#also ignore the fact that the hand is dogshit

[penofwildfire]

Someone get this wizard some estrogen

[itsabouttimex2]

Sooooo... How do you feel about the season 5?

In short? Mid. 6-6.5/10.

In long…?

A severely rushed season that bit off way more than it could chew. A season that had the characters pull powers from their asses more frequently than ever before. A season that had shitty “dramatic” moments for the sake of having dramatic moments. A season that lampshades issues instead of fixing them. A season with so, so much wasted potential.

It basically boils down: everything they wanted to do COULD have been good, but they just didn’t have the time.

I’ll go into some varied details below. I’d also like to make clear- I’ll be tagging all of my Season Five Posts with “Lego Monkie Kid Season 5” and “LMK Spoilers” until August 1st. Then the gloves are coming off and I’ll stop tagging them.

(I still liked the season, for what it’s worth- and you can watch it in full here! I’ve got some drafts and bots cooking as we speak!)

This was a cute send-off to Flying Bark! It was nice of them to acknowledge, in some way, everything that those dears did for the show- because Lego Monkie Kid would NOT be where it is without them.

Significantly less cute-

The absolute kick in the fucking face that constantly superimposing old footage over newer, worse footage is.

You don’t want us to be constantly reminded of the animation downgrade- that’s the literal last thing that anyone wants. Why would you constantly remind us that it used to be better?

What the fuck does this accomplish? Okay, let’s make comparisons, cause that’s the only thing that can result from pulling this shit-

This is what happens when you constantly reference the older, superior content.

PEOPLE CONSTANTLY NOTICE THAT YOUR CONTENT IS WORSE.

Also, why is it so saturated? How do you make a Lego Minifigure look like he has jaundice?

It’s just a bad look to constantly reference content you can’t live up to. I’m hoping they’ll just recreate old content instead of sloppily pasting it into the background of the show- it’ll be less jarring.

Alright, what else…

———

Uh, I fucking called it! Nuwa is not MK’s “loving though bereft mommy”! Which I had been guessing ever since the Celestial Pagoda leaked, actually-

I mean, come on. He’s literally stealing the stones away from her as she reaches to take them back.

And the Season confirmed it! Nuwa might’ve be been MK’s creator, but she certainly wasn’t his momma.

And you know how the series subtlety clues you in to how little she cares about her “son”?

Nuwa didn’t give him a name. She had hundreds, maybe thousands of years to think on it- but no. No name.

We mortals name our pets, our vehicles, our art. We love them enough to bestow monikers.

Nuwa didn’t even bother to name her own sapient mortal creation.

But when he makes a move against her, does something she doesn’t want, takes destiny into his own hands?

She calls out to him with one word- not “son”. Not “MK”.

Nuwa angrily calls him “mortal”.

Becuase that’s all he ever was to her, really. A mortal pawn. A handmade puppet.

Someone designed to fulfill a sacrifice. Even though her intentions were good, MK’s sole purpose by her hand was to shoulder the weight of the world like a good little hero.

So… a potential villain in the making?

———

Lampshading the fact that you’re doing the “macguffin hunt” again does not excuse doing the “macguffin hunt” again.

Lampshading the “apocalypse after apocalypse” plots doesn’t make them any less exhausting.

Lampshading Macaque’s lack of narrative consequences does not undo the awkward and weak redemption arc.

———

They changed Mei “no longer wielding” the Samadhi fire, I guess.

Ignore that she never displayed a hint of concern or sorrow over “losing it” because now she’s sad and worried (after backlash from the fans over her losing it) about losing it.

Like, Subodhi knows so much about the world and the universe that he’s aware of his existence in the ink scroll- but he gets Mei not having an interplanetary level threat inside her wrong?

I smell a retcon.

———

Macaque’s redemption arc is still shit. I’ve got a whole rant queued to release soon, actually- I imagine it might be the final time I comment on his arc until Season Six.

To put it short- Macaque still falls upwards into redemption. No pushback or difficulty or introspection. He’s just a magically better person without any onscreen development to make the change believable.

But they reference this at one point?

Sun Wukong points out that Macaque escapes the trial without any punishment, and is just allowed to mope in place of an actual consequence.

So maaaaaayybeeeee they’ll do something in Season Six? I’ve lost all faith that he’ll ever be an interesting character again, though.

He’s essentially just “brooding rival #80058”. Instead of being a character that calls back to Seasons 1-3, from 4 onwards he’s just a brand new dude who totally didn’t commit any atrocities with a smile on his face- and he’s a worse and more boring character for it.

———

If I haven’t misjudged the intent, I think Monkie Kid will be going back to being an episodic series for the extent of Season Six. Again, they lampshade the “apocalypse after apocalypse” thing, yeah?

And now they have a perfect formula- find someone who’s having trouble with their new power, and help them.

And we might see Bai He again???

Let’s hope for a good breather season!

———

Rest in piss Li Jing their asses did NOT cook with you sorry papa

You could’ve been interesting in the writers didn’t try to pull a “loving father” bait and switch after you got like four scenes of being a raw jackass

If they were going to deviate from the source material and make you a good dad couldn’t it have just been:

“Li Jing, you were not invited to the trial!”

“STF that monkey son of a bitch hurt my baby boy-“

“Father I’m 300-“

“Hush son, let daddy take care of this- that monkey son of a bitch hurt my baby boy when he stole the Samadhi fire map!”

Maybe next season you’ll get to be interesting, hun.

(I’m still writing for Lotusfam though)

———

Drama for the sake of drama. 0/10 scene. Could’ve just had the interruption come AFTER they held hands, but no. Gotta drag shit out for the shippers or whatever. There was no reason to prolong this reunion.

I’m really not a fan of the “just wait another season for it”, mentality. Stop stretching shit out. You had a chance to do something sweet and heartwarming, and chose not to for the sake of trying to drag a conclusion out.

Ugh.

———

Characters just pull powers out of their ass for the sake of forcing dramatic scenes.

THESE ARE DOGSHIT SCENES

THIS MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. THIS IS DONE SOLELY FOR THE SALE OF “MUH DRAMATIC FINALE” AND IS BAD

ITS BAD WRITING TO HAVE CHARACTERS PULL NEW MAGICAL POWERS OUT OF THEIR ASSES FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMA

IF WUKONG HAD THIS POWER FROM THE START HE SHOULD’VE USED IT AGAINST HIS FUCKING LETHAL ENEMIES AND NOT SAVED IT FOR HIS PRECIOUS STUDENT

MK NEVER LEARNED TO USE THE FILLET SPELL. THE WRITERS PULLED IT OUT OF THEIR ASS TO FORCE DRAMA BY HAVING MK TORTURE HIS MENTOR LONGER THAN EVEN THEIR ACTING ENEMY LI JING DID WITH A CIRCLET THAT IS CANONICALLY TIGHTER THAN HIS FIRST

WE SEE HOW FAST HE IS WHEN HE FIGHTS THE AZURE LION

MK CAN MOVE FASTER THAN WUKONG

HE COULD’VE BEATEN HIM THERE IN AN EQUALLY CLIMATIC RACE

I FEEL NOTHING WHEN I WATCH THIS BECAUSE IT IS FORCED DRAMA FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMA

—————————————————

💚💚💚

[dylawas-reblogs]

Larian is wrong. Gale does not have a six pack. Gale does not have abs. Let me propose what's really going on with that dude.

First, let's look at the fighting style of the wizard. Yeah, they have a quarterstaff, but those are usually a last resort defense and not a primary form of attack. You still want to have the upper body strength to swing one around that's decently enough made to not snap like a twig if you've got to defend from an axe in a pinch, so they're not light, but it's not like he's bench pressing with the thing either. He's also not twirling it like a baton, or using it in a martial manner like a monk would, but that's where the other component of a wizard's fight style comes in; casting spells.

I'm not going to pretend I fully know/understand all the intricacies of magic and spellcasting in the Forgotten Realms, I play DND but we ignore that spell component bullshit. Somatic and verbal components still matter, but material? Ppf. Fuck that. All that is to say, take what I'm gonna suggest with a heap of salt.

Pretty much every spell in existence has a somatic component, meaning you move your arms and hands in a certain way to make it happen. So wizards may not be doing much heavy lifting, but they're still moving their arms a lot. Probably having to brace themselves to cast more powerful spells, too. And you can still very much build some muscle tone even if you're not throwing around bags of sand. Gymnasts and swimmers come to mind in this particular instance. Like yes I'm sure they train in other ways (and I know they rely on core and leg strength way more) but you can't tell me none of their increased arm strength comes from doing their actual sport.

And hell, as I was typing that out, maybe wizards do have arm-specific strength building exercises they do outside of spell casting. At the very least they're doing some hyper specific things with their wrists and fingers. Violinists do finger strength building exercises. That's totally not out of the question. It's likely, really.

Posture is also important for a wizard, not just because good posture keeps you alive in most dangerous circumstances in general, but it keeps you properly balanced to cast, and cast accurately. Given Gale's reprieve from the public eye for a year, though, this aspect has admittedly probably taken a little hit, and changes in posture can change the way a body's weight is distributed. And I want to make it very clear-- I don't think this man is thin. Especially not now, not with time and age. But I also don't think he completely stopped keeping up with his spellcasting, either. He'd want to keep his mind, tongue, and fingers sharp. This man doesn't do core exercises, mind, but he probably only spent the first few... Weeks? Maybe a month or two-- wallowing. You can take the wizard out of the spells, but you can't take the spells out of the wizard. He was trained to cast with efficiency and precision, and he'll keep doing that, so his posture, and therefore core strength, wouldn't completely lapse. In short, tummy plush, but likely not round.

Now, everything beneath the belly isn't as important for a wizard's needs, so I'm going to skim past them a little to get to my conclusion, but to summarize, if he has cake it's not because he was doing squats, if his thighs are thick it's not because of muscle, and we all know this man's knees are dogshit. There's a reason one of his canon lines is, "Given my propensity towards verbosity, it surely can't be a surprise that I have a practiced tongue." Suureee bud you can use that as your excuse for being a cunning linguist instead of your knees.

In conclusion, all of this is to get to the point that Gale does not have abs. Gale is, in fact, closer to dadbod, with some pretty decent upper body strength.

Oh yeah and he's hairy. I don't make the rules sorry.

[kenobihater]

javert is WRONG: the thesis of les mis is that legality and morality aren't synonymous!

i just found the internet's most unbelieveably dogshit hottake that makes anything woobifying javert written by Die Girlies Auf Tumblr Und Twitter galaxy brained in comparison. rest is below a cut because i got Wordy in my goal of ripping this motherfucker a new one.

The point about “fault” is very important here. Following Rousseau, Hugo believes that the poor become criminals out of necessity. They “fall” (i.e., become poor) and then become morally “degraded.” Therefore, our response to crime should be “charity,” not punishment. This is a classic Romantic view that became the basis for modern liberalism. According to Rousseau, people are basically good and are corrupted by society, committing crime only out of ignorance and desperation; the solution to crime, then, is education and welfare. Christians obviously worry that this view has no place for the doctrine of original sin, and conservatives object to this view because it leaves out personal responsibility for crime.

i know this is a christian publication but the concept of original sin even factoring into criminality and criminal justice genuinely pisses me off. stop forcing your shitty worldview that everyone is popped outta the womb an evil sinner, i beg. the seperation of church and state is a vital part of democracy. also, you can believe people are shaped by society and driven to crime through desperation without taking away personal agency. those two things are not contradictory.

If I am right about the Rousseau subtext, then Javert is not necessarily a villain; he’s just a conservative, albeit a liberal caricature of a conservative. There are two good examples of a liberal bias in Les Mis. First, notice that Valjean’s position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society. When he leaves the prison, Valjean can’t get work because he doesn’t have the right papers. He’s an undocumented worker. In a scene from the musical cut from the film, a farmer allows Valjean to work for him, but then only pays him half as much as the other laborers. The farmer reasons, “You broke the law….Why should you get the same as honest men?”

i've never seen anyone, even javert fans, try and argue he isn't a villain. this is breaking new ground here, folks. it's a hell of an assertion, but it's demonstrably false. jean valjean is the main character. we root for him and wish to see him succeed. javert is hunting him for the entire narrative. thus, he is the antagonist. there may be some moral ambiguity on both their parts, but he structurally is the villain and that is a narrative fact.

next, as an american i am fucking BEGGING on my HANDS and KNEES for other americans to learn about the differing political terms for different countries and times if they are speaking about them with any supposed credibility. i'm not asking you to memorize every country's parties and political intricacies, but at least acknowledge that even if there is some overlap between 21st century american conservatism and 19th century french politics, that there is no one-to-one analogy!! modern american christian conservatism is a consequence of hundreds of years of unique geopolitics and religion stewing together, and you can say similar things about french politics of the time! you CANNOT just say shit like "javert is a liberal caricature of a conservative" without sounding like an utter clown because hugo was not an american liberal and javert is not an american conservative. now, if you were to alter your language a bit and say something like "javert is a leftist caricature of an arch-conservative," you'd sound less foolish (hugo's politics are hard to pin down but leftist is i believe the best label for him at the time of LM's publication. and to my understanding javert isn't really a fervent arch-conservative but it is at least a plausible reading bc he's a traditionalist, deeply religious cop and 19th century french arch-conservativism actually existed in 19th century france (shocker, i know!)). but that change in language would require actual intellect and effort to learn about other times, places, and worldviews on the part of the author, and judging by his ignorant politics, something tells me he's lacking that!

then there's the bit about illegal immigration. hoo BOY is this fucking stupid. jean valjean is a white, culturally catholic, working class french male citizen. he's an everyman of the time, his name and story of class struggle couldn't be more generic unless he was named john doe or jean dupont (the french equivalent) from nowheresville, france. hugo had a point here, and that is that as a member of the wretched poor, les misérables, valjean, representing a large swath of the french populace, is so removed from education and self reflection and truly living life that he's more akin to an animal or an object, that he's so beat down by the daily grind that he verges on inhuman. this is only magnified by his time in toulon. i'll stop there, but it is very important in jean valjean's story that he's impoverished, yes, but a french citizen. he is as french as the king, but treated like dirt because of his social status and criminal record. this sets up a dichotomy in the france of 1832 between the wretched poor and those with privilege, which is an important part of the novel.

the issue of "illegal immigration" both in france and america is a modern one. there was still bigotry and xenophobia, obviously, but the discourse around the intersections of border control, the nation state, and citizenship is a very modern one. to say "valjean's position in his society is roughly analogous to an illegal immigrant in our society" is ignorant. yes, both jean valjean and many undocumented immigrants are faced with similar abuses, but that does not mean it's intended by hugo to be a reading of the text or political commentary because let me restate this: 21ST CENTURY AMERICAN POLITICS DIDN'T EXIST IN 19TH CENTURY FRANCE!

also, valjean is the opposite of undocumented. he has his yellow papers, which are quite literally documents that are the root cause of the daily discrimination he faces, hence why him ripping them up is a radical act of freeing himself from the control of an unjust state. i don't even know how you miss this, it's stressed in the movie musical multiple times.

