#2023 holy fuck exchange

[pleasetakethis]

Desideratum

Written for the 2023 Holy Fuck Exchange. These ladies were fun!

Pairing: Hela/Sylvie Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2.7k Tags: Weapon Fucking, Horn kink, Grinding, Biting, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Sex, Mildly Dubious Consent Summary: With the TVA getting closer and closer, Sylvie made a distracted mistake when she selected the next apocalypse and ended up face-to-face with Hela Odinsdottir during Ragnarok.

Sylvie refused to kneel. Hela compromised.

Read @ AO3

[lvnleah]

002. | two lines

word count: 3.9k

find the masterlist here!

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July 30th 2023.

It had been two weeks since your embryo transfer and they’d felt like the longest two weeks ever. The days seemed to drag on and like they were never going to end. All you and Leah wanted to do was grab the box of pregnancy tests and see if your little embryo had stuck.

You’d heard about how tough the two-week wait was but you didn’t expect it to be so tough for you and Leah. The urge to take a pregnancy test bubbled up inside of you more and more each day, it was all you were thinking about.

The two weeks had been hard for both you and Leah. You found yourself more emotional and tired than usual and you were getting overwhelmed more easily. You weren't sure whether it was from all the hormones being pumped into your body or just the stress that the wait was causing.

Half way through the two week wait, Leah’s rehab began which meant you focused on something else for a few days. For a few days your mind was taken off of the pregnancy tests that sat in the cupboard daunting you but the same urge to test soon came back. You were in the bathroom when you heard the front door open and Leah’s voice soon followed the sound.

“Love?” Leah called out as you heard her bag drop, “I’m home!”

“In the bathroom!” You called back, your voice shaking with emotions.

A few seconds later the bathroom door opened. Leah’s mouth dropped open as her eyes darted between you sitting on the toilet lid and the four different pregnancy tests lined up on the bathroom counter.

“Did you?” Leah trailed off, pointing at the pregnancy tests, “Did you take them?”

You nodded, tears welling in your eyes, “about five minutes ago but I’ve not looked.”

It had been ten days since your embryo transfer and today was the day that you were allowed to take a pregnancy test. Although you and Leah had agreed to wait until she was home from training, you just couldn’t wait to take the test.

You and Leah exchanged a nervous glance. Leah stepped closer and pulled you into a hug as you stood up.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Leah mumbled as she placed a kiss on your forehead.

Leah cupped your cheeks and softly kissed your lips. “I want you to know, whatever the test says I love you okay? Our family will grow in its own time whether it’s now, next month or in a year. I love you and we’re gonna be okay, if it doesn’t work we can always try again.”

You nodded your head, a few stray tears slipping down your face. “Can you look?

“Yeah of course,” Leah nodded, running her hands down your waist before picking up the test. “Everything’s going to be fine, I promise.”

You watched closely as Leah picked up the two digital pregnancy tests and one normal lined test that laid face down on the bathroom counter. She counted down from three before turning the tests over.

“Holy fuck!” Leah gasped, turning the tests around to face you. “You’re pregnant, we’re having a baby!” Leah laughed as tears welled up in her eyes.

“No way?!” You said in disbelief, taking the tests from Leah’s hands. “Holy shit, I’m pregnant.”

Tears slipped down both your and Leah’s cheeks as you laughed in disbelief. All three tests were positive. The normal ones had faint but still visible lines on them and the digital ones read 2-3 weeks on them.

“I can’t believe it worked.” Leah laughed as she picked you up, “We’re really having a baby.”

You buried your head into the crook of her neck, nodding as tears fell down your face, “we’re going to be mums! Oh my god, that’s crazy.”

You couldn’t believe it. After years of dreaming about it, you were finally going to have a baby with Leah. A little life was growing inside you, something your mind couldn’t comprehend.

Your legs wrapped around Leah’s waist as she carried you out of the bathroom and into your bedroom. She gently laid you down on the bed before lifting your (her) shirt and revealing your stomach.

“I love you so much,” Leah whispered, kissing your lips gently, “I love you both so so much.”

You laughed as you both wiped your tears, “I love you so much more.”

“Can I talk to them?” She questioned, her hand resting on your stomach.

“Of course, Le.” You smiled, propping yourself up on your elbows, “they’re still tiny though.”

“I don’t care.” She said, moving down so her head was level with your stomach. “Hi baby, I’m your Mumma!”

Leah began to rub small circles just below your belly button while your hand rubbed over her blonde hair.

She lifted her hand and placed a soft kiss on your stomach, “I’m your Mumma, I can’t wait to meet you. You’re so so loved already and I’m so proud to be your Mumma, little Gooner.”

You laughed, “Le, baby what if they’re not an Arsenal supporter? What if they follow in your Dad and Jacob’s footsteps and support Tottenham?”

“Over my dead body will my child be a Tottenham supporter!” Leah said, disgust jokingly written over her face. “No way will my brother or dad brainwash them into supporting Tottenham, they’ll be a Gooner through and through!”

You cupped Leah’s and pulled her lips up to your own, “Whatever you say baby.” You laughed.

The next day, your IVF clinic confirmed the pregnancy through blood tests. You were officially pregnant, 4 weeks to be exact, and they soon booked you in for your first ultrasound at 8 weeks.

A week before your ultrasound, morning sickness began.

A wave of nausea washed over your body the second your eyes peeled themselves open. You fought to get the duvet off your sweaty body before dashing to the bathroom, Leah following closely behind you.

You threw yourself down on the ground and lifted the toilet seat, spilling the contents of your stomach. It soon became part of your daily routine. You wake up, throw up and get back into bed and then throw up again for most of the day.

You were constantly nauseous and throwing up, your boobs ached like anything and soon the food diversions settled in.

“Deep breaths,” Leah said, her voice soothing as you threw up. “It’ll pass.”

“I hate this.” You groaned in between throwing up, “Is this what it’s going to be like?”

Leah sighed, “Only for a few weeks, it’ll be okay, I promise pretty girl.”

The morning of your first ultrasound, August 24th, you woke up the same way you’d woken up for the past week. Leah comforted you just like she had done every morning before making you some plain toast, one of the few things you could stomach.

While getting ready, waves of nausea overtook you and you found yourself spending more time next to the toilet than actually getting ready.

Eventually, you were able to tear yourself away from the toilet and leave your apartment. The ultrasound clinic was a short drive away. You sat in the passenger seat, clutching your stomach as if that would somehow ease the nausea. Leah drove carefully, glancing at you with concern every now and then.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice gentle.

You nodded, unable to speak. The waves of nausea were relentless, and you wondered how you’d manage to get through the ultrasound without throwing up.

When you arrived at the clinic, the waiting room was surprisingly empty. A receptionist greeted you and handed you a clipboard with forms to fill out. You tried to focus on the basic question which asked your name, date of birth, and medical history but your mind kept drifting back to the queasiness in your stomach.

Leah sat beside you, holding your hand. “Almost time to see our bubba,” she whispered, placing a kiss on your temple. “Just a few more minutes.”

You nodded and a few moments later your name was called. You and Leah followed the nurse down the hallway and into the small room. Leah pulled up a chair beside you and held your hand as you laid on the examination table.

“The gel will be a little bit cold.” the young nurse warned you, a gentle smile on her face.”

As the nurse spread the cold gel on your abdomen, you felt Leah's grip tighten around your hand. The room was dimly lit, and the hum of the ultrasound machine was the only sound breaking the silence.

You held your breath as the nurse moved the wand over your skin, and then, there it was.

The first glimpse of your baby.

The image on the screen was grainy and indistinct, but it was enough to make out the tiny heartbeat flickering steadily.

"There's your baby," the nurse said with a smile, pointing to the screen.

Leah's breath hitched, and you turned to see tears welling up in her eyes. She was smiling through her tears, a look of pure joy and wonder on her face.

"Oh my goodness," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "There's our little bubba."

You squeezed her hand back, equally emotional by the sight in front of you. The waves of nausea that had plagued you all morning faded away as you both watched in awe, already in love with the little life that was just starting to grow.

The nurse’s voice was gentle, "Would you like to hear the heartbeat?"

Without hesitation, you both nodded eagerly. A rhythmic thumping filled the room, Leah's tears spilled over as she listened, squeezing your hand even tighter.

You smiled, feeling a tear trail down your cheek as you looked at Leah, "It's our baby's heartbeat,"

Leah brought your hand up to her mouth before placing a soft kiss on the back of it. You watched as the nurse took measurements and did basic checks on the baby.

"Would you like to take some pictures home?" she eventually asked.

"Yes, please," Leah responded, her voice still thick with tears.

The nurse printed off as many photos as she was allowed to while you cleaned the gel off of your stomach. She also told you your date, April 4th, which was just a few days after Leah’s birthday.

As you settled into the car, Leah cradled the ultrasound photo in her hands, her eyes never leaving it. You glanced over, your heart swelling with love.

"Look at how tiny they are," Leah whispered, tracing the outline of the image. "I can’t believe that’s our baby." Her voice held a mixture of awe and tenderness.

“We’re really having a baby,” you smiled, your eyes meeting with Leah’s as she looked across from you.

Leah's smile was radiant. "I can't wait to meet them," she said. "These next seven and a half months are gonna be long."

“Imagine they come on your birthday,” you laughed, “It’ll be your best birthday gift ever.”

Leah’s smile somehow grew, “It’d be the best, a little birthday buddy.”

The next couple of weeks blurred together and you felt like pregnancy was overtaking your life. The following days after your first ultrasound were spent throwing up all day long and sleeping a lot.

You hoped it was just a bad sickness spell that would soon pass but by the time you were eight weeks along, in late August, it was your daily routine.

You’d wake up, be sick, take a nap, wake up and then be sick again. It was a vicious cycle that was on repeat and you could barely keep food and water down, everything you ate was beige and plain and almost identical to Leah’s plain diet she had.

It was even worse trying to avoid your family and friends. Your closest friends that you shared with Leah were trying to make plans but you always had to come up with some lame excuses, most times using Leah’s ACL as a reason. When it came to family, Leah’s mum knew you were doing IVF but everyone else still had no idea.

No one apart from you and Leah knew you were pregnant despite you being ten weeks.

“Le, please go out with your mum.” You begged your wife, “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m just going to get back into bed.”

You and Leah had arranged to spend the day with Amanda, you were planning on telling her about the pregnancy. It was the start of September and Leah had a day off from rehab. Her rehab was coming along well and despite you being asleep most of the time you spent together, you were proud of her.

“Pretty girl, I’m not going to leave you when you’re struggling,” Leah said, rubbing circles on your back, “How’re you feeling?”

You sighed, leaning against the cold bathroom wall as you sat next to the toilet, “I think that sickness spell is over, I’ll probably get another half hour before I’m sick again.”

Leah sat down in front of you and passed you a cold bottle of water, “Wanna sit on the couch and cuddle for a bit?”

You nodded, feeling weak and tired. You gave yourself a few minutes before standing up with the help of Leah. You and Leah cuddled underneath your favourite blanket and switched on your favourite movie.

The doorbell rang and you knew it was Amanda. You lifted your head from Leah’s chest and let her answer the door, a few seconds later she returned with Amanda following closely behind you.

“Hey love,” Amanda greeted you, “Leah said you’re under the weather?”

You sat up, “Yeah, I think it’s just a cold or something.”

“Oh Mum, we’ve got something for you, Leah said before she wandered off into the bedroom.

A few minutes later returned with a small Arsenal shirt. It was this season’s one with the number six on the back.

She held it up to Amanda, “What do you think about the new shirt?”

Amanda laughed, “It’s a bit small, Le!”

Amanda’s eyes flickered to you and then back to Leah, and you saw the realisation dawn on her face. “Wait, are you…?” Her voice trailed off, and she pointed at you.

You nodded, “Yeah, I’m pregnant. Ten weeks, due at the start of April!”

Amanda’s eyes widened, and then she enveloped you in a tight hug. “Oh, darling! That’s wonderful news!” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m going to be a grandma? The IVF worked then?”

She stood up and hugged Leah, “Yeah it did, Y/N’s been having a rough time with morning sickness. No one warned us it’d be all day!”

“This is amazing!” Amanda smiled, “I didn’t want to say anything because I wasn’t sure it worked, oh darlings I’m so happy for you! How’ve you been, love?”

You sighed, cuddling back into Leah as she sat down on the couch beside you again, “It’s been tough, I’ve had bad morning sickness that lasts all day. My diet is basically identical to Leah’s plain, beige and boring!”

“If you need anything, I’m always here.” Amanda said, “I mean it,” she pointed her finger and gave a classic mum stare. “If Leah’s at rehab and you need anything, don't be afraid to call me.”

You curled into Leah and smiled, “Thank you, Amanda.”

Over the next few days, you and Leah planned out how you were going to tell everyone else. You ended up telling her Dad the same way as you did her mum and for her grandma and cousin’s, you showed them the ultrasound photos.

Your favourite reaction out of all of them had to be Leah’s brother, Jacob.

“Dinners ready!” You announced, setting the three plates of your homemade chicken pie down on the table.

“Thanks Y/N.” Jacob said, sitting down at the table, “Love your cooking, Leah’s cooking is on the verge of being poison!”

Leah gasped, “What! No it’s not, my cookings just as nice as Y/N’s!”

“Yeah right.” Jacob rolled his eyes as he began to eat his dinner.

You all fell into conversation like you usually did, having Jacob round wasn’t unusual and usually happened a few times a week. Your eyes made contact with Leah’s and she gave you a subtle nod, suggesting that you tell the news to Jacob.

“Jacob, have you got any plans for around early April?” You asked.

You knew Jacob was travelling quite a lot at the moment and had different trips planned, he’d recently just returned from a few months in Australia.

He shook his head, “Early April? No, but I was thinking about travelling around Europe again at some point. Why are you planning a trip?”

“No, that’s when the baby will be here,” Leah casually said, shrugging her shoulders like it was nothing, “We don't want you to miss out on your first niece or nephew arriving.”

Jacob’s eyes widened before a wide grin spread across his face. “A baby? Seriously? That’s amazing!” He set down his fork, excitement bubbling over. “I’ll be here, no Europe trip can beat that!”

Leah smiled as her brother stood up and engulfed her in a hug before hugging you, “They’re due around the start of April so you better be!”

“A good few months to plan out how I’m going to make them a Spurs fan,” he teased, “Me and Dad need someone to support Spurs with us!”

Leah sighed and jokingly patted her brother on the back, “I’m not going to let my kid go through the pain that a Spurs fan experiences. They’re going to be a little gooner, mate!”

Jacob shrugged, “I guess we'll just have to see, they’ll know who’s the best team and that’s Spurs.”

Leah shook her head, “No way! Arsenal through and through!”

You laughed, shaking your head and the two siblings bickering like children, “I say we let them decide! They might not even support either of them, love.”

“Don’t you start!” Leah huffed jokingly.

The rest of the evening was filled with Leah and Jacob bickering over how they were going to get your baby to support either team. You sat on the couch, cuddled into Leah, and watched as they went back and forth with different ideas and bribes.

A few days later, you and Leah decided it was time to tell the girls at Arsenal. They’d started to become suspicious as to why Leah was leaving training early and why you weren’t joining them when they went out in the evenings.

“How’s Y/N?” Beth asked Leah as they stretched on the floor together in the gym.

The gym buzzed with activity as the other players stretched and chatted. Today was a gym day for Leah meaning that she got to be around the other girls and not isolated inside.

Not everyone was in the gym but most of the team was. Beth, Steph, Lia, Jen, Laura, Victoria, Kyra, Caitlin, Kim, Alessia, Katie, Viv and Leah were all spread around the gym doing their own things.

Leah nodded, “She’s doing good, just really tired at the moment.”

“Aww no,” Steph said, “Is she sick? I heard there’s a flu going around at the moment.”

“Not exactly,” Leah laughed, shrugging her shoulders.

Just as Leah finished speaking, you walked through the door. “Here you go, love,” you said to Leah, holding out a tiny Arsenal shirt, “forgot this at home.”

All of the girls exchanged confused looks, “Aye Y/N, I don’t think that’s gonna fit yer missus!” Katie pointed out.

Viv gasped, dropping the dumbbell and running over to you. She quickly engulfed you into a side hug, “Oh my god, this is amazing!”

Puzzle faces spread across the room, and all of the girls exchanged confused looks with one another. You and Leah bursted out laughing as Viv rolled her eyes.

Kyra’s face looked the most confused, “This doesn’t make sense…why’s Viv congratulating them? It’s just a shirt.”

"Come on guys, make the connection. Y/n has been really tired, and she's holding a small jersey." Viv pointed out, sighing in disappointment.

The room stayed silent.

She shook her head, "Some might say a baby jersey.”

Gasps echoed around the room, “Are you pregnant?!” Beth was the first to ask, smiling like a child on Christmas.

You nodded and pulled out ultrasound photos from your jeans pockets, “Yeah, I’m eleven weeks!”

The room buzzed with excitement as everyone stood up and congratulated you and Leah. You and Leah exchanged smiles, your hearts swelling with joy. The girls gathered around, their laughter and hugs filling the gym.

“Eleven weeks!” Lia exclaimed as she hugged you, “That’s amazing!”

Steph, still recovering from her initial shock, wiped away a tear. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “A little gooner on the way!”

“Are yer having three?!” Katie asked, looking at the ultrasound photos.

Leah laughed, shaking her head, “No you idiot, we’re just having one thankfully!”

“This is amazing,” Alessia smiled as she took her turn in hugging you, “When are you due?”

“Early April,” you smiled, “there’s a chance of the baby being born on Leah’s birthday.”

Victoria gasped, “That would be so cool, a little birthday twin for Leah!”

The girls laughed, “I’m sure Leah would love that, she’d never shut up.” Jen playfully joked.

“This is amazing,” Kim said, “If you need anything don’t be afraid to tell us, we’re all here for you and I’m sure we can take turns babysitting when your wee one arrives.”

“I’ll babysit anytime!” Kyra announced, “I’ll be the best babysitter ever!”

Caitlin rolled her eyes, “Yeah, no chance! Leah and Y/N probably won’t let you babysit till the baby’s like four!”

“Maybe supervised,” Leah said, throwing her arm around Kyra, “but not on your own till they’re about six!”

Kyra rolled her eyes before Laura spoke up, “Are you finding out the gender?”

You nodded, “Yeah we are, we can find out in a few weeks. I think we’re just going to do a little intimate gender reveal but we need someone to find out the gender and sort it for us.”

“Well, definitely not Beth because we know how she slipped up on the engagement!” Kyra teased.

Beth rolled her eyes, “It was one time and I was excited! My best friend of over ten years was getting engaged!”

“It’s something we need to think about,” you laughed, “we’ll probably do a private one for me and Leah and then something for you and our family.”

The rest of the training flew by and you ended up staying, it was nice for you to catch up with the girls and answer their questions about your pregnancy. A lot of them were interested and excited, they talked about all the moments they couldn’t wait to experience with your little baby.

Later that evening, as you and Leah laid in bed, you ended up talking about your baby once again.

“Le?” You said, getting a hum in response as the blonde completed her sudoku, “Do you want a boy or a girl?”

Leah set her sudoku book down, “Pretty girl, I don’t mind. I’m just so excited to experience being a mother with you that I couldn’t care.”

The blonde slid down the bed and rested her head beside your small bump that was mainly just bloat, “What are you hoping for?”

