#and whoever the lovely person who ran the account was

[ecstarry]

im so unserious and dramatic oh my god im aware okay

[spyroforlife]

I've had further Emberlynn Pinkle thoughts

I think the best possible life for her in Hell. is for her to become a goddamn Overlord

Because wouldn't that just be so fitting. That the person who writes over the top fanfics, who probably makes her characters utter Mary Sues (affectionate) who are amazing and powerful and beloved, actually HERSELF becomes a person of power and status in her afterlife

I like to envision her becoming the Overlord of Smut

She gets herself a real nice headquarters, something like a combined library and apartment building, where those who sold their souls to her can live and be taken care of. They've got Internet, they've got food, and you've got the whole big library and lounge area down on the first floor!!

BUT. If she owns your soul. You're gonna work too. Helping out with the Hell-exclusive version of AO3 she created, of course! Responding to support tickets. Tag wrangling. Doing other admin work. Tech support. You get to have your own account too of course and you get extra features, so you can make your own fics even better~ It's very much encouraged for her employees to be fic writers

And she just makes money from demons donating to her entirely because they love her site full of filthy stories, and they want to be able to continue reading and posting their own fics. Non-employees get more basic accounts but there's still plenty they can do.

This isn't even treading on Valentino's toes. It's just written stuff. It's not using real people, there's nothing being filmed. So in Val's eyes, it's two different industries. He does the live action stuff. Hers is meant to be read. So he doesn't really care, and in fact peruses the site himself for inspiration.

I could see him having a deal with her where if he likes a fic idea, she'll get him in touch with whoever wrote it and help negotiate the person allowing Val to use the idea, in return for some of the profits. Emberlynn and the writer of course split their share, and this is all laid out in the site's TOS. As you can imagine, this does attract demons intentionally trying to get Val's approval with their writing, and those guys are seen as squares, but like. Can't really stop them.

Everyone just generally posts what they like and ignores shit that annoys them. And yeah, massively popular website, ran by Emberlynn and her followers, and their headquarters is often visited by others who just wanna hang out and talk about their own writing.

They sell snacks and stuff to guests, and hey, if you like this and want to be part of their exclusive club.. go talk to the boss lady Emberlynn and she'll get you alll set up.

yea idk. Overlord Emberlynn y'all

oh yeah and of course her powers get stronger as she gains souls, idk what all she'll be able to do exactly but I know for sure she can fly, and I can also see her being an emotion reader who specializes in sensing people's turn-ons, which she can use to direct them to the writers she thinks they'll like the most :D she might also be able to mildly hypnotize people using pheromones or something idk. just throwing ideas around haha Emberlynn is fun and I hope she lives her best monsterfucker life in Hell

[tubbytarchia]

Jimmy X Life thoughts

This is long (ft. fWhip and Scott and Joel)

TLDR: its all kinda cute but then devolves into Jimmy misery anyway even though he has done nothing

Jimmy's really cute builds??? to lure you in

Obligatory: I only talk about characters

X Life is a goddamn fever dream lol, following are some jumbled thoughts that I've divided into "Jimmy", ""fWhip and Joel", "Jeremyism" and "Scott" thoughts (all in relation to Jimmy). Shoutout to my friend for liveblogging and discussing together with me and pointing out some stuff I missed or better than I could

-- Jimmy thoughts

Jimmy's actually relatively happy within this series, at least at the beginning, and there is no significant "bullying Jimmy" kind of culture thing in place here, even though chronologically this series came after and partially ran at the same time as Legacy where it was very prevelant. They even hold a 100K milestone ceremony for him and it's very cute. Namely though fWhip and Joel treat him very nicely, he even has many really cute interactions with Scott!! I'm not gonna talk about shipping past this one statement but as someone who hasn't liked fWhimmy till now and finds Flower Husbands really interesting but not always healthy, it was... Really relieving to see both of those duos be really cute for me personally. But in spite of this there's still, sigh, a lot of Jimmisery...

Pretty early on, he decides on this thing "Whoever is nice to me gets a stack of diamonds" like, my sweet cheese.... You don't need to give people so much just for being nice to you.... your bank account is in constant ruin!! Lizzie also mods in coffee stuff specifically for him and Jimmy proclaims that any profits he makes from his coffee shops he will split with Lizzie as a thanks... he's so sweet stop it

Near the beginning he's way more assertive than I've grown used to. There's a point where Scott is waiting for him and he can SEE Scott in the distance but then just strolls the shopping district while Scott tells him to hurry up only for Jimmy to mostly ignore him. Another exchange between them goes S: "did I say you could use my villager?" and Jimmy replying "Did I say you could bring me a crab that'd then kill me? Didn't THINK SOOOO!!!". There's so many moments like this and it's so... it's so awesome to see. What changed.... Why can't there be more of this...

But then at some point he starts being harsh towards himself? He starts to call himself an idiot and starts proclaiming "I hate myself" for the most understandable little mishaps and things like?? Son?? He figures out how to make his advertisement poster bigger like everyone else's is and then when he does quickly figure it out all on his own he goes "I hate myself, I really do" WHAT'S THAT FOR. WHAT'S THAT FOR JIMMY!!!! Another moment to point out, Lizzie doing a friendship test thing and she already has pictures of 3 contestants. She calls Jimmy over for him to try and qualify, and when he sees the pictures he says that those look like smart people and he doesn't think he'll make it...

This isn't exclusive to X Life but him building stuff and calling it lovely and being easily excited at discovering the most basic building tricks, but then as soon as someone else is in the picture he immediately starts downplaying himself and calling his building bad...

At some point there's a war that Jimmy really wants to avoid but he gets roped into it by Jack blowing up Peekay's house (totally obliterated that thing) and framing Jimmy for it. Later when there's a confrontation, both he and Peekay clearly know it was Jack, but they fault Jimmy anyway, saying he's escalating things when he's just like. Standing there. Jimmy even ends up asking "what can I do for you to forgive me, for something I didn't do" like no stand your ground man!! You didn't do anything!! Man.... In the end he ends up rebuilding stuff for Jack (why Jack??? I dont know) and when Jack is the first person out of the series, in his Will he stated something along the lines of "I want Jimmy executed because he did a bad job rebuilding my things". And then Jimmy gets set on fire as everyone watches him burn to death. He didn't do anything!!!!!

There's a therapy session after this in which, when Gem asks him to open up, all he says is "Yesterday I woke up and was taken advantage of, that is all"

I think it's Peekay (could be wrong) who also utterly doused Jimmy's house in water as a prank but it... was awful lol. Jimmy's house ended up with lots of holes but at least he was all "I was gonna rebuild anyway". That peeved me so much though... For comparision, Scott pulled a prank on Jimmy where he rebuilt one of his rooms upside down (so kind of moved his furniture to the ceiling) but that's high effort and funny and causes less damage so that's all fair in my books. Good prank. The water dousing was not

He and Scott had a brief prank exchange, but the ONLY thing I can think of where Jimmy was knowingly, unjustifiably in the wrong, was when he cheated on an auction by bidding on a painting after the auction had closed. And even that is such a small offense!! Genuinely all the misery he was caused was just him being caught in the crossfire of other people's shit and it's... ough I don't want to say "he has never done anything wrong" because he totally has but BARELY. Why is it always like this... Hardly ever does he do anything that warrants the things that happen to him

Jimmy's also pretty if not really nice to the mobs, vanilla and modded. In his and Scott's shelter business, he brought in a hostile mob twice with the justification "hostile mobs deserve a home too!!" </3 dawh. He'd make mobs nice enclosures... But then he fucking HATES chickens. He kills them like nothing. Proclaims "I'll enjoy every second of this". Goes "I'll kill only a few of you..." and then kills 10 of them. Violently and instantly kills one stray chicken that escaped his enclosure as Lizzie watches on in horror with the two pandas she just helped bring over. It's kind of insane?? Why.... You're a rancher at heart, what's with the chicken slaughter.... My friend pointed to him canonically being compared to a chicken once. Do with that what you will. Oh also when he came dead last in a race, his immediate reaction upon finishing was to brutally kill his horse?????????? Jimmy??????????????????????????

ALSO he's a good builder?? A lot of people have expressed that Jimmy's building skills have been getting better but I beg to differ, his builds in this series are all really charming and cute? They're not very detailed but they're simplistic and I love it, he obviously has an eye for pleasant looking builds and I'm so SO sad we don't see this too much anymore... There's also a cute moment where he builds a roof out of dirt, says he'll replace it later but apparently his commenters really liked it so he kept it... That's so Jimmy....

-- fWhip and Joel thoughts in relation to Jimmy

fWhip especially is almost (we'll get to that) undingly nice to Jimmy here, and I even felt bad for him in several instances related to Jimmy. Joel is more softspoken as he was in general 3 years ago, and was also almost (we'll get to that) totally nice to Jimmy. At some point they do a horse race and Jimmy comes in dead last but both he and fWhip cheer him on anyway. Joel says "well done Jimmy you nerd" but it's Joel so that counts as him being nice and awesome. It's also very cute that he was partially presenting Jimmy's 100K milestone ceremony, even if it was basically just him calling Jimmy a "wonderful creature" after, to quote my friend, almost vomiting on stage. But it's Joel so it counts

Joel also builds something for Jimmy at some point but whilst they're discussing what it should be like, they land on the word "broken" and Joel goes "broken, like you" and Jimmy replies "broken, like me" like????? Help me this was so early too. That came from NOWHERE. What????? Joel was nice otherwise though... except for one other moment

All three of them create a building business and do acknowledge and agree that Jimmy's not doing the hardest part (building) and doesn't get as much of the profit, seeing as he's just the receptionist. It's still a mostly happy businessship though. They get two bad reviews (from Scott and Peekay) because of Jimmy but all three of them in both instances ultimately agree that Jimmy wasn't at fault. Stuff like Joel taking down a bad review left on a sign saying "the customer isn't always right". Jimmy catches wind of a rumor at some point that he's being fired and when the awaited meeting happens, fWhip and Joel name him receptionist of the month instead, praising him for his hard work in advertising for the business and also making lots and lots of coffee (he's the only one who can even operate the coffee machine lmao. He's really proud of it too, it's very cute. He even keeps bringing it up in an effort for the other two to recognise his value before he gets the news he's anticipating). Jimmy even says "I'm glad that, yknow, you're seeing it. Cus sometimes. yknow. it's really hard for me to feel.. useful. like you guys are building spectacular things and I'm. I'm trying my best." he's genuinely so, so happy and sounds like he's on the brink of tears (claims to be as well)

BUT SIKE PLOT TWIST because I hate myself I went to skim Joel's POV too and he and fWhip actually spoke to one of the other members about Jimmy being a bad receptionist, all "it's Jimmy, you know...". fWhip enforces this and Joel even says "Not to pass blame onto Jimmy but it's all his fault" after which the firing rumor starts to spread. And as far as I could tell, it's forever left ambiguous if they were genuine to any degree when they named him receptionist of the month and this will now keep me up at night. Did they genuinely think Jimmy was at fault in spite of encouraging him that he wasn't? Did they do what they did just to make Jimmy happy even if they believed him to be at fault? Or were they talking shit that one time for no reason...

Joel makes this religion "Jeremyism" to spite Scott (for renaming a bunch of his pets) which Jimmy is the first person to join and is pretty much undyingly devoted to till the very end in spite of the fever dream that spirals from it by the end...

Ignoring that one incident of Joel and fWhip bad-mouthing Jimmy, fWhip was very nice to him, throughout Jimmy's POV at least. I'd like to especially draw attention to fWhip trusting Jimmy to show some other members how to build some houses, like, awgh,,, finally some Jimmy building ability recognition!!! Good for you fWhip!!! They almost exclusively talked in relation to businesses though and at some point made a deal with Jimmy to join Jeremyism if Jimmy would come and basically just hang out with him in the jungle or go on a little adventure. This never happened though

Joel ends up giving up his position as the Jeremyism leader "for content" (??) to anyone who can complete his death obstacle course. Jimmy does, though unfairly by accident (Joel said it was fine though), but finds at the very end of it that someone has already reached this point before him, and of course it was Scott... Scott turns Jeremyism into a proper cult by enforcing rigid rules, his leadership and word, stating that you have to die in order to leave the cult, and his right hand Lizzie demands diamonds as offerings (none of this was a thing before). None of the members seem to be fans, but Joel and Jimmy especially voice and show discomfort, though Jimmy still quickly offers up his diamonds. fWhip fucking burns himself right there thus leaving the cult (king shit) and when he comes to the window from the outside to wave at them, Jimmy is quick to call him a "traitor" and tries to block the view with blocks (this is where I feel for fWhip who has been nothing but nice to Jimmy from Jimmy's POV). Joel makes pathetic attempts at killing Scott with an anvil (fails) and then killing himself (fails)

Gem and Kath put on a therapy session at some point which Jack, fWhip and Jimmy attend. Jimmy states not to want to talk to fWhip (which again hurts) and fWhip makes a subtle jab at Jimmy for never spending time with him in his jungle like he'd promised (totally justified). Jack also hits Jimmy for being part of Jeremyism right at the start, but then when he's jokingly drowning, Jimmy saves him, and he goes "you saved me!! :D". At the end, Jimmy tries to shoot bubbles (not damaging but a nuisance) at fWhip from a distance, at which fWhip starts to run at him to try to lasso him (lassoing a player puts them in a glitchy noclip dimension which they need to relog to get out of). They run around for awhile, fWhip eventually succeeds, Jimmy relogs and then Jack fucking murders fWhip. And then says "I did it for you" to Jimmy. Which, ok. Fast progression, a little insane... fWhip comes back and claims to feel great though. Jimmy pretty much leaves and runs off at this point and unfortunately he and fWhip never make up or have another nice interaction before the finale (I'm quite sure)

Joel uhh Joel just kinda fucks off lol he doesn't even die (Jimmy fills in Joel's grave anyway though)

-- Jeremyism thoughts

Mentioned above how devoted Jimmy was to Joel's religion, and to me it really reads like him finding a home. Like, a genuine home, idk... He really did a lot for it, trying to recruit members and taking care of several Jeremy donkeys and making offerings (Joel also gifted him multiple times)

When Scott takes over, he's clearly very distraught. He tried hard to become the new leader of Jeremyism specifically to stop Scott from ruining it. And yet when Scott does, he can't help but stay, quickly labels fWhip a traitor, offers up his diamonds easily... Even as he's asking for Joel to get up there where Scott is standing, instead of Scott. Jeremyism is done for but Jimmy still holds onto an idea of it

And he does this by literally building a Jeremyism hideout secret from Scott and Lizzy, where he and the other remaining members can hang out. Like come on!! He just wants Jeremyism back... He himself states it's "all I have" and "the one real purpose I had on this server was Jeremyism. And now it's gone" (this is basically before he kills himself and ends his series)

-- Scott thoughts in relation to Jimmy

As I said, they had some really cute interactions. Scott actually treated him nicely and his teasing felt lighthearted enough to not be anything worse than that. They dress up all cute for Halloween, they shoot bubbles at each other, Scott teaches him how to ride a flying carpet, Jimmy's not afraid to be a little sassy back at him... He replaced 3 of Scott's pets as a prank because Scott had gotten him a crab that killed Jimmy at some point, and in retaliation Scott doused his house in crabs, but then they like, ate lunch together date style, it was all good and fun, mutual foolery...

