#annnnnd she had to make it worse

[maisonbelligavi]

🔞 BelliGavi headcanon

Okay one devil of an unhinged human just thought I needed to be informed that Jude and Gavi would fuck in front of a mirror just to take in their size difference.

Mish, why would you do this to me???

And now I've gotta write it.

[probablysimpledreams]

CONGRATS ON 200!!! You deserve 200000000 tbh bestie!!

For the event: "Oh gosh, I hope I make it through the night" (15 Minutes) + Shigaraki + coworker au

BESTIEEEE!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCHHH💖💖 thank youuu and thank you for this Shiggy request I've never thought of this au with him but now low key obsessed👀 annnnnd came at a perfect time bc it's (almost) his bday!!! So happy birthday Shiggy<333 I hope you enjoy this bestie hehe

cw: office party, alcohol and weed, slightly nsfw

wc: 1313

The only thing worse than being at the office all day was being there all night for a company party.

Your branch had been performing exceptionally well these past few months and instead of giving out raises or bonuses to celebrate everyone's hard work, your bosses decided an afterwork Friday night party was the way to show appreciation.

Originally you weren't even going to attend. If you wanted to be surrounded by annoying drunk people you would have just gone out to the bar on your own accord. Your Friday night would have been much better spent in the comfort of your own home, curled up with a good series and better tasing alcohol. Plus, the gossip on Monday would have been so much more entertaining to hear if you weren't watching it unfold in real time. As annoying as your coworkers could be, you loved some office gossip from them.

The only reason you were even here was because your work bestie had begged you to come. All yesterday she talked your ear off about how much fun it will be and that you two will spend the whole night together enjoying the free food and drinks, you won't even feel like you're at the office! Yeah, so that lasted maybe one full hour before she got enough liquor courage to go flirt with her little office crush. In hindsight you should have expected this, as you knew she was not the type to pace herself around alcohol no matter the setting.

You swirl your half drank cup around as you stand in a group, everyone listening to one of your coworker's tell some story about a cruise he went on years ago. You continue to sip on the punch, a mixture of cheap liquors and juice, as the story continues. By the time you finish your drink, he's finally done dragging out the story which gives you the perfect opportunity to slip away from the group. You toss your empty cup into the trashcan before heading out into the hall so you can think without the sound and body heat of hundreds of people suffocating you.

"Hmmm it's only 9:30, guess I'll stay for another 30 then leave," you sigh, checking your watch as you lean against the wall. "10 minutes out here then 20 back inside to say bye an-"

"Already tired of these losers too?" a nearby voice asks, making you realize you weren't alone like you originally thought. Your attention moves away from your phone as you move closer to the voice. You look around the hall confused as it didn't seem like anyone was out here.

"In here," the voice calls out again as he hears your footsteps moving closer to the closet. You notice the door is slightly cracked, so you push it open a tad more to find your coworker Tomura seated on the floor, back against the wall as he taps through a game on his phone with one hand and takes a hit from his pen with the other.

"I'm surprised you even stayed for this," you say with a slight laugh before sitting down next to him. He notices the way your eyes keep glancing over to his pen, so he offers it to you while finishing out the current round on his mobile game.

"Would have been stupid not to take up the offer of free food," he shrugs, not looking up from his phone as he responds. "If anything I'm surprised you're not back in there. Took you for more the social type."

"Eh, just not really feeling it tonight I guess," you respond before taking a few hits from the pen, ignoring the way he chuckles to himself when you start coughing. "What are you playing?" you ask after clearing your throat, leaning up against him to look over his shoulder and missing the way his cheeks flush at the sudden contact.

Tomura goes on to explain the game in full detail, making you giggle as he jumps from game lore to character lore to his personal opinions on every aspect. As he continues to play through the game with you watching and cheering him on, you two continue hitting his pen until the battery dies. Though you promised yourself you weren't going to get drunk tonight, you never said you weren't going to get high. You felt giddy as you sat there with Tomura, like you two were in your own little bubble away from all the annoyance occurring in the office space just steps away. The weed was affecting Tomura too as the occasional glances he shot your way were becoming more frequent and lasting longer. You were starting to distract him so much that by now his game was long forgotten, and you watched the way his phone slide out of his grasp before his hands cupped your face and pulled you into a kiss. The action shocked you as the weed and suddenness of everything made you dizzy. Once he pulled away, the two of you just stare at each other in silence. Enough time had passed in Tomura's mind to show him he had fucked up in this moment, but before he could awkwardly run out of the closet you grabbed the sleeve of his shirt.

"Wait don't leave," you shyly tug at the fabric, refusing to make direct eye contact. Tomura's eye's widen at the sight, and he swore his heart was going to jump right out his chest. Fuck, he had been fantasizing about this happening ever since he began working here. Ever since the first day he laid eyes on you and your kind smile. Ever since you made it a point to at least once a week to check in on him, asking him about his weekend and how his life was despite no one else in the office giving him much time of day.

"Kiss me again?" The words left your mouth before you could even think of anything else. You had always thought he was so beautiful, even if he was a little shy and weird compared to others. Ever since the moment you first laid eyes on him, you knew you wanted him. Sure, it was taking more time than you had originally expected but now that he was here as you wanted you weren't going to let him get away so easily. "Please?"

Tomura rubbed his eyes as he looked down at you on the ground, unsure if he was hearing you correctly or if he truly was so high he was imagining things. You notice the way he's frozen and unsure, so decide it's your turn to make a sudden move. You quickly jump to your feet, falling against his body as you pull back into a kiss. You smile against him as you hear soft whimpers leave his lips. You guide his shaky, unsure hands to your waist as you deepen the kiss. Once secured on your body, Tomura's hand grip your waist tightly as your confidence encourages him to be confident too. He pushes you against the closet door, as now it's shut making sure no one can even think about entering the little bubble you two have created away from the rest of the world. The kiss starts out gentle until it becomes rough and hungry, making your knees buckle. Tomura's lips leave yours and slide down to your neck, placing hot kisses against the exposed skin, while his hands begin sliding up your shirt. Your hands tug at his hair, causing him to groan before his head turns to look up at you with hazy, lustful eyes.

"Let's get out of here," he places another soft kiss to your cheek before nipping at your earlobe to lean in and whisper. "And go somewhere way more comfortable. And way more private."

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 21 thoughts:

Well that was sure a turn around from last arc's "I'm going to rally the students so I don't get captured."

I know my daughter has made some . . . mistakes, but I'm not a fan of her turning herself into the openly corrupted and also bad at their job parahuman cops.

(Parahuman cops as in "cops who police parahumans" not "cops who are parahumans")

Like look, I get it. A precog told her to cut ties. I can't say it's wrong to follow that advice. But she could do that in a lot of ways that don't involve the PRT.

The second not from Dinah just being "I'm sorry" is brutal.

But before she can turn herself in she has to absolutely fucking crush the PRT/Protectorate for outing her civilian identity.

I love how fucking simple taking out the entire PRT headquarters was for Skitter and her girlfriends!

Who needs anyone else? Bitch brings muscle, Tattletale brings information, Skitter brings battlefield control. Lesbian polycule power activate!

Was it an overboard response? Maybe. Was it badass how she just took out so many heroes and PRT troops with ease? Yes.

Poor Dovetail has one of the most embarrassing introductions ever. First time we see her and Skitter is wiping the floor with her and thinking about her "crummy power".

God I hate Tagg so much that he makes me miss Piggot. Like she was absolutely terrible, but he's worse! And making me miss Piggot makes me hate Tagg even more!

Kindly old cemetery groundskeeper who doesn't pay much attention to the news! Never a bad trope.

They gave Butcher 15 to Cherish???!? Like sure they give all the reasoning for it but like ... it just seems like a really high risk situation. If she ever gets out it's going to suck. A lot.

THE SCENE AT RACHEL'S PLACE OH MY GOD!

SHE IS BUILDING A COMMUNITY! I LOVE HER SO MUCH!

Rachel just over here finding everyone like her and giving them a place. Legit crying. Look at that fucking growth!

(Also shout-out to my wife for having basically done the same thing. It's how I met her. It's how I met one of my girlfriends. And so many other important people. So ya. I fucking love this.)

Also you ever like a girl so much you try to give her an entire planet? Cause Taylor sure has.

"Rachel I don't want you to be sad when I'm gone so you can basically have this whole other planet we found."

GGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!

Imp let Regent take control of her . . . welp. Like, I'm not really surprised by this. And in a different situation I wouldn't even really find it that weird. I'd do it with the right person. But combination of age and the situation they are in and Regent being Regent annnnnd ya. Welp.

I did love how much of the interactions between Skitter and Regent/Imp really was just her struggling with parenting two teenage supervillains.

IT'S NOT SO EASY, IS IT CHILD?!? MAYBE YOU'LL CUT ME SOME SLACK AND LISTEN TO MY ADVICE IN THE FUTURE!

(She won't)

I fucking LOVE that she made the bible themed hero kneel. Absolutely fucking amazing.

Oh shiiit, Skitter just flat dropped that guy multiple stories. Is she going to far?

. . . wellll, these guys do literally worship the Endbringers so I guess a little aggression is ok.

Damn, Valefor sure has some fucked up powers, I wonder what they're gonna do abou-

. . .

. . .

. . . . . .

. . . wellll, these guys do literally worship the Endbringers so I guess a little aggression is ok.

. . .

Yep.

. . .

. . . I think I preferred when she just used a knife.

So anyway

Not a fan of Taylor having more alone time with Brian (not because I have any issue with the idea, but because I think she needs to be focusing on her girlfriends), but I am a fan of her using bugs to clean her dress and fix her hair afterwords while Brian just kinda sits there and has to contemplate what he has gotten himself into. Queen shit.

Flechette was SO mad that Parian wasn't "cute" anymore, I couldn't stop laughing. Sure, she said "You had to take the playfulness away? The joy?" but we all know what she meant. Of course, it's won't take very long for the new costume to get Flechette's attention. (I have to mention that this is basically exactly what I said when reading the scene, and the interlude a few chapters later just proved me right.)

Flechette is just so hopelessly gay

Miss Militia is actually getting very mild respect from me right now. Like, she's still working for the cops but she is actually agreeing to silently push against some things. Now, she says she doesn't have more power then that but she is a very well known hero and if she would publicly speak out about certain things there is a decent chance she could do more. That would of course be putting her position at risk though. Which is why she only gets very mild respect right now.

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T JUST GET TO SEE TATTLETALE'S MURDER WALL, I GOT TO SEE HER ENTIRE MURDER ROOM!

Fucking multiple bulletin boards with threads connecting them. Everything color coded. Reference numbers to files with more details. Multiple TV screens, computer with constant information dump. God. It's like a literal representation of the inside of my mind while I read Worm. SO MANY THINGS TO FIGURE OUT!

I love a lot of characters, but Tattletale always stays near the top. She gets me.

And from the fucking joy of getting to see that setup I come crashing the fuck down.

Like, I have completely figured out at this point that Skitter is turning herself in. I know what is coming. She's had her moment with everyone else and Tattletale is the last one.

And then. Then just . .

No goodbyes.

😭😭😭😭😭

HOW DARE THIS BOOK MAKE ME FEEL MY OWN FEELINGS!! I'M TOO GAY FOR THIS!

I do find it hysterical that the PRT officers working the front lobby don't all recognize Skitter on sight. Fucking gas station employees will manage to keep track of people with pictures on the "bad check" board, you'd think the PRT could manage to have their officers keep track of the face of one of the most well know villains in the country, if not the world, who also controls their city. PRT is forever bad at their job.

That one guy did notice her eventually though, so I guess he gets to be employee of the month.

The Number Man interlude thoughts:

The inside of this mans mind is one of the sexiest things I have ever seen and the constant reminder of the horrible things he is helping Cauldron do to all their prisoners was very helpful because it was the only thing keeping me from deciding that The Number Man is a perfect soul that can do no wrong.

I have no illusions here. I am weak. This man is a monster and I should not have any trouble remembering that.

But fuck shit fuck oh god fuck I don't even need him to touch me. I just need him to TALK to me. I just need him to get high with me and let me pick apart how his mind works!

He understood numbers, and through them, he understood everything.

That line. Absolute killer. Fucking take me.

. . . anyway yes it's a very interesting interlude!

Loved seeing more of the inner workings of Cauldron

I very much want to see the final level of their basement that only the Doctor goes into because I said that I thought Cauldron had a dead (for values of dead that are non-definable) higher dimensional being in their basement back during arc 15 and now I know for sure that there is something down there. I wanna know if I was right!

Oh my god he was friends with Jack

"Friends"

Look I make everything gay ok? It's not my choice! Sure it means I get to enjoy every tiny bit of Wolfspider and Chatterbug cause I see all of it. But it also means I see the ships I don't want to think about!

I men what was I supposed to think when Jack said “We can live this. Together. Every waking second…”?

Gay

Parian interlude thoughts:

And speaking of gay!

Fucking Flechette just full blown "Fuck all of this I want you to tell me what to do for the rest of my life!"

Full U-Haul lesbian.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

This is Parian's new costume having an effect.

Just so gay. I love it.

Also Bitch just so fucking ready to break Skitter out. So fucking gay.

And the incredible loyalty, which is gonna hurt if she ends up feeling betrayed by Skitter.

Still gay though.

Tattletale, basically without powers, just completely giving Accord the "fuck off, we're in charge" was amazing. All she had to do was promise to consider his binders and he was all in. This poor man just wants somebody to read his ideas! He's like a aspiring screenwriter just begging people to read his script.

[asukaskerian]

Monthly wordcount - december

TOTAL: 3 284 mnghghsgbhhgbs.

POSTED: nothin!

IN PROGRESS -cherry wine (632 words, mostly edits) -grimmichi psychic wolves chapter 6.5 (428 words) -grimmich bloodsport (337 words) -grimmichinelhime suburban ot4 chapter 20-21 (1 657 words) -svsss cosplay fic chapter 2 (230 words, purely edits annnnnd it looks like i'mgonna need to restructure and rewrite the whole chapter anyway, so. hate.)

Also posted: -In This Economy chapter 4, the ichigo/orihime/grimmjow/nelliel suburban ot4.

i've noodled and edited and nothing else this month. ugh. i think i should start tracking what i do AROUND writing, such as coming up with OCs and settings and plotting future things out...not sure how but otherwise i just feel like nothing happened at all. it's just too hard to stay on task witout a copilot. bleh. miss having a beta.

cherry wine -- There was a big empty gap in the Fuma's defense, and even without being able to feel the chakra coming from it, Izuna had to be aware it was a trap, because he wasn't taking it.

"Coming out to play, Uchiha-sama?" someone called out cheerily. Tobirama couldn't see enough detail from there, but--

"Hozuki Gengetsu," he whispered. "Water country. Powerful."

"That young lout, huh," Madara commented quietly; and then, louder, "One must do their part to entertain the children from time to time, I'm told."

There was a small hiccup in Gengetsu's chakra. Touché. "He didn't like that," he breathed. The visual cue would not be there with that illusion in place, but once Madara was aware of a weakness he would hammer at it just fine on his own.

-- bleach psychic wolves chapter 6.5 -- "Ah... Some news. Rukia-chan found Ichigo's phone."

"From your face, that isn't good news, Ukitake-san!"

"Well. It's more like she found part of his phone. In a ditch along the road. That, hm."

"Proves his little friend is somewhat experienced at avoiding being tracked?"

"Hm."

Isshin smiled, though it felt bitter. He'd made all his children learn their home phone number by heart, but with how little they needed to actively remember it with their cell phones to do it for them, he couldn't be sure the memory would have stayed. 

Not that it would be safe to call the house, anyway. The call could be too easily traced. 

"Better that we don't learn it while Gin is hosted in your garage, at any rate," Ukitake commented with a commiserating half-smile. "With our luck Shinso is eavesdropping."

"Hell, are you even sure he's still here?" He supposed the one of Ukitake's wolves who had stayed out there to watch would have told him if he'd sneaked away, but who knew...

"I can confirm he is!" said a voice Isshin didn't recognize, making him tense up. "That shiner's going to be glorious."

The man who leaned in was intensely, artificially blond, and his grin fatuous enough to give Urahara punchable-face envy. His eyes were sharp while taking in Isshin, though. Measuring.

-- bloodsport --

Ichigo was exhausted of thinking about it. "Look, everybody is Quincy. Except the bastards, who are somewhat Quincy. Better than not-Quincy in a way, but still gross, because if you meet one you have to think about some perfectly acceptable pure blood lowering themselves to something kinky and gross that sadly had consequences they can't take to their grave like a proper secret, because other people aren't people, it's bullshit all the way down."

"Hoo. Thought your dad wasn't."

"Mmyeah no, he's not." Ichigo crossed his arms, jaw clenching and releasing. Charlotte still looked more entertained than personally attacked. "I mean, I probably got the racism worse because my mom's, like, related to that decrepit son of a bitch on the throne in a more recent way than most people. Probably Quincies who aren't attached to a noble house have their assholes a bit less clenched about it."

Askin laugh-coughed into his fist. "Aheh... Some of them!"

