#also the way outside the realm plays during both scenes??

[willslun]

these scenes happening back to back means so much to me they're both so romantically coded...

[acapelladitty]

NSFW Alphabet: Cooper Howard

Summary: A full NSFW alphabet for Cooper Howard/The Ghoul from Fallout (2024).

Fic Masterlist

Link to AO3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Pretends that he's not needing anything after sex but actually loves it when his partner wraps themselves around him like a second skin. Won't ever admit to it, but the way his arm snakes around to pull them even closer is hint enough to his real desires.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Likes his hands because they're quick and dexterous, and can justbas easily gut a gulper as they can seek out and tease a clit. Not much pride in his own appearance aside from that. He's also a tit man and the pillowy softness of them is so opposed to his own body that he only enjoys them more, usually with his mouth as much as his hands.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Sterile as all fuck, he can do what he wants with his cum and it makes no difference. Enjoys the taste and likes oral because of it. He does love for his partner to hold onto his cum though, either by swallowing or by pushing it back up their holes with his fingers. They earned it so they're going to keep it.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Has experimented with his new abilities as a Ghoul in some interesting and intense ways. Usually pushing the edge of pleasure and pain as he tests his own limits. His leathered skin is less sensitive than most so he's spent some of his more boring nights doing things to himself that would have a normal man in fucking hysterics.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He knows his way around a hole that's for sure. He slept with one or two folks before Barb but he was pretty monogamous after that despite the sleaze of his acting career. He and Barb did share a very healthy, vibrant sex life and he was eager to experience new things with her but nothing too outside of the 'vanilla' realm.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Seated with his partner riding his lap like any good cowgirl should. The close skin-to-skin contact, plus the easy access to their chest, makes it a firm favourite as he's generous with his tongue and teeth. Plus, it lets him enjoy their facial expressions and hold some eye contact as he drinks in their pleasure.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Never 'goofy' is a daft sense but isn't above using filthy talk and double entendres while cracking a wicked smirk. Lots of word play around his status as both a cowboy and a monster and he likes to remind his partner of BOTH of those facets of his personality.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Look at the poor cunt 😭 he's a great big baldy bastard with nary a pube on him. The only hair he has are the follicles that fall off the folk he occasionally scalps.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Surprisingly romantic given how gruff and generally detached he is, but only with a romantic partner. A random fuck gets a casual pump and dump while sex with a partner has some meaning for him and he likes to feel his partner close and ensure that they have a good time with him.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Not at the top of his priority list in the grand scheme of things. If he's feeling horny then he'll deal with it and leave the mess splattered on the ground where it fell.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Roleplay is a kink of his and he would be at his happiest role-playing a very traditional "cowboy saves a damsel and she's looking to repay the favour" type scene. His most 'out there' kinks include a mild touch of erotic cannibalism, ropework, and dom/sub dynamics relating to discipline and cnc.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Strong enough to make any vertical surface a viable spot for a fuck, there are very few areas that Cooper can't turn into a good spot for sex. His preference is for a bed though because he can be a lazy fucker when it suits him but that's an indulgence he's very rarely afforded.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Very easily motivated if he can sense his partner is down for a rough tumble in the sheets. All he needs is a WHIFF of a chance of hole and he'll be rubbing himself across you like a cat in heat. Hand straight to the groin like it was magnetic.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Sharing his partner? Oh no. He'd fucking kill any third party before they could do anything too untoward. He's jealous as hell and volatile with it as he claims so little in the shithole that is the wastelands. Will threaten to tie his partner up and leave them for the raiders and beasts but that's just a horny threat.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

One leftover from his previous life is his love of giving oral. His wife loved it and he loved receiving it in equal measure. However, with things as they are, he'd rather get his rocks off in warm hole when the opportunity and time arose.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Normally? Fast and rough. However, in the quieter moments when the sun hangs low and he feels relaxed enough to enjoy some time with his partner, he takes great pleasure in some slow and sensual sex.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Due to his circumstances, quickies are often the only option for some hole so if he and his partner are frisky then it's as and when the potential arises.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

I think choosing to fuck someone in the wastelands automatically qualifies as a considerable risk. But, yes. He's fond of risk and it's something that he'll continue to push and push until he's satisfied.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Ridiculous stamina. The kind of stamina that will have smoke pouring from your hole if he's not careful lol. As a ghoul, his skin is slightly desensitised so he can go for longer but usually only lasts one good round.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Not really a big fan of toys (finds his cock and mouth MORE than capable thank you VERY much) but will use easy-to-access objects like his lasso and knife for some kinky play.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Only teases when it's a game he's playing. Most of the time, he's looking for some quick, rough action that he and his partner can enjoy in their limited, quieter moments. In terms of vocal teasing? He's very quick to spout off with some sleazy promises and demands.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Tries to be very controlled but does have a tendency to grunt and growl a lot which makes him more animalistic than vocal in terms of his speech when he's fucking someone.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Cooper would like to eat a little bit of his partner if they were willing and had the bit going spare. Most of his meals are a necessity but to have a willing offering would be quite erotic and a big deal for him.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

His cock is the same shade as the rest of his skin but with a slightly deeper tone in his cockhead. Very average length but on the girthier side with a slight lean to the right when he's fully erect. No pubes, obviously.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Makes a lot of inappropriate comments and touches which would have you believing that he's constantly looking for some tail. That's only true because he tends to be hornier in high-stress situations which, unfortunately, is most of the time.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He doesn't sleep much and there's something possessive in him that makes him happier watching over his fucked-out partner as they sleep rather than sleeping himself.

[keepin-it-on-the-d-l]

Finally making another sequel to this post with a few more s2 scenes:

Some songs that would KILL in a Dungeons and Daddies show/movie adaptation, PART TWO:

Mr Blue Sky as the opening scene to Season Two, where it shows each household getting ready for school/detention and abruptly cuts when one of the teens pauses their music and steps outside to reveal the red sky

The Freebird guitar solo by Lynyrd Skynyrd playing over Glenn’s prison escape

Come Along by Cosmo Sheldrake is a very Goofs Realm coded song

We Didn’t Start The Fire (the Fall Out Boy version) playing as the Teens escape Erin O’Neil

I’m on My Way by The Proclaimers playing through an Odyssey-san driving montage

Punk Tactics by Joey Valence & Brae playing during the Staircase episode as the teens absolutely BODY the kiddads

Vienna by Billy Joel plays at the beginning of Glenn’s prison arc

I’m Still Standing by Elton John playing when the S1 kids drive the Odyssey at the final battle

Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears over an Oakworthy scene

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor is the song that plays when the Mommies come through the portal

Also, I made a playlist with both this list and the first one:

[theautisticgamer]

The Pomni Theory (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Who is Pomni? That's a question a lot of people have been trying to crack. And I assure you this isn't a take you've heard yet.

Let's first establish what she's not. Most assume she is a gamer, and at first glance this makes sense. After all, why put on a VR headset if you're not one? Except there is an important clue that shows us this probably isn't true. As a gamer myself, I would not be immediately trying to take this headset off. As a gamer, I want to play this game for a bit, meet its cast, do some missions, especially considering how innovative this tech was for the late 90s-early 2000s when the show is set. Yet she is not excited about this experience in any way shape or form; Pomni immediately tries to rip off the headset. Some may say this is because of her amnesia, but if she remembers sitting at the desk and putting on the headset, surely she would have remembered wanting to put it on if she was a gamer. I think this rules out her being a game developer as well; would she be this startled by her work? She doesn't display nearly as much knowledge about the digital realm as some of the other amnesiac humans. But if she's not a gamer or a game developer, what is she, and what is her motive for putting on the headset?

I think an important hint regarding her character could be a piece of disturbing concept art created by Gooseworx, depicting Pomni on a crucifix, as well as the show's ending scene depicting Pomni at the center of a long table, which looks like the painting of The Last Supper. Both imagery compare Pomni to the likeness of Jesus Christ. I don't think this reference is religious per-say, this jester can't save you from your sins, but with The Amazing Digital Circus's story being inspired by an agnostic story, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," the connection can't be ignored. This imagery suggests Gooseworx sees some sort parallel between them.

Whenever I've used imagery alluding to Jesus outside of my faith-based work, I've used it to indicate a character is making a sacrifice, putting their lives on the line and risking injury or death for the sake of others, imagery I've used or would use for soldiers, policeman, field agents, or firemen. That could mean Pomni is a one of these things, though I would skew this down to policeman, detective, or a private investigator. Pomni's motive to put on the headset, then, is to pursue the only lead in her file of many Missing Persons cases tied to the C&A company. Her sacrifice, for the sake of the imagery, is unknowingly putting her safety and life at risk in order to solve the cases, bring their families closure, and if possible rescue the missing people themselves.

However, I've been chewing on my initial theory a bit more, and I may have a second theory for the imagery that's probably more likely. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God, He is the son of the Creator. Could she be the daughter of creator of the game? Could she be the daughter of one of the partners who created C&A? While I'm more compelled by this theory, it lacks a motive as to why she'd put on the headset. Was she at her father or mother's office for a visit, found a headset and was just curious, expecting it was just a funny pair of glasses she could take off immediately just to find it didn't come off?

This latter theory may or may not have extra support. Gooseworx drew a short non-canon comic where Caine discusses with Pomni that he and her mother were getting a divorce. It spurs on a series of silly jokes, but, it's odd to set up Pomni as Caine's daughter or stepdaughter in the first place, isn't it? Unless Caine was a symbolic placeholder for a father-figure who created the game or the company that produced it. I also feel like Pomni originally being intended to be a male lead during early concepts supports the "son of the creator" idea. They may have switched to a female to make this connection less obvious for a bigger reveal later on.

Keep in mind that this is just a theory based off the recent pilot and may fall apart as we get more information in future episodes of the show, in future interviews with Gooseworx or Glitch Productions employees, etc.

But alas, these are just two theories regarding the identity of Pomni. I've been wanting to write TADC theory material for a while, and the show's given me so much to think about. Do you think I may be on the right track about Pomni's identity, or have theories of your own? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

[sussysatann]

MY THOUGHTS - HALLOWEEN EVENT: SPECTRAL SOIREE

[Spoilers for a Twisted Halloween: Spectral Soiree under the cut!!]

OKAY, SO...

I started playing TWST around February/March time this year, so I haven't been able to play the first Halloween event from last year. Though I'm missing context from what happened in the previous event, I still enjoyed playing through the story. There were some good moments during the story and really seemed like the stakes were high, but I can't help feel that the ending diminished that and left me feeling unsure. The ending twistune was super cute! It was nice seeing everyone come together and I did find the ending humorous, but also wished it had leaned into those high stakes more and have actual consequences for it?

I haven't seen many people posting about this event. I thought there'd be more posts about it since it's a new second part - I didn't realise until much later on that the EN server already had the event later last year. Why would they re-release it in August?? It's such a strange choice, but I've seen many people theorize they did it to prepare for the Masquerade event, which might be next (I will scream if it is i have been SO EXCITED to play this!!) and will hopefully happen either in September or October. We will have to wait and see...

Anyways,

Short story short, I liked the event. The never-ending Halloween concept was super cool and the ghost fights and possessions really upped the stakes, making for a really suspenseful and fun story. There were several memorable moments throughout, one of my favourites being when Leona and Ace were trying to get Floyd to not touch a possible dangerous artifact and Ace questioning Leona's entire party boat story afterwards. I really loved the group pairings in the spectral realm, it was so nice to see the different dynamics and interactions they had with one another. Riddle, Ruggie and Ortho's conversations about adventures and puzzles were so sweet!

Speaking of puzzles and escape rooms...

I can't help but feel a little bit pissed off at Lilia and Malleus for putting them through all this. But then again, they didn't know what was going down behind the scenes and weren't informed of the ghost fights, so they're not entirely in the wrong for that.

But they DID make it incredibly cryptic in the worst way possible, to the point where even the teachers were concerned. Students vanishing into thin air, appearing to be kidnapped, is not something that'll get taken lightly. Especially when Lilia was yelling outside Silver's dorm, seemingly getting kidnapped too. That really must've fucked him up, especially since no-one else heard him scream. I felt so sorry for him - he genuinely thought his father was in danger the entire time, only to find out he was helping Malleus host a grand party for the ghosts. Obviously I'm glad they ended up being okay but MAN that wasn't fair on him. Sebek as well - they both thought Lilia and Malleus were in peril and were so genuinely distraught over the whole situation, it made me pretty annoyed that they didn't think through Silver and Sebek's reaction to something like this.