And then this one episode, to quote my friend, someone pissed in Scott's cereal and he's suddenly very dismissive of Jimmy's building skills and contributions like I'd expect to see in Third Life???? They see this arguably amateurishly built hut and Scott turns to Jimmy all accusatory "did you build this??". They build an animal shelter together which is cute but then Scott dismisses Jimmy and says he did almost all of the work and proclaims that he should get almost all of the profits etc. And it pisses me off because just like in 3L, this was a building he just ripped from somewhere else to begin with!! He did lay the foundation and such but you can see Jimmy helping build a decent amount in the timelapse...

At some point he also seems ashamed to admit that Scott helped him with his storage system :(

When Scott reads out Jack's wish to have Jimmy executed, Jimmy goes and basically kneels before Scott, telling him to do it. Scott can't because of spawn protection, but Jimmy gets set on fire instead and he?? Runs to Scott??? He runs to Scott and basically kneels before him AGAIN and Scott does NOTHING and I I don't know I might be insane but. Holy shit this is a fever dream and feels like abstract symbolism but ough that hurt. That hurt a lot. Why did Jimmy run to Scott, why did he kneel/crouch before him as he was burning to death... What was he trying to do... Was he seeking something.... comfort...? Neigh... I just wish to know...

Scott in general is a fever dream in this all by himself though. They all turn up for Jack's funeral and then Scott starts talking about how he tried to be nice and expresses disappointment in having been met with disposition (finding out that Jimmy had a secret Jeremyism cove) acting all "if you want a villain I'll give you a villain!" as if he weren't already one after the cult he turned Jeremyism into and then suicide bombs the entire church still during Jack's funeral. ????? Jesus christ

This screenshot isn't relevant but Im giving it to you anyway

[jmagnabo92]

Loyalty of Friendship

Does it still count as WIP Wednesday if I'm posting it? Who knows!

***

When Henry leaves him at broken-hearted at the Lake House, Alex struggles with returning to life before Henry, but he's lucky to have a good support system with very loyal friends.

***

It sucks that Henry ran away just when Alex was ready to jump and hope it wasn’t a cliff, but maybe Alex was the only one in love here. 

It made sense, honestly.

Alex had made it clear what this was, and he never said that he thought of Henry as his boyfriend.  He crossed that line without checking that Henry was in on it with him. 

It still sucked, but it was fair. 

He let himself get in too deep and that’s what he gets.  Everyone always leaves eventually.

June was right, he should’ve told him that he was feeling things … feeling different about everything… now, it’s too late. 

It’d been awkward with his family when they realized Henry had left in the middle of the night without a goodbye.

It’d been worse when Alex returned to the White House and after a week, his mom had Zahra put him back on First Son duties supporting her campaign.  It was like … actually admitting it was over. 

Henry wasn’t coming back.  He wasn’t changing his mind. 

He’d just left.  It opened a wound that cut as deep as his dad’s leaving while he was at camp.  Next to the one that Liam had left when he stopped answering Alex’s messages – at least, Alex understood now – Liam had stopped because he was protecting himself, his own heart. 

And now, Alex has to protect his heart.

So, he went back to work.  Throwing himself into the campaign once again and ignoring the fact that it didn’t make him as happy as it once did – not when returning to the campaign meant losing his boyfriend.  

***

Things slowly got back to normal.  He focused on getting his mom re-elected despite June’s objections.  He put Henry out of his mind, except when he couldn’t.

It was a month or so after the ‘breakup’ when Alex is back in his room at the White House – a two-day break at ‘home’ for the first time since he started working as First Son and the campaign again. 

June’s sitting on his bed, trying to distract him with articles like they used to do when her phone dings.

She glances at it and rolls her eyes but doesn’t bother to answer back.

“Ooooh, who earned that look?” Alex teases. 

“Look, what look?”

“Come on, June.  You looked at that phone like whoever texted you personally offended you.  Like how dare they have the audacity to text you,” Alex states.  “So, who is it?  What did they say?  Do I have to go punch someone?”

“No, no.  It’s no one.”

June shakes her head and moves to hide her phone. 

Alex frowns.  “June, why are you lying to me?”

“Technically, I’m not lying – you don’t have to go punch anyone,” June assures him.

“I also asked you who it was and what they said.”

“It doesn’t matter, and it’s not important.”

“June.” 

June shakes her head and takes a deep breath.  “Fine, it was Pez, and he wants to hang out while he’s in the states.”

Oh. 

For some reason, he knows that he shouldn’t be surprised.  Of course, Pez, who’s been crushing on June since before he met her would want to hang out with her now that he has, in fact, met her.  Only twice, but who’s counting? 

There’s a part of him that doesn’t want her to still be friends with him because that’s a line to Henry and he doesn’t want that connection there, but that wouldn’t be fair.  He wouldn’t want her to stop herself from being friends with someone on his account.

He could… deal with the awkwardness.  He’ll get Henry eventually and just because June’s hanging out with Pez doesn’t mean he and Henry will cross paths or hear about each other, right?

“Oh, well, you should hang out with him if that’s what you want.”

He tries to hide his mixed feelings about it by returning to the speech that he’d been neglecting for the event in Texas.

“Are you kidding me?”  June scoffs.  “Of course, I’m not going to hang out with him.”

He looks up at her, surprised.  He wants to say something about his conflicted emotions, but instead just asks, “Why not?”

“Well, for one, we’re not actually friends,” June states.  “He’s had a crush on me since before we met, and we’ve only met slash hung out twice.  And both of those times were because of you… so for the second reason, it’s the code.  Friendship of loyalty.  My loyalty will always be with you.  Even if it’s been a decade and we’d been hanging out all that time before the breakup, I would still choose you over Henry’s friend.  It’s like with Nora.  We would’ve had to be friendly because of the whole nonsense trio thing but we didn’t have to be best friends – if you two hadn’t worked out being friends, I never would’ve become best friends with her.  I’m always going to be on your side, Alex… plain and simple.”

There’s a warmth that spreads through him.  He doesn’t want to admit it, but there’s a part of him that needed to know that someone was in his corner.  No matter what.

Even if that meant pushing off the chance to build a friendship. 

“June, I – I want to be able to tell you that you don’t have to do that, but… thank you.”

June reaches over and squeezes his hand.  “You’re my itty-bitty baby brother and I’m always going to be on your side.”

“I appreciate that and I’m always on your side, too.”

“That was never a question.”

***

It’s over.

His mom won.

It’s great… so why is he sitting here outside on the steps, staring up at the night sky wondering why he’s not happier.  He should be happy.  Thrilled even.  His mom won.  It’s what he’d been focused on for more than a year. 

A year-long goal and they won.

They even won Texas! 

Alex’s hard work with regards to Texas meant something, but he just…

“You okay, mijo?”

He jumps, but he’s not surprised when he’s joined on the steps by his father. 

“Yeah, just wanted some air.”

“Thought you’d be celebrating with your ma and sister, another term, it’s great, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s everything we wanted… it’s great.”

“That doesn’t sound very happy.”

Alex shrugs, not looking at his dad.  “You know, I’m not naïve enough to think that being in politics doesn’t come with a cost, especially… considering… but there was a part of me that thought it wouldn’t cost me anything until it was me running.”

Oscar laughs causing Alex to look at him. 

“You’re laughing?”

“Alex, you’ve already been paying the price for your ma’s politics for years – ever since she decided to make you and June celebrities.  You paid the price for your ma and I being in politics when we were gone in D.C., when we got divorced, etc… you were made into someone you weren’t – long before she was even elected… you literally decided to lie to the world about your friendship with Henry and then your relationship with him because of politics.  You were hidden away for months, and you’re just the son of a politician.”

He's right. 

“I just – I always wanted to be a politician, but I don’t …”

“You don’t have to be a politician, Alex.  You’re so intelligent that you can do anything you set your mind to,” his dad says.  “And you don’t have to decide that now, you can make your own choice in your own time.  Right now…”

“Right now… I should be celebrating.”

He nods.  “Yeah.”

“Then, let’s do it.”

***

Despite the fact that he should absolutely be happy – his mom won, again – now that the busy-ness of the campaign is over, he can’t help thinking about Henry.  Especially today. 

The day before Thanksgiving.  A year since he first called him in terror over the turkeys that are once again in his room – sometimes he wonders about why he cares about the spending so much that he’s reliving his worst nightmare, but he doesn’t like wasteful spending.

If only he could call Henry, again.  He made him feel better.  Even if there was that teasing flirting, God how had he not realized?

He reaches for his phone.  Just because Henry doesn’t love him, doesn’t mean they can’t be friends, right?

“What are you doing?”

Alex jumps.  June’s standing in his doorway.

“Uh, being terrorized by mom’s stupid turkeys.”

“No… with your phone.  Were you going to call Henry?”

How the hell did she know? 

“Uh, no.”

“Alex,” she says, sternly as she walks towards the bed and joins him.

He rolls his eyes.  There’s no point in lying.

“I just thought – well, it’s been a while… and Nora and I are friends, and Liam and I made up –”

Liam had shown up on election night with his boyfriend.  They’d talked it out, and Liam had admitted that he missed Alex’s friendship, and that he’d only stopped answering because he needed to get over the hurt before he could be his friend again. 

“– and you think that you and Henry could be friends?”

Alex shrugs.  “Well, I mean, clearly, I’m capable of it.  I’m sure he is, too.  It’s even possible that he’d be easier at it since he always thought of us as just friends…”

June frowns.  “Is that what you think?  That he thought of you two as just friends?”

“Well, with benefits.”

“Alex, no.  That’s not true –”

“Of course it is!  I went to tell him I loved him, and he ran away.  Obviously, he didn’t feel the same way.  We were just – having fun.  I should’ve realized.”

“I’ve never met someone be so dense before.”  June rolls her eyes.  “Alex… I don’t know if this will be easier for you to hear or make the end of things harder, but Henry was in love with you, too.  It was written all over his face the first time that I saw you two together.  You know – when he rearranged his business to be here for your birthday.  Remember, I went with you to the Met.  The way he looked at you, then… in LA, God it was like you hung the moon.”

Alex shakes his head.  “You’re wrong.  If he loved me, why would he run away?”

“Because he can’t come out.”

“Of course he can!  He just doesn’t want to…” he trails off. 

He ran away the first time that he kissed Alex and went on a date with a woman because the queen had set him down on his eighteenth birthday and told him that he couldn’t let his deviant desires reflect poorly on the crown…

Oh.

Henry had told him plainly that he couldn’t – couldn’t come out… and Alex was talking about the next summer and making out and not caring about the neighbors seeing…

Alex doesn’t resist putting his face in his hands. 

“Alex?  What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head.  “Bug, I’m such an idiot.  I was over here worrying about mom’s election because Zahra put it into my head that it would cost her the election if Henry and I were caught… but he told me that the stupid Queen sat him down on his eighteenth birthday and told him to hide his deviant desires and essentially throwing him in the closet forever.”

“It’s not your fault that he wasn’t clear with you –”

“He was, though!  He told me and I just – I guess I ignored it.”  He shakes his head.  “It was fine at first because it was my idea – friends with blowjobs – I did that.  I told him that it was all it could be because of … the election… I never thought that I would … until I was suddenly hit with – my feelings.  I built the wall, and I broke it down, and – and I didn’t even think about whether or not he went along with it was because he needed it too!  I just – it’s my fault…”

“No, it’s not.  Stop that nonsense,” June nearly commands.  “Henry has a voice here that he didn’t use.  He loved you, too, and he could’ve told you that you were more than friends with blowjobs –” she rolls her eyes.  “– I’m pretty sure it was never just that, but he could’ve talked to you about why you could never be out and still be with you and chose not to.  He chose to run rather than talk and just because you changed the rules on him by nearly confessing that doesn’t excuse what he did.”

“But he did tell me.”

“I meant when you clearly got closer – texting, calling, emailing – you gave up the campaign for him that is not something that you do for friends with blowjobs and hell, he met dad that weekend, he had have realized what that meant to you.  He had to have felt things becoming more serious… especially when you didn’t take his option to stop so you could go back to the campaign… and all he had to do was say I love you, too, but this has to stay a secret because of the Queen.  All he had to do was tell you or remind you the situation – he didn’t.  That’s not on you.”