"Anyway. Noble houses aren't castes, they're just families whose ancestors had enough money they could buy powerful brides and make somewhat stronger children. Then they get into fancy schools and use their connections to get money-making jobs and boss everybody around, and also the oldest child of some families gets to sit on some council the emperor at least pretends to listen to. It's not... I don't know if it works the same as a caste."

"Huh. Perhaps not quite," Charlotte commented thoughtfully, and then Ichigo never got to find out if she had any more ideas to share because a shockwave exploded through the playing field.

-- suburban ot4 --

"I never believed it deep down, when my friend -- when they had to show up late at night or give up their weekends, and they'd say it made them happy to help and I didn't need to pay them back. That it made them feel special to be the ones I asked. To be -- trusted--"

Uuugh... Nelliel wipes her face with the heel of her hand, but it's no use because a fresh wave of tears drips down immediately. 

 "It felt so warm," Orihime whispers, and Nel drags her into her arms, twisting as much as she can at the waist and dragging her close, tucking Hime's face into her neck. Ah, fuck, she can't, she can't stay angry, she can't stay hurt, when was the last time somebody wanted to be good to her so much? When was the last time she wasn't the one giving her time, her advice, her support, sharing her cheap dinners and finding obscure online resources and nosing into conflicts nobody thanked her for fixing--

Nnoitra showed back up and everybody washed their hands off her. 

'Sorry, we're not getting involved in that,' like she hadn't been the one to fix up Menoly's resume or help Starrk figure out how to get custody of Lilynette. Like she'd never walked into the center of howling internal fights and brokered peace across fields of pocket knives and bloodied broken bottles.

Orihime's arms come up around her, hesitant, then her fists clench on Nel's shirt against her shoulder blades. Close, close and then closer, clinging right back, and Nelliel wants to kiss her face, kiss the tears away and then her mouth, wants to topple the two of them backwards so she can wind a leg around Hime's legs, coil them together head to toes. 

Grimmjow will laugh so hard when she tells him she basically pavloved herself into expecting makeup sex in such a situation. 

[suzannahnatters]

OKAY I finished Love Like the Galaxy today so here are my live reaccs to eps 28-42 (originally posted on Bluesky). Putting them under a cut because they run long!!!

oh man this scene!!! I've seen the same kind of scene play out so often with all the apologising done by the fml and none by the mml…but in this one she tells him her attitude towards him will depend on HIS future actions, and then HE GIVES HER A SNACK our boy is Doing the Work I am proud of him

and now: he will quietly support and encourage her while she seeks to deal with her social enemies in her own way??? I LOVE IT SO MUCH ?? exquisite

we get a look at poor Wang Ling's family and this really could be Overbearing Asian Mothers: The Historical Drama

I can sympathise with NN and Murder General because if I too had someone share a forehead kiss with me I would not be able to sleep all night either

deeply thrilled that NN now gets to do the Dramatic Swooping In To Save Someone - and oh look she's got a maternal figure who's actually kind and loving to her now :')

Oh my, I love how every time he tries to tell her not to get involved in something bc of deep waters, she makes the point that she really needs to do the thing, and he LISTENS. Every time he says "this is for your own good" she claps back with why it's better for her to know & be involved.

This is the platonic ideal of cdramas for me

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to find Consort Yue to be awesome or intolerable but she's leaning intolerable for me with this public haranguing of all her children (and some of other people's). Glad NN bagged the Empress as her etiquette mentor

Well I didn't expect the money counterfeiting subplot to peak so early but that's terrific, I can do without coinage plots lol

Truly puzzled as to what the show means by all this imperial family drama. The parents seem just as toxic as NN's parents but we're supposed to think it's okay because a) their children had every advantage and some of them still wound up rotten at heart? and b) the town children aren't just committing crimes against family - they're crimes against the empire? I'm afraid the parallels ring a bit hollow to me because I truly think the Emperor and Consort Yue are also terrible parents

Interestingly, Murder General says the Emperor will not treat the counterfeiting as harshly as the law provides "because of fairness". We saw Bad Mum also using "fairness" as an excuse to deny NN things that would benefit her as compared to her cousin. Again, wondering what the parallels are saying.

Bad mum is now having sad violins because NN is finally learning that being a parent is hard…but she's learning from the Empress lol the only thing I have to say to that is SUFFER, MA'AM

NN is now reassuring the Empress that parents who patiently teach rather than criticise their children are the best, & she's been commending the crown Prince for being gentle & compassionate rather than a cold politician, so I'm beginning to wonder if there's a muted critique of the imperial family

This Tiger Tally thing is totally going to be stolen within the next two episodes isn't it

Thanks a lot murder general

ooohh she lied to him and he's big mad about it

"here are all the reasons why your actions have made things worse for me and the people you care about" maybe you should have told her those things first, GENIUS

AHAHAHAHAHAHA now she's saying that exact thing herself I LOVE THIS SHOW

annnnnd the Tiger Tally is gone and it's time for Murder General, Boy Detective! to save the - wait, what is Niao Niao doing here

*ancient Chinese man falls in love with woman for independent spirit and quick wits, horrified when she insists upon using them*

did she,,,did she forge the Tiger Tally lol

Murder general realises he needs to let NN do all the things he fell in love with her for. Congrats Niao Niao you've levelled up and unlocked Tragic And Highly Disturbing Family Reunion

wheeee NN says being filial is only possible if the parents earn it by conducting themselves well if I was murder general I would also be kissing her at this point

pov: you're sitting at your betrothal feast and someone comes in with a message from your absent beloved: "whatever happens next, don't be flustered. shout and scream however you feel is appropriate" the hEcK Zisheng

one of the things that absolutely staggers me about Smug Scholar is that HE doesn't want to get married, least of all to NN, he just wants to make sure nobody else can marry her either

ahhh first Qiqi and Bad Mum are defending her now - and then the Empress turns up? I'm sure murder general had something to do with the Empress, but I love that he's now helping NN solve problems in her own way

all the elders are squabbling and our leads are just chilling affectionately in the background it's hilarious

I mean after they stole the spotlight at Snacks' betrothal feast it's probably fair

Oh no NN is now the Empress' adopted perfect daughter who gets all the attention…and Fifth Princess is NOT happy. More parallels!

"tonight, I'll teach you how to recognise acupoints" is that what they're calling it these days

Murder general is highly trained in the Romance Novel Cover Clinch school of self defence

"from now on, my Gate of Life will be yours" V U L N E R A B I L I T Y

NN is a darling who is determined to protect her Empress' favourite son but girlfriend,,, you do realise you can't babysit this disaster couple through ruling an entire empire don't you

ahahahahaha he's doing the "what am I going to do if you get hurt" thing and she's not having a bar of it

this show just speedrunning all my least favourite tropes with a heroine who Won't Be Flim Flammed and it's BEAUTIFUL

it is time for murder general to go a little unhinged, as a treat drinking tea while listening to the shrieks of his enemies, as you do

I am loving so much, so very much, about this show…but I'm finding the humiliation of the antagonists to be a little too thorough and mean-spirited to enjoy, even tho I can see how it is intended to fit in with the themes of fighting for yourself.

Where does the line between justice and vindictiveness lie, especially in a social setting with injustice hard-baked in? One of the principles of justice (at least in the west) is that it must be proportionate to the crime. But the humiliation dealt out in this show often feels excessive to me.

ep38: every single last one of these people is absolutely bonkers insane, except the Empress

I laughed way harder than I should. I love that NN told two different people to shut up in the emperor's presence. I love that NN has this moment of piercing identification with murder general when she sees him being beaten the way she was. I think the emperor is rubbish, & I think the show knows it

He promises NN that he won't ever lie to her and I have every expectation that this promise will be broken, just like every other cdrama hero breaks that promise

except that I also trust NN to make sure he doesn't get away with it, which is what makes this drama so MUCH fun

murder mystery break!!!! there's all sorts of interesting thematic stuff going on here about communal/family responsibility to educate and socialise children, as well as the difference in appropriate behaviour in the private vs public spheres. But it's fun that our leads are doing it together.

I could not ask for a better Exasperated Watson to NN's Sherlock Holmes than Smug Scholar, whom she now diagnoses with Extreme Sour Grapes in two seconds flat

NN telling the murderer that murder general will naturally let him go in return for NN's safe return…she sure is a tricky one

Of course she had a knife, she's not an IDIOT, Zisheng

Emperor: out of consideration of your family's reduced circumstances I will not be executing you for your part in the cataclysm that left murder general an orphan

murder general: truly epic side eye

all of them are definitely dead

I love murder general because he can turn anything as simple as buying sweets for his fiancée into a production of SPARTACUS

Our girl is dressed as a boy, sneaking around the army camp looking for murder general. Murder General's personal army of beefy warriors is sneaking around the camp trying not to catch Niao Niao while dropping loud hints about where to find his tent. Cdramas, man.

"from now on, you can leave the needlework to me" ling buyi is officially the man of my dreams

well, just as the military expedition around eps 11-12 signalled the end of the first act, so this new expedition feels like it signals the start of the final act. NN and her murder puppy have reached such a situation of love and trust that I can feel the pin approaching the balloon.

he's about to catch peng kun and find out some things, isn't he??? murder party revenge WHEN

[theproperweirdo]

Okay, quest is finished! Sadly no graveborn boy but was honestly a pretty fun quest. Talene is the main character so it was fun finally getting to know her a bit.

Overall could have been significantly worse. There wasn’t any mention of her past, so there’s no way to know if it lines up with Arena or not. Her characterization wasn’t too bad and from what I can tell was consistent to Arena.

TLDR for the quest:

(spoilers, obviously)

Dolly informs you Talene had been to the mythical house looking for you. After tracking down Talene in Golden Wheatshire you learn she is experiencing amnesia and only remembers her name. Valen arrives and informs you something incredibly strange has happened in Holistone. Dura’s statue is missing. after investigating a bit you discover traces of hypogean magic not just where the statue had been, but on Talene herself. Someone from the Sun temple arrives to inform general Hogan that the Dura statue has been found, magically transported in front of the Sun temple

Now here’s the weird part: there’s two statues

More dialogue later you determine that one must be a duplicate created by hypogean magic. Talene, using religious flamethrower magic can cleanse the dark magic while leaving the proper statue in tact. Valen helps cart the true statue back to holistone and invites you to have dinner with him and hogan to celebrate. Talene heads out to check on nearby villages and promises to meet you for dinner. (Again) these dinner plans are interrupted by Bryon sending a message that something odd is happening in Ivoryshade. Talene arrives and the party sets out to the Dark forest.

The deer statue has also been duplicated

Of course just flamethrowering a major religious symbol gives Lyca some anxiety so Talene, sensing nearby hypogean magic runs off to give chase and there’s a quick battle with some minions as the hypogean escapes. Talene splits off from the group again. After returning to Ivoryshade and talking to townsfolk, you discover conflicting stories. One person they saw Talene traveling north, another says south. You continue on and meet up Talene, where she states she just arrived in the dark forest and had not seen you since Holistone.

Plot twist: Talene was also duplicated, the spell also being the one that caused the initial amnesia. The Talenes flamethrower each other until the fake is destroyed. Now with her memory back intact Talene informs you she had been chasing down a powerful Hypogean when she was struck in battle and duplicated. The hypogean is obsessed with symmetry and has a fascination with religious objects, which is why he’s been doubling up everything, including her. After returning to Ivoryshade again the group sets an asymmetrical trap to lure Reiner out and then you duke it out of course. Reiner uses his spatial magic to escape while Talene thanks you for assisting her.

Annnnnd that’s it! You get a free ten pull and a pat on the back

Overall solid 7/10 for a story quest

I see I see! Thank you for the question synopsis, super appreciated!! ♪(´ε｀ )

So she was hunting down Reinier, but he doesn’t have any personal connection to Talene. Makes sense! I’m assuming we don’t really get into the nitty gritty of Talene’s own backstory and what not, but seeing how this quest was a lot of chasing and solving, I’m hoping they’ve got more stashed away for later.

On a different note, did Valen really drag the Dura statue back to Holistone from the sun temple?? Deadass???? 😭😭😭 also I’m happy to see Merlin back in the Dark forest it’s cute ❤️

Not a very lore related quest, but still clarifies some questions we had initially. Thanks again dude!! 🙏🙏

[lingering-in-the-lost]

she doesn't want to think about it, let alone talk about it...it only makes het depressed and angry now...and that just makes her upset.

Annnnnd shes upset now. Lovely. In an attempt to make her more comfortable, you’ve made her worse. Way to go Tai.

He welcomes Shiver’s warmth though looks off from the two of them, occasionally glancing back out through the crack in the door and looking at the scenery and sighing

God he had never felt even more like an odd man out right now….

[infernal-general]

UNO REVERSE

Ship bingo time >:)

Valentino x Rozy

Vy x Rozy

Stella x Rozy

Hysteria x Cindy

Leviathan x Raia

Alastor x Raia

Jack Sparrow x Captain Rozy

Then for some canon ships

VVV Polycule

Lute x Vaggie

Annnnnd Alastor x Lucifer lol

Ship bingo meme

Oh god here we go

Valentino x Rozy

It's in the top 3 most complex relationships I've EVER written. I miss the times when it was a crackship instead italian gesturing THIS

Vy x Rozy

It's so precious, they both have tremendous amount of traumas shoved into the closet, trying to keep it together. It has a lot of potential to grow & be like how normal human relationships are despite all the supernatural fuckery. Despite everything, it's realistic.

Stella x Duchess!Rozy

This isn't a crackship but two women of royalty finding each other after they surpassed every expectations, broke every gender rules and sworn off men at some point. 👌 excellent.

@/phoenixborn

Hysteria x Cindy

Damaged young women friends with benefits while they are slowly realizing how fucked up partners they had/have? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. It's complicated for sure but not toxic ; more like bittersweet.

@/lightningdamned

Leviathan x Raia

Ah, an another example of yah what the fuck-. So toxic, so tangled because of her unbreakable pride, and I'm surprised that I ended up genuinely shipping this. Yeah, potential to get EVEN worse or better, and I genuinely have no idea where it will land.

Alastor x Raia

Well. Considering she's a fucking electricity demon, that makes it hilarious. The fact that she is up to no good and has almost all of his traits only she's even more terrifying has potential for being the backstab of the century. Yes I'm surprised I ship this, especially knowing Raia.

@/phoenixduelist

Sparrow & Phoenix

I'm so 🥺🥹💖💓💗💝💘❤️‍🔥❤️💞💕🩷🩵 about them. In the Top 3 most wholesome ships I've ever written. Hoist the fucking colors. 🏴‍☠️🇭🇺

VVV polycule

Meanwhile I don't harbor such extreme opinions, I do enjoy it and mostly because of you. They indeed should be a canon polycule, while I LOVE how Velvette's character was handled in the show, it would make sense for all three of them to be in a relationship. Iiiiiii did say I don't see it working out, in the long term. They are all different people with not so mild temperament. Something, sometime is bound to happen.

Lute X Vaggie

...never thought I would put a ship in the notp category. It's just, the eye was a bit too much. I genuinely can't see them having any positivity in their relationship after Vaggie had fallen, even if she didn't meet Charlie. In the time when both of them were exorcists? That can work, for a while.

Alastor x Lucifer

....congrats you found my secret guilty pleasure ship.

[lebenspurpur]

hi! i’m not sure if you’ve already done this or if it’d make you uncomfortable, but could i please possibly request the slashers with their s/o on their period? like how they’d act about it or what they’d do for their s/o? annnnnd maybe some nsfw if you’re okay with it? thank you so much, make sure you’re not overworking yourself and you’re taking care! ❤️

Thank you! You take care as well, get some water, a snack, grab a blanket and enjoy :)

Slashers with their s/o on their period:

Warnings: undetailed NSFW, blood duh, not proofread oof (my god I never do, do I?)

Michael Myers

SFW

Michael doesn't give a shit. This is your problem, not his.

If you're really in pain during that time of the month, he'll get more aware.

He surprisingly doesn't want you to feel pain, doesn't matter because of what.

Now he wants to stop the pain but he doesn't know how. You have to initiate any kind of physical contact.

After you show him how he might heat up a hot water bottle every now and then and worldlessly place it on your stomach.

If he's feeling soft, he'll place his big, warm hands on your belly when he hugs from behind.

He really tries to make you feel better though if you don't feel any pain, he doesn't see any reason to.

NSFW

Michael adores period sex. It adds to his natural desire for blood. In a way, it gets him hornier than normal sex.

He's probably the most unafraid slasher too. Michael loves your blood, no matter where it comes from.

Michael's pretty dangerous when it comes to sex though, so if you're in pain tell him, because he won't stop while you're at it.

He loves to go down on you. That might be disgusting to some, but to him, the taste of your blood mixed with your juices is the best thing on earth. And imagine him glancing up to you, eyes heavily lidded and chin covered in the red substance.

Vincent Sinclair

SFW

Vincent is the absolute sweetest when it comes to your special time of the month.

He knows exactly when it is since he wrote it in his calendar and on the day you start, he'll have pads or tampons ready for you.

Vincent gets Lester to go buy you snacks and he forces Bo to stop being annoying. At the end that's useless anyway, because the second Bo hears the words period, he's gone.

Vince knows how much your hormones can fuck up your emotions so he's always there to provide comfort. If you snap at him, he might feel a bit thrown off but he'll forgive you.