On the one hand, it was the ghosts' fault for fighting and possessing students. On the other hand, Malleus and Lilia are also to blame for the setup of the 'prank'. And on the other other hand it was also technically the students' fault for fighting the ghosts in the first place, but when you're put into such a seemingly dangerous and unpredictable situation, you go straight into fight or flight mode. I don't blame them for reacting the way they did.

That aside, I also kinda wished that the event was actually that dangerous, that Lilia and Malleus really WERE possessed. Imagine if there was an actual boss fight. An actual enemy. Someone who genuinely DID want an eternal Halloween, and needed the mirror shards to create a mirror portal to the human realm and take over even more bodies of the living. A ghost uprising if you will.

Imagine the teachers and the few survivors having to fight off an entire army of possessed students with a genuine intent to harm.

Imagine Malleus and Lilia being genuine threats and holding the prefect and Grim captive while everyone is trying to fight back without overblotting.

...That might be a little overkill.

BUT.

It would've been interesting to see actual consequences arise from this. I can especially imagine the prefect being really affected by the Spectral Realm.

They're already in a world that's not their own, so being thrown into that world's literal afterlife would really mess them up - whether emotionally or maybe even physically. Maybe they get really sick once they get back, maybe they were (unknowingly?) on the verge of disappearing permanently. Maybe that's why they were so worried about joining Malleus and Lilia. Because they were scared of what could happen to them, Grim not really understanding that. I love that Ace was so concerned about them both, he really is a great friend and I kinda wished these concerns were brought up a bit more.

Anyways, if you've made it this far thank you for reading!!

Feel free to add on to this, I'd love to know your thoughts and opinions! ♡

[ikemenomegas]

where was the alpha during the whole shibuya arc? Where they also unaliving people like the hot bad bitch they are or were they mainly trying to deal with the elders and providing support from behind the scenes?

And did gojo ever feel his mate removing their mating mark? Also, i have this thought that ive played around in my head for a while, it'd be interesting if the next time gojo meets his mate when he's outside the box, his mate somewhat changed and became more solemn and then gojo gets this deja vu feeling back to when geto acted the same way after gojo was absent a lot because he became more bombarded with missions and now it's happening again to one of the most important people in his life and he slowly gets this foreboding feeling of dread

I'm swinging around this oc like my poor cat hehe. Very pleased that you think they're a hot bad bitch. They're also a total awkward simp, like run into doorways if they see Satoru naked after a shower, so we love someone one can be both lol.

During the Shibuya arc, alpha wasn't ever inside the curtains. I think there's some brief discussion about it, but Satoru tells them not to come with him because this is clearly going to be people batting at his level. The higher-ups also demand that Satoru go alone and he doesn't tend to outright cross them concerning things like this.

Alpha end up keeping an eye on Inumaki and a third year oc (who will be Inumaki's partner). They end up trying to rescue the other auxiliary sorcerers while the curtain is up, and then helping get people out once the curtains go down - so they'd help Nitta extract Nobara and Akari (this means they do see Nanami's body rip) and essentially guard the retreat, up until they're called back to the school. There's probably a fair bit of unaliving things as part of that lol, but this time they're not going hunting for trouble.

(more below the cut because this is a lot to address!)

Gojo would not have felt the mark removal happen while in the box, because the way I'm interpreting the prison realm, is that nothing physical can happen to him in there that he doesn't do to himself. He feels it when he's released though.

I had some options I was toying with for the eventual unboxing before it actually happened:

Because Satoru feels it the moment the box releases him, I think he actually had time to reject the rejection as it were, and decide to maintain the bond. I would love for that to happen because the imagery of blue flame slowly burning away alpha's name back at the family home and then suddenly dissipating leaving their name intact is very pretty to me.

The other thought I had was that if the box was in a place that made releasing Gojo potentially hazardous, alpha would sense his sudden return to the world and feel the bond reform on their neck and hold back Satoru's powers just long enough for him to regain control, almost like stopping an explosion.

The other option is what's been seeming like the more likely option for a while now, which is that Gojo lets the bond break because alpha still wouldn't be safe as Gojo's mate. The last edict from the higher-ups is still technically enforceable, although they don't have the manpower to try rn. It also suits the long standing imagery of Gojo being a bodhisattva.

In the last few chapters, we've seen his major connections to the earth slowly be chipped away - one ward is taken over, the other is dead, his friends and allies have been decimated, his students are slowly becoming strong enough not to need him, and in this au his mate was forced to sever the connection for their own safety, oh and he killed his best friend a year ago and has to fight that body again. That's a lot of loss to pile on the shoulders of even the strongest. And the bodhisattva ascension is only delayed, so there's still a chance he could never have the chance to make new connections because he's well "ascended".

In my happy ending, I want Gojo and alpha to openly get [re]mated after everything is over. I love love "I chose you again and again" type of relationships and choosing to stay with someone is so hard for Gojo because of the implications of loss or attachment in particular that choosing again feels very powerful. He's an incredibly lonely person but it's so difficult to reach out to him because no one, not even Getou, was forced to live the full weight of his experience then and now.

You're not the first person to bring up that from an outsider's perspective, what's happening with alpha is very similar to Getou's pulling back and being forced to acknowledge that no matter what they want, they can't stand side by side with Gojo and have to do things their own way. I've been trying and failing to write their post-unboxing meeting for literal months because it's so difficult to capture.

Mostly because Gojo is someone who accepts the realities of a situation fairly quickly. It is incredibly painful to realize that yet another person who tried to walk alongside him has changed while he wasn't there. But, he could acknowledge that very quickly and set the pain aside as fast as he could because pain comes from expectations being different from reality, and he has a lot of important things to attend to.

Alpha is one of the most important people in his personal life, which makes all of this easier said than done. There's a lot of lingering looks and quiet moments of emotionally charged "strategy meetings" over the time between his unsealing and the set date of his fights.

Probably the only difference between Getou and Alpha at this point is that alpha has never functioned with the straight cold logic Suguru sometimes did. They have things they certainly consider unforgivable, but they fully joined Gojo's faction so their method is never going to be "literally break the whole world" - they'll just break their own, their rules, their walls, their own source of security/safety, for the people they care about. Objectively, this may be worse than Suguru because alpha will do things they know or think are "wrong" if it can guarantee safety for the people they love.

So it fills Gojo with a whole new type of dread! isn't that fun! Instead of "I might [will probably] have to kill this person in the name of my code and responsibilities even if it's literally going to break a piece of me forever" it's "this person I love might end up burning themself out in the name of their goals because they consider other people and their future wellbeing far more important than themself at this moment, and I can't stop them because that strength of resolve is either going to save them or do the opposite". Either way, Gojo knows they're no longer walking the same path, and in some way, it hurts.

[denimbex1986]

'In the British director Andrew Haigh’s earlier films—“Weekend” (2011), “45 Years” (2015), and “Lean on Pete” (2017)—the images did much less of the work than the script and the actors. There has been something literal about his filmmaking that undercuts the intense emotion of the stories he films. His new movie, “All of Us Strangers,” is a little different and a lot better. The fact that it’s a kind of ghost story, a drama centered on fantasy, spurs Haigh to shoot in a way that conveys a distinctive, alternate realm of experience. Even if one didn’t know that he has strong personal associations with the story (and I didn’t, until after I’d seen the film), it’s clear that the confluence of this private investment and fantastical elements of the narrative impart new tone and shape to Haigh’s image-making. If his previous films have felt like mere renderings of their scripts, this one is a genuinely cinematic experience.

“All of Us Strangers” is a filmmaker’s movie—or, rather, a screenwriter’s one. That’s the job of the protagonist, Adam (Andrew Scott), and, when the action begins, he’s struggling with it. Living alone in a high-windowed flat, keeping the TV on for distraction and inspiration, moving from the blank screen of his laptop to the snoozy refuge of his sofa, Adam is enduring writerly frustration, heightened by the subject he has taken on: his own past, his own family. And his current circumstances are inflicting a deeper solitude: a single gay man, he lives in a new apartment tower with few other tenants. He does catch a strange glimpse of one, however, when, during a building-wide fire alarm, Adam goes outside half-dressed in the middle of the night. Looking up at a lighted window, he notices a neighbor who refuses to budge from his sixth-floor apartment. When Adam goes back home, he gets a knock on the door from that neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), who comes bearing a bottle of whiskey, but Adam sends him away.

So far, so literal, but there’s something slightly oneiric about this conjunction of slight odd events that places the action in the register of the uncanny. When Adam gets back to his script, with its scene heading “ext. suburban house 1987,” he’s in the paradoxical position of being too much inside his own head and not being in it deep enough. To jog his inspiration and reinvigorate his memory, he watches a video of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and rummages through a box of childhood memorabilia. Gazing out the window of his flat at nearby train tracks, he is impelled to hunt for his past in person, taking the train to his boyhood home, in Sanderstead, a suburb of London. There, at the window of the house where he lived, he sees a child; in a nearby park, he encounters a man who invites him home—his father (Jamie Bell). There, at the house, Adam’s mother (Claire Foy) is waiting for him, too. Both parents are apparently the age they were in 1987, when Adam was eleven. Spoiler alert: his parents were killed following a car accident on Christmas of that year. The essence of “All of Us Strangers” is Adam’s reconnection with them, sharing stories of his life since then and also things they didn’t know about his childhood self.

Once Adam reunites with his parents—who, movingly, appear to be younger than their fortysomething son—he is seemingly addicted to the experience, making ever more frequent and urgent trips to their home. They seem to be middle-class people with little knowledge of the arts, and are impressed that he has become a writer. (His self-deprecating view of screenwriting—saying he’s “not a proper writer”—plays like a director’s wink.) Momentously and affectingly, Adam comes out to them. His conversations with each of them, separately, reveal, with a sociological precision that’s dramatically impassioned, the changes in British legal and social attitudes toward homosexuality. His mother is surprised to know that Adam faces no harassment and can marry another man and raise children; dying while the aids crisis was raging, she is surprised to learn that the disease is manageable; when Adam talks of the bullying that he endured growing up, his father admits that, as a schoolboy, he would have been among the bullies. As Adam keeps returning to Sanderstead, he soon moves from merely recollecting his childhood toward reënacting it, with his parents’ enthusiastic participation—snuggling in bed between his parents when he can’t fall asleep, coming downstairs in his pajamas on Christmas Day, heading out to his favorite restaurant.

These phantasmagorical sequences, filmed with a bracing realism that renders the fantasy all the more poignant, make “All of Us Strangers” a sort of “It Wasn’t Always Such a Terrible Life”—a Christmas movie whose protagonist is able to extract from the workaday banalities of his childhood the loving devotion that lay beneath, and to bring it to the fore in the place of enduring traumas. Adam, ever the screenwriter, performs a brilliant editing job on his life, cutting out decades of agonized relationships and even normal conflicts. By seeing the details of his adolescence in the light of the life that he has led and by encountering his parents not as authority figures but as near-contemporaries, Adam alchemically transforms a troubled childhood into gold.

I didn’t know, until after seeing the movie, that Adam’s old home is filmed in the house where Haigh himself grew up. (Happily, his parents are still alive, though.) But the intensity of Haigh’s bond to the ghosts of childhood is apparent from the stuff of the movie itself, including subtly transformative images that are new to his cinematic vocabulary. The cliché of following the back of a character’s head to see what he sees suddenly seems fresh again, because being left to imagine Adam’s astonished gaze is more powerful than any performance could be. Haigh makes ordinary closeups convey more than mere emphasis by means of striking, painterly disproportions between foreground and background; even Adam’s adult height, in a town and a household that he’d always seen from a child’s viewpoint, is framed as conspicuously strange and disconcerting. Meanwhile, the scene in which Adam’s ghostly parents come into contact with the world outside the house offers one of the year’s best coups de cinéma.

There’s another aspect to “All of Us Strangers” that both expands the story far beyond the familial and launches it into an altogether different realm of wish-fulfillment. After the initial freeze-out, Adam’s neighbor Harry gives him a second chance, knocking on his door again. This time, Adam invites him in, and the two men begin a romantic and sexual relationship, in the course of which they discuss their family backgrounds. With the subject broached, Adam is inspired to bring Harry out to Sanderstead to meet his parental apparitions—yet another extraordinary twist in the movie’s metaphysical fantasy.

Unfortunately, this is where Haigh cannot transcend the limitations of his previous work. It wasn’t only the images in his three widely released features that seemed insufficient; in each, the central relationships were deftly sketched but thinly defined. The relationship that develops between Adam and Harry suffers in the same way. When they discuss their childhood, it is in numbingly general terms, long on psychologizing but short on animating detail. The scenes of Adam and Harry together, for all their warmth, are as slightly rendered as those with his parents are dramatically rich, and the power of Haigh’s direction dwindles to match. No point in giving away the last pieces in the movie’s puzzle, but Harry and Adam’s bond is a screenwriter’s relationship, pared down to its function in the plot and to its connection with Adam’s prime realm of fantasy—the appearance of his parents. What’s missing from the film is the spark that leaps the gap from imagination to reality. For all its droll shading of the screenwriter’s art, “All of Us Strangers” is a screenwriter’s movie, in which the power of intention over observation, of the blueprint over the finished product, is asserted with a vengeance.'