You shrugged as your hand found home in Leah’s hair, “I don’t mind, I’d love a baby girl though. I feel like it’s a boy.”

Leah placed a soft kiss next to your belly button, “I think it’s a girl. I don’t care though, as long as they’re happy and healthy, then it doesn’t matter.”

[voidvannie]

꒰ఎ COULD I GET YOUR NUMBER ── MIDNIGHT RAIN AU

─── ･ ｡ﾟ⟨ DELILAH x CONNOR ⟩

─── ･ ｡ﾟ⟨ MIDNIGHT RAIN AU ⟩

─── ･ ｡ﾟ⟨ MAIN MASTERLIST ⟩

─── ･ ｡ﾟ⟨ IN WHICH . . . delilah meets connor at a game while in jersey. ⟩

November 5, 2023

❝Delilah! Are you riding with us to the game with us? We gotta go now!” Jack calls out to his little sister who was back in Jersey for the weekend to watch him and Luke against the Blackhawks.

“No! Curtis’ wife is gonna pick me up!” She calls through the door of the bathroom where she was still getting ready.

“Okay! Be careful, love you!

“Love you!”

“So, whose jersey are you wearing tonight?” Tate smirks through the face time call the two girls were on.

Delilah playfully rolls her eyes, “I’m wearing Luke’s. They would both kill me if I wore a Blackhawks.”

“Ten bucks, you meet Connor and fall in love.”

“Shut up!” The two girls laugh before Delilah has to hang up.

“Shit, how do I always end up fucking lost?” Delilah mumbles to herself as she walks around the arena, having gone to the bathroom. “Next time, I’m dragging Luke off the ice.”

A chuckle rings out from behind the twenty year old, causing her to turn around the find a player from the Blackhawks.

“Holy shit, dude! You’re Connor Bedard!” Delilah’s eyes grow wide, “Sorry!”

He laughs, a blush faintly appearing on his face, “No, no, it’s okay. I just don’t expect anyone to know who I am. I mean, you’re Delilah!”

“Fuck, you know who I am?” She raised an eyebrow as Connor stares into her bright blue eyes.

“Of course I know who you are! Everybody should!” Connor grinned, “But your going the wrong way if your looking for the seats, it’s the other way.”

“Thank you! Have a good game!” Delilah calls over her shoulder as she rushes in the right direction.

“Nice going, Connor. Celebrity crush right in front of you and you don’t even get her number.” Connor mumbles to himself as he heads to the locker room to get ready, “Dumbass, really.”

Delilah stands next to the Wags and girlfriends of her brother’s teammates, waiting for the two to come out so they could get dinner and go back to the apartment.

“Lilah, we’re having a girls day this weekend, are you in Jersey long enough to come?” Curtis wife turns to the younger girl with a warm smile.

“I can adjust my schedule, I’m supposed to be in Nashville by Tuesday next week to write with a singer that wanted to duet.”

“Okay, just get Jack to text Cu—,”

“Delilah, hey.” Connor rushes towards the singer, out of breath from running so that she didn’t leave before he saw her again. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She giggled, hand instantly going to mess with the ends of her hair, the wags standing next to her smirking at each other at the sight.

“Hey, I was, uh, I was wondering if I could get your number?” Connor, becoming aware of the eyes on him, scratches the back of his neck.

Delilah bits her bottom lip to try to hide the smile fighting its way onto her face as she pulls her phone from her back-pocket, unlocking it with her passcode and trading phones with him.

Meanwhile, coming out of the locker room, the two brothers pause along with Nico and Dawson as they watch the scene in front of them.

“Is she…is she giving him her number?” Luke’s jaw hangs in disbelief as he watches his little sister laughing along with Connor as they exchange phones back.

“She’s flirting with him!” Jack exclaimed quietly.

“How do you know she’s flirting and isn’t just nervous?” Nico asked, his accent thick.

“She’s playing with the ends of her hair.” Both reply together as Luke pulls his phone out and takes a picture.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Dawson laughed at the boy.

“Photographic evidence for when I tell Quinn and she denies it.”

“Bedard! Let’s get it!” Someone calls from the team, causing Connor to look back at them for a second, holding a finger up for them to wait.

“So, I’ll text you later?”

Delilah grinned, “Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool. See you later.”

“Bye.”

“I saw that.”

Delilah jumps as Luke’s voice comes from behind her, “The fuck dude?! Don’t do that shit!”

“I saw that, and I’m telling Quinn.” Luke tells his little sister, waving his phone in the air to show his and Quinn’s messages pulled up.

“Don’t tell Quinn!”

“I’m going to and you can’t deny it ‘cause I have photo proof.” Luke has a smug look on his face.

“Okay.” Delilah shrugged, walking towards where their older brother was talking to Nico. “Guess I’ll just tell Jack who really broke his hockey stick a few months ago.”

“What? Delilah, no!” Luke chases her, “I won’t tell Quinn!”

[cirqosmos]

𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝟏: 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆

𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄: 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐕𝐀𝐒 | TEASER 1

2023 | 18+ | SERIES | LEE HEESEUNG × READER | 「MASTERLIST」

WARNING yandere, non-con smut (turned dub-con if you squint hard enough) dirty talking, soft!dom heeseung, slight delusion, smut in a church, mentions of insulting the gods, talk of religion, possessive behaviour, obsession, unhealthy power dynamics, praise kink, hunting kink, oral sex (fem receiving), fingering, overstimulation, pet names (darling, love, princess, etc.)

WORD COUNT 1.5k

With your chin on your palms, your thumb lazily swipes through and through the profiles as it reflected on your orbs. You had been spending quite awhile doing this boring routine, new faces appeared one after another and yet none of them interests you enough or even intrigue you to tap the match button. A mischievous smirk adorning the corners of your lips as you read through the banner on top of the app again, processing each word into your brain as how they mention about keeping your identity safe and such.

A thought arise within the depths of your mind, why don’t you mess around while you still had the time? Mess around with people’s feelings just a tiny bit, gain their favour and win their interests, then finally snap it apart?

You were a bit surprised at your foul thoughts, to say the least, but how can someone even fall in love with you so hard—whom they only exchanged a few texts and pictures. After awhile, they’ll surely forget you, right? And they wouldn’t know about your real identity as you formed a meticulous plan, a game you created to fill your boring days.

Your lips hang apart and your thumb immediately froze from swiping further when your eyes widened at the profile of this young man; the big doe eyes of his along with the eye-catching green highlights on his overall black hair falling on top of his long eyelashes had you giggling over how drop-dead gorgeous he was. It had you wondering if you could have him fall for you? Chase after you? Or send you a dozen messages telling you how much he’s dying to see you?

A game, a challenge you were so up to engulfed your veins with burning passion and excitement as you slowly tap the matching button. Surely, it won’t be that serious, right?

"Where do you want me?"

"Here? There? Down here? Or.." He lowered his chin above your tummy, his tongue licking down in an agonizing slow speed. Lifting his fluttering eyelashes up to yours—his doe eyes crinkling into crescents like a starving child along with the beads of sweat down the sides of his forehead, he blew down your tummy, "Inside you?"

A child-like giggle causing your stomach to crumble.

The sight of you under him; him on his knees spread apart as your right leg on top of his left arm, fingers circling your cloth clit. Your left leg raised above his other leg, while his right arm reached up to push his thumb inside your mouth, circling it around your wet tongue and against your inner flesh cheeks.

"Honey, if I am sick then what are you?"

"W-what?"

"Have you forgotten once again? That none of this would ever happen if you weren't bold enough to fool someone?" He exaggerates the last words of his string sentences, "Yet you did. So who's fault was it?" his eyes now red from tearing up as if he was so hurt, as if he was so in pain uttering each word.

"You." you drowned in the sense of guilt as he put his arms below your legs, lifting you up with ease.

"W-what are you-" your back came into contact with the cold marble ground, realising that he put you in front of the holy statue, the lit up candles shining against the edges and curves.

"You're insane! You're insane!" you screamed like a broken radio, going on rampage as you hit him repeatedly. "G-god, help me."

You broke down as he lowered himself down on you. Wrapping his long fingers around your wrist, cold brick met your fingers as he restrained it on the floor.

"You don't fucking realise how it pains to realise that you got fooled! Dumb, I was? Maybe, to know that the image I've fallen for was fake, it's so painful." he cried, making your eyes widened. "My life seems to break apart, but t-then.. your sister appeared." Heeseung's whimpers turned to a dark giggle, "Of course, I thought it was her but how she acts, how she talks was nothing close to you. But how foolish, your phone. You didn't expect that, didn't you?"

"The picture you sent me, that picture of your phone. I saw her using it. That's when I realised that you were around her."

Lips brush against your neck, ultimately sucking it causing an inaudible sound consuming the holy space. Moaning in utter pain, he didn't stop at all.

He sucked every edge of your form, skin to skin, leaving nothing on your skin untainted, professing his love at each and every turn.

You sniffed as the beads of tears dripped down your eyelashes to your rosy cheeks, forcing you to feel the atrocities done by the male on top of you.

He caressed your hand against his cheek, acting like a mad starving dog. "Please, please look at me."

"Fuck, fuck. To touch you like this, is all I want." he stuttered, ears flushed red. His long fingers slipped under your back, pulling the rattling zip down as shivers run down your spine as his finger ghosted below your hips.

"Bought this pretty wedding dress for my girl, too bad I'd have to take it off." He ripped it apart, a stark contrast from his gentle tones. "I can buy you another one, though. That time, I'll watch as you pick."

"I d-don't want this." you pleaded one more time.

"No, hush.. I could buy you a thousand wedding dress, why not? I could marry you as many times as I want, everything with you felt so exhilarating like it's my first time!"

Heeseung took your hands in his, clutching it tightly within his fingers—bringing it to his lips to press a kiss laced with utter affection.

Your tear-stained eyes watched his form as he brought his head down again, kissing and devouring every part of you. Your eyes rolled at the back of your head, your back arching deeply to his given-pleasures.

He pulled your garments down. At this point, your lower body had gone limp and enveloped with the remaining euphoria of his previous acts. You felt your panties being tug down to your knees, stuck for a couple of seconds and your eyes fell on the man who has his eyes ogling at your naked body which cause your face to get heated up. You wanted to resist but your veins were on scorching in fire, unable to think of anything but of his touches.

“You are so fucking breathtaking, my love.” he sang on and on through the dust particles swaying above the ceiling. Your ears met the cinkling sound of belt being undone, and garments falling on the floor. “How can you look so innocent with such fucked up eyes?” he breathe out, shaking his head as he lowered himself down. The tip of his cock brushing against your entrance causing you to gasp, beyond frightened of what was to come.

Tears dripping down your cheek from the corner of your eyes, glistening your eyelashes as you plead one last time to him, shaking your head slightly. “Please.. Please don’t.”

You look so fucking adorable with those glistened pretty eyes, Heeseung laid his hand beneath your lower back, stroking his finger in circular patterns as if to soothe you. “I’ll be gentle. I swear. I’ll make you feel good. You’ll love it.” He kept repeating like a broken mantra.

Time ticking so frighteningly slow for you as you watched it from the bed, your legs and arms chained with a metal to the wall—a stark contrast to the silk sheets beneath your skin. It feels like hell hushing you back to lullaby.

A dollhouse, he made for you.

“Aw, aren’t you such a crybaby?” He cooed at your crying form. Fuck, he thought. You look so damn adorable with all that tears streaming down your rosy cheeks, despite him not having the heart to see you cry. It won’t be that bad to have you cry a bit, isn’t? He brushed your hair down as you cried to him endlessly throughout the night, begging for him to let you go, begging for him to give him your freedom back.

But what is.. Freedom?

Today you broke the rule again, trying to pick the door’s lock. He just had to think of what to do with you, not wanting to risk scaring you anymore. He intended to be strict but as lenient as possible, so it would make you at ease even for a tad bit. But can’t you just be a bit more obedient? Does he need to be a little stricter? Heeseung tilted his head in a little irritation, sighing before crouching to your form on the floor. “Get up, wouldn’t want you to get dirty, aren’t we, love?”

“Eat.” Heeseung places his chin on his hand as he watches you eat, observing your beauty that never fails to captivates him. He giggled at the thought that he’s sure as strong as hell to control himself from taking you once again.

The calendar on the table marks the second week of you and him together in this little playhouse.

“Pick a dress, love." Heeseung spun around, pulling the closet open. “You had no idea how long it took me to pick every dress for you.

"Where do you think you're going, love?"

“Love, it’s time to go home.”

Love, love, love. Your head consumed by this so-called love he claimed he had for you. But what is love? What kind of love is this?

「 © talesofyuan on tumblr 2023 」 all rights reserved. do not copy or post without permission.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Top 5 color?

Ooo interesting question, and I have such different answers to this:

It's funny cause lighting design is one of my favorite things and yet I never talk about it. For uses of lighting, I have two favorites for the year:

Moonlight Chicken

gif from @wanderlust-in-my-soul

The warmth of Jim and Li Ming's home, the cold of Heart and Wen's home, the way the light slowly dims throughout the entirety of Wen and Alan's break up? Moonlight Chicken has some of the best, most thoughtful, and incredibly interesting uses of lighting of the BLs I've seen from 2023. (Fun fact! Orange and blue lighting color combination is probably my favorite lighting combo because it's so gorgeous).

Playboyy

Playboyy is certainly a messy messy show, and I don't think it is using it's lighting intentionally like Aof was in Moonlight Chicken, but it is getting fucking creative and artistic with some of it's lighting and I love that shit. They've been going hard on the reds and the purples in this show and I support it.

_

For my absolute favorite color moment of the year, I have to give that to:

What Did You Eat Yesterday?

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Shiro getting him and Kenji matching aprons for Kenji's birthday. The colors may not match, there may not be a color exchange, but holy mother of god this scene absolutely destroyed me. Shiro has grown so much throughout the course of this show and it makes me so fucking emotional.

-

My singular favorite use of color in a show this year:

Last Twilight

gif by @tomystars

Once again Aof is taking the crown for such intentional uses of color. I don't care here if the pink has an actual meaning to the color, what I care about is what this shirt does to show Mhok's character, grant some autonomy to Day, and give you a sense of how Day's vision works. Which, I know the show has been doing pretty consistently throughout, but you can really see here why bright neon colors work really well for Day, and why Mhok 100% puts those bright neon yellow laces on Day's old shoes.

and finally...

Net's skin

gif by @ueasking

Net has such a gorgeous skin tone, and @neuroticbookworm and I weep every time some magazine, show, or other promo photo lightens his skin. Honestly I am personally not vibing with Middleman's Love but both Net and James look so good in it.

ASK ME MY TOP 5 OF ANYTHING BL 2023

[basu-shokikita]

Kloktober 2023 Day 10

Came Back Different

I wasn't really sure what to do for today so I decided to try something new for it aka no Skwistok today

This entry features Murderface and…someone he would really like to see again, especially after the events of Army of the Doomstar.

“With our cutting-edge technology we actually managed to reconstitute his body, well, what was left of it. We did have to replace several parts with metal because the skin was completely unsalvageable. Some organs have been artificially replicated too to allow him to subsist as…” The surgeon seemed reluctant to say the word. “Human being.”

“How could you hide this from us?!” Nathan looked at Charles in complete disbelief. 

“There was, uh, a lot going.” Charles said, straightening up his clothes. He was no longer wearing that monk robe, instead returning to his old suit and his old job too. “As you can imagine, I didn’t really have the time to inform you guys.”

“Still!” Nathan complained.

“We tha’t he was dead!” Pickles added.

“He explodeds right in our faces!” Toki said, before replicating the explosion noise. “We saws it!”

“I, uh…didn’t sees anythingks because I was unskconstcious.” Skwisgaar scratched the side of his neck. “But they tolds me he was dieds.”

“Dood, it was pretty horrible-”

“I hads you in my arms, Skwisgaar.” 

“You don’ts has to says it like dat.”

“Skwisgaar, you were seriously just out.”

“I fucking knows!”

“It’s nuthin’ ta be embarrassed about!”

“Ams not-”

“Isch it true?” Murderface raised his voice to be heard amongst the ruckus. They all turned to him and then back to the surgeon.

“Well,” The man cleared his throat. “Like I said, we essentially patched him back together so we’re unclear about the side effects so far. But he’s alive, yes.”

“Can we schee him?” Murderface asked, for once not making an inappropriate comment or cracking a rude joke. His left fist was clenched and his eyebrows were furrowed together though not out of anger. 

It was guilt.

The surgeon  and Charles exchanged glances and the surgeon gestured at his assistant, who quickly left through the door.

The guys stared at each other in disbelief, chattering between each other. Toki kept insisting on telling Skwisgaar the heroic details of when he carried him on his back for God knows how long. Pickles threw in random guesses of how their friend would look like now and Nathan listened attentively. Murderface didn’t participate, just stood there, thinking and feeling his palms get sweaty. Fuck. Fuck, was it true? Was it really true?

Less than a minute later, the assistant came back, his hand on the doorknob as if to keep it from opening preemptively. 

“Alright.” The surgeon looked at Dethklok. “Just remember, guys, he might be a little different. So be patient. Also-”

“Just shut up and let us see him!” Nathan demanded.

“Just do as they say.” Charles said, shaking his head with resignation.

The assistant opened the door and in came…

Dick Knubbler, looking pretty much the same as when they last saw him. Well, his legs appeared to be exclusively made of metal now, as well as his neck. His eyes had now been updated with some sort of futuristic-like visor. “Long time no see, babes!” He greeted them, and there was a metallic texture to his voice, too.

They all stared at him astounded for a good 10 seconds until…

“Holy shit!” Nathan went first. “It’s fucking real! You’re alive!”

“It takes more than a bomb to kill me, babe.” Knubbler smirked, striking a pose.

Murderface walked up to him, unable to contain himself. “Knubbler, I…I’m schorry.” He said with heaviness in his voice. “I did thisch to you…I’m schorry.”

Nathan frowned. “Murderface-”

“Oh, Willy!” Knubbler wrapped his arms around Murderface’s neck. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m better than ever, babe!” His face drew close to Murderface’s, smiling.

“Woah…” Nathan stepped back in surprise.

“Dood…”

“Dat’s…” Skwisgaar started.

“...Gays.” Toki finished.

“Oh, yeah!” Knubbler glanced at the others without letting go of Murderface. “I’m feeling totally gay, babes! While they were putting me together, I had a lot of time to think, you know? And I thought, life is pretty short to not be gay!”  His ‘eye’ winked at Murderface. “How about it, babe?”

Murderface’s cheeks turned red. “G-G-G-Get the fuck off me!” He said, trying to shove Knubbler. “I’m not gay!”

“Now, Willy,” Knubbler shook his finger. “We both know that is not true, don’t we?” He said, hugging Murderface by the waist.

“Huh…” Nathan, raised his eyebrows while the other three just watched agape.

“What the fuck are you talking about, man?” Murderface weakly tried to resist the affection, with a nervous chuckle. “He’sch totally out of hisch mind!” He whispered to his bandmates.

“Right.” Charles adjusted his tie, visibly uncomfortable. “Let’s give Murderface and Knubbler some, uh, some privacy.”

There were mumbles of agreement and the boys followed Charles to the door. 

“What?!” Murderface yelled, while the assistant took notes on Knubbler’s behavior. “Are you fucking kidding me?! Don’t leave me alone with thisch fucking lunatic!”