Need a hug? Just tell him. Vincent will be even more tender than he usually is, so careful as not to hurt you.

NSFW

Vincent isn't disgusted by period blood but he's concerned.

That being said he's skeptical about period sex because he doesn't want to cause even more pain than you're already in.

However, he doesn't say no to fingering or going down on you.

He's fine with only giving and not receiving pleasure for the time of your period. Though he'll be relieved when you offer to repay him.

If you insist on real sex, he'll do it for you but he's so much more tender and sweet and careful. Your pleasure is the only thing important to him, especially on your period.

Bo Sinclair

SFW

I am sorry but Bo flees the second he hears period.

When he thinks about it, the only things he remembers are mood swings, no sex, and blood.

Yeah, he's not the most considerate.

It takes a while to make him stay and help you through this time. Maybe after a few years of an ongoing relationship, he'll be willing to try.

The only thing he will do if you ask him to is a message.

NSFW

Bo is absolutely against sex during your period. He finds it absolutely disgusting.

However, Bo is horny and he has a high sex drive.

At the end of it, he might fuck you. After all, the blood usually eases up during the end and the other symptoms do so as well.

Sex while you're actively bleeding though? Never.

Lester Sinclair

SFW

Lester doesn't know a whole lot about periods. His mom died before she could teach him and, unlike his brother Vincent, he doesn't know anything about the human anatomy.

However, that doesn't mean he won't try to help you.

He gets advice from Bo, which he proceeds to ignore because Bo just tells him to leave. Vincent however gives him a clear explanation of how your body works and so he figures out how to help you.

Lester will make sure you're warm, with wrapped blankets around you and hot water bottles on your tummy.

Snacks will always be available and Lester will even feed you if you ask him.

Cuddles are a must. He'll gladly wrap his arms around you, Jonesy lying next to you, cuddled up next to your bodies.

NSFW

At first, he doesn't even understand that things could be different during your period.

Then it hits him that the pain might make it uncomfortable for you.

Lester is totally down to have sex as long as you're fine with it.

If not, he'll be happy to pleasure himself for the time of your period.

Baby Firefly

SFW

Baby knows how shit periods can be. She'll be so understanding and considerate, trying to be the best girlfriend she can be.

Whatever it is you wish, Baby will get it for you.

As a reward, she demands the same though.

If she's on her period, she wants you to show the same consideration she showed you.

If Otis is annoying you, she'll also gladly get him to shut up.

NSFW

Baby doesn't have a problem with period sex, after all, she has quite the experience with blood.

However, she knows how difficult it can be to be horny and in pain during your period.

She'll gladly not receive any pleasure and only go down on you if it makes you feel good.

Otis Driftwood

SFW

He doesn't know shit about periods.

Whenever Baby had her time of the month, he kind of just.. didn't care.

I can see him get high and then have a breakdown because he doesn't know why you're bleeding or how to stop it.

Even if you explain it to him, he won't get it.

He'll give you gifts because he's unsure of what else to do.

NSFW

He... has way too much experience with kinky things to be disgusted by period sex.

As I said, if he's high, the blood could trigger a panic attack.

He won't do oral though, that's not his thing.

Otis doesn't care if you feel pain, he's a sadist. Unless it's really bad, he doesn't even acknowledge it.

Billy Loomis

SFW

He doesn't know a lot about it, but he tries his best.

If you need help in any way, he'll be there for you.

Billy will whine if you make him buy pads. He'll do so anyway because he's a simp.

His advice comes from his male friends, so he'll do the classics, buy chocolates and flowers, and provide many cuddles.

If you snap at him, he'll sulk for a bit.

NSFW

He immediately thought period meant no sex. You'll have to initiate it if you're interested.

He'll push you away at first, confusedly asking about your period.

Billy isn't the biggest fan of period sex. He just doesn't quite like the idea.

His sex drive is too high to say no, so he'll fuck you anyway but he prefers it when you're not bleeding.

Stu Macher

SFW

He will be pretty clingy, trying to be the sweet boyfriend™.

He might forget about your pain over how much of a great boyfriend he is.

Stu will come back to reality when you snap at him and then he suddenly understands that periods aren't cute and wholesome at all.

He learns from that experience.

He's kind of scared now, you just don't know if it's because you're in pain or because you could snap at him again.

Stu is still supportive, he's just way more distant during that time than he used to.

NSFW

Stu also didn't even think about sex during your period.

The first time he gets horny during your period it suddenly hits him. He can't just go and ask you, can he?

It'll take him a while to openly talk about the subject.

He isn't really disgusted by your blood, he just never considered it?!

Stu prefers normal sex over period sex, that way he has less to think about.

Brahms Heelshire

SFW

His mom never told him anything about periods.

He didn't even know they exist.

The first time he sees you bleed he nearly faints from worry.

Brahms needs a lot of explaining to fully understand why your body acts the way it does.

After that, he'll be very timid but supportive with his help.

Cuddles are a daily activity anyway but now he'll be more careful, tenderly caressing your tummy as he snuggles against your skin.

He might even do a few of the chores.

Pro tip: If you act like you're actually dying from how painful it is, he'll be way more compliant.

NSFW

Sex is one of the first things he worries about, how could it not be.

He's kind of shy about the whole topic so the subject will only come up when he's super horny.

Brahms won't fuck you during this time, he'd probably forget about the blood and then panic when he spots it on his dick.

Oral is a must since Brahms' sex drive is extremely high.

In the beginning, he's against giving oral, but he's too aroused to care anymore after a while.

Thomas Hewitt

SFW

Being the queen she is, Luda already taught him a whole lot about female anatomy and periods.

The second he notices your bleeding, he's fully committed to showing all his support.

Thomas is there for you, doesn't matter what you need.

He's tough Y/N, neither your high emotionality nor blood can hurt him.

Tommy is so tender and caring, even more than he usually is.

He is the best slasher out there to care for you during your period.

NSFW

It takes him a lot of convincing to get him to have sex with you during your period.

He's not disgusted, after all, he's been through worse. He just doesn't want you to be in pain.

You need to get him really, really riled up to get him to give in to his urges instead of ignoring them.

His sexual urges feel like a burden to him, especially during your period.

He needs a lot of time and love to understand that it's just natural and nothing to be ashamed of.

Josef

SFW

Uh oh.

Feminist Josef™ shows up.

All women are queens and for the time being, he's going to treat you like one.

Home-cooked meals, warm hugs and he'll even wash your hair!

Josef is also really interested in the anatomy of your body and why and how this whole process happens.

I can see him staring at a tampon with a child-like curiosity in his eyes.

"It just... gets bigger when it's inside?! Wow..."

NSFW

He isn't concerned about sex, his sex drive is pretty low.

If you really want it, he's going to give in but he'll be extra careful.

Josef isn't disgusted by blood, he's mature enough to see it as a normal fluid your body produces.

It kind of boosts his ego, that you want him even during this time of the month.

Amanda Young

SFW

Naw, Y/N, she understands immediately.

She's a pretty busy woman but whenever she has time, her support and help are yours.

Sometimes she'll drop little gifts at your door while you're sleeping, having just come home from work.

If she has time, she'll be unnaturally clingy, cuddling up to you way more than usual.

Her temper does clash with your emotionality sometimes but she'll calm down quickly and apologize.

NSFW

She's fine with no sexual contact for the time of your period.

Amanda is not disgusted by period blood, she just knows how uncomfortable your period can get.

Some soft sex is always in if you want it as well.

She won't do very rough or kinky stuff during this time, you deserve to feel loved, supported, and comfortable.

[crazy56u]

Currently batting two for two in the “Have to watch the new episode after the fact due to work” category, yay for me!

We open in on a pregnant woman in a parking lot.

Ben legitimately almost had a panic attack when face with having to deliver a baby.

The quickest, cleanest baby delivery.

Now if only the rest of the Leap was this easy.

And Addison decided to just rip the bandaid off and say the episode’s title.

If only Ben leap into the grunge scene instead of the ER scene…

I don’t know how to feel about the asshole she’s talking to being a Stephen…

Dr. Turk. …so, basically, this is Scrubs.

“Why are you here past your shift?” “I delivered a baby! :D” “Yeah, get off the high horse, pal…”

“You can’t save everyone.” That moment they telegraph the moral three minutes in.

And as Ben learns he has to save multiple lives, the sound department decides to crank the knockoff Creed!

Nurse Carolina, not to be confused with Nurse Nebraska.

Thank god for that white coat, otherwise Ben would be looking shifty right now.

Annnnnd they ain’t in the system yet, so in about 10… 9… 8…

“Code trauma.” Ding!

What if those two ambulances did a head-on collision just then?

Okay, so question: Why didn’t they have Ben leap in to stop the train crash?

“If they can walk, they can wait. If they are currently standing, fuck ‘em!”

Ben was about to black out then and there.

“Ziggy says there’s a 100% chance all three were on that train!” Tell Ziggy “No shit.” for me.

Okay, not for nothing, but if they said she had shrapnel in her fucking heart, I don’t have high hopes for her…

Watch as Nurse Carolina decides to brush off the fact that the resident, from her perspective, predicted three of the train victims prior to them arriving.

…is Dr. Harper’s first name “Stephen”, by chance?

In the 90s, hospitals were just playgrounds for mad science experiments, I guess…

Ah, so this hospital sucks, glad to know!

Addison, so what if they “didn’t know” Respiratrex was dangerous. People didn’t know Thalidomide was dangerous in the 50s, and look what happened there!

50/50 odds on her survival, glad to know God’s about to flip a coin in this bitch.

Ben’s logic: “Fuck it, I’m a better doctor than Harper, and I’m a time traveler, fuck his paper!”

“If Dr. Harper finds out you changed his script, he’ll Nike your career!” “Dr. Turk, you won’t understand this saying for a couple decades, but ‘YOLO’.”

[Okay, legit, Peacock crashed after I did that.]

…I think she forgot the actual line, and just ad-libbed that “Bold”…

Meanwhile, in 2023, everything is somehow worse!

I still stick to my theory that they locked Janis in a broom closet last week, her being in the interrogation room changes nothing.

I love how Magic is just playing the Sam card right out of the gate, he is done with her shit.

Okay, I half expected Janis to immediately make a break for it once the cuffs came off.

“I wanna talk to Ben, and I don’t care if he’s currently doing hospital resident train crash victim shit.”

“Hey, you, I have a working memory, did you predict there was a train crash?”

It is in my strongest belief that the second Carolina learns of the third victim, she is going to punch Ben in the arm.

Okay, cool, so the episode’s depressing depressing, got it.

Being told you have a concussion is the shittiest way to learn you have a tumor, goddamn…

And Eli just wants to die, okay, what a fun episode to enjoy immediately after a long night of work, yay me…

Oh! Goody! He’s Sandra’s dad!

It feels weird having barely missed the pager era…

“Okay, look, I’ll keep your tumor a secret, you fucking stay put.”

[I just paused. Why are they not showing the right half of Louis’s head?]

[OH FUCK]

“Hey, audience? Tell me? Do I got something on my face?”

Ben must engage in casual chit chat, or Louis will fucking die.

Ben, this is the worst time to forget you are supposed to be a woman…

Okay, cool, one out of three so far…

And so Janis and Jenn get crunk.

About fucking time we remember the cowboy existed…

Again, why didn’t we have Ben try and stop the crash?

Why does it look like Ben is trying to invent Wikipedia?

“Got a patient with a brain tumor?” “Yep, and it ain’t your dad, so don’t worry a thing about it.”

“Man, I sure do have a patient with a break tumor, so, hey, on an unrelated note, wanna talk about your dad?”

So, in other words, Eli is the Saul Goodman of Quantum Leap.

MORAL OF THE STORY: If you suck at being a dad, you will create doctors.

Okay, in another life time, Ben is the guy who does the quick side effect reading during medicine commercials.

“Look, I know this drug has bad side effects, but the FDA helped me pay off my car, so I say you’re wrong.”

“Look, I know I can’t prove how I know she has an undiagnosed medical condition, but fuck off.”

I love how Dr. Harper thinks he’s the hero in this story.

Okay, at this point, I hope Dr. Harper slips on a banana peel and falls on his ass.

And there’s the rub: In order to stop the use of a shit drug, a daughter must make amends with her dying father.

“Look, I know I said I’d stay, but fuck it, I’m out.” “Eli, if you leave, the FDA will win!”

I really want to see the “Better Call Saul”-style spin off involving Eli…

“Maybe this cancer is the way the universe wants my story to end.” “Look, I already changed one script today, don’t you worry…”

[Okay, I was joking earlier, Ben legitimately practically told Eli “if you leave, the FDA will win”…]

…and now we have a character being declared brain dead… … …okay, I know that coincidences exist, and I am reading too much into this, but how in the fuck is this the second Quantum Leap story this month I have experienced involving this shit?

Man, Ben, this week just sucks for you…

BOY DO I LOVE HOW LIGHT HEARTED THIS EPISODE IS BEING RIGHT NOW, BOY OH BOY

“Hey, good news, the depressing scene is over!”

Episode, why are you insistent in turning the screws on Ben right now?

Okay, it’s defibrillating time.

Why am I now hearing “How To Save A Life” in the back of my head?

And speaking of depressions going back to baseline!

“Hey, are you psychic, tell me now!” “So, about your dad’s tumor-”

“So, what do you think?” “Man, Jenn, I dunno, this episode’s fucking depressing…” “Magic, I was talking about Janis.”

Is the endgame of Janis’s plot arc just hiring her onto Quantum Leap?

Wait, was Ian even in the episode yet?

Also, calling it now, the dead wife’s gonna be the heart donor.

“FUCK these papers!”

CALLED IT

I choose to believe that this is Ben himself admitting he should’ve been allowed to prevent the train crash.

Now watch as Dr. Harper tries to fuck up the heart transplant…

CALLED IT.

Is Ben about to fist fight Dr. Harper, please god say he is…

“Look, I’m still processing my dad has a tumor-” “TOO BAD, DR. HARPER IS ABOUT TO KILL KIMBERLY”

“FUCK THESE CROWDED HALLWAYS!”

WHAT THE FUCK, BEN?! “Look, if you don’t hear us out about the murder drug, THE IV BAG GETS IT!”

Just fucking saying, Sam Beckett never fucking held a person’s life hostage in order to save the day, so that’s how you know Ben has bigger stones.

Ben got so pissed off with the sexism, he forgot the plot.

“Look, if she had that stupid disease, we’d know by now!” “(practically slaps him in the face with the chart) Bet.”

“…okay, fine, fuck it, use the other drug, I give. Now, just let the IV Bag go.”

Honestly, Ben should’ve been allowed to keep the scalpel, he earned it.

What if Eli already left?

I love how Ben didn’t leap yet, so now he’s chilling in an ambulance.

“What if all of this was for nothing, and I let you down?” Ben, the show got renewed, you’re fine.

Also, calling it now, the situation with Addison is revealed in the season finale.

“Stop being afraid.” “Oh, okay. (leaps)”

“Okay, look, I just got done with helping Ben stop the FDA, so this better be good.”

“Look, I ain’t happy with this situation either, Addison, but that doesn’t mean I have to put up with this shit.”

“Tell Ben to shut up, or the Secret Leapers will get us all. Yes, I know this sounds like conspiracy theory bullshit, but I am being legit.”

And now Ben is in the elevator from Speed, I already saw the promo, I know the punchline.

…is Ben in fucking Chernobyl?

So, just to reiterate: Ben defeated the FDA by holding an IV bag hostage, and Janis is a borderline conspiracy theorist.

It is a legitimate crime we have to wait three weeks for the next episode…

[xoxo-teddybear]

FOR TILL COLLEGE - Bakugou Katsuki

BAKUGOU’S MASTERLIST

If y’all couldn’t tell from the title, I’ve been watching iCarly A LOT recently and one of my favorite episodes is when Carly kisses Bad Boy Griffon and Spencer catches it

So imagine Bakugou and Y/N’s daughter, Katsumi, doesn’t get along at all with some ex-delinquent bad boy who is tryna be good. This bad boy still has his bad boy ways and so Bakugou took him under his wing bc this boy reminded him of his younger self...except worse for obvious reasons.

Y/N is out doing pro hero patrols and Bakugou gets back early to find Katsumi and Bad Boy smooching on the couch

SCENARIO

Bakugou walked through the door expecting to find his little mentee working on the project he left for him to do in his home. What he didn’t expect was for his daughter to be making out with this ex-delinquent on their family couch.

“Whaaa-HUHHHHHHH?!?!??” Bakugou continuously screames as the two separate, Bad Boy remains calm on the couch and Katsumi stands up in shock. Bakugou gestures to the whole scene with his hands as he finally stops screaming.

*Time Skip to like 5 minutes later*

“Let’s just recap! I catch you robbing a store, I give you a second chance and decide to not have you arrested, I take you in to mentor you in the ways of hero work, and you pay me back by chewing on my daughter’s face?!” Bakugou says as he finished pacing in the living room as Bad Boy and Katsumi sit on the couch away from each other .

“We were kissing,” Bad Boy says.

“GUILTY!” Bakugou screames in Bad Boy’s face but then Katsumi spoke up.

“I KISSED HIM FIRST!” Katsumi explained. Bakugou just looked at her in shock before opening his mouth to speak but then closing it again. He then turned to Bad Boy and spoke.