[missevelynpierce]

Is It Real, Or Is It Merely A Simulation?

Online dynamics are, by nature, simulations. No matter which way you slice it, while they are immersive experiences, for sure, the lack of physical connection means that they are not grounded in the realm of reality. Yes, mental connections are powerful, and yes, they feel real. After all, the mind is the most fascinating of erogenous zones, and mental play can bring one to thrilling heights of pleasure. 

I’ve been in an enduring online dynamic for just short of a decade, and prior to that, I did my share of cyber back in the day. There are definitely differences and different levels, or hierarchies involved. 

Sometimes you meet someone on a lark and you connect instantly, but your realities dictate that it’s highly unlikely that you would see them again. Knowing their features, feeling a sense of attraction, sharing moments and secrets, building a tangible intimacy; these things make it easier to cross the threshold into the aether and build a true dynamic with. 

Then, there are the play partners that you do “pick up play” with. The folks that enter the chat room and you just get going on all the fantasies. This is also fun, but it’s a more temporary situation. A quickie. 

Building a dynamic with someone online means that communication and connection is critical in those early “building block” stages. Sharing and workshopping ideas, running through negotiation, trying on different fantasies, visual and verbal prompts, trigger words, safewords, building a style and method of check in and aftercare. All these things take months of collaboration to truly work. It becomes a very intimate relationship because there’s so much shared between the partners, and trust and respect are paramount. 

When my dynamic started, we had long conversations about our fantasy worlds, our ideal partners, and after months of working together, it somehow manifested in reality for us. I loved mind play, but I wanted a life partner in the physical realm. He loved acting out fantasies in the aether, but needed a partner who he could actually DO those things with, and I knew in my heart of hearts that would never be me.

Mere months after we started, I went on a date with the man who is now my husband and we are in an open, honest, polyamorous marriage, which allows me to live my truth. 

And he would make a pivotal connection that is now his long-term partner who he can see regularly and I am truly happy for them. This complements his home life quite succinctly. 

The thing is, I was always able to separate my reality from the fantasy world, even though at times the simulation truly feels real. The characters that we co-created and the names we generated along with matching visuals had their distinct identities. It was an endless RPG where we were kind of LARPing a bit. It never felt comfortable for me to call him by his real name when we are in a scene, nor did I want to be called by mine during play. Sure, these personas were all a part of us, but are elements that we knew belonged to others in our life. We also knew there were certain honorifics and characters that were sacred to us in return.  We've also built a very strong friendship over the years as ourselves, and know a great deal about our real lives. He's a confidant, a trusted advisor, and often one of the first people I reach out to when I need a friend. He's a very important part of my life, which I am eternally grateful for. It's so critically important to me to have a friend that is outside my reality, because he offers an objective view and a perspective that I may miss when I seek guidance.

Whenever we play together, which has been limited these days, it always feels as if I’ve stepped into a portal, where we astrally project and mingle together. Our energies collide, but we also both know, deep down within, that that’s the realm that we must exist in. 

The aether is our domain.

[theblackshit]

Artist: Jody Korbach

Exhibition title: Fine people on both sides, and me

Venue: NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany

Date: October 15 – December 3, 2023

Photography: Simon Vogel / all images are copyrighted. Courtesy of the artist and NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein

NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein is pleased to present Fine people on both sides, and me. the first institutional solo exhibition by the artist Jody Korbach.

Lars Eidinger just wanted to understand the world for a moment. The hatred that he experienced brought tears to his eyes, and so he anxiously nibbled at the unpainted nail of his index finger in front of the assembled film press until appreciative clapping relieved him of his abject dismay at the general circumstance. A timid smile by the stage star. Followed later by the gloating of the others.

The man, who just a few weeks earlier had posed with an Aldi-inspired luxury handbag in front of a camp of sleeping homeless people, had thus come to recognise his own inadequacy. But anyone who, from their ivory tower, feels the pain of those worse-off than them, has to position themselves on the right side of history without encouragement.

Jody Korbach captured the scene in a watercolor – emblematic of all those moments in which people take a stand, in which they bring the synthesis of their self-reflection, still unpolished, to the outside world, and which are used as key moments for evaluating past and future actions. Sure, it was a stupid appearance by Eidinger, but is empathy to be denied in advance, even if he still has to provide proof of solidarity? Would Korbach have done better? Does she do it better?

With her exhibition Fine people on both sides, and me. at NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Korbach probes the implications of her own position on the political spectrum. She has always been left-wing, but not so left-wing that she would have stuffed a potato into the muffler of some fancy car during her youth. Now she’d like to punch someone in the face. Or thinks she should punch someone in the face. Or thinks she should want to punch someone in the face. Although actually she would like to have some peace and quiet.

“I imagine it would be satisfying to put someone in hospital…” In any case, the fantasy is already fixed for Korbach. Maybe it’s a matter of prophylactically hurting the political Right before they continue to harm those they don’t want to acknowledge as human beings. Maybe a few burning SUVs are the signal needed to mobilize a vocal majority for the class struggle. Maybe you have to have tried violence before you can categorically reject it.

Everyone who didn’t kick a Mercedes star off of a car in their youth, however, will have to give their minds a good going over in adulthood if they are going to try out some belated left-wing radicalization in the realm of things enforceable by law. #partywennhelmutkohlstirbt lol, gladly also mocking the accidental death of Austrian right-wing populists. But really? Right in his face? It’s possible that at some point you’ll be too old for so much radicalism.

From the sidelines, Korbach approaches a political playing field where the law of the fist is supposed to replace debate. The radical left cheerleader is ready to pounce on her opponents – at least in theory. In practice, she is hindered by her suspicion that she will not be able to feel genuine threat even after taking a proper punch to the face. You can’t inscribe yourself in suffering. Angry beatings and tears of consternation are, in a way, related to each other as deficient means of expressing sincere sympathy.

At NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Korbach nuances aggression with a desire for healing. Pharmacy signs launch a longing for criticism and struggle – but please, without pain, for a world in which tolerance of ambiguity is not suspected of masking spinelessness, in which violence need not be a facet of attitude, and in which human dignity is not permanently being groped at, while everyone actually is standing with both feet on the ground of the free democratic basic order.

How can we finally get some tranquility? Is it still possible to start a conversation or must everything explode first? In her exhibition, Jody Korbach provides a few answers in between the lines. Which doesn’t mean that they have to be right.

-Anna Meinecke

Jody Korbach (*1991, Bielefeld) studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Tal R, Christopher Williams and Johannes Paul Raether. In 2017, she completed her studies as a master student of Christopher Williams. From the winter semester 2023/24, she will be professor of art and art education at Akademie der bildenden Künste Nürnberg. Korbach lives and works in Düsseldorf.

[batsylabs]

@bigbadfury Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I totally agree with this in terms of his values; if he could he absolutely would just turn whoever's trying to get in his way into a spray of particulate matter in the atmosphere. He probably tries, too! The only thing is that there were limits to his power. The way he reacts when Time Baby shows up in Weirdmageddon comes to mind. I got the impression from that scene that even he wasn't entirely sure he could pull that off. He also had very clear boundaries to his power before then, essentially a ghost in the third dimension.

I agree, I don’t think Bill attempts to appear law-abiding, I think that he’d spit in the eye of a judge and laugh while doing so, that’s one of his most defining beliefs. But, the fact of the matter is that he wasn’t all-powerful for a long time and we don’t at all know what was going on during that time. We do know that he and Time Baby have history though, so who’s to say he hasn’t gotten in trouble with some higher deity like the Axolotl and been forced to play along? I would not at all be surprised if some god somewhere was getting on him for breaking some rule of existence and threatened to erase him if he didn’t comply.

Now we're already totally in the realm of speculation here, so there's no reason you couldn't say "okay well Bill would be the type of guy to know the loopholes of the universe, there is no way Kryptos knows better than he does" and you'd be 100% justified in saying that, but since we just really don't know what he was up to exactly it's all kind of unfalsifiable which is why it's just a fun little headcanon.

I do like the idea of him getting in trouble with some kind of transdimensional laws for another reason too though and that is there are some thematic parallels there. Bill in the second dimension is the world's biggest conman with his reliance on making deals. There, he is forced to comply with a set of rules. Where these rules come from, who knows, but he absolutely loves flirting with their limits, that's for sure.

There are these concepts in higher mathematics called Gödel's incompleteness theorems (yes we're going there) which I think about a lot. It's all very complicated and I'm certainly no mathematician so maybe just be wary on if I've got this totally correct, but these are its axioms: 1) in every system of logic there will be statements that cannot be proved nor disproved (i.e., paradoxes such as "this statement is false") and 2) therefore, it is impossible for any system of logic to be both complete and consistent.

So, essentially, in any law there is always a loophole. I think we all know that Bill would love to pick at these loopholes and send the whole thing crashing down, give everybody involved horrible existential crises while he's at it. There are laws to the universe, but with any system of laws there are exceptions outside of them, ways they can be exploited or circumvented, because logic is, at its very core, illogical.

I'm not adept in the justice system so I'm not trying to make any grander political statement here, but I do know that a lot of people are unhappy with it and it does objectively make some really bad mistakes. The most effective lawyers know where to pull at the loopholes of the court's laws, much like how Bill knows where to pull at the loopholes of the universe's laws.

Don't really know where I was going with this, getting a bit complicated, but there's SOMETHING there, no?

I need to hear the fandom's thoughts on this immediately. I have a new headcanon and it's gonna take a whole lot of words but listen the meme potential is great stick with me here

Okay so there's this henchman of Bill's named Kryptos and though he has literally one line of dialogue I think about him a lot, not just cause he has superb Funny Little Guy™️ energy but for the obvious fact that he's also a weird 2D shape creature like Bill.

In the novel Flatland (which portrays what Bill says is a "pretty good idea" of what his home dimension was like), shapes are divided into different social classes based on their number of sides. Four-sided shapes such as Kryptos hold esteemed jobs, mostly doctors and lawyers.

One of the things we know for sure about Kryptos is that he is a criminal of some sort, and I was thinking about what the hell this Soos of the Nightmare Realm -ass dude had done. At first I just kinda figured that he was complacent in Bill's transdimensional arson and that was good enough, but I thought of a way fuckin funnier idea:

Kryptos was a lawyer, probably even met Bill trying to get him out of trouble in their home dimension 'cause he was idk stealing candy from babies or whatever else Bill does, and miraculously managed to waive all the charges. Bill keeps Kryptos around currently because he's constantly breaking laws (local, planet-wide, physics...) and occasionally gets arrested by the Time Police or whatever in particularly sticky situations. Kryptos is loyal as a dog and always, ALWAYS finds some kind of underhanded, not-totally-legal loophole-through-a-loophole way to mediate things.

So, in other words, HE IS BILL'S SAUL GOODMAN

[kaypeace21]

Will and the car on fire (theories)

*this is just under the assumption this is Will in the pic and not some other character. Which is still very possible .

Why it could be Will (it's for sure possibly not)

But, most of the rebuttals saying it's not Will are iffy. Cause we really don't have much evidence to point to any 1 character. Like the hair counterargument: that the hair is too long to be Will's .Will's s4 body double has a similar hair tuff on the back of his neck. And we know st uses camera shots of the back of Will's neck/silouette ,in past seasons . So doing so here could make sense. And Will of course is the most associated with fire: using fireball for Will the wise in s1 (3 times), the will the wise drawing from s2 had flames on his cloak, Will being being burned in s2,etc.

So...Will looking at lightning. And (Will?) looking at fire. Both have a dark full body sillhouete and red in the forefront .

We also see this character is possibly wearing a watch like Will?

And i've been hearing this a lot here ... but southern california (where the Byers are) does have a lot of trees lol. Not sure why people think otherwise.But, regardless a trip from cali to Hawkins would most certainly have some forrest.

*Also, any movies I’ll be mentioning (in the theories , below) were stated to be inspiration for ST.

So theories...

Theory 1) It's Joyce's car ( and it was rigged  to explode/look like an accident by Brenner or Lonnie). And Will wasn't there but sees it in a nightmare cause it's already happened/or it's a dream vision of the future.