Alex shakes his head.  “It doesn’t matter.  That’s not the point.  Understanding doesn’t make a difference here.”

“Then what is the point?  Why were you going to call him?”

“I thought – I am friends with Nora and Liam and it’s stupid, but I miss him.  We didn’t just – we were friends, you know?  Argued over stupid things like how he’s wrong about his favorite Star Wars film and everything else – he understood me, you know?”

“He’s your match,” June says, softly. 

The words hurt because it means he ruined it for them. 

“Right, so – I mean, I’ve done it before… we could go back to being friends,” Alex states.  “So, I thought I’d start with a picture of the turkeys or call him up and tell him that Cornbread has a demon cousin currently living in my bedroom.”

He doesn’t like the look June’s giving him.  Like she’s trying to figure out how to let him down easy. 

“Alex… I don’t think being friends with Henry is a good idea.”

“Why not?  I’m friends with Nora, Liam…”

“You weren’t in love with Nora or Liam.  Hell, you didn’t even know that you were doing anything more than friends do with Liam until recently.”

Alex shrugs.  “It’s not a big difference.  I just have to be a bit careful, but since we live in different countries, it’s not like I really have to control myself in his presence –”

June rolls her eyes.  “This isn’t about whether or not you can control yourself and you know it.  You’ve given him far more than you ever did Nora or Liam and you’re still in love with him…”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She’s right and he knows it. 

“Okay, well, I can – I’m good at avoiding my feelings.  I’ll put them in a box and ignore them.”

“That’s the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard!  It’s not healthy and I’m not going to let you do it,” June states, plainly.  “Okay, you want to be friends with him some day, that’s fine – today’s not that day.  Take a leaf out of Liam’s book.  You have to wait until you’ve moved on from him and then, maybe, becomes friends again.”

It’s probably for the best, but there was a part of him that was hoping maybe he could intentionally start something again… something more than friendship.  She’s right though, he shouldn’t go there, again.

Alex sighs.  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

***

“Come on, let’s go party!” Nora says as she bursts into his room some day in December where he’s looking at possible jobs that would allow him to do good in the world. 

He glances down and notes that he’s in his underwear since he’s doing this in bed.  “Uh, I’m not dressed to go out – and don’t you knock?”

“You’re wearing just underwear that’s strange since you normally don’t wear any,” Nora says, shrugging.  “And I don’t need to knock – there’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“It doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed privacy or the decency of someone not bursting in on me –”

“Ouch,” Nora states, arms crossed as she sits on the bed across from him.  “What’s up with you?”

Alex shrugs.  “Nothing.  I’m just busy.”

“Don’t lie to me now, Alejandro.”

Alex shakes his head.  “It’s dumb.”

“If it bothers you, it’s not.”

He closes the laptop and tosses it to the side. 

“I just keep thinking that things wouldn’t have changed if Zahra hadn’t burst on us at the DNC.  Then, I never would’ve told mom, and she wouldn’t have fired me and told me that I had to make a choice – find out if I felt a thousand percent about him.  I could’ve kept going… with what we had… with what he wanted… with what we were both happy with.”

“For how long?”

“I – well, what kind of question is that?” Alex questions, confused.  “That’s not the point I was trying to make.”

“I understood what the point was, but here’s the thing – Zahra invaded your privacy and it sucked – but all she ended up doing is make you face what you needed to face: the fact that you two were in love and you needed to talk about it.”

Alex frowns.  “I’m complaining about her invading my privacy.”

“I know.”

“And we can’t say that we needed to talk about it or what would’ve happened, the point is that we know what did happen and –”

“– and while it’s true that Zahra bursting in was wrong… it doesn’t change the fact that eventually you would’ve gotten there with being so in love you could die, and you would’ve ended up here,” Nora states, plainly. 

“You don’t know that –”

“You want the odds?”

It doesn’t matter if he nods or doesn’t because she goes into the odds anyway.  Statistics are her thing, and she goes into them anyway.  At first, he wants to deny her math, but she’s right. 

The odds were never in their favor of working out.

He shakes his head when she stops laying out the different possibilities, all of which ended here.

And he needs to stop holding onto the possibility of what could’ve been and accept what is.  It all sucks, but he appreciates that she reiterates what June’s been saying about loyalty of friendship that no matter what she and June are on his side and all they want to do is help him through this. 

Going out is apparently her way of helping…

“Alright, you win.  Let’s go out.”

Nora brightens.  “Really?”

Alex nods.  “Yeah.  I’m sure.”

“Great.”

***

Fuck. 

It’s been months … months… he’s thought about trying to find someone to sleep with – that had been Nora’s plan when she randomly announced that she was taking him out –, but that wasn’t going to heal his heart. 

Especially when he finds himself leaving his own New Year’s party to walk out to the same damn tree that Henry kissed him under a year before. 

He hadn’t been all that gung-ho to do the party this year, especially since Zahra suggested keeping up appearances with Henry until June shot her down.  He shouldn’t be forced to see him until he’s ready.  The problem is that Alex wants to see him, he wants things to be back to the way things were, but he’s not going to get that.

So, instead, he’s out here in the snow wishing that he could’ve just stopped himself from ruining things by trying to tell him how he felt.  That’s all he really had to do. 

Then, he might still be with Henry.  It might hurt to love him and never tell him.  To pretend that it didn’t mean anything when it did, but at least he’d still have him in his life.

“It gets better, you know?”

Alex doesn’t have to turn to know that it’s Liam.  He and Spencer had come for the party.  It was great to see him, nice to have someone who knows him – not his profile.  An actual friend.  Something he missed when he lost Henry and hadn’t yet made up with Liam.

“Hey, enjoying the party?”

“Missing the host.”

“Technically, June and Nora –”

“I remember the first one – when you came up with it, remember?”

Alex laughs.  It’d been his idea.  He was always the more outgoing of him and June and Nora, despite easily making friends, wasn’t much of a partier until she met him.  His mom hadn’t been thrilled with idea until June re-branded it with the name it goes by every year rather than what they prefer to call it.

“Right, yeah, but technically…”

Liam gives him a look and he shakes his head. 

“Yeah, I just needed some air.”

“Yeah, I figured.  Like I said, it gets easier.”

“When?”

Liam coughs.  “Maybe when you let yourself be willing to let him go.”

“You think I’m not willing?”

“Come on, Al.”

Alex shakes his head.  “I think I feel stuck because as long as I’m here, as long as I’m the first son – I might run into him, again, and if I see him…”

“… then you might start up again?  And that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Alex nods.  “Yeah.”

“Would it be better, then, if he was here?”

“Maybe.”

It’s quiet for a second before Liam says, “Well, he’s not.  And if you don’t want to be the first son, you don’t have to be.”

“My ma just won another four years.”

“Yeah, but – they stopped you from doing the campaign and ‘first son duties’, which by the way is not required or a thing before your ma took over, just because of who you were dating.  It was like a month or two and it would’ve kept going if he hadn’t run out on you – so figure out what you want to do… and go for it.  If that’s a job – a different campaign or going to back to school – do it.  And if that’s ‘quitting’ being the first son – do it.  Whatever’s best for you.”

Alex looks up at the night sky, thinks back to last few months – losing his job, choosing Henry, getting heartbroken, and being useful, again.  Finding out about why Luna ‘defected’ and realizing that maybe he doesn’t want to work in politics anymore, but he doesn’t know what he wants.

He just wants to do good.  He wants to help people.

He thinks back to sitting the LSAT.  To ideas he has with regards to being a lawyer and helping the disadvantage people that have no one to fight for them.

He’s in the best place to do that. 

“Thanks, Li.”

“Anytime.”

***

After that, Alex threw himself into applying for law schools to start in the fall.  He could go to Georgetown, but he figures he needs to leave the White House.  He also casually found excuses not to do First Son things anymore.  June had helped him find excuses – checking out the law schools he was applying to, visiting his dad, etc.  He’s not sure that Zahra or his mom really believes that, but his mom’s so excited that he decided to go to law school that she’s okay with him essentially quitting first son things except the inauguration. 

Until the State Dinner. 

Zahra had once again suggested that Alex should be there … with Henry.  That their ‘friendship’ was still important because people have written about their friendship and how it suddenly disappeared. 

“What does it matter if mom’s already been re-elected?” Alex asks, when he really wants to ask if Henry was really coming.  He’s not sure what he wants the answer to be.  One side – seeing Henry is what he wants, but on the other – it might be better not to see him. 

“Because it’s still important to have strong ties with the UK, and for the public not to question things.  People are suspicious that you went from spending all that time together to not seeing each other in months…”

“Again, what does it matter?  Who cares what the public thinks?  It’s not like my friendship with Henry ever actually impacted the relationship with the UK – so it would just be fake pictures of us pretending once again.”

“So, we know you can do it.”

Alex looks to his mom for support, but she’s not offering up anything.  Great.

“Fine, whatever.  I guess.”

Maybe this is what he needs…

June, who had been texting on her phone, looks up.  “Actually, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because Henry’s not attending the State Dinner, Bea is, and I will gladly pose for pictures with her, so you can leave Alex out of it.”

Alex looks to her, surprised and relieved.  Had she been texting Bea about it?

Zahra opens her mouth to argue or something, who knows, when his mom says, “That works for me.”

“Good.  Then, we can go.”

June grabs his arm and leads him out of the room and to their own rooms before she speaks, “Just so you know, I haven’t been talking to Bea, either.  She falls under the same loyalty rule as Pez, but I knew that Zahra was going to ambush you about the State Dinner – I overheard her and mom yesterday, so I texted her and asked her if they were really going to send Henry here knowing what happened between you.  She confirmed that Henry had never intended to come and that she had volunteered to come in his place.”

He's relieved and disappointed at the same time.  Sure, he didn’t want to have to face Henry, but at the same time, he misses him.  If he knew that they could talk it out and at least be friends (even though June and Liam both make it clear that he’s not ready to be friends with Henry), then he’d be okay to see him, but he doesn’t know how it would go, so… he’d rather not see him.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Here for you, always.”

“Same.”

***

A couple of weeks later, Alex has spent the last week in NYC so he could do his law school interviews.  He feels better every time he’s away from the White House, and despite knowing his name and his position could be part of the reason he’s gotten these interviews, he can, at least, remember that he worked his ass off in school, completing it in three and a half years while being ‘the first son’ and working various campaigns. 

He's earned his spot.

Or at least that’s what June keeps telling him. 

It’s his last night in town.  His interviews here went great, but all of the Valentine’s Day decorations have him thinking about Henry.  Which… is not that uncommon, but he’s hoping someday that wouldn’t be the case.

For now, he’s sitting in the same seat at the same bar in the same hotel that he was sitting in when Henry showed up at the DNC wishing that he wasn’t drinking alone.

Wishing Henry was here.

“Someone looks lonely, mind if I join you?”

Alex would assume the voice is talking to someone else because people usually don’t approach him, but he knows that voice. 

It’s the voice he’s been wanting to hear for months. 

He looks to his left and sure enough it’s Henry. 

He opens his mouth to say that no, he doesn’t mind, but what comes out is, “What the hell are you doing in New York, Henry?”

Henry laughs and Alex can’t help the smile that comes to his face.  It’s really Henry.

“I, er, I know that I am likely not the person you would want to see after I ghosted you again, but, er, I have been going through some changes in my life and I have something that I needed to tell you and I wanted to do it in person.”

“If you’re here to tell me you’re pregnant, the first question I’m going to ask is how,” Alex jokes because he’s a little nervous at suddenly being in Henry’s presence, again. 

“I’d ask how too, so that’s fair,” Henry says, a slight chuckle.  “Do you mind if we go over there to that table over there for a bit more privacy?”

He’s looking around at the people around them, and yeah, they’re starting to get some looks and it’d be better to go to the standing table a ways away from the bar. 

“Yeah, yeah, we can.”

Henry gets a drink and they both move to the table that seems to have a safe bubble of privacy.  He stands with his back to the wall, and Henry joins him a minute later. 

It’s awkward for a second before Henry speaks.

“I know I don’t deserve a minute of your time for the way that I left you with no explanation, but as I said, I have been thinking a lot about my life and everything that I want for my future and with the support of Bea and my mum (believe it or not) I made a big decision and it’ll be aired tomorrow on BBC an early special for Valentine’s Day – it’s an interview and I got an early copy… I’d like for you to watch it.”

It’s not what he expected when Henry said he wanted to talk in person, but Alex nods as Henry hands him his phone with ear buds.

He spares a look at Henry’s hopeful look before pressing play on the video.

There’s a bit where the host does something for Valentine’s Day, and then introduces Henry.  Alex ignores the fluffy back and forth until…

“So, Your Highness, do you have a love in your life?”

“Well, actually, that’s why I am here.  Why I wanted to have this interview.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, see, I’ve been called the ‘Prince of England’s Hearts’ for years now, pretty much since I became an adult, but I’ve always had a secret and that secret is that I could never love any of those women.  I wish I could have, it would’ve made my life so much easier, but I couldn’t and part of that is because I am gay.”

“Gay?  As in –”

“I am only interested in men.  In fact, I am only interested in one particular man, but before I get into that – erm, I’ve decided to come out today because I spent years in the closet, afraid to come out because I was not sure that I would be supported as a gay prince.  I thought that I had to keep hiding, maybe get married to a woman and figure out how to have children because of certain expectations that come with being a prince.”

He takes a deep breath. 

“I was okay with that because I never thought that I would find a man that loved me as much as I loved him and be able to handle being a prince’s boyfriend.  I knew that if I did find someone that the odds of them being able to understand my life and being able to handle coming out as it wouldn’t be easy would be nigh impossible…”

“And yet, you’re coming out now?  Does that mean that you found someone?”