“Out!” He said and began to drag bad boy’s arm to the door and kick him out. On the way there, the two teens began complaining.

“I will talk to you later!” Bakugou says to the ex-delinquent but when bad boy makes it to the door he speaks to Katsumi again.

“I will call you,” bad boy says.

“Kay!” Katsumi joyously replies.

“You’ll call no one! .....Ever!” Bakugou says to bad boy as he steps back into the house. Bakugou runs to the kitchen to grab the first thing he sees, an apple, and runs back out to throw it towards bad boy hitting him on the head. “Yes!” He exclaimed and ran back inside.

Bakugou rubs his temples and huffs out a frustrated sigh before he spoke to his teen daughter.

“I don’t under- how did- ....WHEN I LEFT HERE, you hated him. How did you go from hate to......mwuahhhhhh,” Bakugou said and then stuck his tongue out all over his face to over-exaggerate the kiss as he made out with the air to mock his daughter.

“Well! I was trying to study but *bad boy* kept turning up music so I came down here to yell at him, I called him obnoxious and he said I needed to get a sense of humor, so I said ‘oh really?’ Then while I was telling him how immature he was, I realized he was really cute annnnnd then he asked me if I liked music and I said ‘who doesn’t like music?’ So then we started talking and I realized he’s really sweet and smart and his lips were right there infront of me so I leaned over and kissed him!” Katsumi explained as her father stared at her in shock with his hands pressed together as he kept them infront of his lips.

“And I don’t kiss like mwuahhhhhh,” Katsumi said mimicking her father’s ‘make out with the air’ action. “I KISS LIKE A PRINCESS!” She exclaimed. Bakugou exhaled deeply before he spoke calmly.

“You are grounded...forrr...till college,” he calmly stated.

“For till college?!?!?!” Katsumi questioned.

“FOR TILL COLLEGE!” Bakugou quickly replied.

“Why?!” She asked.

“For kissing that delinquent!” Bakugou said as he walked to the kitchen as Katsumi followed.

“You’re the one who took him under your wing!”

“Well this ‘wing’ shalln’t flap no more!” Bakugou replied!

“*Bad Boy* is never allowed here again and you’re never allowed to have any contact with him,” Bakugou said with a triumphant smirk. Curse the damn parent card.

“Why?! What did I do that was so bad?!” Katsumi asked.

“Oh you know, Lipsey!” Bakugou stated. Katsumi stared in shock.

“I’m almost 16!” She said, “how old were you when you started kissing girls?!”

“Eleven..? THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE RIGHT NOW!”

“The issue is that you’re totally over reacting!” She said.

“Say whatever you want,” Bakugou said as his smirk returned and he crossed his arms, “you’re still so grounded.”

Katsumi stood still once again before she smashed a dinner plate on the ground. Bakugou remained unphased and copied her as he dropped another plate to the ground. Katsumi threw another plate and as she was about to throw another one, Bakugou interviened.

“Wait wait wait....That’s my favorite china, you can’t break it.” Bakugou said with one arm up and a stilled face.

“Am I ungrounded and can I hang out with *Bad Boy*?!” Katsumi asked with sass.

“No you are not and no you can not- ARGHHH!” Bakugou screamed as Katsumi threw the china to the ground. Katsumi then ran to her room frustrated with her father. Once her door slammed, Y/N returned from patrol. She walked to the kitchen to find her loving husband.

“Hey love, I- woah.” Y/N said as she saw the mess on the ground. “What’d I miss?”

Bakugou sighed and began to get the broom as Y/N bent down to pick up a few broken pieces.

“Awe man, this is the china I was gonna gift to Midoriya for his upcoming birthday. It looks exactly like your favorite one. Too bad he won’t get it this year.” You pouted at the pieces of broken plates.

Bakugou still had his back turned as he retrieved the broom but a smiled fell onto his face as he heard about how it was Deku’s broken present and not his favorite china. He let out a relieved sigh as he turned to clean up the mess. Well part of it at least.

Now he has a moody teenage daughter and a bad boy to take care of.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 134

Since I am queueing this chapter the same that I queued the last one, I just want to say:

If you have found my story in the last week, and liked it, thank you. It makes me smile when that happens.

If you shared my story with others, and they liked it, or even found a little bit of themselves in it, I’m very glad. Thank you for sharing something with your friends that they enjoyed.

As always, thank you to @the-raven-fae, @anotherusrname, @baelpenrose, and @charlylimph-blog for being my ports in all storms and the family everyone deserves to have.

Annnd the podcast. Don’t miss the podcast!  I don’t profit from it in any way, shape, or form, but the idea of a version of this story that is more accessible for people who would struggle to read it is something that should always be supported! 

A week later, I was wincing and out of breath when I reached my office for the day.  Tyche had enthusiastically agreed with Arthur’s suggestion, and after some tests from Maverick showed that I could apparently kick hard enough to break a grown man’s pelvis - although not without also breaking my foot - I had been expected to be in the gym for nearly two hours every day.  My legs hurt and my feet looked worse than the time I tried to learn ballet en pointe.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, I was also apparently very slow in reacting with my legs as a result of years learning to fight with, you know, my hands. Like a normal person.  This meant I was also wearing five pound weights on each ankle, all day, including when sparring.

So far, the only thing I had noticed was a demonstrably shorter patience and a reduction in how much I bounced my legs. Or sat comfortably.

I was so absorbed in my bad mood and how badly my legs hurt that I had already gotten coffee, greeted my mentees, and sat at my desk before I noticed something out of place.  As usual, Parvati and Hannah were across from each other at the table they typically sat at, but Parvati was standing and demonstrating something.

While using the table emitter, which they only ever used for my benefit.

Tilting my head in what probably looked like what Sparkle’s expression when she was denied a treat, I watched as Parvati picked up a vaguely pen-shaped object - it really looked more like a sonic screwdriver than a writing implement - and started making neon pink lines of various widths, swirls to test the slant it would make, and using it at various speeds before closely considering the color of each line.

“What in the world is that?”

“Paint testers,” Hannah explained. “Charly dropped them off with Vati last night, along with the programming to simulate how they work so we could test them with an emitter and not a wall.”

“Paint?”

“For the Festival. Charly designed these for us to use instead of trying to get permission to use actual spray paint.  The fumes of spray paint are apparently very caustic to Noah.”

I shuddered. “Yeah, no spray paint, clearly.”

Apparently satisfied with the pink, Parvati keyed her datapad to clear the emitter and picked up a different pen.  This one was a beautiful lapis blue. “She’s quite brilliant,” she murmured as she tested the pen. “The pens work like an airbrush, but she took some inspiration from something Arthur Farro gifted her several years ago and ensured the pigment will only last three Ark-days.  It also only appears under certain lighting.”

“And it’s non-toxic, of course,” Hannah added with a smile. “Because, you know��� Charly.”

I hesitated before asking the next question. “How non-toxic are we talking?”

To my utter horror, rather than respond, Parvati opened her mouth and used a different button on the pen to paint her entire tongue blue. “They’re edible.” She closed her mouth with a smile before her eyebrows shot up. “Oh! That one is pomegranate!”

Hannah furiously made notations on her datapad before looking back up at me. “Vati already tested them on canvas in her quarters, but we also wanted to make sure the simulation software works so that we don’t waste pigment trying to figure out the design elements.”

“We’re also rather curious about what flavor each one is,” Parvati admitted before swapping to a toxic-looking green. “This one is peach, I do remember that. The pink was popcorn.”

I shook my head. “Do you want people licking the walls? Because this is how you get people to lick the walls.” I walked over as I was speaking and idly picked up one that was labelled as Titan Black.

Hannah snatched it away quickly. “That one is scotch bonnet flavor. I found that out the hard way.”

“I get making them non-toxic, but why are they flavored?” Hannah arched an eyebrow at me and I held my hands up defensively. “Other than the obvious application. Why design flavored paint pens for the Food Festival murals?”

Parvati blanked the emitter again and swapped pens. “That is going to be part of the design and experience,” she started to explain. “We originally wanted them non-toxic in case of the non-zero event that Else tries to eat the paint off the walls.” I nodded since ‘non-zero’ was putting it lightly. “Then I had the idea to include the possibility of Else eating the mural into its design.  Rather than worry that Else will eat it, I am planning on it: I am going to create a piece that changes as the various colors are devoured.”

“Annnnnd how do you plan on controlling what order Else eats everything in?”

She waved to the row of pens on the table. “These are each in a flavor that we know Else likes. I am currently testing in my quarters what the order of preference is.”

As my mind started to catch up, I started nodding. “Your test swatches last night.”

“Precisely. I have them laying out in a grid, easily accessible to Else, and they are being monitored. We will take the recording and determine what the order of preference is from there.”

I shook my head with a huge grin. “That’s one hell of a performance art piece.”

Hannah straightened her posture in an imitation of Pravati’s normal ramrod-straight demeanor. “There is nothing more fitting for a celebration of how humanity persists in surviving, despite how transient and brief life can be, along with a clear showing of how we intend to welcome and embrace the differences between ourselves and those most different from us - even those who once nearly destroyed us but wished to make peace.”

“That’s frighteningly good,” Parvati praised nonchalantly as she squirted a fluorescent yellow into her mouth. “It makes no sense for that one to taste of something spicy.”

I took the pen and forced myself to spray it in my mouth. I perked up when it was actually very familiar and delicious. “It’s gochujang…” They both looked at me skeptically. “Apparently Else likes spicy food?”

“I’m starting to think this is how she flavors her popcorn,” Hannah murmured.

My head shook on that one. “No, all her popcorn is decidedly popcorn-flavored. The coloring is added while it is being made, along with the flavoring. Same thing with her ice-cream, and with the candy bars.”

“I agree,” Parvati added. “This pigment is quite wet, it would never work on something like popcorn.” Pausing in her testing, she turned to me. “She has made popcorn in your quarters before, did you notice how she colored it?”

I thought back to the movie night, fighting through how nostalgic and relaxing it made me feel. “It has to be a high-saturation powder.  Other than the actual oil she used to pop it, everything she put in was powdered.”

“But it was toffee popcorn,” Parvati argued. “I remember because it was such a lovely shade of purple.”

Hannah and I both glanced at each other before turning concerned looks to Parvati. I was the one who eventually spoke. “You make toffee popcorn by adding sugar and salt while it’s being popped, Vati. Both are powders.”

“And how am I supposed to know that?” she demanded with a scowl before picking up a pen.

I looked back at Hannah, who was as baffled as I was. “Vati? Do you cook?”

She scoffed. “Of course not. Xiomara is a brilliant cook, why would I give that up?”

“But you know how, right?” I prodded. “We always have cooking classes going on here.”

She decidedly ignored us.  I gaped at Hannah, who eventually crowed with laughter. “Oh my god! We found something Vati doesn’t know how to do!”

“Xio does make a wicked roti with veg curry,” I tried to defend her. If she was deflecting, Parvati clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“And I can cook,” Parvati argued. “I can roast meat, and forage edible plants, and clean them both.”

“Works for me!” I chirped, trying to defuse the situation before Parvati actually got upset. “If you can cook enough to feed yourself in an apocalypse, I consider that a solid fundamental basis.”

Hannah finally took the hint. “Well, if you ever want to learn more, gods know you have plenty of friends who can teach you. Hell, Sophia taught Maverick to cook, and when they first met he had a very iffy relationship with the concept of food in general.”

That got me a look. “He had been through a lot, okay? You spend thirty years with everyone blaming your sensory issues with food on just ‘being picky’,” I used air quotes for emphasis, “and yeah, you start living on the three foods you like and a lot of vitamins and protein drinks.”

Parvati stopped in her tracks and slowly turned her head toward me before taking a seat. “How did someone who doesn’t even eat to live end up with two people who live to eat?”

I felt my face heat up, but managed to limit my reaction to a shrug. “If he said he didn’t like something, I took that at face value and didn’t make him eat it. If he never had it, I thought really hard about how similar it was to things he did or didn’t like, and offered it to him - or didn’t -  based on that.  I never took it as a challenge I needed to make him overcome, just as a challenge I needed to rise to.”

She considered this for a moment, glancing to Hannah who nodded in confirmation, before speaking. “This is why you cook.” It wasn’t a question. Parvati stated it as a fact.

And I confirmed it was, indeed, a fact. “One of the few things Huynh and I agree on is hospitality. I don’t want anyone to come to my table and feel they can’t eat.  It’s how I was raised.  There will be food they like, and plenty of it.”

I heard a popping noise from Hannah’s direction, and turned only to realize that it was her neck popping when she turned from Parvati to me.  Eyes wide, she was barely audible when she whispered, “That’s why the Food Festival is so important to you…”

It took several attempts and a lot of nodding to swallow the lump in my throat. “We were all scared, and all strangers in this insane reality that we weren’t even sure was actually real.  I thought - knew - it would ground us, and even start uniting us. If we could all see that arroz con pollo, paella, chicken biriyani, chicken etouffee weren’t all that different? What’s more familiar than chicken and rice, or fried puffs of dough, or pancakes?” I shook my head. “I remember my first day on the Ark. I was in a mess hall, and even with my sister and cat, I knew I was luckier than most but so lost.  I just - “ I gulped and fought back tears. “I wanted shepherd’s pie so bad it hurt my soul. And I tried and tried to get it from the food consoles, and it was never the right thing. I must’ve tried eight times. It was so frustrating!” I didn’t catch myself in time to keep from slamming my fist a couple times on the table. “I felt even more lost.  Someone came up to me and asked what I was doing.” 

I took a deep breath to banish the concept of Arantxa from my head. “And dragged me to Conor because she realized that what I was saying and what she was hearing weren’t the same thing.  That’s how I actually met him. And, bless his face, he knew exactly what I was asking for and got it for me if I promised to help him get French toast, of all things.”  The memory made me smile. “Believe it or not, that moment mattered more to me than even waking up on the Ark when I should have been dead. Just… the idea that this person who knew nothing about me except what I wanted for dinner, was able to fix that lost feeling.  I want everyone to have that.”

Parvati was staring at me like she was watching the most romantic story in the world, but at least Hannah nodded seriously. “Steak and ale pie. I always want that when I’m stressed.”

I snapped my fingers and pointed at her. “Exactly. And multiply that by every type of steak and ale pie anyone can possibly make on the Ark? I know I don’t have to convince you two to keep the Festival anymore, but yeah.  That’s why it matters so much to me.”

I turned to Parvati, who was drumming her fingers and looking down somewhat sheepishly. “Most cultures have a kind of curry, so I never really thought about it,” she admitted. “But it makes sense, from that perspective. I never thought about it.”

Reaching out to pat her hand, I gave her a serious look. “That doesn’t mean you have to learn to cook anything more than what you already know,” I assured her. “It’s my motivation. No one else’s. If you ever want to learn to make something you don’t know how to, I’ll be happy to teach you. If you never want to learn how to make anything you don’t know how to, I will be happy to cook for you. Just… don’t ask me to bake? That’s a Tyche thing.”

She groaned. “Those mini black forest donuts….”

“Exactly. Don’t ask me to make them, I’ll ruin them ten times out of ten,” I laughed.

“She should make donuts for the Festival,” Hannah suggested wistfully. “Do you think we could talk her into it?”

I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m not asking her to do it, so have fun.”

“But you’re her sister.”

“How the hell do you think I know not to ask?” I gave them both a flat stare that set them giggling. “Donuts for the family? Fine. Donuts for the whole entire Ark? Not touching it.”

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[soniabigcheese]

Bad Things Bingo: Frostbite with Alan or Kayo, or both.

Thanks for the ask. Now this one was really tricky and I had to brainstorm a little for ideas. So @janetm74 thanks for the idea.

Set shortly after Growing Pains and I'm taking a LOT of liberties here. There's probably a LOT of details that I have seriously overlooked but ... PFFT, this is what you're getting.

Hope you like it.

Annnnnd....

We have ONE LINE !!

@badthingshappenbingo

The Long Trudge Home

Fanbase: Thunderbirds are go Characters: Kayo Kyrano, John Tracy, Ned Tedford, Wayne Rigsby and EOS Mild peril, mainly a grumpy Kayo here

Kayo's teeth chattered as they slowly made their way back to civilisation. Oh sure, sliding down the drainage pipes was a fast way to escape the toxic gases, but it took them right around the opposite side of the peninsula.

And Kayo realised that whilst John's uniform had it's own built in body temperature monitor. Hers didn't, and she certainly felt the bite of the chilly winds whipping around the craggy mountain side.

Her fingerless gloves were useless too, as she had to stop and blow into her hands to get the circulation going.

Nimble she might be, but the fact that her fingers were becoming numb, seriously hampered her walk/stumble back home, pulling the rest of the team's progress back along with her.

At least Ned tried to hand over his hat ... and a fluffy grey scarf he'd had stuffed inside his overalls, but she stubbornly refused.

Gods it was freezing bloody cold and the gusts brought fresh snow whipping around them. Visibility and lighting were vanishing fast. Their only saving grace ... if you could call her that ... was EOS, still struggling to fight off Havoc's infection, as well as trying to get a decent signal. At least she could vaguely pinpoint their location and occasionally ... between hacking coughs ... calculated and relayed just how far they'd gotten.