Evidence:  CAR TROUBLES: Joyce’s car model was infamous for exploding in car accidents-being sued by the state of Indianna before the start of the series. We also have Alexi tell murray about a way to cause cars to explode-and turn people into dust (and make it look like an accident). Brenner’s name means “to burn” and he already hurt 1 mother to keep a subject -so not out of the realm of possibilities for him to hurt Joyce (and make it look like an accident to try and get Will and or el). 

In s3, we have Jonathan and Hopper try and fix  the car-and after this cars explode with people inside. Jonathan lifts the car hood- and notices someone rigged nancy’s car . Than,  right after,Billy’s car lights on fire with him inside. With Hopper (he also lifts the car hood) and joyce barely escapes the lit car (but she may not be so lucky next time).

 We also have Joyce tell Will 3x she’s going to be ok... which is a bit overkill if she will be OK ... 

And, notice during the hoodlift we see Will observing- which is similar to Alexi watching and warning them before hand that the car (with Joyce inside) will explode. So it’s possible foreshadowing since Will may predict the future and was was paralleled to Alexi.Alexi ‘can we watch lonnie toons now?. Will : can we play d&d now?

movie inspos: 

It’s hinted s4 will be around Will’s b day: In gilbert grape- Arnie after his b day, has his mom die, and a fire was stagged that lit his mom on fire. ( Before this,Arnie was also raised by his older brother Gilbert cause his dad wasn’t around). stoker-  kid’s parent dies in staged car ‘accident’ on her bday (this allows ab*sive relative closer to kid-since dead parent banned him from seeing kid). The kid  was taught how to hunt, by dad. And is also a painter and bullied at school (like Will). what dreams may come-painter blames themselves for fam dying in freak car accident- the relative was getting a present for them when it happened. so they blame themselves. The descent- also had (right before a b day, the main character’s fam dying in a car accident) .And the sole survivor/family member of the deceased hallucinates a shadow chasing her in a empty hospital hall. Get out-photographer (jonathan)blames himself for mother dying in car accident.

There’s also a lot of other films where the kid (for no logical reason) blames themselves for their mom’s/parent’s death: goodson, dream catcher, analyse this,etc. Of course ... this could simply relate to max and el having survivors guilt after the mall killed their family members (in a fake ‘mall fire’). However, a fake out fire causing  family to die (in s3)  could be foreshadowing for it actually happening in s4?

rigged car explosions: scarface -have guys try and bomb a car with kids and parent inside. backdraft -guy raised by older brother had 1 parent die in explosion and sees the freak explosion occur- later in the film someone rigs a car to explode and masks it as a  freak car accident. Same thing occurs in godfather- he sees family member die in rigged car explosion. The dark knight- rigs car to explode. batman v superman- calls superman a demon and says they need to burn the witch that bore him (aka his mom).

dreams (if in the past): Never ending story (reffed in s3)- starts with kid with bowl cut saying he had another dream about his mother who died. Peanut butter solution- kid has visions in dreams about people he knew who died in fire.  this next movie (emily rose) is  said to be Joyce byers inspo according to Winona - has (kid with 2 personalities) have nightmares from the past  of her and her mother burning in a car fire. while screaming/sleep walking she burns windows with her hands -accidentally using her powers. Some people suspect the videogame “life is strange’ is show inspo too- it has character named max caufield with a ‘never maxine rule’, etc. Anyways in the game prequel queer chloe, who plays d&d, would have dreams/nightmares of her nice parent’s car accident . Despite , chloe not being present for the car accident. After the parent’s death,  she’s stuck with her mean step dad.

dreams (if predicting the future): Will says in s3 Will the wise can see into the future. We also see Will/Will the wise via a dream predict Hopper was in danger-saying  to Joyce “he’s going to die”.  In ‘12 monkeys’ and ‘Rebel Robin st novel’ they mention the myth of cassandra- who could make accurate future prophecies , but was cursed to never be believed by those she warned. In 12 monkeys- he tries warning others of a dreaded event in future- and it’s dismissed as  him being mentally ill. Since, Will’s other abilities were dismissed as his ptsd in s2-and with the Byers fam having a family history of mental illness (they may not believe him over such a prediction). In ‘the ring’-the  movie opens with the guardian saying the boy is drawing the car accident that killed his mom -as a psychological coping mechanism. Only for the teacher to say he made that drawing before his mother’s death (and it’s revealed later the boy is psychic). Terminator 2- sarah conner says she is having future visions, which include explosions, and everyone dismisses it as her being schizophrenic. Like how in s2 a scientist said about Will “let’s see if this boy is a wizard or a schizo”.

If joyce survives the accident she may be hospitlized (and unable to have legal custody). In black swan the girl (with 2 personas) -blames herself for what happened to Winona Ryder’s character (who is in a coma after a car accident. They had had a verbal fight before the accident). In girl with the dragon tattoo- the main character (who is compared to a phoenix and dragon) has 1 parent burned in a fire- and after this her kind guardian is hospitilized so they can no longer take care of her- and she is placed with an ab*sive foster dad (who resembles her bio dad). If Joyce was in a coma - it would further parallel her to terry- and be another willel parallel.

 if dead: Tokyodrift- mom loses custody, and dad who is a mechanic and abandoned the family years ago, later gets custody. Super 8-mom dies in freak accident- douche dad gets custody. Book of henry-mom dies pre-film, ab*sive dad got custody. Outsiders- parents die in car wreck, relative gets custody of teen who he slaps etc.In black swan-girl who blames herself for Winona’s accident is stuck living with ab*sive parent. good son- mom dies, stuck with violent and manipulative relative after this.

Of course-joyce may be fine. And Lonnie may just visit for Will’s b-day and ruin shit that way.

Theory 2) It's an undercover government car that Will uses his powers against in self defense... or in anger after they hurt someone he loves.

Evidence:

Joyce about ‘Will the wise’: If he’s so wise, why does he need the fireballs? Why can’t he just outsmart the bad guys? Will: cause the bad guys are smart too. Joyce: so he needs the fireballs? Will: Yeah, to burn them to a crisp.

* the fact-this flashback happens at a funeral of a Byers, could also be narratively significant as foreshadowing.

Gov agents in s1 are  called “the bad-men” so Will may use fireball on “the bad-guys”(government agents) . Fire has been used on all the other adversaries relating to the upsidedown-so why not the gov agents (aka human villains) next? 2 movies on the inspo list caught my attention: firestarter & carrie (which are both stephen king adaptions with psychic kids who have fire abilities). 

Firestarter- she has pyrokineseis (firepowers) . And unlike every other psychic in the film- she is the only psychic that doesn't get nose bleeds (aka mini brain hemorages) from using her powers (Will). We know el and kali gets nose bleeds.  

(Anger): She only unleashes her fire abilities on gov agents after they kill her parent...

*And uses a literal “fireball�� on them.

Could also be another willel parallel. kali about the US gov:" They took your mother away from you!" El str*ngles man from gov agency that incapacitated her mom . El before str*ngling him: " you hurt mama".

(self defense): While  in carrie  she kills people who tried to run her over with a car. And causes the car to explode.

Also, in s3 Steve does technically cause a car to explode to protect Nancy from being run over by a car (so maybe foreshadowing?). I believe, tumblr user ‘bran-who-writes-theoretically” was the first to point out the Carrie/car on fire parallel.

* This car scene could also be added to the list of Willel parallels. El  in s1 uses her powers to flip a government-car upside down. And looks back at it. And it’s a ref to the film Et. So Will causing a government -car to explode and flip upsidedown (referencing carrie) could be a parallel. 

Of course El flipped over a car in s3 to attack the Soviet agents and protect her friends too ( right before losing her powers). Sort of like Steve using his car as a weapon in s3 to protect his friends. so who knows, if not Will, maybe El (wearing a ponytail) got her telekenesis back and she flips the car and it explodes ? To be honest, I just find this explanation too boring, cliche, and predictable. And I still hypothosize the mindflayer took her telekensis (but not her other powers). Since in d&d mindflayers have ‘mage hand’ (what el is called) and ‘telekenesis’/ along with the ability to steal powers from other life forms. But, we’ll see...

Theory 3) The car flips (maybe caused by a deer jumping in the road) and it blows up after the crash- with Joyce inside. And maybe Jonathan survives it/ Will wasn’t there but had a nightmare /vision about it?

Evidence: in s1 Jonathan sees a dead deer that was hit by a car. This could be symbolic : because it related to Jonathan mentioning the hunting story with his dad and how he cried for a week cause he liked the film Bambi. Which in the film : Bambi (a deer) has his mother k*lled. And after his mother’s death, he’s taken in by his douchey dad who was M.I.A for most of his life ,until his mom passed away. And the hunters are the bad guys in the film . In ‘get out’ the photographer , Chris,blames himself for his mother dying in a car accident - and he sees a dead deer hit by a car -and the dying deer was used to symbolize the guilt he has over his mother’s  death. in ‘the long kiss goodnight’ a character is driving home with a friend- they swerve and hit a deer and 1 of them is ejected from the car into the forrest. But their friend is unconscious in the car and it quickly explodes on the road. The survivor turns and sees the car in flames- disoriented they stumble and kill the dying deer. And it’s left ambiguous if they were helping the deer end it’s pain or if it was vengeful-hunting (since it caused the car accident that killed their friend). Cause their face was emotionless from shock.

Even in the st novel "suspicious minds' rabbits- like jonathan was forced to kill on the hunting trip with his dad (around his b-day) represented the bond between mother and child.And the mother sacrificing herself for the baby-to not get k*lled (by Brenner).

-so maybe?? jonathan before he gets the pizza job/car (may have his car break down , like hinted it would in s3).

 So him and Joyce share the car (once his car stops working) and the accident happens while Jonathan is behind the wheel -with Joyce. And after this he gets the job at surfer boy pizza. Billy was a surfer boy and that memory was used to think about his mother who is no longer around (once he's stuck with his ab*sive dad after moving away from Cali). While Jonathan moved to Cali after his mom passed-maybe stuck with Lonnie.Jonathan's actor in recent pics has a blonde mullet - which sort of resembles joyce/Billy's og hair. This may be why he starts doing dr*gs - which is pretty out of character for him- but it could be a coping mechanism(like in the s4 films). One of many examples was 'enter the void'- the older brother was surrogate parent to their lil sibling and after a car accident k*lls his parents , he starts doing dr*gs to cope. Also ‘hunger games’ was on the list- and Katniss (who was a surrogate parent to her litle sibling, like Jonathan is to Will) in the sequel, saw her family die in an explosion. And it really broke her emotionally.

I've mentioned this before but Billy is used to parallel and foil Will and Jonathan. And it may be more than a ... what if Lonnie had custody scenario. But to show how Lonnie (like most ab*sers) will later bring out the worst in the kids (once he does have custody). Like how s3 has Will mimick lonnie with the baseball bat (and we see in s3 Billy being bullied by his dad to play baseball and flashbacks showing him mimicking Neil). I've also discussed how there's a theme with pretty much every character mimicking their parent- for better or worse.

Killing a deer would certainly hint at Jonathan's possible character regression (and mimicking Lonnie to a certain extent). if he not only blames himself for Joyce's death. But is also stuck with his ab*ser.

The animal k*lling motif , and after that, mimicking an a b*sive father is already shown with el. Brenner , in s1,tried to make her k*ll a cat (using her powers) and she refused (similar to the s1 rabbit hunting story of Lonnie forcing Jonathan to k*ll a rabbit ). But in s2, she uses her powers to k*ll a squirrel (and like a deer- it's typical hunting game). Than in s3 el does literally everything Brenner ever asked of her- she spies on people and repeats the words back (like brenner told her to do), she becomes a weapon to ‘fight the commies’ (which was said to be the reason he k*dnapped her in the first place), and when looking into the void to see the mf (she mirrors the words brenner told her - when he made her go into the void to face the demogorgan).

And some s4 movies are literally about being trapped in a house with your ab*ser and slowly losing your mind because of the ab*se and gaslighting- lighthouse , black swan , good son, are prime examples. But movies like scar face , girl with the dragon tattoo, and book of Henry touch on this theme a bit as well. And ordinary people- is about a guy who survived a vehicular accident but his relative in the same accident didn't- and it causes him alot of issues /survivor's guilt.

The shadowy figure could just be Will in the shot - seeing it in a dream before or after it happens?

Theory 4) Will sees a future vision or has his ’now memories’ of someone else's car.

Evidence: i guess the s4 shot parallels El (in s3) spying on Billy while he’s hurting Heather. During that spying scene: the shot is of El near Billy's car. So it’s possibly a diff willel parallel?

If not Will. Who knows ...if El’s telekenesis is gone maybe her spying abilities strengthened and look different because of it (and now she can see background details)?