Nathan was in the doorframe when he turned his head. “You’re fucking gay, Murderface. Just get over it.” 

“Yeah.” Three voices said in unison.

“Oh, fuck you, guysch!” Murderface yelled when the door closed. “You’re the gay onesch!”

“Come on, Willy, just give me a kiss.” Knubbler insisted, puckering his lips. 

“God damn it!” Murderface moved his face, flustered. “Schtop being gay, Knubbler!”

“After you kiss me, babe.”

“No!”

[mooremars]

Camelot 2023 Act 2 ramblings about the music and book and also the visuals again because turns out one post wasn't enough.

I still cannot possibly recommend anyone actually read this because it is so absurdly, comically long but I still needed to get even more feelings out.

Act 2, Scene 1: The castle courtyard one year later:

• "We shouldn't be alone together" like girl

• I love how she's almost exasperated by it

• When she fantasized about this all-consuming high-stakes love she probably didn't think about how exhausting it would be to actually live with it all the time

• Like having this conversation every single month does sound exhausting

• The way she's actively trying to drive him out of Camelot, Genny is so much and I respect it

• She's really doing her best in a way that involves truly torturing Lance, he should really do some soul searching about why he loves someone who treats him this way

• "I've trained dogs to chase you"/"And those dogs were fast.. the expression his bark is worse than his bite that wasn't my experience"

• Sorkin slightly breaking the tension of this scene which is so needed

• "You're not English"/"Neither are you"/"I think that changed when I became queen of England"

• I also feel like there is a lot to unpack in this exchange

• "And when would I do that Genny?"

• The angst in that delivery

• If Ever I Should Leave You is so gorgeous

• I think it was Sorkin who basically said that the show doesn't need magic because the songs provide enough magic on their own and this is the perfect example

• Jordan Donica is tremendous

• I knew him from Charmed and it took me a bit to place him but holy shit

• I may have actually seen him before, I'd have to check but regardless I need to be paying attention to literally any theater he does because I want to go

• This applies to all of them, who am I kidding

• Anyway, he's amazing here and I am probably underselling him in this post because I only saw him half the times and so my memories are much less clear

• And my reference is closing which was not him by this point

• And the outro music (? sorry I know nothing about music) is absolutely stunning

• This song is so romantic but also very shallow

• They're fulfilling a version of love that is all big gestures and big feelings but not necessarily substance

• Because they're trying to fill a void in themselves using the other and when you do that, you can't see the person as an actual person

• Just an extension of your unmet need

• Which is too bad because I think if they weren't, they might actually like each other

• But fuck is this song so romantic

• Every lyric is good, the way they're sung, I think I may for the first time have use of the phrase swoon worthy

• Specifically the end

• "I have a thrilling engagement. I'm giving prizes at the potato show. I'm eager to find out what the qualities of a prize winning potato are"/"I'll be at your side Ma'am"/"Thank goodness for that, those potatoes can be dangerous"

• The lines are so funny and her delivery is so heartbreaking, I am suffering

• I do just love Genny so much and she deserves happiness dammit

• "So the rumors are true, the chain of wedlock is so heavy in Camelot it takes three to carry it"

• Mordred coming out with the one liners immediately

• "He's willing to make any old man a knight I see"

• Pelli immediately threatening violence, beautiful

• The whininess of "I shall be busy tomorrow afternoon" and slapping the bench

• Fourteen year old edgelord Mordred

• Very interesting to have him be a year younger than Arthur was when he became king, really underscoring how young he was

• "I was raising by a mother with a fatally broken heart. Makes for a dark childhood"

• Like do we think Mordred is just trying to drum up Arthur's sympathies or is this actually true?

• "And when you speak to the king, you should remember you're speaking to the king"

• Arthur literally never insists on any manner of kingly respect but his son is a little shit that he hates, so he will

• Love that

• "Dispatch to the court, the king has a child he fathered out of wedlock. Problem solved."

• The blackmail just instantly failing is very funny

• Also would love to know how the conversation about this between Genny and Arthur went

• "I'm not ashamed of you. You don't embarass me though it's not for lack of trying."

• That's too generous, Mordred is embarrassing

• "It's always been my wish that you and your mother stay here where I can take care of you both"/"Stay where, in the servants' quarters?"/"In any quarters you like"/"Except the queen's"

• I wonder if Mordred is the one who feels this way or if he's just parroting back what Morgan has said

• "I was a boy when I met your mother"/"And my mother turned you into a man"/"A man named Merlyn turned me into a man"/"That's a new bit of palace gossip"/"No you idiot, he was my teacher"

• Obviously sarcastic Arthur is always a treat and specifically the facial expression and tone of no you idiot

• But just so curious about Morgan and Arthur because Arthur gets pissed at that whole turned into a man bit

• And he has been pretty chill with Mordred being terrible for this whole scene

• He's very much not comfortable with what Mordred is saying and this is the only moment where Mordred gets under his skin and like that is very interesting

• "In this place the law applies equally to everyone"/"Even the king and queen?"/"Especially the king and queen"

• You are literally watching the light bulb pop over Mordred's head and it's played perfectly

• Everyone in this cast is perfect

• The Seven Deadly Virtues has no right to be this funny

• "Making my Beelzebubble burst" is my favorite but really this entire song is great

• It's such a petulant performance and it's perfect

Act 2, Scene 2: The King's study

• Another amazing bit of scene change music

• The intimacy of them spending their evening playing chess together and talking

• Presumably this is just what they do on a lot of nights and I love it

• I feel like there's definitely potential in a their relationship through chess fic

• Someone please

• I firmly believe they are at like a full 50-50 split in terms of who wins

• "Are you really reading while you're chasing me around the board?"/"Sorry I didn't hear you, I was reading and chasing you around the board"

• And his okay in the middle like he knows he set himself up to get mocked

• Making fun of each other is one of my favorite love languages

• Also same structure as Arthur telling her it will seem that she's rooting for Lancelot to lose and she says that's because she is rooting for Lancelot to lose

• It's just a fun little dialouge thing that I enjoy Genny doing

• Makes her lines feel hers

• I love that Arthur has Merlyn's final warning on his mind so naturally he consults Genny

• And then it devolving into a philosophical discussion about what is and is not possible

• "I was 10,000th person to try, how do you explain that?"/"9,999 people loosened it"

• A perfect and funny line that becomes sweet and profound later on, I will never not love that

• "We have greatness in our grasp, humanity does, but for some reason every time we see it we assign the responsibility to some supernatural force. Or to god."

• You would think given the structure of the love triangle that Arthur would be set up to scoff at the idea that god has responsibility for human greatness in contrast to Lance being extremely devout

• And like I do think Arthur and Genny are actually on the same page but I enjoy that she gets to voice that thought

• This is the woman who first ran away and then threw prayer on top after as a little afterthought so yeah perhaps Genny is not the best catholic

• "Perhaps when he died, his soul transmogrified-"/"What did I just say?"

• Arthur immediately needling her and doing that stupid little hand motion on transmogrified

• They're adorable

• "I enjoy seeing you get riled up"

• This is what you say to a woman you're about to call your business partner? In that way?

• I don't know who to blame because I can't tell if the line or delivery is more of the culprit

• No it's the delivery, I have literally put in the audio as proof

• The audacity, I'm obsessed

• He's got it so bad

• Could've had this Genny

• Like Mr. Purity of Soul who thinks women can't possibly understand politics has absolutely never considered the concept of female pleasure, for sure has never heard of foreplay, and definitely believes the clit and g-spot are both myths

• I love Lance but proposition: there's no way that man is good in bed

• Everything else mean I've said about Lance has been out of love but I love Genny and she doesn't deserve mediocre dick

• And yet he's playing by Jordan Donica so it is also valid and understandable

• Sorry, I digress but gotta find the humor in the whole none of them get to be happy business

• But actually I really appreciate that even in this tragic narrative with big ideas and a lot of angst, they get to have fun and be fun

• Even as their relationship is about to hit its breaking point, you can still tell they're not just torturedly in love but they actually like each other so much

• "And while you're enjoying it, let me ask you this... how often do you write to her?"

• Genny is attempting to play it cool but boy is she not

• The little pause between often and write and then to her, oof

• It's so soft but like the hint is there

• The silence while Arthur makes his move on the board, ugh

• "I send a letter a week"/"Every week?"/"Yes"/"For how long?"/"Mordred's fourteen, he came to me when he was ten so four years"/"That's 208 letters"/"I have a responsibility there, I'm trying to do-"/"Do the chivalrous thing"/"Yes"

• It's so painful to hear their deliveries and realize they're having two separate conversations where they're both upset and they don't understand the other person is feeling the same

• Like Genny getting alarmed at 208 letters, Arthur getting frustrated and defensive about it and cutting Genny's last line off, and then Genny delivery of do the chivalrous thing like she's so tired

• It is so besides the point but how exactly was Arthur expecting the fucking soap opera and/or sitcom situation he's trying to create going

• Like his piece of shit kid, his ex who hates him, his wife that he loves whose feelings for him he doesn't have a handle on, and his bestie whose feelings for his wife Arthur definitely does know

• I know castles are very big but I don't think they're big enough to make that situation good for anyone

• "You've never asked me her name"/"Is it Morgan Le Fay?"/"How did you know that?"/"And she's a scientist"

• Genny has been holding this in for a whole year and she's finally ready to use it

• She says it like she's caught Arthur in some kind of lie which obviously she hasn't but I do wonder if she's had this conversation in her head enough times that she's already thinking the worst

• "He blames me for her condition. All the more reason why I want them both to be here at the castle. She needs care."

• That long pause before condition and the way he says it like maybe Arthur also blames himself

• And they're still playing chess throughout this whole thing as if they can pretend that this conversation isn't causing them both pain

• The sound of the pieces getting moved on the board while during the tense silences, yes

• And now we get to me being emotionally destroyed

• This scene is a roller coaster and the writing and acting of it is perfect in every way

• "We're more than king and queen, you and I. Don't you think?"

• He's so unsure, he's always so unsure it is torture

• The emphasis on you

• But also he does in some way recognize that she's upset about Morgan and he gets so close but spectacularly fails

• Genny is so hopeful on the "Yes, yes I do"

• Him stammering out and Genny trying one more yes to get him to come up with something

• And then that something is business partners

• In my brain I am screaming

• I have done nothing but make fun of Arthur for business partners (and friends) since I first saw this show and I will continue to do it now

• However I do think that for him, in the context of his experience being thrust into royalty, he is actually expressing a very romantic sentiment

• He meets Genny and tells her about Camelot and she doesn't think she's worthy of that

• But here he's affirming that she is, that she's his partner in this and he recognizes her worth

• They talk in the second scene and she mentions that as a princess she doesn't have friends

• And here he's telling her that they are friends, that she isn't alone

• And we see how uncomfortable Arthur is being treated as the king

• And he's trying to tell Genny that he cares for her as a person and not just the queen he traded for in a treaty

• He wants her to see him that way because if she sees him as just Arthur and not the king, then maybe he can tell her how he feels

• But also maybe it you are a man and your confession of love to a woman contains the words "I know this is an unusual thing for a man to say about a woman but" you have turned down the wrong path

• "Yes. Friends. And business partners"

• Her delivery is so ice cold, it's perfect

• The fact that she says this and even Arthur picks up on her tone and knows he fucked up

• Arthur trying to fix things and being interrupted

• His frustration with himself is so heartbreaking

• I am still screaming in my brain just louder now

• Pelli is great but also he is the cause of so many of Arthur and Genny's resentments and miscommunications, the man's a magnet for drama

• He's so funny in this scene trying to complain to Arthur and Arthur already knowing all of Mordred's bullshit

• And yelling dammit so many times in the most perfect way like me with every person who has ever annoyed me

• "Because England doesn't have a law against limericks"

• The fact that even though they're in the middle of this weird emotional mess, Arthur looks to Genny when he's talking about how Pelli's question is complicated

• His thinking buddy

• And business partner

• Also the idea that Arthur is so chill with the fact that he doesn't have the answer, that he's laying groundwork for future progress instead of assuming it will be accomplished by him

• Which is just inherently a concept I think I struggle with, that the world will not change in all the ways it should in my lifetime but the work now still has to be done

• So I like to see it

• Not going to write out another good Sorkin speech about ideas but I love this one too rest assured

• And we've had a nice little break, now we're back to chess and Arthur trying to force out something coherent and me screaming in my brain again

• I still can't get over the way they're still playing chess I'm sorry

• Genny saying "you're in check" with a different delivery every time to convey her emotional state

• The range

• Arthur just trying so hard to come up with anything again, I am personally suffering

• "What I feel-"/"I thought it was right on the money"/"Oh you do?"

• Then I think he says "oh okay" but I don't even know

• They were so close this is the worst

• Still chess

• "Do you regret being born a princess?"/"I'm confident that most people would gladly trade their problems for mine"/"But you're not talking to them right now"

• Firstly the show does an amazing job recontexualizing What Do the Simple Folk Do and everything around it so A+ for that

• But also Arthur is so empathetic in this moment

• "I know you're sad sometimes. That you miss whatever life you were searching for the night you ran from the carriage. The simple joys of maidenhood you called it. You do a good job of hiding it from the court but when you feel sad you-"/"can talk to my business partner?"/"Well I think I might be good at cheering you up"

• The delivery is so sincere

• He sees her pain and he cares so much

• He feels responsible for the life that she missed out on by marrying him

• And he wants to help

• In many ways, he is terrible at expressing his feelings but again in some small respects, he does absolutely knock it out of the park

• Even if Genny can't see it

• "If there was a tournament for cheering you up, I think I'd win"/"Oh as long as there wasn't a bird nearby"/"It wasn't just any bird, it was a white tailed eagle both times"

• The way they move from emotional conversations and annoyed miscommunications back to humor with such ease

• Arthur's bird obsession continues to be one of the best bits of characterization ever

• Genny making fun of Arthur's various words for peasants

• I love What Do the Simple Folk Do so much

• It's just perfectly constructed and the rhymes are pretty genius

• I love every single lyric

• And I love that this song gives Arthur and Genny a chance to be charming and reconnect after the second half of act 1 and the beginning of act 2 were so focused on Genny and Lance

• And then this scene has so much going on that it reminds you why they're the couple of the show

• I didn't need reminding because I'm trash for them but other people might

• All of the little jokes between the lyrics are so funny

• The delivery of "the very last thing you should have is encouragement" is so much funnier than on the cast recording

• Like what is this? So charming

• "My father used to say I sang like an angel who'd been blessed with a particularly pretty singing voice"

• I'm so glad this is at least on the cast recording

• She plays it so straight, it's so good

• This may be my favorite of the songs

• And the dance, they're so cute, the squeeling kills me

• I can't adequately express how much I need to find a bootleg so I can witness this again, the whole scene really but mostly this

• I cannot handle the way they say "Genny"/"Your Majesty"

• Fuuuuck

• The groan in the audience at "a letter from my mother", the pure expression of fuck Mordred

• "He's been waiting a long time."/"Yes"/"My mother was his first, you know"/"I had that sense, yes"/"They say you never fully get over your first love"

• Genny hates Mordred so much and she's right

• He's hitting her exactly where it hurts but Arthur can't even tell

• Also fascinating that Mordred can actually see the dynamic between Genny and Arthur and Lance so much more clearly than the people involved

• "You think you might possibly be spending the night?"

• Like her deliveries were getting more panicked but then this one

• Like she can't even believe what she's hearing and he doesn't even get it

• The long silence after Mordred says Lance has the queen's protection detail

• As people make mmms in the audience

• And then their last little exchange

• Ouch

• Genny telling Arthur what she herself actually needs to be told and Arthur having no clue

• "His queen's in danger"

• Mordred is the absolute worst and it's perfect

• The reprise of the Simple Joys of Maidenhood, so sad and I can't handle it

• I think this is her moment of just fully sitting in the idea that her husband doesn't love her and sees her so completely separate from that that he doesn't even understand why she's so upset to see him dash away overnight to see another woman

• And that he therefore doesn't and won't love her in the way she's singing about

• And thinking that she has the knight pining for her but it isn't enough and sets up her trying to make it enough

• She's grown so much since she first sang the song but she still can't fill the void of wanting this kind of love

• But also knowing that kind of love isn't enough

• I love her

Act 2, Scene 3: The home of Morgan Le Fey/Guenevere's Chamber/ Castle corridor - on that evening

• The into music to Morgan is gorgeous, perhaps my favorite

• It's hard to introduce an important character this late into the show and make them so memorable, even if they've been hanging over the narrative for a while now

• And still have them knock it out of the park but once again, this show is perfectly cast

• The tension of this whole scene is everything

• Morgan's laugh and then "Jesus christ it's the king of England"

• Immediately sets her up perfectly

• And we get something totally different out of Arthur

• I love their dialouge which I am once again trying not to just fully write out, I love their chemistry, I love how quickly their friendliness breaks down

• He does sound genuinely happy to see her at the beginning but as soon as he asks if she's feeling well, they start to cool

• I can't even pick specific lines because everything is such a vibe

• You feel the history and complication and the years apart where everything has changed for both of them and the way that she's the one person who knew him as just Arthur

• "I know exactly who you are"

• Like of course this one was gonna have a line reading that lends itself to multiple things but that's always good and I like it

• Genny ranting to Lance about the number of letters Arthur wrote to Morgan

• She finally gets to be pissed and Phillipa Soo plays it so well

• "Don't review my arithmetic in your head, it's 208"

• Even at her most angry, she still must make sure Lance knows she's right, very relatable

• "I questioned the king, we've all questioned the king"

• This adaptation has built in the knights discontent so well that it's believable that they've just been growing more resentful over time

• "Because one cannot legislate goodness Pellinore, which at the end of the day, is the mission of the round table"/"And what say you Sagramore?"/"Well tell me, when we're all equal will peasants live like knights or will knights live like peasants?"

• Their entire speech is amazing

• The knights growing angrier as they realize they're all on the same page

• The way that it all fits seamlessly into the story we see on the stage but there's also no denying it's about the time we're living in right now

• But again, not in a way where it feels out of nowhere or too heavy handed

• "I throw away the letters, I give away the money"

• I love the way she delivers her lines so dismissively

• I wonder how much of it is her feelings and how much of it is trying to hurt Arthur as much as he's hurt her

• "That part gets left out of the legend" I think is the first moment where Arthur gets under Morgan's skin just a bit

• Like I'm not sure what she wants/wanted from Arthur but maybe it was just that she doesn't like being erased from the story

• "What wife could possibly object?"

• I love her bitterness mounting leading up to this line and actually hearing her call herself Arthur's wife which is I don't think is something she does before

• "I admire the king's commitment to doing the right thing no matter what. That's what a man does, and god knows it should be what a king does."

