#I’m emotionally devastated and very sad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gravity-between-us · 3 months ago

Text

Gravity Between Us

Chapter 17: Zero Gravity

Summary: Caleb and I have known each other for as long as I can remember. We were once childhood friends, our bond as natural as the stars in the sky. But now, everything has changed. What used to feel like a safe, familiar orbit between us now pulses with unspoken desire.

Our friendship is no longer enough to keep the tension at bay, and the distance between us feels unbearable. Secrets, lies, and unhealed wounds stand in our way. I don’t know if we can survive this new gravity pulling us together... but I can’t keep pretending I don’t want to try.

Pairing: Female! MC [Named] x Caleb

Spoilers: Spoilers for Caleb's Myth's, as well as memories. Read at your own risk for these. Lore spoilers.

WARNINGS:

Unlikely to be completely canon. The other love interests will not be likely to appear in this fic.

MC is named. MC is socially awkward. MC can be depressed at times.

Very? Slow Burn.

Very explicit smut (Chapter 12 onward): PiV/oral (male and female receiving)/anal sex. Fingering. First time. Pet names (angel, babe, baby, pip-squeak). Kinks: Praise, breeding, creampie, light dom/sub. Rough. Some consensual degradation talk (MC is into it). Probably many, many more that I am forgetting to name. If you see one that should be listed that isn't, feel free to let me know. (MC is a repressed deviant, and so is Caleb.)

Awkward blend of darker moments, angst, fluff, and humour.

Drinking. Questionable life decisions. MC spirals.

Protective Caleb. Both MC and Caleb are a little obsessive and overly protective of each other, which could be considered an unhealthy relationship.

We will revisit memory scenes, but they will be different from the memories in-game.

As proofread as I can get it, but not beta read, so probably some mistakes.

Limited plot - most focus is just on their relationship and interactions.

More warnings could be applied, but as a general rule of thumb, please read at your own risk and do not continue if you find the content triggering.

The warmth of midmorning light kisses my skin, I stretch with the smug grace of someone in a mattress commercial and immediately freeze. There’s a sensation. A very specific, very horrifying sensation.

Oh, fuck. No, no, no, no, no!

I fling the covers off and look down at the sheets only to be greeted by what can only be described as a modern art crime scene. An abstract splash of crimson devastation sprawled beneath me like I spent the night doing interpretive dance in the blood of my enemies sometime between REM cycles.

“Shit.”

I slap a hand over my face, already feeling the slow, dreadful ooze continuing its vile descent. This cannot be happening. I grab my phone from the nightstand with the urgency of someone disarming a bomb, click open my period tracking app, and… It’s right on time.

“How is that even possible?” I hiss at the phone like it personally betrayed me. “You’re supposed to warn me, not sneak up on me like some uterus ninja with a vendetta!”

I scroll back through my notifications. Oh, there it is. The little alert I completely ignored while I was either passionately screaming at Caleb or passionately fucking him like he was the last star in the galaxy and I intended to go supernova with his name clawed down my throat.

Launching myself out of bed, I survey the wreckage. The sheets are toast. The mattress is probably emotionally scarred. I’m leaking down my thighs like a haunted Capri Sun. I slap a hand between my legs like I can physically catch it, like I’m holding back a flood with sheer willpower and a prayer.

I barrel into the bathroom, rip open the cabinet, and—empty. I squat down and double-check. Back of the cabinet? Dust and shame. Medicine drawer? Not even a sad emergency panty liner. Bottom shelf? Caleb’s stupid fancy razors and overpriced face cream.

Who forgets tampons?! What kind of reckless, chaos-witch just raw dogs a lunar cycle with nothing but vibes?

Me. I’m the disaster, and the agent of my own undoing.

I look around wildly, grabbing the first thing I see: a sock. “No,” I mutter, horrified by my own brain.

Tossing it aside like it insulted my bloodline, I yank off a wad of toilet paper, rolling it into a lumpy little horror taco like I’m MacGyvering my way through a high-stakes espionage mission. I stare at it solemnly. Will this hold? Will this… tissue paper tampon of dreams stand strong in the face of the crimson tide?

It disintegrates in my hand.

New plan! I rifle through the drawer like a raccoon on a bender. My eyes land on a bright yellow microfiber cloth, and for one bleak, desperate second, I consider it.

A wave of silent despair washes over me. This is it. This is how I die. Not from some noble cosmic cause like enemy fire or a plasma explosion. No. I am going to perish in a puddle of uterine vengeance and improvised hygiene, naked and betrayed by biology.

There I am: awkwardly half-squatting over the toilet like I’m summoning a bathroom demon, one hand clutching a rapidly disintegrating wad of toilet paper, the other gripping the sacred microfiber cloth of desperation and regret when Caleb waltzes up to the bathroom door I apparently did not close in my frantic dash.

“Hey, pip-squeak, you want—”

Caleb stops. Dead. Mid-sentence. Mug of coffee in hand. His eyes lock on me.

Time halts.

I freeze like a deer caught sacrificing goats in the moonlight.

“Get. Out.” I shriek, flailing the toilet paper at him like a deranged exorcist with a very absorbent crucifix.

He blinks. Slowly. Like he’s not sure if this is real or a trauma dream. “…Is that a sock?”

“It was an option, Caleb! I am a resourceful and desperate woman!”

He stares, taking in the horror show: my legs clamped like a human nutcracker, hair a disaster, surrounded by rogue cotton, abandoned hope, and what looks like the aftermath of a sacrificial blood ritual.

Caleb, bless his heart, doesn’t immediately laugh. “I… I brought coffee.”

“I cannot drink coffee right now,” I hiss, voice cracking. “I am waging war against my uterus with household textiles.”

A tense silence descends. Then he snorts, chokes, and collapses into giggles so hard he has to lean on the doorframe.

“Oh my god,” he gasps between laughs, eyes watering. “Is this what happens when your period starts? Do you always go full menstrual MacGyver?”

“I forgot to pack tampons!” I screech, throwing the sock like a grenade of shame. “I was too busy either screaming at you or climbing you like a fire escape!”

He sets the mug down before he drops it, laughing so hard he’s wheezing like a dying accordion.

I glare with the fire of a thousand vengeful wombs. “If you don’t leave right now, I swear I will use you. As. A. Tampon.”

His face twists in the most dramatic grimace of horror, as if I just threatened to turn him into a sentient cotton swab. “The war gods,” he whispers, backing away slowly, “they are very angry.”

“I hate you. I am dying. There is blood everywhere. You’re dating a hemorrhaging embarrassment.”

And he—still laughing—just nods solemnly like he’s attending my tragic, period-fuelled funeral. “And I love you more every second of it.”

He saunters over to the cabinet above the bathroom counter like we’re not in the middle of a full-blown menstrual apocalypse. Opens it, reaches up, and pulls out a box of tampons.

Caleb turns around slowly, like he’s unveiling the Mona Lisa, and presents them with a flourish. “Here. Bought these last week. Figured you’d need ‘em.”

“You… what?”

“There’s pads up there, too,” he adds nonchalantly. “All the kinds. Wings, no wings, overnight, ultra-thin. I didn’t know which type you liked, so I just panic-bought the entire aisle.”

“You knew when my period was coming?” I squint at him like he’s just hacked into the mainframe of my uterus.

He shrugs, casual as ever. “I’m your boyfriend now. It’s in the job description. Monitor the lunar cycle. Prepare for the blood tide. Arm myself with chocolate, carbs, and, apparently, advanced knowledge of feminine hygiene.”

My bottom lip wobbles like a toddler who just dropped her ice cream.

“Are you crying?” he asks, horrified.

“I don’t know!” I sob, clutching the tampon box to my chest like it’s the Ark of the Covenant. “This is either the creepiest thing you’ve ever done or the most beautiful!”

He spreads his arms wide in that classic, smug hug-the-hero pose. “Come on. Bring it in. Hug your weirdly prepared boyfriend who has read the leaflet inside a pad box and lived to tell the tale.”

I lunge at him like a deranged, snotty koala on a mission. He catches me easily, wrapping his arms around me with the gentle certainty of a man who’s already accepted his fate as a period support unit. He doesn’t even flinch when my towel shifts and I probably bleed on his shirt.

He strokes my back. “You’re okay.”

“I am not okay,” I wail. “I’m in the pre-cramp phase. I can feel them coming. Like satanic elves warming up for a CrossFit class inside my uterus.”

He pulls back just far enough to rummage in the cabinet again. “I meant to grab your painkillers.” He throws his head back dramatically. “I was so close to being the perfect period boyfriend. I had the snacks. I had the supplies.”

I sniffle into his shirt. “I’m going to marry you. Not now. But someday. Maybe during a hormonal spike.”

He pauses. “…Will I have to share a bathroom with you forever? Because—pip-squeak—I have seen things today. Things that have scarred me. Things involving socks and microfiber.”

I smack his chest, mostly for effect. He just grins, kisses the top of my head, and peels away from me with the solemn purpose of a knight on a holy quest.

“I’m goin’ out to get the good painkillers,” he declares. “The ones with the green cap and the label that sounds like a spell. Do you want anything else? Chocolate? Cheese buns? A personal flamethrower for your uterus?”

I lift a limp hand from my towel cocoon. “Maybe… a box of those double chocolate cookies with the fudge inside. And a Coke. And chips. Ketchup.”

“Knew you’d say that,” he grins, already summoning his jacket and wallet with his Evol. They fly across the room and slap into his hands with lethal force. He nods once, grave as a man heading into battle. “If I die in the feminine hygiene aisle… tell the pharmacist I fought bravely.”

He’s out the door like I just yelled, “There’s a clearance sale on engine parts.” I blink at the empty space he once occupied and groan like a wounded animal, dragging myself upright.

The doorframe becomes my cane. My thighs feel like they’re made of stone. My lower back? Humming like an angry wasp trapped in a metal drum, sending out distress signals that scream, Regret is nigh.

I manage to clean myself up like a tragic battlefield medic, then start stripping the bed, cursing under my breath at the literal bloodbath left behind. Halfway through wrestling the fresh fitted sheet onto the bed, disaster strikes.

The first cramp hits. I freeze, blink, and collapse onto the mattress like I’ve just been assassinated by an invisible sniper targeting my uterus for sport. The pain coils through me like Satan is wringing out my insides like a dish towel.

