#MACKENZIE K.

[vitalphenomena]

@petitsdieu

"My father is a complicated man."

"But that doesn't mean his authority is a threat to your planet's."

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@dogtccth // x

MACK TRIES HER BEST TO HOLD BELLA'S GAZE. Softly, imploringly. "If somethin' happened to you, you can tell me."

[elisefrost]

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) dir. Denis Villeneuve

[vitalphenomena]

@corsey // elfgar said: "Lots of people don't have mums." 

“And that’s fucked up!” Mack nearly-shouts, for the sake of emphasis. She jackknifes her hand through the air, for the further sake of emphasis. 

“I’m not gonna stop feelin’ sorry for myself or for all the other people in the world whose parents have been taken from them. Just ‘cause something seems natural don’t make it right.” 

She seems to have stunned herself by saying something that appears to carry the weight of an immense profundity.

"Just leave me be, if you're gonna act like this."

[vitalphenomena]

WE?

"We?"

Mackenzie sucks in air. Mackenzie exhales that air in a mighty, mighty breath.

"I don't want this to be a we situation, Ruth, a you and him situation, I just—this is something I wanted to tell you, eventually, one day."

"of course it is," the dragon lady soothes. "you don't have to tell us everything at once. we're not even expecting you to tell us everything."

this is, in fact, the opposite of what ruth byrne wants and expects. sssh.

"feel better now?" funke wonders.

"even if you don't--"

"like i do, once i've cut a big one?" he wasn't done.

[vitalphenomena]

@corsey // pneuma said: I just prayed and I keep praying.

He is at her side. He is always at her side.

She does not look at him; she looks at her laptop, her many emails, her various stacks of files and briefs.

She doesn't know where he came from and she doesn't really want to know. Where she came from is bad enough.

"And how'd that go, for you?" she asks idly.

[vitalphenomena]

@alwaysif // mohan

"You can't talk like that! You can't say that stuff about people, good people."

He could be saying something innocuous but vaguely unkind, or he could be revealing his true colors to someone who always thought the best of him.

She wishes, intensely, for a knife.

[vitalphenomena]

@alulars // mr. johnson

"He was my brother, and all."

"And I couldn't get to Shipley quick enough, before he skipped out on everyone. But I would have. I could have. Do you believe me?"

[vitalphenomena]

MACKENZIE WOULDN'T DESCRIBE HERSELF AS SENSITIVE—BUT MAYBE SHE IS, A LITTLE BIT. Maybe Celeste thinks she is. And there are worse things to be, surely, then a little sensitive. (Maybe it'll compel, at least subconsciously, Celeste to take it easy on Mackenzie.)

"The day my mama died?"

Alright, well. There's no easy way to start this, is there? 'cause no part of Mackenzie's Knight has been easy. "The only person who cried as much as me was my older brother, Elijah. And later, he got a real serious 'talkin' to 'cause of it. From my daddy. Who just—he just—"

The water boils to a screeching point.

"—oh! You might wanna get that."

celeste's right eye twitches in response to the flinch. ( was she really affecting the other woman so much? why didn't she feel more guilty? ) she swallows anxiously and taps her fingertips against the enamel counter almost silently, her own discomfort rising as the water continues to heat to a boil.

she tips her head a bit to the side at mackenzie's answer, opting not to press the more private issue to start, instead pursuing the train of thought she does invite her to explore. "what do you remember about that day?"

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@alulars // mr. johnson

"Long day?"

Not looking up, she prepares a black coffee and puts it on the pick-up counter.

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@bluedprints // henry

"I think I need some help." I think something real bad has happened, and it's all my fault. "I couldn't go home like this, I didn't — I don't know anyone else who'd understand." Who I am. What I am.

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@unfogged // dakota said: that’s one of the primary characteristics of abusive men. charm.

"My father wasn't just an abusive man." To say so seems awfully reductive — diminishing of all the things the Sinclairs, the Hwangs, JM, her victims have gone through.

My dad was worse than you could even imagine feels dramatic, but it's the sentence spelled out in her solemn, sharp stare.

"And charm was just the half of it. Fear of God — putting that in people — now, that's something."

[vitalphenomena]

"Couldn't ask who to what, now?"

She's getting a little anxious; she's already been here for longer than she anticipated being so visible.

"You could ask anybody to do anything," she remarks wisely, "And I think they would do it."

While Mackenzie's documentary hasn't gained as much traction in 199-whatever as her main timeline, she's still aware of Conrad and his awe-inspiring social status. She just wasn't raised to worship celebrities, and some of Idris's teachings did stick.

"You know that, right?"

"Help?"

He could use a little of that himself, right now.

"W-What do you want me to--"

Wait! My awe-inspiring social status.

His disappointment for her, and what that may mean for him going forward in this interaction, overrides his feelings regarding her highly suspicious activity.

"I couldn't ask them to... even if I'm on TV, I don't think that means I get to have people's doors busted down. Sorry about that."

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@sapphoetics // h.annibal said: ❛ i could just eat you. ❜ 

MACKENZIE SMILES A SMILE THAT CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS SHARKLIKE — very much the opposite of H.annibal’s composed, thin-lipped pleasantries. 

She doesn’t know much about H.annibal L.ecter — only that he came recommended dby somebody else in the support group, so he must be worthwhile. (After one session with Dr. Lecter, however, she finds herself losing faith in the good intentions and excellent taste of the other survivors in her safe space.)  

I could just eat you, he says, almost like he isn’t even talking to her, so softspoken she might have missed it entirely if she weren’t waiting for something. The other shoe that drops, so to speak, after something goes right, for once. 

She doesn’t consider herself so easily digestible. 

“I don’t think you’ve got the stomach for me,” she says lightly. Still, that tense but brilliant smile is painted across her face. 

“But I’ll see you same time next week, Doctor?” ‘Cause suddenly, Ha.nnibal Le.cter — sterile and mild-mannered and faux-perceptive in the way she thinks all psychotherapists are, especially during an intake session — has made himself real fuckin’ interesting to Mackenzie Knight.

[vitalphenomena]

@inrovina asked: “can you give me twenty dollars?”

She was raised to answer this sort of request positively, with blind acceptance. But Mack scrutinizes the way she was raised, and she has reason now to scrutinize just about everything about Xeno.

She thinks about the last time she lent him money, and the time before that. She thinks about how he and Cass robbed and assaulted a man in the middle of the street — how Cass described him during and after that moment.

Mack doesn't know a lot of things you and I might know about the real world. But something in her knows to be skeptical of this request.

"What for now, Z?" She pretends to rummage around in her pockets like she's going to pull out her wallet eventually and say yes, Xeno, whatever you want, no judgements, no questions asked, no grudges held about what happened in the past but this is just because she thinks she's being nice.

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@tenccs (x)

Mack is in good enough shape; she doesn't have to break much of a sweat to lift Sam up and drag him to bed. That's not the point. The point is, she didn't ask for this at all.

As they stumble closer to the bed, she lets Sam trip over her feet. Whoopsie! He falls onto the bed, then looks up at her with his eyes — those fucking eyes — and Mack immediately feels guilty. She sighs wearily.

"The couch is fine — and yet here you are, on the bed. C'mon, get to the pillow, like a person does. That's right." Mack unfolds the blanket from the foot of the bed and drapes it over Sam. There's a roughness to her movements, but the act itself is inherently gentle.

"You just need to lie down for awhile."