“I did.  I – it’s a long story, but we met years ago, and I saw him across a crowded room like one of those meet-cute moments in romance novels or romantic comedies, except well, my first thought was that he was this amazing man that was living in a dimension that I couldn’t dream of accessing.  He was free in a way that I never dreamed I could be.  No, I thought if someone liked that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.  So, I had to keep him away from me for my own sanity.  Lo and behold, he didn’t get that memo because it was only in my head and he introduced himself to me, and I – I acted like a complete dunce.  I shook his hand and asked my equerry to, erm, get rid of him.  I was unaware that he heard me, but he did, and it actually started a bit of a rivalry.”

“So then, he isn’t the someone you’ve found?” the host asks, confused.

“Oh, no, he is.  See, we had a bit of a back-and-forth situation where I tried to keep my cool every time we met over the next few years (to make sure that my fancy of him wasn’t obvious), and he thought I was playing along with the rivalry – that I was aloof with him because I thought I was too good to consort with him.  Until, of course, an accident led us to spending some time together where I learned why he seemed to dislike me, I apologized, and we became friends.  This was about a year and half ago, now.”

“So, you’ve been with him for a year and a half?”

Henry shakes his head.  “No, we haven’t.  At first, we were just friends – real friends – we chatted every day about our lives and playfully bicker about things we didn’t agree on.  It was … I thought I loved him when I first met him, but actually getting to know him… I fell so hard so fast, but as far as I knew… he was straight.”

“As far as you knew.  How did you find out otherwise?”

“Well, see, my best friend kept insisting he was flirting with me and there was this party – something happened, and I got jealous, and I kissed him… before fleeing the country.”

“You fled the country?” the host questions, clearly not believing him.

“Oh, yes, and I ghosted him.  I was afraid, I thought I ruined everything.  So, I ran, and I didn’t answer his calls or texts, but then I had to see him again and it turns out – he fancied me, too.  He kissed me and made it clear that I was what he wanted.”

“That’s great, isn’t it?”

“It was great, it was perfect – almost.  Except the fact that we were both pretending that it was just … it wasn’t a fully romantic relationship… hiding it made it seem less like we could fall in love.  I was already in love, and I was okay with that, but we kept growing closer and closer, and I know that he fell in love with me, too.”

The host looks confused.  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No, it wasn’t.  I never wanted to hurt him, but I could sense that he might be happy hiding for a while, but some day he was going to want to come out and I never thought I could.  So, I broke his heart.  I walked away back in August…”

“And yet, you’re here.”

“Yes, well, as I said, I never thought that I would be able to or want to come out, but I haven’t been able to get him out of my head in the few months, and my mum and sister wanted to help me by helping me set up the Henry Foundation for LGBTQ+ community, specifically some youth centers that I’m going to be in charge of.”

“And that’s why you’ve come here today to talk about the foundation?”

“Not exactly.  I came here today – hoping that he’ll see this, so that I can tell him that I’m sorry.  That I regret walking away, especially because I was misguided in thinking that I could give him up when I love him so much.  That I know I don’t deserve his forgiveness, but if he’s willing to forgive me – I’m here, now.  I’m out now, and we could be together – if he wants, if he still loves me, if he can forgive me… I’m here and I still love him.”

The host is kind when he says, “I’m sure that with a big apology like this – that he’ll forgive you.”

“I can only hope.”

Alex can see that there’s more than a few minutes of interview left, but he’s seen what Henry wanted him to see. 

He pulls out the earbuds and looks up at Henry uncertain what to say. 

Luckily, Henry speaks first.

“I know that even after all this, after everything I’ve done, that I have no right to ask this, and I expect that you’ll slap me because that’s what I deserve, but as I said, I’m coming out tomorrow – and I’d like to be on a date in Paris on Valentine’s Day with you… if you’ll give me another chance because I love you and I am so sorry for leaving you like that.”

Alex can’t help it when he says, “That’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it?  A first date on Valentine’s Day?”

The fact is – Henry’s confession is overwhelming.  The idea that he was in love with Alex or thought he was, but reacted out of self-preservation because the evil queen had told him that he had to hide who he is, only for Alex to end up pushing through those boundaries for a benefits situation that was never just benefits.  They were both just pretending that was all it was…

Maybe they believed that they had to – because of the election, because of the Queen – they weren’t honest with themselves or with each other, and even if he says yes… it still won’t be easy.  Being out will help or hurt possibly, there’s no way to tell.  It could still be quite difficult…

He’s got another choice here: jump with Henry off a cliff together or walk away once and for all. 

This was their chance to start fresh and on the right foot.  A real relationship. 

If that’s what he wants.

He looks into Henry’s eyes, and he can see that it’s what Henry desperately wants.  He wants Alex to say yes.  To whisk him off to Paris, to be together, again.

Alex wants it, too.

“I – well, yes, I suppose it is,” Henry admits, a flush on his face.  “However, I’ve always been a bit of a romantic and our last visit to Paris was nearly a year ago and … felt different to the first two times…”

“Because we spent the night together, cuddled all night, had breakfast the next morning…” Alex says, thinking of what he’d been thinking the first time – how those things made a relationship and how they couldn’t do those things if they were just having sex.  

“Erm, yes, that makes sense.  Anyways, yes, it is a bit on the nose, but I –”

The rest of what he says is cut off by Alex kissing him.  It’s not as long or passionate as Alex would prefer, largely because they’re in public.  “Yes.  On one condition.”

“Condition?” Henry asks, dazed.  “Anything, name it.”

“You’re not allowed to ghost me, again.  We try this and it doesn’t work – you don’t get to just disappear, we’re going to talk about it and –”

This time he’s cut off with a kiss. 

“Deal.”

“Good.”

Even though they should be aware enough to not make out at a bar out in the open, Henry pushes Alex’s back against the wall, and kisses him passionately. 

It feels just like the first kiss in his room – he swears that he can feel the wind in his hair, which is added by Henry’s hands in his hair.  One of them moves to the base of his skull and tugs, causing Alex to moan. 

Eventually, Henry needs air and leans his forehead against Alex’s.  “Upstairs?”

“Yes.  One thousand percent yes.”

***

They were quick to make it Alex’s hotel room to pack his bag before their plan to get on Henry’s private plane to Paris, but the second the door closes Henry’s lips are on his and frankly, Alex has been wanting this for too long to focus on packing right now.

Henry’s tongue in his mouth and his hands working to undo his clothing is everything he’s been dreaming about for months.  He can’t resist running his hands all over Henry and it’s only needing air that makes him lean back. 

Henry immediately starts kissing his neck, mouthing at that spot on his neck and no doubt leaving a mark, not that Alex cares.  He loves it. 

“You know … that interview … makes it … so obvious,” Alex pants.  Next to Henry’s lips that’s all he can think about.  Even though he knows that Henry wanted him to know that he was apologizing to him despite the fact that he never said who the man he’d fallen in love with actually was. 

Henry pulls back, his eyes are blown, and he looks like he’s not quite wanting to stop, but he knows that Alex’s mind is only half on what he’s doing to him and that’s not enough. 

“That – that was the point,” Henry says, breathlessly.  “I wanted the world to know that you turned my life upside down just by being you… I didn’t want there to be any question on who I was in love with.”

There’s a warmth that spreads through him at those words. 

“Good.  That’s – good.”

Henry sits on the bed in just his boxers, and pulls Alex into his lap, which prompts them to fall back on the bed with Alex on top. 

He kisses Henry, lightly, before pulling back.  “I – just, why now?  Why not months ago?  I can’t imagine Bea letting you wallow for too long.”

“Well, I – at first, I really thought it was for the best…”

“Because the Evil Queen told you that you couldn’t be gay?”

Henry laughs.  “The Evil Queen?”

“Fitting, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”  He shakes his head.  “Anyway, erm, yes.  That part is the problem.  I never could come out without the Queen’s acceptance.  Unless someone outed me and even then, I wouldn’t put it passed her to pretend it was faked evidence or something.  If she could get away with it.”

“She probably could.”

Henry nods.  “So, I was prepared to give you up – I didn’t want to put you through that.  Until Bea finally got tired of my whining and immediately came up with a plan to make me happier.  The plan involved getting mum to be a mum and er, I told her – everything.  She decided to take on the Evil Queen – we don’t need to go into the details of that with you naked on top of me – speaking of… why aren’t you wearing underwear?”

Alex chuckles and grinds down, the only fabric between them being Henry’s boxers.  “I go commando a lot, but I suppose that means she finally won, and you decided a public declaration of your love was in order to win me back?”

Henry flushes.  “I was hoping it wouldn’t be too hard.  Thought maybe you’d be easy for me, what with the way things started between us.”

He’s not wrong.  Alex is far too easy when it comes Henry.  The fact that he’s here, naked, after everything speaks volumes.  As does the fact that he’s perfectly happy to stop talking just to have his way with Henry. 

Henry appears to know what Alex wants without him needing to say it because he flips them and starts kissing Alex passionately. 

It’s everything that he’s been dreaming of since Henry left him in a lurch and honestly… he couldn’t be happier.

***

Although the original plan had been to pack Alex’s bag and get on the plane, they both decided that the plane could wait and decided to spend the evening/early morning catching up on everything they missed and talking things out because Alex did not like the way Henry left him.  He wanted to make sure that he’d never wake up again with Henry having left in the middle of the night.

They’d fallen asleep somewhere around 3AM, and unfortunately didn’t get to sleep long because Alex’s phone goes off at dawn.  It’s not an alarm and he’s unfortunately aware that it’s his Zahra ringtone. 

“Ten bucks says she saw your interview and somehow thinks I should deny that we’re together or at least, used to be,” Alex groans. 

He knows without even answering the phone that Zahra’s going to react the exact same way she did at the DNC, and he hates it.  He was so worried about the campaign that it took Henry leaving and his mom winning again for him to realize that his relationship would’ve never had any impact on the presidency.

The phone stops ringing and he briefly considers just rolling over into the comfort of Henry’s arms before it starts again.  It’s way too early for this, so he declines the call and immediately gets a text.

What the hell do you think you’re doing with the Prince, you little shit? 

Attached is a link to the BBC interview right at the end where the interviewer speaks live, next to him is a video of the previous night where Henry approaches Alex and all the way through their make out session before going upstairs. 

Well, at least there’s no denying it.

“Well, if there was any question before on who Prince Henry fell in love with and came here to apologize to, it’s a question no more.  This video of the Prince and the First Son from the early hours of this morning clearly answer the question – it was none other than Alex Claremont-Diaz, the First Son of the United States and one-half of what you used to call the best bromance of the year… perhaps we were easily fooled, what do you think, Lou?”

“I think the situation between the two over the years suddenly makes sense and that we should wish the two nothing, but happiness.”

“I concur, and I’m actually thrilled that I was right about the mystery man in question.  Given the clues, it was obviously the First Son that had stolen the Prince of England’s Hearts’ heart.”

“Yes, and clearly, the Prince has been forgiven – just in time for Valentine’s Day!”

There’s clearly more to the discussion, but Alex leaves it.  “Well, I think that’s a good sign.”

“I agree,” Henry offers, kissing his cheek.  “Although I hadn’t meant to out you.”

“You just wanted to make it obvious that you fell in love me,” Alex grins.  “How could that not out me?”

Henry opens his mouth – probably to apologize – but Alex cuts him off with a kiss pushing him on his back and straddling him as he does.  “I don’t care as long as we’re together.”

Henry grins up at him.  “That’s all well and good because there’s certainly nothing I’d want to do about it now, especially if I’m getting to enjoy the sight of my naked boyfriend on top of me.”

Rather than answer, Alex starts kissing him passionately, letting his hand snake between them to jerk them off together when his phone rings – this time June’s ringtone.

“You should… probably … get that,” Henry pants when Alex leans just a bit away to glare at the offending phone.

“Nah, they know I’m with you so… they should leave us alone.”

The phone falls silent and Alex resumes his task, only to be annoyed a second time by it going off again. 

Frustrated, Alex answers the phone with, “I’m little busy here –”

“Doing Henry?”

“As a matter of fact –”

“I was kidding, I do not want to hear about that,” June cuts in.  “You need to stop what you’re doing and get dressed because I convinced mom to at least conference you in rather than storm your hotel and force you to come back and you should not be naked for that.”

“Why do I have to do it at all?” Alex complains.  “Henry’s out, I’m out and we’re living happily ever after, who cares?”

“Apparently, it’s still something they feel they need to ‘address appropriately’ and ‘handle this presidency-ruining secret’.”

“What the fuck, June?  You don’t really think that, do you?”

“No, of course not,” she assures him.  “But I didn’t think you’d want a repeat of the DNC.”

He glances at Henry, who’s violently shaking his head, and sighs, “Fine.  We’ll be dressed and call in a few minutes.”

“Good,” she says, sounding pleased.  “And Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m happy for you, but I’m still going to give Henry a shovel talk for how he left you.”

She hangs up before he can possibly respond, and he smiles down at Henry, who’s blushing.

“I suppose that I deserve all of the shovel talks that your family wants to give me.  I’m so sorry that I –”

“Hey, it’s okay, honestly.  It’s partially on me, too.  We both share some of the blame for not talking about when our relationship went from fuck buddies to an actual relationship.”

He gives him a light kiss before getting off of him.  “We better get dressed before the meeting – I do not need another nightmare of people bursting in on us (and I haven’t forgiven her for the last time).”

“Good because that was highly unprofessional.  Shaan would’ve never done such a thing.”

“Yeah, true.”

***

The meeting is completely ridiculous.  From Zahra berating them for kissing in public (“you never said anything when it was ‘America’s sweethearts’,” Alex complained) to suggesting that they somehow hide it (“seriously, ma, we were making out in public and even if we could somehow rewind that and erase that evidence, Henry’s whole thing made it really obvious it was me”) and finally landing on “you could’ve at least warned us” (“right because you haven’t know for months that if I ever saw Henry again, I’d run into his arms like one of those romantic reunions in rom coms” – this had caused June, Nora and Henry to burst out laughing ruining the seriousness of the conversation).

