot of shit back in his face and he did the same and they decided not to contact each other. well, besides jinx's attempt at an apology, but he didn't reply to that.

he sees her here and they both freeze because, like? what do you even do in this situation? they haven't seen each other in a few years at this point, maybe two or three at the most. enough time that it feels so entirely awkward to even try to act like nothing happened while also knowing that it would be equally nerve-grating to try and acknowledge the history between them.

of course, this stand-off is interrupted by isha, who sees jinx frozen in the hall and immediately stomps over to drag her away because they had been working on a painting together that she's been waiting to finish all week.

and jinx eventually relaxes because ekko doesn't say anything and neither does she, even though she wants to know what he's doing here in the first place. but the day ends without any further interactions between the two.

eventually, after asking around, jinx learns that ekko was the one who set the program up a few years prior, a tentative friend in the program telling her that the community didn't really have a lot of resources on hand and that a lot of the program was personally financed by ekko and he did a lot of work to try and uplift the people and community without demanding financial support in return, like most state-funded programs tend to do.

jinx is just, like, in awe of the fact that this childhood friend grew up to do something so great before being overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that she had been so wrapped up in her own world that she hadn't even noticed.

of course, this doesn't really change things because they're still not talking to each other, but weeks pass and jinx feels like they've gotten into a steady pattern of avoiding each other.

what she doesn't know is that ekko has been subtly watching in on her and isha's little hang-out sessions and is just in awe that this girl who had only a few years ago been so unsure of herself and in so much pain had managed to heal to the point of being able to help someone else and make a good positive impact on isha's life in a program he created.

so, after a while, jinx gets a reply on that email she had sent him nearly a year ago where ekko just asks if she wants to meet for lunch. which she replies to, after a lot of back-and-forth, by saying yes absolutely.

and then the romance unfolds further from there, yadda yadda yadda. haven't decided how this will ultimately end or where vi will play a part or anyone else but i thought that the bare bones concept i had in mind was worth posting here.

in my head maybe ekko's second, scar would be a friend who had seen the majority of the fallout and would be warning him away in the background while ekko was sort of caught up in being both happy that jinx seemed to be doing better while also conflicted on whether or not he wanted to forgive her because their last fight was like, super nasty. awful stuff said

maybe if anyone has ideas for how vi / cait / anyone else could be worked in, you can leave that below?? none of this is super set in stone! just rambling. ^_^

[girl-of-many-fandoms]

Pleasant Surprise

Pairing: Louis Tomlinson x Y/N

Summary: After a trip abroad, Louis returns home to his girl.

Warnings: nothing but fluff :)

My first time writing for any of my darlings from 1D. It’s been a rough month, spent the past couple days listening to all their music both individually and in the band which birthed the idea of writing a fic, so here you are.

Ps. I haven’t had the motivation to write anything for almost a year but the boys gave me a little push.

---------

Y/n sighed for what felt like the millionth time today as she kept flipping through the channels on the tv in search of something to entertain herself. When nothing piqued her interest, she gave up. She took a look around her surroundings and decided that she should do some tidying up. It’s been a couple days she’s been in a slum and the pile of clean laundry has been staring at her on the other sofa begging to be folded and put away.  

Throwing the covers off of her, she opened up Spotify to play some music while she started working on the living room. The intro to best song ever filled the room as she pulled her hair up into a messy bun and got up to her feet.  

Excellent choice Spotify, she thought, with a smile on her plump lips. 

Her boyfriend, Louis hadn’t been in the country for almost a month as he went to L.A. to spend time with Freddie during his school break. She missed him dearly but she knows and understands that the little lad was Louis’ world and the last thing she ever wants to do is come between them. For the past couple weeks, she managed to get through her hospital shifts, using it as a distraction from the fact that an empty house waited on her at the end of her twelve-hour shift.  

Louis loved spending time with his son in L.A., they had made the most out of their time together by going to beach, ice-cream runs, playing football together, basically whatever Freddie wanted to do, they did. Amidst all the fun, Louis was desperately missing his girl waiting back home for him. Sometimes he’d feel guilty for having to be away from her but she continuously reminded him that Freddie came first and reassured him that it’s okay for not being around.  

That’s one of the many things he loved about her, her understanding. 

With the laundry all sorted, y/n finished cleaning up the living room by dumping all the accumulating water bottles and empty snack packs that only grew as the days went by. Little black dress came on and she began belting out the lyrics without a care in the world because who was there to judge her? Definitely not her sassy boyfriend. The last time Louis had heard her singing one of Niall’s songs, he teased her about it by saying that Donkey from Shrek had more talent than her. Of course, y/n locked him out the bedroom that night.  

With the area tidied, she moved to the kitchen. The song continued on and she couldn’t help but fully give into the music and started swaying her hips to the sound of Louis’ voice that’s belting through the speakers. She was totally engrossed in the music; she didn’t hear the sound of a car pulling into the driveway nor the sound of the front door being opened and shut.  

Louis lips broke out into a cheeky smile at the song flooding the house mixed with his girl’s voice upon entry. Abandoning his luggage at the door, Louis followed her voice to the kitchen and paused in the doorway. Y/N was oblivious to his presence behind her, too focused on wiping down kitchen island. She had on her oversized black t-shirt that he loved seeing her in, she was in her element and Louis loved seeing her like this. Happy and carefree. 

I like to see the way you move for me baby! 

Louis watched her intently as she swayed her hips and dipped to the floor, his eyes focused on her bum the entire time. When she stood up to her full height, he snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him. He felt her stiffen at first but quickly relaxed when she realized that it was her Lou. His scent that she loved so much, invaded all her senses. 

“What a way to be welcomed home, love.” He inhaled the scent of her shampoo and kissed the exposed skin of her neck, immediately raising goosebumps on her skin. Her cheeks flushed out of embarrassment. 

“You’re early.” Lou gently turned her around in his arms and wasted no times kissing those lips he’s missed all that time apart. Lou nipped at her lips a couple times before breaking apart to get some much-needed air.  

“It’s called a surprise love and from now on I’ll keep changing my flights home if it means I get to come home to your poor singing and tempting dancing.” Y/N rolled her eyes at his comment, he should be the last person talking. 

“You shouldn’t be talking Mr. Oohhh it’s whatcha do to meeeee.” Louis gasped at her impression of his dreadful X-Factor audition. 

“Ha ha ha, funny. You’re gonna regret that.” She couldn’t hold in her laugh as he hoisted her up on the countertop. She cupped his face and pulled him in for another kiss, this time more needy and sloppy. 

The pair were happy to be reunited after their time apart, neither one of them couldn’t wait to have each other to themselves. 

[space-blue]

It's horrible too if Jinx lives!!

OK, I guess we're doing this?

People keep coming at me for my post about Jinx dying being terrible writing and promoting suicide by heroics as a valid way out, and the argument is always "Actually, Jinx is alive because XYZ"

So let me makes myself clear : if Jinx lives, it's also terrible writing!!

Because for all intent and purposes, she DOES DIE! Even if she's alive and fucked off in that blimp, she's still dead to everyone who knew and loved her.

WORSE! Vi will go on thinking for the rest of her life that Jinx died because of her, or at the very least that she couldn't save her.

It's not for no reason that Vi has this scene in the cell with Caitlyn, where she says she always choses wrong. In the scene on the crumbling metal beam, Vi choses not to listen to Jinx!

People got in my comments saying I have no humanity for reproving Vi picking "Vander's corpse" over Jinx. But what we see happen is Jinx telling Vi multiple time to get away and how to get to safety, and Vi completely ignoring her to interact with Vander/WW, only for him to wake up, attack her, and force Jinx to risk her life to save Vi.

Vi made a choice, between more time with Vander and listening to Jinx, and the price paid in the end is Jinx dying.

What if she lived and escaped? Vi doesn't know that! Ekko doesn't know that! Or Sevika! Or anyone!

Thought exercise time: close your eyes and imagine a relative disappearing for your life after a lethal accident you're involved in. You never recover a body and never see them again. How do you feel about it? Mmh?

"Oh but Caitlyn sees the schematics that show a side tunnel…"

Firstly, Caitlyn was nowhere near the event, and she can't frame-by-frame the explosion as we do, so you can hardly claim she's looking for Jinx and not, for example, the arcane gem, or Warwick.

Vander/WW was shown to be entirely impervious to the bullets from Jinx's automatic gun. If anyone has a chance of surviving, it'd be him.

But do you know what? If Jinx is in that blimp, and Caitlyn then tells Vi, "From the schematic, I think your sister could have escaped" (ignoring entirely the fact that Jinx should be cut in half by WW's claws wrapped around her waist), then what would happen???

That would send Vi on a wild goose's chase!! How many years would she spend hunting through Zaun trying to find her sister? How many years until she starts resenting Caitlyn for giving her false hope? How many years until she's forced to accept Jinx isn't anywhere, and so must have died back then, and has to see herself as Jinx's killer all over again??

How is this good for Vi?

And Ekko? He pulled her out of suicide what? 5 times? Had some epic bonding with her painting all over each other, doing self-care and hair dyes and fixing a balloon so they could go on a big attack together.

Maybe he thought he could genuinely finally be close to his world's Powder. Silco just taught him the greatest thing he can do is forgive, and the girl he forgives fakes her death and runs away?

They're barely 20 ffs, Jinx would have plenty of time to struggle on the road to recovery, especially with his help. What if Ekko was ready to be there along the way with her? What about him?

How is it good if Jinx is NOT dead but has NOT told him? What difference does it make to him? She's dead for Ekko, and if he learns later on that she faked her death, all he'll know is that HE wasn't worth her staying. He wasn't even worth telling the truth to!!!

It's fucked! It's not healthy!! Jinx could have her ending removing herself from Zaun without having to fake her death.

But hang on, it gets worse!

Because it's straight up not good writing even on the meta level.

Arcane has millions of viewers. Nobody I know IRL thinks Jinx is alive. Plenty of people in my notes agree she's dead. Do you know what millions of people think? That she is dead!!! Because it's the TEXT OF THE SHOW.

Millions of fans will think Jinx was killed off, because they aren't willing to go frame by frame, extrapolating and make-believing their way into thinking she is alive. Most fans are normal people who aren't terminally online, theorycrafting all day long.

Most normal fans have moved on to watch Dune Prophecy or Sweetpea. And if Jinx comes out alive in another show, the "Somehow Palpatine Jinx returned" memes will abound.

Let's go over the common elements brought forth as arguments.

Jinx uses pink and blue in that bomb, and pink is how she gets away "quick".

No? The bomb she attached to Thieram in season 1 was pink and it was all for glitter and harassment. There is no strong canon association of meaning. If you watch frame by frame, there is a pink "light gleam" over the first blue detonation followed by a very large pink blast and ZERO smoke trails or anything indication someone getting away. Jinx uses the same bomb she used to kill herself very effectively earlier in the show, so we have no indication it wouldn't kill her here too.