“Men like you can never change,” he tells Valjean. But Javert is not simply being prejudiced here. He knows from his own experience that it is possible for the poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Javert, too, was born in poverty. He is “from the gutter,” as he puts it, but he embraced law and made something of himself.

oh, of course the bootstraps ideology rears its ugly head. not even gonna waste my breath on this one other than to call it stupid and wrong. all javert made himself was a class traitor and a bootlicker, and that's honestly tragic.

Consider a second example of liberal bias. The character of Fantine is designed to elicit the viewer’s sympathy for “welfare mothers.” Fantine, a young, unwed mother in Valjean’s factory, faces persecution from her coworkers. The factory foreman expresses a conservative attitude toward charity: “At the end of the day, you get nothing for nothing.”

this part. this part was so unbelievably cruel and so far removed from the empathy that this narrative bleeds that i had to step back from writing this and take a smoke break. firstly, fantine is NOT a stand in for "welfare mothers", which is, once again, a modern conservative strawman! the welfare state did not exist in 19th century france. there was little to no support for mothers in fantine's position, and to my knowledge, none stemming from the state. hugo was writing her character to bring to light the unfairness of her position. she had a lover who left her flat out, with a child to care for and no financial support. she was ostracized, eventually fired, and resorted to survival sex work.

Fantine shouldn’t expect special treatment, but rather should take responsibility for the consequences of her own sexual license.

fuck you, john. where in the text did she ask for "special treatment". where in the text did she do ANYTHING but take responsibility for her child. she sold her hair. she sold her teeth. she sold her body. she got sick because of her living conditions. she died. all out of love for her child. also, framing children as "a consequence" is disgusting, and you should be ashamed of yourself and reflect on why you think that's an alright way to view a living, breathing, human being. if you don't wanna take my word for it, psalm 127:3 clearly states "children are a gift from the lord; they are a reward from him," so your stance is decidedly unbiblical. children aren't punishment.

Likewise, when Fantine turns to prostitution to feed her child, Javert is unmoved by excuses. Valjean’s family was starving, and Fantine’s daughter was sick, but these facts don’t excuse them for breaking the law. Theft and prostitution are wrong, and it is Javert’s duty as police officer to arrest them.

how is theft to feed a starving child immoral. how is sex work to ensure your child lives immoral. give me ONE reason aside from your and javert's religious worldviews that either of those things is wrong. "but the bread didn't belong to valjean!" and would inaction, watching his nephew die simply because a windowpane and empty pockets separated him from a piece of bread be more moral? is watching a child die when you believe you can save them the better option? the whole point of this damn book is that legality is NOT synonymous with morality. javert may have the legal high ground, but he does NOT have the moral high ground, and when he realizes this, the thesis of the book, he fucking kills himself! for an example outside the text to perhaps get it through your thick skull: slavery was legal. biblical, even! does that mean it's morally right? no!

Thus Les Mis is designed to get us to see Javert’s conservatism as cruel and to elicit sympathy for Hugo’s liberal social policies. It should be noted, however, that Les Mis is a caricature of the conservative position. Conservatives agree that we ought to treat the poor with dignity and compassion. They think that compassion programs, however, should be administered by the church instead of the state, and they think true dignity requires personal responsibility and submission to the law.

how can javert both be an exaggerated, cruel conservative caricature and be right? i'd argue he's both an accurate portrayal of the inherent cruelty and misanthropy present in the politics of the political right, and that he's decidedly wrong as proven in the text. jean valjean is a good man, despite it all, but javert couldn't see that because of his worldview and chose to relentlessly hound him until he finally realized his mistake, a realization that overcame him so strongly that his only solution in his mind was to kill himself!

and do conservatives actually agree they should treat the poor with dignity and respect? it's in the bible, sure, which christian conservatives hold as the absolute truth, but in this very article you, a christian conservative, have expressed nothing but contempt and cruelty for undocumented immigrants, for unwed mothers, for thieves and sex workers. for les misérables - the wretched poor. and why shouldn't the state handle "compassion programs" as you call them? the gov't is electable and manageable (in theory), unlike the beast of untraceable wealth and power that is the church. we don't live in a theocracy, so the only reliable way to ensure people get the help they deserve is through the state, which can actually be held accountable for these expectations (again, in theory). that's more than you can say for the church.

The fact that Les Mis contradicts evangelical theology does not mean apologists shouldn’t use it—on the contrary. We can help non-Christian fans of the musical see how the vision that draws them toward the story can only be fulfilled in Christ.

his conculsion is LAUGHABLE. personally, the "vision that drew me to the story" at age twelve was my attraction to men. i'm a flaming homosexual, you see, and a transgender one at that. the overwhelming majority of musical theater fans i've encountered are some variety of queer. at age 22, ten years later, i'm drawn to the story still partially because i find these characters attractive and magnetic, but much more so for the literary and socialist political value i find in the narrative. i'm an unrepentant leftist as well, as are literally every other les mis fan i've ever met (besides yourself, of course). i've found more fulfillment through reading les misérables than i have in my exploration of the new testament, and i'm not even done with the book yet!

i don't really know how to conclude this other to point and laugh at john and his publictaion, because somehow i stumbled upon a conservative fan of les mis and the lack of self awareness is more baffling than i could have ever imagined it being

[celestemodder69]

For as interesting and rewarding as learning and mastering a speedrun can be initially it doesn't change the fact that you are engaging with a game in contexts where no design work was put in, sometimes actively avoiding the actually designed contexts and modes of engagement and running the game to its limit and its breaking point.

What happens to Celeste's story when you avoid any and all of it's manifestations? To the ludonarrative sense of overcoming when you already start winning? What happens to the stamina puzzles when you just use neutral jumps? To the level design when you can hyperdash the length of a screen?

What exactly are you engaging with?

Forsaken city is a tutorial for the basic mechanics I already know, an introduction to the characters I already know, it sets up a tone that I'm gonna ignore and mechanics I'm gonna bypass, its so input dense it make my hands hurt.

Old site, has an open section that I would have explored and wandered around in casually, a chase section that would have pressured me to constantly move (lol) and relaxed wind-down section at the end (TASawake here I come!!).

Celestial resort has you timing your inputs to avoid the dustbunnies (here's a setup to not have to worry), was there some story at some point? Remember the first time I passed though here it was so slow and frustrating, things are better now. Damn that last room is annoying, if I could skip it I would.

Thank god this game has no autoscrollers, no good speedgame game has autoscrollers, wind is a mechanic that pretends to impede the player.

So you know how the point of temple is that you have to wander and get lost, yeah fuck that. Anyway isn't it fucked up that seekers aren't meaningfully deterministic that's bad game design!!! Do you remember how the walk with Theo was slow and tedious, how carrying him was supposed to be a burden, remember how you had to improvise because the seekers would throw everything off, do you remember how to do a gultra?

So like the whole thing with reflection is that after a slow reflective section were you are given the option to go through the fast path and the slower path a few times (it's meandering, or was rather). You confront yourself in an explosive battle were all the hampering elements of the previous levels are not there and the screens get easier so you feel like you are constantly making headway (as opposed to the previous sections) and it feels awesome, this is likewise significant for story reasons. What actually happens now is you progress through a slog of unengaging screens that is way longer than it has to be and it's the most dogshit experience of the entire speedrun.

Chapter 7 exists, I guess, the previous one was so utter garbage that I never decided to route from 6 onward, I would practice 1-5 then kinda hope for good results on 6-7 whenever I decided to do actual runs, did not give a shit. Also shoutout to all the strawberries I didn't get.

At some point you can't say you are playing Celeste anymore, not to any practical degree, not from a game design or player experience perspective.

[staceymcgillicuddy]

If you’re still taking prompts for the writing one, 2 or 23 mayhaps? 💖 No worries if not. 😘

I am, in fact, still taking prompts! And I'm going to answer both of yours! Here's number 2, and I'm going to start work on 23 now. I'll tag you when I post it!

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

The concept is so ludicrous, so ridiculous, so beyond the realm of comprehension that Eddie has never considered it in the three months he’s been privileged enough to call Chrissy Cunningham his girlfriend, his sweetheart, his one-and-only. Like, he’d prostrate himself at her feet daily if she’d let him, and maybe he’d tried once or twice before she’d “oh my gosh-ed” at him in a way that had him swooning and grabbing at her knees and kissing her ankles and yeah, alright, he worships the ground she walks on. Fuck him, right? 

So, the idea that Chrissy could be jealous? Does not compute. Beep-bloop, broken robot, bye-bye. 

Yet, there Chrissy sits, arms folded and a frown on her face, in the front seat of his van where he’s giving her a ride home after Corroded Coffin’s standing weekly gig at the Hideout. Chrissy can’t always come—her mom and dad aren’t exactly down with Eddie, so her attendance is contingent on whether she can sneak out—but she was there tonight, looking perfectly delectable in one of his old Dio shirts that she’d cut up and turned into, like… some girl shit where her boobs are pushed up and fantastic and it nips in at the waist, and yeah, he’s gonna eat her out. He’s gonna eat her out so hard, what with the flippy black skirt that’ll be so easy to get underneath.

Only that’s not looking so likely, judging by the way her bottom lip is shaking. 

She also hasn’t answered the question. 

Eddie pulls the van into the curb, ignoring the indignant crash of a loose cymbal. 

“Chrissy,” he says, reaching for her hand, only she turns away. “Hey. Baby…” 

“You were flirting with her!”

“With Alice?” Eddie is stumped. Shboggled. Stupefied. Alice is like… the bartender. That’s it. She’s not even a girl, really. Or, well, she is a girl. He’s made out with her twice, and she gave him a handjob once. But she’s older—in college in Indianapolis—and she only picks up shifts at the Hideout when she’s home on break because her uncle owns the bar. And, like, yeah, she has a great ass and a cool haircut, and she’s fun to talk to, but he wasn’t flirting. He was just, like, kidding around. Teasing her a little. Coercing her into a free drink and a smoke and…

Huh. Yeah. Now that he thinks about it, he can see where Chrissy’s coming from. 

“Allie’s just like, my buddy, though?” He offers by way of explanation. 

“Eddie, come on,” she says, and her chin is still wobbling. 

“I’m serious, though! You don’t have anything to worry about.” 

She rounds on him with a glare, and he’s suddenly quite sure that he’s stepped in a pile of dogshit. “Oh my gosh, I’m not worried, Eddie! I’m embarrassed!”

“Th—why?” 

“Because it’s humiliating to have to sit there while my boyfriend flirts with another girl in front of his friends, is why!”

Oh. Huh. Eddie never thought about it like that, but then, he never had a girlfriend before Chrissy. But, if the tables were turned and she was being real cute with some random dude while he had to sit there and watch, he probably wouldn’t be thrilled with the situation, either.

“Fuck,” he says. “Chrissy…” 

“Don’t do that crap, okay?” She blinks, and there are tears in her eyes. Eddie officially wants to kick his own ass up one side of the street and down the other. “It really hurts my feelings.” 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he says, and he means it. “That was a dick move.” 

Chrissy softens slightly, and this time when he reaches for her hand, she lets him take it. “I don’t care if you… if you have friends, or whatever. But don’t flirt, okay? Don’t do that.” 

Eddie nods, and if the gearshift wasn’t between them, he’d have flung himself across the seats and onto her lap by now. “Got it. Yeah. Totally. Just… new to this, you know?” 

“Uh-huh.” She shrugs, then offers him the tiniest hint of a smile. “You want to make it up to me?” 

“Depends.” 

“On what?” 

“What you’re wearing under that skirt.” 

Other prompts from this meme!

[mannatea]

it's super fun to watch people argue on other webbed sites about ffix because i remain completely and utterly separate from them. and you might be thinking, "sure, it makes sense not to comment on threads from 20 years ago on old forums" which is of course TRUE. however, these discussions also take place on modern reddit and even in youtube comments, and while i am not usually shy about commenting there (especially reddit, i have like 12k karma) there is approximately zero chance of me engaging in discussion with people who don't actually want to discuss anything.

the rest is under a cut bc i'm ranting lmfdsafhdsalfjds

i could absolutely reply to them and say something like, "aCTUalLY your reading comprehension is dogshit; i'm sorry you don't understand what words mean when they make a complete sentence. please get help" buuuuut that's just insulting and doesn't help anyone. i could also actually explain why they're wrong, and probably in one complete sentence, but they are just absolutely enthralled by their own opinion and have zero desire to read mine. also, they'd have to read the wHOLE sentence and i've already established the fact that a lot of these people can't do that.

the amount of absolutely buckwild takes i've seen where the person talking is willfully ignorant or (quite honestly) just plain stupid and incapable of critical thinking is...not surprising. what IS surprising is how many people base their takes off of their own piss-poor memory of the game. like buddy...at no point did steiner call beatrix a kiss-ass, suck-up, or brown-noser. he just mentioned that she was trying to one-up him. slightly different. context. words have meaning. etc.

