#ALL the couples and pairings and relationships would have remained ambiguous 💀

[jayktoralldaylong]

I keep seeing complaints about Arcane being rushed.

Me personally, it doesn't seem that way at all. In fact, somewhere in between the second ACT, it felt like we were doing a little too much slowing down.

I don't know if it's because we've got new members of the fandom or because everyone got so hyped about Season one, cause things moved very quickly in that one too. We had like three time skips in that one season and no one complained that it felt rushed.

Arcane is an experiment by Riot Games, they were not even sure if it would succeed, and I love that they left a lot of open endings so that they would be able to pick up from where they left off if they wanted to. The only thing they really wanted to conclude was the story between Violet and Powder (notice how I said Powder not Jinx). Vi needed to let Powder go.

With everything ambiguous, we might get the opportunity to see some familiar characters feature in other stories (I'm really hoping they do this with Jayce and Viktor but they worked so hard on wrapping their story up that I'll just have to let it go, I just miss them so much.), there's a big chance we might see Jinx though so yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (assuming they don't just let it go and leave her dead).

At any rate, they can go in any direction, and deciding that largely depends on the success of this 'experiment'.

I personally think it did very well.

[yns-world]

art imitates life, life imitates art

part ii of the euphoria au!outer banks series

part i part iii part iv

title: art imitates life, life imitates art

pairing: euphoria au!rafe cameron x reader

summary: lexi's interpretation of your relationship with rafe was very...interesting.

words: 2.3k (this is the first long fic i've written in literal years...i'm not even exaggerating either 💀)

warnings: toxic relationship, slight dv, mentions of murder, attempted murder, rafe cameron as his own warning, euphoria craziness

a/n: it makes my heart overflow with so much love and appreciation when i saw everyone's reactions to the first part of euphoria au!rafe 😭😭 i can die a happy woman knowing that someone said that i wrote rafe in a canon way 🕊️

fem reader, racially ambiguous, any size reader

italics = scenes in the play

Y/C/N = Your Character Name

R/C/N = Rafe’s Character Name

Lexi peeked behind the curtain, astonished at the full auditorium. She still couldn’t believe the number of people who showed up. Seated near the front was Maddy and her gang. While Cassie and Nate sat further away in the middle. Rafe and Y/N sat a few rows behind Cassie and Nate.

Lexi walked on stage, her nervous jitters noticeable but she still kept a smile on her face.

“Our Life is a lot more complicated than adults would make it seem. We’re going through our most important developmental years, this is the time where our personalities shift and form. This is also a time where we experience our most memorable relationships.”

Actors that represented Maddy, Cassie, and Y/N entered the stage, laughing and walking in sync. 

“Is that supposed to be us?” Maddy scrunched her face in confusion. “I don’t even look like that.”

Lexi continued her narration.

“During these fleeting high school moments, we solidify friendships and create new ones.”

While the three girls are talking in the prop hallway, a tall, blonde actor treaded on the stage, making an exaggeration of biting his nails. He kept his gaze down and bumped into Y/N’s character. 

“The girls swore that they would never let a boy come between them, but it seemed as though Y/C/N had other plans. It’s almost as if her plan all along was to let a boy come in between her and everyone else.”

Maddy’s and Cassie’s characters were visibly heartbroken and betrayed as Y/C/N gazed lovingly up at Rafe’s character, not paying her friends a second glance. 

Cassie turned her head to glimpse at Y/N but Y/N kept her eyes glued to the stage.

“But was the relationship worth it? Y/C/N cut off her friends to have more freedom with her new boy toy-- or so she thought.”

The backdrop changed to a classroom and Y/C/N’s phone rang and rang until she finally picked it up and put it on speaker.

“Where the fuck are you?! I’ve texted you 57 times! Why aren’t you answering me?!” R/C/N spat accusations left and right, but Y/C/N just rolled her eyes before hanging up mid-sentence. 

A couple chuckles were heard in the audience, some even from Cassie, and Rafe visibly tensed. His jaw was clenched and his grip around Y/N’s hand was tighter, almost to a point where it hurt. 

“You call it love, but I call it Stockholm syndrome. You’re not the sweet, innocent angel that everyone believes you are. Sometimes I think R/C/N could’ve been normal if he hadn’t met you.”

The scene switched to Y/C/N’s room, where Y/C/N and R/C/N were in the middle of another fight. 

“WHY CAN’T YOU OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES?!? ALL THE GUYS SEE YOU AS A SLUT.” 