It finally ended with, “You should, at least, come home and make a speech addressing the situation.”

Alex laughs, openly.  “No.”

“No?”

“No, it’s not happening.  My love life has no bearing on your presidency, it’s not like I’m the president and he’s the king, he’s literally fourth in line (unlikely to ever be king) and in four years, I won’t even be the figure head of ‘First Son’ ‘cause you won’t be the president anymore.  So, no – no speech, no press address.  Henry and I have essentially come out – it’s pretty clear that we’re in love and he’s taking me to Paris, so… we can’t really stop by the White House.”

“Alex, I don’t think you understand –”

“No, Ma, I don’t think you understand even if we wanted to – which we don’t – we can’t put the genie back in the bottle and it’s not the public’s right to know anything about our love life.  We have the right to privacy and you’re trying to capitalize on our relationship and for what?  Your numbers?  I don’t think that that matters at all anymore.  If we don’t make it a big deal of it, it’ll just be a thing that fades in the background.  Which is exactly what we deserve… to love in peace.  We already let ourselves suffer because of our roles in the world, and we’re not about to keep doing that.”

“I’m not asking you to suffer…”

“But you are asking us to make this a big deal when it shouldn’t be…”

“It is a big deal –”

“No, it’s not.  We’re happy, we’re together and you know what?  It’s no one’s business, but ours!  So, that’s it.  Goodbye.”

He ends the video call and turns to Henry.  “I know we’re still exhausted, but I really want to get on a plane before they try and stop us.”

“Anything for you, love.”

“Good.”

***

Months later, Alex and Henry are having a housewarming in Texas.  Alex had decided on going to UT Austin for his law degree and Henry had decided to use his foundation to help queer youth in Texas.  Of course, it would take time, which is why they’d bought a house with lots of land (and a guest house for their security) to give them the chance to be happy and in love and at peace.

While his mom hadn’t been happy that he hadn’t wanted to make some grand speech about his love for Henry, the fact that he went from Paris to London and stayed with Henry for nearly six weeks until the press chilled out by moving on to something else (and his birthday had passed), made her realize that he’s an adult that can make his own choices.

He had gotten his acceptances and he and Henry had made their decision about Texas in that time, which meant finding a place and getting happily ever after.

He had briefly worried on seeing Pez and Bea that they’d be upset that June and Nora hadn’t been in contact due their loyalty with him, but Bea had said that it was the same reason that she hadn’t gotten into contact either.  Pez, on the other hand, had laughed and said he’d been testing them.

“Testing them?”

“It’s important that we have a boundary, Alexander.  It’s important that you know that you can always rely on them.  I knew that someday you and our dear Henry would end up happily ever after, but I wanted you to know that you have the same loyalty of friendship that Bea and I have with Henry.  It should be a requirement that the people closest to you will always be on your side.  Because you and Henry may have fights and you’ll need support to get through it – to vent without worrying the other half will hear.  We can all be friends, but we should all remember that there are lines when there needs to be.”

“So, you would’ve been disappointed, then?”

“Oh, absolutely.  Don’t worry, dear, I was merely helping you.”

At that, Alex threw a pillow at him.  “Even though I do like the assurance, it’s not your job to test my sister and best friend.  I never expected them to keep that line open even if I told them they could because I know that they’ll always have my back.”

Pez grinned.  “And there lies your test.  You pass.”

It devolved into a pillow fight, but the end result was that everything worked out and they could have gatherings at their new house without fear that it would be awkward.

Alex finishes straightening the banner for the party as Henry comes out laughing at him.  “Do we really need a banner?”

“Yes, yes we do,” Alex assures him from his chair.  “It’s our housewarming, it’s gotta be perfect.”

Henry helps him down and pulls him close.  “It is perfect because it’s with you.”

“You’re such a Prince Charming.”  He’s grinning up at him, so happy and content and ready for this next chapter of their lives.

“Does that make you Cinderella?” Henry teases, as the door rings. 

“Only in that I finally get a happily ever after with Prince Charming.”  Alex gives him a quick kiss.  “Now, come on, Prince Charming, we’ve got a housewarming to celebrate.”

Alex pulls him towards the door as Henry says, “Then, here’s to happily ever after.”

“Cheers to that.”

***

Thanks for reading :)

[yanderecrazysie]

Hello! I've been a fan of your works for almost a year now since I happened to come across your Wattpad account.

Can you do a Yandere Kenma x Reader?

Wherein Kenma pretends to be sick or have a poor health just so reader will prioritize him over others? They're childhood friends and no matter how nice Reader is to others, no one seem to last by her side for long. She doesn't have any other choice but to stick with Kenma. Who knows the truth he is hiding?

A Wattpadian! This concept is so mysterious, I love it!

Title: Drift

Pairings: Kozume Kenma x Reader

WARNINGS: Yandere themes

Summary: You keep trying to branch out, but everyone seems to drift away. All you have left is your sickly friend.

drift

/verb/

move passively, aimlessly, or involuntarily into a certain situation or condition:

Some days, it felt like you were lost at sea. Like you were on a raft floating on the ocean, no land in sight. Sometimes it soothed you to think of the gentle waves and endless water. Other times, you felt the crushing loneliness and helplessness as though you were really there.

Right now, you felt the latter.

“Sorry, (Y/n), I just don’t have time to hang out with you anymore.” Your friend said before they practically ran away from you.

At least this friend had the decency to give you an excuse. The others had all ghosted you- not returning your texts or calls. Either avoiding you in real life or disappearing off the map entirely.

What was weirder, they always acted almost afraid of you.

You weren’t a scary person, if anything you were too nice for your own good. You were a doormat, used to people taking advantage of your kindness. Yet your friends and acquaintances would suddenly avoid you like you had caught the plague.

Where had they all gone? And why?

As if on cue, your phone began to ring. You picked it up and answered the call, holding the cell phone close to your ear to hear whoever was on the other end. The voice belonged to the exact person you suspected it did.

“(Y/n),” your friend, Kenma, sighed into the phone, “I’m not doing well today. You’ll visit me after your classes, won’t you?”

“Of course, Kenma!” You replied immediately, “I’ll be there as soon as possible. I hope you feel better.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, a little cough ringing out through the phone’s speakers before he hung up.

You stifled a sigh as you placed your phone in your pocket. Kenma was your only remaining friend now, the only person that had stayed by your side all this time, but he was very needy. It didn’t help that he’d gotten badly sick with something that just wouldn’t go away.

You were the type to dote on the ill, but it was sometimes exhausting caring for Kenma. His symptoms never went away, no matter what you did. He insisted that only you could help him, that only you could make him feel better, but it felt like too big of a responsibility for you.

Still, it was the least you could do when he didn’t leave you behind like everyone else, right?

When it was nothing but you and the ocean, sharing a raft could be more tiring than being alone on one.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You pushed Kenma’s blond hair up so you could mop his forehead with a wet washcloth. The cool cloth wiped the sweat from his brow and cooled his warm face. His cheeks were flushed slightly, but that symptom only started when you started attending to him.

“Have you taken your temperature yet?” You asked.

Kenma picked up a thermometer from the nightstand and showed it to you. A fever, like always, even though he never felt feverish to the touch. You frowned pityingly down at him.

“I’ll change your sheets out, okay? Then we can watch something together.”

Kenma gave you a smile and allowed you to remove the blankets from his bed, replacing them with clean sheets and tucking him into them. To anyone else, this smile looked like a pained one, one to show that he was thankful even though he was so sick.

If only Kenma was actually sick.

The truth was, he had been sick, for a little while. The way you had cared for him while he was sick awakened something in him. Your soft little hands touching his heated skin? Your kind face smiling down at him with pity and care?

How could you expect him to let go of that?

And dropping out of college had its advantages. That way, he had plenty of time to get ahold of your “friends” without you knowing.

He’d never let you find out that he was faking his illness. Nor that he was the one scaring away everyone you knew.

Right now, all you had was him and him alone. 

He just had to keep it that way.

[chevelleneech]

This comment (and many others on their videos tbh) really prove that as fans, we don’t know shit, lol.

I am not a fan of MewTul nor know anything about their lives prior to them coming out and confirming their suspected relationship to be true, but lately I’ve been watching older videos of them just to see where speculation stemmed from and how people who knew of them reacted, and it’s a pretty large consensus of people who disliked them in favor of believing Mew was with another Thai actor.

I’d heard of that other ship name before, plenty of times, but I didn’t know things ran as serious for their shippers as they did. To the point where them no longer interacting in public was taken so hard. People spewing hatred and claiming they’re lying and are still secretly a couple.

It of course reminded me of Jikook and Tkk, and while I am not even slightly comparing these ships, the above comment really stood out to me, because of how certain the commenter was. Which says so much on both sides of the Jikook vs Tkk “debate”.

In 2023, this person believed without a doubt that Mew was a liar and desperate for attention. They asserted their believed fact that Tul would never be anything other than open and honest about being queer and in a relationship, and that the other man Mew was heavily shipped with was a better person and actor all around.

Fast forward to 2024, and Mew and Tul have announced their relationship, and it’s been stated that Tul was the more hesitant one about making their relationship public.

This comment stood out to me, because on both sides of this J v T debate, so-called fans swear up and down that their opinion is the correct one, based on “I know my fave best!” logic, which is crazy. We don’t know them and certainly have no clue what it is they’re truly feeling.

Again, this has nothing to do with whether or not Jimin and Jungkook ever officially come out. I’m not expecting them to, with or without each other as partners. I just think that comment highlights how stubborn people can be about ships they both love and dislike. Even if it’s staring you in the face, because just from the videos I’ve seen, they were pretty obvious. Which, in my opinion, falls heavily into the box where-in it’s necessary to remember that people not being out ≠ them being closeted.

Mew and Tul clearly posted themselves traveling together and so on, despite the posts being on different days. Mew also spoke about his “lover” in ways that (again, based on what I’ve seen so far) pointed pretty solidly toward Tul. A fact that fans who loved them and hated them, but kept check on them, would easily be able to see. So I think people were just in denial due to how BL is consumed as a genre anyway. They like the relationships on camera, and like the idea of the queer male characters existing in our versions of reality, but not to the point where they have autonomy. They don’t like the actors going “off script” with an outside partner or even a partner they dislike, even though they really just living their daily life.

(Editor’s note: I fell asleep in the middle of writing this, and sort of slept-wrote the last two paragraphs, lol! But surprisingly there weren’t many typos to fix.)

Anyway, hopefully my point comes across. As much as we think we know what we know, there is still room to be wrong, and buckling down and spewing hatred is unnecessary. Plenty of people believe themselves correct, and like MewG’s situation, that belief may not pan out. The MT shippers who were around prior to their confirmation are surely happy though, but so far from what I’ve seen, they weren’t on Twitter and on youtube calling people names for not believing. Which is what all shippers should do. Ship what you ship, but don’t be an asshole about it if people disagree with certain aspects. Unless they’re an asshole first, at least.

Also, I do have to be honest and say it sort of surprised me how similar MewG fans are to Tkkrs. They @ Mew (or whoever runs the account with his name on it) all types of rude shit, they belittle his friendship with Tul, and claim it’s all fan service. They call Tul ugly and some even turned on Mew for being desperate for attention. That doesn’t mean Jikook will follow MewTul’s path, but I just found it kind of crazy how the more hateful sides of a person stuck in the middle, basically match up.

[redfoxdude07]

Golden Freddy, The Vengeful Spirit of a Kidnapped Child (a long and kinda uncomplicated theory)

Midnight Motorist is an interesting topic.

Considering how all of the Minigames in 6 are focused on a character's origin story, the fact that we were given a minigame that makes literally no sense, lore wise, for any character there, says something, especially when UCN was originally supposed to be part of 6 as a DLC.

If we take that into account, then we can assume whoever Midnight Motorist is about is the one in control of the whole UCN operation since that would have no clear explanation otherwise within that game, which was supposed to be the final part of that chapter.

Now, I know someone is going to be like, "But William is the Orange Guy!" And all I have to say is when was William ever implied to be an alcoholic? Not to mention how William randomly being orange makes no sense in the context of his character. Based on what the other universes tell us about him, William was always crazy and murderous, so him changing color isn't a metaphor for him losing it. Him being Orange does nothing but overcomplicate a relatively simple narrative you could make here, and if his car being purple is supposed to mean something, it's probably supposed to be an intentional red hearing, one the in universe police fell for, as the suspect for the MCI was arrested. Orange Guy having the same car as William, is seemingly telling us that he's the one people THINK is responsible.

The person who ran off is a he, so we can rule out any female characters we know. Coincidentally (or maybe not), the vengeful spirit is also a he. While his voice actor is feminine presenting, it's not unusual for AFAB people to do little kid voices, as their voices are typically higher pitched.

With the introduction of the Tales books in more recent years, along with the implications from SL, we know Afton most likely set up the whole Fnaf 4 situation at some point in the past. Whether or not we play that simulation is an entirely unrelated conversation I don't want to have. The most likely person to go through these experiences was Mike, but him being the vengeful spirit seems kind of stupid, especially since we just ruled out William being Orange man, so who else do we have?

We have the kid from the Tales books currently going through the simulation, but he wasn't killed by William, so he's ruled out. Cassidy could have been an interesting conversation if we actually knew who that name fully belonged to, even if it was the ghost you're probably thinking of, their pronouns are She/Her so she's out.

That just leaves one option that makes total sense, Andrew.

Now I know people who think the books are parallels are going to disagree at first, but hear me out. If Cassidy isn't the Golden Freddy kid, who is? Andrew is implied to be in the Golden Freddy suit in Frights, so it's probably him based on deductive reasoning.

We see him actively torturing William in Frights. He uses He/Him. He was murdered by William in some way that was unique from his other victims.

He fits the bill perfectly.