Theory 5) it's Lonnie's car and Will escapes from the trunk and uses his powers in self defense

Evidence: I’m pretty iffy on this one. This goes back to how people suspected Lonnie took Will in s1 (and could be foreshadowing). Even the recent rebel robin book-has characters say Lonnie probably took Will. Jonathan suspected Will may be at Lonnie’s - so checks Lonnie’s car trunk (to see if Will is there). We also see how the mf in s3, knocked people out by dr*gs/str*ngulation, ties them up, and throws them in a trunk (to k*dnap them). Or how the cops raided jonathan’s trunk- which had stuff to track the demogorgan (and the demogorgan parallels Lonnie) . And after looking in Jonathan’s trunk-they suspected something fishy is going on.

*heather was described as “another me” by Will- who was thrown in the trunk.

movies: “tangled” was on the s4 list- and had an ab*sive parent later try and kidnap their kid ,and that parent ends up dying. in girl with the dragon tattoo (the girl associated with dragons & phoenixes-  lights her  ab*sive bio dad on fire. In ‘drop dead fred’ (girl who is in love with childhood friend, named Mikey, who she met at age 5) lights a imaginary version of her ab*sive parent on fire - while in a trippy memory world. Chrissy accidentally lights her ab*sive relative (nickname “daddy”)  on fire in self defense- in a trippy hell memory scape. in ‘long kiss goodnight- the girl with 2 personalities (Will/will the wise) was kidnapped and put in a trunk and escapes by jumping into a quarry. Not sure if that could relate to a flashback or something else? like in ‘don’t breath’ the older sibling who essentially was a surrogate parent to the younger sibling-mentions how their dad left the family, and her parent would throw her in the trunk for hours as a punishment.

[vyeoh]

this is your chance: wax poetic about an Empires or DSMP character of your choice to a fan who is new to both. Explain why I should love them. I need guidance in this new and meme-populated land.

okok this is a lot of pressure haha. Spoilers for EmpiresSMP and DreamSMP below, obviously. I wrote a lot so prepare yourself, anon

I watch a lot of empires POVs but the ones I most anticipate every week are Scott and Sausage.

c!Scott (I'll call him Smajor for the sake of simplicity) starts off the series chilling, not really getting involved with the rest of the server, and staying aggressively neutral. After all, he's an elf. He has lived far longer than most of the other rulers already, and will most likely outlive them for many years. So, the best thing is to stick to his mountains and not get invested in the dealings of mortal affairs, maybe sometimes causing problems on purpose and dipping because what's life without a little spice right.

But then, this demon comes to the server, Xornoth. He's going around causing havoc and wants to send the world into an eternal winter, but he doesn't bother the kingdom of Rivendell much so Smajor stays tentatively cautious but ultimately unbothered. But then, the puzzle pieces start falling together. The first thing that the audience noticed was was Xornoth sounded like Smajor, but we mostly thought that this was just due to cc!Scott voicing both of them and there was nothing more to it. However, then, the people the demon starts possessing start chanting in elvish. The demon hates mortals, and the elves are conveniently one of the two confirmed not fully mortal races in Empires.

This culminates when Smajor stumbles across a cave that contains the backstory of the patron god of Rivendell, Aeor. Basically, there's two opposing forces, Aeor and Exor, and both have a champion. In a previous life, those champions were two brothers, where Aeor eventually prevailed and banished Exor. In this life though, the champions are - you guessed it - Smajor, and the demon Xornoth.

So now Smajor is like. Well fuck. It's my literal god-given destiny to be responsible for defeating this demon who is technically my brother, and if I fail the server gets plunged into an eternal winter. And I have no fucking clue what is happening because I've just been here on this mountain actively trying to stay out of the issues outside my kingdom. We watch him panic and teeter on the verge of spiraling for an entire episode, and when the followers of Xornoth go to the End to kill the dragon, releasing Xornoth's full powers, he fails to stop him. Smajor is a character who was used to being the smart one, the prepared one, the one who has the least deaths on the server. But he's also a character who runs away from his problems and ignores them. Before and during the dragon fight, we hear the desperation in his voice, as he's thrown into a situation he is wholly unprepared for, and it's bigger than him going to the Cod Empire to kill their king, or assisting in other people's plans to kill the codfather. He can't run from this. cc!Scott plays this scene so well as well, as I've said before, one of the best parts of Scott's acting is how he's never super dramatic, but he's so effective in the little things like inflection to make you feel, viscerally, the panic and dread.

So after the dragon fight, Smajor realizes, I can't do this on my own. I've tried and failed. So he gets allies. We watch him, someone who has so strongly been an isolationist, learn the benefits of allies and watch him learn to trust others and watch him learn how to get that trust in return.

My favorite thing about Smajor's characterization is that he's an incompetent protagonist, but not in the way of the "plucky young adventurer". He's capable skill-wise, and fairly jaded and very pessimistic. However, his issue is that up until recently, he did not care about the rest of the server at all, and by the time he learned to, it was way too late.

Also, in 3rd Life, cc!Scott and cc!Jimmy were canonically married and they reference it sometimes in Empires. Like, Scott goes over to the Cod Empire every so often both in and out of character to kill and/or flirt with Jimmy, the ruler of the Cod Empire, which may develop as a secondary plot into the future who knows. So ty Scott for giving the gays what they want o7

Now onto Sausage: his is a story of Icarus, his hubris and ambition being his downfall. He's one of the two followers of Xornoth, who promised him endless power in exchange for his servitude. He started the series being eccentric, but not outright unhinged, but slowly gets more and more extreme as the series progresses, as he gets brought more and more to Xornoth's side.

One of the best parts of Sausage's character, in my opinion, is how his gradual corruption affects the people around him. Initially, he got into a conflict with the Cod Empire and was allied with two other people in the Witherrose alliance. They were allies, but also close friends. The fandom liked to joke that the three had sibling energy, and I'm pretty sure the ccs played to that even more lol.

It was painful to watch the other two members, Gem and fWhip, watch Sausage get corrupted right in front of them, and see them desperately clinging on to this old idea of Sausage in their head because if they faced the truth, it would mean that their friend was gone. Eventually, they do finally cut him out of the alliance, leading him to fully commit to the side of the demon. Sausage felt very clearly betrayed by this, and declared the remaining two Witherrose alliance members to be enemies.

He gets more and more possessed, and we even see the other Empires, his enemies even, slowly realize that something is very wrong with the ruler of Mythland. He starts doing more and more evil things, like killing people more, making sacrifices to the demon, and eventually helping to kill the dragon to free Xornoth. So things are good for Sausage, for a bit. He won, and is more powerful than ever. Then he finds out: he's going to die. Xornoth's possession is slowly killing his soul, and eventually, his body going to be fully taken over and he himself is going to be trapped in the spirit realm. So how do you react to this? Over the next few episodes, we watch Sausage struggle between "the demon is literally killing me" and "the demon has given me so much, and I love it", all while Xornoth takes over more and more of him. We hear him exclaim that "don't worry!! I'm still about 15% there!" while trying to downplay every time Xornoth completely takes over his body. We watch him willingly oppose anyone who is trying to end the thing that is killing him.

My favorite thing about Sausage is that he is undoubtedly evil and proud of it, but he's also undoubtedly human. If you like to watch evil characters go absolutely feral, he's the guy for you. He makes the deal with Xornoth in the beginning, knowing and fully embracing the evilness of the demon, but at the same time he knows what he's doing is detrimental to both himself and everyone around him, but he's gotten in way too deep at this point, and to be fair the demon has held up its end fo the bargain, right?

Also, I would be damned if I don't talk about cc!Sausage's editing. Every one of his videos is like a movie. The way he does camera angles and uses music is so skillful- every lore scene feels like something out of a high fantasy action saga (think: LotR). Every big lore event I always wait in anticipation for Sausage's ep because his editing truly takes lore to another level.

I'm just generally very excited to see where this series goes. Empires is such a good mix of talented builders and good lore. Part of the reason why the series is so immersive for me, beyond any other lore smp, is that they have the settings to back it up. There is a certain charm to the DreamSMP's objectively terrible builds (with a few exceptions) but in Empires, the settings help sell the plot so much.

Another part of why I love EmpiresSMP is how much the ccs are involved with the fan community. I'm sure you've seen the memes about Scott being on tumblr, and Sausage regularly goes through the EmpiresSMP fanart tag on Twitter and likes art, even ones not related to Mythland. Most of the ccs, in fact, have brought up tumblr content on stream at some point or another. Like, several ccs have said that they read tumblr lore theories and hcs and stuff and sometimes take inspiration from them. Fun fact: Rivendell's church was inspired by my pinned drawing; confirmed by Scott Smajor himself. It's just such a good cycle of ccs and fans being excited about each other.

As for DreamSMP, I'm gonna be honest here, the only person I really am invested in in Technoblade. I started watching when he joined the server, and he's the only person whose lore I keep up to date with.

Techno's fun to watch because he's like the Deadpool of DreamSMP. Virtually unkillable, very skilled and scary, but consistently cracks jokes and breaks the 4th wall during plot. His POV is just fun. Like, he does wild plans and gives speeches and some of the stuff that happens to him should be called deus ex machine if it wasn't for the fact that Technoblade is the one who's doing it, and all the stuff is grounded in the fact that cc!Techno is just that good at the game.

However, the fact that he rarely takes anything seriously makes the few times Techno is 100% serious so much more impactful. His whole character has a basis in being perceived as inhuman and being treated as such, and therefore in return trying to hide his humanity. So, when he shows that humanity, whether that's fear, anger, or genuine love for his friends, it really makes you go "oh shit."

Techno's often said not to have character development, but I'd argue that while he remains steadfast in his moral code, he develops leaps and bounds as a person. Like, at the beginning, he's brought onto the server to help Wilbur and Tommy overthrow a government; them knowing he's 1) an anarchist and 2) very very powerful. His character was more of a plot device at that point and was treated as such in the canon. Wilbur and Tommy straight-up lie to him about their plans to establish another government after they overthrow the current one, while he was led on to believe that they were abolishing all governments in the area. But he isn't a plot device. He's a person, as much as he only shows the terrifying, blood god side of himself.

After the establishment of New Lmanburg (the new government its a long story), his friend Phil joins. And for the first time, we see him be fully human with someone and we see someone treat him like a human. Like, we saw glimpses before, with Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, but Phil is the first person we noticeably see he trusts 100%. Then Doomsday happens, and Techno essentially retires to the tundra. During this time, we see Techno learn to be more human, first with Ranboo, then Niki when he establishes the Syndicate. In fact, the two of them, along with Phil, canonically throw him a birthday party, which is a far cry from his treatment in Pogtopia.

Techno's development is one of a god learning to be human, and I just think he <3

[mademoiselle-red]

It’s also worth noting that Tianqi (played by Liu Xueyi), is not a demon, but the God of the Demons. The Immortal he is speaking to is Wuhuan, the Queen of the Immortals. Tianqi is an Old God, she is a New God, and they have very different views of the cosmological order of their world.

Ancient Love Poetry’s cosmology is really interesting and a bit different from other Xianxia in that in the beginning of the universe, there were the Gods, the Immortals, and the Demons. The Gods lived in their own realm above everyone else and controlled everything. The Immortals and Demons were equal under the eyes of the Gods, lived in their own realms below the Gods, and both races could ascend to Godhood through cultivation.

Among the Gods, there were four Original Gods who were descended from the Supreme God and honored above all others:

Zhiyang, the oldest Original God (not sure what he is god of)

Shanggu, the God of Chaos and the new Supreme God

Baijue, the God of Fire and God of the Immortals

Tianqi, the God of Water and the God of the Demons

As the God of Demons, Tianqi’s life force nourishes the entire race of Demons and gives them the energy to cultivate and thrive. He is their God, and they are his children.

During the Cataclysm that ended the Age of the Gods, the new Supreme God sacrificed herself to prevent the End of the World, and all the Gods fell and “died”, leaving behind the Immortals and the Demons, who became embroiled in conflict.

The Immortals gradually forgot about the old order and began to see themselves as the highest beings in existence, looking down upon both Demon and Man. Wuhuan, an Immortal who had served the God of Chaos in the old era, survived the cataclysm, ascended to Godhood, and became the Queen of Immortals.

However, all four of the Original Gods survived / were reborn after Cataclysm, and they remain the highest and most powerful beings in existence in this world, even if some of the Immortals loathe to admit it.

So in this scene, Tianqi is not only sticking up for his children and upholding the old order where Immortals and Demons were all equal under the Gods, but reminding the Queen of the Immortals that she cannot judge his children, but he, as an Original God, can pass judgement upon her.