We can see the inside of her bomb when she kills herself (with the two liquid vials) and it's the same she uses on Vander/WW and herself.

Besides, even if she used some part of the explosion to get away, WW's claws are around her like this:

She'd be bisected in half.

So some people say that means that Warwick is also alive and let her go! But no. That's make-believe. That's fanon, 100%. The TEXT of the show is that Vander is burnt away (we see the final image of himself burning up) and he has just attacked Vi, trying to kill her. We have no indication he'd want to spare Jinx here.

HOWEVER, he's literally bullet proof, so if there's anything we can conclude is that he's likely to be the one to have made it into a shaft and to safety.

Speaking of shafts: the next argument is that Caitlyn is looking at the tower's schematics to hint that she suspects Jinx lives.

Maybe, but you are reading a character's mind. We see her look at schematics while holding the monkey bomb head, yes, but you don't know what she's thinking, and if the show runners don't make it explicit, then Cait's thoughts about an explosion she hasn't even witnessed aren't worth much. She could think Warwick lived. OR she could think, despite not witnessing the fight, that Jinx lived. But she doesn't KNOW, she doesn't tell us, and so you are INVENTING the thoughts of a character to mean what you want it to mean.

This would be a lot more meaningful if it were Vi investigating this.

There's a blimp going away, it has blue smoke, and then it ends with a Jinx glitch.

No. There is a blimp going away, slowly, without any blue smoke. It's also THE EXACT SAME ONE that opens Season 1 act 1.

Instead of coming towards Piltover, it now is leaving over the sea. This can be fully interpreted as a sign that the hextech era is over. Blimps have to travel the old fashioned way again. It's also going away from Piltover/Zaun, symbolizing future stories taking place there.

Finally, the glitch is 3 frames long and spells "the End". IDK why the fact that it's a little Jinxy means anything to anyone. The end of credits for season 1 was Jinxy as well, and it could simply be about keeping the same visual identity and not a sign of Jinx being alive???

If I wanted to play subtext games, I could say "Wow Jinx writing "the end" would be appropriate if she were dead" and reverse the argument.

Finally, and the thing in most poor taste, IMO.

Jinx kills herself several times in the opening of the episode, and a sad emo song plays over it, with sad fucked up lyrics. Then Ekko comes and pulls her from this…

Only for that EXACT same song to be played while she and Vander/WW fall. They are both crying. Vi is crying and screaming while these lyrics are playing!!

If I could just lay my head down and rest. If there was nothing to fight or protect. Maybe then I could finally be free. Maybe death is like falling asleep. This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow. I used to have strength but I ran out of hope. I know it's my fault that I'm here all alone. This world is a wasteland. Please let me go. Go, go, go. Please let me go.

This is literally singing about suicide. When you say "Maybe death is like falling asleep" over the animation of a character pulling the pin, you are not dealing in subtext or metaphor of any kind.

One of the earlier shots literally has her framed in broken glass among shards that are WARWICK'S MAW. It's like a hint of her death being killed by him, furthering the parallel.

And I think it is in very bad taste to have suicide apologia music playing over characters screaming and bawling (Vi)

while others cry (Jinx and WW)

and a bomb goes off (with no hint of survival),

only for some of y'all to come around acting like Cait glowering at a blueprint and a recuring blimp all means Jinx is alive...

It would be grief porn on the part of the writers. It would mean slamming us in our feelings in a brutal way, in an ugly way, while playing a suicide song, only to turn around and say "Syke! didn't you get that Cait is suspicious about Jinx so it totally means it was all a fakeout?"

I don't want a fake-out at this point!! Why would I?? It's legit worse! Because then it means they couldn't spare 5min of animation time to have her rescued by Ekko and being on the mend with him. Even if she has a scene where she tells him "I need to leave. I can't stay in this city), at least it wouldn't be a cruel joke on the fans and the characters.

This entire ending means that either Jinx was better off dying taking out the mad monster made out of her dad with her (making her the ultimate dad killer, yay), or Jinx was better off removing herself from the equation SO THOROUGHLY that MOST fans believe it, everyone in world believe it, and the show offers no concrete textual clue for it.

It means Jinx didn't deserve/or wasn't able to get better. And so she has to die or do the exact-same-as-dying but kind of more fucked up somehow.

---

ULTIMATELY the message to impressionable viewers who struggle a lot with mental health and identified a lot with Jinx, are being told with soft sad music that yeah maybe dying is like going to sleep and your family should let you go, go, go, and that "leaving everything and everyone behind" is about the same.

It's fucked, and it saddens me that people are so focused on the "she lived" narrative that they miss out the fact that a hint she may be alive doesn't change the messaging.

And it saddens me knowing that if Viktor's arc ended with him being validated in feeling like his human body was "broken" and "inferior" and that his disability made him lesser as a human, people would have pitchforks and torches out.

Jinx's mental illness and struggles in interacting with the world were her disability, and she got fucking killed or wiped off the city incognito for it.

--

P.S: If you're warming up to post hate in comments or tags because you don't like my take and don't know how to politely disagree, please save us both time and block me. I'm open to polite discourse but the next person questioning my humanity over fandom wank will be nuked from orbit with prejudice.

[intothewoods98]

Thread with information about what really happened behind the scenes of Outer Banks!

Ok... I don't know how to start this post. Those who follow me here know that I post MY OPINIONS on various subjects and my last posts were about Outer Banks and the drama between Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey.

It turns out that I ended up receiving a blind item in my direct messages here on Tumblr on November 9th, about what really happened behind the scenes of the show and I'm kind of shocked that things really seem true after Madelyn Cline unfollowed Rudy (and his girlfriend).

I'll try to summarize what this person said in topics, without exposing their name or anything like that because that wouldn't be fair to them.

🚫 Topic 1: Rudy P and Madison B were really involved during the filming of the first season of Outer Banks. They didn't make their relationship official, but they did have an affair, something more than friendship, but in the end it didn't go beyond that. The two decided it was best to remain friends and everything was fine.

🚫 Topic 2: Madison introduces a personal friend (Teo) to the OBX cast, and she and Rudy also start having an affair. Madison was totally okay with it, no problem. She was happy for Teo and Rudy, no bad blood, no bad feelings about it.

🚫 Topic 3: Rudy leaves Teo for Elaine. That's right, Rudy breaks up with Teo to be with Elaine, who was always chasing after him and the rest of the cast. Elaine worked behind the scenes on the first season of Outer Banks and felt like she was part of the main cast because she was similar in age to the actors. Little by little, she got closer to the girls first (Madison, Madelyn) and then focused her attention entirely on the guys, especially Drew and Rudy.

👉🏼 At this point, the person was unable to say whether Rudy had in fact cheated on Teo, but now we have confirmation from Teo that Rudy did indeed cheat on her and the relationship ended because he left her for Elaine.

🚫 Topic 4: Rudy officially starts dating Elaine and the rest of the Outer Banks cast was cool with it, although Madison did not agree with Rudy's betrayal, after all, it was Maddie who introduced the two and this created a slightly bad atmosphere because Madison sided with Teo, but continued to treat Elaine well.

Madison also starts a relationship and Mariah frequents the OBX filming set, soon becoming friends with the rest of the cast, except for Rudy.

👉🏼 The reason for the supposed “fight” between Mariah and Rudy was simply the fact that Rudy had no interest in getting close to Mariah, much less being her friend. Madison was a little upset about this, as she supported Rudy and Elaine's relationship despite what they did, and didn't feel that reciprocity from Rudy.

🚫 Topic 5: Rudy's behavior changes completely. He distances himself from everyone in the cast, especially Madison. He no longer wants to go to parties with his colleagues or participate in the cast's fun backstage.

Madison allegedly confronted Rudy and his response was the reason for their complete separation: Rudy says that Elaine doesn't want him and Madison to be friends anymore, because she's jealous of the affair they had in the past, and that Elaine asks him to spend more time with her than with his friends from Outer Banks.

Madison was reportedly VERY angry with this response and argued with Elaine in the backstage. Madison feels bad that Rudy threw away their friendship for such a stupid reason.

🚫 Topic 6: The rest of the Outer Banks cast supports Madison and condemns Rudy's change in behavior. The cast doesn't understand what's going on, why Rudy is no longer part of their personal lives. Everything gets worse when Rudy finds out that JJ and Kiara are getting together. He starts asking for changes to the script, pressuring the writers not to do this, and makes the cast, especially Madison, feel completely uncomfortable.

Elaine's victim-like behavior irritates everyone. She acts as if she were the victim of a situation that doesn't exist. She claims that the cast excluded her after she started dating Rudy, but she was the one who made Rudy distance himself from everyone. In addition, Elaine starts spreading gossip within the cast's circle of friends, even ending Madison's friendship with Hunter.

🚫 Topic 7: The final straw. The coexistence on set is unbearable. Little by little, Rudy has turned the recordings into a living hell. What used to be just pressure on the writers and directors to change the direction of his character, now Rudy refuses to record certain scenes, forcing last-minute changes and even delaying the recordings.

Rudy can't even look at Madison and the act of filming romantic scenes with her is unbearable for him and his girlfriend Elaine, who ends up having to be REMOVED from the set after a jealous fit behind the scenes. Rudy was reportedly very angry with Elaine's departure from the set and this was the deciding factor in him NOT RENEWING his contract.

🚫 Topic 8: The actors are angry. When filming for the fourth season begins, they don't know that Rudy has asked to leave the series. The news explodes like a bomb during the cast's trip to Morocco, where they find out about the change in the script and JJ's death. All the actors (ALL) feel betrayed by Rudy, because he is throwing years of work in the trash. The actors know that this would harm the series and how negative this news would be for the fans.

If the mood on the set was bad before, it got even worse after this. Rudy doesn't explain himself to his coworkers and this makes everyone exclude him.

They no longer try to talk to Rudy, much less get close to him and his girlfriend. Rudy uses stunt doubles to film scenes with Madison, which makes Maddie and the cast even angrier. They condemn Rudy's lack of professionalism.

After absorbing the impact of the news, everyone on the cast and crew of Outer Banks understands that this was the best thing for them.

Rudy (and his girlfriend) turned the set into a toxic and horrible environment to work in, and now they understand that his departure is a huge relief for everyone, especially Madison, who even had severe anxiety attacks after the fights that happened behind the scenes.

Rudy is NOT friends with the rest of the cast anymore. He stopped being friends a long time ago. It was only a matter of time before they all told the fans this, so Madelyn unfollowing Rudy is no surprise. Everyone is angry with his and his girlfriend's actions.