It was not encouraging, as progress was very slow. Footholds vanished or crumbled as they edged around jagged rocks.

Kayo was a fair weather girl and longed to be back on Tracy Island, lounging by the pool with a mocktail or two. Heck, putting up with Gordon and Alan's pillow fights right now, would be a bonus.

"HEY!"

A strong arm gripped hers and many others joined in, grabbing her shoulders, looping around her back.

"I'm fine ... I'm fine." she muttered, weakly trying to bat them away, "I can manage this."

It was Wayne who grasped her shoulders and shook her.

"No, you are not," he said gruffly, "you almost fell there."

He scanned the area, squinting at the darkening sky.

"We need to get to shelter," he turned to John, who nodded, "and ride this one out."

"I'll contact Tracy Island," the redhead replied, casting a critical eye at EOS as she kept cutting out and rebooting, "see if we can get a lift. Sorry EOS, this is a matter of security. Can't have you passing your virus to command centre."

That's okay John. Sorry I'm not much use to you right now.

"You did your best EOS and thanks."

"I hate this place." Kayo shuddered, leaning into Wayne, who was rubbing her arms comfortingly.

He took his jacket off and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"You and me too kid." "Actually," Ned chipped in, "I've been in much worse."

They all stopped shuffling to briefly glance at Ned, who shrugged his shoulders.

"Just saying, that's all."

As they continued making their slow way around the sharp granite, a fissure appeared. The entrance was narrow, but on shining a light - supplied by John - they noticed that there was quite a bit of space inside. Just enough for four figures ... with a very tight squeeze.

Since Kayo was the smallest of the group, they shoved her inside and followed suit. Unlike Virgil, who was well prepared for almost everything. Their supplies were down to the bare minimum.

But practical Wayne, carried a lighter and a penknife.

Because ...

"Yeah sure, it's old fashioned, but I like to be prepared."

Crouched together, they all took turns, rubbing their hands and Kayo's too, as her fingers were starting to turn blue. John offered to boost the heating element in his suit but was quickly nixed because that would mean a drain on his batteries. And they didn't know how long they were going to be stuck here.

Kayo found herself drifting and was quickly poked in the ribs by Wayne who hissed.

"Don't you DARE fall asleep on me Kayo. Got that?"

Ned held his finger up.

"You know what the best way of distributing body heat is?"

Everyone turned and looked at him. Kayo snarled.

"Don't even think about it."

Just then, the comms crackled to life. It was Virgil. The signal was weak because coverage was practically non existent in that mountainous area. But he managed to get through.

He asked for details, told them Scott was with him and gave instructions on how they were going to rescue all four of them.

[plush-anon]

after many hours spent pausing the show bc good lord why did they do that, i have now finished Love Never Dies

annnnnd yikes 😬😬😬

I’ll start with the few positives I did enjoy from the recorded Australian production on Youtube:

1.) the camera work. This is the kind of thing I dream of for professionally recorded shows - it really allows for some lovely close-up shots of how the emotions play over their faces, it’s lush

2.) the costumes are well-crafted, and I desperately Want the Phantom’s long-ass swooshy trenchcoat cape thing he wore for the first half-hour 

3.) the sets used throughout this are honestly very impressively used and put together for some really fantastic shots

4.) the opening, with ‘Til’ I Hear You Sing Once More’. This song is honestly very lovely, and really articulates the Phantom’s loss and heartache for Christine. It’s sung very earnestly, and had the rest of the show been more like this I might have liked it more. 

5.) the Fucking Song, ‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’, is a guilty pleasure. It’s so over the top, and it is only about recounting that One Time they totally banged yo, and I love it. I think it’s the orchestration, but it’s also enjoyably silly even while it takes itself 100% serious. 

6.) As much as I hate to say this? ‘Devil Take the Hindmost’. While I hate the gist of the song - that being Raoul and Erik betting on who Christine will choose, and pretty much deciding for her who will get to be her one true love forever, completely negating the entire point of the OF musical where her choice was the most important factor for all of them - the pacing and the lyrics as they dance around each other are absolutely fantastic. It’s kind of sad to say, but Raoul and the Phantom, in this scene alone, display more chemistry in their singing than they do with anyone else. Let the hatefcuking commence~

7.) Some parts of ‘The Beauty Underneath’ I enjoy, particularly the ending scene where the Phantom is trying to talk Meg down. It’s very slow, melodic, and shows his more manipulative side, as well as how he can crawl into someone’s head, I love it. 

8.) This very interesting visual with a mirror in Christine’s dressing room. There are two separate scenes where someone is in the mirror singing. The first is the Phantom, between Raoul and Christine. The second is Raoul between the Phantom and Christine. It’s honestly a nice touch.

9.) The main three are excellent singers. 

 Unfortunately, that’s all on the list of what I liked. Everything else is a Giant Fcuking Mess. 

1.) The Phantom is no longer a complex, messed-up, but still somewhat sympathetic character, no; this is just a giant asshole who takes everyone for granted and barely realizes that anyone else exists except Christine, and even then only really as his personal instrument. 

He never actually apologizes to Christine for the shit he’s put her through and continues to put her through, but still demands obedience and forgiveness and understanding. It completely negates the entire point of POTO’s ending, where he actually realizes he’s done wrong by her and his actions pertaining her, and lets her go from his world entirely, and RESPECTING HER CHOICES AND LEAVING HER ALONE. 

Not to mention This Bitch also threatens to kidnap/possible “lose” her child if she doesn’t sing for him, keeps pushing her around and telling her what to do, and manipulating her life to change her decisions for her. 

AND HE’S FRAMED AS THE BETTER OPTION HERE

2.) Which reminds of me of the next big asshat: Raoul de Chagny, who has now become an alcoholic gambler who pushes his wife to do things she’s not comfortable doing to repay his debts, neglects his son entirely, and also is abrasive and controlling of Christine, to the point he yanks her back and forth on doing shit. Play this role! We should leave bc he was an asshole! No now we should leave bc Phantom is back! No take the role he’s paying triple! I’ll make a bet on whether she loves me to pay my debts! No wait you should quit ten minutes before you go on-stage bc I don’t want to lose you! MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND YOU MISERABLE PISSANT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Like I can understand being overprotective to a certain degree, which could eventually morph into being controlling. But neglecting your son, your wife, drinking and gambling your fortune away? ALL of that?!? Really???

Shouldn’t he be desperate to keep his wife and son close to him at all times after the events of POTO? Never leave, never go anywhere, only do what’s safe? You COULD have set this up as a continuation of Safety versus Freedom with Raoul and the Phantom, show the good and bad of both and have her choose from there. Show the dichotomies and hypocrisies of both men’s standards. 

But nope! We’re just totes gonna make the husband like this for no goddamn reason, especially since Raoul doesn’t start suspecting that Gustave (his son) isn’t really his until Devil Take the Hindmost. He’s just that much of an idiot!

3.) The presence of Madame Giry and Meg Giry. Oh gods, where to even begin? They’re pretty much only here so that Sir Andy doesn’t have to make new characters with different backstories and motivations and introduce them accordingly. Nope! Now both women are blaming Christine for leaving the Phantom Man-Baby, and talking about everything they sacrificed to help him make his stupid-ass circus, and talking about how they love him and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Madame Giry in the POTO musical YOU LED RAOUL DIRECTLY TO THE PHANTOM’S LAIR SO HE COULD RESCUE CHRISTINE WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW SHE BETRAYED HIM

And, oh, Meg... she reaaaaaaaaaaaaally got the short end of the stick here. I just... poor dear, she was horribly treated in this. 

Neither of them deserved to be like this, honestly. 

4.) Christine, to a lesser extent. Experienced Literal Character Assassination, forced to choose between two horrible options, stripped of her agency entirely, used as a bet in a game between said two horrible options, lied to and dragged around constantly, should have taken Gustave and run off with Meg to run a music store together. Fcuk you Sir Andy, for using POTO characters to act out your bitterness and frustration at your ex. 

5.) The entirety of the whole Boardwalk Circus schtick, spawning an additional Fuck You to Frederick Forsythe, who thought this was a tenable option for the story to progress. 

6.) The Phantom’s deformity was literally just four lines drawn onto his face with crayon and some smeared lipstick:

what even the fcuk, you couldn’t make the make-up crayon drawing more detailed??? take more than ten minutes to draw it on???

I never thought I would say this, but even the 2004 film’s depiction was better than this! At least that one partially drew from a real medical condition, Sturge-Weber Syndrome. What the fcuk is your excuse LND?!?

7.)  The Lyrics. Oh gods, the lyrics. Some songs were decent, mostly the ones I listed up top. But the rest? Did someone forget to give the writer a more advanced/creative guide to rhyming lyrics? I wrote better shit in middle school than Glenn Slater did for the majority of these lyrics. 

Glenn my dude, what the fcuk is this nonsense? You’ve written good shit like the Tangled songs and stuff for Galavant! Why are you writing worse than an angst-ridden middle schooler? It is immensely frustrating, to say the least. 

8.) The really WEIRD direction in acting. No one here acts like they know how to move their arms or hands naturally; there’s a lot of really odd and unnecessary gesturing that makes it look like everyone has just had their limbs replaced with faulty robotic arms. There’s also a lot of leaning the characters do, with their arms perfectly straight by their side and it just looks wrong. 

9.) The Phantom’s pseudonym is Mr. Y. No, they never explain why it is he chose that particular moniker. 

10.) Bathing Beauty. Just... all of it, here, tied to POTO, present and here. 

11.) It’s been exactly 10 years since Christine saw/banged the Phantom, and her son is precisely 10 years old. 

That’s... not how pregnancy works. At all. 

12.) This weird scene with the American press, where they are absolutely obsessed with Christine, despite the facts they present, such as:

- She hasn’t performed in 10 years anywhere. 

- She was a French performer, and

- She only starred in three operas at the Populaire (Hannibal, Il Muto, and Don Juan Triumphant, which wasn’t even finished. So technically 2.2 operas that we know of). 

Why, precisely, would American reporters be so obsessed with her upon hearing she’s coming? I could see some interest given the whole shebang with the Phantom, but after 10 years of radio silence, would she really garner an entire crowd of reporters and photographers... in America, no less? 

France I could definitely see. America? Not so much. 

13.) Gustave is a flat, generic kid character, who apparently is totes the Phantom’s son because... he can play the piano well. And also has the same ideas of music as the Phantom, despite never being taught about them, or discussed such things with his mother. 

Is musical talent only inherited through the father’s side of the family in this universe? I mean, we never learn about Christine’s mother, just her famous violinist father. Otherwise, why is it Gustave’s musical talent isn’t attributed to - oh, I don’t know - HIS FAMOUS OPERA SINGER MOTHER?!?

14.) Apparently the Phantom is also now the one who invented cars OH I MEAN “horseless carriages” 🙄 A carriage with no engine and a “ghost horse” appears, and everyone is just fcuking stunned by this, like they’ve never seen a vehicle move without a horse before. In 1907. 22 years after the first functional automobile was invented. Ugh. 

15.) seriously tho who thought basing a sequel on the Frederick Forsythe novel was a good idea why did nobody think to stop him apart from Sir Andy’s pet cat Otto. why.

16) The Phantom’s interactions with Gustave are distinctly creepy and unsettling. I keep getting pedo vibes from him and I Do Not Like It.

17.) The death scene at the end is so goddamn over-the-top and out of nowhere I just want to throw something, ugh

18.) And finally, my last gripe with this mess: This takes place in 1907, and declares that it’s ten years after the original musical. Despite the fact that the OG took place in 1885. Yippy skippy. 😑

I can honestly say I am Not a Fan of this musical as a whole, mostly based on the plot and the character assassinations (one quite literal) and the poor lyrics. I can admire the camera work, the basic singing ability, the scenery and costumes, and maybe two or three songs. But I just do not enjoy it. It took me two days to finish watching it because I kept cringing from what shit kept happening, and had to walk around and listen to other shit to get it out of my head. 

HOWEVER: People do enjoy this one on the sake of it being so bad and over-the-top, and I can honestly see the whys. It helps that most of the cast can sing, and the orchestration is done well. There’s a TON of stupid to mock, and a lot of over-the-top awkwardness to laugh at. This is a good one to watch and mock with friends, IMO. 

For those of you who do enjoy it, I’m afraid I have to disagree on most of it. Still, it is nice being able to watch this one for free, even if it is a giant hot mess.

And that’s all for me on this one! Have a good week guys!

[sherlollydramoine]

Soulmates

WARNINGS: Contains a slight bit of lovin’ in this chapter. 18+ only please, Reader is kind of a little bit of a bully in this chapter (I promise it won’t last long..)

As per usual I want to thank @ramibaby for all of her help and suggestions. @ramimalekpeen-deactivated201909 has deactivated (which breaks my heart) I will still thank her anyway. You two helped really offer the kind of guidance that I’ve needed to finish with this chapter. Just a heads up though guys, this chapter was written before the prologue, and I haven’t quite made as much progress on chapter two as I would have liked, so it may be a bit of a wait for the next chapter. XOXOXO 

And a very special twin makes an appearance!!! :)

Link to prologue: X

PART ONE

You looked up at him in complete confusion, as you desperately tried to pry your hands apart once again. It was like they had been superglued together - nothing you'd tried to do to unstick them had been successful. 

"Rami, what's going on?" You quirked a brow.

He didn't seem all that concerned about this predicament, and simply threw back his head, speaking between mocking chuckles,

"Looks like you're really stuck with me now."

"Rami,this-it-it isn't funny! What's happening? What did you do to our hands?!" You pressed, suddenly on the verge of tears. You were exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse on the shitty bed awaiting you in your hotel room.

It was then your attention was drawn toward Rami's hotel room door. With a loud bang, it swung open, that sound like a knife cutting through the tense, heavy air surrounding you. A rather dishevelled looking Sami peered out from behind the dark wood, his hair a mess and eyes weary.

"There you are!" He exhaled, shoulders slumping and eyes rolling. "I thought I lost you!" 

He gestured toward you and Rami as he made quick strides toward you both. It wasn't until he came to a stop before you his relieved expression vanished, replaced by one of pure shock and disbelief. With wide eyes he stared at your linked hands, his mouth agape. Why on earth such a seemingly innocent gesture caused this reaction was beyond you, and only added to your growing sense of anxiety. Suddenly, Sami's face broke out in a smirk and he reached up to nervously scratch the back of his head.

"Uhhh…" He stammered, eyes darting between you both, before resting on Rami's. " I think it's time you two had a little discussion..." He raised a brow, nodding knowingly toward Rami who seemed adamant on not meeting his brothers stare. 

With a sigh, Rami's eyes met yours and he reluctantly huffed,

"I guess so."

APPROXIMATELY TWELVE HOURS EARLIER

As you finally pulled into the parking lot of the swanky hotel your best friend Beatrice had decided was an idyllic location for her wedding, you let out a relieved sigh. It had been a long two days in the car and you were looking forward to getting checked in, and then settling in for a much needed nap.

Grabbing your bags and locking the car you headed inside, where you were greeted by Bea's loud squeals of delight and the sight of her sprinting toward you.

"Y/N YOU MADDDDDEEEE ITTTTTT!" she bellowed, arms out wide and you found yourself suddenly wrapped in one of her rib crushingly tight bear hugs. 

"Oof!" you huffed, eyes so wide that if you could see yourself in the reflection of the tiled floor you would swear they were bulging out of your head.  

 "Bea…" you tapped her shoulder, voice strained as you gasped for air. "Too tight…"

 She let go of you immediately and you drew in a sharp breath, clutching your chest. 

"Oh, sorry…" she giggled, nervously avoiding your disgruntled stare. " Just missed you…"

"Really?" you chuckled, straightening out your now crumpled shirt. "Hadn't noticed…" 

She hummed, straightening up her posture and speaking with an air of smugness as she stared down her nose at you,

"Well, that's because I'm a great actor."

"Uh huh…" You drawled, narrowing your eyes.

She shook her head dismissively at your lack of belief.

"S'true, just ask Joey baby…" 

"Joey baby?" Your scrunched your nose, cringing at the pet name.

 "Yes. Now that we are getting married I have taken it upon myself to utterly repulse all my guests with the sickening love I feel." 

"Wow, well do you think you could hold off on the pet names just for me?" You poked her shoulder, speaking softly, " You're favorite bridesmaid…?" 

She rolled her eyes,

"You've seen and heard worse from the two of us and don't flatter yourself."

"Excuse me?" You placed a hand on your hip, eyes honing in on hers as you bore a playful smirk. "Who else knows you like I do huh?"

Bea shrugged, fobbing you off with a wave of her hand as she looked anywhere but at you.

"Absolute perfectionist who is easily distracted and so stubbornly set in her ways that there ain't a chance in hell of getting you to stop something once you've set your mind to it…." 

You babbled, moving your head to try and meet her gaze.

 She was smiling at your words, purposefully darting her eyes away every time they met yours. Her smile grew wider as she reluctantly agreed,

"Alright...I guess you know me pretty well." Her eyes finally met yours again. "And you are my favourite bridesmaid." She took one of your hands in both of hers as she continued, "I'm so glad you're here, Joe's been so annoying with his chaotic energy this last few weeks." 