ALSO SURPRISING: the amount of hate and vitriol based on shit like "steiner is ugly" or "eiko is annoying" is crazy to me. for some godforsaken reason the beatrix haters (all very proud to be considered such, i assure you) love to show up on every discussion or even mention of beatrix to talk about how they (you guessed it!) hate her. okay??? you do you but i have better things to do with my life than hate fictional characters.

and you might be like, "but manna, you're a beatrix stan. you've loved her since you were like 14! of course you'd notice that!!!!" but buddy my pal my GUY my fRIEND these takes are about basically every single character who had more than a few lines in the game. the garnet slander is insane. people making fun of 'dagger' as a nickname? talking about how she's stupid for feeling love for the mother who raised her and loved her for years?? people WILDLY overreacting about zidane's supposed lechery? brooooo he seems over the top when you're like, 12, but replay the game and there's barely a mention of it. also the "ooh soft" scene was an accident 100%, i've known that since i was a child.

don't even get me started on eiko and how people act like she's some kind of demon even though she's a LITERAL SIX YEAR OLD GIRL WHO LOST HER FAMILY AND WAS RAISED BY FUCKING MOOGLES like? hello??? of course she does the wildest shit. GOOD FOR HER. i support her wrongs. and also that love letter. dumbest idea ever but watching her prance around the castle getting doctor tot's help was ENDEARING, RIGHT? like, she was trying her best! and she grew as a character!

so did steiner! and garnet! and zidane! and BEATRIX! sorry the game didn't hold everyone's widdle hands and be like okayyy so now steiner realizes that blind loyalty is BAD, okay? and now he's going to make some choices of his own because he's learned that he's allowed to be his own person and have his own thoughts and opinions about things. one of those choices is going to be beatrix but that's not him regressing in character development at all; that's him declaring to protect someone OF HIS CHOOSING (rather than someone he's sworn to protect through fealty). let's all give steiner a big round of applause in the steiner+beatrix+mistodon scene for making his first big VERY PERSONAL CHOICE even though we may not personally agree with it or even think it came out of nowhere!!!

don't get me started on the others.

nobody's character development was subtle but it's like some of the fans of the game have negative media literacy and just say the dARNDEST things (but in a way that makes you smartly log off rather than start typing up a comment to them directly).

like i just genuinely cannot believe some of the stuff i've seen.

don't get me wrong, i've seen some great discussion too--about worldbuilding and timelines and the genomes and on and on.

i'm just gobsmacked at how many takes aren't like "haha dumb" but are like, "i'm not sure you're literate" dumb. then again, it's shocking how many people can't or won't put themselves into the shoes of another character. like they could have a gun to their head and be told to try and explain why steiner is the way he is and they'd just say it's because he's ugly.

which is like. concerning. not because i think steiner as a fictional man has rights*, but if they can't even figure out basic bitch character development 101 for a cartoon man in a 20+ year old video game, how do they like. live life? engage with other media that's more subtle? yipes.

*he should be allowed to say fuck, tbh

anyway it's just really funny to see these whole ass conversations going on in other spaces and be like, you're all wrong and bad at reading comprehension but it's none of mY business

while i run to tumblr to have a giggle about it for my 3 followers to read

[aqours]

hi i'm gonna rant about rwby for like the first time in 6 years

ok i'm gonna rant about how this season didn't matter + Ruby's suicide attempt (because yes that's what it was) hi i haven't been involved in this fandom since like fucking season 3 ended

so at the end of the day Jaune is back to not being old and Ruby didn't become Ruby 2. this is slightly better than my predictions because i FULLY anticipated Ruby post-ascension would essentially become a new character that would also just fully be one of Jaune's cheerleaders down to her core so that Jaune could fully replace Ruby as the mc once and for all

i can't tell if it's better or worse that the 2+ year wait for RWBY fans and the end result is an entire season where NOTHING happened. there are no lasting consequences. it was a waste of fucking time and it's clear they genuinely thought the Justice League movie, which was based on a crossover comic that literally nobody liked would be what would save RWBY, a show produced by a company that is in incredibly hot water that prooooooobably wants to wash their hands of it by now. instead, just as the comic was dogshit, the movie was also dogshit. there's not even a scene to hype up a potential season 10 lmao

i genuinely think they were betting all their money on the Justice League movie and oops it's gonna sell like dogshit

and what gets to me is like. the fact NOTHING mattered. i thought for SURE that they'd keep Punished "Venom" Jaune because it makes him look more like Miles or that they would kill off Ruby as we have known her to make Ruby 2 again to make Jaune the new mc as Miles has clearly wanted for ages so there would be lasting consequences but there isn't? the entire thing was actually the equivalent of those like, old filler arcs Naruto and Bleach used to have back before the industry started preferring anime seasons over the show never stopping and its BAFFLING

and all for what? suicide analogies? i actually saw someone be like "WHY IS IT THE MOST MEDIA ILLITERATE PEOPLE BECOME RWBY CRITICS anyways it's clearly not a metaphor for ascension because the ever after people-" yes for THEM its not fucking suicide. for the people native to this world returning to the tree and being reborn is not suicide. that's how their world works. they're born for purposes. they fulfill those purposes. they can keep doing what they do as long as they want but? there's no stigma for THEM to chose to end their current existences so they can be reborn as something else. a scene i actually REALLY liked was when Weiss was like it IS really weird, to them, because they are NOT native to this world and thus it's such a bizarre alien aspect. and that Jaune was kind of forcing their worldview on the Paper Pleasers who were clearly OK with it. in the context of the native inhabitants of the people of the Ever After the context of ending your life so you can be reborn is not harmful to them- it's a NATURAL part of their world and that's OK! it's weird to them, to us, but that's OK! it's a fantasy fairy tale world that works differently than the real world and Remnant with a COMPLETELY different philosophy surrounding death. when you know for sure you'll be reborn as something else in a fictional setting, the philosophies and morals of death can change. that's fine.

in the context of RUBY it was suicide. in the context of RUBY ROSE who is NOT native to this world it was a suicide attempt. she was MISERABLE. she was depressed. Yang fucking stepped in front of Blake and glared at her like an enemy. Ruby was at her most horrific mental state yet and was completely ignored by everyone until it was too late. Neo actively manifested physical trauma in front of her until Ruby reached such a breaking point after seeing her mouse friend be killed she actively decided she wanted to end her existence as Ruby Rose. she did not want to keep being herself. Ruby decided that for her existence as Ruby Rose was completely destroyed and she became somebody new with no memories of her past that it was preferable to being alive as she was now. the sheer brutal reality is that if Neo had handed her a rope instead? probably the same result.

Ruby committed suicide in front of her best friends and five minutes later they were smiling and hugging and basically saying well maybe she'll come back BETTER maybe it was a good thing she did that what the fuck

nothing in this season mattered. it was a fucking filler season. nothing of long-term consequence happened. clearly the writing team fucking loved 13 reasons why and you know what i don't judge for shit like that but why was it in RWBY. why did this show of all things do this weird suicide thing with Ruby and present it as a good thing. "she was taking her medicine" no Yang was fucking HORRIFIED to see it. they just justified it like ten minutes later. she committed suicide and everyone was like "well maybe that's not so bad actually" and then it went from "she committed suicide" to "it was a suicide attempt" instead.

nothing mattered except that we know clearly 13 reasons why is the writer's favorite show. it's obvious that this was a filler season and instead all of the actual manpower and effort went into that movie in the hopes that it'd attract DC fans to the fandom in the vain hopes that the DC fans + bumblebee canon now would be enough to save it. please for the love of god let it die

[eucalyptus-gl0bulus]

predictions for 2024:

someone's gonna piss on white house property but not in the toilet

joe biden and trump die of old age mere months before the election and both of the single party that americans have two of have to scramble for new candidates. the democrats will ignore bernie for a borderline republican who will change their allegiance the moment they get into office (assuming a democrat win)

Ronald Dion Desantis and Greg Abbott get the Shinzo Abe Experience (and the republican party starts caring about gun violence over this) (but only removing the guns from the hands of the minority groups that did the shootings)

Anthony Albanese will eat a food wildly incorrectly (such as a raw onion) and Baldi's Basics in Running a Political Party will do a silly dance in parliament because he is defending a corporation. the news companies will only cover one of these.

Captain Ancap will actually try selling Argentina's president seat to Elon Musk and there's a coin flip chance of him accepting it and somehow running it about the same

At least 2 African nations will legalize slavery

Joe Biden actually tries to raise the minimum wage as a last minute fuck you to his party. it hits 9 us dollars per hour. this is still not enough to pay rent in any city.

Nintendo announces a new switch, but there is a glaring issue with the name that makes it sound like an accessory for the original (like the WII U being mistaken for a gamepad add on for the wii)

Another Ubisoft sandbox that's as boring as the last. It magically makes it into the game awards

There is a new indie game that's cool until it hits the elsagate market and becomes skibidi dop dop dop yes yes skibidi dop dop nyeem nyeem levels of dogshit. the developers lean into it and change things already in the game to fit this, leaving the ideal way to play as a pirated copy of the first release version.

Mario Kart 9 is announced for the Switch 2. The retro courses have a lot of MKDS and MKWII's courses (nitro and retro) and yoshi circuit gets the shortcut back from double dash

Valve makes an agreement with Epic to let Fortnite on Steam. They also release a major TF2 update with new Valve-made content that isn't a scrapped map from 2010 that they reskinned. It's got Cactus Canyon on top of the new map, with an extra few cacti because it will have gone through more versions. Beta Maps get added to the Casual map queue under their own. Player Destruction gets added to the core casual queue and the invasion maps get put into the right categories. Medieval Mode gets new maps. VSH is put into a new "arcade" mode.

TF2 Casual's Core Modes and Alternative Modes are combined, but the ultrawacky modes are shoved into arcade. There's a case for valve items and war paints, and a case for community items, and a community war paint case. This results in a bug with Unusual skins with the seasonal hat effects and Unusual hats with the skin effects. Competitive resets every year now and gives a badge for your rank.

This update also includes a Fortnite-Themed set for scout/heavy that comes in genuine for linking a Fortnite account subscribed to the Crew service. The entire update is actually a promotion for Fortnite coming to steam and the TF2 collab.

Additional Fortnite collabs include Guilty Gear (Asphalt/Brisket/Sol/Ky) and Touhou. The Nintendo Collab has Link and Samus (with zero suit style) and this causes news headlines to come out because gregor samsus has the bulge (suddenly this is an issue because they need clicks)

The Zero Suit style and the Skyward Sword link styles are locked behind playing on a Switch/Switch 2, depending on when they come out and the switches dont actually render the bulge on samus (cringe)

An Australian Politician (Male) will have to stop campaigning against trans people for a second because one of the women he sucked off recorded it and posted it on tiktok. He will then switch entirely to an anti-CCP angle to try and blast tiktok and distract from the fact he did the homophobic politician thing

Sussan Ley will have her office sign griefed to say SUS. The nearby Cafe's incredibly blank wall that needs a mural finally gets one (it's amongus)

There will be 3 Homestuck books donated to my local library and I will not know any of the people who did it.

a trans man comes 1st in a major competition and this is going to be ignored just like every other time because it doesnt fit the media narrative of "trans women upend their entire lives to get an advantage in sports and trans men simply do not exist"

One of those robot police dogs shoots an on duty officer and becomes the first good police dog.

Kamala Harris' Registeel falls onto train tracks and damages a train in the process of being destroyed.

Weed is federally legalized in the USA, Australia and Scotland, which secedes from the UK to rejoin Europe. Wales and Northern Ireland also secede from england and the Irelands reunite.

England becomes increasingly bad for trans people but scotland, wales, and the newly reunified ireland start going hard on the trans support, opening a new informed consent clinic every month.

Western australia sees the kingdom ununiting and tries to secede from the rest of australia. It almost gets through before someone remembers it exists and stops it.

Dr Egghead from one piece tells Luffy that he has autism right at the end of the Egghead Island arc, to nobody's surprise. Nami officially comes out as lesbian and this almost kills Brook and Sanji (i love brook until he does the sexual harassment. sanji is irredeemable.)

A new anime with a severely autistic girl in the main character slot comes out and is an instant hit again.

Another one of my friend group comes out as trans (it's the former mcdonalds worker)

I get the job at the place half my graduating class got a job at

Panera releases the Lemonade That Kills People internationally with half the caffeine. or i can stock up on that stuff at my local american/international stores because that's 5 coffees worth of caffeine in one drink and that saves me drinking 5 whole coffees per day when working.

Shrek 5 gets a trailer and there's a reference to one of Dreamworks' bad movies (like boss baby) in it. Death makes a background appearance in a scene where Puss is near death.

Shinzo Abe's assassination continues to be the most effective strategy for making politicians do things in favour of the average person.

At least one US Supreme Court member's house is bombed, killing them.

Illumination makes more Onceler content because they think that'll make money

Every country in the UN except the 5 with veto power try to take away the veto power and replace it with the value of 10 votes each.

A 6 foot 5 girl comes out in fiction and everybody starts calling them mommy and wanting her to step on them, making every 6'5" girl uncomfortable. I request that everyone stay normal during this.

YOLO and Epic come back into common use. Epic is now an insult.

Pokemon releases a new pair of DLC for Scarlet and Violet. Between the two, people will be able to get every pokemon ever released again, meaning we finally have an answer to whether revival blessing can be used in revivecats. There is a way to reduce IVs. there is a secret superboss at the end of that second half of the second dlc pass that comes with the world champion 2023/24 team but it's level 100. It's Carmine this time and she's just been curious about what's been going on around the regions.