I received this information on November 9th, a long time before Teo exposed Rudy on TikTok and much less before Madelyn unfollowed Rudy.

👉🏼 I don't know if this is true information, but everything described above fits with what happened in the last few days, so you can draw your own conclusions.

[sparks-chaotic-cove]

SO that lore yesterday, huh? ("≡╔═╻╝═▁" / "Mending" streamed on ggabraxas's, ArtfulRenegade's, and Heyhay13's twitch channels on 11/25/24)

Specifically going to talk about Armor/Atlas and his reactions to everything/the way he acts throughout the stream (also touching back on the end of the last stream-)

When the void monsters attacked in the previous stream- it's like a switch was flipped. His house was burning but that didn't matter- he had to scoop up the lizards and most importantly, the phoenix egg, before diving straight into battle He paused only a moment to stand beside Rune once most if not all of the creatures were gone. Then he stood by when Vast and Rune talked before Rune fled to the testing room.

And he sat with Vast. Almost none of his words were aimed towards himself. He stayed quiet, or he comforted. He didn't even react badly when Vast mentioned the human experimentation him and Rune had been doing.

For almost the entire Mending stream, she is always a step away from Rune and Vast. They stay a bit away, because Rune and Vast need each other- and right now, Atlas doesn't see how much they need him too. The only time that Atlas is closer to Rune than Vast is when he's fixing Rune's arm. And even then, he's so focused on the task that no blush warms his face as the inventor rests his head on Atlas's shoulder. When Vast runs up to Rune to embrace him after they had locked themselves in a room for so long, the first thing Atlas does is look away. Rummage through his pockets, glace around. Eventually he looks back, but to him- while he wants to be here, being around the two when they're all lovey-dovey almost feels like an intrusion. He doesn't belong between them two. Vast is happy. Rune is happy. So he steps away, glances off, fidgets, and waits. Waits until he can do something useful again.

Armor's main focus through these two streams is almost singular: to protect the ones he cares about. He admits this himself when Vast questions if he's okay- he says "Yeah [...] I don't know if 'okay' is the right word, but I will be okay." She's lost her house, but Rune and Vast and the rest of Brightstep are far more her home than that copper building is. He then says that he's more concerned about Rune and Vast right now than himself.

And they go through the stream. Vast and Rune obviously care for Atlas- Vast stuttering through how they could rebuild the house, Rune not wanting to bother Atlas with tending to his arm, etc. Armor (at least from what I remember) never replies when the other two thank him- at least it's never a "you're welcome". sometimes it's a 'yeah', but that's the most. This is what Armor does. This is what she wants to do. She wants to help them. So these actions don't feel worthy of thanking. It's just him helping out. Thats what he does. And as long as Rune, Vast, and the rest of Brightstep are okay, that's far more thanks than he would ever need. Sometimes just seeing the fruit of your work is a better thanks than being highlighted for it ever would. Atlas almost doesn't accept Rune and Vast's offers to give him a room, and refuses to change the room he's given because it's not his. He doesn't need accommodation- he's gotten used to making due with what he's got when it gets cold. He insists that Rune and Vast being alive matters far more than his burnt down house.

Atlas is so focused on helping those two he forgets himself. He insists that if they're going to do Rune's hair, then they need to fix up Vast too. Never does he comment on his own hair, wings, or anything. Although I'm sure the other two got to that in their self care endeavors. He doesn't even mention his birthday until the end, and Rune panics a bit- because Rune cares. But to Armor, it's... another day. One that's been bad in the past. At least today he got to spend it caring for others, being there for the people he loves.

[untildawnss]

until dawn characters overhearing their partner saying something negative about them/their relationship

just a few short drabbles about the characters' weaknesses or worse traits and how they might react to hearing a partner talking about it. and wow, this actually took a while.

kind of angsty, but the endings of most of these are kind of open for interpretation

ashley

"i don't know, i just feel like we're stuck sometimes. we're not really doing anything. it's getting kind of boring."

ashley stopped dead in front of the door to your living room. she had wanted to spend a quiet evening at home with you, like you usually did on fridays but evidently you'd had other plans. and you obviously hadn't expected her to get home early. she flexed her hands, once, twice, and opened the door. the room went quiet, you and your friends looked at ashley. "babe, you're home." you smiled, not sure whether or not ashley had heard you. "sit down, i'm gonna get you a glass of wine." you patted the couch next to you. "no thanks. i think i'd rather go and be boring," ashley grabbed her laptop from the coffee table, "in the bedroom. alone."

beth

"seriously, her sister is over all the time. i know, i know they're twins and they're close and everything but i feel like aoutsider in my own relationship sometimes because she never says no to her family and i get the short end of the stick."

beth heard your voice drifting through the open window. you were on the patio, on the phone with your best friend while hanging out the laundry. beth was in your bedroom on the floor above, changing the sheets. are you fucking kidding me? beth sucked her teeth. she knew that you knew that she'd always been the most mature and stable of the washington siblings and that they were super close. "you know," she leaned out of the window. you looked up at her, startled. "you're my family, too. and i never say no to you." - "you heard that?" you groaned. "uh, yeah, me and like the entire neighbourhood. so what's wrong with me and hannah hanging out? it's only once a week." - "nothing, it'd just be nice to be included every once in a while." beth smiled widely at you. "aw, i didn't know you wanted to hang out with us. you should have told me."

chris

"he's always doing something on his phone, sending josh some stupid video or planning another dumbass prank with him. sometimes i think he stopped maturing past the age of 16."

you heard the front door close. apparently you had missed the jingling of chris' keys while you were busy looking for a salad bowl in the kitchen. "cool, didn't know you thought that way about me." chris dropped a plastic bag on your kitchen counter. "i brought dinner, got your favourite. thought i'd come over and we could hang out, maybe watch a movie or something. but it seems like you're busy." you had turned around to face him. "chris, i didn't mean it like that. i'm sorry." he was already on his way to the door. "no, you did." - "fine, maybe i did. but it doesn't mean that i don't love you. where are you going?" he was standing in the doorway, doing fingerguns at you. "josh's place. because i'm immature like that." the door closed and you pulled out your phone. can we talk about this? you walked back to the kitchen, the smell of your favourite food filling the room. thank you for dinner. - let's talk tomorrow, like adults?

emily

"emily wants this, emily wants that. emily gets what she wants, whenever she wants. it's all about her. i think she's her own favourite person in the world and everyone else are background characters for her enjoyment."

emily's phone pinged when she received the voice message. it was intended for your best friend but you had misclicked when opening the chat without realising it. she smiled when she saw your name on the screen and eagerly tapped on the little arrow to play the message. oh. the message wasn't for her. but you had thought of her alright. was she really that bad? her phone pinged again. don't listen to that. too late, she thought. i'm sorry, i didn't mean that. but you did, she knew. because she knew she was a bitch sometimes. because she knew that she had been selfish. no, you're right. she texted back. can i have a second chance?

hannah

"can you believe it? we had a fight and now she's packing her stuff to go sleep at her sister's place. she's blowing it out of proportion. talk about overreacting. everything is drama with her."

hannah had texted her siblings to come pick her up while she was throwing clothes and toiletries into a bag. whatever you were fighting about had escalated, both of you were to blame for that. but now you couldn't even wait until she was out of the house to talk shit about her? absolutely not. she knew she was sensitive but calling her dramatic was unfair. if she stayed, neither of you would sleep tonight. both of you needed to calm down. so naturally, hannah had called her twin sister and asked if she could stay with her for a few days. and naturally, beth had gotten in her car. the place was just too small for both of you to try to avoid each other after an argument. hannah was trying to give you space but sure, she was the one overreacting, not you in the living room, knowing full well that she could hear you. "you know what? if everything's drama with me, maybe i'll do you a favour and move out." hannah zipped up her bag and made her way to the front door. she heard a clatter as you dropped your phone. "what?" hannah was putting on her shoes now. "i said," she removed the butterfly keychain from her set of keys before putting them back. "i'm moving out. we're done." she walked out of the apartment and got into beth's car.

jess

"ugh, sometimes a part of me wants to shake her and ask her to just act like a normal human being. she's not perfect, so why does she pretend to be?"

last you checked jess was in the shower for her "self care day" ritual. that usually took a while, so you put in your earphones and called a friend while you were in the kitchen preparing dinner. you had jokingly complained that her long showers would drive up the water bill because she just had to keep up that image, that she was driving herself crazy competing with no one but her own ego. you hung up when you put the dish in the oven to clean up, maybe see if jess was done in the shower and have a pre-dinner glass of wine. you walked out of the kitchen and stepped right into a small puddle in the hall. ew, wet sock. "jess, can you leave the water in the shower next time?" you walked towards the bathroom and opened the door. jess was standing there in her underwear, a towel wrapped around her head and staring at her reflection. "hey. dinner's almost ready. you want a glass of wine?" she turned around to look at you. "do you think i'm vain?" her question took you by surprise. "what?" - "do you think i'm vain? i heard you talking about me and i want to know if you think i'm vain." she looked like she was about to cry. "jess, babe, no that wasn't what i meant. it's just- you try so hard all the time but you don't even need to. i love you just the way you are. you can be a little high maintenance, though." she sighed. "i know i'm not perfect-" - "you don't need to be." - "but can i still have that glass of wine?"

josh

"i feel like his caretaker sometimes. take your meds, take care of yourself, go to bed at a reasonable hour, don't drink too much, blah blah blah. i'm so over it. at one point he has to start living for himself and not just because everyone else bends over backwards for him."

you hung up the phone and turned up the TV's volume. when you went into the kitchen to get a drink, josh was there. "hey, when did you get home?" - "while ago," he shrugged. "why didn't you say anything?" you opened the fridge, looking for something you're in the mood for. water, or maybe some wine. "heard the TV, wasn't really in the mood for that." josh tapped his heel against the cupboard behind him. "okay. you want anything?" you pointed at the contents of the fridge. "wouldn't want to be a burden." he turned his head to look at you. "wouldn't want you bending over backwards to take care of me." he clenched his teeth. "yeah, i heard that, too." you let go of the fridge door and it closed slowly. "josh, i-" you started, trying to find something to say. "it's okay. i know i'm not always the easiest person to be around. but i'm trying, i'm getting better." you reached out to touch his hand but he pulled back. "i called chris. he's coming to pick me up." - "oh, okay. when are you coming back?" - "i don't think i should."

matt

"it's like matt doesn't even have any opinions of his own. he always just agrees with me. i don't think he has made a single decision in his life, ever."