This piece of world building is important because outside specific fictional settings, demons and immortals are not supposed to be equal from a folk religion perspective, since demons represent the “fall” and “corruption” of souls (animal and human) on their cultivation path to immortality.

Demons and Immortals tend to get racialized in lots of Xianxia works, rather than representing different cultivation results achieved by human and animal souls.

But simply waving an authorial hand and saying demons and immortals are all equal sits wrong, because it cannot hand-wave away the cultural understanding that demons represent man’s capitulation to his worst instincts and immortals represent man’s pursuit of virtue. That’s why the way this handwaving is done in some Xianxia dramas like Love and Redemption sits so wrong with me and a lot of fans. Because the demons are racialized but also canonically retain some attributes from folk religion, such as cultivating via consuming human souls.

Ancient Love Poetry solves this problem by having the demons derive their powers and life force from the God of Demons. Tianqi’s existence in this universe is morally neutral, and so his children’s existence is also morally neutral, untainted by the “original sin” of being living representations of the corruption of souls (or needing to consume human souls to cultivate). Like Tianqi, they are neither good nor bad, just equal under the eyes of the Original Gods.

Ancient Love Poetry – How dare you judge me

[simsadventures]

Gilded: Chapter 3: Power Over Me

Mobster!Steve x Reader

Summary: What more can you do than have a rad bachelorette party and then move to a house full of mobsters. It all sounds fun, right? Well, not according to your experience. 

Warnings: mobster AU, drinking, swearing, surveillance, angst, smidge of fluff, violence, mention of bruises, fear 

Word Count: 5737

A/N: A little late, I know I know, but I wanted to make sure the chapter was exactly how I wanted it. I keep thinking I will get to the wedding, and then some situations occur and I know I have to concentrate on them a little more. Than being said, I think we will finally see the wedding next! What do you think of this part? Did you like it? Is the reader a little less annoying? Let me know xx

Series Masterlist __ Masterlist 

< Previous Chapter 

The scene was supposed to be joyous, but, for some reason, the majority of what you felt was filled with sadness. Not for any particular reason, it was just the weigh of your decision finally settling in your heart and the realization hitting you that you would indeed be getting married in a week to a total stranger, who was a mobster, none less. 

You chose it, you had to remind yourself as tears fought their way in your eyes. It was just momentary sadness overpowering you, the feeling that your wedding wouldn’t be filled with people loving and caring for you, that the day would be more about showing off Steve’s power over the world than showing his love for his new bride, for whom he had none. And you would be there almost alone: no parents, no extended family, and a very few close friends. Whom you loved dearly, of course, and without whom you wouldn’t even be considering taking such a step. You needed them there, and not just the two lovable idiots you lived with. 

It was also people you’ve come to love during your university years as well as some coworkers, like Christy and Anja. Together it made around 15 people, which was actually a lot more than you had anticipated, but still. It would have to be Aidan walking you down the aisle, and just the mere thought made a choked sob escape your lips. 

The sound brought the attention of the room to you, and before you knew it, you were enveloped in a bone-crushing hug from all the people there, everyone telling you that you should be happy, that this was a good thing. Of course, nobody except Caroline and Aidan knew the reality behind the wedding. All they thought was happening was that you fell madly in love with Steve Rogers, and now you two were tying the knot. You even overhead Aisha say that you were definitely pregnant, otherwise, you wouldn’t have rushed into it like this. You tried to assure everyone that there was no pregnancy at all, but, of course, people believed what they wanted, and you lacked the energy to go around the room and speak to them individually, denying what they formed in their heads. 

It was Friday night, and you were in your apartment, surrounded by all those people who would come to your wedding. You sent a list of names to Steve that afternoon, and, after what you assumed was a background check on all of them, he agreed that yes, these 15 people could actually come. And when he did, you called an emergency meeting at your apartment, using it both as a way of inviting them to the wedding and as a kind of bachelorette party, where all you wanted to do was to drink heavily, eat a disgusting amount of carbs and pass out around dusk. Safe to say, all of your friends had been in, and by the time it was 11 PM, you were all tipsy, and people started to dance. Some (ehm, ehm, Caroline) even on a table, which was hilarious to the rest of you. 

The sadness came and went all evening, but you were determined not to let it ruin your night. So, every time you felt like it was creeping up on you again, you just told somebody and let them hug you until you were feeling better. 

Then, somebody came up with the idea to play Never Have I Ever, and since the tequila still burned in your veins, you agreed immediately. And so the game started. You were roaring like a pride of lions, each answer louder than the previous ones, but the most fun arose from telling each other funny stories. 

“Ok, so this one time I was blowing off my boyfriend, right? And you know how much I hate the taste of sperm, and he knows it as well, but this one time he really insisted on my swallowing, and so when he finally came, I squeaked and pointed somewhere behind him so that I could spit the cum to glass under the table, and when he turned around I showed him my mouth, void of any liquid, and he looked super proud,” your friend Naila laughed as she told the story to the question: never have I ever swallowed cum. 

The night was flowing smoothly, and soon, you saw that it was getting somehow lighter outside. And, sure enough, when you looked out of the window, you saw that the sunrise was coming in mere minutes. 

“Guys, guys! The sunrise is here. Let’s go to the roof to enjoy it,” you yelled even though half of the people were already fast asleep. The few of you who were still barely alive, which was around 5 of you, staggered towards the door and crawled up the stairs to the highest levels, and when you opened the last door, you had New York underneath you. 

You were wasted and exhausted, but the sight poured new life into you as you watched the early orange rays shine on one building at a time, waking up the city that never slept. It was magical, and it took your breath away. You felt your worries melting away as you saw a new day coming, and you thought it was a new day with many possibilities and hopes for you. You had nothing to lose, and Steve proved to you that he would, indeed, take care of you if need be. All would be if you just played your part and learned enough about Steve to be able to escape his wrath. 

The exhaustion then hit your body just as the ray hit your face, and you waved at the drunk group watching the sunrise, each of them in their own realm of thoughts, and soon enough, you sauntered back to your room, where you fell asleep just like the rest of the bachelorette party. 

A piercing tone woke you up with a start, and, for a second, you didn’t even know where you were, what time it was, or even what fucking century it was. The throbbing in your head prevented your brain from functioning properly, and so you rummaged through the pile of clothes next to your bed, fishing for what was obviously your phone. Gosh, how you hated the ringtone, and you reminded yourself to just mute your phone altogether because then nothing like this could happen again. 

You picked up without so much as looking at the screen and just sneered a harsh what into the speaker. 

“Well, good morning to you too, honey,” you heard Steve’s smug voice and rolled your eyes so hard the pain in your head increased. “Is this the way to greet your future husband? I don’t fucking think so,” he continued, and a considerable part of you contemplated just hanging up on him and his annoyingly sexy voice. 

“Steve, I have no fucking idea what time it is, but it’s definitely not time for you to call me and want me to be nice. Give me a few good hours of sleep, and then we can talk, ok?” You hoped this would do it, but from the silence on the other side, you assumed he wouldn’t let be just yet. 

“What happened? Did your bachelorette party get a little out of hand, and you went to sleep only after sunrise?” 

You gasped, shocked how he knew any of it, and for the first time, the fog in front of your brain lifted a little bit. You checked the time, and seeing it was only 9 AM, you assumed that asshole woke you up on purpose if he knew so much about your nightly activities. 

“How the fuck-“

“Language!” He yelled suddenly, and you flinched at the intensity of his voice. “I know everything, and I told you I would have somebody keeping an eye on you at all times. You’re only lucky the guy sleeping next to you is gay, you’d be in so much trouble otherwise, honey,” Steve spat, and the only sound you could muster was a long huff, as you regretted ever being born. 

“What do you want, Steve? If you know so much, you must know that I’m beat and all I wanna do is sleep, with a guy in my bed or without him. So, if you have something to tell me, please do, otherwise, have a good day, and I’ll catch up with you later.”

“We’re gonna have so much fun together, you and I, Y/N. I’m calling because I wanted to let you know that your room is prepared and ready for you and that your bodyguard will pick you up at exactly 8 PM, so don’t be late. Clint will also help you carry all things you need. I’ll send you his number so that you can be in touch with him. Oh, and honey? Take some aspirin and go to sleep, you sound like you need it,” even through the phone, you could hear him smirk as he hung up and let you on your own once again. Thank God.

“Who was it?” Aidan asked sleepily from the other side of the bed, and you just grumbled some response, not really sure if he understood what you meant, but when he hummed and patted your outstretched hand, you took it as yes, I understand you mean your future husband Steve Rogers, nice talk. 

The phone signalled you received a text, and when you looked at it, it was your bodyguard’s phone number and a directive, telling you to go to sleep already, because the dark circles under your eyes didn’t suit you. 

Oh, how you wanted to kill this man already. He got on your nerves more easily than anybody ever before, and for a brief moment, you wondered why he affected you so. You didn’t even know him, and you shouldn’t let him tossing you back and forth, but here you were, pissed because you could just imagine how proud he was of himself that he woke you up and told you what to do so many times in such a short call. 

Sighing, you got up from the bed and went to check the window to see if you could spot the nosy bodyguard ratting on you to Steve. You needed to have a word with him because he just couldn’t go running to Steve every time you blinked. 

Looking around the street, you tried to spot a strange vehicle, one that didn’t fit into the street you grew to know so well. And, sure enough, there was a large SUV, much like the one you had driven with Steve before, and you noticed that the windows were tilted. Since your apartment was on the first floor, anybody from the street had a great view right into your flat, and because you passed out totally exhausted, you didn’t have the time, nor did you remember to shut your blinds. 

You huffed and shut them now, cursing Steve and his nosiness because he wasn’t making your life any easier, and you weren’t even married yet. The year in front of you would be annoying and difficult, but maybe it would make you feel alive again. 

Shaking your head, you didn’t let the memories flood your brain as you strode back to your back, plopped on it belly-first and fell straight asleep.

“Are you sure it’s everything?” Aidan looked around your now half-empty room, except for the furniture that you knew you wouldn’t need. Steve promised to give you a furnished room, and you took his word for it, so you just took the essentials, like your clothes and sentimental stuff. Marie Condo would have been proud because you still managed to get rid of a few things that didn’t spark joy!

“Yeah, and even if I left something here, I could still come, you know? It’s not like I’m never seeing you or this place again. I’ll still be like a 30-minute ride away,” you smiled soothingly at him, but he just shook his head, obviously fighting all the emotions swirling in his heart. 

“Alright, alright. No crying. I’ll call you guys when I’m all settled, and Steve actually lets me be by myself, and I’ll show you the room, ok?”

Both Aiden and Caroline nodded speechlessly and then pulled you in a group hug. 

“You sure you wanna do it? We can still make it seem like we kidnapped you and take you somewhere to Mexico, or Argentina, or wherever he wouldn’t find you,” Caroline whispered, and you laughed through the tears fighting their way out of your eyes. 

“I’ll be fine, you’ll see. We will all have so much fun, and before we know it, the year is over, and I’m back here with you guys, having lived a little,” you smirked, and they nodded reassuringly, not really sure if it really was the best way to live a life, but they didn’t want to push you again. Your heart was set, and they both knew there was nothing they could do now. Except, of course, really kidnapping you. 

“Miss Y/L/N, we should go. The boss said we should be there at 9 PM at the latest, and I would prefer if we could be a little early,” Clint said professionally, but you could see that he was afraid of what would Steve do had you arrived late. You didn’t want to start this weird-ass journey by pissing your future husband or making him hurt his employees (you didn’t know whether he would actually do that, but just to be on the safe side, since he did cut off a guy’s finger a mere few days ago). 

You nodded and stepped from your best friends, looking at them and smiling brightly. You didn’t want any teary goodbyes, so you just showed them thumbs up and followed Clint out of the door. You knew there would be some tears when you left but didn’t think they would come as early as on the first step from your apartment. 

Fortunately, there weren’t that many steps to go before you were out of the building and rushed into the SUV by Clint. It was dark already, but you didn’t want him to see you cry, so you swiftly pulled out your sunglasses and put them on, not saying a word to Clint as he started the car and pulled it into New York’s night traffic. The lights around you were almost blinding, and for a moment, you were glad you had the glasses on, but then another wave of regret and sadness hit you, and you had a hard time keeping in the sobs. Scratching your arms, you stared out of the window and took a few calming breaths, telling yourself to get a grip because you were about to enter the lion’s den, and you couldn’t show them any emotions. 

You knew Clint knew what was going on, but he was gentleman enough not to comment on it. Still, you needed to make sure he understood this little episode was just between the two of you. 

“Can I ask you something, Clint?” You said suddenly and saw his eyes flickering between the road and the mirror, meeting your eyes for a moment. 