"Oh god…" you chuckled, shaking your head. "Can I at least have a nap before I get thrust into Joe babysitting duty? I've been in the car for like 2 days and I'm really tired."

"Aw, of course!" She smiled. "but... not until you've met your partner in crime for this week, and also, Joe will be very offended if you don't say hello first, he's been dyyyying to see you." She rolled her eyes once again and you couldn't help but roll yours too.

"Man, that boy is needy, I Skype'd you guys what? Two days ago!" You exclaimed. "Why does he need me? Isn't Mr. Mazzello busy being entertained by his..." you raised your hands, making air quotes. "Hollywood friends?" 

"Heeey watch it, one of those 'Hollywood friends' is my cousin. You remember Rami right?" 

You just stare at Bea incredulously for a good solid minute before opening your mouth to reply. She knows damn well you have haven't forgotten who he is. Being his cousin and the soon-to-be wife of Rami's best friend, she knows you spent most of your childhood and teen years around him.

"How could I forget? He's the asshole who shoved me into the pool at your 17th birthday party." you angrily mumble. 

"Oh come on, that was like twenty years ago. I can't believe you still remember that! Besides, he did eventually apologize for it and he still claims it was kind of an accident."

"Psht, it wasn't an accident, but regardless, I still ended up in a pool, and he didn't even bother to ask if I was okay, or to try helping me out. He just laughed and then left with one of his stupid friends. He was such a jerk. Ugh. You of all people know that I had the biggest crush on him back then, it was so embarrassing! Sami was at least nice to me, he was the one that helped me out and he wouldn't stop apologizing for his brother. Sami was always the nicer twin, to me. You also know it isn't just the pool incident, what about the time at the movie theater? Or the most embarrassing time when he actually stood me up for a date when I truly thought he might actually like me? " 

Bea sighed and then opened her mouth to speak, but was rudely interrupted by a loud screeching,

"YYYYYYNNNNNNN!!!"

 Turning your head, you saw Joe frantically waving his long arms - the sight of a grown man acting so unabashedly childish making you throw your head back with laughter. Joe had always exuded such a chaotic energy that it was almost infectious. 

"JOOOOEEEEEYYYY!!!" You yelled, bouncing excitedly on the spot. This earned a chuckle from Joe as he bolted toward you.

Soon you found yourself wrapped in the embrace of Joe's strong arms, your head pressed to his warm chest as you heard Bea mutter,

"Imma leave you with my overgrown man child and get you checked in." 

Pulling back abruptly from the hug, Joe gripped your shoulders, smiling down at you as he took in your tired state.

"So, long drive?" He pouted dramatically, staring into your droopy eyes. 

You simply hummed and nodded.

 "I still don't understand why you didn't just fly." 

"Mozzarella why would I fly, when I can enjoy the quiet solitude of a drive with great views? I got some fantastic photos on the trip here."

"Hmm...touche! You'll have to show me." He let his hands drop to his sides as he looked over his shoulder. He looked back at you with a brow furrowed and gestured toward Bea at the reception. "You not checked in yet?" 

"Not yet, Bay-Bea intercepted me before I could. She said she was going to check me in."

He nodded knowingly, smiling.

"Maybe you can tell me what Bea meant by my 'partner-in-crime' for the week?!" Joe raised an eyebrow and tried to avert his eyes.

"Mozzarella-" you said a little more aggressively than you intended. 

"Ummm… Welll….uh," he stammered, scratching the back of his head. " Bea decided that all the bridesmaids and groomsmen are partnered together this week for various activities we have planned, and uh, Rami is your partner." He bit his lip, seemingly mulling over his own words. "Annnnnd now she's gonna kill me before we're even married because I wasn't supposed to tell you. And oh my GOD I do NOT wanna die yet."  

He almost jumped out of his skin when he felt Bea's gentle touch on his back. Her hand remained there as she stood beside him, looking curiously between the two of you. 

"Uh, babe?" She questioned softly, a small smile forming. "why are you going to die?!"

"Jesus woman!" He exhaled, staring down at her and draping his arm around her shoulders. "what have I said about sneaking up..."

"I wasn't sneaking!" Bea implored. "I was walking, it's not my fault you can't hear-"

You cut their bickering off with a deadpan,

"He told me what you meant about the whole partner-in-crime thing." That seemed to shut Bea up almost immediately, her attention solely on you and lips pursed into a tight line as you continued, "And I don't like it." 

Bea side eyed a rather nervous looking Joe before her stern expression dropped. She let out a loud guffaw of laughter, proceeding to nuzzle her head into her fiance's chest. Joe looked just as confused as you were, offering you a shrug before welcoming Bea's affections by wrapping his arms around her.

"Y/N, it really wasn't meant to be a secret." Bea explained. "I just didn't want to tell you because you might have bailed on me or something. Everyone else knew except you." She looked down at her free hand, in which she held a room key. "By the way, this is for you." She held it out for you and you willingly took it. "Go have your nap but please be dressed nicely for dinner at 5 on the terrace. Oh, and you are in room 404." 

She smiled brightly at you before looking up to Joe and groaning,

"And for the love of Goood, you and Joe need to take a chill pill, I'm the one supposed to be having fits of hysterics, being the bride and all..." she raised a brow.

"Fiiiine…" you sighed. "Drama Queen….but thanks for getting me checked in, I do appreciate it."

Unsettled by the bombshell that was partnering with Rami for the week, you made your way to the elevators, your mind fraught with memories of his persuasive charm and sharp wit.

Once you arrived at your floor, you made your way to your room. It was when you turned to close your door you caught a glimpse of a familiar mop of curls headed toward the elevator. Your breath hitched immediately, and your stomach flipped. You knew he was going to be here, so you shouldn't have been surprised, but actually seeing him again after all these years seemed kind of surreal. 

He had been nothing but a figment of your memory for so long that he had become almost fictional - a two dimensional character who, constrained to your fading memories, you could justifyingly villainize. But now, he was here, in the flesh, walking so damn casually to the elevator, and looking so damn fine while doing it. Granted, you had only seen his back, but you had to admit, it was a nice one. As foolish as you felt your compulsion to run after him was, you couldn't help but feel it, simultaneously though, another part of you wanted to hide away in your room all week and never face him again. God, you had almost forgotten how easily he got under your skin.

After your much needed nap, you woke up feeling rested but rather annoyed at the cheerfulness of your alarm's ringtone. A moment of panic set in until your disoriented self remembered where you were, a feeling of dread following soon after. 

Sitting up and stretching out your aching body, you realised that, as painful as it was to admit Joe was right - flying would have been a better idea. With your heart and mind set on a hot shower, you grabbed your toiletries and headed to the bathroom. 

Once your shower was over, you decided that even though Bea had instructed you to dress nice, you really weren't in the mood for applying the makeup that 'dressing nice' entailed, so you simply pulled your hair into a messy bun and threw on your favorite little black dress and flats. 

Once you were thoroughly satisfied with your appearance, you grabbed your phone and room key and headed towards the terrace, opting to take the stairs instead of the elevator. 

It was as you bounded off the last step your body collided with that of someone stepping out of the elevator. You hit them with such force that, if they had not reflexively grabbed your shoulders, you would have fallen flat on your ass.

"Woah there!" A deep voice warned, strong hands gripping you tight as you almost tripped over your own shoes.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" You stammered, eyes on your stumbling feet. 

"Haha, it's alright!"

 There was a moment of silence as you looked up at the man before you, and it wasn't until you locked eyes that you realised you and your fellow collide-e weren't strangers. He may have noticeably more facial hair and laugh lines since you'd last seen him, but you'd recognise that face anywhere. 

"Sami?" You spoke in near disbelief, a bright smile forming as your eyes searched his.

"...Y/N?" Sami seemed just shocked as you, his gaze falling to your body, his smile wide.

"Oh my god…" You gushed, one hand covering your mouth as the other instinctively reached out. "You're…you're a man now..."

You almost couldn't believe this man was once the 18 year old boy who'd graciously helped you out of the pool all those years ago.

Without hesitation you extended a finger to gently prod his now overgrown locks, earning a rather bemused chuckle from him. 

"Haha!" Little creases formed around his eyes as he revelled in your apparent wonder of the aging process. 

You must have looked like a fool standing there gawking at the man, but you just couldn't help it.  He looked so different, so mature, and so damn fine.

God, if he looked this good, you dreaded thinking about what Rami looked like now, considering historically, he'd been the one to make your knees weak. Sure, you'd seen Rami on the silver screen, but you knew seeing his real, three dimensional face before you would be entirely different.

"And you are…" He started that sentence without seeming to consider where it may go, opting to punctuate it with a vague gesture to your body and stammered, "You, you look amazing!"

Thankfully, you were wrapped in his tight hug immediately after, so he wasn't able to see your now blushing cheeks.

When he pulled back, he returned your bright smile and asked,

"It's been so long! How have you been?" 

Since finding out about Rami? Not so great honestly.

"I'm doing okay I suppose." You nodded, mirroring his long strides as he started walking. "Just working, and trying to find the time to do things I like, which y'know is hard when you work 96 hours a week."

"Woah!" He jerked back his head. " What do you do? If I remember correctly you always wanted to be a nurse."

"Yeah that's exactly what I do, but I'm considering going back to school to become a nurse practitioner."

"You should!" He implored.

"Yeah, we'll see. But what about you? Bea told me you're a teacher?" 

"Yeah. It can be such a rewarding job, stressful, but rewarding. Kids can be sweet… sometimes." He rolled his eyes.

You chuckled, 

"Haha, sounds just as rewarding as what I do." 

A beat passed where you were just walking in silence, save for the sound of your footsteps clacking on the smooth floor. 

"And how's your brother? I've seen some of his stuff. He's actually really talented, well I mean I've always known he was ridiculously talented but... I mean.. It's just... Anyway, I thought his portrayal of Freddie was incredible."

"Yeah, it was incredible. He's doing alright. If you remember anything positive about my brother then you know what my concerns are, when he works he really gives it his all and I'm just a little worried that he's gotten in over his head. He'd never admit it because he enjoys his work so much, but I think he sometimes over does it."

"Yes, I do vaguely recall how much effort he puts into his performances. I used to watch him study and would sometimes get roped into running lines with him. Hahahaha... I never was one for acting though."

"Yeah,” he threw back his head, letting out a soft chuckle as continued, “you were a terrible actress. But Rami, he always had the magic. He was actually reading over something for his latest project when I left him to come down here would you believe?."

“Yes. I thought I saw him earlier, but I wasn't sure. I'm surprised the fans haven't descended on him yet. So where exactly is he? I've been anxious to see him again after all these years. "

Anxious being the operative word.

"Oh trust me, his royal highness is probably still preening in the mirror, but he should down soon. He came down to the lobby earlier to talk to Joe but when he came back upstairs, he did mention that heard you'd arrived." he laughed. 

"Oh, so he cares that I’ve arrived?" you pressed, raising a brow.

Sami just gave a nonchalant shrug, before responding,

"I don't know hun, but he seemed to be in good spirits after hearing you'd gotten here. He actually wanted to talk to you about something, but given what happened the last time you saw each other, I advised him that it wasn't a great idea."

"God Sami, I was so in love with him, and I just felt like such an idiot from the get go. It was painful how one-sided it ended up being. It took me a long time to move on. After Bea's party I went home and cried like the ridiculously hormonal teenager I was. I don't even want to talk about the failed dinner date fiasco."

"Trust me YN, it... It took him a while to get over what he did. My mom heard about it from Bea which is why he had to apologize to you. Though Bea and I did have bets placed on how badly you'd beat him up, kinda surprised that you didn’t actually."

You can't help but laugh at the memory of a very uncomfortable looking Rami standing in front of you in his mother's kitchen, while an audience of family and friends observed his sad attempt at an apology.

"Haha, Sami you are so right, Jesus, I wanted to smash his pretty face in. But.. I wasn't going to lash out in front of your mom, she's such an amazing woman. I wouldn't want to disappoint her by negatively overreacting to his sad attempt at an apology."

"Trust me, mom gave him a tongue lashing in both Arabic and English. It was... Well... I've never seen her get so upset at my brother over anything girl related before. Not like that anyway." Sami smirked at the memory.

"I am very sorry Sam." 

He just laughed again, 

"Don't apologize to me. It was far too entertaining."

By the time you two reached the terrace, the bride and groom were just sitting down, so you headed over to the table. Sami pulled your chair out for you and gestured for you to sit, so you took the offered seat. You smiled at him and gave him a thank you, before reaching for the menu. You were mentally debating between steak or chicken when you heard a slight commotion. You looked up in time to see Rami rushing towards table muttering his apologizes for being late. 

"Always know how to make an entrance don't you bro." Sami cheekily noted.

"Yeah, yeah..." came Rami's rather cavalier response. 

You couldn't help yourself so you chimed in,

 "So his royal highness finally decided to grace us with his presence."

You could feel all eyes on you, some with their mouths agape, others just looked slightly shocked. Bea tried to hide her amused smile behind her wine glass and Joe straight out laughed,whether at you or whatever Bea whispered to him you weren’t sure. Rami didn't acknowledge your statement, so you continued on,

"Surprised to see you at all, and I'm even more surprised that you didn't drag your pretty little blonde here with you."

You didn't mean to be so rude, you really didn't, but for some inexplicable reason your brain and mouth couldn't stop spewing venom. 

Sami nearly choked on his drink and Joe almost spit his out all over his amused fiancé. 

"Oh shit Y/N...shots fired.." came Bea's quiet response, as she slowly took a sip of her wine, her eyes darting back and forth between you and Rami. 

"Y/N, please reserve that whit of yours for stuff you actually understand." Rami deadpanned, sounding rather displeased with this topic of conversation. "I’m here now. I apologized for being late, and despite what you may think I was doing, I was actually on a conference call discussing an upcoming project.” He paused, doe eyes staring you down before he frowned and muttered,

 “Though I'm not sure why you think I owe you any explanation at all...."

You couldn’t believe his candour, and jerked back your head as you spoke,

 "Oh that's right, I forgot we’ve got a big shot Hollywood star with us. You know, winning an Oscar doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk." you spat, words sounding much more venomous than you intended.

"Rami. Y/N." Joe warned, with a hint of amusement in his voice, "I can't believe that this is coming out of my mouth but please, children behave!"

You rolled your eyes, from a technical standpoint you did start it. You glanced back at your menu to continue your internal debate when you heard Rami's voice calling your name. 

"Y/N?" Rami asked. 

"Yes, Rami?" You avoided his stare, looking over the menu before you.

"Just wanted to say you look good all grown up, especially in that pretty little black dress." He spoke with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. 

You laughed, knowing he was joking though you couldn't do anything to stop the blush that was spreading across your face - and chest. Feeling incredibly flustered even though you knew he didn't mean a word of it, you decided to respond as maturely as you could. Which apparently was as mature as twelve year old without parental supervision. 

"Malek, eat shit." Came your smug response. 

"Wow. And here I thought I was being nice giving you a compliment." 

Staring him down, you spat,

"Yeah, I'd have believed you, maybe, if you weren't being so sarcastic. " 

Before Rami could respond he was cut off by Bea,

"Awwww babe, aren't they cute? It seems as if they are on track for an epic love story like ours. You know guys, sometimes the best love stories start with a mutual hatred of each other. God, I absolutely hated Joe when I first met him and now I can't imagine my life without him." 

Bea made googly eyes at Joe who just took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. His voice strained as smiled at her and spoke through mock tears,

“She hated me so much.” 

This time it was you who nearly spit out your drink, and Rami nearly choked on the olive he had just popped into his mouth. A coughing fit came from him when Sami smacked his back to help him clear his throat. 

"What's the matter Malek, can't handle a bit of teasing? " you stated mostly for the purposes of trying to rile him up a little more. God that man brings out the worst in you, and of course being the fully grown adult you are, you handle it with such great aplomb. 

You couldn't hear his response but whatever he said made his brother's eyes go wide for a few moments and was quickly followed by the distinct sound of someone kicking someone under the table. 

"Owww!" Rami murmured quietly as you observed him hunched over to rub at the sore spot on one of his gorgeous little chicken legs. 

"Serves you right man. That was rude and wildly inappropriate." Sami huffed out of frustration while side eyeing his brother. 

Rami smirked in response to his brother and winked at you when he realized you were openly staring at him. 

“Just like all those years ago Y/N, it seems you still have a staring problem. I mean, I know I'm gorgeous, or whatever people call me these days, but girl… you just can't help yourself can you?" He teased, tone light and joking. 

"Oh Jesus Christ Rami, what the hell?!" Sami scolded as he observed the hurt expression on your face. 

You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes but, determined not to let the hurt and anger come spilling out in front of him, you grabbed your glass and take a deep pull of whatever liquid was in the cup. 

You ended up tuning out the conversation for a while as you reminisced, getting lost in old memories of the four (sometimes five if Sami joined) members of your group doing various activities throughout your youth, smiling to yourself at the memories of his golden skin in the pool. He always did look amazing when he was wet. 

Pulling yourself out of your "Rami-daze" you turn your attention back to the bride and groom. Seizing an opportunity in the lull of conversation you asked, 

"Soooo… Mozzarella, what are these activities that I was hearing about earlier from Bay-Bea?"