The sheets fall from my arms. I curl up like an overcooked shrimp, moaning into the mattress. “Why… do I have a uterus…? Whose idea was this? Who gave me organs?”

I have no idea how long I lie there, contemplating the sheer indignity of it all. Time loses meaning. I might’ve been there for ten minutes. I might’ve aged a decade. Hard to say. I hear the click of the front door. Caleb’s back already? That was record time.

My brain immediately conjures the most likely scenario: Caleb, storming into the store with righteous determination and a basket, using The Voice. Not his regular voice—no, Colonel Caleb Voice™. The one that makes grown soldiers stand up straighter and children drop their lollipops.

I imagine him dramatically sidestepping a line of confused civilians like a man on a mission, barking, “Fleet business. Critical. Step aside. We’ve got a Code Red.”

Snacks flying. Store clerks cowering. Someone saluting for no reason. Children whispering legends of a man who once bought five types of cookies with the intensity of a war general.

Okay, full honesty? I hate that voice when we’re at Fleet HQ. But there’s…something about it. The way people scatter when he walks in. The sheer dominance in his stride. The fact that if he points at someone and says move, they move.

It’s objectively annoying. Also, unreasonably hot. Ten-out-of-ten, would straddle him in the war room and make him forget his clearance code.

“Inara?” Caleb’s voice, soft and tentative at first, then sharper when he doesn’t immediately spot my crumpled form. “Where—ah.”

He finds me starfished pathetically on the bed, eyes glazed, limbs locked in fetal formation.

“Oh, pip-squeak…” His whole voice changes. He sounds like a prince who’s stumbled upon his damsel in distress—if the damsel was bloated, furious, and lightly sweating.

He crouches beside me, brushing sweaty strands of hair from my forehead. “Can you turn around for me?”

I groan like I’m being asked to lift a car. My movements are glacial. Snail-like. Heroic, honestly. But I manage to uncurl myself with the elegance of a sloth with a pulled muscle.

Caleb situates a heating pad under the waistband of my pants and adjusts it like it’s a precious relic, carefully, reverently, then presses it over my stomach.

Sweet merciful heavens, it’s instant bliss. I gasp. Tears spring to my eyes.

He hands me a glass of water and two painkillers like I’m a wounded woodland creature that might bite. “Here. Got the ones with the green cap. And I brought Coke, cookies, chips… and ketchup. You know. For… morale.”

I blink up at him like he’s descended from the heavens in sweatpants and pilot boots. “You’re the best,” I croak. “Like, obnoxiously so. It’s disgusting.”

“I’m just tryin’ to outdo your uterus,” he smirks, easing me back down onto the bed like I’m made of glass and hormones. “Not an easy opponent. She fights dirty.”

He brushes a kiss to my temple. “Rest. I’ll finish the bed. Then we’re watchin’ the dumbest show TV has to offer while you eat enough sodium to kill a small horse. That’s an order.”

Once he has finished cleaning up my mess, he strolls back into the room, takes one look at my fetal shrimp formation, and gives me the kind of soft smile that could melt steel. He sits beside me and starts rubbing my back like he’s trying to lull a feral cat into trusting humans again.

“How’re you doin’, pip-squeak?”

I lift a shaky thumbs-up like I’ve survived a plane crash. “Still alive. Mostly. Your heating pad is a miracle. You should get a medal.”

“You remember when we were kids and you used to get sick? We’d steal every pillow in the house and build that ridiculous little fort in the living room. Sheets hanging from chairs. Chips hidden like we were squirrels. TV marathons ‘til we passed out.”

A slow, nostalgic smile curls on my lips. “Of course I remember. You always insisted on being the fort ‘commander.’ You even made me salute.”

He smirks. “Chain of command is sacred. Someone had to lead the resistance against… flu symptoms and adult supervision.”

I snort. “You tripped over your own cape and dive-bombed the juice boxes.”

“That was a tactical retreat,” he concludes with mock dignity. “And a brilliant one. Confused the enemy.”

His expression softens again, warm and just a little mischievous. “Want to do it again? I can drag the spare mattress out, build Fort Nostalgia, deluxe edition. Blankets, snacks—real battle station energy.”

My eyes round. “Yes. Oh my god, yes. That sounds like heaven.” Just as he starts to stand, I snag his wrist with exaggerated flair and bat my lashes like a princess about to request a small crime. “Wait. Can I do it? With your Evol?”

He squints at me like I’ve just asked to borrow his liver. “You want to use my Evol? To move a mattress?”

I nod with the wide-eyed innocence of someone who absolutely should not be trusted with powers that bend the laws of physics. “Please? It’ll be fun! I promise I won’t destroy anything!”

Caleb stares at me in silence. “You do remember the last time I let you use my Evol, right? You tried to ‘gently levitate’ the couch and instead launched it through Gran’s drywall like it was a battering ram.”

“That was years ago,” I retaliate with great offence. “And only because you never let me practice.”

“That’s because you launched furniture at heirlooms, Inara. Her antique plate collection had to be picked out of the ficus.”

“That was gravity’s fault,” I sniff. “Also, technically, your Evol. I just directed it. Badly.”

He drags a hand down his face like a man trying to erase the memory of broken porcelain and family shame. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

I beam. “So that’s a yes?”

He stares at the ceiling, possibly praying, sighs, arms flopping like he’s accepting a doomed mission. “Fine. The risk is worth the nostalgia.”

“Yes!” I fist-pump weakly from my side of the bed, victorious in a way only the truly dramatic can be. “Prepare for fort magic.”

“Please do not destroy the house,” he mutters as he heads off to move breakables, mentally rearranging the room like it’s an incoming war zone.

Honestly, his faith in me is wildly low for someone who once ate a crayon because I told him it would make his tongue purple forever. But I’m about to get a full cuddle fort, complete with gravity manipulation and deluxe snacks, courtesy of the best boyfriend-slash-long-suffering Evol instructor in the galaxy.

“Alright, come here, troublemaker,” he grumbles, swooping down and scooping me up bridal-style like it’s just another Tuesday.

I squeak. “Okay, rude. I’m extremely capable.”

“You’re extremely bleeding and shaped like a crescent roll. Let me carry you before you fold yourself into a tortilla.”

He strides us toward the spare room, and I feel the hum of his Evol beneath my palm, vibrating through his chest like a second heartbeat. It’s that eerie, quiet kind of power, like standing on the edge of a black hole with full trust fall energy.

“I’m going to resonate with you,” I whisper, already syncing with his Evol without waiting.

“Obviously,” he replies like a man who has accepted his fate. “I’ve already made peace with the fact I’m going to die in this house. Possibly crushed under a floating snack shelf.”

“Shut up. This is going to be fucking majestic.”

The moment I fully sync with him, it hits me like I’ve just been launched into low Earth orbit with zero training and a bag of chips. Every object in the room has a presence, a glowing, pulsing, “move me, chosen one,” kind of aura in my mind’s eye.

The mattress? Oh, the mattress is practically singing to me. Radiating potential. Whispering sweet nothings like, “Launch me, goddess of gravity.”

I turn to Caleb, eyes wild with power and mattress lust. “The mattress,” I breathe. “She’s ready.”

“Okay,” he begins, clearly regretting everything that has led us to this exact moment. “Let’s maybe just slide it gently—”

It’s too late. I am the mattress now. We are a singular being of foam, springs, and unearned confidence.

“No—wait—lift from the centre—!”

…Oops.

The mattress doesn’t just move. It yeets sideways like it’s trying to escape a haunted house, slamming directly into the bookshelf. Books explode into the air like startled pigeons, flapping through the chaos of their new airborne lifestyle. A picture frame bounces off the wall and does a dramatic spin before hitting the ground in defeat.

Caleb yelps like a man betrayed and immediately wrests back control of his Evol before I can accidentally level the rest of the spare bedroom.

“CENTRE. OF. MASS,” he bites out, trying and failing to sound stern while choking on laughter. A lampshade is still spinning on its side like a dying Beyblade.

“I panicked!” I cry, hands still dramatically aloft like I’m summoning ancient forces. “Why did it go left?!”

“Because you yanked it like a toddler having a meltdown in a toy aisle!”

Caleb carefully puts me down, then steps behind me with the wariness of a man defusing a bomb. His hands slide over mine, steady and sure.

“Okay. Try again,” he encourages, cheek brushing mine, his voice soft like spring rain and emotional damage. “Breathe. Feel it settle. Don’t yank. Coax it.”

“Coax it?” I mutter, side-eyeing him. “You want me to seduce the mattress?”

“If it keeps it from launchin’ into the kitchen, then yes.”

I breathe in slowly, tuning in, fingers twitching with intent. The mattress gives a faint shiver, hovering mid-air like it’s about to be recruited by NASA.

Caleb murmurs near my ear, “There you go. That’s my terrifyin’ space goddess.”

I grin so wide my cheeks hurt. “You’re just saying that so I don’t fling it at your face next.”

“Correct.”

We guide it slowly into the living room, side-stepping the crime scene that was once a bookshelf. The mattress lands with a soft fwump in front of the TV. Caleb helps me tuck blankets around the edges like it’s an art installation, piles pillows with the solemnity of a man performing ancient rites, and hurls snacks into a bowl like a five-star chaos chef.

The room looks like a tornado passed through and then decided to stay for movie night. It’s perfect. When we finally collapse into our newly crafted fort, I’m sweaty, still crampy, and emotionally unbalanced, but also grinning like a maniac.

We settle, limbs tangled, snacks close, blankets pulled up to our ears like we’re preparing to weather a romantic storm. Caleb presses a kiss to the crown of my head before handing me the remote like I’m the queen of this ridiculous castle.

“Your Highness,” he purrs solemnly. “Choose our poison.”

I scroll for about two seconds before landing on Love Detour: Second Chances. The premise? Absolute garbage fire. Couples who have broken up in spectacularly messy fashion agree to go on a cross-country road trip together in a glorified tin can, aka a camper van, to see if they can “rekindle their connection.”

Caleb squints at the screen like it just personally insulted his intelligence. “Okay, wait. What is this?”

“It’s about emotional terrorism,” I inform him, deadpan. “And also, trying to find love again while being trapped in close quarters with someone who ruined your life.”

He groans. “No. No, Inara, please. I cannot withstand this level of stupidity.”