This pokemon DLC lets you change your furfrou's cut and it will persist until you change it again. you can deposit it into home, frustrating the people who wanted the pharaoh cut and put high value legendaries for it. Ledian gets an evolution with an absurd base stat total and the stats are actually distributed correctly. It gets a new 70 power priority Bug Punch and is surprisingly busted. More complaints about gen 9 uu looking like gen 9 ou come in.

Gina Rinehardt gets fucking killed by one of her workers who got tired of her shit

[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

hey. american here. american who lives in the deep south, here. american who is trans, and gay, and deeply deeply fucking terrified of what the next four years will bring, here. i don’t think you have any fucking right to tell me and people like me that we shouldn’t be upset at someone showing their ass about this on twitter.

“people in other countries see you as cultists for being so passionate about politics” there are women who are being charged with murder for having miscarriages. there are queer people out there who are having basic medical care denied to them for the simple fact that they exist. (fun fact, saying “i don’t believe this btw but a lot of other people do” doesn’t make you sound like any less of a fucking asshole.) sorry that i and people like me give a shit about the fact that people are genuinely being wiped off the fucking map.

“in other countries ‘lol’ has different contexts” honestly the fact that you think americans can’t and don’t use ‘lol’ both ironically and sarcastically is showing how completely fucking ignorant you are. i’m not even sure i can properly express how much of a fucking moron you are for saying this, so i’m just going to call you an idiot and move on.

“people are forcing others to share their opinions” nobody forced doc to share anything. nobody fucking asked him to tweet shit. nobody said hey, doc, the guy who lives in germany and streams minecraft for a living, all your american fans are waiting with bated breath to hear what you have to say about american politics! he voluntarily shared his opinion on a public platform and then got his poor little feelings hurt when some of the public didn’t like him.

i’m aware europeans only see the sensationalized versions of our politics. i’m aware that you don’t know what it’s like. i’m aware that we’re going to experience another four years of insanity— because we are. i’m already bracing myself to lose some friends. there are already bodies being found on college campuses and in dorms from students committing suicide over how hopeless we all feel.

i’m also aware that, because of your ignorance, you’re likely to hold some dogshit beliefs. i don’t blame you for that. but i do blame you for spouting your ignorance online. americans don’t need you or anyone else to educate us on how fucked queer people and women are. we’re already fucking living it.

lol.

Well friend, I posted the very unbiased and very neutral opinion, and even in my post I did apologise for the language used and enforced that it wasn't my opinion

And I understand it seem a bit, well dumb to "dumb" something down alot. But their are genuinely people made over the word "lol" and it was mainly meant for those people who are Over-reacting to what he said and are ragebaiting other people into forcing opinions out of them

I am not made at you for leaving this in my inbox. Not annoyed, and if you need somewhere to vent then I'm here.

I have a different account on twitter with the same name that goes more into detail of the people effected by the new presidental election and I do plan on making a bigger post about how it will effect everyone.

But at the time I made the other post, it was quite late and the disgusting things that were said about his family was not tolerated

People also blamed him for the "outcome of the election", and the post was made for those people too.

I prove alot of explanations that sometimes I don't agree with, but others do and that's why I included it for context and not to be hateful or spiteful or silly. I witnessed first handed the chaos that ensued in my own college because he won and I live in the UK.

Someone slammed their head into a wall. Someone went to cancel a scholarship. Someone people left to call families.

And I don't think 1 post about "please don't harass doc's family for culture differences" will fix everything. Because it won't. And I even mentioned why I didn't think I'd fix anything, I do believe. And apologied for language used because I believe those opinions are disgusting and unkind.

I'm mainly a Minecraft blog (shocking ik), and post alot of minecraft content and rarely post other content. And that's why the post is put into the context of assuming you didn't know/other people didn't know. Because I don't know the age demographic of my "audience" and I don't know who sees it.

So it may seem disingenuous, or "stupid" but I like to put things in simplified terms and provide explanations to the point so you know it's not just me making it up, and theirs genuinely thought behind it

I've their issuing a recount because (allegedly) from 75,000 to 2 million votes haven't been casted in yet and the mail ballot haven't reached yet, and I do wish for that to come in your favour.

And again, I will be making a longer post about the effects it will have on Americans as well as the rest of the world, when someone of the conspiracy dust settles and when I have the time, because I am a full time college student (and only 17 getting ahead in a program and taking external course to give you better explanations because my writing is not the best and I use TTOS for alot of it)

Again if you do have any concerns, pop a message in my DMs, I'm not mad or anything, your message was actually nicer than many other calling me all sorts of racists things, and I can see your genuine frustration and I completely understand.

I hope to be in contact soon. Please stay stay safe

[ink-on-the-brink]

Okay yes sorry for like putting in another but my goodness you’re great!! I hope it’s okay if I ask another but like, what would happen if the guys of your choice saw their partner hurt? Platonic or romantic up to you (:

No problem at all! Ideas are always welcome. Especially since I've had a bit of time on my hands! (aka I'm procrastinating on my other stories but shh)

Anyway! Here's Engie, Scout, and Soldier when their S/O is hurt because I put names onto a wheel and they popped up so yeah.

These are gonna be general headcannons that can be taken as either romatic or platonic.

Engie

If Hurt By Your Own Stupidity

Chances are you were messing around with a machine he told you not to touch.

If it's a small injury he'll scold you, telling you to listen to him next time. He won't help you. You have to learn your lesson somehow and if that means you have to drag your way to Medic, embarrassing yourself in the process, then so be it.

If it's a rather big injury he'll be rightfully angry. He's picking you up and carrying you to Medic with a string of mumbled curses at how stupid you had been and that you're lucky he was watching otherwise you might be dead. Even though he's angry you can still see the very clear concern on his face. Once you're all fixed up he's not letting you into his workshop for a while and becomes rather paranoid every time you have to.

He just doesn't want to see you hurt over a machine he built. He would probably never forgive himself if that's the way you ended up dying.

If Hurt By Something Else

Probably while helping him. Grabbing tools, maybe fixing up some wires if you're experienced enough.

Small injuries happen all the time. I mean you're messing around with electric wires and sharp objects here, it isn't exactly the safest thing. He always has an extra medkit in the room and won't hesitate to help you with a small cut or electric burn.

Larger injuries are an entirely different story. He goes blank, immediately carrying you to Medic. He won't leave until he knows you're 100% fine and afterward he'll be deathly quiet. You can see rather clearly that he blamed himself for you getting hurt and that he wasn't about to just forgive himself for it. Afterward he has a hard time letting you help again and finds excuses for you to do something else.

It might just be better if you stick to smaller ways of helping, not just for your own sake, but his.

If Hurt In Battle

If he sees it happen he knows it's better to ignore it. That's what happens in battle and at least during battle you guys have respawn. He'll most likely move his dispenser to where you are to help you out as best he can. He likely won't think twice about what happened...

That is unless whoever hurt you did so in a rather cruel way, enjoying seeing you in pain rather than working to complete an objective.

If that happens the person who harmed you becomes his main target. He won't compromise the battle with the urgency to kill them but it's pretty obvious that given the choice between them and killing anyone else, he'll choose them.

If he were to get close enough, and no one else is around, he'd hurt them and then just kinda sit there, letting them be in pain a moment while he maybe sets up one of his machines. If caught doing this he has about a hundred likely excuses. It was a Spy and he didn't want to deal with his dead ringer, he thought they were dead, another person came along that he had to deal with, pretty much never getting caught for doing it. Basically one of the only things that keeps him calm when he sees you hurt is the thought that he's going to make them suffer later.

Engie's a calm man but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to dish out revenge or hold grudges.

If Hurt By Someone On The Team

Ooooh boy, this isn't going to end well.

It was most likely not meant to be you who got hurt. Being Engies right hand(or left hand rather)meant you always helped him to de-escalate fights. Which meant you were probably only hurt in the crossfire.

That, however, does not stop the anger flowing through Engies veins.

A small thing is enough to get him angry. He rarely yells but in that case he will, silencing everyone immediately before going on an absolute tirade about how stupid they were all being. At this point people would be shocked enough to stop, meaning the goal was achieved but not without some sacrifice.

If you get really harmed though...

Engie's a calm man but he has limits. That just so happens to be one of them. He won't even stop the fight. He's immediately taking you to get fixed up. It's afterward that the consequences come.

He will talk to whoever was involved alone. No one's sure what happens but no matter who ends up seeing that side of Engie they always come out a bit shaken up and not willing to talk about it, though seemingly unharmed.

It's likely to never happen but if it does everyone will become just a little bit more cautious when around him or you.

Scout

If Hurt By Your Own Stupidity

You were trying to toss a baseball as high as you could into the air and catch it to try and impress him.

If it only managed to hit just a little bit of sense into you, aka your throw is weak, then he'll most definitely laugh, telling you to leave it up to the professionals.

If you managed to knock yourself out because your toss was godly but your catch was dogshit then he'd burst out laughing for a good five minutes. It's only after his laughing fit that he thought to help you. You'd have to give him a matching bump to keep his mouth shut about it.

If Hurt By Something Else

You two were probably setting up a prank and something went wrong along the way.

If only a little hurt he'd hold in a laugh and ask if you were alright, to which you'd glare at his hidden grin and say you were fine.

If you were actually hurt he'd go into a bit of a panic, quickly bringing you to Medic. The two of you most defiantly had to lie to get away with what you two had been doing. Unfortunately you were both really bad liars. Medic wasn't convinced but he also didn't care, thankfully.

You'd often bring up how scared he looked when you got hurt every time he tried to act like he didn't care about you that much. It never failed to get his tongue stumbling.

If Hurt In Battle

He's not one to care about a few bumps and scratches. He'll likely tell you to try to be as tough as him(he saids as he calls for medic over a splinter). He sees his job more as a game then a battle so it's rare he holds a grudge against anyone. He's maybe a bit more competitive from that point foward but not obsessively so.

Larger injuries and he's quick (litteraly) to dive into the heat of battle to help. More than often he ends up dead beside you but when he does manage to save you he's super macho about it. He'll say stuff about how much you needed him and how you'd never survive a day without him Even though most of the times you're the one pulling him out of those situations...

Just let him have his moment.

If Hurt By Someone On The Team

It was most definitely because you had annoyed someone, most likely Soldier or Heavy. This happens quite often.

If it looks like you're winning the fight he'll cheer you on. No need for him to get involved if you've got it handled.

If something really starts to go down though, he's on your side. There isn't a time where only one of you was beaten to shit, it always had to be the both of you.

Soldier

If Hurt By Your Own Stupidity

You were trying to rocket jump.

Literally just...Why did you think you could do that?

A small injury and Soldier won't even acknowledge it. Be that a bloody nose or a sprained ankle he's going to act as if you were perfectly fine, mostly because he seldom felt pain anymore and he had a hard time trying to recognize it in other people.

If severely hurt he's most likely going to explain to you everything you did wrong and you'll have to either scream for Medic or wait until he carries you there after his lecture.

You do dumb shit you deal with the consequences.

If Hurt By Something Else

Likely a sparring match that got out of hand or possibly a malfunction of a rather precariosly built weapon.

A small injury and he isn't going to care. If you make a big deal out of it he'll tell you to 'man up' and deal with it though it's more so in good fun rather than antagonism.

A large injury though and he's quick to help. He's calling for Medic and asking you to count how many fingers he's holding up. You'll say three, he'll begin to panic, saying that you must have broken your eyes.

He was, in fact, holding up three fingers...

Just don't question it

If Hurt In Battle

Small injuries are victories to him. If you're not at least a little banged up then are you really in a war?

If you for some reason can't walk though he's the first person at your side. Doesn't matter how many bullets he takes as long as you're brought to safety. He'll say something to the effect of 'don't die on me soldier! No, I am not talking to myself!'

After you're taken care of it's revenge time. He's gonna rack up a killing streak, your injury giving him the last bit of encouragement to win the round most of the time.

If Hurt By Someone On The Team

Defending honor! Whether it's yours or his, you are there to defend it and if that means getting a bit rough in the process then so be it.

If you're less injured than whoever you're fighting then, like Scout, He's cheering you on with probably a few insults to the other person as well.

If it looks more like you're losing he's still not going to intervene. He believes in you! You've got this!

