#Alex didn't deserve this

[blazing-arsonist]

The sillies!!!!1!1!/111!

[jenna-louise-jamie]

it just occurred to me, martin wilby is the alex rider tv show's ash. there's a line in season 1 where the department is talking about wilby being responsible for ian's death and how ian “thought the world of him.”

very similar to how ash was responsible for john (and helen's) death, but john very clearly loved the guy. enough to make him alex's godfather and save his life. another very interesting parallel for the rider brothers.

ash and wilby are different to each other however. at least ash had somewhat more of a reason to join scorpia? a vendetta against alan blunt. wilby just straight up wanted money. yassen gregorovich stabbed both of them though.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

"British bias does not exist in F1" coming from a British f1 fan with a British driver as their favourite...

[diamondsunbursts-and-marblehalls]

When Yassan killed Max while he was unarmed, Alex felt responsible. He didn't pull the trigger but he might as well have, he got them in and past the security, and he was complicit in the man's murder. He was horrified and disgusted, at the murder and at himself. He was terrified of what his friends would think of his involvement and he couldn't bear to see their faces when they found out.

He somehow started seeing himself as culpable for something he was actually a victim of, Alex began to think that because he witnessed and unknowingly aided something he wasn't okay with, that meant it was his fault and because he wasn't able to stop it, that made him responsible.

Scorpia efficiently isolated him from everyone he loved and when they discovered they couldn't break down his morals and convince him to become a killer they were in the perfect position to convince him he had no family outside of Scorpia, and no worth to anyone now that he was tainted with someone's murder. He was trapped.

Julia takes advantage of his vulnerable emotional state and influences him to make the choice to kill Mrs Jones, but his moral compass and compassion end up being strong enough to keep him from going through with it.

He underwent some severe manipulation at the hands of Scorpia and almost didn't make it back. He deserves so much respect for being able to be true to himself even when he was so angry and couldn't see a way back.

In addition, Jack and Tom would have taken him back with no qualms regardless of whether he actually killed anyone or not, they're the kind of people who make that type of manipulation tactic completely ineffective. There is nothing he could do to make them abandon him. There are no lengths he could go that they wouldn't follow. He may not have understood the depth of their love for him, but I think he started to when they welcomed him back with zero questions about whether he killed Max or took revenge on the person who killed his dad. They didn't care, they were just happy to have him home.

In the same vein, I appreciated Kyra's hand in all this just as much as I did theirs. By holding him accountable and making him explain exactly what happened to make him feel like he couldn't come back or let them in she broke the hold of that manipulation. By explaining that "breaking into a house isn't the same as murder" she helped him see that even though he felt guilty and responsible and stayed away from them because of it, he wasn't. When she refused to let him off the hook it showed she cared, she cared that he was scared but made the right choice despite that. She cared that he was manipulated and didn't want that to happen again.

In essence, love pushed Jack and Tom to welcome him home no questions asked no matter what, and love pushed Kyra to hold him true to who he is. And again I circle back around to the fact that love is the most powerful thing in the universe.

[cricketnationrise]

Took me forever to send you this because I couldn't decide which Beyoncé lyrics to send (if the ones I picked aren't inspiring, feel free to request different ones, there's so many to pick from!) so I hope i'm not too late 🙃 this is so fun, thank you for organizing this fest!

9:26pm, the brownstone, Alex Claremont-Diaz, "Private show with the music blasting / He like to call me Peaches when we get this nasty", rated E 😈

My Ao3 username is Calou 😊

fitting that you were right under the wire in submitting because it took me almost five months to get to this prompt. i hope its worth the wait!

a big thank you to everyone who submitted and to everyone who's been reading and commenting along the way. i love doing the ficlet fests, the prompts are always a delight and let me get out of any writing funk i find myself in. yall rock.

as a parting gift for Ficlet Fest 500, please enjoy exactly 1000 words of straight gay up filth, as requested in the GC.

read the rest of the ficlets here

❤️🤍💙❤️🤍💙

9:26pm, the brownstone

Alex’s brain falls out of his head when Henry comes downstairs. He apparently took Pez’s dress code seriously for once; he’s dressed to fucking impress. (Alex is so far past impressed he’s having heart palpitations.) Henry looks good in everything, from a full suit to sweatpants, but when he lets himself relax, lets himself lean into being one hundred percent himself, he ascends to a whole other level.