“You say that now,” I sing, waggling the remote at him like it’s a loaded weapon, “but just you wait.”

Five episodes later, Caleb is captivated. “Okay, hold on,” he says, sitting bolt upright. “The guy with the man bun—Brandon, right?—he cheated on her twice but now wants to get back together because he ‘misses her energy’? What does that even mean?!”

“It means he’s delusional,” I reply, shovelling popcorn into my face like I’m watching the fall of Rome.

“And why is Alyssa still here?! She literally said—and I quote—‘I feel dead inside when he talks.’ That’s not love; that’s a warning from your nervous system!”

“Because she has main character syndrome,” I explain patiently, “and she’s holding out for a spin-off.”

He sighs, hand over his heart like he’s just lost a battle he never meant to fight. “I hate that you’ve sucked me into this.”

“No, you don’t,” I smirk, licking salt off my fingers. “You love it.”

“I hate how much I do love it,” he mutters, eyes still glued to the screen.

By the time episode eight starts, Caleb’s whisper-screaming commentary is more entertaining than the show itself. We lie there like that for hours with Caleb emotionally compromised by a man named Zayden with neck tattoos, me basking in my trash TV supremacy, both of us warm and buried under blankets in the coziest little disaster fort this side of the galaxy.

Caleb turns to me with the slow blink of a man who has lost faith in humanity but somehow can’t look away. “This is brain poison.”

“Correct, but it’s delicious brain poison. Don’t think I didn’t see you flinch when Brandon said, ‘I’ve changed.”

“I wanted to launch him into the sun,” He grumbles, muffled by the blanket. “He has a podcast, Inara. A podcast where he talks about crypto and ‘emotional maturity.”

“Oh god.” I clutch my imaginary pearls. “We have to take him out.”

Caleb turns his head slowly to look at me, one brow raised. “Colonel Caleb will not rest until justice is served.”

There it is. That stupidly commanding, bossy, Fleet-issue tone that shoots directly into my spinal cord like it’s got clearance to override my nervous system.

I blink at him. “Say that again.”

“What?”

“The way you just said it. ‘Colonel Caleb will not rest.’ God, that voice.”

He frowns like he doesn’t quite follow. “You mean my regular voice?”

“No, no. The voice you use when you’re yelling at rookie pilots. When you’re reading comms reports and doing that thing where you flex your jaw like you’re about to arrest someone with your disappointment alone.”

His eyebrows slowly ascend into the stratosphere. “You’re not… into that voice, are you?”

My head snaps toward him so fast my neck cracks. “Into it? Caleb. I would burn down a civilian outpost just to hear you recite emergency evac protocols in that voice. I would commit war crimes for it.”

Caleb groans and covers his face. “You are unwell.”

“Say something fleety,” I beg, grabbing his arm and shaking it. “Please. Just give me, like, one standard flight command.”

“I am not doin’ this,” he laughs, trying to roll away.

“Sir,” I bark in my best impression of a fleet cadet. “Requesting command input, sir.”

He squints at me, exhales in the most put-upon way imaginable, sits up straighter, and—

“Cadet Inara, execute evasive manoeuvre delta-7. Recalibrate inertial dampeners and prepare for atmospheric breach. You have fifteen seconds. Do not make me repeat myself.”

My soul leaves my body. This is like foreplay for people with a voice kink.

“Holy shit,” I breathe, fanning myself. “That was so hot, I need a tactical cold compress.”

Caleb looks entirely betrayed by his own power. “You are the worst.”

“Say ‘negative, commander’ next,” I demand, poking his side. “Like you’re scolding someone who’s being cocky in a briefing.”

“Negative, Commander.”

I practically melt into the mattress. There’s a pause. He stares at me. I stare back, wild-eyed and panting like a Victorian-era man seeing an exposed ankle. He gives me a long, considering look.

“…What?” I ask, instantly suspicious.

A slow, wicked grin pulls across his face. “So, you like the Colonel voice, huh?”

Oh no. I’ve fucked up and exposed my weakness. Mistakes have been made.

“I say a lot of things when I’m dehydrated and emotionally compromised,” I argue, which is a lie, and we both know it.

He leans in, dropping his voice to a rich, authoritative murmur that’s somehow louder than a shout. “Cadet Inara, stand by for further instruction.”

My soul actually leaves my body this time. Just exits through the roof. Gone. Goodbye. “Okay,” I breathe, white-knuckling the popcorn bowl. “That’s unfair.”

“Oh, is it?” he asks innocently, lounging back against the pillows like a man who’s just discovered the launch codes to my entire brain. “Initiate primary thruster sequence and prepare for acceleration.”

“Stop it,” I hiss, clutching my face like it’ll keep my blush from leaking out.

“Maintain current trajectory. Target locked.”

“I could file a formal complaint,” I warn, pointing a finger at him. “Abuse of command tone. Emotional sabotage. Weaponized discipline kink.”

He shrugs. “Standard protocol for a level-seven flirtation scenario.”

“Oh my stars,” I groan, falling sideways into the pillows.

He rolls with me, arms sneaking around my waist as he whispers into my ear, “Initiating close-range docking protocol.”

I involuntarily make a noise like some kind of startled rodent. He grins into my shoulder, smug, evil, and warm as a sunflare.

“Caleb,” I whisper, “you’re going to die for this.”

“Permission granted, Commander. Death by cuddles imminent.”

Now he’s holding me hostage, wrapped around me like a living weighted blanket, still whispering half-serious fleet jargon like it’s dirty talk while I attempt not to astral project straight onto his cock. I should push him off. I should fight back. I should absolutely not be melting into his arms like butter on a fusion coil, but here we are.

Buried in a nostalgia fort, under three blankets and one deeply swellheaded space pilot, whispering flight commands into my ear like he’s trying to make me come.

Honestly? Peak romance.

Chapter Masterlist

A03 - Note: Not all chapters are available there yet because I haven't had the time to copy them all over. Soooo.... this is an incredibly self induglent chapter, and now I really want to build a fort. 😅

#caleb lads #caleb love and deepspace #caleb x mc #caleb fluff #love and deepspace caleb #love and deepspace #lads fanfic #lads caleb #lads smut #lnds caleb #caleb x named mc #caleb smut #caleb

39 notes · View notes

yuseirra · 1 month ago

Text

Supplemental interpretation of Mizi’s character (Scene-by-scene breakdown of the new comic)

This post is a follow-up to the previous analysis I wrote last time! I think reading this will help things make more sense~

It's really, really intriguing to interpret characters with layers to them. I really enjoy doing that!

Before we begin, when doing character interpretation or psychological analysis, here’s a helpful tip—

It’s important to pay attention not just to how the character evaluates themselves, but also to how other characters react to them.

For example, if someone has a tendency toward self-loathing or self-deprecation, what they say about themselves might not be all that accurate—even if they’re the ones saying it. That’s why we need to keep in mind that a person’s self-evaluation isn’t always something we can fully trust.

Sure, sometimes crucial aspects of a character’s inner world only come out through their self-perception—but often, it’s the people closest to them, their overall behavior, and how others view them that end up giving a clearer, more fair assessment.

You know those moments. Like when a hero saves tons of people but still says, “I couldn’t do enough. I’m not good enough…” Or the opposite—when someone hurts a bunch of innocent people and says, “They had it coming. I was just doing what was right!”

So while a character’s internal monologue matters, we also need to take a step back and look at what they’ve actually done—their past actions, and how others respond to them—if we want to get a fuller, more accurate picture.

At the same time, we really need to factor in the situation they’re in. The emotional pressure someone feels when they’re in a stable and happy state is very different from the kind of feelings that come out when they’re in a chaotic, extreme state. That difference totally affects interpretation.

So overall, it’s about putting all of that together and looking at the full picture.

And that’s exactly why this new Alien stage comic is such a great one to analyze...

Of course, my interpretation is still subjective, and I could totally be wrong! But this is a topic I really care about, and I genuinely enjoy digging into this kind of stuff. It’s something I take seriously.

I feel pretty confident in my ability to break down complex psychological layers. I might be biased toward interpreting people positively, but in this case, I think I’m reading it well.

So! Picking up from the last post—let’s break things down scene by scene.

Here’s the situation:

Mizi had rushed onto the Blink Gone stage to try and save Till. But Till ends up dying right in front of her eyes. Mizi is devastated—mentally falling apart while staring at Till’s blood on her hands.

Then she sees a hallucination of Sua.

Sua is someone Mizi couldn’t save either—and she’s also the person who mattered most to Mizi. So this whole moment overlaps with the memory of Sua’s death.

But then Mizi suddenly thinks something strange:

“Feel like a waste?”

That word—“waste” (in the original Korean: 아깝다)—is super important. Depending on how you interpret it, it could completely change how you see Mizi.

So here’s where it gets interesting:

From a reader’s perspective, Mizi saying “what a waste” to herself could be taken as: “Ugh, another useful pawn gone. Shame—I’d been grooming that one for a while.” Basically implying that Mizi is cold and calculating, and everything we’ve seen of her so far was just an act.

But if you look into it a bit more, that interpretation doesn’t really hold up.

If that were the case, Mizi wouldn’t be crying so hard, crushed by grief, and hallucinating dead loved ones. Even if she felt some practical loss, she wouldn’t be emotionally wrecked like this. She wouldn’t be experiencing this level of human sadness and pain.

So Mizi’s emotional reaction to the situation is just as important as what she says. People don’t think the same way when they’re in a stable state vs. when they’re emotionally overwhelmed—it wouldn’t be fair to judge both from the same standard.

Mizi might be judging herself, thinking: “I was just using people, wasn’t I…” but if you look at what she actually did—her behavior—it doesn’t line up with that harsh self-judgment.

And we can get a better idea of what Mizi really meant by “waste” through the next scene, where she gets confronted by that guy who hits her.

He calls her “cunning,” saying boys and girls can’t be real friends—and accuses her of pretending not to know that Till liked her, just so she could keep being close with him.

What the boy is saying is basically, “You’re stringing him along. You know how he feels, but you’re acting clueless. You’re fake.”

While saying it "must be nice," being her, pretending to be sweet and all innocent, getting people to love her, he slaps her across the face. (Just before this, he remarks on how guys and girls always end up “mating,” and Mizi rightfully calls it kind of gross.)