• I love watching Genny justify her anger because on one level she knows it isn't fair to be angry

• That she really does admire Arthur's goodness and believes he's doing the right thing

• That it's not that he's going to see Morgan, that he wants to bring her to the castle, it's about his actions with Genny

• Or I suppose the lack of consideration of her feelings in maybe the most hurtful way where there was nothing deliberate, it just didn't even occur to him

• She's so hurt

• Everyone in this scene gets to be extremely mad and I love it

• "When he ran out of here, he didn't think it would trouble me at all. He didn't think the letters would mean anything to me. Or staying overnight. Mordred said his mother was his first true love. Business partner. He said it right in front of me as if I wouldn't mind"/"Do you?"/"No, of course not. It's just that it was the first time that it's been demonstrated to me that-"/"Your husband doesn't think of you as his wife"/"Yes"

• Everything is on her face and in her voice

• She's so hurt, so angry, so tired of not being loved

• And when she says of course it doesn't bother her, when she pulls back her feelings in front of Lance

• And her delivery of yes like something clicks in her brain, probably their entire relationship is flashing in her brain and she's building up evidence that it's true

• Lance has articulated exactly what she didn't know she was feeling

• And the music under it underscores each emotion perfectly

• Again Phillipa Soo is just emotionally devastating in this scene

• But also gotta go back to "Your husband doesn't think of you as his wife"

• Like right now I'm just thinking back to Arthur referring to Genny as French to Lance when they first meet and again when he asks her to tell Lance he's being invested

• While Genny in that scene and in the first scene of act 2 keeps referring to her country as England while Lance claims her as French like him

• I wonder if that distinction is one of the things that feeds into her (and Lance?) feeling like Arthur doesn't think of her as his wife

• That she's trying to keep proclaiming her loyalty and he keeps putting a border between them

• At least in her point of view

• While he's as always trying to show her that he sees and respects her as an autonomous individual and not a thing he owns

• Am I reading too far into this? Probably

• (You're not my homeland anymore, so what am I defending now - honestly that it took me this long to make a Taylor Swift reference is a marvel)

• Anyway back to this tremendous scene

• Part of me does wonder if Lance really doesn't know how Arthur feels or if he's in denial because it's easier for him if Arthur doesn't think of Genny as his wife

• Like he does make a point to tell Arthur in the last scene that he and Genny aren't together

• He's gotta realize in this scene how Genny feels about Arthur but curious about the other way around

• Or ya know, maybe he doesn't, maybe he's just as emotionally inept as everyone else in this show

• Don't really have a point, it's just an interesting thought

• How do so many versions cut Fie on Goodness?

• Like not only is it an amazing song but also it's sort of the whole damn point

• If you cut it, the ideals of Camelot are barely even a plot, it's all love triangle

• Also just want to take a moment to appreciate how gross the lyrics to this one are

• This is for sure my favorite sequence

• The intro speech to the song is perfect

• Them just getting worked up about how England is special, it is better, that they're the ones who should be listened to

• "Don't dare question our loyalty to the king"/"A king who encourages debate"

• Again I just love the knights' conflicted feelings about Arthur

• So it's easiest to shift all the blame to Genny and Lance

• This song is so good, this cast is so good

• "That day that I became king, my cousin gave me his tutor, a man named Merlyn. And Merlyn spoke to me of a great cause that I could lead. But I would have to stay unmarried until a young princess in France came of age"/"And you left me unmarriable, a woman with a child"/"I didn't know about the child until he came and introduced himself"/"You raise your voice to me? Have I displeased you your majesty?"/"Stop calling me that"/"I know all about the French princess-"/"The queen"/"and the grand cause-"/"great cause"/"I don't give a damn"

• This is a stupid amount of text that I've typed out but I love their back and forth here

• Arthur trying to justify himself and not wanting to take responsibility and them both getting angry at each other

• Morgan and her relationship with Arthur have been changed pretty drastically to the point that she's not even the same character and I like it and her so much

• I do wonder what the intent was here because I feel like you could read a lot of different things into their dynamic

• And to what that means about Arthur

• I mean I get the sense that she's maybe always been maybe a bit of an outsider, maybe always was a little more world-weary (or maybe not, maybe getting left pregnant while he became king hardened her)

• And maybe their power dynamic has been completely flipped but also maybe Arthur still has a hard time not letting it flip back

• Because like there's no doubt for me that for whatever reason, she was the one holding the cards originally and he doesn't know how to deal with her now

• Like I don't know if she's older or Arthur was always bad at love so she would have just been the more confident person but there's something there

• She obviously has a completely different point of view than anyone else in the show which I love

• And she gets under Arthur's skin so easily

• I guess because she's the one casuality of his great cause, the one wrong he can't right

• Also "stop calling me that" is so petulant teen

• And he was that when he knew her so of course it comes out

• "You seem quick to betray the king"/"I would die before I betrayed King Arthur"/"Yet here you are"/"I can't rise above being a man, a human man. I can't transcend it no matter how hard I try"

• My favorite Lance line

• Ugh it's perfect

• He's so tortured and so good at conveying that in his delivery

• He's getting some character growth

• Genny being both not wrong but also putting it on him so she doesn't have to think about her own behavior

• "My duty is to god, King Arthur, and the round table. I can best serve all three with my absence. It's a small price for one person to pay for a greater good"

• Ooh the self-loathing hits so good

• And Genny panicking because she's about to get left for the second time tonight

• The playing of If Ever I Would Leave You

• Because he is, or he's at least trying to

• To do the right thing

• Genny and Lance speaking French together, always good even thought I can't understand shit

• "No more talking"

• And the bed just being pulled out of the scene

• I just love how the song is interspersed with these scenes, this sequence is truly brilliant and the energy of it in the theater is truly unmatched

• "All the letters that followed-"/"All the letters that followed offered me room and board along with the cash. Imagine how moved I was by the chivalry"

• Ah mocking chivalry, a family pastime

• Again, I just love the way she goes in on Arthur's attempts to do the right thing over and over

• And again I don't know if it's because he wouldn't give her what she actually wanted or pure vengence

• "Guilty and alive once more" is probably my favorite line from the song

• "Let me ask you this question and I'm entitled to the truth. If there hadn't been a cause, a great case, would you have married me? No."/"I was fifteen years old that night and the next day I was king. I was anointed by the archbishop of Canterbury in York and those men think they put me in direct contact with the divine. There was a cause."

• Clearly in her mind he was never going to marry her but we know from Pelli that when he met Arthur when he was already king, he was still very much in love with Morgan

• More than 10 years (plus then a year that's passed in story) before this could be lots of different amounts of time but it could have been up to a few years into Arthur being king which is a long while

• So the answer was probably yes

• But he doesn't say any of that because his feelings don't matter, he's too focused on justifying his cause, that it was important enough to make up for her life

• And ya know Camelot is what's important now, Camelot is what he and Genny have devoted their lives to, he can't fail

• This is the scene where I just conspiracy board Genny and Arthur's relationship

• This is fine, I'm normal about this show, that's why I wrote all of this

• Either way I think it must really bother Athur that Morgan might think he's not a good man

• We saw it with Genny and the courtesans thing too

• Like obviously part of that was being in love with her but also I think it fucks with his self-image as a person who does the right thing which is his entire life

• And Morgan's the biggest crack in that in his mind which is why he gets angry pretty much constantly in this scene

• At least that's my theory

• I love that we get see him cracking a bit under the strain of being good and trying to rise above being a human being just like everyone else in this scene

• He's got a lot more moral fortitude than the rest of the characters so it just manifests as him getting to be angry and express it to another person for once but still

• He makes excuses, he gets mad, he won't accept that Morgan's version of events is also true and he can't force her to be okay with it

• I don't know, there's something nice about narrative not saying that making the choices of the knights or Genny and Lance is inevitable, Arthur does make the right choices but he still isn't perfect here

• "And I won't live in a spare room in a castle and be the used and discarded former mistress of a king... but I will be the mother of one"

• So like how much of Mordred's plans are Mordred and how much is Morgan?

• And you know used and discarded former mistress of a king is killing Arthur

• "And he didn't"/"What?"/"Put you in direct contact with the divine"/"That is made clear to me every day"

• Morgan did a good job of pretending indifference at the beginning but the more she lays into Arthur, the more hostile things get between them, it's so clear that if the opposite of love is indifference then they haven't managed to get over loving each other

• It's just soured and rotted but won't die

• More so for Morgan because she paid the price, she couldn't move on in the way he could

• "And I wouldn't want to see your face when you realize it didn't make a difference. There'll be greed and injustice and hate and horror. You can change the stuff but people stay exactly the same. No one whose opponent was human nature has ever won a fight. Human nature responds to-"/"Inspiration"/"Fear. And that's it"

• It's so cruel but also a great illustration of the ways that they're fundamental opposites

��� "I don't forget anything"

• Another extremely loaded line delivery

• (Don't make an All Too Well reference, don't make an All Too Well reference, don't)

• The panic and realization of "he's not stupid" and the music that builds to it and Morgan's laugh ugh perfect

• The intro music to I Loved You Once in Silence is gorgeous

• Lance and Genny in white feeling guilty as hell is a good visual

• So much regret

• Just instantly

• I feel like the moment they've actually acted on their feelings, they know that it's not only a mistake but also that their feelings aren't actually what they thought

• Well maybe Lance doesn't quite have it yet in this scene but he gets there

• Not to repeat what I said about the first scene in act 2 but

• My take is that they intentionally deepened Arthur and Genny's relationship and Lance's character but not Lance and Genny's relationship

• They intentionally left it shallow

• That these are two people who are missing something and the easiest way for them to get that is to frame what they have as love

• I mean for Genny it's sort of obvious, she's married to a man she's in love with but that she thinks doesn't love her

• Lance makes her feel certain about his feelings for her and that's validating

• But Lance, I feel like I have thoughts but I'm not sure

• Lance has never been forced to reckon with temptation before

• And instead of facing that in himself

• He just makes Genny part of the list of things that define him

• A goddess on earth and a god above

• Along with the table

• And he can worship them all to avoid having to figure out who he actually is

• It's not him admitting he has a human weakness, it's a grand tragic love story that he can suffer for

• And suffering, well that's what lets him cope with whatever about himself he feels is so terrible that he needs to punish himself for it

• He's so terrified to look inward, so afraid of something in himself that he just finds his identity in other people and institutions

• And he can't hide behind that anymore because he's betrayed it all, every single thing

• I feel like this makes it sound like I don't like Lance and I very much do

• He's just particularly flawed because he's the only one who doesn't start the show knowing that about himself

• They all make choices out of self-loathing and fear of unworthiness but I do think Lance thinks consciously he's above that for most of the show even if subconsciously he knows he isn't

• He's the only one of the main three to not really finish his character journey within the confines of this narrative

• Arguably he only starts right now and finally realizes he's not the man he thought he was

• Again fic potential somone???

• Well that was a tangent

• Jordan Donica's performance of I Loved You Once in Silence is so heartbreaking

• "Lance I made a mistake. I'm sorry but you're a good man and I should have been nicer to you."

• I love that, I love that she takes her responsibility (even if she's already trying to cover up what happened)

• But also it's just the clearst indication that acting on her feelings killed them

• She doesn't need to push Lance away anymore to stop herself from doing anything

• I love that Lance tries to surrender peacefully

• He's willing to take responsibility not for his noble suffering anymore but because he is a good man and he knows he's done what he's been accused of

• And he only attacks because he has to

• Mordred's evil laugh

• Lance being slightly disheveled and grabbing Mordred's sword to fight off the guards and escape

• I don't have any kind of intellectual take, this is just a personal problem for me

• My jaw was on the floor when Lance started yelling back about coming for her if he survives

• Such a tense ramp up into Guenevere

Act 2, Scene 4: The trial/The Battle

• Guenevere has such amazing lyrics

• The entire "more than love met its doom"/"came the sundown of a dream" verse destroys me

• And I love every word of added dialouge, so correct to put it on the cast recording

• I feel I must explain my love for the staging of this song some more because it is so simple and I understand that some people are not into it but I so much am

• I love the way they close off the back of the stage for I think the only time in the whole show and it becomes claustrophobic all of the sudden

• Now Arthur is stuck in this little box in front of the audience while everything falls apart for him and that's what you have to look at so there's no getting away from how devastating it is

• We just get some full force Andrew Burnap acting and I love it, I think by now it should be clear that I would

• In other versions that I've seen, there's a lot more happening and we see Genny

• And we see Arthur see her tied to the stake and Lancelot show up to rescue her

• Which I do like in theory

• But we don't really see Genny have any actual role or even seeming to have any particular feelings about what she's done or what's about to happen

• Like she's about to die and I've yet to see a version where I have any idea if she's got a single emotion about that

• Despite the name of the song, I think this show decided this scene isn't about Genny, it's about Arthur

• It's about the consequences of his laws

• It's about the beginning of his new war

• Arthur screaming "Pelli I know" like we see him start to crack

• Oh to know who told Arthur and how he took it

• "Well do something"/"She's under arrest. She's been accused of treason"/"Arthur I understand that you're angry but"/"She's been accused of breaking the law. She has to be judged"

• The delivery of that last line, ugh

• He keeps it impersonal, it isn't about what she did to him or his pain, it's about the law

• The law they lovingly crafted together

• "What a magnificent dilemma: let her die and you're a monster, let her live and you're a fraud. Which will it be? Do you kill the queen or the law?"

• Fuck

• The delivery is so good

• Mordred is having the time of his life shrieking about Arthur's pain

• The killing the queen or the law bit seems to be mostly unchanged and it's maybe the best single line from the original book

• Although it went from kill the queen and your life is over to you're a monster

• Mordred has to know Arthur is in love with Genny, right?

• Maybe he just can't imagine Arthur could love a person more than he loves his ideals which I guess would make sense given Morgan and Arthur's relationship

• Arthur drawing his sword on Mordred!!!

• "Ooh careful your majesty, you wouldn't want to be barbaric"

• The fact that Mordred thinks that's going to work, that he can continue to poke at Arthur and he won't respond, he really does believe in Arthur's goodness doesn't he?

• "You are exiled from this court. Return and I will show you what barbaric looks like"

• Arthur screaming at Mordred with his hand around his throat is so intense

• It's so good

• Another gasp out loud in the theater moment

• Arthur is fully unraveling and I'm obsessed

• "I know my way out"

• It's such a teenage delivery and like Mordred is just a kid who feels abandoned by his father

• And as much as this is a tragedy for the three main characters, it's no less a tragedy for Mordred

• Aging down Mordred, also a great choice

• And again, just another stellar performance

• Every single person in this cast just knocked it out of the park in a way I never could have anticipated

• "Arthur please, I'm an old man and I know I'm ridiculous but for the love of god, it's Genny. She made a mistake, she knows that."

• I love that Pelli loves her too

• That he isn't judging her

• "She broke the law Pellinore. A law signed by the king. So say the people"

• He starts trying to be calm but then the fact that it's his law brings up the anger and then he breaks on so say the people

• He's written his own destruction

• And empowered others to take the decision out of his hands

• I love the dialouge in this scene so damn much

• "Neither you nor I nor god himself can stop this terrible thing that's been put in motion"/"What are you waiting for?"/"I'm waiting for what's inevitably coming next"

• The delivery of coming next...

• Like obviously he wants Lance to save Genny but he knows that no matter what

• No matter if she lives or dies, peace is over and the round table has been destroyed

• And he needs to prepare

• Also the way he frames what's happening

• It's not what Genny and Lance or even Mordred caused

• It's just what's been set into motion by all these tiny and giant choices throughout the show that have bubbled over into the death of Camelot

• "That's Lancelot du Lac out there and he's brought a battalion. Double the guard, triple the guard, those guards are going to die tonight"

• How many times can I just copy a bunch of text and write the delivery

• Because yup

• The lack of hope from Arthur is chilling

• Arthur getting dragged back into the war he worked so hard to end

• Just every line delivery in this scene is perfect

• Every lyric of the song

• Every acting choice

• And I love to see it visually

• Preparing for war isn't an exciting spectacle, it's tragic

Act 2, Scene 5: Outside Joyous Gard - on the eve of war

• The way they fade in on the eve of war just broke my heart every time

• I would love to know how much communication there was between Arthur and Lance and how

• Like how much of a role did Arthur play in the whole Genny not getting burned business?

• And the fact that his first question is whether they've been injured

• Even after everything, he's a good man who cares

• And Genny and Lance too, being willing to come back and die

• They're all good people who made mistakes but still good people

• "I assure you, if I thought it would end all this, I would light the fire myself"

• Absolutely brutal but like after he lays out all the death and rebellion that have already happened I guess brutal is fair

• Ya know, if I thought he meant it even a little

• "Lance, come morning some of your countrymen are going to be at the end of my sword. It's not personal, it's just my job. Stay safe Lance."/"I can't do that. And neither can you. Godspeed your majesty."

• I just love the idea of Lance and Arthur as these two people who love each other spearheading this war neither of them believe in

• It's so tragic

• Their goodbye is so understated which for Lance is like truly a great bit of contrast

• They've had enough big declarations, these few sentences just distill everything perfectly

• And then we come to Genny and Arthur, fuck fuck fuck

• The first time I saw this I spent like all of intermission and act 2 with a loop in my brain of but they love each other, right?

• I am unrepentant trash for them in this version as though that wasn't abundantly clear

• And Aaron Sorkin delivered for me so hard in this scene

• "Please let me die, Arthur"

• The pause before his name

• And now we get to the part where I start to get like teary-eyed in the theater

• "Two very powerful men did this to you... not Mordred and Lance, your father and me"

• That long pause before and me

• I love his whole speech, I almost typed it all out

• And they allow so much silence during it

• And the way he's like trying to hold it together but he can't by the end

• "You were treated like a queen but you were my hostage Genny, what the hell did we think was going to happen?"

• That he recognizes and actually admits the ways that his choices have harmed Genny, the unfairness in the entire situation he's put her through

• That he can see even through his own hurt and the enormity of what has been set into motion, his own responsibility for what's happened

• Like he's not right but he's also not wrong

• "And for it's worth, I've been in love with you this whole time"

• Not even looking at her so we have to see it instead ugh

• And then watch that long silence while Genny just like rearranges her entire view of their relationship

• "For what it's worth? Did you just say for what it's worth?"/"Well I thought maybe you'd like to know that. But I wasn't sure."

• Just smashing my heart into tiny little pieces

• After everything they've been to each other, after all they built together, he still doesn't even know if his feelings will matter to her

• While Genny is getting ready to lose her mind after for what it's worth

• They're so absolutely emotionally inept

• "You weren't sure? Why didn't you ever tell me before?"/"It doesn't matter"/"Why?"/"How could I? I'm the king of England. You'd have been forced to pretend you felt the same way"

• Again they are delivering lines in a way that is continuing to smash the little pieces of my heart into complete dust

• Like Arthur is again not wrong but not right

• His life is so lonely because of this crown he didn't want and his desire to actually be responsible with that power

• And even now he tries to get out of explaining that to her

• I love him so much is the problem

• And then her mmm like all the pieces are coming together in her brain that they've both been suffering for nothing and she is pissed

• I love her so much which is also the problem

• Incidentally, both of these things are also their problem so very relatable

• "Out of curiousity, if I had told you, what would you have said?"/"That I loved you from the moment I saw you, from the moment you spoke, from the moment you sang me that stupid song about the weather"/"It's not about the weather it's a metaphor"/"I know it's a metaphor"

• The way Genny overlaps him asking, she can't even wait for him to finish

• The way she says stupid song

• The way that she's like, I did fall in love with you over that song but also I still hate it and think it's dumb

• She says it with such contempt

• Icon

• Even standing before the wreckage of their lives, they still can't stop bickering about the song, I'm obsessed

• "I prayed every night that one day you would see me the way I saw you. And then you told me I was your business partner. Yes I was and I am in love with you"/"Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse"

• She prayed every night???

• For two years???

• That he would return her feelings???