His white shorts are going to be the death of Alex. They’re short, showing off strong calves and stacked, polo-playing thighs, and just this side of respectably opaque. But if there’s a strong enough backlight, anyone who isn’t intimately familiar with Henry’s particular topography, will be. The shorts would be enough to cause Alex a factory reset, but then he notices the shirt. It’s halfway unbuttoned, straining to accommodate Henry’s wide shoulders, and short enough in the torso that he’s baring midriff. And it’s one of Alex’s shirts. The novelty ice cream cone print has never looked so fucking good. 

Alex can see the tops of Henry’s hipbones—they’re mouth-wateringly obscene. Henry shouldn’t be allowed out of the house like this; he’s a danger to everyone around him. Drivers will run their cars off the road, pedestrians will walk into poles, et fucking cetera. Really, Alex has a fucking duty toward public safety to tackle Henry onto their couch and take him apart with his teeth. 

So he does.

Henry makes a noise somewhere between a squawk and a whimper and Alex wants to lick it out of his mouth. He captures Henry’s lips in a kiss as they land, barely letting him breathe, let alone put up a token protest because he feels like they should be social. Henry groans and melts into the cushions, letting Alex do whatever he wants. The trust Henry puts in him is heady, and Alex spirals that much higher when Henry throws his arms around Alex’s neck to keep him in place. His own hands are busy mapping every bit of exposed skin on Henry’s chest, slipping beneath Alex’s own fucking shirt to reach the scant inches that are still hidden below fabric. Alex takes advantage of Henry’s gasp of pleasure when Alex scratches lightly at his bicep to slip his tongue inside Henry’s mouth.

Both of them are already breathing hard, the sound of spit and panting filling the air. Alex manages to stop kissing Henry’s mouth, but only to nip down his throat, pausing at the pulse point to bite down. Henry always complains about having to be careful of covering the marks Alex leaves, but he never actually asks Alex to stop. (They were thirty minutes late to meet Nora for brunch last month when Alex caught Henry pressing down on a hickey in the bathroom and Alex had to bend him over the sink about it.) Henry’s moan at the graze of Alex’s teeth against his neck is a siren song; the way he tips his head to the side to give Alex more room, a gift from the gods. 

Henry pushes at his head, directing Alex with a pleading whine. Alex is only too happy to oblige, nipping and licking and sucking down Henry’s sternum, fingers fumbling to open the shirt. He spends a few minutes teasing Henry, alternating kisses with quick bites across his soft belly. Alex noses along his waistband, inhaling the scent of sweat and something uniquely Henry. Alex’s hands tighten on Henry’s thighs involuntarily when Henry’s fingers find a home in his hair and pull tight. Alex can’t wait another minute to get Henry’s cock in his mouth.

Alex liberates his curls from Henry’s hands and rearranges them so that Henry is sort of upright and Alex kneels on the floor between his legs. Alex means to dive in at once, but he has to take a second to fully absorb the fucking daydream of a man in front of him. Henry’s eyes have darkened, pupils blown wide and clouded with arousal. He’s sagging into the couch, relying on the furniture to keep him sitting up, seemingly unable to count on his muscles to do the job. Henry’s flushed from his cheeks to his hips, his hairline starting to darken with sweat. Alex’s gaze keeps snagging on the hickey he left—one fine day he’ll give into the desire to leave a whole goddamn collar of them.

Henry shifts, drawing Alex’s attention to his erection, straining against the white fabric of his shorts. Alex can’t help but to give him a firm stroke to his bulge, delighting in the strangled gasp it pulls from Henry. He can feel Henry twitch beneath his palm, can feel Henry’s racing pulse through the fabric, and then he’s moving—undoing Henry’s fly and pulling down his shorts and briefs in one fell swoop.