Now here’s where Mizi’s immediate reaction matters:

She says sorry to the boy who just slapped her face and calls her disgusting and filthy.

She tells him, “I’m sorry for upsetting you”—but she’s also confused, like, “What exactly did I do wrong? I don’t get it.”

Then she says again:

“It’s a shame.” (in English, "It's a shame" / in Korean, again, 아깝다< it's the same word in the original KR version)

What’s behind that, you may wonder:

It is that Mizi tried. She genuinely made the effort to be kind to everyone. When there were things she couldn’t respond to or reciprocate, she just smiled and played it nice. To her, that was her way of being considerate. She really put in effort.

So from her perspective, the fact that her kindness didn’t work here—that it hurt someone instead—that’s what feels like “a waste.” and "a shame" It’s like:

“If you’d stayed like the others— believing I really was to be completely innocent, not knowing anything—it would’ve been easier between us. But now I’ve ended up hurting you. That sucks. That’s a loss for both of us.”

Her saying “I don’t know what I did wrong” —it’s that she really believed she was doing her best. So if that’s still seen as manipulative or “fake,” it just invalidates all the effort she put in.

She’s thinking:

“But I tried! I acted that way to be thoughtful! Everyone was happier that way. I thought no one would get hurt if I just smiled and played along. But now this guy’s saying I’m two-faced?”

“Then… what was I supposed to do instead? I don’t get it. This really hurts.”

That’s Mizi’s heart there at that scene. The way she’s been acting—that’s a core part of her identity, but it wasn't acknowledged and it gave her pain.

So she runs away crying.

And from this point, Mizi starts to have serious doubts about the way she’s always acted.

She ends up telling Sua about what happened—because she’s upset. She just needed to talk to her closest friend about it.

But even then, Mizi says stuff like, “I'm sure I did something wrong,” and “He’s not a bad person, really.”

Part of her really believes that, and part of her wants to believe that.

She wants to think that maybe, if she had handled it differently, the relationship could’ve stayed okay.

So she tries to focus on the good things in life to pick herself back up, saying stuff like: “And right now, I’m just happy because I’m with you, Sua. I'm sooo happy!”

But Sua’s not in the same emotional place. Because of what she’s been through, she's distressed. Moreover, she’s not the type to force herself to act cheerful just to lift the mood.

So Sua replies: “I’m not really happy. (...) You don't get dragged around like me.” And then adds: “Must be nice(being you) right?”

She doesn’t join in Mizi’s effort to stay upbeat. Instead, she takes Mizi's efforts as something 100% genuine, that Mizi "has it nice"

The reason Mizi reacts so strongly to that—“Must be nice”—is because she’s not. Not at all. Her head is a mess, her heart’s a mess, and for Sua to not see that—to not notice how much effort she’s been putting into staying cheerful—makes her feel overwhelmed with anger and sadness, even just for a moment. Moreover, this line also brought her back to that time when that boy earlier had called her out for being "manipulative" and supposedly having her way with people acting innocent because it happened to be phrased the same way.

It’s like… she’d really hoped Sua would understand her. And in that moment, they just didn’t connect. That’s where the despair came from. Mizi really treasures Sua, but even Sua didn’t notice how hard she’s been working to stay bright. Instead, she just assumed Mizi was feeling carefree and smiling for real. So Mizi snapped.

But then right after that moment, when she hits Sua out of that emotional outburst, she’s hit with the crushing thought that she just did to Sua what that boy who slapped her did. And that fills her with intense self-hatred. What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t have done that… She starts beating herself up inside.

Their facial expressions in that scene are pretty intense and eerie… but emotionally, that’s what’s going on.

After that, Mizi starts to believe—Maybe I really am as manipulative as that boy said I was.

And then, what she does next is go find Till. This is something really worth paying attention to.

If Mizi actually had the intention of using Till, then she would've kept pretending she didn’t know anything, acting all innocent.

But instead, she goes straight to him and says it plainly:

“Till, you know the one I love the most in the world is Sua, right? Is it that hard to not like me?”

Mizi really does care about Till. Maybe not in the same way as she does for Sua, but as a friend, she cares deeply. So she thinks she needs to be honest with him. She tells him—I can’t give you what you want. Even if you love me, I love Sua. So wouldn’t it be better for you to not to love me?

Why? Because that boy had called her manipulative for keeping her feelings hidden. And now she’s scared—If I keep pretending nothing’s wrong and just act like a normal friend, maybe Till will end up feeling betrayed too. She wants to prevent that. If she didn’t care about Till, she wouldn’t even bother.

And the thing is—Till already knew. He knew Mizi had feelings for Sua. (Side note: yup, I called this in my earlier analysis!) So Mizi was never leading Till on or anything; he just liked Mizi because that's how he felt about her.

So in a way, Mizi and Till have a pretty healthy relationship—they both know what’s going on between each other, and they acknowledge it. But Mizi’s head is all tangled up from what that boy said, and it’s making her question everything. Was I just using Till this whole time?

When she tells Till that she loves Sua, and he says he still likes her, Mizi asks him:

“Why do you like me so much, anyway?”

Because she doesn’t believe she can give anything back. She doesn’t think she can return his feelings… even though Mizi, just by being herself, is already a light in Till’s life—she just doesn’t realize it.

Till, so sincerely, just says, “Because… you’re pretty…” He’s simply being honest about how he sees her. But for Mizi, that ends up reinforcing all the wrong thoughts.

Because the part of her that worked so hard to be cheerful and sweet—what she now sees as “fake”—is exactly what Till is saying he likes. So she thinks, He’s rejecting this honest version of me. Even he loved the version of me that pretended to be pure and happy. If I want him to be happy, I have to keep pretending. That’s what everyone wants from me. I guess I have to live my whole life putting on this mask, tricking people...

And that’s why she lets out that hollow laugh.

Then she ends up viewing all her past efforts—being kind to people, staying cheerful—as nothing more than:

“I did all of that for myself. Just so I could survive. I used everyone.”

But that’s completely the opposite of the truth. She actually put up that cute and cheerful energy for everyone around her.

If everything she did at Anakt Garden—living with the other kids from a young age—was really just her cold calculation to survive, then she wouldn’t be hurting this much now over Till, over Sua, or anything else.

If it was all just part of some scheme she set up, she’d be smirking right now going, “It all went according to plan. What idiots.”

But instead, Mizi’s in a place where she’s seeing hallucinations, hating herself so much she’s breaking down.

She’s thinking, Maybe everything I’ve done was just for me. Maybe I’m selfish. And she’s lashing herself with those thoughts. That’s how much she hates who she thinks she is.

But the truth is—Mizi really did want everyone to survive. Till, Sua, Ivan, Hyuna—all of them were precious to her. That’s why when Luka provoked her with Sua, she lost control and didn't care about the whole contest. If she only cared about winning or surviving, she wouldn’t have been furious about it, she wouldn’t have snapped like that.

Mizi cares and has a big heart. That's why she broke down when Sua died. That’s why she looked so relieved and lit up when Till reached out to her in the Blink Gone Stage, That's why and how she risked her life to fire a gun and save Hyuna, while nearly having gotten hit by a bullet herself. What really took place just before this comic was that Mizi couldn't bear to leave Till behind, so she snuck back into the alien stage show and held out her hand to him. She was nearly killed herself, and had barely escaped with her life, and yet, she returned to that stage for someone else's. That's so far from taking advantage of others, it's a choice she wouldn't ever have made if everything she did was just to survive.

Mizi using others for her own ends? If that really were to be the case, then when Hyuna saved her, she wouldn’t have joined the resistance or risked going back to the stage to help the other children.

She RISKS her life to save others, and actively jumps in to help. That's what's consistent about her, and it's what describes her as a person.

If she had really just been using the other kids, they all wouldn’t care about her so much. They wouldn’t try to protect her the way they do.

Mizi is devastated right now because nothing turned out the way she wanted. She couldn’t save anyone. And thinking that it’s all her fault—thinking she failed to save them—feels like a punishment she deserves. This is how and why her thoughts are spiraling this way in this particular comic.

#alien stage #alnst mizi #alnst #alien stage mizi #every major character in this series has goodness in them #I can see that really well~#mizisua #tillmizi

31 notes · View notes

birdy-anne · 3 months ago

Text

Remus Lupin’s taste in men, explained:

If he’s got:

🖤 a tragic backstory

💎 a jawline you could cut glass on

❤️‍🩹 eyes full of unprocessed grief

🫠 an advanced degree in guilt

🧠 opinions about soul transmutation

🙄 and a tendency to say “I’m fine” when he is very much not—

Doesn’t matter if he’s in leather or tweed.

Doesn’t matter if he’s kissing you or emotionally devastating you in a magical library.

Remus Lupin’s type is:

Complicated. And British. And sad.

Remus x OC Charles x Sirius… kind of. Wolfstar, tension, magical academia, trauma coping but make it gay

#remus lupin #wolfstar #sirius black #oc x canon #harry potter #lost and found fic #to read #gay dead wizards #dead gay wizards from the 70s

21 notes · View notes

thollandsgirl2013 · 4 months ago

Note

Hi Q, How are you today? I love love your writing so so so much it makes me so happy to read them.

I have a Tom Holland x Fem reader prompts based on this prompt: Tom decides to write you a series of love letters, each in a different color of ink. What he doesn’t realize is that each color represents something completely different (for example, red = anger, blue = sadness). You end up reading the most confusing mix of emotions, and you and Tom can’t help but laugh at how colorful his attempt at romance really turned out to be.

Hi there! I'm good, thanks for asking. I was really confused at first with the request, but I hope I got your concept correctly.

------------------®©®©®©------------------

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

Parings → Tom Holland x Reader

Warnings → Fluff, Humor, Slight Miscommunication.

Summary → Tom writes you love letters in different ink colors, unknowingly creating a hilarious mix of emotions. You both laugh at his mistake.

You weren’t expecting a stack of letters when you walked into your bedroom. But there they were—neatly arranged on your desk, each sealed with a little heart and your name scribbled across the front in Tom’s handwriting.

Curious, you picked up the first one. It was written in red ink.

"My love,"

"Every time I see you, my heart races like a Formula 1 car. It drives me mad, absolutely mad, how much I want to kiss you all the time. It’s infuriating. I’m furious about how perfect you are."