If you end up knocked out though he's going to beat the shit out of whoever it was that defeated you. For your honor! (And because he just likes a reason to beat people up)

[ultraintrovertedgryffindor]

Second Chances - Mark (Midsommar)

Warning: Major spoilers for the movie, drug use, this fic is dogshite, toxic relationships, and just overall fucked up situations

~~~~~~~~~~

(my gif actually)

“Dani, do you really think it’s a good idea to go?”

Dani sighed heavily when you asked that exact question for the fourth time while she was marking her calendar for when their flight to Sweden would take place. “Yes, Y/N. I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”

You knew she wasn’t fine.

“I just, I do think getting out of this tiny little apartment would be good for you...but does it have to be on the other side of the world?”

Dani scoffed. “It’s not on the other side of the world, babe, it’s just across the Atlantic.”

“It’s far enough.” You pouted. “Plus, going with that guy isn’t a good idea either.”

“You’ve known Christian as long as you’ve known me, Y/N. You should know his name by now.”

“I do know his name, I just don’t like saying it.”

Dani frowned. “He’s my boyfriend, you’ve gotta learn to accept him at some point.”

You shook your head. “He doesn’t give you what you need, Dani. He’s terrible at supporting you all the time. He’s an asshole.”

“It’s my relationship. Not yours.” Dani snapped, quickly sighing in frustration and sitting next to you. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped.”

“No, I’m sorry. I...just want what’s best for you, that’s all.”

Dani smiled weakly, placing an arm around your shoulders and pulling you in for a side hug. “I know, babe, I know. I gotta believe this trip to Sweden is exactly what we need.”

“I really hope so, for your sake.”

Dani subtly wiped away a shed tear off her face, faking a wide smile. “So, did you decide if you wanted to go to the party tonight?”

“Depends, is Mark gonna be there?”

“You know he is.”

“Then no.”

“Come on, Mark’s a good guy.” She’s stifled a chuckle.

“Girl, you can’t even keep a straight face.” You laughed.

“You used to be date him and actually enjoyed spending time with him, ya know.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“Please, it’ll be fun! Pelle and Josh will be there too, it won’t just be Mark.”

“Josh is a smart ass who gets on my nerves. I mean, who the hell studies anthropology?”

“Hey!”

“Oh hush, you’re studying psychology.”

Dani rolled her eyes. “Okay, Ms. Environmental Scientist.” She said, making you chuckle. “So, are you coming to that party with me or what?”

You didn’t really enjoy going to parties...like, at all. Even if Dani invited you to one, you always made some sort of excuse to get you out of going. But ever since the incident with her family, you felt you needed to spend every waking moment with her, mostly out of fear that you’d lose her forever. You probably spent more time with Dani than her so called boyfriend. 

You felt selfish for feeling pained that Christian was the first one she called when she got the news. You knew her family, actually made an effort to get to know them unlike Christian, and always saw her parents as your own and her sister was always kind to you. You felt like you lost a lot too, but you didn’t allow yourself to feel that way for long, not when they weren’t actually your family. If you were being honest, you haven’t allowed yourself to grieve at all. You spend most of your time taking care of Dani, never having the time to do anything for yourself.

The company Dani kept also was one of the reasons you never wanted to go to one of those parties. Pelle was nice, you could actually see him as a friend. Josh was a know-it-all. To be fair, you were a know-it-all too, but at least you didn’t brag about it every chance you got.

You couldn’t stand Christian. You always saw how awful Christian treated Dani, and how she just took it. One day, you actually almost got into a psychical fight with him for how he gaslighted her. Dani didn’t talk to you for a week after that, and after that, you tried not to let your anger out because you didn’t want to lose your best friend.

Mark...god, Mark could be so annoying. You used to be a couple, it’s true. But after seeing him not do anything about his “best friend” mentally abusing his girlfriend, you couldn’t just stay with him anymore, it just didn’t feel right. Plus, him being way too overprotective was not something that you liked in a person. It was heartbreaking since you actually liked him a lot, you could’ve truthfully say you loved the guy.

You didn’t dislike Mark as much as Christian, but he constantly got on your nerves after your break up. But Dani always reminded you how insecure he must’ve been after the fact. Doesn’t excuse his behavior, of course, but it did help keep your anger in check whenever he tried to push your buttons. If he wasn’t such a dick, you probably would’ve seen an actual future with him, that could’ve been happy.

Yeah...you really didn’t want to go to this party. But seeing Dani’s almost pleading face, you couldn’t argue with her.

So, you were dragged to the last party you would attend before Dani and her friends were shipped off to Sweden, until she got back.

You could see the obviously look of annoyance from Christian when you and Dani entered the apartment. He took Dani to the one of the corner’s of the room and you could faintly hear their conversation, “Why’d you have to bring her, Dani? She almost punched me in the nose last time...”

Your fists clenched instinctively, making your nails dig into the soft flesh. It hurt, but at least it kept you from socking the dude in the face like you’ve always had the urge to do. A dull glared expression settled on your face.

“Aw, is someone happy to see me?”

You immediately rolled your eyes when you heard Mark’s voice, him walking up to you with a shit eating grin plastered on his pale freckled face. “No, I think she’s probably thinking up ways to kill you, friend.” Pelle joked, making you smile a little.

“Honestly, he’s not that far off.” You shrugged, half joking.

Mark scoffed, rolling his eyes, brushing off your hurtful comment with a bitter smile. “Why are you even here? We didn’t invite you.”

“I’m here for Dani.”

“Well, we didn’t explicitly invite her either.” Pelle smacked the boy behind his head so you didn’t have to. “Dude, ow! Hey, it’s not my fault Dani’s a buzzkill.”

Almost as if you could only see red, you were about to punch the ever loving fuck out of his handsome stupid gorgeous face when Christian came up and pulled you out of the room.

“What the fuck do you want?” You hissed, forcibly pushing him away from you.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m not looking for a fight. Okay? I have to ask you something.” He sighed.

“Spit it out then.”

“Do you want to come to Sweden with us?” He asked monotone, not hiding the glare directed to you.

“Wow, you must really want me to go.”

“It was Pelle’s idea. He thinks it would be good for Dani.”

“Since when do you care what’s good for Dani? Oh, wait, you don’t. It seems Pelle cares more for her than you do.”

“I care about Dani, okay? I care. That’s the only reason I was convinced to ask you. Please, just...she needs you. She’s your best friend, you don’t want to let her down, do you?”

Gaslighting. You knew that Christian wouldn’t be able to convince you without his number one douchebag power to make your heart bleed more than it already does. He didn’t even have to ask a second time.

And next thing you knew, you were on a plane headed to Sweden. Of course, they had to torture you with booking you a seat next to Mark. But you could handle it for Dani.

“God, I can’t wait to see all those Swedish ladies.” Mark mused, a slight smirk on his face, knowing that comment would upset you.

If those Swedish ladies had any sense, they’d stay away from the giant man completely, is what you wanted to say. But deciding to keep your comments to yourself, you just tried not to gag, rolling your eyes and keeping your eyes trained out the window, seeing the ground getting farther and farther away until your flying above the clouds.

“Silent treatment, huh? I always took you for a social butterfly.” He teased.

You took a deep breath, turning to look at him with a sickeningly sweet smile. “You do know there’s a mosquito flying around your head, right?”

The smirk on Mark’s face quickly went away, turning into a panicked expression. “Where? Where?” He almost shouted, flailing his arms around his head to swat away the imaginary insect. His panic made you laugh. You felt evil, but you convinced yourself he deserved it. When he heard you laugh, he quickly realized you lied. “Not fucking funny.” He pouted, running his hands through his hair, still paranoid.

You sighed when he kept a frown on his face, still looking around for that fake fly. “I swear, there’s no fly. This is the cleanest plane I’ve ever seen in my life, okay? There wouldn’t be any bugs in here.” You never could stay mean for long, even if it was Mark. The small grateful smile Mark gave you made it worth it, and suddenly felt your heart yearn for him against your will.

Many hours later and you finally arrived in Stockholm, only to be told you guys had to travel four more hours to get to Hälsingland. “Oh my god!” Mark whined, like a little bitch you might add.

Thankfully, you always came prepared, sticking some ear buds in and blasting music at full volume to avoid possible small talk and annoying remarks from the two frat bros. You really loved your preparedness after taking your ear buds out for one second only to hear Mark talking about seeing some video about a woman with three clits, what a moron, a cute moron...

You looked at the time, it was nearing 6 pm, but the sky was still blue as ever. It was a bit unnerving, but you tried to ignore the sense of dread you felt when you guys finally arrived to one of your destinations.

You tried not to laugh as Mark pulled his socks over his jeans and walking in a panic to try to avoid potential insect threats in the grass. “Dude, just fucking walk!” Josh fussed.

“Don’t you see all the bugs?!”

“I’m sure all those bugs are much more terrified of you than you are of them.” You voiced.

“Yeah, well, what if they’re so scared that they gang up to attack me in retaliation, huh?”

You rolled your eyes, speeding up your pace to catch up with Dani. Pelle introduced his friend, Ingemar, and his friends, Simon and Connie. They seemed like good people, until they pulled out the shrooms.

It’s not like you hated drugs, you smoked pot pretty much every other day before bed, but shrooms looked hardcore compared to grass. You did not want to partake. But Dani surprised you when she accepted the offer of the tea. “Do you think that’s a good idea, Dani?” You asked concerned.

“She can think for herself.” Christian voiced with a happy and calm tone, but you didn’t mistake the threatening undertone in his voice.

“Hey, it’s okay. Promise.” Dani reassured. You just didn’t want her to have a bad trip or anything, it’s not what she needed, as if you actually knew what she needed. You didn’t even know what you needed half the time. “Are you going to?” She asked, her hand holding onto the bag of shrooms outstretched to you.

“Oh, no. I’m good.” You backed away slightly.

“Are you sure, Y/N?” Mark asked mockingly. “You gonna be a pussy?”

Your eyes narrowed in annoyance. If only looks could kill...You grabbed the bag, popping a couple mushrooms in your mouth, immediately cringing in disgust at the taste. You chewed quickly and swallowed, almost regretting the action as soon as you did so. Since when was Mark of all people able to successfully peer pressure you into doing something you didn’t want to do? The fuck?

“There’s a nice place to sit over here, guys!” Pelle voiced, motioning the group over to a tree in the middle of the field.

It didn’t take that long for the drugs to kick in. You’d never taken shrooms before, but you definitely noticed when you came up due to how the world around you was starting to look warped, almost like nature was breathing. You felt more appreciative of nature in that moment, and with Pelle talking all philosophical like, it wasn’t hard to relax into the sweet embrace of the drug.

You looked over to Dani, she was the most calm you’ve ever seen her, but you weren’t sure if that was a good thing. You snapped out of the thought, not wanting to hyper focus on a drug. “Oh fuck, a new person.” Christian groaned.

“What? I don’t want new people right now!” Mark whined.

“Now who’s being a pussy.” You mumbled, loud enough for him to hear it.

“I’m going lay down. Everyone else lay down too.” Mark settled on the ground, still breathing heavily. “Guys, do it, it feels so nice. Josh, Y/N, can you lay down please?”

“Fuck off.” You spat while Josh did as he was asked.

“Y/N, please, lay down.” You furrowed your brows when you heard the desperation in his voice, almost like he was going to cry.

“Jesus, fine.” You huffed, laying down on the soft grass.

The sun shining through the leaves of the trees was enough to put you back into a relaxed state, almost giggling at the warped rays of light. “This is nice...” You whispered to yourself.

You jolted when Dani stood up all of a sudden. “I need to go for a walk.” Dani voiced, the waver in her voice clear as day to you.

“Dani, are you okay?” You stood up, wobbling slightly, Dani’s figure waving as she walked away.

“Fine, I’m fine.”

You wanted to follow her, but were you capable enough to give her support if you were high as a kite? It didn’t matter at the point. You probably stood there trying to decide for about five minutes before you actually starting walking in the same direction Dani went, but then it was too late. You didn’t see her anywhere.

Walking into the woods, you immediately got lost in nature, enjoying the colors that seemed to be amplified from the drug. You smiled to yourself, not even the arms wrapping around your shoulders could force your mouth to pull downwards. “Hi.” Mark whispered, giggling as he tightened his embrace.

“What?”

“What?”

You turned yourself around in his arms. “Why’d you follow me?”

“I’m not allowed to see what my friend is doing out in the woods?”

“I’m looking for Dani, and we’re not friends.”

Mark pouted. “We used to be more than friends. Why’d we ever break up?”

You frowned. “Cause you excused Christian’s behavior towards Dani. Plus, you were always a dick.”

“Rude. And to be fair, I’ve been trying to convince Christian to break up with her. They should’ve called it quits awhile ago.”

“The first thing you’ve said in your entire life that’s actually correct. How’re you an undergrad again?” 

If you were sober, you would have never let Mark lean in and kiss you. At least, that’s what you hoped you would’ve done. But his lips were so soft and he was so gentle, you almost wished you were sober to experience the kiss better. It almost felt nostalgic in a way, even though it hadn’t been that long since you two broke up. You had to stop yourself from leaning back in for more when he pulled away.

“You reciprocated.” Mark smiled softly, caressing your face gently.

“Did I? I didn’t mean to, sorry.”

“I miss you, Y/N, a lot. I know you miss me too.” He whispered.

You shook your head and quickly walked away, not feeling like talking about...well, your feelings. Sobering up quickly after that, you kicked yourself for allowing that to happen, even if you happened to enjoy it very much.

You pretty much avoided Mark after the encounter in the woods, you were too awkward to confront your problems with other people, in that regard anyway. But thankfully, six hours after finding Dani peacefully sleeping off the drugs, it was time to hike through even more woods to get to Pelle’s village. 

“So, we’re stopping in Waco before we go to Pelle’s village?” Mark joked.

Yeah, the all white clothing everyone wore did put you off just a bit, almost giving you Jonestown vibes. But they were so nice, taking your bags and giving you strawberries. They seemed like okay people.

You looked over to Mark, rolling your eyes as you saw him exhale smoke from his vape pen. Even in the presence of strangers, he still had no respect apparently. Josh even had to stop him from eating prematurely during one the first meals of the day. The ritualistic part confused you, but you just wrote it off as culture shock.