it had been a week since matt had read your message. he had been using your laptop because he had forgotten his at home and your devices were connected. he hadn't planned on reading it but saw that it was about him. he hadn't even told his sisters or ashley about it and they were usually his go to people. maybe he was bad at making decisions. he hadn't decided how to handle this situation, anyway. yeah, you'd noticed that he had pulled away and asked him if something was wrong but he had made up an excuse about an assignment he had to turn in. he was still thinking about whether to ignore that he had seen the message or try to talk to you about it when you, once again, made a decision for him. his doorbell rang and when he opened the door, there you were, smiling at him. "hey, thought i'd come over. you're done with that assignment, right? can i come in?" maybe he'd finally make a decision. "actually, no. i don't think we should see each other anymore." your face dropped. "what? why? what happened?" - "guess i'm just making a decision for the first time in my life, ever. we're over."

mike

"he's such a fucking macho sometimes. i can literally not do anything without him swooping in and taking over because he thinks he's god's gift to humanity or something. right now he's putting up a shelf because he didn't think i could handle it. it's my place."

you were in your bedroom, sending a voice message to one of your friends. mike had finished putting up the shelf and was about to knock on your bedroom door to ask you if you wanted to grab something to eat when he realised you were talking about him. wow. guess you really needed to get that off your chest. he'd always thought he was just being helpful by offering to do stuff for you. was he really that overbearing? was he a macho? mike had always thought you were grateful when you accepted his help but maybe he'd misinterpreted the way you smiled at him earlier. it did look forced but he thought it was just the stress of moving. before he could move the door opened and you were face to face with him. "mike! were you eavesdropping?" - "not on purpose! but you were kind of yelling." he shrugged. "didn't realise you thought that i was such an ass. didn't realise i was being an ass." - "you're not an ass, just-" you started. "god's gift to humanity?" he said, pretending to fix an invisible halo. "i'm sorry, i promise i will stop swooping in and taking over and wait until you ask me for help. if you still want me."

sam

"we barely spend any time together. she's always doing something, hanging out with her friends, going climbing, running or swimming. are we even in a relationship anymore or just roommates? i don't even know where she is right now."

sam was right above you, watering the plants at the top of the stairs when you walked in. you were probably talking to a family member or a friend. about her. she wasn't sure if she should say something or not. she had continued watering the same plant while listening to your conversation and the water was overflowing now. it reached her feet and soaked through her sock. "crap." downstairs she heard you mutter a quick goodbye before you called through the house. "sam? are you home?" - "yeah, i'm here." she called back from the bathroom, looking for one of the ratty towels you used for spills. you had kicked off your shoes and were walking up the stairs. "don't move, i accidentally drowned gilbert." all the plants had names. sam emerged from the bathroom and threw the towel on the ground, swiping it around with her foot to wipe up the spill. "i didn't know you were home. did you, uh, hear me just now?" sam was staring at you. "yeah," she admitted. "i don't want us to be over. but i don't want to give up who i am, either." you nodded. "i know. compromise?" sam nodded back at you. "we can try."

[bqstqnbruin]

Friendsgiving

Hi so we are going to ignore the fact that it is nearly 2 am but here I am with a fic that I started today because of this tik tok that I saw a few hours ago and I immediately went 'fic'. So, here we are

Warnings: none

WC: 5845

Enjoy!

__________________________________________

“Why and how are you in Vancouver?” 

“Don’t hate me.”

“Oh, my god, did you move to Canada without me? You moved and didn’t even tell me.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh at what you hoped was Lena’s unnecessary panic that you heard through your phone speaker, trying to navigate your way through the airport that you had never been to before. “No, I’m just probably doing something stupid.” 

“And you’re doing it without me?”

“Leen, I’ll catch you up later, ok?”

“Am I going to have to make sure you don’t end up in a ditch?”

“You should probably watch my location for the next few days,” you say, in all seriousness. “But I have to go, I love you, bye.”

You hang up on your best friend as you hear her screaming on the other end about calling the authorities, knowing that she wouldn’t actually do that. Actually, she might. But you can’t think about that right now.

You were trying to find Brock, despite the fact that you had never met him in person and stupidly agreed to fly to Vancouver on a day's notice from your home the week of Thanksgiving. 

You couldn’t believe the last couple of days of your life. You had posted a silly photo of you and your friends at your annual Friendsgiving. You always got together the Friday before, and had been doing so since middle school when your parents still had to either make the food for you, or had to be in the kitchen with you heavily supervising the entire time. This year was the 15th year in a row that you had all gotten together, celebrating in a much bigger fashion than you had in years past; you all dressed up, you all brought the food in the best serving dishes you had instead of the Dollar Tree tin dishes you all normally brought, you had the fanciest bottles of wine you could afford littering the table, and you had even all planned to stay over together for the first time, continuing the event into the morning. 

Brock had messaged you because of the photo. You were mutuals, having some of the same friends in college but never actually interacted with each other. 

All of your friends talked about how you two would get along so well, but it seemed like every time you were supposed to meet, something happened that prevented you from doing so. There was the one party you were supposed to go to with your friends, that you had been planning on going to all week until you got food poisoning from the dining hall. There was the class you were supposed to take together until his practice times got changed and ended up conflicting with the class. You were supposed to go to a formal together as each other's dates until he slept through his alarm and missed the bus to the venue.

You were always supposed to meet, until you didn’t.

But then you got the message from him a few days ago asking if you wanted to come to his Friendsgiving that he was going to with his American teammates. 

It was easily the craziest thing you had done in your life, saying yes to flying out to Vancouver the next day to meet a guy you had never actually met in person, or really talked to before those messages.

It made you realize you really hadn’t done much with your life. 

You walked through the airport, trying to see if you could find the guy you would be spending the next couple of days with by the baggage claim where he told you he would meet you. 

You finally see him, the blonde head of hair sticking out to you for an unknown reason. 

You knew from his pictures on his account that he was attractive, but, shit, he was gorgeous in person. 

He was also dressed up way more than he should be for someone to be waiting for a stranger in an airport; he was in a full suit and tie, his hair looking like he had just gotten out of the shower and styled it immediately. 

“Hi,” he says to you when he sees you, a smile on his face making your heart skip a beat. 

You didn’t even know this guy. “Hi,” you manage to get out as he pulls you in for a hug. “You look good, all dressed up.” 

Brock reaches for your bag, taking it off your shoulder and walking you out of the airport. “Thanks.”

“Why are you dressed up?”

“We’re on our way to the game.”

“We?”

“I didn’t tell you?”

“Do I look like I’m dressed for a hockey game?”

Brock looks at you as the two of you approach his car, opening his trunk to put your bag in. “You look great to me.”

“I’m in sweats, fresh off a plane. When do you think you told me?”

“Uh,” he lets out as you get in his car. “Yesterday?”

You take out your phone, scrolling through the messages the two of you exchanged. “You told me you had a game, not that I was going to one.” 

“Who did I tell that to yesterday?” he says, staring out through his front windshield, wracking his brain. You couldn’t help but laugh. “I can take you back to my place, if you want.”

“Would that make you late for the game?”

He glances at the clock, pulling out his phone. “Very late, yes.” 

You roll your eyes, fighting back a smile that you couldn’t help. “I’ll go to the game. I’m sure I have something I can change into stuffed in my bag.” 

The two of you fall into easy conversation, much like you had when he first reached out to you. There was something about him that was easy to talk to. 

He pulls up to the arena, still talking about one of the parties you were both supposed to go to in college.

“Do you remember that one kid, Chris, who somehow threw up at every party he went to?” he asks you, leaning against his car as you rifle through your bag in his trunk, searching for any semblance of an outfit that was better than the sweats you were currently in.  

“Hold on,” you tell him, climbing into the trunk and pulling the hatch closed, trying your best to change in the cramped space. You managed to find jeans and a black shirt that could pass as a non-airport outfit that you were smart enough to pack as a spare since Brock didn’t really give you a ton of information as to how the week was going to go. You could see him standing outside the car, dumbfounded by the abrupt nature of you practically commandeering his car as a changing room for yourself. “Ok, I’m good,” you say, opening the door back up in what you were sure was record time for changing in a car trunk.

“Wow,” he says, you noticing the slightest shade of red appearing on his cheeks. 

“Better?” you ask. Your foot catches on part of the trunk as you try to get out, practically falling out of his car. 

You feel Brock’s hands catch you, spreading across your back and under your legs. “Much,” he says, his face inches from yours. He clears his throat, his face turning bright red as he puts you down.

He wasn’t about to kiss you, was he? And why would you have been ok if he did that? “Thanks for that,” you tell him, embarrassment seeping into your voice. 

“So, uh, Chris?” he asks, walking you into the arena with his hands now firming shoved into his pockets.

“He really did somehow end up in the bathroom at every party.”

“Even if he didn’t have anything to drink that night.” 

“I wonder what he’s up to now?”

“He just got engaged, actually,” you tell him. “His fiance was one of my lab partners back in college.” 

“Wow. Never would have known that,” he tells you. The two of you walk through what you could only describe as the tunnels of the arena, Brock showing you around and trying to explain to you what everything was. 

“You’re gonna be in here,” he tells you, showing to a room that was filled with women and children who all seemed to know each other. Before you can ask anything, he checks his watch, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. “Shit, I’ve gotta get ready. I’ll meet you right here after the game.” 

Brock runs off, leaving you standing at the entrance to this room that you could see was at ice level, filled with people you didn’t know. 

You couldn’t enter the room. This was already ridiculous, you being here in the first place with a guy you just met for the first time in person less than an hour before. Now you were apparently supposed to go into this room with a bunch of people and do what? Talk to them? 

No thank you.

You feel your phone vibrating in your pocket, leaning against the wall next to the entrance of this room as Lena calls you again. “Ok, you did not fly all the way to Vancouver to see a Canucks game.”

“I’m going to stop sharing my location with you,” you laugh.

“Ok, spill, why the hell are you in Vancouver?”

You recount the whole string of events to her, realizing how ridiculous the whole situation sounded now that you were actually verbally articulating everything. “And now, I’m outside of this room with a bunch of women and I think this is where I’m supposed to be for the rest of the game.”

“Are you in the WAG room?”

“The what?”

“The WAG room.”

“No, I heard you,” you sigh, “What does that mean?”

“The wives and girlfriends.”

You stare at the wall on the other side of the hallway as people you ignored scurried around you. “But I’m not a wife or a girlfriend?”

“Well, as long as you have that established. I heard there’s supposed to be amazing food in those rooms for the families.” 

You peek your head into the room, seeing a line of the women forming on the other side of the room in front of what looked like an incredible spread of food. “I can see that.”

“Go in!” Lena shrieks in your ear. “Have fun, make friends, and bring me some food when you get back.” She hangs up before you can say anything else, leaving you there with your phone pressed against your ear and no one on the other end of the call. 