• Fuck

• Like I don't know if I can convey how much them being in love with each other and thinking it's unrequited for two whole years ping pongs around my brain and just lights up all the synapses

• "Do you really think 10,000 people loosened that sword for me?"/"I do"/"So do I. That's a nice thought isn't it?"

• It is a nice thought

• I love the philosophy of this show, I love that there's no convoluted Arthur is actually the son of the last king so he was destined to be special

• These are just two people who though birth or circumstance ended up in this position of power and chose to do good with it

• Genny begging for just a little more time like the only reason I kept anything together was being in a theater but if feel confident that if I ever get my hands on footage of this show, I would have already been sobbing by this point

• "They won't let me let Lance save you twice so you have to go Princess Guenevere"

• Hearing him call her by her name is so deeply distressing

• Literally not once before in the show does it happen and it hurts

• And then they're playing Before I Gaze at You Again what an amazing choice

• Turning a love song she sang about Lance into this romantic moment for her and Arthur because theirs was the love story the whole time like brilliant

• That they chose the show's first love song and brought it back for Genny and Arthur being unable to leave each other without that hug and that kiss

• Like this song that is originally about the pain of unfulfilled love for the wrong person and then flipping it to the pain of fulfilled love with the right one

• I am so not okay

• Also people did very loudly applaud at closing when they kissed and I was so glad because truly in my head I was doing it every time

• "I love you"/"I love you too"/"God save the king"

• I mean these are some good last words to say to each other, I'll give them that

• The thing about the original version of the musical is that the ending was already a perfect concept

• Here it just feels more meaningful because they lay that groundwork about inspiring the next generation throughout

• Tom trying to con Arthur about his age is very funny

• This kid is so good and adorable

• "You're speaking to a king"/"I'm twelve years old"

• Like his comedic delivery, very impressive

• "And when did you decide upon this nonexistent career?"

• We get a solid 60 seconds of cynical Arthur and that's about it

• The entire concept of this kid being inspired by the stories of Camelot is just deeply moving and beautiful

• And just the entirety of Andrew Burnap's performance of that realization hitting Arthur

• I love a story that's about the power of stories

• People also applauded at the last show when Arthur says the stories were all true which I also just deeply love

• Arthur's I know exactly how you feel when Tom says he's not ready to be a knight and putting his arm around him, so cute

• "And you will return to your home alive"

• The way he says alive

• Like I think Arthur knows that he's not making it out of this

• Even if he would manage to survive the battle and Mordred, he knows his time is done

• But the the future is still there

• And there is about to be so much death

• Some of it from his sword or his orders

• And the rest of it of his men

• But at least this kid, he's going to live

• The reprise of Camelot... I just love it so much

• "I've won my battle, here's my victory"

• Not a new line but just such a gorgeous one

• The entire idea of the story of Camelot as a tragedy but a hopeful one just gets me

• It's such a beautiful conclusion that this version sets up so so well

• I love that we end on a speech again, just like act 1

• Also that last bit of music as they walk off, stunning

• I have attempted to track down as many older productions of this show as I can including the movie which was good but I am biased and I do sort of think Sorkin and Bartlett Sher and the actors and everyone else involved had the more interesting take on the themes and characters

• A Broadway musical is best when it has simple but impactful themes and big emotions

• And that's exactly what this version gave us

• The highest compliment I can give this show is that not only have I not stopped thinking about it, not only did I tell everyone I know to see it, not only did I want to see the show again (and again and...), but it also just made me feel inspired to see more theater in a way I haven't in a serious while

• I just love this show so much and I'm so glad there are some people here who can't get over it either

• This is what I have to offer, the longest possible unhinged rant and bad quality closing audio, that is all

[hitting-the-apex]

we can run into the fire

Pierre Gasly x Daniel Ricciardo x Max Verstappen

Rating - E | 7.5k words | 1/1 | complete

Tags: F1 Wild Side's Wild Side Exchange 2023, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Pierre Gasly, Alpha Daniel Ricciardo, Alpha Max Verstappen, Mating Cycles/In Heat, stress heat, Mates, Scents & Smells, Mating Bites, Birth Control, Threesome - M/M/M, Blow Jobs, Cunnilingus, Finger Sucking, Double Penetration in Two Holes, Breeding kink if you squint, fantasies about mpreg (but no actual mpreg), Set between 2023 preseason testing and 2023 Bahrain GP, Omegas with dicks and vaginas

Summary:

“Holy shit, Pierre, you’re—?” Pierre’s team kit hung loosely between Esteban’s hands, dropping to the floor. Pierre could smell the shock laced in with Esteban’s salted caramel scent, the metallic note of copper sinking down to the back of his throat.

“Get the fuck out!” Pierre shoved Esteban out of the room, not thinking about the very real risk Esteban could run off and tell anyone willing to listen that Pierre was an omega.

No one was supposed to find out that Pierre was an omega. He was happy being F1's only beta. He was more than happy to live with that little white lie. But that damn new teammate of his just had to be his annoying self and not only discover that Pierre was an omega, but that he had two mates.

want to read? click here

[andorerso]

A YEAR IN FICS - 2022

time for one of my favorite New Year’s tradition: taking stock of all the fics I wrote this past year!

Operation Midnight Kiss: Jyn has a plan for New Year's Eve but an eager new recruit complicates things... (1/1)

i’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife: Holy shit. She fucked a hitman. Released from prison after three years, Jyn Erso is just trying to pick up the broken pieces of her life. But the man who catches her eye might not be exactly who he says he is. (1/1) Good Behavior AU. technically written in 2021 but I didn’t post it until later, so now I have to file this under 2022 which annoys me a bit because it skewed my word count for both 2021 and 2022.... but it is what it is

The Replacement Cass: Jyn has a new boyfriend which would be fine... if not for his name. (1/1)

touching the sun: After Jyn and Cassian escape Scarif, they're in limbo. Neither of them really know how to be close to each other. But when Jyn notices a strange bond developing between them that she can't explain, it forces them to acknowledge their true feelings... OR, the AU that's not quite soulmates, not quite not soulmates (2/2) Written for the Rebelcaptain Big Bang project, only second chapter was written in 2022.

Blood Red Rose: 1920, London. An unknown creature dubbed 'the Beast' is terrorizing the streets at night. Vampire hunter Jyn Erso and recently turned vampire Cassian Andor might just be the city's only hope to catch the monster... (22/26) chapters 18-22 written in 2022

home we’ll go: Cassian Andor only comes back to Ferrix for two things: to get Maarva and Bee, and to say goodbye to the people he cares about. Neither goes the way he expects it to. AU for episode 7: what if Jyn had grown up on Ferrix? (1/1)

Amas Veritas: Jyn's a young witch who's just trying to keep her head down. But when Orson Krennic returns to town years after he allegedly killed her father, she can't help feeling like this is her chance to get some payback. What's supposed to be a harmless hex quickly turns deadly, and Jyn must now make sure no one ever finds out what she did or risk going to prison. But the pull she feels towards Cassian Andor, the private investigator the Krennics have hired complicates matters, and it doesn't help that she's sworn off love years ago due to a nasty love curse that sits upon her family. On top of it all, Krennic's ghost might be haunting her... This Halloween is shaping up to be the worst one Jyn's ever had. (5/7) Practical Magic AU

fighting dragons with you: Jyn is injured during a dragon fight, and Cassian is not happy about it. (1/1) Written for the Rebelcaptain Trees exchange

a wolf at heart: She kinda wished she could take him home with her. Jyn, the wolf-tamer. How cool would that be? OR, Jyn's a college student with a crush but Cassian has some secrets (1/2) Written for the Rebelcaptain Secret Santa exchange

always, someday: Sleep… He wants to sleep so badly, but if he does, it means he’s failed. They promised him they’d let him rest if he just gave them the answers they wanted. But that’s not a price he can pay. He can’t betray the rebellion, he can’t give up their secrets, their names, their locations, their weaknesses, he can’t, he can’t, he can’t — He can’t say anything. And he can’t sleep. They won’t let him. (1/1)  Written for the Rogue One Crew exchange

Prompts, requests and drabbles:

I’ve made so many mistakes, but you’re not one of them

I need you to help me reach the top shelf

you’re worth any fight

can you give me a ride?

the lights don’t shine as bright when you’re not here

firefighters AU

single parent & teacher AU

Total works: 17 (15 new ones)

Total wordcount: 104 087

And I outdid myself again this year! I don’t think I’ll be able to replicate it again this year with my new job, but my writing goal for 2023 is to finally finish Blood Red Rose. wish me luck!

[banannabethchase]

✨Fic Writing Review 2023✨

Tagged by the lovely @aidaronan

Gonna put all this under a cut as it is a doozy. Me? Rambling? It's just as likely as you'd think from the everything about me.

Words and Fics

497,498 words published on ao3 (Jesus fucking Christ - that doesn't even count my ficlets)

101 fics published on AO3

Enough tumblr ficlets that I don't have the spoons to go back and count them all

3 in-progress fics that may or may not be in the yeeted into purgatory sometime soon

3 new fics in permanent purgatory

1 new fic that I killed within 500 words

9 series created/added to

Top 3 by kudos

Hungry Heart - HangMox, AEW

[tie between] Intrigue - HangMoxMatt, AEW and A Convenient Cancellation - HangMox, AEW

I Can't Promise Forever (But I'm Working On It) - HangMox, AEW

(Realizing now that holy cow do my HangMox fics do better than I thought. Also all of those were published before I put my account on lockdown, I think, so that contributes as well.)

Fandom Events in 2023

Threecount Exchange! I mean, it kicked in this year. Everything gets published and finished next year, but still, it counts!

Upcoming Projects

Threecount Exchange fic (no you will not get details mwahaha)

The final installment of the House of Black Magic series, which is also my final square on my Bingo Board

Days 10-31 of the December Prompt Challenge I for some reason made for myself, which includes the finale of a series (I shan't disclose which)

At least 4 more installments in the Matt Experiments universe

The teacher's AU I've been putting off for about a year

Writing reflection

What a frickin' year. I haven't been in a fandom like this since Scorpion which, for those who know, ended poorly for both the whole fandom and me as a person. I was unable to watch the season 4 premiere due to my Dad's death, and then it got cancelled before I could catch up. Jumping back into a fandom head first, after how miserable my last one ended, was scary but incredible.

I beat NaNoWriMo 3 times in one year for the first time since 2016. I wrote two novella length fics and a novel length fic from December 2022 until now. I've made friends with incredible people, learned how to use tumblr in a way that keeps me safe, and learned that I've grown past the person I was when I let other people drive me out of a fandom for writing fic in a way I enjoyed and being autistic. I feel safe in this fandom, not for the lack of drama (lord knows there's plenty of it), but because I've created for myself a space where I know I can trust the people I follow.

I am excited to vault headfirst into 2024. I have no predictions. I have no expectations. I just have hope, and I think that's enough.

But I really do hope I can keep writing, even if it's at a different pace from 2023.

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please do eat glass, I’ve heard it’s good for your gums.

Tagging [please view the rules! I think they are great rules!!! Except the glass thing, don't chew glass. If you don't want to do this, please feel free to ignore completely]: @sarahcakes613, @booboo-eyedbambi, @scissormedaddyass, @rosabellebelieve, @anairbri. As always, if you see this and want to try it, I tagged you :) (And if you don't want to do this, pretend I didn't tag you.)

[hausofmamadas]

| Always short to the gate |

⁂

Pairing: David Barrón & Enedina Arellano Félix

For my df, dear friend, and fellow writer @purplesong1028 - Candyhearts Exchange 2023

Word count: ≈ 7.8K

TWs: Canon-typical violence, descriptions of violence

✷Disclaimer - This is an AU version of Barron, to the point that mans is essentially my OC. So, for purposes of morality/sanity/all that is holy, we disregard Nmx - S3, ep8, Last Dance. For more details, refer -> here. On a similar note: if I have to say “not condoning/glorifying the real people” aka “I don’t sanction the real-life actions of drug cartels,” I implore thee, look where you are. You’re in the wrong place. Best take that elsewhere porque no hay bronca, for civility's sake, we will not be going there✷

Still, these were all things to wish for, not to have. What was left now? What if some things were better dreamt than done? David Barron is in love. He's in love and he does care who knows it. Particularly, if the brutal, savage cartel-boss brothers of the woman he loves, Enedina Arellano Felix, know it. But what’s he to do when he's taken by another powerful cartel leader, in retaliation for Dina's secret side-project moving coke across the Tijuana/San Ysidro border with fellow drug baroness, Isabella Bautista? In the face of a potentially more imminent death para su rayo de luna, can Dina afford to keep both him, and the business she built from the ground up, a secret?

⁂

So, this is it. I finally made it. Staring at the crowd, all the bigwigs laughing and clinking their champagne flutes, and now that I’m here, I can’t figure what all the fuss was about. Because in my whole damn life, I’ve never been to a party like this. Frankly, I’d sooner hit up a barbecue at Chato’s grandma’s trailer or a tailgate in Chicano Park, than show up willingly to a place like this.

The guest list is a family tree of Sinaloan-born narcos and an obnoxious who’s-who of Mexico City elites. Men come down from the ivory tower to grace all the thieves and plebes. Fat cats in pressed gray suits. Although, the champagne-glass pyramid is pretty cool. And somehow, this isn’t even as lavish as last year? At least according to Ramón. When we arrive, he explains that there was still all of well ... everything. But last year kicked off harder because Güero and Co rolled through with a life-size train and a tiger in a gilded cage. A fucking tiger.

“Pendejos only did it to kiss Miguel’s ass, que sean tan mamónes,” he growls, shooting a dead-eyed stare at Chapo across the lawn.

I laugh into the highball glass I’m sipping from. I don’t normally drink at events like this, and on the off chance I do, always a Corona with a lime ‘cause it reminds me of home. But thank you, no. I would not like to keep my tab open.

Except this time, the over-interested hostess practically forces a drink on me when we get there. No clue who she is either, except she must’ve been a high-roller herself or at least married to one, based on the obscene dress she’s wearing. Fuck if I know a thing about designer shit, but I can spot the difference between black-tie and fuck-you money. And I’m not in the habit of saying “no” to fuck-you money. Even if she is smiling and touching my shoulder too much.

My eyes wander, looking for Dina, brooding an invisible SOS into the night air, hoping she might swoop in and save me, but she’s nowhere in sight. Neither is Mín. I smack Ramón in the chest with the back of my hand. “Oye, dónde está tu hermana?”

He shakes his head.

The fuck did she go? The only reason I’m even at this glorified peacock-fest, and— oh wow, yeah, there are actual peacocks wandering around on the lawn by the lake. No tigers, but of course the night isn’t complete without some form of exploited wildlife. No, the only reason I’m here is because she asked me. Or rather, because of what came out when she asked me.

✺

Dina sat on Mín’s desk, legs dangled over the side, smoking a cigarette like always, and eyeing me slyly from across the room as I buttoned my shirt back up.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you?” I asked, readjusting my collar.

“What?”

“That it’s rude to stare.”

She threw her head back, laughing.

“Yeah, they must’ve had some lesson at whatever charm school you probably went to.”

Her mouth dropped open in mock outrage, “Charm school? No me digas esas shingaderas, hombre. I wasn’t as poor as you but we didn’t have that kind of money.”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, “Ah, tu lo sabes? Tienes razón. ‘Cause the working-class shit I’ve heard outta your mouth?” and shook my head. “They wouldn’t have let you in the building.”

She snapped her fingers. “Sí, David. Now he’s getting it.”

“Well, then that would explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“Why you don’t know it’s rude to stare at someone like that.”

Her voice shot up half an octave into the range of feigned innocence. “Like what?”

“Like they’re dessert.”

“Es solo porque eres tan dulce. Maybe I just can’t get enough. Maybe I have no choice.”

I looked up at her, smiling wide, all love-struck-stupid ‘cause I couldn’t help myself. “‘Can’t get enough,’ like you didn’t just get a three course meal.”

She kicked her heels against the desk, then hopped off and strolled over. I made a face when she flicked her cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. “Your brother’s gonna hate that.”

“Ya lo sé, y no me importa ni una mierda.”

“Oh, sí? Pues lo haría tampoco pero the second he sees it, he’ll think I did it.”

Voice dropping just above a whisper, she came closer, “If he does, he can take it up with me,” and slid her hands under my shirt. “It’s as much mine as it is his. More even.”

They felt cold through the thin, ribbed fabric of my undershirt, gliding around my waist, creeping around to brush my lower back with her fingertips. At first, I thought she was going for my pant pockets, until her thumb hooked around the handle of the gun in my waistband. It startled me in spite of myself.

She smirked, practically presenting it, barrel pointed up at the ceiling. “Sorry, were you gonna need this? Or can we remove the ‘fire’ hazard.”

Taking the gun and grumbling, “You know there’s a safety, right,” I leaned over and set it on the filing cabinet against the wall.

When I turned my attention back to her, she tightened her grip around my waist suddenly and backed me up against the door. She tried bracing with her other arm so I wouldn’t fall back too hard. It didn’t work. A second thud, my head smacking the door, followed the first of it slamming shut. Still, the though that counts, right? My pained smile complemented a look of amused pity on her face.

Laughing, she winced and mouthed, “Shit, sorry!”

“So, this is how you treat your employee—“ she cut me off with a few well-timed, remorseful kisses.

She pulled back breathlessly, grinning, almost electrified. “Yeah, why do you think I took your gun away?”

“Mmm, yeah, would’ve been a hazard.”

“That, yes. But mostly I didn’t want you to feel like you were on the clock,” she murmured against my mouth, “this isn’t meant to be company time,” then caught my lower lip gently with her teeth.

I sucked in a harsh breath, not a chance in hell of suppressing the feral rumble already escaping the back of my throat.

It might’ve been fine. I might’ve been able to tear myself away, because we’d already been there too long, nevermind it was never long enough.

Until her lashes brushed my cheek and I heard, “Ah, how I love to hear you, guapo.”

My heart bottomed out in my stomach. I got ahold of the collar of her jacket on both sides. Rocking her back, easy and gentle, I slid it slow off her shoulders. Goosebumps followed the path of my fingertips across her neck, collarbones, down the backs of her arms. The metal buttons clinked against the floor. A bell announcing another round.

And all of a sudden, I couldn’t get at her fast enough.

I swept my arm around her waist, hand sliding into the curve of the small of her back, the other palming the spot between her shoulder blades to flatten her against me. If I could just bring her close enough for us to melt together and into the wood grain of the door, the better to freebase the air she breathed, the smell of her hair, the blood rushing to her face.

How many nights had I spent awake, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling of my cell, dreaming of moments like this. I’d lost count a long time ago. And okay, maybe not exactly like this. The feeling. The wholeness to it. But not the details. Like I never could’ve predicted the boxy radio with the giant antenna that played from its sketchy spot on the window ledge, too close to the edge, day in and day out while we worked. Or the way the sun lit the dust in the air like the office was an attic in an old house that wasn’t ours. And Dina, all nimble fingers now, working my belt buckle. No way I could’ve dreamt her up. She was too complete for that.

Still, these were all things to wish for, not to have. What was left now? What if some things were better dreamt than done?

Suddenly self-aware, I wondered what it’d be like if just now, she could feel that inferno of memories at the tip of my tongue, burning through my lips to hers. If she could learn, inhaling every breath I took, things I’d share without saying a word. I wished she could. Maybe that’s why her kisses were so urgent now. Sharp, demanding, like she couldn’t get close enough. Like she’d occupy the exact same space if she could.