Joe needed little prompting as he and Beatrice launched into the details of all the different things they had planned for the week leading up to their ceremony. So many activities and so little time, but you weren't going to complain. You know how much time and effort had gone into planning this. How many middle of the night frantic phone calls from Bea and Joe wanting your opinion on something or the other. Nobody was allowed to go to sleep until the crisis, whatever it was, had been resolved. 

"So we are supposed to be up at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow for what reason?" asked Joe's best man and brother. 

"It's a surprise!" Bea exclaimed. 

"It's a no from me then." Joe's brother said. 

"Oh please your ass can go back to bed after, it's only about an hour of your time." Joe deadpanned. 

"Well I'm down for whatever it is." Sami assured. 

"Thank you Sami-I appreciate the enthusiasm." Bea smiled. 

"So Bea, this group is kind of small tonight, where is everyone?" you inquired. 

"Everyone else will be coming in the next couple of days." Joe answered for her. 

"What's the dress code for tomorrow morning's festivities?" Rami inquired. 

"Comfortable. So no high heels, or mini dresses. I would suggest a light jacket or sweater since it's a little chilly first thing in the morning." Bea advised. 

"Awwww Bay-Bea, but I was so totally planning on wearing my LBD and heels in the morning." Joe laughed out. 

"Well, I’m not stopping you babe but, I meant more something along the style of casual gym attire." Bea smirked. 

"Bold of you to assume that I don't wear mini dresses and heels to the gym." Rami joked. 

The laughter that went around the table at Rami's joke eased the mood considerably and you couldn't help but laugh along with everyone else. Rami really was a funny guy. 

"See Bay-Bea, Rami understands me." Joe chuckled.

"Fine. Wear what you want. Break an ankle or sustain any sort of injury and I will be pissed off Joseph. And for the love of God, you better not ruin any of my dresses in your attempt to be a clown." Bea scowled at him in her frustration. 

Joe pouted and then leaned across the table toward you. 

"Since I can't borrow Bea's, Princess can I borrow the black dress you're wearing tonight, for tomorrow morning?" 

"Uhhh sure I guess Mozzarella. Not sure if it will fit you though, but I'd most certainly enjoy watching you try." 

Joe dramatically clutched his chest .

"Gasssp are you? Are you calling me fat Y/N?!" he stuttered out so dramatically it would put any stage actor to shame. 

"Oh stop it. Of course I'm not, it's just. You're taller than I am, and I don't want to see your twig and man berries falling out of my dress. Especially at the ass crack of dawn when I most likely haven't had my daily dose of caffeine yet. " you scoffed. 

Bea literally spit out her wine all over the table, Rami choked on his tequila, Sami looked uncomfortable, and Joe's brother laughed so loudly it made you jump at the sudden loudness. 

Joe pouted, but you knew it was all an act. 

"I love you Joey baby. You're my squishy and I shall call you 'Squishy.'" Bea giggled as she poked Joe in the stomach. 

"Bea, what did I say about pet names? " You gagged. 

Joe looked so affronted, 

"Babe.. Did you just? You just.. You called me fat?" 

"No I called you my squishy." She retorted as she leant over to kiss his lips. 

"Did you actually quote Finding Nemo Beatrice?" Rami asked. 

"Indeed. A cinematic masterpiece. Fight me." Bea giggled again. 

This caused another round of laughter to go around the table. 

The waitress finally arrived to your table to take everyone's order. You couldn't help the random jealousy that was bubbling up in you as Rami seemed to openly and unashamedly flirt with her.

Once the waitress had everyone's order she disappeared and conversation resumed. 

"So Joe, real quick question about the partnered activities, what if my partner isn't here yet?" his brother asked. 

"If your partner is not available to assist you for any of the activities then we may have you grouped with another couple." Joe advised to the entirety of the dinner party.

 "However, there will be no partner switching unless the activity calls for it." Joe continued as he addressed that last piece to you and Rami. You rolled your eyes in response and highly suspected that Rami was probably doing the same thing. 

You barely heard any of the rest of the conversations because your mind was racing with thoughts of Rami. You had no clue where these thoughts were coming from and you weren't exactly pleased that they were occupying so much space in your brain. You cursed your brain and what you thought were long buried feelings you'd had for Rami. 

You thought no one had noticed you staring at his reflection in the glass that was behind the opposite side of the table from you, until you noticed his eyes catch yours in the reflection. He gave you a smirk and attempted another wink, but boy, can he NOT wink properly. Still, you found it endearing and rather distracting. 

"See something you like Y/N?" Rami suddenly spoke up, a little too loudly. 

His voice broke your silent reverie and you almost jumped out of your skin. Feeling the eyes of everyone at the table back on you; your skin flushed a deep red in response. You were embarrassed for having gotten caught so you did the only thing you could think of in that moment; say something stupid. 

"Awfully presumptuous of you to assume I was checking you out. I'm pretty sure I was staring at Sami's gorgeousness."

Ramis laugh was loud and infectious, Sami however, just cocked a brow and shook his head. . 

"I know I'm gorgeous YN so thank you. I mean him and I are identical so wouldn't it be natural to just assume that I'd be considered as good looking as him?" Sami asks with a small smile and another casual shrug

. 

"Without a doubt Sami, I think you are the better looking of the two of you actually. I mean Rami's smart but he memorizes words for a living, you Sami…  you teach the words." you add, while watching Rami's mock outrage in the glass. 

Rami opened his mouth to speak but closed it promptly once he realized the waitress was headed toward the table. Actually all conversation ceased when the waitress arrived with everyone's food. The sight of her openly flirting with Rami made your stomach start to turn, especially when he was just as flirty back. It made your stomach feel uneasy but you decided to tuck into your overpriced steak with gusto. You rationalize the fact that he's famous so the attention he receives shouldn't be unexpected but you can't figure out where the jealousy was coming from. He doesn't owe you loyalty and you don't him so why the jealousy? 

After dinner, a few people ordered dessert but your uneasy stomach wouldn't allow anything rich to settle. You sat back an observed the occupants of the dinner party. Rami was eating a slice of cheesecake, while Bea was silently enjoying her chocolate cake and simultaneously scowling at Joe who was eating ice cream of all things. 

"Joseph I swear, if you forgot your pills I will be NOT be listening to you complain all night during your self induced suffering on the porcelain throne."

"It's alright baby, I promise, I took them already." he beamed at her. 

You laughed a little too loudly thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol you had consumed throughout the evening. Moments like these with Joe and Bea were so commonplace and had been happening since they started dating, what seems like a million years ago. 

When the waitress came back to the table she handed everyone their individual bills but lingered near Rami. She smiled at him and tried to make casual conversation with him as he handed her his card. She frowned slightly but took it and walked around the table collecting everyone else's various forms of payment. 

You noticed the slip sitting in front of Rami that was obviously from the waitress, it had a name and number scrawled in neat handwriting on it. The jealousy made your stomach ache and tears threaten to spill.

 You pushed your chair back from the table quickly and took off back towards the elevator bank as fast as you possibly could. You could only pray to God that no one noticed the hot tears of jealousy that started to run down your face. You sure were glad you had decided to forgo makeup tonight but cursed your overly tired drunken brain and body. 

Once you'd made it halfway to the elevators is when you remembered that you left your phone and room key on the table outside. No way in hell were you going back, but you angrily pressed the button to summon the elevator anyway. 

"Well, shit." you muttered out loud. 

You nearly jumped out of your skin when you heard a deep, familiar voice from behind you calling out your name. 

"Y/N WAIT!!!" 

You spun around to find Sami running toward you, holding your phone and key card in his hand. 

"Hey, hun what's wrong?" 

"Nothing other than the fact that I'm drunk, stupid and seriously jealous! ”

"Jealous? Of who? The waitress? If that's the case you don't need to be. Rami usually throws them away or puts them, oh God, he'd kill me for telling you this. But he puts some of them in a scrapbook. Once it's full he puts it away. It's weird, but I promise you, he NEVER calls them."

" Sure. Whatever. It's not like he owes me anything. You don't have to tell me all his secrets. I should have expected it since he is super famous now. I  am also feeling guilty because I've handled the majority of this evening very poorly; no excuse for how much of a bitch I've been to him." You reasoned. 

"He actually wanted to come and apologize to you for goading you all night, but I wouldn't let him. You know my brother better than you think you do, you understand that he's a really good guy. Even as kids though, Y/N, something about you brings out the best and worst in him. For all his intelligence sometimes my brother is a full fledged idiot. His observation skills are excellent unless it's you."

" I remember. I know. Jesus, I just… Ugh. I just.. Fuck Sami, I don't even.." you struggle to find the words you want to say but something about the look on Sami's face tell you that he can understand what you're trying and failing to communicate. 

He just offers you a warm hug and a smile. 

"It's alright YN. Oh, Bea and Joe were also really concerned for you after your abrupt departure, what do you want me to tell everyone?" 

"Thanks Sami, I appreciate this. Just tell them I have a migraine and needed to lie down for a bit. Really Sami, thank you."

"You're very welcome and for the record he actually just burns the scrapbooks once they are full."

You can't help the giggle that comes out of you, because the thought of Rami having scrapbooks full of random phone numbers is hilarious, but the fact that he burns them; it's such a silly thing. 

"Sam, I want to believe you about your brother, I just… Yeah… I just… Yeah… Pretty sure that he doesn't truly care, I don't think he ever did.I mean maybe it's the alcohol talking here but it's stupid to hold on to something for twenty years, isn't it? I don't truly believe he ever gave a shit about me. I have told myself he just wanted to pull a prank and I was obviously the easiest target."

Sami opened his mouth to say something at the exact moment a soft ding rang out and the doors to the elevator opened with a metallic whoosh. You stood slightly off to the side to allow the previous occupants to exit before stepping inside. 

"Goodnight Sami." You smiled weakly at him.

"Goodnight Y/N." 

He opened his mouth to say something, again, but the doors closed with a thud before he could get a word out. 

"He likes you more than you can possibly understand." Sami muttered to himself as he began the walk back towards the dinner party. 

Once the elevator stopped on your floor, you let out a frustrated sigh. For some reason you really wanted to cry. Something about Rami has always drawn you to him, like a moth to a flame, yet also made you despise him at the same time, and you've never understood why.

Once back in your room you threw yourself onto the bed and screamed into one of the pillows. You laid there staring at the ceiling for a while before drifting off to sleep because when you opened your eyes again it was pitch dark outside and in your room. You couldn't get over the overwhelming feelings of frustration, so you got up and headed out to your balcony. Maybe some fresh air would help. 

"Why do I feel cursed?" You pondered out loud, to no one. 

"Ever thought that maybe you are?" Came a familiar deep drawling voice on the balcony next door. 

Your head whipped around to find Rami casually leaning against the railing of his balcony smoking a cigarette looking, quite frankly, like… sex on legs. The dim light of the balcony cast a halo around his curls. You smiled to yourself at how devilishly handsome he looked in that moment. It should be a sin to look so good, his shirt was completely unbuttoned, untucked and the belt missing from his pants. A cigarette hung from his soft lips as he stared at you, half lidded eyes glistening in the moonlight. You wanted to jump across the balcony and beg him to ravish you like some character from a cheesy Harlequin historical romance. For a moment your eyes meet his and he gave another one of his famous smirks that left your knees weak. You caught sight of his beautiful hands holding his cigarette as he took another drag and then slowly exhaled the gray smoke into the night sky. You shake your head and avert your gaze skyward, trying to empty your head of that particular line of thinking. 

"I know I am." He spoke softly.

"Curses are nonsense, superstition and I personally don't believe in them at all."

"Maybe you should start Y/N. In the belief of curses you may find some answers that you may never have believed you were looking for. "

"Why would I do that? And what mystical answers do you think I may possibly be looking for?" 

"Maybe there are forces in play that you don't understand. That hell, most of us don't understand. But don't discount the power of believing and the power of a kind of magic. You ever have that feel like you're drawn to someone but can't understand why?" 

"Now you are talking absolute crazy Rami. Maybe the answer lies in a simple truth. Attraction. Want. Need. I don't know. Maybe it's just the brain tricking you into believing an illusion. Maybe the answer is just lust." you stated before heading back into your room and slamming the balcony door shut a little more forcefully than intended. 

"Oh Y/N, if only you knew. You're my curse as I am yours." Rami quietly uttered before tossing the remainder of his cigarette into the makeshift ashtray on the patio table. 

You threw yourself back down onto your bed with a heavy sigh. You had no idea how Rami could go from being a complete prick to whatever that hell that just was; shaking your head because he actually wasn't being a prick, he was just being Rami. You tried to turn on the TV for whatever late night bullshit would be playing but found nothing satisfactory. You picked up your phone and tried scrolling through your various social media apps but still nothing caught your interest. Your mind was swirling with too many thoughts that were leaving you feeling a number of ways. God, how can that man leave you feeling so irritated and horny at the same time? 

Deciding to give up on trying to distract yourself, you aimed for sleep. With your mind still swirling with visions of Rami looking like a disheveled sex God, along with thoughts of curses, sleep managed to find you all too easily. You gave into the tug willingly as you felt yourself go under its spell. 

Two days since the unexpected happened and here you were about to make love to him for the first time. Two days since you were told the story of his family curse, which isn't really a curse to you, more of a blessing. And two days of being invisibly tied to the man you've known since you had turned eighteen, was the only man you've ever wanted. 

Warm and safe, with your hand still stuck in your soon to be lovers as he gently guides you down onto his bed. Fear, excitement, and lust coursing through your body, you can't wait for what's to come. It had been a long two days of preparing for this exact moment.The moment of complete soul bonding. The moment when both of you would finally be able to physically claim each other as your own, which would release your temporary invisible bindings, but would leave a permanent physical mark as a reminder as well as the permanent markings on your souls.

You look up into those beautiful eyes of his, darkened with lust in the low light of his bedchamber. His olive skin appearing a glowing gold as he positioned himself between your thighs.

"I've never done this before." you murmured, heart pounding with excitement and nervousness. 

"I know Y/N, but I would never intentionally hurt you. You are my soulmate, the one made just for me just as I was for you."

"I love you, I have my whole life even if I never understood it, please just love me now." You begged, as you felt his hard member against your thigh. 

"Always." He moaned out as he slowly pushed into you. 

You cried out at the sudden burning, stretching pain that shot through you, but once he was fully inside of you; his hips stilled waiting for you to get used to the feel of him for the first time. After a few moments the painful feeling passed and feeling brave you bucked your hips against his as you moaned at the sudden pleasure the movement brought. 

"Oh my love you feel so good." he murmured against your neck as he slowly began to move, his damp curls clinging to his forehead.

If you hadn't been unable to use your hands because they were still locked together, you would have clawed at his back urging him to continue moving. 

"Please. Please. Love me." you whined out, your eyes meeting his. 

Your lips crashed together with a passion you've only heard whispers of until now. 

You wrapped your legs around his waist which changed the position of your hips into one allowing him deeper access to all of you. You were panting and moaning with every movement of his hips against yours, and it wasn't long before you felt an unfamiliar feeling beginning to form in your belly. Before you could register what was happening, you were seeing stars as you began screaming out his name. 

"Oh my love. My love. I love you, I love you, I love you." He cried out before you felt his hot seed painting your inner walls. 

It was shortly after that you realized that you were able to pull your hands apart, but you both chose not to. Instead, you chose to stay as you were, all wrapped up in skin. 

"I love you Y/N. I have for years and will always. When our time on this earth ends just know my soul will always find yours in every life after this one."

You smiled against his warm skin as you readjusted your positions in bed, never letting go of each other's hands.

"I love you too. Forever and always."

You awoke with a start, heart pounding and with a dull aching wet feeling between your thighs. Awareness of your surroundings left you feeling confused momentarily as you had just been in some ancient place that you were unfamiliar with. You could still smell the incense, fire, and sweat mingled with the unmistakable scent of sex. Hell, if you were honest you could almost still feel your dream lovers cum between your legs, slicking your thighs and the weight of his body still on top of yours. 

Confusion wracked your brain at the realization that the man who had just made love to you in your dream, you were more than certain was Rami. The thought was a little disconcerting, especially because you've never recalled ever having a wet dream like that before. Everything felt so vivid and real. 

This isn't the first time you've a Rami centric dream, for as long as you could remember, at least once a year you've had vivid dreams where he was the main star. Your Rami dreams only became more intense after your eighteenth birthday. 

Feeling restless you decided to take a shower and afterwards decided to go for a little walk in the gardens of the hotel. Once again you felt like a little fresh air might help you clear your head. 

THE PRESENT

"Rami, seriously what the hell is going on? What do you mean 'I'm stuck with you'?" the tears that had formed moments ago began to fall down your cheeks. 

You look back and forth between the two brothers, neither willing to meet your gaze. 

"Sami why do your brother and I need to talk? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEONE START GIVING ME SOME INFORMATION NOWWWW!" you yelled through the tears. 

Rami tried to pull you into a hug to offer comfort but you pushed him away. He chuckles again before quietly suggesting that the two of you go into one of your rooms. You nodded slowly in understanding before reaching into your bra with your free hand to remove your card key. 

"Hey you two just remember that if you need some more information mom's room is just down the hall. You could always go talk to her." Sami states. 