You finally work up the courage to go into the room, trying to slip in and stay in the back, out of the way of anyone who would feel the need to come to talk to you. You stay along the wall closest to the door, trying to take in the room around you. There were children seemingly everywhere, running and shrieking as they played with each other. Toys were scattered all over the floor, bags lined against the wall. You probably looked like a freak the way you were moving through the room, trying to find a seat that you could sink into and become invisible in.

“Shit,” you let out, slamming down onto the floor, tripping over one of the toys you were somehow too busy to notice. 

“Are you ok?” one of the women asks you, crouching down on the floor to meet you at what was now, embarrassingly, eye level. 

You could feel your face getting hot. “Other than my ego being bruised, I think I’m good.” 

“I haven’t seen you before,” she says to you. “I’m Lexie. I’m Thatcher’s wife.”

You had no idea who Thatcher was, but it probably wouldn’t look good for you if you admitted that. 

You introduce yourself, finally getting up off the floor and dusting yourself off. “I’m here with Brock.”

Lexie’s eyes light up with excitement. “You must be Brock’s mystery girl.” The room seems to go silent when Lexie practically shrieks that, even the children making no noise. “He had been telling us he was seeing someone, but we never thought he would bring you to a game early.”

“Oh, I,” you start, getting nervous now that all eyes were on you. You had no idea what he had told these women, or their husbands, or boyfriends, or whoever these people were. “Here I am.”

“I can’t believe Brock would just throw you to the wolves like this,” Lexie says, linking her arm with yours and walking you over to the food table.

“Are you kidding?” another one of the women chimes in. “This is exactly something Brock would do. I’m Natalie, by the way, J.T.’s wife.”

The two women start chatting your ear off, you unable to comprehend what they were saying. Brock had a ‘mystery girl,’ that you had now taken on the identity of. Brock was probably seeing someone who couldn’t be there this week and now he was going to look like an awful human when you suddenly disappeared and were replaced with another person next week. 

But, why did you care? You barely knew Brock.

You had no idea how much time passed by when they all start filtering out the seats near the ice, the players skating around in circles. 

You join them, unsure what else to do. You pull out your phone, getting an idea and starting to type in a new note, trying to wave Brock over to the boards when you finally get his attention.

They think I’m your ‘mystery girl??? you show him with your phone screen pressed against the glass when he comes over. The color seems to drain from his face, mouthing ‘I’m sorry,’ and shrugging way too casually for your liking before practically sprinting away from you to the other side of the rink. 

You head back into the room, beelining for the exit and pulling up Lena’s number.

“Brock told everyone he and I are dating?” you try not to scream too loudly, hoping that none of the people in the room or in the hallway 

“Oh,” Lena says. “That’s not great.”

“Not great?” you say, running your hand through your hair, feeling yourself panic. “This is crazy. What if this turns into a psycho killer situation?’

“He’s way too high profile in the area to get away with killing you.”

“That’s not reassuring.” 

“I’m just saying he wouldn’t get away with it.”

“Adelena,” you stomp your foot like a child out of frustration, using your friend's full name.

“Ok, calm down,” she says. “There’s no need for the government name here. I think you just need to talk to him after the game and figure out what’s going on. I will fly out there and save you if I have to.” 

You take in a deep breath. This was the dumbest thing you could have done, regret seeping into you with every passing moment that you spent in Vancouver. “I’ll let you know.” You go back in the room, trying to pay attention to the game as the people around you milled about, trying to get to know you and about your ‘relationship’ with Brock.

“How long have you two been going out?” Lexie asks eagerly. 

“Um,” you panic, “Not that long, honestly. This is all really new.” That wasn’t a total lie.

“How did you two even meet?”

“We went to college together.” 

Before Lexie could ask you another question that you probably didn’t have an answer to, a toddler runs up to her, crying. “Gotta go,” she says to you, lifting the toddler and trying to comfort them. 

You sat and tried to watch the rest of the game, writing down everything you told Lexie in hopes that Brock would have said something similar. You spent the rest of the game on your phone texting with Lena, thankful that no one else in the room came up to you to talk to you or ask questions the way Lexie had, only going back to the ice and looking up from your screen to see Brock scoring.

You wait outside the room for Brock once the game was over, his teammates coming out much faster than he was as the hallway and the room behind you slowly emptied out, leaving you alone in the hallway. 

“What the fuck,” you ask him when you finally see him. 

“I’m sorry, I know,” he tells you, walking out to his car. 

“I don’t care if you need me to pretend to date you, but I would have liked to know about it before you threw me into the Gossip Grotto.” 

Brock exhales when he gets into the car, resting his head against the steering wheel while you stared at him with your arms crossed in front of you. “The guys keep bugging me about not dating anyone so I told them I was seeing someone to get them to shut up.” 

“And you didn’t think that was relevant to mention when you invited me here that there was a good chance they would think I’m the girl you’re dating?”

“No. I figured they would have forgotten about it by now.” 

“Well, their wives didn’t.”

“So what do we do?”

You stare at him. “I could leave on the next flight and get out of here and probably be mad at you forever. Or, we pretend we’re together.”

He whips his head to you, his eyes crazy with shock. “What?”

You shrug, pulling out your phone and showing him the notes you made during the game about you and him being together. “We fake date. I’m only here until Wednesday, and you said we were only going to be seeing your friends on Tuesday night. We have plenty of time to figure this out.”

“We have a day and a half.” 

You scoff. “You think I haven’t figured out more complicated things in less time? I got a plane ticket and got myself here on twelve hours notice.”

“So, we fake date?”

“We fake date.” 

_____________________________

“What are you doing?” you ask, walking into Brock’s kitchen the next morning, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. You spent the night in his guest room, sleeping in what was probably the most comfortable bed you had ever slept in. You spent the night before starting to hash out the story you would tell his teammates and their partners, agreeing that you would only share information about the two of you if you were directly asked about it. 

“Debating whether or not to make us breakfast,” he tells you, one hand on his hip, the other holding open the fridge door. Brock had on no socks, boxer shorts and a t-shirt, all of which showed off to you just how unfair his entire physique was. His hair was messy in a somehow perfect way that would have made you drool under any other context. You could pretend to drool over him, but real drooling was out of the question right now. 

“What’s the other option?”

He closes the fridge door, turning to face you. “I don’t make breakfast and we go out for food instead.” 

“How good are you at making breakfast?”

“I make a mean bowl of cereal.” 

“We’re going out for breakfast, get dressed.” 

“Wow, my girlfriend is bossy,” he smirks as you walk away, looking over your shoulder at him and sticking your tongue out.

Was that too flirty? You had agreed last night that flirting was ok so you could ‘get used to it.’ How could you flirt in front of other people if you had never done it before? 

You call Lena while you were getting ready. 

“You could just real date him,” you hear her suggest, crunching on something on the other end of the line.

“You could just give me real advice and not chew on something in my ear.” 

“It’s morning, let me eat my apple,” Lena says, obviously with her mouth full. “What are you guys doing today?”

“Right now, getting ready for breakfast. Beyond that, watch my location.”

“Yeah, I have no job. I can just stalk you all day.”

“If I end up dead how are you going to know?”

“Ugh, fine,” she sighs. “Have fun, don’t die.”

She hangs up, leaving you alone to get dressed for a day you didn’t know the details of. You pull on leggings and a sweater, your sneakers on and grabbed a jacket that you didn’t even know if you needed. You head back out to Brock’s kitchen, finding him leaning against the counter on his phone.

“You need to change,” you tell him. He had on black jeans and the same color sweater as you. 

“This could be a cute couple thing,” he jokes. “We could take a picture together and post it, or something.” You hesitate, walking over to Brock as he extends his hand with his camera open. “At least pretend to like me,” he tells you, plastering a smile on his face as he starts taking photo after photo.

You rest your hand on his chest, leaning into him and smiling at his camera. You did look good together, if you had to admit. 

“Can you do one where you kiss my cheek?’

“What?”

“Don’t couples do that?’

You stare at him for a second. Would it be weird to do that? He asked you to do it. “I normally scroll past those photos.”

“Me, too.” The two of you stand in silence for a second, neither of you sure how to go on. “Maybe we don’t do that. Too much, too soon.” You nod in agreement.

“So, where are we going?”

Brock smiles at you, leading you out the door. 

_____________________________

The breakfast he took you to was amazing. He said that he had an entire day for you planned as a thank you for coming out here in the first place. 

“How are you with hiking?”

“It depends.”

“On?”

“How long the trail is.”

Brock laughs, putting his car in park in front of a water front. 

“If we don’t stop, it’ll take two hours.” 

“That seems like a long time.”

“That’s how long my games are.”

“Yeah, that was a long time,” you tease him, getting out of the car. 

The trail was beautiful, a breeze off the water cooling you down as you walked alongside Brock. This could easily have been a real date if the two of you were actually together. 

You shake your head slightly of the thought. This was just supposed to be you helping him out, even though that wasn’t the original purpose of your trip. “So what are you supposed to do for Friendsgiving tomorrow night?”

Brock stops walking, the person behind him nearly knocking into him as he scolds Brock for stopping in the middle of the trail. You pull him over to the side of the walkway, ignoring the spark that you swore ran through you as laced your fingers in his. 

“I have no idea, actually.” 

“So you’re off to a great start.”

“I think I was told to bring something in the group chat,” he says, using his free hand to pull out his phone and start scrolling through the message thread that seemed to go on forever, your hands still intertwined. You weren’t sure he even noticed at this point, but part of you didn’t want to be the one to break the connection between you. “Ah, mac and cheese.”

“Have you ever made homemade mac and cheese before?”

“It has to be homemade?”

You roll your eyes, starting to walk again with your hands still locked together. “Did you think it would just magically spawn in front of you once you got to Quinn’s place?”

“I only have boxes of the store brand of mac and cheese.”

“Oh my god,” you sigh, pulling out your phone and finding the recipe you make for yourself when you have motivation. “Can you use Quinn’s oven when you get there or will he not have space?”

He quickly types on his phone as the two of you keep walking. “Yeah, we can as long as it doesn’t take too long,” he tells you, showing you the message from Quinn.

You nod, scrolling to the recipe on the website. “What do you have from these ingredients?” 

Brock quickly scans the list, nodding along and mouthing each component to himself. “I have the flour, salt, and pepper.”

“So you were supposed to be making mac and cheese and you had neither the mac nor the cheese?”

“That would be correct.”

“Oh my god,” you groan again. Brock stops walking, pulling you off to the side of the trail again. “What?” Brock gestures to the water in front of you, the sun making the ripples shine, the sky absolutely pristine. “Wow,” you let out. 

“What do you think?” you hear him ask, not taking your attention away from the sight in front of you.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is.” You look over at him, seeing him tuck his phone away into his pocket, his eyes on you instead of the view. 

_____________________________

“Why was getting all of this way harder than I thought it would be?” Brock asks, putting the bags of groceries on the counter.