Sitting in between Dani and Pelle, you almost hit yourself for not remembering a very important fact. “Happy birthday, Dani!” You grinned. “I can’t believe I forgot, I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay.” Dani rubbed your shoulder. “Pelle actually gave me a drawing, which was incredibly sweet.” She said, causing him to have a slight blush on his face.

“I actually did get you something, but it’s in my luggage. Make sure to remind me tonight. But what about Christian?” Dani frowned. “He forgot...of course he did.”

“It’s not his fault. I forgot to remind him, that’s all.”

“Dani, you shouldn’t have to remind him.” You scoffed. “Let’s just hope he remembers soon, else I’ll have to castrate him.”

“Anyway, what’s up with you and Mark? You’ve been avoiding him ever since we hiked here.” She whispered.

You internally groaned. “I always avoid Mark.” Dani just gave you an unimpressed look. “Can you like, stop being a mind reader for once in your life?” You whined.

“What happened?”

You sighed, leaning in to whisper in her ear. “We kissed...” You quickly put your hand over her mouth to stop her from squealing like a school girl. “Shh. It was when we were both high. Didn’t mean anything, at all.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that right?”

The conversation didn’t sway your decision to not stop avoiding Mark, you were going to avoid him for as long as possible and not even Dani could convince you to do otherwise. But you kept thinking about that kiss, and you suddenly found yourself wondering if there was any shock therapy places in Sweden.

Walking around the village a bit more by yourself to try and get some more bearings, Pelle joined you with his usual calming smile. “How are you liking it here so far?”

“It’s pretty interesting, I’d say. Living in New York never really gave me opportunities to be in nature, so this is great. I probably never wouldn’t come if it weren’t for you, Pelle.”

Pelle nodded. “I felt it was best for Dani, considering. She needs someone she can count on.”

“Yeah. It’s great that you’re looking out for her, it’s like you should be with her instead of Christian.” You cringed. “Oh god, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Damn it.”

Pelle chuckled nervously. “It’s okay. Speaking of couples, are you and Mark-”

“Nope.” You quickly interrupted. “Not a chance.”

He hummed in thought. “I don’t mean to pry. It’s just, he told me about what happened...”

You groaned. “That little shit.”

"You know, I think you should give him a second chance."

You laughed. "That came out of nowhere."

"No. It didn't. Mark has always had a thing for you. And I probably shouldn’t tell you this but, he always talks about how he regrets how things went between you two. He still cares about you.”

You frowned, the feeling of missing the bastard starting to bubble up in your heart. “We weren’t good for each other. He needs to grow up.”

“Yes, I do agree he’s...a bit immature.” 

“An understatement, Pelle.” You snorted.

“Personally, I am a big believer of second chances. I just think what if I die tomorrow, would I be happy with my choices in life? You never know when that time will come.”

“Jesus, since when have you been so dark?”

“I’m serious, Y/N. You don’t know when you’re gonna die, so I’d try to live life without regrets.” He smiled calmly.

You kept thinking about what Pelle said well into the night. You had trouble getting over the creepiness of his statements at first, but you knew he meant well. You did miss Mark, more often than you’d admit. You hated that you kind of agreed with Pelle about the whole regret thing.

The next morning, you woke up with a terrible headache. Thinking way too hard for hours on end wasn’t good for your brain. But, it did give you some perspective on how you’d go about interacting with Mark. You admitted to yourself that you did want to be with him, but you also didn’t want to rush into giving him another chance, knowing that just a smidge of eagerness would give the man an overinflated ego.

“What was the name of that activity you said last night, Pelle?” Dani asked.

“Ättestupa.” He answered.

“Sounds fun.” You said, half joking. “Wish we knew what was going to happened, but you seem to love surprises.” You directed to Pelle, a cheeky smile on your face.

From afar, Mark couldn’t help but glare at Pelle. To anyone one else, you were just being friendly, and if Mark had any sense at all, it would’ve just been a friendly smile to him too. He couldn’t help but feel jealous, but even he knew he had no right to be jealous since you two weren’t together. Maybe that was his problem, he thought, being too overprotective when you were in a relationship with him. God, he knew being an immature bastard would bite him in the ass one day. He just didn’t realize someone important to him would be scared away in the process.

The brief eye contact the two of you made threw you for a loop, that sense of longing for one another.

“Can you two stop eye fucking each other, please?” Josh voiced rudely. Strangely, it didn’t phase the two of you. Josh only rolled his eyes. “Fine. Miss breakfast then.”

You eventually forced yourself to look away from Mark, the both of you following the rest of group outside for the meal. Of course, the only seat left was next to Mark. How convenient...

Mark was silent as you stood next to him, taking short glances at you and the ground nervously. “Somebody should tell those girls they’re walking stupid.” He joked, trying to lift some of the tension. It didn’t work. 

A boy rung a bell, an old man and woman walked two their assigned seats, and everyone only sat down until they did. Another rack of culture shock moved through you were the couple started chanting in what you assumed was Swedish, but it was honestly hard to tell.

After that, you just ate your food in silence. You were annoyed that you were too awkward to even look in Mark’s direction. But eventually, he cleared his throat to speak. “Did you sleep well?”

It was odd, hearing him sound so timid and quiet. “Uh, I guess so. I don’t really remember falling asleep.” You chucked nervously.

“So...yesterday-”

“Please, don’t.” You interrupted with a huff.

“I think we should talk about it at least.”

You bit your lip in thought, silently agreeing with him. “Not right now. Maybe after, whatever Ättestupa is. Okay?”

He sighed, nodding his head. “Fine. Fine.”

Mark stayed behind as you, your friends, and the rest of the Hårga journeyed to wherever this activity was taking place. You all were standing at the bottom of a cliff, waiting. “What’s this activity supposed to be?” You asked, but no one gave you an answer.

You sighed, crossing your arms around yourself. Whatever was supposed to happen was taking a long time, you almost felt bored. But soon you really wished you’d stayed behind with Mark back at the village.

Everyone watched as the old woman stood at the edge of the cliff, holding her arms outstretched to the sky. You could sense Dani hyperventilating, and you also felt a feeling of dread. You had no idea what was happening, and it scared you.

You let out a loud gasp as the woman fell from the cliff, her body falling onto a stone platform below, her face hitting it hard enough to completely mutilate any recollection that this woman was a human being once. Her face was caved in, it almost didn’t feel real.

You were in silent shock, not comprehending anything else around you, even with how loud Simon and Connie were freaking out.

All you could do was watch as the old man did the same, walking off the cliff and hitting the platform leg first.

“Oh my god, he’s still alive...”

All of the Hårga cried out when they saw the poor man was still alive, sharing his pain that he must’ve been feeling. A few members of the village ended his suffering, taking a large mallet and caving in his face like his partner in the senicide.

One of the elders, Siv, said that taking their own lives was a great joy and that this ritual had been done for many years. You couldn’t believe how barbaric these people were when they were so nice at first. Why were all these people so unfazed by seeing their own people die violently in front of them?

All you could do was follow everyone to the village in silence. You did the same as Dani. You needed to be by yourself right now. You sped walked to the woods surrounding the village, leaning against a tree in exhaustion. Did that really happen, you asked yourself. 

You slid down to the ground as you let the tears start flowing. You didn’t want to be in this place anymore, how could you? You thought back to what Pelle said. He knew that the ritual was happening and he didn’t warn you guys at all. Why would he do that?

“Y/N?” You heard a voice call out. You didn’t answer, you didn’t trust your voice not to come out distorted from your sobbing. Finally making his way through the clearing, Mark saw you hugging yourself on the ground in tears. “Are you okay? I...heard about what happened.”

“No. No, I am not okay. I just saw two people jump to their fucking deaths!” You tried not to cry.

Mark was never good an emotional support, so he simply walked over and sat next to you as you cried. You didn’t know how he managed to pull you onto his lap without you noticing, but you didn’t find it in yourself to care, so you just held onto him like your life depended on it. You didn’t want him to let you go.

“I wanna leave this place...” You mumbled.

“I think that’s understandable.”

“How’s Dani? Did you see her at all?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I don’t want to leave without her. I gotta find her.” You wiped the leftover tears from your cheeks, standing up with along with Mark. “Will you come with us?”

Mark didn't expect you to ask that. “You want me to go with you?”

“I have a bad feeling about this place. I don’t want any one of us to stay here, but I want you and Dani to come with me at least. I...I still care about you too.” Mark blushed as soon as you said that, making you chuckle lightly. “Seeing those poor people die...I don’t want to live with regrets, I already have enough of those. I don’t want to give up on us without trying to make things work. I admit, I gave up on you too easily. I don’t want to do that again. Okay?”

Mark couldn’t help himself, he soon planted a passionate kiss on your lips. You smiled into the kiss, you weren’t afraid of opening yourself up to him anymore. You wanted him, you’ve always wanted him. It just took a rough wake up call to remind you of that.

You wrapped your arms around his broad shoulders, standing on your tip toes to meet his lips easier. You felt safe in his arms, him holding you so close that the world and the messed up situation you both were in seemed to fade away. But you knew you were limited on time. You both pulled away breathlessly, wearing smiles on your faces.

“I love you.” Mark said, shocking you. “What? Live life without regrets, right?”

You laughed softly. “Yeah, you’re right. I love you.”

“Now, let’s get outta here.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, I left it open ended on purpose. I’d like to think that they escaped the Hårga. But if they didn’t, at least they’re together lmao. 

Whenever I feel bad that Mark died in the movie, I just think to how he must’ve put up a fight since that cunt who led him away had a busted lip. Did he deserve it? Yes, probably. But...but...he was a cutie pie🥺

Also, I’m trying to write a fic with Kenny from We’re The Millers, but IT’S SO HARD. Kenny, in general, is hard to write since he’s so...well...himself. Another thing is that the plot is all over the place and my mind keeps bouncing between a bunch of ideas so, it’s literally starting to look like gibberish. But i’m trying

[pochapal]

You don't gotta answer this publicly, but what on earth happened/is happening RE: Dogpiling?

this is long but there’s a lot to cover and i don’t know how much information is pre-known going into this.

basically breadtuber sarah z made a 2 hour fandom postmortem video on homestuck. instead of being a genuine look into what made the comic and the fandom so massive and so relevant for so long, she kind of glosses over all that in the first thirty minutes, then spends the rest of the video discussing homestuck’s two major controversies in the least tactful way imaginable. 

the first one she talks about is the hiveswap development hell fiasco, which on paper is an interesting thing to bring up in relation to a lack of content contributing to fandom decline, but sarah’s primary source for all this is a pseudo-anonymous blog run by giovan_h, someone who is notorious for treating dangerous and baseless accusation as fact and for obsessively stalking current and former whatpumpkin staff members to obtain information for said blog. she supposedly tries to bring a balanced argument on what exactly happened in the three year dark period between hiveswap’s supposed release date and when act 1 actually came out by pitting ipgd’s tumblr post (the one that made the odd gentlemen embezzlement claims vis a vis king’s quest) against giovan’s blog (claiming through anonymous and unverified sources that hussie deliberately dicked around and failed to meet a single deadline, then broke contract terms by using the kickstarter money to commission the odd gentlemen to animate act 7 instead of working on hiveswap. there are a lot of other unsavoury claims about hussie and certain other wp members among these blog posts, but that’s the primary relevant gist). 

neither account can actually be verified (ipgd’s post claims their information is spotty because they’re talking around a pretty strict settlement nda and giovan’s sources and accounts are deliberately vague and unverifiable to “protect various parties from retaliation from hussie/wp”) but sarah ultimately comes down and says that she’s inclined to take giovan’s blog as more truthful for. reasons. this is obviously bad because within minutes of the video dropping several wp team members reveal sarah never once tried to get in contact with them, which has led to attacks on the team members because a lot of zealous people looking for an excuse to keep being mad at homestuck in the wake of hs^2′s semi-permanent hiatus were emboldened by a video essayist treating the ugliest speculation as hard fact. as of right now, the hiveswap kickstarter has released a statement clarifying the development situation as best they can (from what i’ve read it does point to them legally being unable to point to/discuss certain things) which has had all the impact of dropping a match onto an oil spill. the anti homestuck zealots firmly believe every word of that post to be bullshit and are accusing the wp team of covering for hussie and his super heinous evil crimes (keep in mind we are still not privy to the internal workings of wp because why the fuck would we be) so the wp team in turn are putting these people on blast for this dangerous harassment (it doesn’t need to be said that as a professional being publicly accused of covering up fraud is a very bad thing) and then as a counter counter response the angry fans are now accusing the wp staff of abusing their power to direct mass harassment towards specific individuals (this amounting to people getting into wp members’ private discord servers and publicly posting mean things they have said about giovan et al which imo only serves to bolster the stalking claims) and the whole thing went very ugly very fast.

the second controversy that sarah brings up is everything involved in post canon homestuck (epilogues, pesterquest, hs^2). here she reverts to more of a passively pro-fandom stance, asserting time and time again how horrible and evil the epilogues and everything else were because of how they took the characters and stories everyone knows and loves and warped them into something unrecognisably terrible, that post-canon homestuck was universally reviled. in a very bad and awkward placement of information she then segues into a kind of hand-wavey discussion of the intense backlash towards certain post-canon trans interpretations (of vriska, june, and roxy) in a very I Am A Cis Woman So I’m Not Qualified To Make Any Statements Here Other Than Transphobes Fuck Off <3 But Also This Is Indicative Of A Growing Fandom Resentment way, which honestly begs the question of why she needed to include this at all. another bad thing here is how she super glosses over the “controversies” surrounding “the advocates for june egbert” and “the writer for vriska’s pesterquest route” - she is obviously referring to former creative director kate here (she kind of confirms this on twitter by saying she didn’t want to mention kate by name in order to not stir up further drama which uh... yeah) and the inexcusably terrible chain of events which led to every single out trans woman working on homestuck to resign to protect themselves from further mass harassment and dogpiling from the fandom.