Even if you don't believe the Frights stories are in the game universe, we still don't have 100% confirmation on if Golden Freddy IS Cassidy, so we literally don't have another option here + with all this extra lore Andrew has, even if he's not in the games, someone similar definitely is.

Also, something interesting I haven't seen brought up before is that in the Fnaf 2 minigame, 'Give Gifts, Give LIfe', Golden Freddy is never given a gift, he's left alone on the ground, no mask to wear. Charlie never got to give him his gift, and based on what Frights tells us about ghosts, something tells me that would leave him confused and afraid.

So here's my basic theory:

Andrew grew up in an abusive household with an alcoholic father. One day, he went to Freddy's and loved every second of it. It was his safe place, and he'd sneak out often to go there. One night, Spring Bonnie shows up at his window and becons him to come outside. Andrew breaks his window because his family locks him in, wanting him to stop sneaking off to Freddy's, and runs off with Bonnie, unaware he's going to suffer a terrible fate.

William shoves him into the nightmare chambers, testing early prototype versions of the funtime animatronics on him until William realizes he doesn't need him anymore.

William, being the sick bastard he is, springlocks Andrew inside Fredbear, killing him. Later on, when the missing children's incident happens, Andrew's family finally realizes he's not coming back, and if Andrew went to Freddy's when this all happened, he's probably one of those missing kids now. So he's finally reported missing at the same time Gabriel and Jeremy probably are, leading to the case of 3 from the fnaf 1 newspaper.

Andrew's father (Orange Guy) gets arrested for the MCI, as someone spotted a purple car similar to his speeding away from Charlie's murder. That paired with his constant abuse of his son and being an awful person in general just made him a walking red flag, one perfect for William to frame.

Charlie gave gifts to the other children, the gift of understanding that they're dead, the gift of being aware, all except for one. Andrew was stuck in a limbo like state. He was scared and alone, living in his memories of Freddy's, stuck in the past. It took him a while to realize what happened, but eventually, he became aware, on his happiest day. The kids all worked together to gift him his cake, his memories of his death fixed together and allowing him complete understanding.

While the other kids all got endoskeletons that functioned perfectly, Andrew was stuck with a busted down yellow bear, limp and alone. He doesn't remember much of what William did to him, but he knows he hurt him. William hurt him BAD. So much so that he feels he suffered worse than the others have...

Leading him to be angry...

Vengeful even...

Andrew is the Vengeful Spirit, Golden Freddy, and an MCI kid all at once.

He's literally the answer to all of the questions...

Thank you for reading, I hope this made a somewhat amount of sense. I personally think this is a pretty solid explanation that fills out some confusing things in the narrative. Basically, I'm just trying to tie the loose plot lines together, and I feel like this actually makes perfect sense. This feels like the story Scott was trying to tell imo. I was also very tired writing this, if that wasn't obvious.

[alchiimia]

@experimentalfma

Rocket.

A vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. 

It was ironic, maybe even a bit laughable, that someone who'd seen chimeras, giant walking statues, stones in the color of blood made from human souls... that it was something as common as this throwing Edward's mind into shock and awe. Or, well - common in this world, anyway. A world not bond to the law of equivalent exchange, a world where Science reigned supreme and Alchemy was lost to the dark medieval times. His world, now. For the good and for the bad.

But, yes, rockets. Damn interesting things. Ed was by far a man of chemistry, rather than physics and math, yet learning about these equations was entertaining nonetheless; he'd always loved learning new things. The little mountain of books currently piled up beside him spoke for itself. He'd been in the library all morning, reading and learning and indulging into the perfect escapism while ignoring everything else wrong in his life - hours passing by and barely moving, save for the turning of pages and the occasional shuffling into a slightly different sitting position. That was, until he actually ran out of books in the mini-mountain.

And that's when God saw fit to remind him that, even by the other side of the Gate, he was still accountable for his sins and must repent.

Because, of course - the one book Ed now really wanted was out of reach; peeking down at him from the very top of the shelf. Downright mocking him with its shiny cover and rich colors. Come and read me if you can, I'm so interesting!, Ed could practically hear the siren's call. And what was Edward Elric once Fullmetal Alchemist if not stubborn and resilient? Taking the chair he’d been sitting on, he brought it closer and climbed on top and - there! Problem solved. Or, almost... for, in the end, he did not grab the thing all the same. Suddenly distracted by the very characteristic sensation of being stared at.

"What? Never seen someone who can’t reach the top shelf?"

A short person, in other words, but it would take far more than being stuck in a foreign, alternate universe for Ed to admit it out loud. And, yes, maybe he was being grumpy. Maybe the stranger, whoever they were, didn't even mean to stare and was simply also searching for a book in that same shelf. Maybe it was just Ed's paranoia kicking in, because the past had taught him over and over again that being stared at usually implied having to prepare for a battle. Either way, when glancing over his shoulder with a scowl and ready to shoo the person away, what Edward found was-

...A ghost.

Past and future mashed together, and no single explanation given. 

His gold-colored eyes widened and suddenly it was Ed staring, staring hard and helplessly, color draining from his features and every ounce of strength momentarily leaving his body.

"....Al...?" 

But could it be…? His beloved Alphonse, returned to flesh body and somehow here in this world…? give him back, he’s my little brother, he’s everything i have, you can even take my heart Ed's hand that had been left hanging absently found the book, then, but a different one and far heavier. And that, along with the discharge of entropy suddenly taking over his mind, the sudden screeching of his memories plunging all over again into that dreadful night, could really only have one outcome: Ed losing his balance and toppling right off the chair with a quiet gasp. And not only did he meet the library floor right on his butt and in a very undignified manner but, right after, that same volume came to drop on his head.

And, somewhere in the Gate, Truth was probably laughing hysterically.

[owlbearwrites]

The Writeblr Garden's Pumpkin Pitch

Thank you @writeblrgarden for the event!

Fate is Just the Half of It

Two hundred years after Earth was engulfed in nuclear fire, Rowan Woods wakes up from cryogenic sleep in the wreckage of his Orbital Ark. As he stumbles through the brave new (and still somewhat irradiated) world, he learns that the man he loved pre-apocalypse may be, impossibly, alive today. The man in question, genius industrialist Jack Howard, has been given a new life as a self-aware android by the mysterious scientific collective known as the Agency. Earning his keep as the chief engineer of the Agency's moon base, Jack has no reason to think that Rowan is alive and looking for him. But his obliviousness has never stopped Rowan before.

This is the story of two people who found each other after the end of the world.

Planned as a serialized novel starting in 2024, Fate is Just the Half of It is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story with a queer romance at the center. The story will be told in several threads: both of the main characters' POVs in present day, a flashback timeline of their pre-apocalypse relationship, and an account of the first few years after the end of the world, told through selected excerpts of the diary Jack kept in his days as an apocalypse survivor.

Inspirations: Fallout, Tales from the Borderlands.

Content Warnings: Apocalypse, Death, Violence (non-graphic), Language, Sexual Situations (non-graphic)

WIP tag (currently includes snippets and worldbuilding notes)

Excerpt under the cut.

To whoever finds this: hope humans still know how to read

October 23, 2077 (wait, is it 24th already? hard to keep track of time here; nah, couldn’t have been here more than ten hours)

Personal panic room of the Triumvirate Inc. CEO (wow, no, that’s so douchey)

ground zero, day one

Are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah, how’s that for a first line? Well, it was gonna be my last. Not bad as famous last words go, but there wasn’t anyone nearby to take it down, so I figured I’d stick around. Shame to die without an audience and let a good line go to waste. 

The mushroom cloud in my window made for one hell of a backdrop, though. The oranges and the blacks, all swirling together, like a sunrise, but more badass. Except, you know, sunrises usually signify beginnings, whereas this one… yeah. Still pretty, though. And you thought there were no upsides to being in the office at 6 a.m. 

It wasn’t a total surprise. Like, I couldn’t actually believe it till I saw it—hell, I don’t think I believe it now, even. But I knew it was coming. Got a 30-minute warning like the rest of the city. Didn’t run for the hills like the rest of the city, though. ‘Cause there weren’t any hills I cared to run for. None I could reach in half an hour, anyway.

Okay, whoever’s reading this, I don’t expect you’ll ever get a say in designing a nuclear strike early warning system, but I’m gonna tell you this anyway. 30 minutes is a really, really shitty warning period. Not enough time to get anywhere you might wanna get to, and way too much time to think. To wish you were somewhere else. Like, say, a suburban two-bedroom with a Vac-Evac link. 30 minutes to really appreciate what an idiot you were to stay at the office, stay in the city, stay optimistic, stay hopeful, stay invested in the idea that there was a shred of reason left in the collective humanity ‘cause c’mon, it’s all just talk, they’re not actually gonna do it, humans have scraps, always have done, always will have, but they’re NOT actually gonna blow up the fucking world, c’mon, what kind of FUCKING IDIOTS would actually, ACTUALLY do something like that??

Anyway. 30-minute warning is bullshit. Put that into your feedback form and smoke it.

still day one, probably

When the alarm went off, I knew that was it. Almost ran to the parking garage before it hit me that every other sad bastard in Boston was doing the same thing. I’d never make it to Havenford. I’d never make it out of the city. The best I could do out there was die in traffic. No, thanks.

I still tried to make a call, though. No luck. All lines jammed. Network access barred: emergency services only. Told myself it’s for the best. Didn’t wanna lie to him, didn’t want our last talk to turn into a fight. Least of all didn’t want him to try and do something stupid like coming to get me. Not that he’d ever make it. He’d just miss his evac and die for nothing. Wouldn’t stop him trying, though. Man has no quit in him.

Funny thing: normally, I don’t either. But knowing your whole world is gonna go to hell in, oh, twenty-five minutes now, and everything you’ve built is gonna go to pieces, and once the dust has settled, no-one will even remember your name… yeah, that’ll get you down a skosh.

So, yeah, the bit where I said that swearing at the mushroom cloud was gonna be the last thing I ever did? I meant it at the time. I wasn’t gonna run and die out there. But I wasn’t gonna hide and try to survive it, either. ‘Cause like I said, my world was about to get wiped out. And the only bit of it that stood a chance of making it through the next hour was gonna be out of my reach for good. Assuming he didn’t do something real fucking stupid.

Please tell me you didn’t. Please tell me you went to the evac as planned. For fuck’s sake, please tell me you took the train, and the lift and the whatever. Please be up there now. 

So I waited. Smoked a cigarette. Yeah, yeah, I know, those things’ll kill ya. Made a real good cup of coffee with which to watch the show.

And then it happened. Right on time. And I just stared out of my window. Couldn’t bring myself to believe it.

And then I ran. So much for hanging on to hubris to the end. So much for going down with the ship. Call it animal instinct, call it good old-fashioned cowardice, call it whatever. Point is, I ran straight for the panic room. Didn’t even spill the coffee.

Good thing, too. The supply kits in here only have instant. In case you want proof that I never really believed it was gonna start raining nukes.

[jester-lover]

Vyvyan with an s/o! (Headcanons)

Includes- fem terms for reader, FLUFF, canon typical violence, SLIGHT OOC, author has only watched the first 6 episodes and it shows

this is a Neil appreciation account, I am an American and attempting my best British lingo (*eagle cry*)

Wowie, an extremely niche British show from the 80s? This sounds exactly like something I’d write about!

How did he get a girlfriend? (asks Rick, aghast)

The two of you definitely met at some local pub, the smell of sweat eventually luring you both out onto the empty street

The two of you bump into one another, and he’s ready to destroy whoever just ran into him, but then he sees you

Cue the absolutely dumbfounded expression, and immediate request to walk you home

Rants on and on during the walk to your place, about everything from his flatmates to medical sciences

You don’t know if it's just the liquor talking, but your little escapade ends with your phone number written on his arm

Congratulations! You now have the world’s weirdest lover!

Your first ‘date’ is definitely somewhere secluded, walks through old forests and abandoned buildings are his favorite, because he really loves having your undivided attention

He acts like an absolute moron and you love it, dancing around, bumping into trees and making you laugh without even trying

The two of you definitely fit together, and your relationship is very sweet

Plenty of nights are spent together, snoozing on how rickety little bed, even if the both of you are still wearing your shoes 

Your family is also very happy that you’re seeing a medical student, they are less happy when he busts through the window 

His mom honestly couldn’t care less about who he dates, but she appreciates you nonetheless 

Your relationship is full of ups and downs, but nothing and nobody else will pull you apart 

Bonus- dinner with the boys!

Inevitably his housemates will get curious, and ask him to invite you over for dinner

Of course you go! You've been wanting to meet them after hearing him talk about them

When you get to the door, a sad looking man with long brown hair answers, eyes widening like he’s never seen a woman before

Two other men sit on a red couch, the man with two rat tails looks up, aghast

(Rick refused to believe you're a real person until you walked through the door)

 The shorter man in the pinstriped suit smiles at you, getting up and welcoming you in

Mike’s voice alerted Vyvyan, who immediately barreled down the squeaky stairs, picking you up in a spinning hug

Vyvyan animatedly shows you around, finally stopping at a small hamster cage

The hamster began to talk, you promptly decided to ignore it and move on

The long haired man pulls another chair to the table, beckoning you to join the group

The introductions start off well enough, until the man with the rat-tails begins to talk, opening up with his credentials within the local anarchist association, only to be promptly interrupted by Vyvyan tossing a toaster at his head

Turns out his name was Rick, and he really wasn’t having a good time 

Dinner was well, a little overkill on the lentils

The two of you ended up talking into the night, so he drove you home near midnight 

The Drabble that pairs with this is coming out once I peel myself off my bed. I will focus on giving you wonderful people more dialogue in the next Vyvyan installment, this is not the end.

[mamamittens]

Well, if you insist @bookandyarndragon

Here's the ridiculous self indulgent isekia nonsense with two versions of Nikia with and without wings in as close to the early manga style as I've managed so far (I referenced Sanji's introduction specifically and color picked from one of the colored covers) recreated digitally.