You blinked. Was he... angry? But the words are sweet.

Shaking off the weird feeling, you opened the next one, written in blue ink.

"Darling,"

"Sometimes, when you’re not around, I feel like a lost puppy. It’s devastating. My heart aches in ways I never knew were possible. The world is a little dull without you."

Oh no. Was he sad now?

One by one, you read through them—green, purple, orange. Each letter was filled with loving words, but the ink choices made it seem like an emotional rollercoaster. Green made it sound like he was jealous of someone, orange felt like he was overly enthusiastic, and purple gave off an air of royalty, as if he were dramatically declaring his love from a throne.

By the time you reached the last one, you were so confused that you had no choice but to call Tom.

When he arrived, you held up the stack. “Babe, I love these, but... why did you use so many colors?”

Tom’s face lit up. “Because it looked pretty! Like a rainbow. And I wanted to make each letter unique for you.”

You hesitated before explaining, “Tom… different ink colors kinda give off different vibes. Red can mean anger, blue can mean sadness… I thought you were emotionally spiraling.”

Tom’s eyes widened, and then he burst out laughing. “Wait—so you thought I was angrily in love with you one second, then crying over you the next?”

You giggled, nodding. “Yeah! It was like decoding a very dramatic love confession.”

Tom doubled over, hands on his knees, laughing so hard that he could barely breathe. “Oh my God, that’s not what I meant at all! I just thought it would be aesthetic!”

You couldn’t help but laugh with him, shaking your head. “I love you, but you’re ridiculous.”

He grinned, wrapping his arms around you. “Ridiculously in love with you.”

Maybe his love letters were a little chaotic, but honestly? You wouldn’t want them any other way.

°:. *₊ ° . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ° .•

#tom holland #tomholland2013 #thollandsgirl2013 #tom holland spiderman #tom holland fanfiction #spider man #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker x fem!reader #tom holland x fem!reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you

21 notes · View notes

queenie-lexieee · 7 months ago

Text

Okay, okay! I haven’t been on Tumblr in forever, but I had to get on here and find my people who are listening to Sherlock & Co and who’ve seen the BBC Sherlock show! First off, let me just say—Mary’s death? Yeah, it was sad, but honestly, I wasn’t devastated. I kind of saw it coming. Like, I had this gut feeling they were going to kill her off. And, honestly? The show already emotionally prepared me for her death ages ago. I went through the shock and sadness back then, so when it happened, I was just… ready for it.

Now, let’s talk about what I am here for: Sherlock and John’s relationship finally coming together! This podcast is EVERYTHING. I don’t usually listen to podcasts, but as soon as I heard about this one back in October, I knew I had to check it out. I loved the show so much, and this podcast has totally filled the void it left behind. It’s honestly so amazing to have Sherlock back in my life without having to wait YEARS for something new.

Sure, it’s not the same as watching it, but as we’ve all said, that just gives you room to make headcanons, imagine what everything looks like, and really dive into the story. For me, Sherlock and John will always look like Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman—they’ve been my Sherlock and John from the very beginning, and they still are.

This podcast has completely stolen my heart, and I’m obsessed. It’s like a little piece of Sherlock magic brought back to life!

#bbc sherlock #sherlock x john #sherlock & co #sherlock fandom #sherlock #johnlock #john watson #not surprised #find my mutuals

28 notes · View notes

psalm40speakstome · 10 months ago

Text

Love Next Door. Episode Eight.

I don’t fully understand why she didn’t tell him. Other then that impossible expectations has to be perfect and self reliant thing she internalized from her parents. I also think it’s possible she wanted to keep something beautiful free from the cancer narrative and that was Choi Seung Hyo .

And as someone else pointed out she hides the hard and pretends everything is okay.

But I DO understand her turning to the ex in the moment of pain and crisis.

As devastating and sad as that is for Choi Seung Hyo as chronically ill human it makes perfect sense to me.

Those moments are literally about survival. You can’t explain. You can’t function and you need the person who already knows what’s going on and how to help. There’s no other option.

Sure he could have taken her to the hospital but the explanation she would have needed to do, the things she would have revealed(because it’s a secret) and even the amount of stress Choi Seung Hyo would have felt(and very rightly to feel it too)

Would have been emotionally and mentally to exhausting.

And Bae Seok Ryu was in excruciating pain.

As much as I don’t believe for one second she’s still into her ex….He clearly knows and was there for at least some of it(and failed her fairly heavily too)

So in that moment she turned to him. It feels very significant because we know how devastating it is to Choi Seung Hyo.

And in some ways it is. Like obviously walking through fire with someone isn’t a small thing.

But it’s also just being in crisis and picking the safety of not having to do any extra work in that moment.

This show is bringing out a ton of growth and nuance for these characters and I can’t wait to see where Bae Seok Ryu goes with Choi Seung Hyo.

We KNOW he’s her safest place…I’m just so excited for her to really realize it and act accordingly.

To really truly stop hiding her pain. And not suffer alone.

I am completely and utterly brokenhearted for him though. Like seriously finding that out three years after?

I would be gutted and betrayed.

#love next door #my kdrama rambles #kdrama #jung hae in #jung so min #Just my random thoughts #Not necessarily canon #And could all be proven wrong #or not nuanced enough next week #or earlier 🤣

39 notes · View notes

deadite-central · 6 months ago

Text

I ended last Whole Cake post with Cracker, I’m starting this post with Cracker

I already mentioned that I adore this guy, and that I think he’s severely underrated, but the same can be said about his fight with Luffy. Never once in my life would I have thought Luffy’s appetite would come in handy in a fight, but here we are. When he realizes he can just eat Cracker’s biscuit soldiers, this fight becomes absolutely bonkers. I can’t even begin to describe the genius of Tank Man Stuffed Version. This shit so magnificent. I read one piece to be either emotionally devastated or laugh my ass off, and I am laughing my ass off here

Oda also has to deliver on the emotional devastation, and so we get Sanji’s second backstory. You could say it had been set up way back when in Jaya when he mentions he’s from the North Blue, but it really gets going during Dressrosa, where we learn his last name is Vinsmoke, and oh god all of this makes me so sad. So much of how Sanji acts can be traced back to his upbringing. His father’s hatred, and to his mother’s kindness. Whenever I get to the scene where Reiju pushes him to run, telling him he’ll find good people in the world, I cry. Because he found them! First it was Zeff, who was his real father figure, one who shared his dreams and passions. I already said this months ago during Baratie (you can find it here) but this puts their relationship in a new light.

Not only that, but he found the Straw Hats, who are trying their best to save him at this very moment, and he was forced to leave the people he loved and cared about for what, his abusive father’s ambitions? It’s devastating.

This scene over here is an absolute gut punch, because just as Luffy knows it, you know Sanji is hurting here, he doesn’t want to do this, but he’s convinced himself this is the only way to keep his found family safe, and again, because of his upbringing. Sanji believes he has to sacrifice himself for others, because what other point is there to him being alive? It’s a depressing outlook on the world but one hard to imagine not to have in his situation. So what does Luffy do? He doesn’t fight him, and instead promises to wait for him as he won’t be King of Pirates without him. He shows Sanji he’s needed for who he is already, and no one can replace him

The Sanji situation gets even worse, because even when he tries to convince himself this is for the better, that he’ll love Pudding, he is met with an absolute shock when Big Mom’s plan is revealed to Reiju and he sees everything. Pudding doesn’t care for him, she’s playing a role. They’re going to kill him and the Vinsmokes. Sanji, once again, is left with nothing, and so he tries to light his cigarette. One thing he can do to at least try and ease his pain is to smoke, but of course even that doesn’t work out for him.

It’s raining.

Jumping a bit forward because I’m done with being sad, Jinbei comes to the rescue of captured Nami and Luffy! I love him. Brook also gets some of the coolest moments this arc, and once they retrieve him from Big Mom, we learn he copied the Ponegliff! Things are finally looking up for the main characters, which is always a great sign for where the plot is going

People have analysed the “I want to go back to The Sunny!” scene a lot already, so instead let me give you this: I adore the mob meeting between Luffy’s team and Bege’s team. It’s important to the ongoing plot, but it’s also really, really funny (shout out to Gangster Gastino)

With the wedding starting, the clock is ticking, and the plan is put into motion. I have to highlight the introduction of people from the underworld, especially Morgans and Stussy, as both of them will get really important later on

#one piece #op reading corner #whole cake island #this is a bit of a longer one #making up for no Sanji last post with a lot of Sanji this time #black leg sanji #sanji one piece #charlotte cracker #charlotte pudding #monkey d luffy #straw hat pirates

23 notes · View notes

suburbanforestwitch · 1 month ago

Text

i’m not looking for someone to save the world. i’m looking for someone to make tea.

I used to be into very different things.

Before the world cracked open—politically, personally, physically—I loved media that was big, intense, and morally weighty.

Captain America. The Winter Soldier. Black Sails.

I was deeply involved in fandoms built around epic stakes, masculine grit, and emotionally stifled characters carrying impossible burdens.

And honestly? That made sense for who I was at the time.

I was deconstructing from Christianity, and those stories became a kind of ethical scaffolding. I was walking away from a belief system that had shaped how I understood good and evil, right and wrong, sacrifice and redemption. Captain America was trying to do the right thing in a system that no longer reflected his values. That was me, too. Fandom let me explore those questions with passion, community, and even joy.

But then came real-world devastation.

Between two awful U.S. presidential elections, I was diagnosed with multiple areas of breast cancer.

I lost parts of my body to surgery.

In the middle of recovery, I lost my brother—who I had only just reconnected with. He was in his early fifties.

That’s when something changed.

I needed a new space to breathe.

I found that space in softness.

I read Wintering by Katherine May, a book about surviving dark seasons gently. I watched Helen Cryer’s peaceful YouTube art videos. I played games like Animal Crossing, Cozy Grove, and Mineko’s Night Market, where the stakes were small and the worlds were kind.

Cozy became a cultural buzzword around then—cozy cardio, cozycore—but for me, it wasn’t a trend.

It was a lifeline.

And slowly, my taste in media transformed.

I started watching BL dramas from Thailand, K-dramas from Korea. And while I don't watch much anime (Ghibli aside), I felt a deep pull toward all that was happening in Eastern storytelling in general. These shows weren’t just gentle—they were emotionally rich. They dealt with trauma, grief, queerness, isolation, longing—but they did so with care.