Henry actually shouts when Alex takes him to the root in one long smooth motion—he’s never been more glad for his lack of gag reflex. He stays there for a moment, breathing through his nose, the tip of Henry’s cock right at the back of his mouth. He looks up at Henry through his eyelashes. Henry’s practically shaking with the effort of holding himself still. How unnecessarily gentlemanly. Alex pries Henry’s hands out of the couch cushion and back into his hair before moving his own hands to Henry’s hips. He blinks twice, their nonverbal green signal, just to really drive the point home. With a mumbled curse, Henry starts thrusting and Alex closes his eyes, groaning every time Henry’s cock dips into his throat.

Alex’s jaw aches from the stretch, and his own cock is leaking and pressing uncomfortably against his zipper, but he couldn’t care less. He’s got Henry filling his mouth, surrounded by his hands and thighs and noises and taste—

They’re definitely going to be late to Pez’s party, if they even make it out of the house. Alex couldn’t give less of a fuck if they don’t; there’ll be other parties.

[moralchampion]

Suzuki x Stole the show

[pinkomcranger]

About the white asshole line: it's not as left field as people think tbh There's a similar line in the first AW game from Alice (in the DLC, Wake's version of her since it's all in his head). She uses the term 'while male melodrama'. This is literally Wake's own mind so he knows a lot of stuff he put her through was from a perspective of a person who has a lot of advantages. Back to Saga, that line aligns with the racism we are hinted she dealt with in her field and STILL deals with in present day. Mulligan and Thornton are racist af (haven't seen anyone discuss this yet) to her even if they seem pleasant at the start of the game. Not entirely either, when Saga and Casey meet Mulligan he automatically assumed Casey is the lead agent. He apologizes about it but there's an air that neither him or Thorton take Saga seriously. They barely speak directly to her and instead more to Casey unless she directly speaks to either. It's that seemingly benign, passive racism that is more toxic sometimes, especially in a work environment. In her face they show some surface level, thinly veiled respect but behind her back they called her a 'stuck up FBI bitch'. Part of the horror story adds she let her daughter drown so they doubt her work entirely. And concerning the Bookers, there's this passive aggressive comment where Thorton says the case of the murder of Nightingale would've been solved if the FBI wasn't involved. Thorton says something like "they stick with their own". Now, this could be seen as city folk stick with their own but the Bookers are black, this was purposeful imo. I honestly liked how Remedy incorporated this in such a realistic way. Some could dispute this and say "that's circumstantial/reaching" but lets not forget both Mulligan and Thorton are literally the bastard law enforcement type that kills are the drop of a pin. They killed that woman while enthralled with this feeling of power (referencing the page about it) and threw her body in the well to hide it, blaming the death on each other at first before they decide it's neither of their faults and hide the evidence. They become taken being so twisted in their dark ways. They are bad guys, I'd argue misogynistic too. And lets add a layer of actual parallels to rl racism to the mix here now. If she dealt with that in Bright Falls on her first day I can only imagine the assholes she had to deal with climbing her way up in the FBI, in life in general. This is why her mother is a strong foundation, they are not only close because they loved each other but she made sure she'd be strong. Parents who have mixed kids (black kids especially) know what they will deal with. Maybe even a meta thing like Spiderverse, adding the backlash into the story. Which she did and still does get from gamerz (tm). People STILL bring up that "race swap" from the Quantum Break trailer which is honestly just early concept stuff. Saga is written so well and carefully that even her problems outside the pace of the story seems to have been considered. So while it does seem random and may make people uncomfortable it's purposeful. Remedy really captured this aspect with Saga without making it her personality or the core part of her (like she just there for black trauma, so glad they did not do that and made her a character with experiences). Let's not forget Saga's field of work. We know it's predominantly white. Her saying 'another white asshole' says more about her experiences than anything else. And being at her lowest where her insecurities, doubts, fears thrive it says something about her agency and how sometimes it can feel taken from her based on her skin tone, gender, so forth. Sorry for the long ask! It's just, this line definitely does not feel like it's random to me. I was just shocked I heard it but the game lays down the ground work for it to be said. It's as subtle as the worst kind of racism though imo

I'm VERY interested by imagined!Alice's line because while we don't know if she actually feels that way, we see Alan can acknowledge that he KNOWS how lucky he is by virtue of being a white man, it might not be something he thinks about daily, but he's admitting he's aware of it.