“You’re so fucking crazy R/C/N! I wasn’t even flirting with him! And don’t you EVER call me a fucking slut, you psychotic piece of shit!” Y/C/N jabbed her finger in R/C/N’s face with each word. R/C/N tried to smack her hand away but Y/C/N reacted quicker and slapped him across the face. 

The scene went silent and the actors remained in their places. R/C/N’s hair fell over his face, covering his expression. Y/C/N didn’t move an inch. 

A hush fell over the audience. Some dared to sneak a glance at Rafe and Y/N but one look at Rafe’s fuming face scared them back into place. 

“This is absolute bullshit. This is what she fucking invites us to? She’s supposed to be your fucking friend.” Rafe started his heated rant and Y/N knew all too well what came afterwards.

“Shh baby, it’s okay. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She never had a boyfriend before, what would she know?” Y/N brought Rafe’s hand to her lips and planted a reassuring kiss on his knuckles. She then reached her hand behind his head and began massaging his scalp to ground him.

After a few beats of stillness, Y/C/N broke out of her daze and carefully approached R/C/N.

“I’m sorry, baby. I was scared.” Her voice was soft and calculated. 

R/C/N slowly raised his head to look at her and was frozen to his spot. He didn’t try to move when Y/C/N brought her hand to rest on his red cheek, the same hand that hit him. 

If anything, he leaned into her touch and closed his eyes. 

“Puppy Love” by Paul Anka started playing in the background. 

They called it puppy love

Oh, I guess they’ll never know

How a young heart really feels

And why I love her so

Silent tears rolled down R/C/N’s face. 

I cry each night

My tears for you

My tears are all in vain

“You made me hate myself. Sometimes I wish I would’ve just dated myself.” R/C/N whispered, his voice thick with tears. He still leaned into Y/C/N’s hand.

Y/C/N wiped his tears with her free hand and leaned up to plant her lips on his. The light focuses on them as their kiss lasts for a few moments, before the entire stage goes black.

The audience is quiet, still trying to process what they just saw. Y/N glimpsed at Rafe out of the corner of her eye and his gaze was focused on the floor. Tears stung in the corners of his eyes but he was quick to wipe them away; but not quick enough for Y/N to notice. 

“Rafe….” For the first time, Y/N didn’t know how to comfort him. She had no words to offer him. She retracted her hands off him and placed them in her lap; she was scared to touch him, to break him further.  

This isn’t who she was, right? This is just a show of theatrics. None of this was real. 

Various degrees of self-awareness, disgust, and sadness flashed across Y/N’s face in a matter of seconds until she wore a common face of fury. 

“That Lexi bitch had no right to make a play about real people, she didn’t even fucking ask.” Y/N thought. “She has no fucking clue what the fuck she’s talking about.”

Just as Y/N was about to get up from her seat, Rafe grabs her wrist and pulls her back down.

Rafe applied more and more pressure onto Y/N’s wrist as the seconds passed. The two were dead silent, staring back at their reflections on stage. 

Is this how the world saw them? Was this really them? 

Maybe out of ignorance, or maybe out of pure denial, the couple was glued in place, unable to move a single muscle. But their rage was a silent one, a terrible storm waiting for the perfect time to strike.

The lights return back on stage, this time lighting up Lexi who stood on a prop football field. 

“R/C/N and Y/C/N certainly had an unusual form of love. It was a deadly love, a love that could kill you if you weren’t too careful. Interestingly enough, no matter how much R/C/N showed his devotion, it was never enough for Y/C/N. She was always looking elsewhere.”

The light shined over Y/C/N flirting with some random football player. They cracked jokes and Y/C/N laughed a little too loud and a little too hard. She threw her head back and placed her hand on his firm bicep.

“God, you’re so funny! I never knew you were such a jokester.” The football player reveled in the attention, getting high off her compliments. 

Simultaneously, a light shined above Lexi, who stood on the other side of the stage, by the fake bleachers. Next to her was a furious R/C/N, who had a brick in his hand.

A heavy blanket of silence fell on the audience, a silence so loud that you could hear the actors breathing into their mics. 

Everyone knew what this event was referring to, but no one dared to speak a word of it. 

Instead of the usual anger that Rafe wore throughout the entire play, a cheshire-worthy smirk graced Rafe’s lips, a low chuckle erupting from his throat as he waited for what's next. 

He locked eyes with Lexi, daring her to say the next words. 

Lexi was about to fold under his scorching stare, a stare that only saw red-- but she had a show to run. 

The show must go on. 

Lexi cleared her throat, and spoke each word while maintaining full eye contact with Rafe.

“Nature versus nurture, a debate as old as time. In this case, was R/C/N always this crazy or did Y/CN create this monster? Was R/C/N born this way or did she groom a killer?”