“Of course, Miss Y/L/N. However, I should warn you, I am not allowed to give you certain information,” he said formally, and you nodded knowingly. 

“Yeah, right. If I asked you to keep a little secret from your boss, would you keep it?” You asked and nibbled on your lower lip anxiously. 

He seemed to have thought for a second before he nodded his head in a manner telling you that there were things Steve didn’t need to know. His eyes met yours again before he spoke up. 

“I’m now your bodyguard, and if I think the information kept from the boss is in your best interest, then I won’t tell him anything. For example, you smiled all the way to the apartment, no tears and no sunglasses. Though, I think you should powder your nose and dry your face,” he smirked, and you laughed a little, nodding gratefully and doing exactly as he said. 

The car stopped exactly as you put all the supplies back into your purse, and you had a feeling Clint took a longer route to Steve’s house just to give your face the time to dry up and calm down. Checking the time, you saw it was 10 minutes before 9 and saw the relief on Clint’s face when he realized the same thing. 

“Alright, I will take you to the boss and then will get the boys to help with your things. We won’t go through anything, but if you need our help when you’re unpacking, all you have to do is text me,” Clint said, walking you to the door. 

The man you met on your first night there was standing as a sculpture at the exact same spot, and you wondered if he ever moved from that hallway. He did move towards you, gesturing to your purse, but Clint’s hand stopped him mid-motion. 

“She’s clean. I’ve been with her the whole time,” he said sternly and with authority, and when he saw the first man taking a breath to protest, Clint just gave him a chilling frown, and the man stepped down, hung his head in defeat and let you through. 

“It’s not a problem, Clint; I could have shown him the purse, you know?” You almost whispered as you walked through the empty rooms and hallways with Clint by your side. 

“They need to learn to respect you, Miss. You are, after all, marrying the boss very soon, and they need to understand that you are not a threat,” he gave you a curt nod, and you blushed a little. You didn’t know what it was, but the way Clint spoke to you with so much trust and respect already made you feel much better. You knew it would be an issue, so having somebody on your side was a huge relief already. 

“Thank you, Clint, I really-“ 

“Well, happy you two are best buddies already! Are you gonna braid each other’s hair and do each other’s nails soon too?” A voice snapped you back to reality, a voice you already knew too well. Steve was leaning against a door, his face stoic despite the mocking tone of his voice. Clint obviously tensed next to you, mumbled some apology and scurried out of the room, leaving you with Steve. 

You just looked at him and crossed your arms on your chest. 

“Do you need to be like this?” You asked incredulously, not really understanding why he had to be such an ass when all you did was having some sort of conversation with one of his loyal men. 

“Like what, honey? You seem to forget who I am and what I can do to you and your fucking life,” he sneered when he finally pulled away from the door and marched right in front of you. 

Your arms fell from your chest as you stared at him, trying to figure him out. Which, considering he was a prolific mobster, wasn’t the easiest task at hand. But you tried nevertheless and poked to see where was all this coming from. He obviously needed to be in control of every situation, always the centre of attention, and, you realized, it was probably this that pissed him off. You walked in, not really paying attention to him standing by the door but carelessly talking to somebody else. But his attitude was another thing entirely. 

“What do you want me to say, Steve? That I’m sorry I talked to somebody else and that it won’t happen again? You know it probably will, especially since you assigned Clint with the task of taking care of me and making sure I survive this year with you, which is really all he had done in the 40 minutes I have known him,” you reasoned, trying to sound confident but not pushy. You needed to show him that he couldn’t just toss you around like he might have thought. You didn’t expect him changing his attitude altogether for you, but you, at least, hoped he would go easy on you. 

He was seething but also thinking; you could see his mind going in overdrive to come up with something snarky and mean. But you were quicker than him, once again. 

“Will you be so kind and show me to my room? I would like to get settled in before we start talking about the wedding.”

“There will be no talk of a wedding. All you have to take care of is go tomorrow and pick your fucking dress. Everything else is being dealt with. I won’t need you tonight, so you can go and be by yourself till tomorrow,” he snapped and walked away without saying another word. 

Great, now you felt like you were grounded, and all you did was talking with somebody nice to you. You shook your head disapprovingly and headed in a direction you thought might have been your room, but after taking a few turns, you weren’t even sure you were in New York anymore. 

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing here?” You heard from behind you, and before you knew what was happening, somebody pushed you forcibly against the nearest wall, pressing their elbow into your neck. You coughed, surprised, clawing at the man’s forearms and trying to let him loosen the press because it was getting harder and harder to breathe. 

“I said, what the fuck are you doing here?” He yelled into your face, and you tried to tell him, but your voice wouldn’t come out. So, you just stared at him, tears filling your eyes before you heard a loud hey from somewhere behind you two and saw a man with long brown hair running towards you. 

“Sarge, this woman was roaming around here. I think she is a spy,” the man still holding you said to the newly arrived guy, and all you could do was shake your head and tried to make yourself look as non-threatening as possible. Which wasn’t difficult considering you were in no position to be able to even defend yourself had the man decided to crush your trachea. 

“Fucking idiot! That’s the boss’ bride! Let her go, you dickhead,” the man, sarge, growled, and you felt the pressure leaving your body. Which was all it took for you to collapse on the floor and start coughing uncontrollably, gripping your neck in your hands to protect it from any further disturbance. 

“I-I, I didn’t know, Sarge! Don’t tell him. I thought she was some fucking spy. What the hell was she even doing here all alone, huh? It’s not my fucking fault she came sniffing around stuff that is none of her business,” the man tried to defend himself, but from the murderous gaze he received from the sergeant, he wasn’t very successful. 

“Are you ok, Miss? Did he break anything? Is your head spinning? Are you feeling nauseous? Any of this?” He crouched down to your level and extended an arm to you, and you flinched instinctively, not feeling too sure who was your friend here and who wasn’t. So, to play it safe, nobody was your friend, and you’d be scared of them all, forever. Easy business. 

The man saw your reaction and frowned even more but was persistent when he removed your hands from your neck to see an already-forming bruise alongside your throat. 

“You need to talk to me, Y/N. Are you hurting anywhere?” 

You coughed and grimaced because, yes, in fact, you did hurt and that all over the fucking neck and even your head. Which, given the man almost crushed your fucking throat with his elbow, wasn’t that surprising. 

“I’ll be fine. And I wasn’t sniffing around; I was just looking for my room. I thought it might be somewhere here, and I would have asked if I saw anyone. But this place is like a fucking maze, and I was all alone,” you screeched, and the sergeant nodded and helped you to stand up. He was pulling out what looked like a phone, but you stopped him. 

“Don’t call him, please. I’m fine. I just need to get to the room, so I can put some cold water on it, have a drink and go to sleep. Please,” you accentuated and saw the man weighing his options before he put the phone back to his pocket and nodded for you to follow him. 

“I will tell him, just so you know. Steve needs to know about this, and we need to make sure you are introduced to the whole house the first thing in the morning so that this doesn’t happen again. But he needs to know. I will give you a few minutes to take it all in before I do call him, though,” he said with a resolution in his voice, and while you wanted to protest, you saw that it would have been to no avail. So, not saying another word, you let yourself in what was supposed to be your room and took it all in. 

The walls were this very soft grey, which you actually preferred to the cold white you saw a lot all over the house. There was a king-sized bed against the main wall, framed with two bed-side tables and two matching white and gold lamps. There were many pillows on the bed and a plaid, grey and blue, throw as well, making it all feel very homey. You could see a large closet, where you could have easily fit ten times the amount of clothes you owned. The only other thing in the room was a table with a chair and some drawers, where you could picture yourself working and writing. 

However, when you turned around, you saw something that caught your attention. An easel with a little table on wheels, on top of which was a palette where you could see yourself mixing colors left and right. You squealed, but the sound reminded you that you have just been assaulted and that you could admire the room later. 

You took your time in the bathroom, inspecting your neck and hissing here and there when you touched it carefully. You knew the sarge was outside your door, probably counting in his head before he called Steve, and you were actually pretty surprised he wasn’t marching in already. Just when you thought of it, the door to your room flew open, and you heard Steve and the man talking (well, actually, more like yelling at each other).

“Where the fuck is she? I’m going to kill Drax. I swear to fucking God, man. How is it even possible that he does shit like this? They were all supposed to be briefed, for fuck’s sake. Imma have Sam’s ass as well for this. Fuck!” He yelled and kicked into something, which made you frowned, and you rushed out of the bathroom. 

Steve spun around and almost ran towards you, cradling your face in his hands carefully and lifting your head so that he could have a clear view of the injuries. He was swearing under his breath, but you couldn’t help it and stare at him, wide-eyed. He was actually careful with you, sweet even as he took it all in, and when he was sure you wouldn’t die right there, he took a step back from you. 

“Are you ok?” He asked after a moment, and all you could was just nod and stand there awkwardly, scratching your arms behind your back. 

“Will you be able to find your room easier next time?” 

“No, we took too many turns. But I won’t leave this room till morning anyway, and I will learn to stay out of the way very quickly, I promise,” you rushed to say, not really wanting to meet any of his crew alone again. 

“You can’t be scared walking around here, honey. I will show you around right now, and I have already called an emergency meeting, and I want you there. This can never happen again,” he said gravely, and you understood this was probably his way of apologizing for something that wasn’t really all his fault. Well, he didn’t have to storm off and leave you there, nor did he have to scare Clint away, who was ready to show you to your room in the first place. 

“Is it necessary, Steve? If I’m quite honest, I don’t feel too comfortable leaving the room right now,” you quipped, but Steve wasn’t listening anymore. He just grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the door. Weirdly, you felt a little better having the skin-on-skin contact with him because, at least now, nobody would be stupid enough to attack you. 

You tried to remember the way and took in the details that would make you not lose your trail again, such as the red vase on one of the tables in the corner that looked just like the corner two minutes ago, but the vase was something you could remember, so you took a mental note of that and other little things that would serve for your safety, obviously. Because when Steve told you people would want you dead, you sort of didn’t expect those people would be in the house with you. 

You walked through the spacious kitchen and the adjacent dining room to find yourself in what looked like a meeting room, with around 20 men gathered and scattered all over the room. 

When Steve finally stopped, he let go of your hand, but he instinctively reached for you and pulled you against his side. You looked at him in slight disbelief again but didn’t say anything as he stared in front of himself till the room was as quiet as a freaking church during a sermon. 

“Let me make this very quick: however lays as much as a fucking finger on Y/N here, I will kill you, and I won’t give a fuck who you are. You were briefed that I’m getting married to the woman I want, and because somebody wasn’t paying attention to the fucking briefing, evidently, my fiancé is now sporting a black neck, which she will have to cover for our wedding. Drax, you and I will speak tomorrow, I was ready to kill you, but I’m a reasonable man, so I will sleep and think of your punishment then. Now, any questions?” He asked threateningly, and you knew even if somebody did have a question, nobody would dare to ask it now. 

And just as you predicted, the room was as quiet as before, and Steve waved his hand so that everybody was dismissed and they could breathe again. Just not in his presence. 

“Sam, you stay here,” Steve added when he saw one of his closest men leaving the room as well. 

“I will deal with him, Steve. I don’t know how that could have happened, but it won’t ever again, I promise. If it does, you can have my head, man,” the bulky man said and smiled warmly at you. 

“By the way, hi, I’m Sam. I’m like the muscles here, you know? So, if you need to pick something up, I’m your guy,” he said with a wink, and you chuckled but took his hand to shake it. 

“Nice to meet you, Sam, and I will remember that, thank you.” 

“Alright, now, we have all the pleasantries behind us, you can go back to your room and go to sleep. And Y/N, if anybody as much as looks at you the wrong way, you tell me, ok? This marriage might not be a genuine one, but none of these assholes knows that or should care about that. They should protect you just like they protect me, and I don’t care what they say. I can’t have my fucking wife scared to walk these halls,” he was still frowning as he was saying all this to you, but you could see he was much more relaxed than when all the men were in the room. These two, the sergeant whose name you still didn’t know, and Sam, were obviously close to Steve because despite the winks Sam gave to you, Steve didn’t make a scene, nor did he give you the pointed looks when others were around. Still, you were on thin ice, and there was too much drama for one day for you to try and challenge him in any way. 

“Ay ay, Captain,” you chuckled, and the corner of Steve’s mouth actually moved a little, so you took that as a good sign. 

“Alright, I will try and get back to my room and call it a day because tomorrow is an important day! So, nice to meet you, gentlemen, and I will see you soon, I guess,” you waved at them awkwardly, and Sam waved back enthusiastically as you left the men to themselves. 

“She is actually quite nice,” Sam summarized, and winked at Bucky, who just rolled his eyes at him in annoyance, having just enough of Sam’s antics for one day. 