You're right in regards to what Saga deals with in her work environment and most likely her daily life. It sucked for me that Mulligan and Thorton ended up being racist, misogynistic assholes because they truly just seemed like the goofy, slightly dimwitted small-town cops. I think maybe because I haven't actually played the game yet (shame on me, I know! I just managed to get it last month and haven't had the time to dedicate to it like I want) that I kind of brushed Mulligan and Thorton's behavior towards Saga off until we learned their true nature.

But we see how they're more comfortable deferring to Casey over Saga, and we can even see that Casey is NOT the least bit pleased with it. Saga clearly picks up on it, and it's one of the reasons she chooses to leave them with Casey. She can handle the Bookers easier, because yes, they ARE black, she KNOWS they're going to open up to her far easier than if it had been Casey. Do we get reflections of their shared experiences? Not really, but the Bookers weren't going to trust the FBI regardless, Saga being a black woman lowered their defenses a little.

You can argue that she was better suited for talking to the witnesses because it's just her personality, Casey was dry and sarcastic from jump while Saga was the opposite. But did the Bookers know that? Absolutely not. They were less cautious with Saga, Ed especially. They weren't hiding anything to be malicious, they just wanted their own things to be successful.

Hearing Mulligan and Thorton's true thoughts about Saga really tore me up. Not even so much at the fact they felt that way, but because they didn't have the guts to say it to her face. You don't hear that venom directed towards Casey at all, even though he's the EXACT same stuck-up government agent who's worse to them than Saga.

But it's what black people tend to see when dealing with the police force. Condescending, impatient, better-than, bitter, power-hungry and drunk on their self-importance and position of authority. There's a REASON they were made Taken when the Koskela brothers couldn't, but that's really neither here nor there.

Seeing what she had to deal with in Bright Falls from two guys that were SUPPOSED to be on her side and help her is very telling and it made me even more interested in her backstory. How many people actually believed in her when she joined the FBI? Who dismissed her out of pocket simply because of the color of her skin and her gender? You can even get a hint of her past simply by her questioning Casey on why he wants her to be the lead on the case instead of jumping in straight away.

And that's to her PARTNER, a man she’s known and trusted for years, who clearly never had a problem with her being a black woman, or there's no way in hell they'd have the kind of relationship that they do.

Freya being such a strong influence for Saga was evident in her card to her daughter. She knew the struggles Saga was going to face by going after what she wanted to do and never discouraged her. I'll always be bummed over Freya lying to Saga about her being a Seer though. I know it was to try and protect her from even more shit she didn't deserve to go through over something she had no control over. But it almost felt like a vote of no-confidence. And there's no feeling in the world like thinking your mother might not believe in you.

I'm still VERY annoyed at ANYBODY bringing up the "Return" concept from Quantum Break JUST to say Saga was race-swaped when almost NOTHING from that teaser made it to the main game proper. Sam and the team took all of that and flipped it on its head. That was clear the second FBI Alex Casey stepped into the background instead of being in the lead.

I love the fact we don't get the "another white asshole telling me what to do" until the end of the game, and it's when Saga is at her lowest point, when the Dark Presence is trying to do its best to break her down. But like I tend to bring up, Alan says it can't create something out of nothing. Meaning those doubts and resentment were there for a LONG time, and it VERY easily could have been her entire personality.

The fact that it wasn't showed how much thought Remedy put into creating Saga and I appreciate it so much. She wasn't her trauma, she wasn't her anger, she was the exact OPPOSITE of that. She faced her problems with determination and PUNS! Even when shitty things were going on, her mind wandered to humor "More like "Underwatery" I'll have to tell Casey that one later." Speaks volumes about her character.