Let me in. Anything. Tell me anything.

She was funny like that. Didn’t even know how far she’d gotten. So much further than most.

Lips still locked to mine like cross examining a witness, her hands grazed my jaw, my neck, practically mauling the collar of my shirt to get the buttons undone. I should’ve known not to bother earlier. This was the way it went with us. Part of the ritual, pretending we were done. Getting ready to leave, all raw nerves in the afterglow. Anxious awareness, never far behind not-near-enough satisfied. Because no matter how careful we were, there was a chance we’d be caught all the same. But we were never ready. Not really. So, we’d stall enough to justify starting up again. Living in each other as much as we could. Wringing out every last drop to bottle it up, a fail-safe supply for later. Another bump, another hit to tide us over. ‘Til next time. If we got one.

She’d only made it two buttons down when we both froze. A crashing sound, loud echoes of metallic clanging. Fuck. Someone on the main floor. We repelled to opposite sides of the room before we could think long enough to be disappointed.

I fixed my shirt, then grabbed Dina’s jacket from the floor and tossed it to her. “You said no one was supposed to be here till tonight?”

She caught it, draping it over one arm so she could get her cigarette holder out of one of the pockets. Trying her level best to look composed, she took one out and lit up. But I could see the tells; beads of sweat on her forehead; that too-quick rise and fall of her chest.

Eyes wide, she shrugged, at a loss. “They’re not. Pancho’s with Món at the racetrack. Apparently betting against some new horse Güero and Chapo brought up from Mazatlán. Mín’s taking Ruth to one of her appointments.”

I walked to the window and looked out onto the main floor. It was easy to make out a head of black hair bobbing just beyond the giant, industrial-sized forklift, partially blocking my view. My eyes followed it along the top of the forklift’s arm until Nestor came out from behind it, puttering around and practically strangled by a few long chains from one of the trucks. He swore, dropping them again. Poor guy. The links jittering against the cement floor filled the warehouse with what sounded like twisted, metallic laughter. Mocking him. Us.

“Who is it?” She asked it like she wasn’t looking out the same window.

Without a word, I turned and walked back toward the door. She followed, “Pinshe Nestor, este wey,” waving her hand dismissively at the window.

I couldn’t resist. “Mmm right? Fuck that guy. Yea, go yell at him, chew him out, tell him why you’re annoyed.”

She narrowed her eyes but in that way she did when she was stifling a smile. When she knew I was right.

“You know, it didn’t occur to me until this moment.” Sighing and cupping my chin gently, she turned my face from side-to-side to examine it. “But I think I just realized why you’re so quiet.”

My eyebrow shot up, not a clue where she was going with this.

“It’s this smart mouth of yours,” she mused, grazing my lip with her thumb, “gotten you into too much trouble.”

I brought her hand from my cheek to my lips and hummed into her palm, “Mm, mhmm,” before nibbling a few besitos across. “Funny coming from you, always trying to get me to talk. But only when you like what I have to say.”

“Ay chulito pues, I didn’t say I minded it,” she winked. “Just not when it’s used against me.”

“Mm yea, don’t play that way. I’m an equal opportunity offender.”

At that, she laughed, eyes closed, full-out, no doubt loud enough to be heard on the first floor. Remembering Nestor, I let her hand drop but held onto the tips of her fingers. I couldn’t be sure how long we stayed like that, twining and un-twining our fingers in silence; every once in a while pressing palms together; two kids in the sandbox, comparing to see whose were bigger. If we’d never stopped, I wouldn’t have cared a lick.

Something must’ve hit her though because her face fell. Serious. Troubled. Thoughts descended in real-time, only I couldn’t make out what they were.

Until she breathed out, “Oye.”

It wasn’t like her to retreat but when I looked up, she said nothing else. Just chewed ferociously on the inside of her cheek. I waited, eyes drifting back down to watch our fingers and knuckles, still rhythmically locking and unlocking.

Breaking the silence, she gave it another shot. “Miguel’s party is on Saturday.”

“Yeah.”

There it was again, another retreat. What the fuck was she gonna say that she was so nervous to say it?

“And?”

It came out soft like a secret. “Go with me?”

Huh. Whatever I thought she might say, it sure as shit wasn’t that. Not … asking me to the dance? Disbelief chipped away at my usual poker face and without thinking, I blurted, “What? Why?”

Zero-to-sixty in four seconds flat and now she was fuming.

“Why? What do you mean ‘why?’”

Senseless. I knew it then. Should’ve walked it back. Found a better way to ask. But still, it was the only thing that came out of my mouth and all too matter-of-fact.

“I mean like ... why.”

Her jaw cocked to one side. She looked like she wanted to slug me. Because despite the fact that I wasn’t family, had never even met Miguel, had no business being there, somehow it was the dumbest question in the world.

“There’s—” I fumbled for words, raking my hand up and down the back of my head. “I just— why would I be there? You don’t need security. He’s the main man. No doubt he’ll have his own.”

“Because.”

“Because,” I shot back flatly.

“Because.”

“Think your brother, my boss, is gonna need more than ‘because.’ Even from you.”

“You’d be surprised.” She cracked a smile.

That’s right. Stubborn. Impossible. And she knew it. Like a reflex or muscle memory, my face settled into that thousand yard stare, the one she and so many others felt the need to decode.

She conceded, “Because. Okay?” throwing her hands up and letting them fall. They smacked her hips on the way back down and the rest came out in practically one breath. “Because even though he’s a genius and he’s technically family, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo is the most insufferable man in all of Mexico. I can’t stand him and I can’t stand almost everyone else on that fucking guest list. Así qué quiero que estés allí porque ya todos los odio. Pero a ti te quiero.”

Wait, come again? She didn’t just— no, but she did.

Pero a ti te quiero.

“Oh.”

I turned around, fell against the door, pressing into it with my forehead, and didn’t say anything for a long time. Mind searching for an explanation: the timing, why now? What day was it? What date was it? What was different about now?

I’d woken up in the same bed in that cramped apartment just down the street from Parque Teniente, the first one I could find when I got to Tijuana months ago. Woken up the same damn person. As far as I knew, so had she. There was nothing especially extraordinary about today. If anything it was routine, sneaking into Mín’s office when we knew no one would be there, away from prying eyes: Alicia, Ruth, their mother, the gaggle of Arellano women who always seemed to be at the house. Away from Pancho, who’d made a habit of passing out, snoring until three in the afternoon, on the pull-out couch at my place.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it sank in how unremarkable the day was. Maybe something happened. Some earth-shattering event she hadn’t told me about yet, something that would explain the sentence that just left her lips and turned reality into something like the dimensions of a funhouse mirror.

Shit, how long had I been standing there with my head against the door? How long had she been waiting? No idea. Did it matter? Of course it did. This wasn’t something silence could solve. Or even put off. Not that there was anything to solve.

I turned back around to face her, half-wincing, anticipating her fury. A satisfied smirk had settled in the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t mad. Just leaned against the desk, puffing away, which was ... odd. I scanned her face for any indication, clenched jaw, flared nostrils, blazing brown eyes, some sign of impending apocalypse. But no, she looked serene. Smug even, tickled at how surprised I was. No, she wasn’t mad at all.

Oh.

And it hit me. I could see it so clearly now in the way she stood with her hip out and how she held her cigarette off to the side, wrist lax, nothing to worry about. Why she wasn’t mad. She knew there was nothing to worry about. This wasn’t a confession. No grade-school picking petals off flowers, ‘he loves me, he loves me not.’ She hadn’t said it in the hopes that in return, she’d hear the same. Because it was plain as day. Fucking obvious. Not a doubt in her mind.

It was funny too ‘cause that had been sealed away in a vault in some deep, dark corner of my mind, cordoned off by an electric fence, wrapped in several yards of barbed wire and caution tape. WARNING. POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. I barely knew because I barely allowed myself to. That came easy as it always did. Or easier anyway than feeling and not knowing what to do, where to put it. So I barely knew. Maybe it was now that I only just realized it, in a fully-formed thought.

A ti te quiero también.

But it felt wrong, seemed to make the moment small somehow, if I were to say it out loud back to her. Forced for obligation, ceremony’s sake, and altogether pointless when she already knew.

So I just said, “Fine.”

Her eyes lit up, filled to the brim with, you really mean it?

“Yeah, fine, I’ll go.”

She beamed. My own personal sun.

“But you figure whatever fake reason to tell your brothers. I ain’t sayin’ shit.”

She squeezed my hand. Any tighter and it would’ve cut the circulation. Not quite the deliverance that launching at each other would’ve been, sweeping all the papers and supplies off of Mín’s desk, not giving a shit what broke as it hit the floor, buttons popping loose from my shirt and rolling on the ground as she tore it off, taking each other carnally hostage right there. But with Nestor still downstairs, it’d have to be enough.

✺

So here I am. And she’s missing in action.

A hand comes down on my shoulder. Ramón’s. “Mira nada más,” he chuckles pointing to Ms. Fuck-You-Money. “Esa chulita been eyeing you all night.”

I roll my eyes.

Món chokes out, laughing through a sip of champagne, “Ay qué duro, cabron. Good answer. Attention from a woman like that? That’ll get you killed, or worse.”

Lost, I shoot him a look of confusion. “What’re you talking about?”

“Wait d— you don’t know who that is?”

I stare at him through half-lidded eyes.

He can barely contain his amusement and I could bust that Cheshire-cat smile wide open for it, the chistoso. See, ‘cause it’s something I’ll never understand but Ramón lives for shit like this. How many times I wished I felt the same or could at least access some similar well of couldn’t-give-a-fuck charisma that allowed the kid to cut loose, no matter where he went. Unless he was in one of his moods. Still, his glee is infectious if not foreign. So despite being miffed, I’m grateful he’s here.

“That’s— okay, that’s Miguel’s wife, Daniela.”

“Thought her name was like Marta? María? Something else?”

“Oh nooo, no, no, no.” Ramón jiggles his head back and forth. “That’s his first wife. This is his second.”

My eyebrows shoot up.

“Yeah, right?” Món shrugs. “Tío moves fast apparently. Upgraded to a new model already. Personally, I don’t get it. Should’ve stuck with the classic. And María,” he looks at me and whistles, “qué clásico.”

We both watch Miguel work a group of sleazy-looking politicians. I don’t need to be up close to imagine how badly they reek of too-expensive, tacky cologne, or how clammy their hands are, sweating because they’ve been mainlining too much sauce and blow. My eyes drift to Daniela who’s pointing around theatrically to the outdoor decor. Like her husband, she’s smooth-talking another group of guests.

That’s when it clicks. As she dances from a group of Senators, to a group of financial hacks, to a group of mid-level distributors, I can’t help but think how busy bees flit. Flower to flower, pollinating each one. Stroking the right egos, smiling, leaving a hand on a shoulder just long enough to make them think they might have a shot with the big man’s wife. From everything I’ve heard about Miguel, he might let them, for the right price. That fact fills me with equal measures of sadness and relief. Sad for her. Relief to know it’s a hustle, an award-winning performance. Though why she’s been wasting time on me, a friend of the Arellano family at best, low-level Arellano goon at worst, is anyone’s guess.

“Seems she’s like that with everyone.”

“Oh no, carnal. With you? That shit’s real. She knows you’re with us.” Ramón reaches for my face like he’s about to pinch my cheek. “Not some rich politician’s secret love child.”

“Ey, no mames, cabrón.” I swat it away with a smirk, so he knows we’re simpatico. “You and Pancho always fixin’ to get me in more trouble than I’m ever looking for.”

I think of Dina just then and how it’s possible for lies to lag like that sometimes. Feeling like truth ‘til the words are well outta your mouth.

As if anxiety’s summoned her to me, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Dina walking toward us. On her way over, she grabs a drink from a guy standing by the bar holding two champagne glasses, someone she mistakes for a waiter. Based on the beet red look on his face, he turns to be a guest. He flips out and at first, Dina looks ready to apologize and move on. No big deal.

It’s not until he starts pointing his finger in her face, “Qué verga, vieja? No soy un pinshe mesero,” that I glance at the ground to hide a smile. I know what’s coming but this poor bastard doesn’t. It’s always satisfying to watch Dina work, handling men who make mistakes like that. No doubt it’d be a scathing indictment but never done in the same way. Refreshing, that kind of variety. I always respected it.

She leans back, eyeing the guy up and down, then walks over, purposely slow, all the time in the world, to a real waiter holding a tray. Grabbing a new glass, she walks back and shoves it into the guy’s hand, taking extra care to make sure it spills on his jacket. Beads of sweat and outrage pour from him, as he looks down at his damp lapel in disgust.

She waves her index finger back and forth between them, “Listo, pues. Ya estamos?” and points at Ramón next to me. “Or shall I have my brother, Ramón—“ she waves, “Hi Món! Yeah, that one. The tall one over there. Shall I ask him to step in, help mediate the matter?”

Everyone’s eyes shoot straight to Món who, on cue, flashes a smile so diabolical, the devil himself would’ve tipped his hat in appreciation. Still fuming, the guy brushes the front of his jacket and straightens his collar but says nothing.

“Aye,” Dina punctuates with a dip of her head. “Es lo que pensaba."

And that seems like the end of it until she a twenty out of her wallet in that impossibly tiny purse. “Ey, next party you go to, if you want to avoid being confused with the catering staff, maybe don’t wear a dinner jacket. It’s a nice house, sure. Not the fucking Met.”

The guy is mute, shocked as she slips the bill in his breast pocket and glides away. Even a few feet away, I can already see her rolling her eyes and giggling as she makes her way to us.

Ramón says, cackling, “I thought maybe you were going to ask for a bottle there, crack him over the head with it,” as she gives him a kiss on the cheek.

“No, no. We couldn’t embarrass our tío querido could we. Besides,” she gives a cavalier wave toward the guy, “Drastic measures like those are reserved for Chapo. Or Cochi.”

I look at the two of them standing with Güero on the other side of the DJ platform. They look like they’re enjoying themselves about as much as I am.

I make eye contact with Güero briefly before I feel another hand on my shoulder. Dina’s?

“What no hug for me?”

I catch her awkwardly with one arm, stiffening as she pulls me in too close and for too long.

“Woo,” Món hoots. ”Creo que Enedina ha tomado un poquito demasiado."

She bats him in the arm. “Ay que no, if you’d had the conversation I just had with Mín, you’d be chugging this,” she knocks back the last few sips of champagne, then holds up the glass, “like water too.”

“Why? What happened?”

”Oh nothing, he just–“ she lets out a hefty sigh. “Just rolled over for Miguel like he always does.”

Before Món can ask anything else, Dina’s face lights up at someone behind him.

All drunk swagger, Pancho waltzes over, a drink in each hand, yelling, “Estos cabrooooones. I been looking all over for you.”

He sidles next to Ramón, who reaches for the other drink in his hand. He pulls back. “Qué shingadas? I didn’t bring this for you.”

Món pulls a face like Pancho just kicked over a sandcastle he spent hours building.

I hold my hands up in defeat, chuckling, “Ey I didn’t ask him to bring me anything. Knowing this pruno-king, I bet they’re both his.”

“Y esto? Esto es porque es mi compa. Él me conoce,” Pancho slurs, with a tipsy smile, eyes half shut.

“Qué pedo, is everyone drunk here besides me?” Món catches me smiling and rolls his eyes. “Tú no, rarito. You don’t count.”

Glancing at the crowd around us, Pancho asks “Where’s Mín?” and stumbles back, nearly planting his ass on the lawn.

He grabs Món for support, who already looks startled as Dina shoves her empty glass at him. “Who cares? Yo quiero bailar,” she declares, grabbing my hand.

She yanks me with such force, I wonder if I look like one of those Loony Toons characters, a regular Beaky Buzzard swept offscreen by Bugs Bunny with a giant cane.

Behind us Pancho and Ramón are busting up laughing. “Panchito, I think she might be drunker than you are.”

Pancho holds up one of his drinks in salute. “Aaaaaayyy órale, mi brujita!”

My hand firmly in hers, Dina shimmies around the other couples on the dancefloor. When she finds a spot she deems satisfactory, she turns and snaps me towards her, gliding her hand up my right arm to my shoulder, and moving my left around her waist. I’m lost in static. My heart’s beating fast. Too fast, like a hummingbird caught all up in my chest and each beat of its wings jolts my rib cage, while it tries to jailbreak outta there.

And it’s not the proximity that’s got my blood up, really. It’s her. It’s rare to see Dina overflowing with this kind of reckless joy. So rare in fact, there’s a gravity to it, a pull magnified by irregularity, that makes it harder to resist. In tandem with the music, I’m goner, already falling into it. But what does any of it matter, when I know how she feels now. Just the same as me.

✺

We finish with a dip, and the blurry wall of lights and onlookers, among them the suspicious face of Mín, the curious face of Ramón, and the drunk glassy eyes of Pancho, become crystal clear again, as I bring Dina back up. The song changes and I let go, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. Making my way off the dancefloor, she follows close, reassuring in a low voice, “It’ll be fine, amor. They know I’m tipsy.”

“Yeah. And they know I’m not.”

Although— I look over at the bar. Fuck it, I could fix that now. Before we can reach Mín, Món, and Pancho, standing by the DJ booth, I tear through the crowd, right to the bar. Fuck any rules. This is Def Con One and that lapse in judgment could only be reasonably explained to the Arellano boys by both of us being shitfaced. I flag down a bartender.

“Shot of tequila.”

“What kind?”

I eye him coolly. “Whatever. Dealer’s choice.”

Willing myself not to be too twitchy, conspicuous, I glance around to make sure Benjamín hasn’t sicced Món on me. That look of disapproval on his face is going to be seared to the backs of my eyelids for days. Maybe weeks. Not a chance in hell that he’d overlook that display. As far as Ramón, who looked more intrigued than anything, jury’s still out. Might be he’d follow Mín’s lead. That is, unless Dina were to intervene, which– that’d be something she’d have to do. I’d never ask her. Not an option. That leaves Pancho who’s unlikely to give a shit. Or if he did, he’s too drunk now to make a show of it. But no, even sober, we’ve been homies through and through. He’d have my back. Maybe the only one.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Christ, all of it, already a fucking mess. It hasn’t spilled out entirely from my head onto the world, but only a matter of time.

A whistle from someone a barstool away interrupts the game of 3D chess I’m playing with myself, trying to compute then varying combinations of factors and events that could end me. I’m so in it, it takes me a beat to even realize they’re whistling at me.

“Ey, dónde aprendiste a bailar como eso?” someone asks quietly, in familiar but strangely-accented Spanish.

I turn to shoot a fuck-off stare to whoever, but when I’m met with the sight of an odd-looking, half-bald, ginger dude in jeans, a denim jacket, and a pair of Jordans that probably cost more than my first car, I’m taken aback by the expression on his face. Strange-like, fondly admiring, but more like he’s observing a zoo animal, exotic as those peacocks waddling across the lawn, than a person.

“Viene de familia.”

All the odd guy says is, “Ah,” and then proceeds to fiddle with the toothpick in his mouth and survey the crowd.