she instead, for some reason decides to focus on how post-canon homestuck has been a total commercial and creative failure, that homestuck^2 basically shouldn’t have even happened after the fandom’s distaste for the epilogues and that it was not only controversial but also was a low quality mess everyone agreed sucked. she then goes on to compare the hs^2 team to the wp hiveswap dev team, and passively applies the same giovan-esque assertions to the internal workings of hs^2, kind of but not really implying the reasons given for the shutting down of hs^2 were bullshit. this is super bad for the fact that the post canon homestuck team is the most openly marginalised group of people working for hs is in an official capacity, and we have seen time and time again what drawing undue, speculative negative attention towards these people has done. again, reminder sarah did not reach out to a single person who worked/is working on homestuck for what is essentially a drama video disguised as a fandom postmortem. the upshot here is that her post-canon section served to embolden yet another wp-hostile section of the fanbase - those who adamantly believe that only the fandom itself can create worthwhile homestuck projects, and that all writers are evil people who want their queer fans dead (only a partial exaggeration) and produce spite projects which are driven by the steadfast belief that their work is inherently superior to official content by virtue of their fan status. among this group were a lot of people who latched onto any accusation against a team member as fuel to push them out of “ruining” such a beloved franchise so sarah’s video serves as proof that all the hs^2 writers were morally corrupt monsters ruining a fandom space that was meant for minors and queer people (this is all very anti/anti-anti carousel of bullshit nonsense that i have no time for) and thus they’re confident to once again tear down the remaining public facing staff members, ignoring how all this crusade has done so far is drive a handful of trans women and people of colour off of official homestuck projects for their own safety.

then she ends the video with a “oh btw this video is proudly sponsored by audible <3″ bit and it’s just. beyond unbelievably awfully stupid that she deliberately reignited this aggression which has caused untold material harm on marginalised people (that happened less than a year ago!!!) just for the sake of quick clicks and ad revenue. she consolidated the most dogshit takes as fact within the general fandom consensus, sided with some of the worst people to engage with homestuck, potentially detonated the last shreds of stability of this independent marginalised media project, and wrapped it all up with a sponsorship from an amazon subsidiary company of all fucking things. this is obviously a case of an incredibly short sighted decision to cash in on a very complicated and unwieldy fandom history but still the potential consequences here are unfathomable.

[ellie-reacts]

Vampire Diaries s1 e10

- "I know you. you're always one step from a maybe. a tiny nudge to yes" lmao further proof why this man is absolute dogshit

- *ignores old man* *doesn't ignore female jogger* folks. folks i'm gonna bust down a door and smack some ppl with my fucking bat

- MELISSA MCCALL???? why'd you have to do her dirty like that vd writers

- logan scumfell... god, i love jenna

- *ominous bell tinkle* 

- damon, who was the problem all along “i’m sorry what? another attack? i think the fuck not”

- lmao it looks like tyler is talking to his twin (from the back) and it’s wild

- “she needs someone nice like him” [bonnie talking about caroline and matt] she needs stable friends who talk to her so she can not worry about relying on a relationship

- bonnie, speaking the truth w/ “what kind of future could you have had with him, if he stayed?”

- you son of a bitch, stefan salvatore, can you stick to one decision you’ve ever made

- sob. relationships *pukes* 

  i jest but also, the amount of pressure that’s put on everyone to be in a relationship and the fact that it plays out like that with everyone then getting into relationships? the fact that caroline swings from one relationship to the next, even as we’ve already seen her insecurities surrounding this kinda stuff? makes me. so sad/annoyed

- DAMON STOP COMPULSING CAROLINE I SWEAR TO GOD 

- logan fell is currently hunched over like a gremlin grousing about being turned into a vampire

- “next thing I know, I can’t get into my house because my foot won’t go through the door!”

  “you have to be let in”

  “I live alone”

  “that sucks”

   there is something to be said about two asshole characters having banter. it’s kinda funny. especially as one is actively threatening and has already shot the other 

- the fact that matt and elena mainly only talk when she and stefan are on the outs? so annoying. infuriating. where’s the relationship depth. where’s the fact that they’ve known each other for years. why can’t they stay platonic 

- caroline in the background, knowing that she’s second to elena in matt’s view? i feel so bad for her

- logan fell should not be trusted with state secrets lmao 

- is logan using wooden bullets? I thought that we’d seen a vamp get shot w/ regular bullets in an earlier episode and it didn’t affect them at all. i am confusion 

- i love seeing stefan realizing “what the fuck do you mean logan fell is here? i killed the mf” except he can’t say that out loud because, y’know, no one else knows that logan even died in the first place

- i personally think that jenna should get the right to murder logan fell. give her a baseball bat and fifteen minutes. 

- LET CAROLINE ADVANCE AS A CHARACTER 2020

- like seriously,,, her character is just,,, a sad punching bag pretty much

- creepy semi-sexual threats from logan fell @ the sheriff. not appreciated. 

- heheh,,, Jeremy and Tyler fighting,,,, Tyler getting pulled away by his dad,,, Jeremy getting pulled away by Alaric,,,,,,,, poetic cinema

- if someone’s car is their home does that mean a vampire needs permission to get in. would they be able to open the door to the car or would it sizzle their fingies? i’m geniunely interested now 

- THATS A LOT OF BLOOD ON THAT WINDSHIELD. HEY. HEY LOGAN? JUST WANNA TALK

- Monsiuer Lockwood, you’re the mayor and you’re trying to run a fucking dogfighting ring but the participants are your child and a high school freshman (haha dogfighting,,, cuz later show events. i guess that kinda makes sense but also his character is a dick) 

- “i think it’s important to foster young mings” logan, you think it’s important to concuss young minds you jackass 

- do y’all have tire irons in your car? is that a normal thing to have? 

- HAHAAAAA “what’s your problem man” as it pans to a shot of tyler w/ the full moon RIGHT behind him and he goes “i dunno man”. like. this is such heavy-handed foreshadowing

- this man really just turned his entire back on elena mid-kiss. this is. this is a weird shot. 

- “i am not having a good time in this chilis tonight” i type as i scroll instagram to ignore the intense making out / semi-sex scene happening on camera 

- logan, getting taken down in like under a minute: hdkfj

  alaric: heehaw, back i go to flirting 

- oooo is elena gonna find-- YES SHE IS GOING TO FIND THE PICTURE OF STEFANS EX KATHERINE WHO DOES IN FACT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE YOU ELENA. YES YOU SHOULD BE CONCERNED LMAO

- “ready to sex it up”

  “wait i gotta light 50 candles”

- stefan, you stupid man, you left the picture of katherine out on your table while you got smexy w/ elena 

- what the fuck is this creature in the road

[hydradrive]

Go Hellnalysis (aka : hydradrive gets mad at the fanbase for ignoring go’s ongoing 2 season long breakdown for like, 5+ paragraphs)

We are talking S1 foreshadowing as it relates to the facts of S2. As already mentioned, I think it sucks of the writers to do it to him like how it sucks how they treated Emma and Aoi throughout the entire series and reeks of colorism like. having your two darkest skinned characters be actively antagonistic as s2 goes on is a bad fucking look. 

But it’s there, and I am not happy that people defend Lightning weirdly when he treats people he knew for years badly, and then turn around and say wildly fucked up shit about Go.

I guess today is the day i Get Into It Again. I’ll be rehashing some of my points from my old thread on nac, so strap in i guess.

This is said to Playmaker in season two. 

‘After i lost to you’. 

So, by episode 4. And the text backs this up. The text in season one aligns.

In Go Onizuka VS Genome :

[ transcript for subbed text: 

Dr. Genome : Did your defeat at Playmaker’s hands force you to evolver? 

Go Onizuka : As much as I hate to admit it, yes. That was when everything changed. 

/end text screenshot id ]

That was when everything changed.

Let’s look at the rest of it, then. How it affected him, in the long-term. The Go Analysis... Is here.

MASSIVE CWs for discussion of canonical weight loss, brief discussion of disordered eating in the context of that, and a whole bunch of other stuff re: the brain hack that I don’t even know how to tag, really. medical? Basically, if you have any triggers relating to that, please exercise due diligence because I will not pull any punches about the implications.

tldr version :

This is real dialogue from Go Onizuka’s first (and only) duel against Revolver. 

No matter what he says trying to spin it a different way after this segment of text, that it’s about fighting for yourself, these statements exist, and they exist with the context given by his own words; that he was struggling, mental health-wise, when he said these words.

[ transcript for subbed text: 

Go Onizuka : Until now, I’ve battled in front of huge crowds. (There is a single beat frame, to indicate silence.) But I realized I’m all alone. There are no fans rooting for me here. I realized... We always duel alone. We fight for ourselves, not for anyone else. 

/end text screenshot id ]

But perhaps this isn’t compelling enough for people. Fine. Let’s go even further back.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers : Go Onizuka : It’s my fault that Makoto is in this condition. /end text screenshot id ]

Go has an easily seen habit of assuming the worst, and with regards to stuff like Makoto, blaming himself, to the point that if his manager hadn't said more on Makoto, he would've been going into VS Genome blaming himself for Makoto getting into duel monsters in the first place.

In episode 5 it was shown that with one loss he was entirely certain that nobody would care about him in any capacity:

But why?

... It’s brought up in one of the first episodes of the entire series.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers : 

Go Onizuka’s Manager : That’s exactly it. It’s a winner-take-all world, after all. 

/end text id. ]

And given an even more... depressing? Spin later, when Go thinks about it throughout S1 and S2 during his duel with Takeru:

[ transcript for screen readers : 

Before I was placed in the orphanage, I only relied on myself. The world I lived in was all about survival of the fittest. “You must protect yourself” was my credo. 

/ end text screenshot id ]

It’s genuinely that simple. He slipped back into his old way of surviving because the way he did in season one didn't. save him. it didn't save him from a duel he needed to win, not just for himself necessarily. he would have died if playmaker had lost. a lot of people would have. He was already starting to have these doubts about his entire reason d’etre for dueling, and his loss only further spurred it on.

It’s repeated, again and again:

[ transcript for screen readers :

Go Onizuka : For everyone to appreciate me, I must win! 

/end text screenshot id ]

That sentiment. “People won’t like me if I lose.” “People will abandon me, if I lose.” In his own words, his losses, losses in duels that were important, rotted him. And it /is/ true. His manager said he’d leave if he went to try and stop the Tower Of Hanoi and lost. And he followed through with it, by all implications. He didn’t come back until season 3. Keeping in mind that Go’s self-hatred spiral regarding guilt over in his mind dragging Makoto into the mess that was season one-era Hanoi shenanigans was only cut off because his manager and other people talked him out of it... Yeah.

This is before we bring in the other complicating factor : a certain little company, who never did anything good for anyone. A man, who despite supposedly being well-intentioned, did very little to help, until it reached the darkest point.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers, since that’s the primary important stuff : 

Akira Zaizen : But we don’t intend to acknowledge that the network was on the brink of destruction. So I ask you don’t cause the press to delve into this. 

/end text screencap id]

People focus so much on him yelling at the press because they keep asking about Playmaker but with this context?

[ transcript text for screen readers: 

Akira Zaizen: You’ll continue to be the focus of the press. /end text screenshot id ]

He’s not allowed to talk about how you nearly died.

He’s not allowed to talk about what really was at stake.

In fact, he’s not allowed to even act in a way that makes people even a little suspicious about what happened.

And yet.

‘But he could just ignore this advice’ . Not really. Go Onizuka’s platform was built in Link Vrains. Being the whistleblower about the actual danger of Link Vrains would not endear him to Sol, and potential backlash from Sol, from everything we know about the company? Hmm, gosh, wonder why that might be bad. Almost as if Go is basically a livestreamer who is at risk of having the video platform he exists on die.

It would be incredibly difficult to continue working under the public eye like that. The stress from that alone would start tearing someone to pieces.

Ergo, his decision to work for Sol Technologies as a bounty hunter. Both jobs now hinge on him currying favor with a horrible megacorporation, one just has less baggage from his past way of surviving and gives him the ability to talk a tiny bit more freely about things.

This is all the leadup, of course, to the ultimate lowest point. The duel chip. Brain hack.

[ transcript text for screen readers: ‘By implanting this duel chip, the brain’s thought capabilities expand.’ /end text screenshot id ]

[ transcript text for screen readers: 

Akira Zaizen: You can always refuse.

Go Onizuka : Your methods are dirty. You guide me to the gates of hell, but you don’t care what happens afterwards.  /end text screenshot id ] 

Let’s talk about the physical side-effects of the brain chip on Go Onizuka.

Me, personally? I genuinely wonder what came first; the most severe physical side-effects or a worsening of Go’s mental health that made him stop eating. 

It’s never stated what came first. We only see the mental health side effects of the chip in flashbacks initially.

I looked at one of the instances where Akira pulled go out of the sim wrt: the listed sys/dia ratios on-screen. They have those in certain shots, btw! They’re consistently really fucked up!

Here’s what those were, in one very notable instance:

... So, right off the bat, a heartrate of 195, huh.

And a sys/dia of 187/112 with a mean of 136. Wow! I wonder what that means for him!

I can tell you. 

He statistically would be in the range of having a hypertensive emergency. Having rates like this can damage your heart muscle when you don’t literally have a heart attack, hypertensive encephalopathy, ( which can cause dizziness and altered levels of consciousness, if we are getting into it.), kidney failure, coughing up blood...

I don’t want to speculate too much about why the Duel Chip caused this, but I will note that blood pressures like this sometimes come about as result of issues with the neuroendocrine system. This would tie in with a loss of appetite and some of the other things Go seems to canonically have had from the getgo of having the chip installed, and probably added on to his already pre-existing mental health stuff which I personally parsed as depression.