“Because you had no idea where anything in the store was and we had to keep doubling back for things we missed the first time.”

“You really have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“We’re dating, isn’t that something you’re supposed to know?”

Brock laughs, pulling out pans and bowls from his cabinets as you start to get everything prepared for the mac and cheese. You tell him what to do, giving him step-by-step instructions.

“This is nice,” he tells you. 

You think for a moment, shredding the cheese into a bowl. The recipe called for more cheese than any recipe you had ever made before, and somehow the mountain of cheese in front of you still didn’t feel like enough. “It is.”

“My mom and dad used to cook like this,” he tells you, his voice somber as he comes up behind you. 

“Yeah?”

“She would tell him what to do and he would do it. Badly, but he would try his best.” You laugh along with him. He had told you that his father had passed away a couple of years ago, but you didn’t know anything else about him other than what she could find with a quick google search that now, in a weird way, felt like an invasion of privacy. “We could always tell which things Dad helped with because they tasted just a little off.” 

“You miss him, don’t you?” you say, slowing down your shredding and turning towards him. He was facing you again, his arm around you but not touching you, resting on the counter on the other side of you. 

“Always.”

You swore he was going to lean in, his eyes flickering down to your lips. You clear your throat, turning back to the cheese. “You should check the pasta to see if it’s almost done or not.”

Brock nods, smiling and winking at you before doing what he was told.

_____________________________

“This is all fake.”

“And?”

“It doesn’t feel fake.” 

“Well, you aren’t a great actress, are you?”

“Lena,” you whine. 

“I saw you try out for The Little Mermaid in middle school.” 

You had texted her once the mac and cheese was done and you were back in what Brock now referred to as ‘your room,’ panicking that he had almost kissed you again. What if you were just reading into things? You felt stupid to think that he was doing anything more than pretending for the sake of getting used to things for tomorrow, right?

“Is there a chance for this to turn into something not fake?”

“Considering he lives in a different country, unless you want me to actually move to Canada without you, no.” 

“Do you want it to be something that isn’t fake?”

You hesitate, knowing that Lena had a stupid smirk on her face that would turn into some sort of ‘I told you so,’ later in the conversation. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it does.”

You sigh. “He’s great, but I’ve known him for two days. You don’t fall for someone like that in two days, it’s absurd.”

“Jack and Rose did in Titanic.”

“And that’s fiction, not real life.”

“Ok, if you had more than two days, then what?” 

“Then, I don’t know. Maybe?” 

“So, what do you do about it?”

“What can I do, Leen?” You flop down on the bed. “I’m here for less than two days before I leave and probably never talk to him again. The best this can be is fake.” 

_____________________________

“Are you ready for this?” Brock asks you, handing you one of the trays of food you made. “No.”

He smiles at you. “Me neither.” 

You head towards the door of Quinn’s place, ready to be as overwhelmed with the people you were about to encounter as you were two days prior at the game, even if you had already met most of these people. 

Lexie is the first one to greet you, somehow, through the chaos of everyone else around you. She leads the two of you into the kitchen, even though Brock already knows his way around. “I’m stealing her,” she tells Brock, grabbing you by the hand and leading you off to another room while all the guys stand around the kitchen island, somehow the ones in charge of the food.

“It is so good to see Brock so happy,” she tells you, handing you a glass of wine as she poured one for herself. The two of you were alone in the room she pulled you into, leaving you amazed that with that many people in the house, there was even an empty room to begin with. “I mean, those photos he posted of you? You are the most photogenic person I have ever seen.”

“Uh, yeah,” you tell her, knowing that you have to stop stammering everytime you try to give someone an answer. 

“You don’t know about the pictures?” You shake your head. She prompts you to pull up Brock’s page, the most recent pictures one from yesterday.

You scroll through the carousel. The first one, as you saw, was the one of you two before you went out for the day. The second one was one of you in the airport, looking for him. You thought you looked awful, but somehow, he made you look good. The third from the game the other night, one of the photographers probably captured a photo after he scored of him looking at you and smiling at him before he heads to the bench. The fourth and fifth were ones you had no idea he took; when you were looking out at the water yesterday, smiling at the sight while your hair somehow perfectly framed your face, and while you were hunched over the cheese, grating too many cups of the stuff for today. 

“He’s in deep,” Lexie smirks, drinking her wine. 

You can feel the heat rushing to your cheeks as you looked at the photos, which he captioned, Thankful for you, with your handle tagged. 

“Now it makes sense why I’m getting so many notifications,” you joke, setting your glass down on the table in front of you. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to go find the bathroom.” 

You head back towards the kitchen, hoping to find Brock there. 

“I’m surprised you actually are dating someone,” you hear someone’s voice in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Brock responds.

“I thought you made her up,” another voice agrees with the first. 

“I’m not Quinn, I wouldn’t do that,” Brock lies.

“That was one time when I was in sixth grade,” the first voice argues.

You hear Brock laugh, your heart fluttering at the sound, immediately hating yourself for that. You’ve known him for a few days, why did you have to remind yourself about that?

“How long have you guys even been together?” Your heart stops,hoping Brock remembered all the things they talked about the last few days. She knew what he should say, but that didn’t mean he would say it.

“Only about two months, I think.” 

“You think?”

“Petey, you know he’s not good with time.” 

You finally work up the nerve to walk into the room, seeing Brock’s face light up at the sight of you. 

He was faking it. 

“Hey, babe,” he says, pulling you close and kissing the side of your head. 

“God, you two aren’t going to be the kind of couple who overdo the PDA, are you?” Petey asks.

“Only if you piss us off,” Brock says, not taking his eyes off you. 

“So, um,” you say, coming back to reality and turning to the other two. “Everything looks great.” 

Quinn looks at the clock on the oven. “We should probably eat soon. The food should be in a couple of minutes.”

“We’ll get everything on the table,” Brock volunteers the two of you, grabbing one of the plates and handing them to you.

“Everything is going well, so far, I think,” you whisper to him once you’re out of earshot of the others. 

“Everyone thinks we’re actually together. I think we might pull it off.” 

_____________________________

The rest of the night went surprisingly well, the attention largely kept off the two of you most of the time as the team seemed to be more interested in teasing each other while their partners rolled their eyes at the guys’ antics. Brock drove you back in silence, a smile on his face the entire time. 

You headed to bed, knowing that you were going to be leaving when you woke up the next morning, part of you dreading the moment Brock would drop you off at the airport. 

He pulled up to the terminal, neither of you moving once he put the car in park. 

“Can I admit something?” he asks. 

“Sure.”

“I don’t think I want you to leave.” 

You look at him. “I don’t really want to leave.”

“But,” he starts.

“I have to.” 

Brock gets out of the car before you could say anything else, heading to grab your bag from his trunk. 

“We were good at fake dating, though,” he says, handing you your bag. 

You nod as he pulls you in for a hug. “Was all of it fake?” You don’t know what compelled you to ask that, other than you not thinking before you speak.

Brock smiles, his arms still wrapped around you. Before you can fully process it, his lips find yours, a sweet, slow kiss as your lips moved together, his hand on the small of your back pressing you into him. 

“No.” 

[connor6sex]

EPHEMERAL SMP (My writeup)

Hi, my IGN is Lunethh. I joined the server 20 minutes late, and wandered around until i found someone (Lulu175) who said there was a trial chamber near spawn. I decided to accompany them to the trial. On the way we ran into a Catbboymmilo, who had iron and gave us shields. Catboy also gave me a bone, and with it i was able to tame a single nearby Wolf. This wolf was to be named Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And if anything bad happened to him, i swore i would find a way to start a world war.

Before our journey to the trial chamber commenced, Lulu declared we must get a bed, because she would surely die and wanted to set her spawn. This was an excellent call from Lulu, who got the most deaths on the server with 42.

We wandered into a forest where we met DarubyPrincxx, who had gone mining and had iron for shears. They lent us shears so we could make a bed and head off to the Chamber.

And to the Trial Chamber we went. There was a little trouble getting to it due to the immense lag we had mining straight down. It took ten minutes to mine maybe 30 blocks down. But eventually we were in the Trial Chamber, with stone tools and no food.

And none of us were really experienced Trialers, I'd not actually played the latest version of the game at all, and Lulu only ever poked around Trial chambers in creative, but we managed. Managed to get the most deaths on the server.

Eventually we ran into someone else in the trials. Mothyboyo i think. And they had cleared a room and gotten a omen potion. (Or milo found the first omen bottle, not entirely clear, but regardless) The trials got harder. With the omen, but we did, eventually. With a lot of deaths, manage to get some ominous keys and start opening a vault. And on our second ominous vault, Milo dropped a heavy core.

This was the first of many maces we would acquire.

We all got to kill each other with the mace right away, getting the achievements in chat and we declared ourselves Mace Trio. I wanted to leave the trials right away to go start killing people at spawn with the mace, but Lulu and Milo insisted we get more maces. I said that us getting more maces was statistically unlikely.

However Milo said "LETS GO GAMBLING" and that's hard to argue with. So we cleared the next rooms, and eventually got another Mace. At that point i said, we should really go back to spawn now, but the response once more was LETS GO GAMBLING. And that's really hard to argue with.

We ended up leaving the trail chamber with not two, not three, but FIVE maces.

At one point i nearly had a diplomatic incident in chat, when i asked very politely, if i could abolish the monarchy that had been growing in strength while Mace Trio and I were below the ground.

The leader of the Monarchy, the Monarch themself, RGBmothman, promptly declared war on me Specifically. However, when i pointed out that i merely asked to abolish the monarchy, and didn't threaten it at all beyond asking. A ceasefire was declared, and i asked if we were about to kiss. They did not Reply to me about if we were in fact about to kiss. But I digress.

Eventually we did surface, maces in hand and ready to kill. But before i went on a killing spree, we gathered candles in the Trial Chamber that we wanted to bring to the Vigil. It wasn't enough candles to offset the combined deaths we all had in the trials. But it seemed like a nice thing to do.

We spent some time at spawn, and noticed The Emerald Throne, which had been there since i logged on. The throne was made of dirt. Not emerald, so with Trial Chamber loot, Lulu fixed this.

On the way to the Vigil, we witnessed a wafflehouse massacre, and I ended up getting murdered on the steps of the Wafflehouse. I believe it was either Engibot or Kafrisuru, who killed a lot of people. The only thing i recovered from my death was my Mace. Thankfully. I really don't know how that worked out, it had fallen into the river, and i guess they didn't spend too long looting my corpse. But i did have good stuff on me. like 1/2 diamond and 2 god apples.

Anyhow. With one more death, we made our way to the vigil to give them some candles. On our way there, we were stopped by the Monarchy's soldiers. They were looking for someone who stole something or something. idk, i was a little wary of them because they had previously declared war on me.