Based on how he’s dressed, it’s clear this dude isn’t a regular guest. If I had to put my money on anything? Sicario. No question. Because even though he doesn’t have the trademark hyper-vigilance, coiled up tight, a piston ready to pop, the strange little homie does have a cracked look I recognize. Like he doesn’t need to be on-guard because he’s past the point of feeling much beyond general amusement.

I’d come up with a couple guys like this back home. Met even more of them in prison. You could tell who they were because they didn’t pretend to be concrete copies of themselves. Already born steel people, they never needed to bother with the mandatory, self-imposed identity mutilation necessary to survive in the Petri dish of the California Department of Corrections. But the most interesting thing about them? Scary as they could be, they’re also some of the more honest criminals I’ve dealt with. At least, those who’re murder-for-hire, not murder-for-fun.

Spotting the shiny, engraved handle of a pistol in his waistband, I whistle, “Nice, .357?”

He doesn’t take it out to show it off, just flashes a slinky, joker smile. “You got a good eye.”

“Likewise. Dope piece.”

Yeah, definitely more than your average muscle. The real pros don’t tend much to show and tell. But who the guy works for, I can’t figure exactly. Given that I had to give up my own weapon before we came through, I’m guessing he’s Miguel’s muscle. Looking over at a doorway filled with the broad shoulders and Fabio-like hair of Miguel’s top security guy, Tony, I try picturing these two working together and have to stifle a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Eh, it’s too hard— it’s nothin’.”

The strange homie responds with an amused snort but doesn’t press further. We go back to our mutual but silent surveillance. I can’t see the Arellanos anywhere, but I do spot the Sinaloa crew making their way to the exit by the bar. The weird little guy waves at them like they’re the oldest of friends. I nearly give myself whiplash, looking back and forth from Strange Homie to Güero and Cochi’s pained smiles and an outright look of disgust from Chapo.

“Those are the guys who brought the tiger last year,” Strange Homie helpfully explains, still waving.

“Man, everyone keeps telling me about that tiger. Guess I missed out.”

“You weren’t here last year?”

Still looking around for Ramón, I shake my head, stating absentmindedly, “Haven’t been to any kinda shit like this in my life.”

If Benjamín hadn’t already put him up to cutting me into little pieces, I would’ve at least expected Món to be hot on the heels of the Sinaloa crew, if only to berate, and harass, and swear at them as they’re leaving. And yet, he’s nowhere. Shoot, maybe Mín decided not to even bother chasing me down, and they just bounced. Left me there. Dina would be pissed but all things considered, I’d be getting off lightly. Compared to other possibilities. Could I be so lucky?

I turn my attention back to Strange Homie.

A jackal-like grin brightens his whole face. “Yeah, you did miss out. I got to feed it.”

“Big animal fan, huh?”

Strange Homie considers the question seriously as though it requires an answer, deep or existential in some way. But what he comes back with is relatively simple. “I guess, apex predators, yeah.”

“Easiest to relate to?” I joke.

The jackal smile back again as he exclaims, “Exacto!” Only this time, it bears sincerity that makes it more endearing than unsettling.

I raise my shot glass, saluting, “Makes sense to me.” An implied given what I know about you, unsaid in the air as I knock the shot back. Strange Homie likely knows, has probably been profiling my own profiling this whole time.

“So, you are not from around here?” Strange Homie ventures, as I catch the bartender’s attention to order another shot.

“From Guadalajara?”

Strange Homie shrugs and nods.

“Nah. You?”

He says with a knowing smirk, “Do I sound like I’m from Guadalajara?”

I shake my head, chuckling to myself. The bartender brings another shot and I put it away, perfunctory, then bite into the lime. It’s so sour, I feel shooting pangs in the sides of my mouth and tongue. The sensation of pain, concrete and tangible enough to focus on, brings me back to me.

I wipe my mouth and clear my throat. “You don’t sound like you’re from Guadalajara, but I got a few camaradas back home who sound kinda like you. Colombianos.”

“Good eye. Good ear,” Strange Homie notes, a hint of approval in his voice.

“The melting pot of America.”

“Ah, entonces eres un gringo?”

“Te has visto, hombre? De donde vengo, eres más gringo que yo.”

I half-expect Strange Homie to be offended but he just snickers and nods in agreement. “Pues, tal vez tengas razón. Supongo que quiero decir que eres un gabacho.”

“Close enough.”

“Well gabacho, un placer. Yo soy Navegante.” He reaches out to shake hands.

I extend mine tentatively, “David Barrón.”

As we stand there, forearms bobbing up and down slowly, a look of calculation and sorrow fills Strange Homie’s eyes. Something about it, and the way he says, “You seem like a cool guy. I wish we hadn’t talked so much.” I can’t quite put my finger on why it makes my stomach drop.

Fuck. Dina. Where are they. The Arellanos. Makes no sense. Been nowhere this whole time. Fuck. The empty spot where my gun usually sat in my waistband screams at me like a phantom limb. I try freeing my hand from Navegante’s, who holds on like a vice and laments, “I am glad you got those shots of tequila in though. Since we both know how bad this will hurt.”

My teeth grind into my lower lip so hard, I taste blood. And yet, it still does fucking nothing to ease the sting of surprise as the knife sinks into my stomach.

✺

Everything after that happens in slow motion. He must’ve carried me out at some point and anyone who saw me doing shots at the bar just assumed I was wasted. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost. Enough that it feels like I’m moving through molasses when they chuck me in the backseat of that town car. Or is it a limo? The seats are facing each other like in a limo. Or maybe I’m molasses because of the booze. If not the booze exclusively, it definitely isn’t helping, blood thinning as it is. Fucking stupid. So stupid. In my life, had I ever been so stupid?

Although, I have to give it to Strange Homie— what was his name again? Navegante? — it’s been ages since someone got the jump on me like that. Since I was a kid probably. He’d been decent enough about it too, although I could’ve done without the stick in the gut. A few inches higher, he might’ve fractured a rib, but I might have more my full faculties. But no, this guy knew what he was doing. It’d landed exactly where he’d wanted it to.

Fingers wrestle with the tie at my neck, ripping it off, and it’s not until I bring it down to put pressure on the wound in my stomach that I realize those fingers are mine. The other courtesy Navegante had done? Strange Homie left the knife in. Although, whether that’s so I wouldn’t bleed out as fast or if it’s so he could further torture me by twisting it, is unclear. So much of it is unclear. I try going back, retracing every step leading up to the point I’d been stabbed but my brain’s stuck in quicksand. If I live to see tomorrow, I’ll have to take some kind of blood oath to never touch another drop of alcohol again. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Dina. Where is she. The Arellanos. They’d disappeared. Where the fuck was Dina. The panic, the cortisol, like a defibrillator at my chest, shocking me more awake, as I pack the fabric of my tie around the knife to soak up the blood. Forgetting myself, I reach behind for my gun and grumble at the empty spot where it normally is. Should be. Stupid. So. fucking. stupid.

I hear voices outside the car. No gun, no way out, no idea where anyone else is, where I am now, no choice but to accept it. So I just lean back against the seat, keeping pressure on my stomach and wait patiently for what’s to come.

When the door finally opens, I expect to be met with Strange Homie, Navegante’s jackal grin but instead it’s a taller man, a lot more normal looking, with dark eyes and a full head of hair. No one I recognize though and he’s someone I’d remember, considering he’s one of the most sharply dressed motherfuckers I’ve seen outside a movie. He slides in to sit across from me and grabs a file that had been laying on the seat next to him.

He reads from it calmly, soothingly business-as-usual. “I do apologize for the harsh introduction, Señor Barrón Corona. Navegante said you were nothing but gentlemanly prior to his stabbing you.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat and on reflex, the muscles in my stomach clench around the blade. Like I’ve stepped onto the worst elevator ride, my throat feels like it’s in my head. Just blistering, white-hot agony. A jagged inhale drags down the back of my throat and I try not to pass out. “S’funny,” I cough out, “was just thinking the same thing.”

“Please know, this isn’t personal. Or rather, not for me. I suspect it’s very personal for your employer.” He looked up from the file, smirking. “Or I suppose, that’s the idea.”

My employer? The fuck was Benjamín going to be upset about? Me with a knife in my gut in the backseat of whatever big-shot, cartel guy’s car?

“Banking on the wrong strategy there,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

The man looks up from the file again, waiting for me to explain further.

“No love lost between my employer and me.”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

He says this with such assurance, it becomes apparent that this whole scheme, whatever it is, whatever game this guy’s playing, this shit is well above my pay grade. No point trying to outmaneuver when my head’s still in quicksand and I don’t even have the fucking rulebook.

“But you answer to the whole family, no?”

I roll my eyes and slump my shoulders, too tired to summon a real response.

“David Barrón Corona. From Logan Heights, San Diego, California. Says here you were born in Tijuana, but your parents are naturalized citizens. Which would give you—” he licks his forefinger and flips a page. “Ah yes, dual Mexican-American citizenship. Oh, your father was in the navy? Why does it seem the best sicarios come from military families. Someone should do a study.”

“Eh, eres un soldado either way.”

The man smirks and continues reading. “Two brothers, one older Matteo Barrón Corona, deceased. And one younger, Julian Barrón Corona, incarcerated, life no parole. And your mother— hmm, we don’t have much on her.”

I clench my teeth so hard, it feels like I have a charlie horse in my jaw. Willing my stomach muscles to relax, I ease off the middle console with my elbow to lean against the window and breathe out a, “Wow.”

The man takes out a cigarette and pops it between his lips, mumbling, “Qué?” as he lights up.

“Just— I dunno. Seems a lotta paperwork for somebody who’s nobody. Whose asset are you, DoD, CIA?”

The man shakes out his match and cracks a window on his side to toss it out. “Ah, see, but that’s the thing, David— may I call you David?”

I nod listlessly.

“David, do I seem to you like someone who’d waste so much time, go to all this trouble if you were a complete nobody?”

“Can’t say. We just met.” We’re well past politeness. I’m already bleeding all over this guy’s Oxford leather seats.

But instead of insulting him, he cuts up, laughing deep and full. “Funny, discerning—tonight’s little encounter notwithstanding. And from what I hear, an excellent shot, a competent sicario.”

I snort loud enough that he pauses to say, “What is that? False modesty? Don’t bore me before we’ve gotten started.”

“No. I am as good as you’ve heard probably. But that’s not the point.”

Dragging slowly from his cigarette, he brushes a bit of ash that’s fallen on his pant leg, then looks up, fixes his eyes on me, and says, “Enlighten me, then.” He’s the cat. I’m the ball of yarn. It doesn’t even matter.

“Any sicario worth a shit knows it doesn’t matter how good you get.“

“Why’s that?”

A gotcha-type smile spreads across my face for the first time in what feels like ages. “’Cause however good I may be, I’ll always be expendable. Guys like me are always short to the gate.”

And just when I think I’ve got him, for some reason, that warms up those cold brown eyes of his, as though I’ve proven his point more than my own. He bobs his head toward the window where Navegante stood guarding the car. “Well, that may be true of most in your line of work. But I asked my man out there, and he seems to think you’re good people. I’m putting together the picture of you, beginning to understand the appeal, what she sees in you.”

“Why. You hiring?”

“Oh no, no,” he chuckles lightly, “you’re of no use to me that way. No, the fact of the matter is,” then clicks his tongue against the inside of his cheek, “you’re right. Some are more expendable than others. But at the finish line, when death comes to collect, really, we’re all expendable.”

If this guy doesn’t reach some point, some punchline soon, I swear I’m gonna yank this knife out myself, happily bleed out all over the place just to reach some definitive conclusion.

”But here and now? To one with a little power and something I need? You David, are much less expendable than you think.”

The hell is he even talki— oh, fuck.

What she sees in you.

It echoes in my ears until it detonates, like pulling the pin on a grenade in my head, shrapnel ricocheting on the inner walls of my skull, just as I’m trying to piece it together.

My boss. Personal. Dina. You answer to the whole family, no? The guy’s practically been explaining it from the beginning. I’ve just been too dead in the head to make sense of it.

“Ah yes, there it is. And now that you’re caught up with the rest of the class, allow me to formally introduce myself.” The man places his hand on his chest, bowing his head. “I’m Pacho Herrera.”

Yup. This is way the fuck above my pay grade.

[clown-reads-homestuck]

1-50

First real post of my readthrough of homestuck! Just getting right into it.

It's so funny that some random user just named his ass John Egbert.

I really miss the style of just importing really crusty jpegs of real objects into your artwork. It speaks to the mid 2000s newgrounds user that still dwells in my decrepit soul. We should bring this back.

This seems like a nightmare of a narrative device to write around. Though I guess I understand it because it kinda deters just picking up everything.

Do it John. Shit on your desk. This animation is super cute though.

What the hell is the background image supposed to be on this. Also GODS I would kill for a computer screen like this.

Having war flashbacks to when my IRL WoW friends would use the term loot in public like it was nothing. This is the real relic of this era. Also what the fuck kind of username is turntechGodhead. It's probably a reference I'm not getting but I've never seen the term godhead used outside of elder scrolls lore.

This is so quaint in 2023, I mean who doesn't know what piss tastes like. Also this whole exchange makes absolutely no sense if you haven't seen Little Monster starring Howie Mandel and Fred Savage. does Howie pee in a kids mouth in that movie???

I have vague memories of people talking about monocles so much more often when I was a growing up. I feel like the internet had more of a fascination for them back then because fake rich people made us less pants shittingly angry. Also this is such an early 2010s level humor joke jeez.

I thought this motherfucker was TOM from Toonami. Also COOL CLICKABLE pages, I didn't even know this had that. Least not this early on.

This hideous book is a joy to look at. It reminds me of the weird intermission screens in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I misread this as making me so hard all the time. I almost blacked out.

This is a lot more word salady than I expected. That's not really a negative though

Not gonna lie a magazine like this would do numbers nowadays. It's kind of weird that a little bit of bro culture kinda just became normal culture for dudes generally. I wonder Andrew Hussie had something specifically against GamePro at the time or if it was just for the pun. Also John why do you own this magazine.

Yooo CLOWN TIME. I guess Harlequins in this case but still I didn't expect clown stuff to start showing up this early. I know Hussie is a clown eboy or something nowadays so I knew they had to be in this.

I would be bing chilling in this living room dude, this is so cozy. Also wtf does John's dad do to afford this happening pad.

Final page! This is pretty fun so far. Stare into the flames John, let your hate go stronger.

Till next time anyone who actually reads this blog!

[violetbmuse]

Written in Telegram 10/10/2023

XX

Marla. This who I most resonate with at this point on my journey. Thanks Tyler.

If I made this statement to the entirety of random people who I've let into my life since social media's INCEPTION, what would they each think?

Eye MUSE.

Independently. In assessment. About HOW I ACTUALLY WAS.

Ya know, MY MENTAL WELL BEING.

Those who actually know who Marla is, and depending on their INNERstanding of Fight Club's Higher Esoteric layers, each would have their own take away as to whether I was mentally stable at this point.

I get that. I truly do.

STILL, do not give one 🕊️ flying fuck.

How

Does

That

Make

You

FEEL

????

That eye BEE the perceived lunatic to any who encounter me Now. I'm different. Darker.

Where did The Cosmic Mama go?!?!

👽

Will she ever return? Will this foul creature, this mad Kraken Beast goes awayyyy??

I was (still am beyond the violet rage) nicer.

What a wonderful place to be withIN my own INNER PEACE & OUTER EXISTENCE.

In ease. Not dis eased.

Two 🐝 BEE *that* aligned with Go(o)d and what is RITE for me feels incredible.

No other is supposed to get MY sacred journey with Creati9n. That is Mine, dummies. Not your biz at all, ya sea? I swim places y'all won't go cause ya won't go through the warren 🐰 of collective * personal Shadow.

That happens First. It takes a big ass mirror 🪞 to show you the realITy of the LI(f)E you live.

Wake the fuck up, Alice. 🧝

I WILL continue to create chaos and havoc in the lives of others around me as I continue to unravel the collective conditioning and its clutching tendrils, through my own shadow reckoning. I had to face the stuff I didn't wanna see, and face the consequences. The Wyrk is intense.

As eye do my deeper Wyrk, I sea and counter the spell. Brainwash mysELF back to

Divine 💙 Blue 🔵 Print

And HERe I sit, watching as the system I work my ass.off.to.get.free.from....THEY continue to co-sign and comply with. CONsent to. 🙃

I can't even pretend it isn't agonizing every damn day.

Sew.

I ain't looking to get back into your filthy beast system. I'll stay feral and repulsive. Deeply aligned with Go(o)Dness and the Mother. SHE provides.

Green paper 💵 in a materialistic world can make things like having a phone to write my musings into ...easier. So exchanging some quartz I've foraged for a little cash 💰 connects me. To y'all. Otherwise. Oh. I'd be SO Go(o)d with NO phone at this point. For a while.

But even that ain't necessary. Folks barter more and more.

🕊️ I live free. Wanna be freer every day. Don't care if you don't agree with HOW.

8 years nomadic worn, has only brought forth MORE of my own inner Morrigan. She's repulsed by stupid humanity wanting to remains tuck under the spells of evil magicians. Imprisoned.

My innocent, pure hearted self seas the highest potential always. The untainted virgin.

My holy mother who LOVES AND HOLDS THEM ALL SEW FUCKING MUCH EVERY MOMENT, WYRKING ONLY FOR A WYRLD WHERE THEY WILL BE TEULY FREE....weeps. As they all wish I'd be someone easier to manage and understand again. Miss and love y'all. 👁️

My whore self tho? Nah. Fuck all y'all bitches.

I've been it, seen it, survived it. Been fucked deep in this life. I'm hardened. And soft. Both.

Eden is real. I'm IN it. Living it. It's for you too.

Get off your asses and fight for YOURS.

THAT'S WHY THE HOLY TROUBLE MAKERS ARE HERE. What did you think angelics looked like, really? FFS. You're living in a self.imposed HELL PIT!

You're the fucking change. Where is your flaming, ragey s/word of righteous indignation being directed? Warrior?

Beating up your nearest and dearest? As you feel the undertow of the world around you that you're not doing a damn thing to change?

I PUSH ...FOR YOU To find the places where Programming and indoctrination ALSO kept me bound within a domed, limited conscious awareness.

You magnetized me to YOU. To sea where you're stuck. 🪞 That's why it seems I piss you off by simply stating a damn different opinion than your collective agreement to a program.

But it ain't just me. Others like me are everywhere. We made us. Summoned the Olde Ones who now gotta bring Holy Fyr and be means. Sew many of us are HERe now. And we pissed. You. Gotta. Become. The. Hero.

It ✨ STARts at bEarth.

Wyrd. Doctrine. BeLIEf.

Filth. Designed to make us feel LESS.

We are EQUAL IN OUR DIVINITY.

I've become someone deplorable to them, you. All.

I won't go back to being less than I am now.

Until all those who are left behind and fallen through the cracks are raised and loved. We must beCome MORE Loving, not less.

This is who I'm to be now.

For MY Soul lesson plan.

I don't know yours! I'm HERe to bring down the Roman empire. Back to complete freedom for all. Nothing less is acceptable.

Pick a team? Fuck y'all.

Trump. Q. Kennedy. Musk. Love em all, or their versions, they're amazing portals to UNRAVEL PROGRAMMING and learn INCREDIBLE discernment skills. Thank you! But I don't know nor care to know any of these MF'ers. Personally.