I think that's one of the reasons she fought SO hard against the horror story. OBVIOUSLY her main motivation was saving Logan, and then Casey. But she wasn't about to let her agency be taken from her like she's been fighting against it for years. She was the one that was going to be in control, she was going to tell this story, and Alan himself (some of that as him being the face of the Dark Presence for her) "no, fuck you. Another white asshole is NOT going to tell me how to live MY life. You're not using my doubts and fears against me to take my family from me"

And she did it, she did what the white man couldn't do on his own in 13 years. How am I NOT supposed to root for her? How could I NOT want to know more about her history? There's no way I can look at Saga Anderson and go, well her story is done, there's nothing else to be written for her. As I said, I do love FBI Casey, but he's practically a blank slate compared to Saga, I could live without him because, for me, outside of his personality (I'm also grumpy and sarcastic), I cannot relate to him.

Despite not being a wife and mother in the FBI, I CAN relate to Saga. I can understand her struggles and pain. I feel her love for her family, I can relate to her love and disappointment towards her mother. The struggle of being a black woman in a world that still caters to white men and the pushback she gets just from existing. I understand her in a way I never could with Alan Wake. I understood and related to his issues as a writer struggling with inspiration. But the thing with that is Alan didn't HAVE to struggle like that, he could have chosen, at any time, to stop being a writer and do something else.

Saga couldn't choose to change the color of her skin. Her challenges would be with her simply because of how she's perceived at first glance. She'll never have the advantages of Alan and Casey in that regard.

I'm sorry for the long answer! But I LOVED your ask, and that's why it took me a hot minute to answer it. I had to get my thoughts in order and give this the response I felt like it deserved. So thank you for letting me see your thoughts towards Saga! ❤️

[linusbenjamin]

Lost S04E09: The Shape of Things to Come

[m4x-smashstappen]

So you have the best race in the last maybe 4 years, definitely the best this season so far, and the highest 'rank' is a 9.00 🤣

The people doing the aramco power ranking have no idea what racing is, do they 😂

They saw Max won and couldn't give a 10, what if F1 fans thought it was an amazing race 😱 we cannot have that 😤 9.00 it is and the rest downwards because if Max won 😳 it must have been a terrible race 🥱 we should know, we are completely unbiased 😏 but if anyone other than Max wins it's a 10 🤭, or as close as possible to one, we cannot give all a 10 🤫, even though they deserve it 👏 for beating that ✨️car✨️, you are all a 10 in our hearts 🤧 but we have to stay objective 😉

[inconspicuous-clovers]

Happy birthday, Alex!

[romeowho]

watched the knight squad ep of henry danger and could not figure out why i knew the blonde... reader, it's owen joyner

[enbyjane]

the truth is (a perspective on love)

context: edit based off a personal conversation with @onlineproblems about parental love, unconditional love and the love we deserve bonus: her wise perspective:

more bonus:

[junespriince]

Today's trauma that makes me laugh every single time was I used to RP with this guy who made a Bruce/Jason hybrid oc with venom that didn't ask or warn me so he killed Alexander (my oc) kid and Damian and thought a damn yellow ass crystal would save their marriage, the this unwashed ass got mad at me and bullied me into hiding my love for birdflash, because I stop responding after I told him to stop, but jokes on you mfer, I kill my own blorbos and still make them super gay in gay haven, and Talia would have loved Alexander asshole, they would have went shopping woth cat and she would have kick ya mary sue ass for that shit ya put my poor Alexander through! My vampy deserved Dick he was nicer!!

[meelonkurb]

going on any post relating to motogp right now is a minefield (tumblr is fine)

like guys there's something called "being civil to each other"

[once-delight]

oh that feel when one of your favourite songs by your favourite musical artist only exist as a single bootleg posted 16 years ago and a good amount of the lyrics are ineligible because of the recording quality 🥲

completely unrelated, here's Old Apollo by Alex Reed

[stoutguts]

Activision after killing off Soap in the most unceremonious way possible, and just now updating his operator bio just to smite people