Where Western stories so often demand resolution through force or righteousness, these let emotions unfold. They lingered. They felt.

I didn’t just want softness—

I wanted stories that could sit in sadness without trying to fix it.

And another part of the shift surprised me:

how my sense of beauty and attraction changed.

In my Marvel era, I admired actors like Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans—broad-shouldered, hypermasculine, rooted in a very Western ideal of physical strength. But I’ve since realized that what I often called “attraction” was actually admiration. I wasn’t yearning. I was analyzing.

Now, I find myself drawn to something entirely different: the softness, fluidity, and expressiveness of many BL actors and K-pop idols. It’s not just about being pretty—it’s about presence. About vulnerability. About being seen in ways that aren’t armored.

There’s elegance and openness, and a kind of aesthetic rebellion in how these artists present themselves. They don’t just accept the feminine—they own it.

And maybe that’s not new.

Maybe it’s a return.

As a Gen X kid, I was shaped by artists like Bowie, Prince, Grace Jones and Annie Lennox.

I grew up in a world where androgyny was electric, where softness had teeth.

I lost touch with that somewhere along the line.

Now I’m coming back.

But this evolution hasn’t just been about what I don’t want—

It’s also about what I’ve found.

There’s joy here.

There’s fun in K-pop and BL, in the backstage teasing and tiktok treads, in watching entire production companies function like found families.

There’s a giddy warmth in seeing people who like each other (Or love) work and play and create together.

It’s not just that the shows and music are healing—

It’s that the people behind them are, too.

The fandoms feel different.

The stories feel different.

I feel different.

I’m not looking for someone to save the world anymore.

I’m looking for someone to make tea.

So yes. My taste changed.

Not because I got bored. Not because I gave up.

But because I lived through things that hollowed me out—

And what filled me back up wasn’t just tenderness.

It was community.

It was beauty.

It was fun.

I used to need stories that taught me how to stand strong.

Now I need stories that show me how to live full—

grief and joy, softness and sparkle, all of it.

#personal essay #fandom #queer media #media studies #thai bl #bl drama #kpop #Eastern media #deconstructing christianity #captain america #stucky #cozy #cozycore

9 notes · View notes

kadefools · 3 days ago

Text

lotm donghua episode 3 is epic, suited clown fight was peak!!!!!! my review

warning: major novel spoilers

why did klein look so cute in this episode huh?? 😭 him w 2-049 🥺 and 2-049 itself was kinda surprisingly cute too, it taking a “liking” to klein was just like the novel! except it happened in a building instead of the carriage. the comedy of them flexing their arms was perfect I loved those scenes, we got klein lampooning more too!!!!! and I personally enjoyed a lot that daly was brought along for the mission instead of the other corpse collector beyonder lady I forgot the name of bc she never appeared again. I thought it was a great choice because it instead gave an opportunity to show how much dunn cares for daly at the ray beiber fight 🥹 which was also really epic and full of action

the klein vs suited clown face-off, all of it was great. klein’s saving of himself above the grey fog and his cold point blank neckshot and headshot on the “fixed target” were perfectly executed. the way he coolly turned around?? HOOOOO HELL YEAH 🔥 it is exactly how I imagined it. omfg I cant wait to see more of THAT klein, especially when they adapt vol 2 & 3…. aside from seeing gehrman sparrow my guy of all time do literally anything, the lanevus fight is one of my MOST anticipated scenes to see animated

I thought it was funny how the suited clown’s body reanimated and jumped at klein right after he killed him, but was also a bit sad at the change bc the reanimated corpse scene on frye’s table in the novel was so chilling. that scene also hinted about beyonder abnormalities upon death & characteristics…. but they’ll def explain that another way later since the pace slows down ep 4 and on so it’s whatever I can deal. the suited clown still raved about Hornacis to klein so the core of the scene didn’t change

I’m VERY happy though how they kept klein being traumatized by his first kill, traumatized at the body on the table, and dunn reassuring him!!!! I really hoped most of all they’d keep + show the weight of these effects on his psyche and how his captain is looking out for him <333

ALSO AZIK EGGERS IS FINALLY HERE 🙏🙏 LETS GOOOOOOOO ETERNAL TEACHER

okay now onto another matter

holy leoklein I couldn’t believe my eyes they aren’t playing. my superstar all close to klein and giving him lingering stares while walking away, hes gay and european dang stand UP leonard mitchell!!

I love to see how they’re showing the growing attentiveness and friendliness between the two <3 but im also scared.. how emotionally devastating is the final episode going to be, seeing the way they’re already doing these little moments? augh its hitting again how I’ll have to watch my son breakdown over his partner and captain in 4k pls nooooo it’s still a ways off but im not ready 😭😭😭

all in all it was a great ep :3

#lotm #lord of the mysteries #lord of mysteries #lotm spoilers

17 notes · View notes

themoreitisreproduced · 4 months ago

Text

17776 - What Will Football Look Like In The Future? by Jon Bois.

Before we begin, experience it yourself here: Intro | What football will look like in the future

Between Kendric Lamar’s Superbowl halftime performance and the way most American eyes go to it when it is on, it only seems right that American Football earns its place as a stage for art. ‘Seems right’ is heavy phrasing, because most sports fans and most art fans do not cross paths (ever). Still, there is no doubt in saying that American Football attracts a larger audience, so almost everyone in America has an opinion on it. Hell, I’m not even American and sometimes I find myself having an opinion on it more than I do for the actual British football teams I’m supposed to support. So, abstinently, when I saw an article with the title, What will Football Look Like in the Future?, I clicked on it. Expecting to read something about how football will become even more of a battleground for politics, instead I was taken on a transformative media journey.

In the very first section, the prologue, we are introduced to two characters. ‘Green’ and ‘Nine’. They communicate via messages sent, dated on a calendar labelled March ’43. There is no 20 or 19 or 18 or other number to tell us when this date actually is, which adds to the mystery and intrigue of the experience. The very first messages we see take two days to be transmitted back and forth, and after this, green disappears, and we are left only with Nine, and an overly large calendar. Occasionally Nine will speak, but nobody speaks back. This is, I am sure you are aware, emotionally devastating to witness.

As Nine begs for a response, pleas of help getting more desperate and louder, Green does not indulge them. They are left alone. We do not know where they are and neither do they – in a way, we are them. We have no clue what is about to happen or when we will hear from Green again, we are trapped, as Nine is, with just the dates. It is a sad and lonely existence, so far removed from anything else. The design of the website helps aid in this, the image of the calendar with the words on it takes up your entire screen. The messages from Nine quickly go from long and complicated to short and desperate. Are we Nine? Are we simply reading Nine? Who are we, and who is Nine? Lengthy questions remain unanswered.

We’re in July now. July ‘43. We haven’t heard from Green since they first spoke to us. Nine. Whoever or whatever we are. Eventually the tired begs for a response give way to a more open and honest ask, instead of two words, we are back to asking a few sentences for Green to speak to us. To do anything, really. We begin to feel desperate, uncontrolled, frightened. Green is the only thing we know and now Green is gone too. Where did they go? Why did they leave us? Did we do something wrong?

We already have to wait eleven days to talk to Green. Why should we keep wasting time? You would think that if They cared for us like they claimed to, claimed to know that we were afraid, then why did they leave us? At this point we’ve forgotten that they asked us too be patient. The loneliness of not knowing, of not understanding why they’re gone is too much, and we are desperate for an explanation or a single word from the one thing that we know, even know to the point it is the colour of our background on the calendar. Green.

And so, we return to begging. We return to that desperate, all-encompassing thing we need, human connection. We beg for someone to notice us. We beg for Green, Green specifically to notice us, but there is no Green to respond to us, there is only the calendar background, which only serves as a reminder of what we have lost.

The year changes. One thing that aids this piece of media, piece of art, is the way we are a witness to the time changing. It is not only cemented by our desperate messages of help happening every eleven days, it is cemented by the year changing, and the background colour changing along with it. It changes into something that we’re more familiar with, red. We’ve forgotten Green. At least, we’ve forgotten what they look like. Now the background colour is something familiar and almost comforting. It’s ourselves.

The final plea is desperate. We have not heard from Green in many months, and we have lost hope. ‘This is my final transmission’ allows the viewer to really put themselves in the shoes of Nine, which is, of course, us. The plea, like the first one, takes place across two days instead of just one. It helps emphasise how long it takes to send these messages, and how lonely it feels. We have spent two entire days writing two sentences.

This is, of course, a lie. Why do we lie to them? To whoever Green is, saying that it is our final transmission when we continue to send? Again, this helps with the question of what are we, and allows us to really think about if Green is good for us. Many more months will pass.

In June, after a long time waiting, which the viewer must scroll through, checking every box just to see, we finally get a response. This response also comes with a name, Ten. The number after Nine, the one that comes after our name. Ten makes their own begs here, similar to how we were begging them earlier; I love you, call me Ten. It is at this point the reader begins to realise that both of them are named after numbers. Are there more numbers? Is there a One through Eight? Again, the year changes and time moves on.

Again, a message from Ten. This time, we know more. We understand their name, and that they know and process a magnetometer. Instantly, this begins to create an idea in the mind of the reader of some kind of sci-fi setting. The colour of the calendar has also changed, this time to blue, which is an entirely new colour and an entirely new experience for us. The font changed alongside it, so it is clearer now, less messy. Things begin to become more ordered for both ourselves and the reader. Though we protest Ten’s idea’s – We do not have a magnetometer. Again, with the knowledge we have now, we begin to scroll.

It is an action almost akin to doomscrolling, which refers to endlessly scrolling on social media, particularly through bad news or terrible comment sections. It is the same, mindless action, but somehow more boring. The reader begins to feel tired and drained, the same way they would if they were scrolling through a hateful comment section on a TikTok, or more likely, Instagram Reels. It is monotone, it is boring, it is unhealthy, but this comes with a promise of light at the end of the tunnel, rather than doomscrollings endless doom.