Nah. They're illusion. Masked persona. And thinking a materialistic based name or lineage means a thing in the spirit realm is folly. Eye dew trust fEELs tho. Slimy places tell me. Or they do GNO(t). I allow for it all to be true, while beLIEving nothing to be true out any other's mouth. I do me. I trust me.

I love who I am. This is who I reMain.

I'll come into your world. I'll visit.

But plz know, due to YOUR unresolved shadow as to why YOU CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE TO STAY IN A BEAST SYSTEM...

and the fact YOU had to ask someone to limit their words to what makes you feel comfortable....well...that's okay. 👍

I get that. You can ask.

I'll even do it, tone it down, while I'm there. Around you.

Briefly.

🔥 Til my Soul wails 🐳 from having to hold back my own contribution, not to convince, but xpress. That's all. One more equally valid, and ALSO DIVINE perspective to consider. If you feel it's *too much* for another to

...speak ...their...truth...

that's not mine, Jack. Allllll yours. I don't do that.

Everyone's perspective is sought and welcomed for equal consideration. I'm not that easily influenced by the words of others. Words and fiery discussion do not frighten me. I feast with the deplorables. And THAT IS how I know I'm okay. On my own right side, what's rite for me.

ANYONE is welcome at my table. 💞

☀️ I LOVE THAT FUCKING BIG.

Any

Mother

Fucking

One

Bring it.

We roll.

I'm Go(o)d.

I left the matrixed world with intention, and the vagabonds, criminals, and junkies...the social pariahs and outcasts, have HELD ME as I've roamed ♾️ 8 ♾️ years without one physical hOMe. Changed.

Some same broken. I say Ree bEarthed 💀

The FREE kin who I seek counsel (save a few Northern Warriors from the Tundra) and spend the majority of the time ARE THOSE FOLKS SNEER AT.

I don't tell others what they can or cannot say. Say it.

It's welcome.

If YOU tell me what I can't say, be sure I'll be saying it LOUDER and with an ever more clear and purified channel ELSEWHERE outside your presence.

I built 17 🌪️ Starr Gates in the past few weeks since I said fuck FB and Insta.

Been reclusing. Looking for a place to write. To channel. To let Wyrd flow.

Which brings me to the point of the wind 🌬️ blowing in 🌿 ☀️ 🍀 and through me HERe.

The Wyz danced with the pups earlier, delighting in AI picking the EXACT songs for his spiritual lesson of the moment.

We shared a bowl of resin, we live moment to moment. He shares his disability check with me when I move in deep channel. I'm shit for the Earth plane(t) when I fly with the Holy Ghost. SHE and eye do a delicious dance as One. ⭕

💰 is tight. But a Wyz will scratch up some celebratory Go(o)ds. We smoke MOTHER'S Medicine when we can. Tobacco to Canna to Sassafras. 🌿

♾️8♾️

year

Anniversary

Of

ShanZa

Merlin and Morgana

Zues and Hera

Hades and Persephone / Hecate

Harry and Hermione

Stevie and Lindsey

Zena and Hercules

We dew different WYRK on different planes.

I told him, apparently Elvis lives in Benton Arkansas and is a preacher. We live in OZ, on the ARK too. Neighbors with Elvis!

Also told him I played the link 🔗 of this ELVIS GUY doing said sermon, and my takeaway?

I'd listen to him, this WYZARD, the One Rite HERe IN OZ 🌪️~ that I GNO and fEEL into, speak HIS DraGon FyR s/Word 🗡️ when that RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD moves through him....any.fuckin.day.

Over Elvis.

Wut. 😂

Truth!! He MUves my Fyr.

The system has been no friend of his. His truth and Fyr and pure. When he stomps his 🦶 it is felt deep in the Soul. The wrongdoings.

I've loved him as MUSE and best friend for ♾️8♾️ years.

He is beyond any word. He just is. Wyzard is too miniscule a description for his medicine. Mirror. Unwavering in rite natural law. Free Will for all. 💞

10/10/2105 I sent 📤 him a random message on FB.

I was 10 months in to giving everything I owned away to live nomadically. Done with matrix.

Now, we hang about Oz.

He moves nomadically as well.

We Nest HERe n tHERe. Mama provides.

And this. I'm doing all this online creation stuff.

17 new lands I've visited.

I BEE Creatrix.

Building. More.

When I build, Go(o)d guides and I just flow.

I'm doing a thing. A Lone. 🐺 A-wa/ereWolf 🐺

Still Cosmic Mama 💞 and more. Not sorry.

[arachnidiots-a]

SPIDERS issue #3.

Spiders (2023) #3. New powers, an unwanted bond, and a broken window - Roxy and Liam are closer than they’d ever imagined they could be. They’ve got a lot to discuss, including that both of their most trusted confidants are apparently… roommates? The two have got to figure out at least how to handle their newfound abilities and each other before they’re back to running again. If there’s anything that Roxy and Liam do know for certain it’s that while they may have lost the scientist collective, for now, they will be back. -- written by maggie & birdie!

liam sits on the fire escape, legs dangling over the edge with a lack of fear that only unknowing toddlers tend to possess about danger.

back lit by the warm light of martin’s room, she sits, eyes shut, and listening to the faint sound of dishes being washed. she wouldn’t have ever noticed it before, not over the sounds of the city, but it’s just another thing that’s new. a shiver runs through them, no shit that it does on a mid-october night when liam’s dressed in joggers and a distressed tee. they’re not layered in the slightest.

feeling compelled, their posture straightens and no more than a minute later does roxy appear— emerging from the broken window. she approaches nervously, when liam turns towards her, with a forced smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes.

in an awkward exchange they both give a “hi”.

“i, uh, i thought you might be cold, so–” arms extended, she holds out to liam a msst sweatshirt that’s clearly too big for roxy–one of peter’s. liam takes it with a grin, prepared to pull it on. “it’s peter’s, so it’s massive–”

pulling it over their head, their face scrunches in a light disgust. “—and fucking reeks. holy shit.”

they both laugh, and liam still pulls it over despite the fact it’s most certainly been used as a post workout sweater.

“if you want a different one–” she shifts in place.

“roxy, it’s okay. this is great.”

a few moments of silence pass in between them before roxy starts turning towards the hazard of a window.

“okay, well, i’m gonna-”

“do you wanna sit?”

roxy freezes, and then nods, finally taking a seat beside liam, who scooches over to allow her. it’s a smooth, thoughtless motion as if they’ve been making room for roxy all their life. both of them fidget in silence, unable to sit still with how worked up they are.

far off, an alarm sounds. roxy flinches. instinctively, liam’s hand lands on roxy’s back.

quietly roxy blurts out, “i feel like you just burped me.”

with that, liam simply breaks into a fit of laughter, arm pulling away. “what?”

“like when moms burp their babies, y’know?”

“no. i know what you meant–did i hit you?”

“kinda, yeah.”

their laughter dies quick, eyes dropping down to stare at their hands. liam balls her hands into fits and unfurls them again, and roxy watches, studying.

what is happening to them? 

"it didn't hurt or anything. sorry- it was just a bad joke."

"not a bad joke," she assures, "just one of those weeks."

roxy can't hold back another joke, mumbling, "a terrible horrible no good very bad week."

liam lights up. "no way. i fucking loved that book."

"yeah?" a beat, "seriously, liam, it didn't hurt."

"why-” why is roxy bringing it back up? “oh," their head falls in their hands upon the revelation that the tightness in their chest is no longer just theirs. "oh god, that's gotta be the worst fucking part of all of this." roxy feels it too.

"sorry- it feels wrong, but-"

"it's out of our control."

"which is totally fucked."

"totally and completely fucked." liam can’t help the small question dancing in their head. who’s to say that what liam is feeling is theirs? maybe it was roxy’s to begin with. they shoot a quick look at the other wondering if the same curiosity sits with her. or if maybe roxy can simply feel this too.

roxy pulls her sweater sleeves over her hands, breath fogging. "’m kinda tired," she admits.

liam picks up their head, turning it towards her. "no way." there's an obvious amount of sarcasm from the two words alone, "you? tired? but we've been getting nothing but sleep!"

"funny."

"i'll walk you home if you want," they offer, sitting up. 

"i was actually gonna offer you my pull out couch, if you wanted to stay over."

it goes unsaid, that while they might be able to go back to their beds, the nightmares are going to keep them both up. 

"yeah, okay, but," liam points below, "mind if we stick to the ground for now?"

"oh we can stick to ground, yeah."

liam leans, bumping roxy's arm. "oh my god."

[biscuitbakerbecca]

So, I’ve been drawing Dear Evan Hansen fan art for about three years now, unfortunately when I started I didn’t keep copies of my art so some of the originals have been lost to time.

However, I did some digging and thought it would be fun to look through my art over the years! I’ve changed so much in terms of style, but still keep to my roots in my beginnings. I hope you enjoy looking through if you take the time to do so!

Summer 2018:

This is a single outlier from when I had to draw for a 4H project back in high school. As you can see, even then I couldn’t draw hands. I drew this after only being into the show for about two or three months, so this existed in time with my first two multi chapter fan fics. Just like the writing, things can only get better from here.

December 2020:

2020 was a horrible year in general, however I did get interested in digital art so I can’t say it was 100% the worst. I did a series for the entire song Requiem, all featuring Zoe in various outfits I thought were cute. This was where I feel like my drawing journey truly began.

May 2021:

These drawing sets were part of my final project for an art independent study, I was supposed to be working with pencil but managed to write up a bullshit essay explaining why digital art was my preferred style and got away with it. This along with the drop of the movie trailer sent me full force into the fandom once again, and I was more than happy to draw my favorite actors from my favorite musical. And yes, I still can’t draw hands.

Vaguely Fall 2021:

I honestly don’t remember when I drew this one, and I didn’t date it so I’m just going off of when I kind of remember showing my friends this one. If you didn’t know Connor is my favorite character from deh so I tend to draw him the most. I won’t lie this could have been from 2022 and I’m just misremembering but fuck it we ball.

November/December 2021:

This was my first ever submission for the Dear Evan Hansen Gift Exchange, and I spent so much time on it I literally failed a college class because I was working on this instead of my homework. College and I ended up not working out anyway, it’s fine. The hands look better but I still kind of hate them, hands are just another thing I can’t draw. Connor wearing a dress is amazing you know I’m right.

March 2022:

Ah, the proper beginning of the colorful blobby backgrounds. We don’t need to look at the hands this took me like thirty minutes I know it isn’t good. Also why do I never give Evan legs??? This is the second drawing where he doesn’t have legs what was my problem?

June 2022:

Pride month!!! I decided to draw each of the five deh kids with their sexuality I headcanon them with in the background. I managed to complete all of them but Evan. I just lost the energy and said fuck it. I’ll be honest I actually like the hands in this one, the rings help.

December 2022:

Well, it looks like Tumblr glitched on me because the drawing I see is not the one I clicked on… ANYWAY, this is supposed to be a scene of Connor and Evan stargazing. The idea of them stargazing after their wedding seemed cute to me and I made it a reality. The hands are again tolerable in this drawing, which might be a sign of progress. Holy shit did I master hands? No. I didn’t, this is a one off.

January 2023:

New year, new drawing series. This time it was all the deh characters and I have to say that the Alana one was my favorite. I clearly cheated since I only did a bust drawing for each of them, that means no hands how shameful of me. Anyway, I’m very proud of my progress over the past several years. The fandom has changed and mostly died, the show is gone from all productions, but I hope that in another three years I’m still able to say that I’m just as in love with the show and characters as I am now.

[dentwy]

number 1: adventure time

don’t quite remember how old i was when i first watched adventure time, but i sure remember watching it a lot. back then you’d just hop on tv whenever you could and watch whatever was on at the time. thank grob for streaming sites! i say half ironically since HBO's release of adventure time is quite pathetic in fact, but i digress.

obviously with fionna and cake airing this year there’s been a big resurgence in adventure time online that i’m pretty fond of. although i don’t draw myself, i follow around 10k accounts on twitter that are mostly just artists because i love looking at nice pictures. there’s one caveat though, i’ve never actually seen the entirety of the show. who the hell is this grass finn? princess bubblegum and marceline ended up together? holy glob. and so, i felt it was time for me to get on my two ass cheeks and actually watch the show.

here is a brief (?) off the shelf summary on what that was like:

as it turns out as a younger-ish boy i had only seen up to season 4, with a few extra episodes here and there. this means the lich was definitely a thing, but that’s kinda where it ended. re-experiencing the episodes i knew so well was definitely more fun than i was expecting. most i know by memory already, others lowkey tried gaslighting me into thinking they were different from how i remembered. so that HBO thing? you can look it up on reddit and go into detail but in general terms, some of them are kind of a mess with how they’ve been edited and censored. i believe a bunch might just be from the tv versions in some countries? but i clearly remember watching them so...

usually there’s a couple of things they want to avoid: butt stuff (so some fart jokes and grabbing-things-with-butt scenes), stuff that’s kind of gross, things like ripping off the lich's face off, deaths (?) and other extremely specific stuff. at times you will get scenes cut off that you don’t realize (ill mention one in a minute) and others that simply cut off in the middle of dialogue or battle to jump into something else. in 2023 i don’t even think this is that excusable.

two episodes stood out as a sore thumb to me. "storytelling" the 5th episode of s2, and "princess cookie" on s4 episode 13. ill refrain from explaining the entire episodes but first one has this scene where our titular "mrs cow" makes her first appearance. as she is instructed to do, she removes the bag since she also is beautiful as everyone else, only to turn out she should put it back on. pretty funny stuff, especially for a 13 year old. this little gag is completely removed. poof. gone. i almost shit myself i thought i was going crazy. i’ve been a fan of calling random shit i’m lying about part of the mandela effect now but it genuinely felt like that.

second episode is one of a tragic story, of a tragic cookie. putting aside the fact i think a he/him cookie wanting to become a princess is fucking awesome, this one just sucks. at the literal climax of the episode (spoilers!!) as they are in the middle of the exchange the episode just randomly cuts off to the following scene with princess cookie in the floor, shattered. extremely jarring. and you don’t even get to see the most important part of the episode! goddammit.

either way i could go on details like this forever but it’s mostly just a gripe i had as i watched with HBO than the show itself, as i was actually having a lot of fun as, in the end, it’s the characters that make adventure time what it is.

finn and jake are characters that are very easy to endear yourself to. i feel they’re generally the simplest ones from the cast, but that’s what makes them most malleable. they’re likable dudes, bros for life. do you not wish to have someone that will follow you to the end of the world? in life and even death? nothing can break these two. distant lands' "together again" is probably one of my favorite episodes. it was 200 episodes ago that jake established their special signal to find each other again once they’re dead, and real bros don’t forget. it’s a beautiful episode that completely wraps up these two in the best way they could’ve done.

ice king is someone i would have never been able to appreciate when i was younger. maybe for the first couple of seasons yeah okay he’s an unlikeable prick, but man. simon petrikov is such a tragedy of a man. forced to live in his delusions for the rest of his life, unable to remember his loved ones, or to be loved. forever obsessed with finding those who are important to him, without the means to do so. i gotta say, i never put two and two together before getting around watching the entire thing - but fucking tom kenny? what a legend.

alongside ice king comes marceline, and what is there not to love about marceline. she carries such a teenage angst with her that feels so passionate. every song with her is a blast to listen. "woke up" from obsidian in distant lands has to be my favorite. "i'm just your problem" is up there in the classics and how to forget the fries song. living for 1000 years has to fuck you up so bad man. she carries such weight after so long. saving people, losing them, making friends, losing them. "i remember you" from season 4 is such an emotional episode i’m pretty sure i cried watching it. every single marcie / simon flashback holds so much importance to both characters, as well as the world itself. i’m always a sucker for father & daughter stories and these episodes hit a really special spot.

with marceline, comes princess bubblegum, which i have to say is probably my favorite character in the show. your honor, she’s silly. bubblegum (fucking bonnibel? really?) shares this aspect of essentially living for 1000 years, eventually needing to put things behind. main difference with her is the fact, you know, she’s made out of candy, and candy people don’t exactly die of old age as far as i know. however, being in the spot she is, she holds great responsibilities she sometimes feels she needs to deal all on her own. she is actually such a fucked up individual, messing with people emotionally (and specially finn) just for the sake of it, and sometimes showing her apathy for people. she’s dedicated to a fault, often ignoring other's feelings or beliefs. sometimes for the better, but also for the worse. one thing that remains with me for sure is the simple fact that she’s just adorable, and i’m a big fan of them giving her different outfits and hairstyles as much as possible, which is exactly why i present my tier list of bubblegum outfits & hairstyles:

the ones that didn’t make it in are either irrelevant, spoilers or forgot about. why not marceline? because everything she puts on is a banger. extra special mention to "the star". what a fucking queen.

the last tier list will be for every character in the show in no particular order, because i need to make my opinions permanent:

except i lied obviously it’s not every character. the ones that didn’t make it in i either don’t care about enough or are so minor i don’t even have an opinion on them (or i forgot).

s tier is the people i couldn’t have put anywhere else, they just go there by default. prismo is awesome too so he goes in.

for a tier i feel the only two i need to specify about are doctor princess, which i just find really funny, and huntress wizard, which i actually like a lot. i feel she was definitely the one that would’ve been best to end up together with finn.

b tier are cool characters, i like them enough that i think about them often or have something about them that really stood out to me. james baxter actually being a mispronunciation of "games bookstore" is really fucking funny.

c has all the pups because i like them :), abraham lincoln is also really funny. martin i think i could put lower, but simply because he’s relevant to the plot he goes here. i never liked finn insisting to call him his dad when he’s such a shit person.

d is filled with weirdos that have something about them that may make them stand out a little bit more or maybe had a scene or episode that was cool. i don’t like LSP at all, but she’s the like third most important princess so yeah that’s fine, i guess.

f is filled with people i don’t give a shit about. a bit crazy how most of the princesses end up being completely irrelevant. you lost to a fire dog slime princess, how does that feel.

with that out of the way, what i want to finish off is the general plot progression of the show. there’s something really special about adventure time that i’m not too sure other cartoons do the same way. it manages to hold such a consistency throughout its run time that’s almost impressive. besides the first season where tree trunks dies on episode 4 only to reappear later on and only bring up the fact she’s "gone" on season 2, the show always makes sure to reuse characters, keep them around and stay true to its own timeline. there’s a context in this world, stuff has happened already, and things will continue to change. it might take some time to get the answers to your questions, but you will get them eventually. the past is already set in stone and the future is already on its way to happen.

most characters will make at least a second appearance at some point, and a lot of them even become more relevant for that episode, which i find really cool. no stone is left unturned and it shows that this world is fully lived in.

it was a bit hard for me to nail down what i believe the theme of adventure time is, what it all means in the end really. because no, "going on adventures is fun" is not it. it definitely is fun don’t get me wrong, its episodic in nature and most episodes end up working on their own, but is there more to it than just bros having fun? my take on it (i haven’t looked it up so no clue what other people think or even the creators) is the passage of time, and growing up.

the most relevant characters are the ones that have been around for centuries, the ones that have seen the world change and that have changed it themselves. generations move by and time keeps going. jake has a family, a new generation that will follow him. finn doesn’t have anything because he died a virgin but still, the humans are and will be around after so many years.

it’s important to live in the moment, appreciate the people dear to us and have our own "adventure" while we can, and i think that’s really nice to get across. as it stands, adventure time has moved through generations and i hope it will continue to do so.