“Yeah, yeah, she actually is, when she’s not talking back and challenging every fucking thing I say,” Steve complained, and it was a turn for both men to roll their eyes at their best friend. 

“Oh yeah, because you love when they’re meek and quiet, we forgot. C’mon, man, somebody fucking choked her today, and she was still standing here with her head held high, keeping it together like a fucking pro. I say she is perfect for you,” Sam said defensively when he saw the murderous stare from his friend/boss. 

Good thing Sam didn’t see you in your room because as soon as you closed the door behind yourself, the tears just streamed down your face, and small sobs left your lips. You were glad the day was over and dreaded what the next day would bring. 

Next Chapter >

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[unfortunatelycake]

Finished watching Ashes of Love and have a need to ramble.

OK so first off I literally only watched this show because YT suggested me a live video of Zhou Shen performing the end theme with Sa Dingding and the lyrics made me think of hualian so I decided this is a show I can get behind. 

Then I looked up the cast and saw Deng Lun was in it, and I’d enjoyed his character in Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity so figured I’d give this drama a try too.

Also have to note that watching this I understand how Luo Yunxi got cast as Chu Wanning in Immortality because holy shit?!?! 

Seeing him play RunYu (and YanYou pretending to be RunYu) was a fucking delight. RunYu is such a multi-faceted character who undergoes such dramatic changes of personality shows so much emotion, and LYX nailed it every damn time. 

Anyway. On to rambling about actual plot and stuff...

Was pretty much Team RunYu the entire way through. I just... couldn’t find myself caring about XuFeng? He was most likeable in the arc where he and JinMi were experiencing hardships in the Human Realm, but other than that just... eh. Whereas RunYu seemed like such a sweet soft boy at first (ahaha)

JinMi totally fell for the wrong guy (once she could fall for someone) !!! 

I mean yeah XuFeng is righteous and courageous and whatnot but look at all RunYu did for and gave her. Like holy shit, how much would he have sacrificed for her sake??? 

At the same time he went full on yandere at one point and that does not deserve reward like jesus christ RunYu chill.

And also he’s a dumbass. It was kind of disappointing at the end that he’s sitting in the Heavenly Realm being all miserable and alone when like. KuangLu and Beast of Dreams are both Right There. And KuangLu had repeatedly pledged her unending loyalty to him. 

I mean I guess there’s meant to be parallels with RunYu’s unrequited love for JinMi and KuangLu’s unrequited love for RunYu but UGH. At least acknowledge that you aren’t entirely unloved and alone, stupid dragon! dsfkshgl

Aside from them, omg Liuying and Muci. 

They deserved better, damn it 

I really enjoyed their story and cared about them and what happened with them a lot more than I cared about the XuFeng/JinMi ship. Muci is such a sweet character, I loved his quietness/stoicism and slight awkwardness in comparison to Liuying being so much more forward and badass. 

But they deserved better. Like a fuck ton better. Find each other in the next incarnation, damn it.

Also was it just me or did YanYou and MatchMaker just not appear in the last few eps? 

Like is the last we saw of them seriously them in the Floral Realm being sad that JinMi was dead???? In that last episode, wouldn’t MatchMaker be like... aware that JinMi was in the Human Realm living her best reincarnated life with XuFeng??? Being that he’s like... in charge of human marriage and stuff??? 

As for YanYou I just want to know what happened to him, at the start of the drama he seemed like he would be such a trouble maker but he turned out to be such a good boy. 

I loved those two characters in particular (along with Runyu, haha) so it was pretty disappointing not to see them amidst the others during those last ‘tying up loose ends’ kind of scenes. =/ 

Also loved MatchMaker and YuanJi messing around, would have liked to have seen more of those two 

...but I’m judging Yanyou for having a thing for Suihe like sure she has great makeup and some of the best costumes but damn Yanyou, seriously??? (Also where the fuck did that storyline come from so late in the drama??? I’m assuming it’s more important in the novel and doesn’t come across like some random Extra Ship thrown in at the last minute?)

Also LiaoYuan? That poor guy did not get paid enough and then he died. Boo.

AND. A little grumble that Netflix subs did a disservice to the scene towards the end (ep 62? 63?) where XuFeng and RunYu are talking outside [human realm place where human! XF & JM met] 3 years after JinMi’s death, and RunYu walks away to leave and XuFeng calls out to him, ‘Ge.’

But Netflix just subbed it as ‘Runyu’

I know that stuff like ‘ge’, ‘gege’ and so on is hard to translate to English (and honestly I know like zero Chinese so I may be talking out of my ass) but just using Runyu’s name kind of detracted from the significance of XuFeng calling out to him? 

Like... after the last 60-odd episodes of drama, fighting, hatred and misunderstanding, and they’re on speaking terms and their relationship is kind of healing so like... XuFeng calling him ‘Ge’ feels really significant in comparison to just calling him by name =/ 

Aaaa I’m rambling into the void here, TL;DR:

Team Runyu!

Yanyou, Matchmaker & Muci BEST BOYS

Liuying & KuangLu BEST GIRLS

Best of Dreams BEST NON HUMANOID 

[anntoldst0ries]

The Signs (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart 3, post Chapter 11 Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count/Rating: 1.6k, T Summary: After moments of passion and confessions, Ethan finds himself unable to fall asleep. Category/Warnings: Fluff, None

A/N: They are riding on Hawaiian waves, I am riding on the wave of fluff.

He witnessed the scene countless times during his career.

People squeezed in hospital corridors on horribly uncomfortable plastic chairs, air filled with hope of receiving the good news on their loved ones’ health, shared by many souls simultaneously. Wives resting their heads on husbands’ shoulders, mothers holding children perseveringly, their arms and legs numb and asleep. Some of them unmoving, save for shallow breaths and occasional blinks. Tired, on the verge of emaciation, haven’t had a wink of sleep in god knows how long.

How were they doing this? Where did they take this superhuman strength from?

Ethan could never fully comprehend this.

It was the sort of power he never really experienced in his life.

Until now.

Because when Noelle’s head found its haven on the sea of his chest, there wasn’t anything he wanted more than to become completely still, to hold his breath and be the pillow of safety she nestles up to.

He’d do whatever it takes to preserve her sleep, which, right now, was the most fragile and precious thing in the world to him.

It was a sign.

They lay in the aftermath of the afterglow, two castaways of the storm called life which, despite hurting them both really badly, also helped them find each other.

Them against the world.

Tropical Hawaiian air, sticky and dense, filled the room already soaked with lust.

It was heavy, failing to provide even the slightest relief amidst pervasive heat.

Because it was the type of heat that didn’t have much to do with the temperature.

It was the ardor of lovers.

Written on their curves were the stories of worship and promises of stories yet to be told.

They claimed each other's bodies a couple of times this night, engulfed in waves of desire bigger and stronger than the ones breaking on the shore outside the hotel windows.

The tidal waves hitting them, every next one with more might then its predecessor, their whole world encapsulated in the sounds of pleasure.

And something else.

In those moments, they were so much more than just a combination of skin, bones, muscles and ligaments succumbing to the march of time.

They were everlasting.

As doctors, they were reminded of their own mortality every second of every working hour.

But now, they were invincible, only if for a night.

When they moved in perfect unison, he saw something in her eyes.

He didn’t know what to call it, but he knew what it felt like.

Unconditional.

Their clothes and belongings were scattered all over the floor, the only witnesses of the wedding night fever.

It was the type of mess that was actually a proof of a perfect order.

The only kind of disarray he could live in permanently.

Signs.

Every cell of Ethan’s body craved sleep. But his eyes were wide open, defying the laws of gravity. And his mind was on overdrive. He couldn’t help but reminisce.

Two years ago he kissed her for the first time.

He could tell you exactly what happened right before and after the kiss. He could describe every second, every detail, every thought. But when their lips touched, he forgot his own name. And everything else he thought he knew.

A year ago he was fighting for her life.

Back then, Ethan didn’t know how strong he really was. Until being strong was the only choice he had.

Today, she was right here beside him and it was almost surreal. She was so close that he would notice the rising and falling of her chest. The rhythm of her breath.

It took him long to believe they could have a happy ending.

Too long, he kept reprimanding himself.

Yet the signs were there, if one only looked.

They were all around.

Ethan thought of all the people who made him the man and the doctor he was today.

Dolores. His first patient turned friend, the tragic and unjust loss. Baby Ethan’s fight. The night when nature played the cruelest eye for an eye game. Life for life. The night he started seeing Noelle Valentine through a brand new lens. He never told anyone, but seeing them so vulnerable awoke something in him. His own sensitivity, buried beneath the layers of grumpiness and indifference. Thick doctor skin.

Naveen. Ethan wished he could wipe the images out of his head. Seeing the man who taught him everything shrink and almost disappear was one of the hardest things he had to face in his whole life. Truth be told, he only made it through because she shared the burden with him. Because she saved Naveen. This delicate, slightly-built woman. The warrior. His Noelle. She made him so proud.

Louise. What his mother did to him was beyond repair. The cross he carried with him, anywhere he went. But in a short period of time Noelle achieved something he couldn’t do for years. Forgive. Never forget. Forgive and finally understand that even broken souls deserve the unbreakable love.

Dad. The man who, despite all the adversities, always had time for his child. But that didn't stop Ethan from resenting Alan for always justifying what Louise did. He couldn't understand, even though it was so simple. Love. In the realms of medicine, Ethan was in his element. But the concept of unconditional love was estranged. Until he met her. Not only did she mend the broken fence between father and son, but also showed him that some things truly are unexplainable and can only be understood with heart, not mind.

Tobias - his former best friend then best rival and now...best not to talk about it too much. Only Noelle had the power of talking Ethan into considering looking at Tobias in a different light. She laughed at the idea of holding the grudge forever. She challenged him and called him out on his bullshit.

Every relationship that meant something to him, had irreversibly been impacted by the force of a once clueless intern.

She signed them all.

Suddenly, she peeled away from his chest and rolled over to the left, so that her back was now facing him. Having covered her with a thin sheet, his fingers brushed her shoulder blades ever so lightly, as if anything more than this could hurt her.

It took all the willpower in the world to stop himself, for he wanted to touch every single millimeter of her being.

He wanted to draw the maps on her back. Maps of all the places they are going to discover together. The highways of their world. The plans of all the cities they will tower over. Write the words of pure adoration. The stories yet to unfold.

At the risk of looking like a creep, he slowly inhaled her smell. He wished there was a way to capture and bottle it, so he could carry it with him everywhere. His favourite perfume in the whole wide world.

Noelle shuddered lightly and the tiny movement startled him. Maybe she was trying to shoo a bad dream away.

“You are just a few inches away… and this is the longest distance between us I’m willing to put. No more running.” He whispered and kissed her hair lovingly. As if on cue, her breath returned to its regular rhythm, the tension leaving her muscles.

Part of him hoped she was asleep. Another wished she’d heard every single word. After all, he wasn’t best at translating feelings into words. Or maybe he was actually afraid that once he started, nothing would stop him.

Not only from telling her how he’s never felt this way about anyone, but also how everything fades whenever she’s around. How all the hospital drama dissipates, because everything is figureoutable as long as he knows she’s safe and sound. How, if he couldn’t run, he’d walk. If he couldn’t walk, he’d crawl. To her.

Today has done something to him.

Celebration of Ines’ love. Zaid’s speech. Being surrounded by people he no longer considered co-workers only. His friends.

Ethan lied. “I've never felt this way about anyone... and I don't know if I ever will again." Because he is certain he never will again. But more importantly, he never wants to.

Words echoed throughout his head.

“What I didn't expect was to meet the kindest, sweetest, most amazing doctor I've ever known... and the best friend I've ever had.” That was exactly what happened to him when one intern crossed the threshold of Edenbrook hospital...and inadvertently his life.

A crazy thought was born in his head. Completely irrational. And not a bad idea.

He hoped Zaid wouldn’t mind if he’d stolen the line and used it for his wedding vows. That is, if she agreed to share the rest of her life with him. There was always a dose of uncertainty.

But the idea certainly didn’t sound so scary anymore. Quite the contrary.

~~~

Noelle woke up in a couple of paradises simultaneously.

The tropical paradise.

The physical paradise of total satisfaction.

The paradisiacal view of Ethan Ramsey’s perfect body.

“Good morning.” She murmured to the man on the balcony, who, despite the heavenly view of Hawaii stretching behind him, had his eyes set firmly on her.

“Good morning indeed.” He replied with an unknown sweetness in his voice, that surprised even him.

And he really meant it.

This was a good sign.

Fantastic even.

Maybe the best one ever.

~~

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