Anyway!

I didn't think of a name for the crew or how this series of shenanigans starts, nor names for the crew since this was just like... An hour of mindless wandering and memeing to myself.

Also, I'm not referring to first person because it makes this feel like I think it's real on some level and I don't need that level of disassociation on top of what I already have during the workday lol

But! The start was how the "Sir" thing starts. Which is that shortly after getting on board of the ship Nikia sees the state of the kitchen and is immediately horrified. It's a mess from the crew making desperate meals and not knowing how to cook and clean after themselves to save their damn life on account of the aforementioned cookbook thoughtfully left behind being quite illegible.

So she tears them a new one and tells them they're not allowed in until they understand what "mildew" means and the life cycle of gnats in the kitchen. They respond in fear "Yes, Sir!!" And she thinks they're just intimidated and when they keep it up, thinks it's a in-joke now.

Not realizing they're too afraid to ask her name and believe she's a very crabby "he". A running joke is that every time she almost tells them her name or correct the use of "Sir", something happens to interrupt.

The crew itself is more of the fun having, romantic type of pirates not interested in conquest but just adventure and maybe some treasure.

The captain is charismatic, fun loving, and has an uncanny ability to set things on fire. Once, Nikia asked him to boil a pot of water and it spontaneously caught fire... Without even having anything inside. He also has the ability to always know when it will rain. Just rain though. He also has a fear of swans despite the figurehead of the ship being a swan.

This was due to losing a bet and the crew thought it would be funny. If Nikia has wings, this helps explain why he's quickly intimidated by her.

The first mate is also the navigator and always knows what the weather is about to do but doesn't always pick up on rain for some reason. Anytime him and the captain argue about the weather, they're somehow both right. Every damn time. Even when they shouldn't be. He also likes taking pictures and delights in capturing his fellow crewmate's at unfortunate times to plaster it on the notice board.

The sharp shooter only likes pulling off trick shots to set of complex actions when literally just shooting his opponent would have worked--which he is fully capable of. He just refuses to not show off. He enjoys collecting books in his spare time but don't bother asking how he organizes them. He doesn't. He just always manages to pull the one he wants on the first try despite having no idea where he put it.

The swordsmen are twins who work together uncannily well but are disastrously clumsy apart. They also really like circling whoever they talk to while sharing lines and end up making their unfortunate conversation partner really dizzy. They were the ones that cleaned the kitchen between "meals" but eventually got so sick of it they abandoned the task.

The shipwright is a big fan of miniaturized craftsmanship so the ship is actually beautifully detailed. He just takes forever to work because nearly every inch of his work is engraved or embellished with art. Repairs the ship but enjoys engraving eggshells in his spare time. Comedically large man, so this hobby is both cute and a bit comedic.

And that's all I have for my crew of dweebs.

I figured the fighting Whitebeard thing would be because they overheard Whitebeard was pissed off and, when they ran into him at sea, assumed the Yonko wouldn't hesitate to fight and figured they may as well meet it head on. Nikia had no idea they were doing this and they were too afraid to enter the kitchen to inform her.

[alyjojo]

Past Life 📜 Karmic Spread September 2024 - Cancer

Preshuffle: Money was expected - a lot of money - didn’t go to plan, no one knows why.

Meditation: I’m seeing random scenes from Ozark, best show ever btw, you were a drug smuggler for a Mexican cartel? I’m specifically seeing “Mexican” but I’m hearing “Panama” which is very confusing for me. I’m seeing nodding, it’s both, intermingled & all related. I’m seeing someone driving a large truck to transport things. White truck maybe. This is the second story where a driver 🛻 ends up being a Cancer in the next life, coincidence? 🤔 Oh shit…The Chariot. Is that a thing?? Bruhhhh. These messages are killing me this go-round, I love it.

~ The Past Life ~

Gender I’m Picking Up On (in the past life): Male

Character Card: Intuition 💭 - Mercury Cancer

Who You Were: The Sun ☀️ & 2 Wands

What You Did: The Lovers rev

How It Ended: Queen of Swords

Oracles: Sun ☀️ & Garden rev

You loved what you did, you loved being a criminal. Your way 💯 This way. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world, the money was great. You weren’t the man in charge but you were someone that was regularly trusted, included in “right-hand men” of a type, to get the job done, and you never cared who you were serving or what you were doing exactly. You knew how to mind your business and collect a paycheck, that was the whole purpose. Garden rev shows you weren’t close to any of these people, and there was no real sense of loyalty. It was a job that paid well, the end. I’m getting something with you about preferring to tell the truth always, that’s something attached to you somehow…still?…and it was accepted, even respected. So, it’s like you would agree to do things so long as you could have deniability and not actually know what you were moving, like your name was tied to a shipment sheet and whoever you were working for had to make sure their shit was secure - it’s not your job. Clear boundaries. So you worked for a cartel of some kind…loosely. Reliably. You knew a guy that knew a guy. I’m now seeing you lived in or originally from Mexico 🇲🇽, and this business you did was in Panama 🇵🇦. Back and forth. Sense 🧐

You lived a double life for awhile, 1-3 years, you had a whole family in one city (probably Mexico) and a lover in another (probably Panama). You did end up leaving the family to build a life in Panama, at some point you just stopped returning and supporting them. You’ve brought the wife (if you were married) into this life. She was scary, very angry, very smart…because you’d left of course, she had a reason to be. Out of everyone you worked for and met, no one terrified you like her - it’s why you ran. She held you accountable, asked questions, she was intelligent and put pieces together, scrutinized the things you’d say and think them over…not fit for this kind of lifestyle. You were a one excuse kind of person & drop it, that was not her way 💯 Still isn’t, I’m hearing 😆 I do see you having a couple of children with the lover in the new city, but you weren’t really close to any of them. Not even the lover/s. Not a domestic sort of guy, could be a big part of the reason you’re a Cancer now.

The end of life is hilarious to me, it’s not showing how you died, just that your ex-wife tracked you all the way to wherever you were and forced you to have a conversation. She created this situation of her own free will, with The Magician, so you did ultimately have to take accountability and seek forced closure for what you had done - I do see a lot of karma clearing because that happened, maybe thank her irritating ass 😂 Followed your triflin ass all the way to the next life, I’m dying. Could be a Libra or air sign, that’s heavy in your present energy and she’s described as Queen of Swords. Idk if they’re a she now though, yet.

~ The Present Life ~

What Karma Was Brought With You: The Moon

Who You Brought With You: 4 Pentacles rev & The Chariot rev

Additional energy: 8 Cups

Character Card:

Influence 🐍 - Mercury Libra

Versatility 🤸🏿‍♀️ - Sun Gemini

Oracles: Letter with Tree, Authority Figures with Wars & Battles

I’m seeing an Army brat or something with military. Specifically US Army. Greeeeen, lots of green, camo is everything, the best 💪 Hoo Ah. Your father could be someone important in the military, you could’ve moved around a lot as a kid, there’s a loneliness attached to military with Letter & Tree, writing letters home. You live far away from someone in particular - or you’re the one in the military, could be you and a father or the whole family are enlisted…all of you, maybe not together. It’s tradition. This could be your spouse too, or they’re involved with this maybe enlisted too, it’s a relationship that ultimately doesn’t work out but you don’t know why - you gave it everything you have. They could be a Leo or fire sign, someone attractive and commanding, they like attention and…seem to seek it elsewhere. Anywhere. Because they’re shallow. But it’s hard for you to understand, because you’re not 😞🙏

It’s also possible they’ve left you behind, maybe with children because I’m seeing more than just you two - you could be a single mother. Or they are, and the whole story is switched - you could be the handsome Devil walking away from a family, same as the past life. It feels like the same story repeating with the same people, nothing has changed, it still ends in (almost) exactly the same way. Maybe the other person left this time, it could be that. It’s revenge on a soul level. It’s confusing af because the Cancer card is used as “mother” here, or wife, baby-mama, and that may or may not be describing you, but idk. You have/had a very heavy spiritual/karmic contract with person - I’m hearing “still do”. Whew 😅

You’ve also brought “the lover” but I’m not seeing love here, you probably don’t know them in that way. They’re someone that either had to leave you behind or you did, there’s literal distance in between you, I’m seeing 10 Pentacles and 4 Wands. Either they’re married, you are, or you could’ve left your childhood home and they lived there, could be a childhood friend of some sort. Communication stopped over time. Someone “couldn’t go with you.” Or that’s switched. But it’s natural. Separately from the past life wife & lover, I’m seeing you probably have many ex’s, your biggest temptation in life has been love 💚

There are two messages from Spirit. One is about an inheritance and 6 Pentacles rev, it’s not given to you? There could be issues surrounding this in your family. Or if you’re worried about passing something onto your own children, mental health or something you see as “a curse”, I’m hearing there’s no need for concern or…blame? 🙏 I’m also seeing a situation you leave and come back feeling “delusional” or you’ve had to leave and come back for reasons that feel like “this isn’t realistic” and you’re right - it’s Justice. Swift cut off 🗡️ If you are in the military or from that world, you might have seen some things that make you question the political & Justice system entirely, and your beliefs may be a bit fanatical at times…from personal experience though. There’s a reason. It may seem “delusional” to others though and that’s something that needs to be said because you have an unusual amount of influence over others - which I’m hearing “you’re aware of”, and you need to be careful how you “sell” your viewpoints if you want cooperation - that’s how they’re describing it. You could also be dealing with PTSD, or have, something like that - that’s the “delusional” they’re describing. In war movies, when a bomb goes off and the sound is a very high pitch and silence, that’s what I’m hearing with you - while life carries on normally everywhere else. Muffled 🤐 Spirit wants you to find a lane for that, but they’re not saying what, they said you already know.

[mint-moon25]

BROTHER KH 260 - ALI EXPRESS - OVER - $575

MALE GOING - SIDEWAYS - NO LONGER CIRCLE

L 2 R - LEFT - 2 - RIGHT - HOW - U - GET - THE

BUTTERFLY - DESIGN - THIS - IS - EXCITING 2

JENNIFER CRUSIE - COMMON STORIES

‘D’ - HEAD - 4 A - MALE - ALREADY - THE

FEMALE - WANTS - 2 - MURDER - THE

DUMPER - BUT - THEY - NEVER SLEPT

TOGETHER - ‘BET - ME’

NOT - ‘BET - ON - ME’