As soon as that last word left her mouth, Rafe was already out of his seat and half-way down the aisle before anyone else could react.

“Y/N, put a fucking leash on your mutt!” Maddy jeered. 

Initially, Y/N was going to try and stop Rafe but Maddy’s comment put a halt on that plan. Instead of trying to put a lid on the atomic bomb that is her boyfriend, she let him roam free. Rafe always was her greatest weapon. 

“What good did leashing your boyfriend do for you? Oh wait,” Y/N laughed, turning to Cassie. “You lost your boyfriend to your best friend.”

“Let me at this whore!” Maddy struggled against her friend’s restraint. 

While Maddy, Cassie, and Y/N were thrashing it out in the seats, Rafe was already on stage and cornering Lexi. 

“You think you’re real smart, huh?” Rafe wrapped his hand around her throat and pushed her against the wall. He brought his mouth to the side of her head and whispered in her ear. “Do you wanna know how I killed that son of a bitch?” 

Lexi’s eyes were turning red due to a lack of oxygen, and her attempts to claw at his hand were futile. 

“I had him in my hands, just like this.” Rafe applied more pressure to her throat. “I squeezed until his eyes popped out of his sockets.”

But before he could go in for the final kill, Nate pushed Rafe off of Lexi, who collapsed onto the floor and tried to catch her breath. 

“You’re a real fucking pussy, Cameron. You’re nothing but Y/N’s bitch.” 

Rafe shoved Nate back.

“At least I’m not fucking the whole school. Who knows what kind of STDs you got?”

That was all it took to rile Nate up. The two boys threw punches that rang through the entire auditorium-- everything was audible, the fist-to-face contact, the cracking of jaws.

While the boys were breaking each other’s bones and the girls were clawing each other’s faces off, the police were called and arrived at the scene. After a few attempts to break up the fighting, all the perpetrators were escorted outside, placed far enough apart and with plenty of enforcement to prevent another altercation.

As the police were taking statements from the witnesses, the main group sat on the curb of the school-- bloody, bruised, and beaten. Each person lost in their own thoughts and regrets until Y/N finally spoke up. 

“How did we end up like this? We’re unrecognizable.” Maddy and Cassie remained silent, only sending each other glares.

“It’s all his fucking fault,” Nate gestured at Rafe, who sat a few feet from him. “You should’ve never come to this fucking town.”

“Rafe’s not completely at fault.” Lexi defended. “You still would’ve slept with Cassie regardless if he came to East Highland or not.”

“I don’t want to hear you fucking speak, you sick bitch.” Y/N groaned, holding her head in her hands. The conversation fell into a beat of silence before Cassie spoke up.

“In a sick way, this is like a bonding moment for us.” Cassie noted, looking at the group.

“What. The. Fuck. Cassie.” Maddy was so over Cassie’s bullshit, but Cassie continued.

“No matter what happens, we’ll always come back to each other, It’s like we’re all connected.”

Rafe scoffed while Nate just shook his head.

“This crazy bitch.” Nate muttered under his breath.

“Who wants to get something to eat?” Y/N asked, still holding a tissue to stop her bloody nose. Her question was so out of the blue that everyone thought they hallucinated it, until she repeated herself.

“I’m starving. It’s up to y’all, but I’m getting some food.” Y/N extended her arm to her boyfriend-- who had a black eye and bruises littered all over his face-- but he was quick to help her up to her feet. 

“I’m going.” Rue answered, appearing out of nowhere. 

“Me too.” Jules added, wrapping her arm around Rue’s shoulders. “Why not?”

Maddy looked at her friends and shrugged. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

As the group began walking away and discussing possible food options, Cassie, Lexi, and Nate rushed to catch up. Meanwhile, Lexi strayed a few paces behind everyone else.

She took in the sight in front of her-- a group of teenagers, surely flawed, yet they still have so much to experience. 

Cassie is right. Lexi thought. We are all destined to be intertwined, for better or for worse. 

Lexi would be sure to start working on the sequel of her play when she got back home.

a/n: if you enjoyed reading, please consider reblogging and tipping, they help my account more than likes :)

DON’T BE A GHOST READER!!!!! let me know your thoughts, opinions, ideas, etc in the comments!!! i love talking with y’all <333 

like i mentioned in the previous post, don’t hesitate to send me any ideas/requests for rafe or euphoria au!rafe <3 (just read my request rules in my pinned post before you do)

i have an idea for a sequel to this specific oneshot but idk….lmk if y’all want me to write it 🤭 (spoiler: the sequel might include the euphoria au!pogues….but y’all didn’t hear that from me 👀)