... I think this mostly covers the main points of what gets missed. Aka, literally all of his arc. Just, literally every piece of his arc. People miss all of it.

Also, to reiterate : it is NOT GOOD the way this is framed by the writers. it is loaded to, in a series heavily informed by the main character’s trauma, have a teenaged darker skin character ( Go is 19!! ) be portrayed as more erratic, etc etc. I do Not care about Lightning. He is a little robot, and while there is probably some ableism in the way trauma is represented therein as a corrupting force, it is far more worrying how Go is treated in terms of representation, and I am not going to bat for the guy who treated Haru like dogshit lmao. 

The fact that one of the two darker skinned MOC is given more obvious mental/physical illness signifiers in terms of symptoms to mark them as antagonists (when, again, Yusaku literally CANONICALLY HAS PTSD) fucking blows, and I’m going to personally fight the writers. 

But. I am also laying the blame at the fanbase’s feet for this shit, too. They literally ignored this to coo over Lightning. I’m going to bite them.

[thewhumperinwhite]

Café: Treetops

Previous: Teaser 1, Teaser 2, Hospital/Squad Car, Empty Bar, Used Car Lot 1, Used Car Lot 2, Gas Station, Roadside 1, Roadside 2, Forest

TW for: illness/fever, mention of decapitation/murder, smoking mention, very lightly implied parental neglect, Thing That Seems Like Deadnaming For A Second But Take This As My Personal Guarantee That Sol’s Deadname Will Never Be Said Out Loud In This Story.

Also i’m not gonna check but i think this might be the first chapter where Sol smiles? so look forward to that.

@whumpitywhumpwhump

----

Rainwater is dripping from Sol’s hair down the bridge of his nose and soaking into his shirt collar, even though if you asked him five minutes ago he’d have told you his poor abused work shirt had absorbed literally all the liquid it could physically hold. 

“Just for the record,” Kent says in a slightly breathless voice, “when I used the phrase ‘huddled in trees,’ that was sarcasm.”

Sol thinks about rolling his eyes, but given that nobody would see it from this angle, he doesn’t bother and just leaves his eyes closed instead.

“Funny,” Pax snaps, sounding, at least, no longer pretend-cheerful. “When I told you to shut the fuck up, I was serious.” Sol can hear them shifting, but doesn’t turn to look, partly because he does not care and partly because he thinks he might fall out of the tree if he tries.

“I think you should both shut up,” he says flatly, knowing he’s wasting his fucking breath.

It does earn him almost a full minute of silence, which is a step up, technically.

“The bleeders are too clumsy to climb trees,” Pax says testily, apparently unable to help themself. “Therefore, being the wonderful, coordinated living beings that we are, we are taking advantage of that weakness.”

“I know that,” Kent says, also sounding slightly testy, but even more tired and kind of in pain. “I am aware of the logic, but I gotta say that I am not feeling super coordinated at the moment.”

“I know that,” Sol growls. “I was the one who had to help you up, and since we are all fuckin’ exhausted from that little ordeal, how about we all just go the fuck to sleep, huh?”

Kent makes a noise that is probably supposed to convey irritation but just sounds sort of— pathetic. “I can’t sleep. I don’t understand how either of you can sleep when it’s so hot up here.”

Sol blinks his eyes open. That— does not sound like a great sign.

Careful not to overbalance and throw himself off the narrow branch currently supporting his ass, Sol cranes around the trunk of the tree to squint through the driving rain at Kent, who is leaning back against the tree with his eyes closed. Sol half-carried him up this bigass goddamn tree and set him with more care than he wants to admit in the stablest position he could find, at the fork of two large branches, but at the moment his perch there looks kind of precarious.

Checking to see that Paxon, on the opposite side and several branches higher than either himself of Kent, probably can’t see— not that he cares what they think— he leans carefully forward to lay his wrist against Kent’s forehead. It’s hard to be sure of anything when the freezing rain has turned his hands and arms into icicles, but the heat coming off Kent’s face almost makes him jump.

“Aw, great,” he mumbles, grabbing hold of his own branch so he can lean forward a little more to examine Kent’s face, which, now that he’s looking, does have kind of a greenish cast to it. “Hey, man,” he says softly, giving Kent a gentle poke on a part of his cheekbone that doesn’t seem to be bruised yet. “How ya feeling?”

Without opening his eyes, Kent heaves a tired sigh that turns halfway through into a cough. Sol freezes like a popsicle, going very quickly back over the last several hours to try and determine whether one of the bleeders could possibly have bitten him without Sol noticing— but Kent’s brief coughing fit fails to bring up any red-flecked phlegm, so Sol tries to reel in his panic. He doesn’t sound crazy, anyway— just sick. 

“Not very good,” Kent croaks, letting his eyes drift open. They look kinda glassy, but Sol sees with knee-weakening relief that they are not particularly bloodshot. “Too warm. And also shivery.”

“I fuckin’ bet,” Sol says. “You look like microwaved dogshit, dude.”

Sol chews his lip, something uncomfortably close to worry churning in his stomach. When he doesn’t move away, Kent laughs faintly, though it turns into a cough at the end.

“You sure you want to get that close?” he asks, smiling a little, though it doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes. Sol doesn’t think Kent’s smiles usually do, actually.

Sol blinks. “Huh?”

“Aren’t you worried I’ll suddenly decide to take a bite out of your arm?” Kent says, and it sounds like it’s trying to be a joke but isn’t quite making it.

Sol stares at him for a second. Then he snorts.

“Please,” Sol says, smirking. “You? I could definitely take you, crazy or not, you fucking stick. Besides, look.” Sol fishes around in the pockets of his sopping-wet jacket, ignoring Kent’s look of utter confusion.

His lighter is freezing and dripping wet, and who knows if it’ll still work as an actual lighter after this, but it makes a serviceable mirror, in a pinch. He holds it up so that Kent is blinking into his own wide blue eyes.

“See?” Sol says, and is surprised at the softness of his own voice. “Not a drop of blood in sight, man. You’re probably just feverish from running around in the mud with open cuts and stuff.”

“Heartening,” Kent says, reaching up to change the angle of Sol’s grip.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Sol says, smirking.

And then Sol suddenly realizes that Kent’s hand is wrapped loosely around his own, and is horrified to feel his own cheeks heating up, which is--so fucking stupid.

“Who’s ‘Rina’?” he asks curiously, blinking down at the lighter, and Sol starts badly, jerking his hand away like Kent’s question burns his fingers.

“No one,” he barks, shoving the lighter back into his pocket, leaving Kent with his hand still outstretched and lips parted slightly in surprise.

“Oh,” Kent says, blinking. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to— “ He pulls back, looking carefully anywhere but at Sol’s face. “Sorry.”

Sol stares at Kent. Kent stares at the unnervingly-far-away ground.

Goddammit, it’s like kicking a puppy.

“Ugh,” Sol growls, running a hand through his hair. “Look, fine, whatever, don’t look at me like that— Karine is my little sister, okay? She always hated it when I smoked, so she used to steal my lighter all the time. That’s why it’s— that’s why.”

He had been very mad at the time, in high school at some point, when he had finally wrestled his lighter back from her— after almost a week of searching and shouting half-hearted threats at her when their father wasn’t home, which was often— only to find that she had scratched Sol Sux Shit on one side and her own big girly signature on the other, with a big fucking heart around it. He didn’t talk to her for a few days after that.

He didn’t throw the lighter away, though, either. That was junior year, or thereabouts; he’d been Sol for a short enough time that seeing the name scratched permanently into metal was--something, even if it was followed by the words “sux shit.”

It’s been— Christ, almost four years since he’s seen her, which means she’s all grown up and definitely has at least two boyfriends by now. That thought makes him unconsciously ball up his fists, and then he’s distracted by the sound of Kent laughing at him.

“Wha— what are you laughing at?” Goddammit, is he blushing again?

“I’m s-sorry,” Kent says, amid honest-to-god giggles. “I-it’s just— your face—!”

Sol just barely resists the urge to cover his cheeks, trying to will the heat back out of them. “Sh-shut up, I was just—” He pulls up short. “H-hey— are you okay?”

Kent is doubled up with hard, damp-sounding coughs, so much so that Sol has to dart out a hand to keep him from falling forward off the branch.

“Kent— hey—”

As he’s readjusting himself to hold up Kent’s weight without falling off his own branch, there’s a rustling in the branches above them, and Paxon Field drops abruptly onto the end of Kent’s branch, like an enormous pink cat.

“Let me see your hand,” they say sharply. When Kent doesn’t immediately respond, they reach forward to tug his hand away from his face.

“Hey!” Sol snaps, trying to shove them back, “what the hell are you—”

“Shut up,” Pax says, turning Kent’s hand over so they can examine both sides. Finding no blood on it, they relax, their hand sliding off the hilt of their sword.

“Idiot,” they say, not unkindly, and reach up to lay their wrist against Kent’s forehead. Kent, his coughing fit finally starting to subside, lets them, his weight pressing into Sol’s chest in a way that is— neither embarrassing nor pleasant but in fact entirely neutral, fuck you. Pax sighs. “You’re burning up, you dumbass.”

“That’s not exactly his fault,” Sol snaps, to his own surprise more than anyone else’s. Pax raises their eyebrows at him. Kent’s eyes flutter shut. “Well,” Sol goes on, into Pax’s surprised stare. “We’ve been wandering around in the rain for a long time. He’s got— broken bones and stuff.”

Paxon gives Sol a look he can’t quite read, and then frowns down at Kent, whose cheek now sits just under Sol’s collarbone, like coughing has used up all his remaining energy. “How long have you been feelin’ the shivers, sunshine?” they bark.

Grumbling like an annoyed child, Kent turns away from Paxon, which involves burying his face against the sodden front of Sol’s shirt. Sol freezes, a violent electrical current making its way up his spine. When Kent mumbles his answer (which is unintelligible but seems to contain the words “the car”), Sol can feel his lips move against his chest, and would readjust if he could move. ...probably.

“Then it’s entirely your fault, you daft idiot,” Paxon snaps, annoyed. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”

Kent turns back, opening one blue eye. “I suppose,” he says coldly, “I was worried you’d decapitate me.”

Paxon, to Sol’s surprise, starts like they’ve been hit. There’s a very awkward silence. Sol is afflicted with a bizarre desire to laugh.

Then Paxon growls, long and low, and starts their descent out of the tree.

“Uh,” Sol calls after them. “Where are you going?”

“To get sunshine some medicine, I guess,” they shout back, bitterly. “Since neither of you is in any way equipped for survival, apparently.”

Sol stares down at the top of their head as they make their weirdly nimble way down out of the tree. Then he looks down at Kent, who is also frowning down at Paxon’s retreating form.

“Someone should go with them,” Kent mutters.

Sol shifts uncomfortably. “You can’t stay in this tree by yourself.”

An embarrassed flush makes its way into Kent’s pale cheeks, and he shoots Sol an apologetic look from under his lashes. Sol’s brain stops working for a second and he misses what Kent says next, but makes an educated guess that it’s some variation of “sorry for the trouble.”

“Don’t be dumb,” he says, biting his lip.

Sol runs through their options in his head, and from the unhappy look on Kent’s face he suspects the blonde is doing the same.

“Fuck,” Sol mutters, and then, making sure Kent has a firm grip on the tree trunk to go with the confused look on his face, turns himself very carefully around on his own branch so his back is to Kent, the blonde’s bony knees digging into his back slightly.

“Um,” Kent says.

“Shut up,” Sol snaps. “Put your arms around my shoulders. Try not to choke me or we will both fall and die.”

“Um,” says Kent.

Sol takes a moment to bury his rapidly-reddening face in his hands and groan because why does shit like this keep happening to him. “Paxon shouldn’t go by themself, and you can’t stay here or climb down. This is the only fucking solution, okay? I don’t like it anymore than you do, so shut up and get on.”

There’s another terrible silence, which Sol uses to pray to anybody who might be listening to give him a fucking break already.

Moving carefully, like he’s waiting for Sol to stop him, Kent slides his slim arms around Sol’s shoulders, knitting his fingers together around Sol’s chest and being careful to avoid his windpipe. After a moment’s hesitation, he moves closer, awkwardly scooting forward so his legs are wrapped around Sol’s waist.

Sol, very aware of Kent’s chest and biceps and thighs, clears his throat loudly.

“Okay,” he says, trying his very best to sound businesslike. “I need my hands to do the tree-climbing thing, so hold on, yeah?”

Sol can feel the heat coming off of Kent’s face where it’s buried against his shoulder even through the thick wool of his jacket, though he can’t tell how much of that is the fever and how much is embarrassment roughly equivalent— if there is a loving god— to his own.

“Yeah,” Kent mumbles miserably into Sol’s jacket. Sol feels a slightly insane giggle building in his chest. 

“Okay,” Sol says slowly. “I am now moving to the next branch over. You good?”

“Perfect,” Kent says in a very muffled voice, and shifts slightly against Sol’s back. Sol clears his throat again, and reaches out for the next branch, shifting so that he’s carrying most of Kent’s weight.

“Christ, do you ever eat?” he says before they can stop himself. God, maybe they will make it to the ground, after all. “My sister’s cat weighs more than you.”

Kent, his face very warm indeed, chooses not to respond. In fact, he keeps his mouth mercifully shut for almost the whole awkward, painful climb down, and Sol’s left foot is actually on solid ground when he finally mumbles, so low Sol can’t be entirely sure of the words, “Thanks, Sol. You’re wonderful.”

Sol freezes with one foot still on the lowest branch, feeling an unfamiliar sort of heat spreading in the center of his chest. Before he can stop it, his mouth twitches into something that feels suspiciously like a grin.

The feeling fades pretty quickly when he turns and sees the color Pax is turning from trying to hold in their amusement. Seeing Sol’s fiery glare and immediate, violent blush, they give up and throw their head back, sending bright peals of laughter up into the still-raining sky.

Sol bristles, his hands tightening under Kent’s thighs. “Sh-shut up! Don’t— don’t laugh at me!”

Pax laughs hard, holding their stomach. “Your face!” they crow delightedly. “You’re turning purple, babe!”

Sol’s blush doesn’t get any worse, but probably only because there’s no more blood left in the rest of him. “Shut up!” he squawks. “It’s your fault for leaving us up there, anyway!”

Pax shakes their head, grinning. “I didn’t say you had to come with me,” they point out. 

“Kent didn’t want you wandering off by yourself,” Sol snaps, looking over his shoulder. “Did y— oh.”

Kent, his lips slightly parted and rain making his long lashes sparkle a little in the moonlight, has rested his head against Sol’s shoulder and is breathing long and steady, his breath making faint snuffling noises through his broken nose.

Sol stares a little.

“What’s up with sunshine?” Paxon says, a trace of worry in their voice. “He’s not dead, is he?”

“No,” Sol says, a confused smile spreading over his face. “I think he’s fallen asleep.” Looking carefully anywhere but at Paxon’s stupid smug grin, he clears his throat. “Let’s just go. I’ll carry him. He isn’t heavy.”