FIRST - PAGES - HE - DUMPED - HER

WHILE - THEY - WERE GAMBLING SO

NOT - MEETING - HER - FAMILY

SISTER’s - WEDDING - HE’s ESCORT

2 - BRIDESMAID - OR - MAID - OF US

HONOR - SO - DUMPING - B 4 - FOR

THE - FEAR - MEETING - FUTURE

IN LAWS - BUT - FR - KISSING HE

DUMPS - HER - WHY - MURDER

ALREADY - FR - HER

OTHER - BOOK - SISTERS - AND

PROBLEMS - ALREADY

DEAR - KOREAN - GIRLS,

WASTING - OUR - TIME - IMPORTANT

SAYING - ‘LOVE - IS - LOVE - AND

BUSINESS - IS - BUSINESS’ - WE

CAN - HAVE - BOTH - 4 - BEING

IN - LOVE - WE’RE - SOFTER AND

OUR - STORE - FULL - OF - ROMANCE

PINKS - LIGHT - PINKS - LIGHT BLUES

WITH - ROMANCE - WE’RE - SOFTER

WOMEN - EASIER - 2 PLEASE - THOSE

MOMENTS - SEOUL - KOREA

KIEUN CHOI - JUST - GOT - BACK GOT

DATE - ALREADY - BLIND - ONE

2 MONTHS - THESE - CHRISTIANS ARE

GETTING - MARRIED - WHILE - I’M

THINKING - BAEKHYUN - OR - JAEMIN

ANSWER - MARRYING - CHINESE

MALE - ACTOR - 6′2 FT - LONG - HAIR

SINGER - DANCER - ROCKER

SPENDING - TIME - WITH - HIM

UNDERNEATH - HIS - SILKY HAIR

I - WILL - FEEL - PROTECTED

JUDE DEVERAUX

FORMER - FIRST - BOOKS - I READ

EVERY - WORD - BUT - EVEN - HER

NEW - BOOKS - NOT - GREAT

STAYS - AWAY - FR - FAMILY - AS

SHE - CREATED - UNFORGETTABLE

FAMILIES - GETTING - MARRIED

HISTORICAL - ROMANCES

NOW - MURDERS - BAD - WORDS

WHOEVER - THAT - FAMILY IS ITS

LIKE - AMERICAN - FILMS

THEY - MARRIED - AND - LIVED

HAPPILY - EVER - AFTER - SO YES

EXHAUSTING - 2 - YOU - DON’T US

CARE - ABOUT - THEIR - FUTURE

CHILDREN - YOU’RE - EXHAUSTED

JUDE DEVERAUX

FORMER - OLD - BOOKS

HER - BEGINNING - YOU

WONDER - WHAT - HAPPENED - 2

THE - IDENTICAL - TWINS

EXTROVERT

INTROVERT

ALSO - IDENTICAL - ARE - TRULY

OPPOSITES

WHAT - HAPPENED - WHO - DID

THEY - PRODUCE - WHAT - YES

WAS - THEIR - FUTURE - WHEN

YOU - CARED - I’M - SAYING NO

MORE - AMERICAN - ROMANCE

NOVELS - NOT - EVEN

HARLEQUIN - BECAUSE 

KOREAN - GIRLS,

WASTING - OUR - TIME

GLAD - JORDAN WELCH

2 PRODUCTS - DAILY

2 VIDEOS - 2 - UPLOAD

TIK TOK

INSTAGRAM

YOUTUBE

YOU’RE - DONE

LIKE - RIGHT - NOW - I HAVE

2 - CREATE - EMAILS - WHAT

I - WILL - NEED 

SALES

LIKE - MY - FIRST - WAS

FIRST - ORDERS

10% - FIRST - PURCHASE

THAT’s - IT - FOUND - OUT

GETTING - $133.02

WHAT - IS - LEFT

60TH - BIRTHDAY

BUYING - PUBLIX - FRIED

CHICKEN - WHAT - I - CAN

DO - ICE - CUBES - AS ME

WANTS - COLD - DRINKS

NOW - I - CAN’T - EVEN

BUY - ICE - CUBES

NEGATIVE - $119.07

THEY - EVEN - TOOK MY

ICE CUBES - MONEY

$5 - AMOUNT - DUE

28TH - FOR - CVS

EXTRACARE - PLUS

WILL - CHECK RIGHT

NOW - CAN - WE PAY

IN - ADVANCE

SHOPIFY - ONLINE STORE

DROPSHIPPING

NO - INVENTORY

EXCITING - ADVENTURE

FORGOT - 2 - CHECK

TIK TOK - HOW MANY

CHECKED - MY - NEW

ACCOUNT

PEOPLE - WHO VIEWED

MY - PROFILE - 8 GIRLS

1 MALE - 9 VIEWED ME

WHO - DOES - THAT

GREAT - 2 - KNOW THAT

NO - ADS - 9 VIEWED ME

SHOP CAILEY

8 WOMEN - VIEWED - ME

STARTING - INSTAGRAM

3:31P EST

I - DON’T - WANT 2 MAKE

EMAIL - TEMPLATES - FR

PRE-MADE - RIGHT NOW

INSTAGRAM - ACCEPTS

PHOTOS - AND - VIDEOS

WOULD - LIKE - 2 SHARE

MY - 10% - OFF - YOUR

FIRST - PURCHASE

STICKY - NOTES

WHERE - I’VE - PUT - THE

PASSWORDS 

CREATED - WORD - 360

DOCUMENTS - 2 - PUT MY

EMAIL - ADDRESSES

MY - PASSWORDS 

I - RAN - OUT - OF - PAPER

ROSS - DRESS - 4 - LESS

NOTEBOOKS

SURRENDERED - 2 - 2024

PLANNERS - WITH NOTES

RAN - OUT - NOTEBOOKS

ALL - FULL

WORD - 360 - PERSONAL

PLACING - MY - PASSWORDS

BEFORE - DISAPPEARS - AT

STICKY - NOTES

CHROME - FREE EXTENSION

THEN - OPENING

INSTAGRAM

TIK TOK - DONE

YOUTUBE - DONE

[briamichellewrites]

43

brielikethecheese: Whoever is going to the media about me, fucking stop it! It’s none of their fucking business! I’m so ready to just pack up all my shit and move to Paris. The apartment I was staying at kicked me out and I have nowhere to go. Just please leave me alone. I’m already dealing with shit in my head and I don’t need any bs ‘concern’. This has nothing to do with Mike or my divorce.

Brie was living in her car because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She was angry, which was evident in her post. Her account was made private, making it hard for anyone who wasn’t following her to see her posts. She also deleted all of her followers. Her friends and family had no idea what was going on. Was this just an episode of depression or was she asking for help? She refused to go to rehab. Rob had tried talking to her in the parking lot after she ran out of the studio.

He talked about his memories of her when she was younger. Just when he thought he saw a breakthrough, she flipped a switch and denied needing help. He saw the pain in her eyes. Even though they weren’t as close as they used to be, he still wanted to be there for her. He wanted to wrap her in his long arms and never let her go. But, he couldn’t. He also saw the little girl inside of her begging to be loved.

Rob’s here! Rob’s here! He remembered as she would jump up and down in excitement when he came home from school every day. His parents used to watch her because her parents were never around to take care of her. He and his younger brother, David would come home to a toddler, who just wanted to play. She would hug his legs because he was so tall. That made them laugh. They were allowed to play with her for a while. Then, they had to get on with their homework.

In 1997, he went off to college leaving her behind. Then, he joined Linkin Park and his world changed forever. He no longer came home as often and he lost contact with her. His mother was a licensed therapist. Maybe she could help her. He decided to call her.

Patty listened to her son explain what was going on with Brie. Since she knew her personally, she couldn’t have her as a client because it would be a conflict of interest. He didn’t know that. It was worth a try, though. Did she remember anything from when she used to babysit her? She remembered her being very curious about everything and wanting attention.

She loved him. Yeah, he also remembered that. She also remembered her having depression. Her parents didn’t believe in depression or mental illness. She tried to get her help, even offering to pay for sessions. Even though they could afford it. They still said no. She decided not to push it and overstep. Did she ever receive treatment? He thought she was going to therapy sessions, but he didn’t know how frequently she went. She was diagnosed with postpartum bipolar disorder.

Her biological father’s father had severe mental illness and addiction problems. He had schizophrenia and bipolar. That’s what he thought Phoenix had told them. He was also a drug addict and alcoholic, who may have been abusive to her father, Bruce. She was very close with him and her sister.

“Everything is just confusing right now. We have no idea what she’s going through because she’s not telling us anything. She’s very angry and Mike thinks she’s going through an episode of bipolar. But, we’re not sure. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with their divorce. Just that she’s angry in general. She was just in the hospital for an accidental overdose.”

Brie was photographed crying while sitting on a parking lot cement block. The pictures were sent to TMZ, who published them. She looked horrible with her beautiful long hair a mess and her clothes looked like they had been slept in. As shocking as the pictures were, everyone was angry at the media for making fun of her. She was having some type of mental breakdown and she was being exploited, just so people could laugh at her.

Since she was homeless, they couldn’t go over to her place and check on her. Phoenix tried texting her but he received no response. He googled her name to see if he could find anything recent. No. Mike told him to let her go. She would return when she wanted to.

brielikethecheese: I’m not here for your entertainment. You don’t really want to mess with me tonight. Just stop and take a second. I was fine before you walked into my life.

Brie was kicked out of a café for sitting at a table and not ordering anything. She got up and walked out. Even though she wanted to knock a table over, she was stopped before she could even begin to do it. Outside, she sat on the cement block. The manager came out and told her he was going to call the police if she didn’t leave. Someone with a camera phone recorded everything.

“You said I couldn’t stay inside. I’m just sitting here.”

“You need to leave. You’re loitering.”

“I don’t want your stupid coffee anyway.”

She was about to start crying again but she walked away. The video was leaked to TMZ, who of course uploaded it for the whole world to see. Bruce watched the video with Patti. They saw their little girl in pain. She would never argue with an employee when she was sober but she wasn’t thinking rationally. People were doing everything they could to make fun of her.

She was the next Lindsay Lohan. A talented star, who was losing her career to drugs. Mental illness and addiction were not funny. Something was going on but nobody knew what it was. Everywhere she went, she was asked to leave. She eventually made it to Brad and Elisa’s. They told her she couldn’t come in because they had their kids. She went back to her car and got in without saying anything to them. Even though they wanted to help her, they needed to think about their children.

One… two… three… four. I found you! Rob was lost in his memories. Four years old. She had a lot of energy, as did most children her age. One of her favorite games was Hide and Seek. It was hard to hide because he was so tall. She was always excited when she found him. They would play until it was time for a nap. She would say she wasn’t tired before falling asleep somewhere in the house.

One time, his mother found her in the laundry basket curled up in a princess dress. It was adorable. They always wondered what she would grow up to be. Being a drug addict never crossed their minds. The band would have loved to have known her when she was younger because she was so full of energy and she loved entertaining people. Joe would have loved joking around with her. She would have made long days in the studio more enjoyable.

“Bourdie…”, Phoenix called out.

“Yeah, sorry.”

“We were just talking about getting pizza.”

“Yeah, I’ll have some pizza.”

Brad came over and sat next to him while Phoenix and Mike talked to Joe and Chester about what kind of pizza they wanted. He asked him how he was doing because he was distracted. Yeah, he was just thinking about when Brie was younger. He regretted not being as close with her as Phoenix and Mike were. Life happened. He couldn’t go back and change it. What did he think was going on? He thought she was angry at everything and everyone.

She also probably felt like everyone was abandoning her. He had no idea how he knew that. It was just a feeling he had. He thought that was entirely possible. Who did she have besides them as friends? Nobody. Yeah, exactly. Maybe Elisa and Linsey. Brad would mention his theory to Mike and Phoenix. Did he want to come over and hang out? Sure, he could do that. Awesome. He patted his shoulder.

@zoeykaytesmom @feelingsofaithless @alina-dixon @fiickle-nia @boricuacherry-blog

[3y3swid3open]

i’ve been told over and over by my angels about your truth.

i’m not falling for your poetic words that usually sway me. I know what you did. they told me over and over and showed me over and over.

then you finally said it!

i’ll just go text her.

finally admitted to the truth that sat and boiled for a long time.

I was just shit in a toilet to you. a fuck toy. and a place to stay.

u n her going on MY youtube? for fucking what? asmr? & some stupid gaming shit? lmfao fuck both of you.

nasty crusty asses.

whoever it is, if I know her or not.

fuck both of you.

it’s sad because I genuinely did love you so much. and I just sit and wait for the day someone replaces you.

I just cant wait to feel how I did with you with somebody else who won’t see me as

shit in a toilet.

a fuck toy.

and a place to stay.

and no i’m not looking.

and no this person hasn’t appeared but i’m trying to replace those memories with you.

and now since everything is said and done I just wanna say. yes it was only you I only loved you since I met you. I can say that with 100% honesty.

all I ever wanted from you is for you to show me you loved me as much as I loved you. all those empty promises than were never fulfilled. your only way of showing “love” was sex. and that was never how I saw love. I don’t recklessly share sex with just anybody but I did with you because I really loved you. naive of me to believe you all those years ago.

when it all ended with you saying. i’ll just go text her.

all because I pointed out how I can’t even say I can’t wait to be successful and do pilates? you relate that to the white bitches that live in YOUR head rent free?

relating me to the person or people you ran back to?

please.

stop the cap.

just because you realized it wasn’t greener on the other side your gonna go back to your poetry speaking about me like as if you treated me like a queen on a pedestal 🤣 I had to laugh.

but please yes, enjoy your time with girls who are like you <3

I was never your type. you were never in love with me. you realized you like being loved. period. that’s what u miss in our relationship. because I really did love you and that feeling is what you think is “home” because I don’t think any of ur other “girls” loved you as much as I did.

and the way you still check on me till now tells a lot about why that phone of yours is shut off when ur sleep.

follow 13 accounts? lol is that 13 all ur exes?

all I asked was patience and understanding.

that was toooooooo expensive for having me tho right?

delete my playlists too.

pretend I never existed. don’t call me your home.

your home is in crackerville

I wish I never met you

I wish I never loved you

[psycheterminal]

The fanon I have absorbed about the Pale King is fascinating to me, especially in conjunction with this.

Cut due to discussion about suicide.

Especially since he probably knew that Lurien loved him. It's all but text that Lurien was in love with him, even if we don't take excised text into account we can still draw very clear conclusions that Lurien at least deeply respected and admired him.

He's a king. A magic user who fought the Radiance long ago to a stand still. Who probably fought the Blackwyrm alongside his knights and did his best to treat the pandemic on his hands when it first appeared.

Remember, they tried to isolate those who got sick initially, when they weren't sure what it was or where it came from.

He also designed the stag ways (according to the Old Stag) and quite possibly designed the tram. I don't recall coming across the idea that he was its designer, but it kind of tracks. He designed two models of servitors and probably designed the Watcher Knights.

He may have been an engineer.

He loved so deeply that he gave his wife half his soul as a wedding present. And she kept it, even after she left him. He couldn't help but love his child, even though he knew that if he did, his people were doomed. He loved his people, even though personal worship made him uncomfortable. He had idols made of him so that those that served him might have a way to worship them if they pleased.

He gave up his old form to no longer be alone, but pushed everyone away in the end.

He almost certainly ran away, taking measures so absolute to disappear that even the Godseekers cannot sense him. The Radiance never found him. Even the void from the wrecked Kingsmoulds didn't reach him. He put himself in the last place anyone would potentially look for him, bound behind powerful protections that took a restored folk legend item to break into.

His wife left him. He sent the man who loved him into eternal slumber. His honored rival into that same eternal slumber. The friend who could relate to him on a mental level more than most of his subjects. He locked his beloved child into hell and gave it the ability to see what happened next.

And then it was all for nothing. He crossed so many moral lines to save his kingdom, if because dying to the Radiance scared him or if he didn't do that because he wasn't sure he'd succeed. He sacrificed everything he loved, hurting himself again and again. "No cost too great."

All. For. Nothing.

I love him. I love how complex a person he was. How his godhood and personhood tore him apart. How some things make him seem like he has an ego, but that others make it clear that he wasn't like that. At least, not how some would say. At the same time, he was too much a coward to do what was needed.

He did all that, despite how much he loved, how much compassion he might have had, despite how much he fought and bled and died before for everyone.

It wasn't enough.

His end makes sense if he hid his palace not simply to hide, but to commit a painful, long suicide. He had foresight, you know? He wanted to die in a way that wouldn't strip whoever was left of the mind light. He succeeded.

I wonder if he kept spouting the last thing he ever says as cold condemnation of himself, as a last lie to himself, or ironically because he knew that he'd found the price too great after all.

We'll never know for sure. I love that, too.

Actually, here

There is a post giving you a 👍 to ramble about less popular HK characters that you adore

What about these characters stuck to you the most when you got introduced to them? What's the reason you enjoy seeing and thinking about stuff with them? Is there a personal headcanon or such that adds to them and thus your love or interest for them?

The reasons don't have to be grand either btw!

You can also tag me on the posts if you want so I can reblog them and share but the main point is to have fun talking about them!