We didn't end up having any trouble with them, but that would not be our last encounter with the Monarchy (i don't like monarchs out of principle)

Heading back to spawn, we searched for the rumoured Sex House. When i had asked Willow what it was, i was told that it was a house at spawn with all the player beds. And someone just put a sign there. And i wanted to see it for myself.

With a bed of my own, and a hefty shaft in my hand, i found nothing at spawn. But i did see the monarch nearish. I figured a ruler would know of the comings and goings of the world, and asked if they knew of the Sex House.

They did not know where it was, but as we fell into discussion, i said "its not about finding a sex house, but building a sex home" and the monarch and I discovered the true meaning of Sexmas. As well as found out that we were in fact, about to kiss.

But we had to split ways with our insight shared, I had to start construction of a new Sex House. A house for all of us, a house for Sex.

Just off the coast of spawn, right where the stone beach turns to grass sat a small roof held up by fenceposts with a single wall. It wasn't much, but it was the start of the SexHouse that i know and (made) love.

Now that i had two of my primal needs satisfied, (Shelter & Companionship), i needed to sate my thirst for blood. I had a mace, and i had windcharges, i wanted murder almost as much as i wanted sexhouse.

Most of my time left on the server was spent trying to kill people. I think i killed a lot of people. I killed God even. I asked them if they wanted to be killed by my Mace. And they said yes, and switched to survival.

The rest of the time went peacefully and bloodily, at one point there was a dirt mansion massacre, where the dirt baron brought me and lulu to the highest point of the manor, and stood directly below it, with a small crowd of other people who wanted to be killed by the mace. It was a smashing time.

And best of all, nothing bad ever happened to my dog. Nothing bad has ever, or will ever happen to my dog.

[scoops-aboy86]

Firefly AU where Captain Eddie (Mal) and Companion Steve (Inara) are dancing around each other while the latter is renting a shuttle on the former’s ship. (For those not familiar with Firefly, a companion is a prostitute with a centralized but extremely powerful and respected union. Companions are fancy. Very… coiffed and officially trained, with mandatory annual medical checkups.)

First mate Nancy (Zoe) is a total badass who served with Eddie in the war, married to pilot Jonathan (Wash). Everyone is so sure that Eddie and Nancy have a history… but they really wouldn’t work as a couple; too much clashing dom energy, even if Eddie weren’t gay as the day is long.

Instead of photography, Jon’s thing here is flying. Instead of toy dinosaurs, he has old miniatures that used to belong to his younger brother. No one knows the backstory to that, except maybe Nancy.

The ship’s engineer is Robin (Kaylee), who wandered on board one day and pointed out three mistakes their previous engineer was making basically before anyone else realized she was there. Eddie hired her on the spot and they bonded as fellow queers who grew up on backwater planets, dreaming of escaping to space.

Wayne (Shepherd Book) was attached to the ship from the beginning because he’s never not going to be Eddie’s uncle in my heart. Even Eddie isn’t totally sure what all Wayne was up to before Eddie’s dad dumped a preteen on him with no warning and then vanished. (Maybe there’s a running joke on the ship that Wayne probably just killed the guy; he knows too much about too many weirdly niche subjects to not have some sort of History.) But when Eddie was released from Alliance custody at the end of the war, Wayne attached himself to his nephew and likes to keep him grounded, humble, and reasonably honest, for an outlaw… He doesn’t really object to Eddie’s line of work, but will absolutely speak his mind when he thinks Eddie is being stupid about anything.

Their weapons guy, Billy (Jayne), is a mercenary purely there for the money. He gets a moment in one chapter where he proudly wears a questionable hat his mother sent him in the mail, and one chapter set on a planet where he’s considered a hero for stupidly coincidental reasons and he has a genuine moment of feeling bad that some of them got hurt protecting him from an attack, but mostly he’s just an asshole.

They pick up a passenger on one trip through Persephone, a doctor named Kali (Simon). Unlike Simon, she does put up a good front of unflappable and serious, but tends to go all flustered and awkward around Robin. In the first chapter Kali is discovered to be transporting her younger sister, Eleven (River), in stasis in the ship’s cargo. She broke Eleven out of an Alliance lab where they were messing with the younger girls brain and they’re fugitives, better off constantly on the move so Eddie keeps Kali on as long as she acts as ship’s doctor and they don’t cause trouble for him or his crew.

I desperately want Billie as a widely popular girl’s name in this ‘verse so the “Well Jayne ain’t a girl” moment can still happen when Eleven blandly comments on it. And I want Kali to drug him when he tries to take control of the ship one time while Eddie is away.

Reavers are basically the Flayed.

Steve and Robin are platonic soulmates. Whenever Robin’s not working and Steve’s shuttle is docked, she goes in there and lets him do her hair while they shut talk about his more ridiculous clients. (He gets to pick them, and is able to blacklist any he has a reason to, but they’re still all mostly rich and snobby. Men and women, Steve is flexible.)

Anyway, they all do crimes and Eddie and Steve spend the entire time mutually pining for one another. That’s all the thought I have right now.

[bloody-cupcakes]

Yandere serena van der woodsen but she's really toxic, like more toxic than usual. She threatens to purposely overdose/hurt herself if you dont do what she says and calls you crying whenever you get into fights or when you hang out with someone else

A/N: trying out a bit of a new format with this hehe. thanks for the gossip girl request btw!

Tw: yandere/dark content, gender neutral reader, both obsessive and possessive behavior, mentions of addictions (drugs/alcohol), manipulation, swearing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Serena loved you so, so much. She swore that she did. She'd never felt anything close to what she felt for you.

You were so amazing to her, so perfect in her eyes. You were better than Nate, or Carter, or Dan, or anyone elsed she'd ever hooked up with before. You saw her for who she was, and you loved her regardless.

Her addictions didn't define her when it came to you. Whenever she relapsed or needed help, you were always there for her, cleaning her up and holding her hair back while she puked. Not even Blair was as attentive as you were, and they'd known each other for years.

The way she saw it, you were hers. Who else would come rushing over to the VDW manor the second she called, crying because Gossip Girl had posted yet another blast that made her out to be nothing more than a alcoholic slut?

Of course, other people caught on. Dan, naturally, as he loved Serena far more than he should given that she was yours. Blair did, too, not that she cared much. With someone else keeping the blonde distracted, she wouldn't have to worry about doing damage control.

Even her family caught on, which certainly said something as Eric spent most of his time searching for his next boytoy to fool around with and Lily was determined to marry another man solely for his money and social status. Even they knew just how important you were in her life, just how codependent she was- to an almost unsettling degree.

Lily wanted to say something, but her daughter seemed happy for once, not quite as bratty or miserable, so she let it slide. Eric, on the other hand, wasn't afraid to confront his older sister over her most recent behavior changes.

"What's going on with you and this new person in your life?" He questioned one day while standing in the doorway to her room, watching as she got ready to meet up with you somewhere.

"Okay, first of all, this new person happens to have a name," she lightly chastised while applying her favorite brand of lip gloss, one that she hoped would soon end up all over your lips and face (and maybe even thighs) by the end of the night. "And second, nothing's going on. You make it sound like a bad thing that I've made a friend."

"It's only a bad thing because of how obsessed with them you seem to be," he stated while crossing his arms, not looking entirely convinced. "You can't just hang out with only one person, Serena. What about Blair?"

"What about her?" The blonde's tone had become sharp, a slight edge to it as her brother began to chart into unwelcome territory. While it was true she'd let her relationship with her bestie suffer a little recently, that still didn't mean he got the right to bring it up to her.

"All I'm saying is please be careful, okay?" Despite everything, he was genuinely worried for her. You seemed great and all, but he knew how Serena got when things didn't go her way, and with her setting up such high expectations for you it was bound that you'd end up disappointing her sooner or later, which would only result in a mess that he'd have to help clean up.

"Whatever, you're just jealous that I'm not spending as much time with you as usual," she lightly teased, reaching her hand out to give his hair an affectionate ruffle as she passed by him. Meanwhile, he frowned and averted his gaze when he noticed her dress, quite certain there was no way she saw you as just a friend when she was going out to meet you while wearing something so revealing.

He ended up being right, unsurprisingly. You got into a massive argument with her when she found out you'd been hanging out with Jenny Humphrey, Little J herself. God, how could she be so stupid?

"Why do you need to hang out with her, huh? Why do you need her when you already have me?" She loudly sobbed, shoving you away whenever you went in to comfort her.

"Hey, hey, calm down, alright? She's just my friend, that's all," you tried to reassure her, but she was having none of it.

"Oh, just a friend? Really? Do you honestly think I'm so stupid as to believe something like that?" She harshly spit out, and it was a that moment you stopped trying to make her feel better.

"You know what, Serena? I can't talk to you when you're like this. I'm leaving."

Her angry demeanor instantly crumpled the moment you said that, and she watched you helplessly as you grabbed your coat and started heading for the door.

"W- Wait, I didn't mean it like that-" She began, trying desperately to explain to you what she really meant. "Come back, I'm sorry, please-"

But you were already gone, shutting the door behind you with a loud, deafening slam. She was quiet for a moment before letting out a wail of anguish, falling to her knees before curling up into a ball on the floor, laying there in a fetal position as she begged for you to come back.

It was a little later, and you were starting to feel a bit guilty for leaving her there like that. You were about to call her when she beat you to it. "Serena, hey," you answered in relief, but that relief quickly turned to worry and then panic when you heard her hiccuping while letting out shuddering breaths, something that wasn't normal for her to do, even when she was crying. "Serena? What's wrong?"

"I- I took something," she announced, her speech definitely slurring when she spoke. "It was some sort of meds that I got off someone at the last party I went to. I washed it down with some alcohol."

You felt your blood run ice cold. She'd been drinking, and taking some kind of drugs that probably shouldn't be mixed together? This was not good.

"Where are you?" You asked while trying your best to remain calm, a task that seemed close to impossible as you rushed around your place, quickly putting on your shoes and coat.

"Mm... some dive bar downtown. I rented out one of the rooms here so I could have some privacy."

Shit. You knew what it meant when she did that: she was about to relapse, and bad, if she hadn't done it already.

"Okay, stay were you're at, alright? I'll be right there." You were still on the phone with her, even in your hurry to get out the door. You had to find and get to her before it was too late.

"Okay... try to hurry..."

It sounded like she was on the verge of passing out, which only hastened you. If she went unconscious while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, especially at that large of a dosage, there was a good chance she might not wake up.

As soon as you got there, you could tell she was in bad shape. She absolutely reeked of the stuff that was in her system, and she looked half dead.

"Hey, S? Are you alright?" You asked despite already knowing the answer to that question.

"Mm... I'm better now that you're here..." She seemed relatively happy to see you, at least that's what you gathered, anyway. Judging by the look on her face, she was most likely feeling pretty numb.