It ends with Ten talking to us again. A simple message that requires so much effort to get to, so much so that enough time passes for us to begin to wonder is any of it is worth it. Is it worth scrolling this fast? This piece forces the reader to ask themselves these questions. In a time of attention span crisis, this piece challenges that whilst indulging it. It tests it by having huge, aching gaps in between the phrases, but it indulges it by allowing the reader to scroll through the story. Ten is not only just words on a screen here, they represent a light in the dark, the end of scrolling. When Ten arrives again, we begin to feel hopeful. We begin to do things.

Here, in November, it almost sounds like we are talking to the reader directly. We are getting good at being patient, and so are they, but we are desperate. We need to hear from Ten again, Ten represents hope, Ten comes after Nine, they come after us, they will be here when we are not. Ten is a shining light in the darkness of doomscrolling, and we are stuck with them as our only companion. The font here also becomes more futuristic, with the dots and large, blocky texts being hallmarks of the genre, as well as the lack of clear year group. Again, the calendar has changed colours to yellow. It’s beginning to get less reasonable. It was green at the beginning, because Ten is green, and then red, because we are red, and then blue, which comes after green on the colour wheel, but why yellow?

Yellow symbolises many things, most of them different from the other in a strange way. Firstly, yellow symbolises, and is most associated with, joy. It is also a warning sign, whilst simultaneously being associated with optimism. Ten has shown up and told us we can do things, thus offering us optimism we so desperately needed. It begins to feel more hopeful, more freeing when the reader see’s the calendar. It no longer seems so monotone. Now at least there is hope.

And then when the new year comes, with no other word from Ten, the calendar is back to blue. It is brighter now, to be sure, but there has been a choice here; the colour is almost comforting in its familiarity. It is blue, but it has hints of green in it, like the colour of Ten’s text we read. The numbers and words begin to become clearer too, as they are shown in lines instead of dots.

Quite possibly the most heartbreaking message we receive is that one. Ten is our best, our only, friend. Being told not to message them for such a long time brings us back to the doomscrolling sensation mentioned above. It puts us back in the same position we were at the start of missing Ten. This time, we know Ten will have to have a response.

But, as is the way with people and things we love, we mess up.

And we mess up again. Twice more, in fact, only extending our communication hiatus.

And then the viewer see’s this, simple black and white text on a screen. In this time, the viewer is witness and so far apart from many major historical events, but none that you could tell by looking at them or the piece. The cluster of months, rather than dates, add to the impersonal feeling about the entire calendar and the out-of-touch way the reader is witnessing the events of history. It’s simple black and white design makes it look like the night sky, the pitch black with thousands of stars. It keeps going, until the reader see’s this.

When we realise the answer is negative 48, it fills the reader with pride. The larger part, the map of the stars, that blocks out the rest of the calendar, moves as the viewer looks at it. Finally, the doomscrolling is over. The reader begins to see something different, scientific documents and reading, pieces of code and flowcharts.

And at the bottom of it all, like at the bottom of all the doomscrolling, every time, is Ten.

This time, Ten is speaking to us on a black, blank background. Ten helps us come to the realisation that we are not a person, and we are a machine. More specifically, we are the Pioneer Nine space probe, and Ten is Pioneer Ten.

The opening to this piece ends with Ten asking us if we want to watch some football, while we are repeatedly asking them what year it is.

What Will Football Look Like in the Future is a piece of speculative fiction, presented through multi-Media and published digitally by SB Nation, written by Jon Bois. Jon Bois, by trade, is an American sportswriter and not an artist. He is also the creative director of SB Nation, which is used to blog about Sports, and has many other speculative fiction stories on its website. Outside of his Sports writing, he makes and produces YouTube videos and films. Bois is not an artist, or he claims to not be an artist, but I do not know what else to call him. He truly makes the reader of the piece feel as though they are Nine in this situation.

So, how much of this was real, and were the newspaper clippings just edited pieces made up by Bois or were they actual articles? Were Space Pioneers Nine and Ten real? Did they communicate?

Space Pioneer 9 was real, but it was launched in 1968, not ’43. And yes, whilst it did die, and they did loose contact with it, that was in 1987. It seems again that Bois had taken the liberty of making a piece of writing that inspires it’s viewer to question every piece of information they are presented with. When does this story actually start?

You will never know. The first people outside of Nine and Ten the reader, us, see say that it’s 17776, though.

Words: 2379

#17776

10 notes · View notes

thealogie · 1 year ago

Note

I’m venting to you because you’re being so level headed about this but honestly I’m devastated. In retrospect I’m not entirely surprised, I’d never heard any allegations but I’d always gotten vaguely immature vibes from his tumblr. But god damn. Good omens season 2 pulled me out of a two year depression. The future has felt so hopeless lately with climate change and the genocide in gaza and the US elections coming up. Everything important and real is so bleak. I know it seems trivial, but good omens season 3 was honestly the only thing I was truly looking forward to. Now I wouldn’t be surprised is Michael and David pull out and I would respect them for that. I just personally don’t know how to cope with this.

It’s totally normal and ok to be heartbroken on a personal level as long as you realize who the real victims/survivors are. It’s not bad or wrong to be attached to a piece of fiction and feel like it gave your life meaning. It meant a lot to me too! And there will be time to grieve or navigate whatever happens in the future together <3

I’m being level headed because for me personally thinking of anything other than the people affected feels very emotionally/viscerally wrong right now, but it’s ok for you to be sad for personal reasons. You’re not hurting anyone by doing that.

#brother the absolute best case scenario here is that those two have enough moral backbone to drop out or at least demand #a different showrunner but let’s not go pinning our hopes on actors

38 notes · View notes

mulders-too-large-shirt · 3 months ago

Text

s7 episode 8 "the amazing maleeni" thoughts

last episode was…. interesting!!! but this episode sounds silly. and i’m ready for a silly one.

this episode description mentions a magician!! i bet scully would love to try and figure out how magicians do their tricks. actually, i bet they both do that, and it’s probably annoying to everyone else in the audience.

(post-episode thoughts: giggling and blushing at the blatant flirting through magic tricks. and the scooby doo level hijinks and trickery that went down. this show sure does love a twin reveal, and it gets me each time. observe how our two very badass agents are actually giant fucking dorks. and revel with me in the range this show has, from emotionally devastating to high alien camp to straight comedy, or sometimes all at once)

let’s dive in!!!

we open on a fairground- coney island? or something similar? and a worn out sign for the amazing maleeni. side note, the library of congress has a collection of magician’s posters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and you can look at some of them online, and they are SUPER cool

is this him? maleeni himself? sitting in a van? yes, it is!

a staff member shows up and says that he is not getting his full paycheck!! this is so sad. he still promises that this will be his greatest show ever. “right on”, says the staff guy in a voice not unlike that of john mulaney

he has begun his performance. talking about his ancient art. he seems to really be a scholar of magic as he rambles on about the greatest performers there have ever been…. and this guy heckles him

“bosco had only one contemporary rival, a slightly older frenchman named conus” <- bro, i wanna sit down and queen out with maleeni. the academic history of magic sounds like just the sort of thing i want to listen to. and his tricks are cool!

“practice though i have, i have been unable to even get married” <- this guy is funny!! they aren’t appreciating him!! stop heckling him!!

he just made oranges appear!

this heckler dude is a flop. he’s talking about reattaching a severed head as dedi did. “western history knows three previous attempts at recreating this noachian feat, each of the three ending in tragedy. this will be the fourth” <- bro... you really provoked him into doing something crazy.

look at the camcorders the audience members pull out!! how vintage!!

staff guy is just watching this go down…. it’s all fuzzy on the screen as maleeni's head rolls around. all the way around, in fact. wonder how they did that with early CGI. crowd is very pleased, but not heckler guy.

after the performance, staff guy tells him he rocks, and goes to deliver his money. but mr. maleeni is solemn. no. wait. his head fell off!! a drastic change in the tone of this episode!!! poor john mulaney sounding guy!!

everyone cheers as we watch the intro, even though it is very short today.

hehe, i am filled with warmth and optimism.

mulder is here!!! a likely place for him to be. peeking into the van. and scully is here, too!!!

“neat trick, huh?” “i can think of a neater one: how you convinced me to drop everything and get on the first plane to los angeles” <-LMAOOOO, it's so important for scully to get his ass

BAHAHA, THESE FUCKING NEEEEEERDS, I’M CRYING

“you think this was a murder?” “don’t you?” <- they’re both confused!!

“mulder, his head was cut off” “ah, observe the nearly complete absence of blood. observe the paucity of fingerprints, as evidenced by the LA PD’s liberal use of lycopodium powder” <- LMAOOOO HER FACE WHEN SHE’S LOOKING AT HIMMMM and she asks why he’s talking like that, bahahaaa

my first thought was “did he want to be a magician as a kid?” but then i remembered he wanted to be an astronaut. but THEN i remembered kids usually want to be lots of things… children are so complex. so he definitely had a magician phase.

his hypothesis is that maleeni performed a magic trick that kills everyone who attempts it. “can i see that camcorder again?”

camcorder time. let us view the trick. scully notices the heckler and how he leaves, seemingly angry.

LMAOOOO, NOW SHE’S GETTING INTO IT. how will they find the heckler if he doesn't even show his face in the video? “ah, but observe: his discarded soda cup” <- these two are fucking losers and they were made in a lab for each other.

where are they off to now??? they find the heckler!! who is also a magician! his name is labonge. and he has a criminal record for pickpocketing.

oh, now this guy is magician lore dumping. and he….. flips his hand all the way around? dislocates his shoulder? girl, i don’t want to see that. BAHAHA, scully laughs and mulder looks like he’s gonna gag

“did you like that?” “yeah” she says <- LMAOOO

is this magician hitting on her? while doing coin tricks? anyway, he thinks it’s soul that separates the greats from the hacks.

“that, and i hear maleeni racked up some pretty big gambling debts” <- BAHAHA

she says they’ll be in touch and he says “please do”, BAHAHAAAAA oh poor boy wanted her baaaad. don't we all. get up.

and he steals their badges!!! lol he was getting silly

autopsy time!! scully thinks professional jealousy or hatred between magicians could be a good reason for murder….