"Here, I'm going to take you to the hospital, alright?" You said while helping her up, wrapping one arm firmly around her waist so she could lean on you, already noticing how she was starting to stagger. "You're going to be okay, I promise."

She was out of it for sure, but she did know one thing, and that was she finally had a way of getting your attention, even when you'd rather ignore her or try to forget about her altogether. There's no way you could ever think about leaving her alone again after this, and that's what she was counting on.

After all, you were hers. She needed you the same way she needed to breathe, and she was going to keep you there by her side no matter what the cost. If this is what she had to do to keep you close, then so be it.

She'd rather die than ever have to risk giving you up.

[cerislabnotes]

Research Note 251: Lines West

This may not pertain to our work directly, but it definitely pertains to how it affects our patients, so IMHO, it counts.

It's yearly conference time, and this year, I had to take the train home. I haven't done it in the last 3 years because I've carpooled. Well, all alone this year, planes are out of the question, and the cars in the shop. (I had a little oopsie with my tail's scales and the upholstery…)

Which brings me to my point. I never thought about how our patients would have to adapt to public transit until now. Once they're end of treatment, most would never have to take it again. But all through the process? Well, let's just use my experience and what I've observed.

So I get on the train at Penn Station. As is my new norm, I'm being stared at the entire time in the metro lounge (perks of spending my life savings on a bedroom on the train). When we go down to board, my hands have difficulty fitting the handrails to get in the car's door. I haven't grown much in height, but my 'paws' sure have.

I turn down the hall and, surprise, even with my little f'd up wings, I barely fit, sideways or frontways. I slammed my hand against the wall and frustratedly contorted myself through the door. I set down my two bags, and as I turn to sit, a cow passes behind me with her friend. A cow, at the end of her treatment. So, effectively, a cow. I poke my head back out the door and watch this poor girl try and make the turn in the hallway. Her friend ended up having to push her around the corner. Between the few words and angered moo's, I felt bad. All I had was a little discomfort, they had a whole experience. They ended up in the larger 'family' bedroom for… obvious reasons.

Once we got underway, I was able to actually enjoy the trip. The trees and towns passing by as the light flashed across my muzzle was nice. What wasn't nice, was trying to fit all 6'2" with 4ft of tail me inside this itty bitty bathroom when it was finally time. I really didn't want to know how it felt to be packaged like an action figure, but here we are. The day passed, and I started to feel a bit normal again. So, when dinner came, I decided to go eat in the dining car. I… figured out a way to sit in the booth, sideways. Due to space, everyone gets sat in every available space. The cow's friend sat across from me while she waited to take their food back to their room. They had decided to take one more trip before "they went off to live on a farm upstate." But actually, they were. That's where their end-of-care program was. A petting zoo upstate from where they lived. "Sounds perfect! So you can still go and hang out!" She excitedly nodded as her food came. "Pasta, and the double salad for my friend! Perfect!" She ran back down the car, as my steak came out. Unfortunately, I couldn't maneuver the silverware. I was really frustrated real fast, so the entire car got to watch me two-finger pinch the steak, and sling it down like a shot of whisky. Perks of having a long neck and sharp teefies. But, when the other dragon does it with fish, everyone gets hard. When I do it, I get "oh my god, what the hell?" and asked to leave. I enjoyed the night, being able to get lulled to sleep. I spread my wings out as best I could, and cuddled my tail as the red lights flashed by. Morning came too fast, and I awoke to rustling in the room beside me. The others were getting off way ahead of me. And trying to get a cow down the stairs… well… the conductor wasn't prepared for the endeavor. After shoving her out into the vestibule, they essentially had to push her back and down the stairs, holding her front hooves so her chin didn't smash the stairs. They finally got down, their bags collected, and clear of the train. They stopped to wave at the train leaving, and I really hope they saw me waving back. Even tried flapping my broken lil wing for the first time in a while. My leaving was a repeat of my entering the car. Bump here, bump there, squeeze out and nearly tripping down the stairs. But, it was worth the experience. I think we take for granted that the people who operate things like this work with therians, as we are a very fringe and unique case. Maybe one day, things will be more accessible. For most, the point is to get away from everything humans deal with, especially the discomforts of travel.

But for some, these discomforts are just as enjoyable as being themselves. And the compromise, well worth it. Maybe I'll take the train next year, too. -Ceri

(Story and character inspired by Penny and her Bovine HRT story! Find her here: https://www.tumblr.com/pennymations @pennymations https://x.com/pennscrypt)

[enruiinas]

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ They really should have started with this, he reflected in hindsight. Words may not have come easy upon the redhead's surprising arrival, but the language that passed between them when Law's lips pressed against Nami's once more was something no amount of time could take away from them.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Far more than any spoken word might do, the sense of overwhelming relief Nami's body provided as it melded against his was all the answer the surgeon had needed. No, she was not mad at him, and no, he wasn't the only one who'd hoped this moment might happen: Law could feel in every brush of the redhead's lips against his own - some part of her had hoped there might still be a chance of salvaging what had flourished and bloomed between them all those weeks ago. Despite everything that had happened and whatever voices in their heads had tried to tell them it was too much to hope for. 

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ And yes, (if the way she pressed her nimble frame so eagerly against him were any indication), she did want him here. His mouth glued to her own; his hands to wander elsewhere and map out every change the months had made to the body he'd worshipped so tenderly the last time he had seen it -

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ But as eager as he was to oblige her, tattooed hands nearly itching with the need to explore every inch she was willing to give him, there was some part of the surgeon-in-training, however miniscule, that liked to think he had learned a thing or two from the last time. Things about moving too quickly. About losing one's self in the physical desire for another only to wake up alone a few days later and spend every night that came after wondering if it had ever even mattered in the first place.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Everything inside of him wanted to believe her. That it was more than physical desire or her hormones that had Nami molding herself against him. But as badly as he longed to touch her again, to keep kissing her like this until both were breathless with it, he was going to tear himself away from her. He had already decided - was already dreading the moment he'd talked himself into when he would break from those perfect, plump lips and leave the woman to her shower for both of their best interests.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Because no matter how badly he wanted her, he would take it slower this time. He would be patient because he knew it would be worth it in the end. Just as soon as Nami knew for certain what she wanted, and Law could take her word for it without wondering how much of it came from the hormones wreaking havoc on her body than from genuine affection, it would be worth it to take this slowly--

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ But just as he'd made up his mind to step back from her, Nami broke the kiss for him. Could she feel the way his heart sank in his stomach the second she drew apart from him? Or the way the entire world seemed to come to a sudden, screeching halt when she drew back to tell him the only thing he had ever wanted to hear from her?

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Heart thundering in his ears and all plans of withdrawing to the living room forgotten, for several long moments it was all the man could do to simply stare at her. His cheeks were flushed with color and his hands came to a stop as far as he'd let them wander, to the curve of her bare sides beneath her ribcage.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ I love you.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ You are my home.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Just like that, Law could not have dragged himself away from her if he tried. There was nowhere he might have gone - no living room to return to - no universe beyond the woman who stood before him awaiting an answer he could not muster. There was no running water. No fear of waking up to empty bedsheets beside him in the morning. There was only Nami and those eyes that drew him in like gravity, and the need to make certain he had heard her correctly and not simply imagined the words he'd so ardently desired.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‏‏‎ Voice soft as a whisper, Law drew back away from her, just far enough to gauge for any sign of uncertainty in her features as he asked her carefully, as if he needed to be sure before he could decide what step was to follow, ❝Are you sure about that? You're sure that it's not just...❞ Gaze slipping away from hers, he dragged one hand rather pointedly to the curve of Nami's bare midriff. ❝This talking? Because if you're worried I'll change my mind if you don't, I won't. It doesn't have to be this way - like this,❞ he added, gesturing at their newfound proximity ❝If you don't want it to. It doesn't have to be anything, I'm not gonna change my mind about this. But if that is what you want, I need to hear you say it again. Are you sure this time?❞

Within the span of a breath and moment it took Law to recollect his mouths, the ginger was almost sure she could read his mind. As if all she needed to do was take a moment and push her own fears regarding the situation they'd found themselves in from Nami's inability to communicate. Or her tendency to act in rashness from time to time.

In the furrow of dark brows she recognized once again that she wasn't doing the best at communicating- She thought it was obvious- That there was not a world in which she could ever be mad at him- Not really. Making light of the situation only caused orange brows to shoot up in return before meeting in the middle. Had she been more clear, Law might have realized that no such words were needed.

She was already home. This place that stood in time, waiting for her return as if she were simply away on vacation, due to return home. Homesick. The word hit her like a ton of bricks. A word that had been on the edge of her tongue for months- Nami had not just been heartbroken, she'd been homesick. Which explained the strange comfort found upon Law's couch, surrounded by a scent that was wholly him.

I missed you.

Three words repeated over and over in her head with each quickened beat of her heart from the sensation of Law's lips on her own for the first time in months. Imagining this moment and it happening were very different after all. It was perfect. Maybe when they retold the story it wouldn't have taken place in the bathroom, but it was perfect to her. Butterflies erupted in her stomach, through her heart and releasing every thought that that'd crossed her mind in the last handful of months without him in her life.

Eyes fluttered closed and Nami pressed her body wholly and completely to Laws. Melding against him, Nami offered her body so that he might feel and appreciate the newfound curves to her body in an entirely different light- If he so chose to, that was.

“Law-” A breath of his name, as the next words tumbled out. So many times she thought them, but not once did Nami allow herself to utter them. Not even to herself or their baby. They were words meant entirely for his ears and his ears only. “-I love you. You are my home."

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Izutsumi character study

[typheus]

Anyways. Arcane season 1 was a solid 7/10 couldve used 4 eps per act instead to really tell the story more but the writers were really dedicated to the rule of 3s.

Season 2 is like. 4/10 tho. WAY too dedicated to the rule of 3s. Added a bunch of side characters that did nothing n took up way too much time. Tried to dive into all the characters stories all at once while also changing the story itself to not focus on the class disparity and instead just swept that shit under the rug :/

Also used up so much time for music videos that wasted time cause they just ended up showing the situations even better after anyways.

Also I liked the episode with ekko n powder but good god. You wasted an entire episode. On an au. When you were already running out of time.

I know they said they're doing other shows after this but that's not really an excuse to completely change characters personalities and butcher a bunch of the storylines :/

[transingthoseformers]

you've never thought about Elita-one x Megaempress? , I feel like it would be a good doom yuri

You're right I haven't thought of that, and it would be interesting!

Especially given how Megaempress is part of a combiner because dggddg gestalt shenanigans

I don't know Megaempress as well as I think I should, but I think she's got an interesting personality and I think she's gorgeous