“alright, i’m stumped” hahahaaaa. you've bested her!

his head was sawed off!

but he died of coronary disease?? so he died.... and someone sawed his head off super quick and then attached it with spirit gum. this makes mulder giggle.

and it’s been over a month since he died! “and yet he performed yesterday” “well… somebody performed yesterday”

cut back to labonge!! who is in a bar. looking for cissy alvarez. who he did time with. he used to play poker with maleeni. “i’m the guy that made his head fall off” <- LMAOOOO WHAT? is he being fr right now? everyone stops and listens to him.

maleeni (also, apparently, known as pinchbeck) owed cissy $20,000. “how would you like to get back what you owed? times ten?” “doing what?” “magic”

what is he plotting...? cissy’s men start to come in for him… labonge lights his own hand on fire!! and then he pulls out a wallet! that he somehow stole from cissy!!

crime!! magic crime!!!

the agents are visiting a bank?? looking for pinchbeck. and someone points him out to them! saying he is a poor man.

OMFG, it’s maleeni in a neck brace?? what is going on.

“good morning, mr. and mrs….” “agents!” mulder corrects quickly BAHAHA. oh. come on. a "mistaken for husband and wife" gag is always gonna kill me.

so this guy says the amazing maleeni, aka herman pinchbeck, was his twin brother!

(author's note: it might sound a little confusing from here on out, but i will refer to this banker twin as "pinchbeck", and the deceased maleeni as "maleeni". i hope this makes sense, because writing it in the moment was hard, as was editing it for clarity)

and he claims his neck was injured in a car accident. mulder asks if it’s related to the magic trick he did. no! because that wasn’t him! he was in a bad car accident in mexico. “oh, bad mexican car accident. in mexico” <- MULDERRRRRR KNOCK IT OFF.

scully asks if he knows magic, and he says he used to perform with his brother. he asks mulder to pick a card. he looks at it and then leans over, showing it to scully, and something about that is so endearing to me.

he performs the trick, and it is indeed his card! he says he quit because his brother wanted to be the best magician in the world, and he knew they never could become the very best.

mulder proposes a theory…. pinchbeck's brother maleeni died of heart disease and pinchbeck performed one final trick for him. pinchbeck says he only wishes it were true.

the camera pulls away…. revealing he is in a wheelchair! with no legs! “it was a very bad car accident in mexico” WELL!

mulder is gagged. HE LEFT AND HE RAN HIS HAND OVER HIS FACE, BAHAHAHA, oh my god... did he apologize for saying such a thing?

they go to consult labonge. he wants to know what he gets in return for helping them. “the feeling of pride that comes from performing your civic duty” <- LMAOOOO

mulder promises instead to let labonge root through the secrets of his least favorite magician. and he reveals maleeni’s van.

LMAO, WHAT? HE PULLS DOVES OUT OF A HAT AND THEN PLACES THE HAT ON SCULLY. mulder is not paying attention to this.

scully... in magician hat...

LMAO, his little hand flourish

are they tricking him into spilling his secrets here? because if so, it’s working.

he lifts up the floorboards (can they be called "floorboards" on a van?" and finds nothing down there… but mulder finds a marker! labonge must have left it there when he lifted the boards up!! he's setting them up!!

back at the bank, pinchbeck goes to pick up some money. he asks to see the guard’s gun. he’s thinking of getting one since the accident. then gives it back to the guard. something is afoot.

in comes cissy to see pinchbeck!!! he says his brother maleeni owed him a lot of money. he must pay up- cissy knows where he lives.

the guards are driving away…. they hear a thunk in their car. he grabs his gun…. but i bet it’s gonna be the bang gun….

who is in the truck!!!! oh shit!!! the gun does seem to be real!! bu it doesn't fire!! he shoots…. but whoever was in the truck is gone!!!

it’s labonge!!! he drew fake tattoos on himself and then wipes them off after making his escape!!

is this whole thing a bank heist?

scully finds cissy!!! they found his fingerprints on the marker! he denies having killed him. scully says he shouldn’t leave town. it is very ominous. they depart.

LMAOOOOOO, MULDER DOES A LITTLE MAGIC TRICK ON HER... BAHAHAHAAAAAA!! the way i rewatched it right away to see their stupid smiles….

she did not want him touching her nose or for him to make her do something as silly as pretend to sneeze, LMAOOOOO, but she says his trick is amazing!!! “the great muldeeni”, he jokes, and omfg, my face hurts from smiling….

(still smiling painfully as i edit this post)

this is an elaborate and touchy metaphor for misdirection. and it amuses me. mulder thinks labaonge is making them look in the wrong direction.

labonge was on the street when they went by!! he calls 911!! reporting a man with a gun threatening to kill somebody!!! and then he walks away!!!

then he goes in to talk to cissy!!! who calls him a son of a bitch- “you tried to frame me” cissy starts to attack, but labonge pulls out a gun. and the cops arrive and take him away!!

scully and mulder are back to see bestie pinchbeck. mulder grabs his wheelchair and walks him away, which is so wrong. he goes to toss him out of his wheelchair, and scully yells at him to stop, but!!!! he falls out!!! and has legs!!! HE is the real maleeni!!!!!!!

he says he was afraid for his life and that is why he did what he did. he owed a lot of money to cissy from the poker games that i suppose it was actually him playing and not the twin brother pinchbeck. scully asks why he didn’t just manipulate the cards… he refused to cheat because how could he live with himself! “who raised YOU?” <- LMAOOOOOO

trust that her navy father probably would not tolerate poker cheating and this projection on his behalf will not go far.

he says he went to his brother (who is pinchbeck, btw, are you keeping track?) for a loan and found him dead. it was an opportunity to become someone else. so he faked a trip to mexico. took time away from work. faked an amputation. took his brother's identity.

mulder puts him in handcuffs!!!! they go through his stuff!!

“my god. we gave you handicapped parking. we built you a ramp”, says his boss. LMAOOO. you know it took time to build a ramp!! but tbh they should have had one to be an accessible building anyway, so!!

also lmao at scully’s face while mulder rifles through pinchbeck/real maleeni’s stuff. she is in DEEP thought. she looks mad as fuck. lmaooo.

and he had access to the vaults!!! but everything seems to be in order. maleeni breaks out of his handcuffs…. because he was a magician.

it was at this point our agents discover there was an attempted robbery yesterday! "pinchbeck" who is really maleeni was the employee on duty for that!!! he is taken to jail…. and he isn’t even allowed a phone call…..

LABONGE IS IN THE NEXT CELL??? they were working together??? this whole time??

and the money from the bank is gone!!!

they find footage of cissy walking in!!! and the security guy sees his tattoos and thinks he was the dude in his truck!! but of course we really know that it was labonge with some sharpie marker!!

mulder pokes the ceiling with a cue!!!! and bags of money fall out!!! cissy swears labonge set him up!!! will the agents believe him?

maleeni and labonge have both made their bail. but the agents have arrived to bust them!!

and mulder launches into his new theory: maleeni’s twin pinchbeck died of a heart attack, which gave him and his young protege labonge the perfect opportunity. and labonge wanted revenge against cissy, who tortured him in prison. so maleeni played poker with cissy, made sure he lost big, giving labonge an in with alvarez when maleeni was presumed dead. and labonge planted the marker in maleeni’s van. maleeni ordered the attempted bank robbery to implicate cissy. labonge was in the armored car disguised as cissy. maleeni got the guard’s gun, switched the clip to fire blanks, and then they really robbed the bank, and planted the money in cissy’s place. LMAO at this scooby doo ass explanation. but i needed it. because there were plenty of twists and turns

mulder says they can both go free as long as the magic is over. “billy, let’s get the hell out of here”, says maleeni. so they're really friends...

mulder does more magic…. he stole maleeni’s wallet! why did they need the FBI for their intricate plan? ahhh!! he needed the badge number from when labonge took their IDs and his thumbprint from when he picked a card to get access to the digital money!! but they can’t do it without the card with his thumbprint that mulder stole back!!

scully looks amazed.

BUT SHE GAGS HIM BY TURNING HER HAND ALL THE WAY AROUND AND THEN REFUSING TO EXPLAIN, BAHAHA

the end.

ohhhh. these losers. said with SO much affection.

i needed this….. needed this one to go in my arsenal of silly time episodes. yeah ❤️

it was a caper! a heist! that our agents exposed!!! and they did bad magic and flirted along the way!!! isn’t it so great to be alive? to be known by another?

heheheheheeee…. scully in a magic hat… scully telling mulder his tricks are amazing…. hehe. i’m so pleased i feel like a fool.

NOT complaining. not complaining. i love when they are dorks together. i wish them a long future of it.

it’s so funny that this is the same show where all this terrible stuff happens. like the cancer arc and abduction arc and various tortures and murders and alien slavery plots. how do you reconcile that with this? it just makes me have to laugh if i think about it for longer than 5 seconds. they said "yes, we are gonna make a show about two people that are so emotionally distraught... but sometimes… JUST sometimes… we’ll do a silly one". and guess what? i’m here for it.

all of the heartbreaking moments- thinking of mulder sobbing in church, or begging that clone of his sister to come with him, or scully resigned to dying, losing a daughter she didn’t know she had, losing her sister, losing her partner over and over again- and despite that. we get silly magic trick.

and you know what? i’m not complaining.

i have been loosely plotting a vague alternate ending to the series (and no, i don’t really know how it ends, but i’ve heard whispers of a few things that are decidedly more in the sorrow filled category than this) and i feel justified in my rewriting to give it a happier end. because: don’t sit here and tell me that this show is all doom and gloom. it absolutely isn’t all of the time. come on now. i feel that i am taking part in a great tradition that includes the show runners themselves in seeing a sad episode and saying, you know what? we can change the vibe up in the next one. and so i will. and i shall. with pride.

so yes. when i write the “and they lived somewhat happily ever after” version i will incorporate my own angst AND my own cheesy magic flirting. i look forward to it.

overall, the plot to this episode was quite convoluted, and typing it out was very difficult, but i can't complain. i simply can't! i giggled the whole way through and audibly said "aww!" at certain points. because deep down these two are just losers. and it is important to remember that.

i am also curious to know how long it took the actors to learn their magic tricks. obviously they could hire pro magicians for labonge and maleeni but LMAO i'm imagining having to run mulder's card tricks over and over again...

#trying out adding the episode title in the header... so let me know what you think!!#a good episode!! not much else to say beyond it is adorable how much they love each other #but now i must sleep so everyone: have a lovely evening #and be sure to share your reactions to this episode! did the magic trick scene also kill you? tell me!#juni's x files liveblog #7x08 #the x files

10 notes · View notes