"Not now Sam, it's almost two in the morning but if Y/N has further questions we'll go talk to her. I'm pretty sure that I know all the pertinent information. You should try and get more sleep we'll see you in the morning." Rami addressed his brother, before following you into your room. 

As soon as the door slammed shut, you whirled around on Rami aggressively,

" Look, I'm fucking tired and I'm irritated so just tell me why the fuck my hand is stuck in yours!"

"This isn't a quick story Y/N, it is going to take some time to tell, and you may have additional questions. So, you might want to try to get comfortable."

"No! Not until you give me some answers! Fuck, just.. just give me the cliff notes version then..." you demanded with narrowed eyes. 

"Short version Y/N, I'm your soulmate and you are mine. Remember when I told you earlier that I was cursed?" 

You nod for a moment, recalling the details of the conversation that happened a few short hours ago. The confusion must have been evident on your face because Rami reached up to cup your cheek. You pushed him away just as a laughing fit hit you. 

"Insanity. That's what this is, it's insanity. Jesus, I'm losing my fucking mind. If I pinch myself I'll wake up from this-this whatever the hell this is." You laughed out, unable to hold back, the laughter not subsiding until your sides hurt and tears were streaming down your face. 

Once you calmed down from your laughing fit, you looked up at Rami's face and found it looking rather serious. 

"Rami please tell me this is a joke?!" 

"No. This is not a joke. I wanted to tell you about this before we found ourselves in this situation, but, here we are. Y/N, this is in fact very real. You need to listen to me now, because if certain things don't happen within a certain time period, one or both of us may die. This is a curse that has plagued my family for thousands of years."

 Tag @itsme690 @xmxisxforxmaybe @augustjosephine @moon-stars-soul @teamwolf2411 @sassystrawberryk @rami-malek-trash @mister-owls-cupcake @mezzomercury

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG152!

- This was another statement during which I kept hesitating between two – Buried? Oh, The End. … Buried? End? Buried? End?, OOOOH Buried it is – until Hezekiah kept spelling it out again and again. Well, to be honest, he had spilled it for a long while. But.

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “[…] sleep still eludes me. And when it does not, I wake as though my heart were trying to leap from my chest and my throat were full of dust and ashes. […] There is… such peace in the churchyard, you see. To walk atop the soil, knowing that deep below my feet those blessed souls wait happy and silent in the cool, damp earth, counting the days until the Resurrection… […] I do find, however, that… when I dig my graves, I have been going deeper. And at times I worry I might dig so far as I can no longer get out with my meagre ladder. […] I saw his body, you know, as it was being prepared, and I tell you truly that for all the wickedness that man had done, his body knew gentle repose…! Though not as gentle, perhaps, as… it might be with six feet of earth atop it. […] It was cold that day, and bitter windy, and cracking the ground had been as hard as ice. At least until I was a few feet down. But by the end of it, oh, I tell you, there was warmth in that grave. Whether by my own body or the heat of the soil, I couldn’t say, but it was as comfortable as the fireplace of a public house, and the wind could not reach me in the hole that I had made. […] A terrible, bitter rain that chilled my bones and turned the soil around me dark and sodden. The walls grew damp and slippery, their firm shape lost as they began to slip and crumble. And then, all at once, they collapsed – the grave filling in a moment with a wave of mud and wet dirt. In a single terrible moment of utter terror, it was atop and around me, covering my face and filling my lungs with its awful choking sod. And the strangest thing was that it was wonderful. I had never felt such safety as within the crushing weight of earth all around me; the pressing embrace of The Buried.

[…] If it had been me in that coffin… destined for the peace below ground… I can think of little that I would hate more than the jarring, clanging of a bell, pulling me from my rest…

[…] I have been thinking, Nathaniel, of funerals and bodies. Souls that escape, leaving this… common clay to become one again with a truer clay. Were we not created from mud? And it seems more fitting to me that we should return forever to that mud, not pulled from it by some would-be-Redeemer, or lifted to sing hosannas in His holy court. I’ve worked so long, so hard; do I not deserve a rest in the mud from which I came? Commit my body to the earth and let it stay there. I’d do the same for you. […] But sleeping in the cool, soft dirt is all the bliss I could ever ask for. I suppose the Lord would have no call to think such things a blessing. He was never buried, was he? Not truly. Laying in a cave for three days, a rock pushed across the entrance before being taken up bodily; no, he was never Buried. And He always had more work to do, harrowing hell and redeeming the sins of mankind. No, he had no rest, and never asked for it, save a moment of doubt at Gethsemane. But He is the son of God, and we are merely sons of the dirt.

[…] You’ve never felt the close embrace of peaceful soil. You’ve never truly slept in the bosom of the earth. These things are not such as can be shared in words, and it was my foolishness to think that they could. But worry not, Nathaniel: the love I bear you will not let me leave you ignorant. As I did with the Reverend, I will come, and I will show you, once and forever, the true and glorious peace of The Buried.”

I had grown accustomed to associate “sleeping” with The End, due to Oliver (yearning for a “good night’s sleep”) and to Adelard and his self-reflecting about his own fears of dying in his sleep; but I’m rather fond of the fact that Hezekiah had to scream out loud explicitly who his patron was, this time around.

- Annnnnd once again, the avatar’d person both got a death experience, and was… a vulnerable person (a mix of depression, past alcoholism, insomnia, maybe suicidal too):

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “I’ve been installed here some weeks now and I’m finding myself well-contented, my sexton duties keeping my time employed such as I scarce have a chance to allow myself those dark thoughts that so concerned you when last we visited. […] My troubled sleep, on the other hand, has not of yet resolved itself in any way to my satisfaction. […] You need not despair, Nathaniel: I know the bottle will no longer help, and my other labours keep the nights from bothering me as once they did. … But I do find myself longing for a true and proper sleep. […] I hope such talk does not upset you, and you may rest assured that I am no suicide. It is simply the serenity of the dead I envy, not their lifelessness. […] I am never as truly satisfied as when I’m in my slumber and insensible to the world. Perhaps that’s what I hoped to find in my drinking, that… gentle oblivion. But it seems like a world ago.”

Oliver had begun to have his dreams after a nervous breakdown, when he was at his lowest; Jude had encountered The Lightless Flame while she was deep in depression; Jane Prentiss was isolated, poor and/or in an unstable situation when she began to be receptive to The Hive… people in a bad place tend to be overrepresented amongst the folks touched by a power, whether it’s to be become a servant or to be sacrificed, but Gerry had highlighted the reasons a while ago (MAG111: “Well, think of it this way: right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander too close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away.”). In Hezekiah’s case, there is the Added Aouch that… he had someone who, although not absolutely close, had still looked over him, and apparently put efforts into helping him heal – giving him a job, some stability, keeping in contact with him, visiting him. And still, it didn’t prevent Hezekiah from embracing The Buried, causing misery around him and, specifically, going after someone who was close and precious to him. I feel like I’m repeating myself these past few weeks but once again: it doesn’t bode well for Jon-who-kinda-died-but-came-back-after-making-a-choice-to-not-die, uh.

- And I liked Hezekiah’s casual disenchanted and deadpan tone, gdi ;; (“Not his fault, of course. The Lord gave him that voice for a purpose, no doubt. But sometimes that purpose does feel like it might be providing me a few minutes of unearned slumber. Still; his conduct towards me has never been less than compassion itself.”)

I do still like (/scream about) the reveal that

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “I’ve been trying to sleep. But that bell kept ringing, the one over Jacob the baker’s grave – that nonsense safety bell the Reverend insisted on putting there, ringing and ringing and disturbing the sleep of everyone in the churchyard. I’ve no doubt it disturbed Jacob as well, who worked so hard all his life and never thought to complain of his lot. He deserved to rest. So I cut the cord. And now he is quiet.”

hE CUT THE CORD OF THE SAFETY BELL…………………… (complete with the sudden spike of music, perfect “oH SHIT” moment), actually makes you reconsider how oh, what an absolutely perfect coincidence! There was an outbreak of fever in the city, many graves to dig and people to bury. Oh! What a mistake, little Nellie died by drowning (… Nellie hadn’t “drowned” on her own, uh?) but was actually still alive. A lot of things sounded like an unreliable narrator and/or someone in denial over what they were doing and trying to achieve (Hezekiah ensuring that he would have occasions to dig more graves, and trying to share his ~discovery~):

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “Eh! You’ll laugh, Nathaniel, but I almost wrote that I hope I have a chance to dig more graves. What a thought… No, I’d not wish that; for to dig graves, one must have something to fill them, and the good Lord takes that at His own pace.

[…] my nights have indeed been easier of late. Something I may partially ascribe to the recent outbreak of fever in the town, taking more of my time for the grim business of grave-digging.

[…] The circumstances and causes are easy enough to explain. It was the funeral of young [Nellie Cooper] that did it, which was a most upsetting affair. I’ll say I have much sympathy with his plight, as I had a chance to view the body myself, and if you’d asked me if I concurred with [doctor Grants’s] judgement of “death by drowning”, I would have agreed without hesitation. She had that peace to her, that I’ve spoken of to you before, and I knew how happy she must be, to soon be returning to the earth. […] To my mind, there are… far worse fates. But he has in his head an idea to begin fitting the graves I dig with these new “safety bells” that he has heard of, so that any as might be alive below ground might… signal us above, for rescue. I dread the idea. If it had been me in that coffin… destined for the peace below ground… I can think of little that I would hate more than the jarring, clanging of a bell, pulling me from my rest…

[…] I’ve been trying to sleep. But that bell kept ringing, the one over Jacob the baker’s grave – that nonsense safety bell the Reverend insisted on putting there, ringing and ringing and disturbing the sleep of everyone in the churchyard. I’ve no doubt it disturbed Jacob as well, who worked so hard all his life and never thought to complain of his lot. He deserved to rest. So I cut the cord. And now he is quiet.

[…] That you chose to share what last I wrote you with the magistrates… has wounded me so. They came and asked their questions, as I’m sure you hoped they would, but could of course prove nothing. Jacob is long dead, and I was very careful how I stopped the bell. […] But worry not, Nathaniel: the love I bear you will not let me leave you ignorant. As I did with the Reverend, I will come, and I will show you, once and forever, the true and glorious peace of The Buried.”

… until Hezekiah basically was that Russian cat meme, “THAT’S RIGHT, TWAS I THAT SET THE HOUSE ABLAZE!!!” (/ “Friendship ended with Nathaniel, The Buried is my best friend now.” / “Bury Your Gods.”) That. Certainly. Escalated.

- The fragmented and one-side epistolary presentation was enough to give clear implications: everything happened in one year and a half (it went fast), and it was enough to see a gradation, but also enough to feel… the contrast between Hezekiah’s first letter and the last. While at the same time…

(MAG152, Hezekiah Wakely) “August 1837. […] Your humble servant, Hezekiah Wakely.

February 1838. […] Your humble servant, Hezekiah.

June 1838. […] Yours, Hezekiah.

December 1838. […] Yours, Hezekiah.

January 1839. […] Your most humble servant, Hezekiah Wakely.”

The last letter closing, by returning to a phrasing closer to the first one, was also telling us: this is the same person.

The epistolary format makes me wonder, though: how did these letters reach the Archives? These were only the ones Nathaniel Beale had received, and Jon confirmed that Hezekiah had indeed got his hands on Nathaniel, burying him alive. The story happened around the time Jonah Magnus was at his peak (Jonathan Fanshawe’s own letter, in MAG127, was sent in 1831). Did Hezekiah’s letters reach the Institute through tours and detours, or… was Nathaniel another of Jonah’s close ones, that he watched getting pursued and consumed by a Fear…?

(Is Hezekiah still around? Was he Karolina’s shovel guy – or was that one Enrique MacMillan, who would have come back after dying from “asphyxiation”?)

- Jon going back to thinking about Jane Prentiss, and having changed his stance about what exactly happened to her was… telling of his journey and of what he has learned through it, in a very bittersweet turn: back in season 1, she represented the first “arc” of the series; she was the first red thread for the Archival team, the first to explicitly threaten them, the recurring menace surrounding them and looming closer and closer (MAG006, MAG022, MAG026, MAG034, MAG035, MAG038/MAG039) – and she impacted everyone: Martin, who was besieged by her for two weeks and had to live in the Archives for almost five months; Sasha, who followed Michael because she wanted to help the others and was almost infested, and who was killed in a blind spot by the Not!Them during the attack on the Institute; Tim, who suffered the most injuries alongside Jon. Jane Prentiss was also one of the only two subjects that Jon initially acknowledged as worthy of genuine concern (together with the Leitner books), and was the first Jon agreed to acknowledge as paranormal; she was the first statement he read that absolutely cracked his mask – he had… trouble getting out of it, it impacted him a bit more than the others:

(MAG032) ARCHIVIST: Statement ends. This is… uh… Excuse me, reading that was, um… hmm. While I am pleased that we have… found the statement that Prentiss gave the Institute, it answers far fewer of our questions than I would have hoped, and gives us little new information about her than we had before, save for a snapshot of her mental condition before her hospital admission. […] We still don’t have any evidence that Prentiss is actually paranormal. It could just be an unknown, aggressive parasite. There are weird things out there that are perfectly natural. It’s not, though. I know it’s not natural. Somehow I… I feel it. I’m sorry, my academic detachment seems to have fled me. Something in this statement has got to me a bit. I’m… I’m going to go lie down. End recording.

(Jon also got a lot of trouble “getting out” of MAG074’s “Fatigue” – was it because of the statement-giver’s state of mind at that point…?)

Jane Prentiss left scars, both physically and mentally: Tim and Jon got striking scars (Basira pointed them out in MAG052), Jon kept her ashes and still wanted Jordan Kennedy to confirm, again and again, that her body really had been cremated (although Elias had told him that he had witnessed it already), Martin hadn’t forgotten the fears and humiliation of being pursued by her by MAG117 and MAG118.

(MAG040) ARCHIVIST: It’s the last thing I remember before blacking out. Tens of thousands of… things without mouths screaming as one. ELIAS: … Yes. Horrible sound. […] Sasha was already there, but you and Tim were in a bad shape. It looked like a few dozen worms had been going into each of you when the carbon dioxide killed them. Was like bloody Swiss che– ARCHIVIST: Yes… thank you. I remember everything from when the ambulance arrived.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: Are you… saying there might be more out there like [Jane Prentiss]? JORDAN: God, I hope not. I don’t… know. The man from the ants’ house, he wasn’t like her, not at all. But that smell when they burned, I… think they’re connected. Somehow. And that scares me. ARCHIVIST: Yes… yes, it rather scares me too. […] While I am… always glad of any further closure to the case of Jane Prentiss, this seems to come with the rather serious caveat that she might not have been working alone. No, that– that doesn’t sound right. J–Jane Prentiss, or whatever this… flesh hive was that took her, does not seem like the sort of being that would work well with others.

(MAG065) ARCHIVIST: Well, excuse me if my experiences of th– TIM: Your experiences? Fuck you! I got eaten by worms because of you! ARCHIVIST: Well, what do you want? You want sympathy? TIM: You know what, yeah! A little bit of basic sympathy would have been nice! ARCHIVIST: Jane Prentiss was not my fault, I did not bring her to the Archives! TIM: Oh, but you went off the deep end afterwards, didn’t you?

(MAG118) ELIAS: [SIGH] Are you done. MARTIN: Not even close. Because... [HEAVY BREATHING] I… I’ve been thinking. It’s not like you’ve got this all-seeing thing recently. You’ve had it the whole time. I remember the way you looked at Sasha after the attack. You knew it wasn’t her. And I reckon you knew Prentiss was lurking under the Institute, too, and you did nothing. Why? [SILENCE] WHY?! [SLAMS TABLE] ELIAS: … Let’s just get this over with, shall we?

(MAG120) ELIAS: Then all at once, the ants are gone, fled in a moment away from the still shuddering form of the exterminator – and a familiar terror finally pushes his way into the Archivist’s heart. Before him rises an incinerator door, the glowing light of the flames curling around the cracks. With a wailing shriek, the door opens and the burning silhouette that stands within is ingrained upon the Archivist’s racing mind. They smoke and sizzle, but still the worms crawl through her charred and pockmarked flesh, her now singed red dress shifting with the movement beneath it. The exterminator looks to her, then to the Archivist, and it is not certain which he fears more. The Archivist, for his part, is hopelessly willing the dream to stop – but as she takes one scorched step after another, it is clear that he has no power to make it. When faced with her, he even longs for the terrible dream of the melted woman, who would see everything desolated without rhyme or reason. But she was beyond his reach the moment she knew he was there. So the Archivist can only stand and stare as the Hive goes about its infested, long-dead work.

But Jane Prentiss is also… the remnant of a time when everything seemed dichotomic. When Elias was still that boring bureaucrat, not keen on intervening but mostly harmless, that Jon could still partially respect (MAG049: “Certainly, the Elias I know now is almost unmatched in terms of paranormal knowledge. Well. Theoretical knowledge, at least. And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know.”). When monsters were “outside”. The supernatural thing coming after you. (Was Jon already alluding to that loss of clear separation, of the stability of being on a “moral” side of things, when he wondered in MAG115: “God, do I– do I miss being chased? That’s depressing. No, it’s… I just miss feeling like I’m moving, like I…”?). It was easier to think of the monsters as other, to distinguish “Jane Prentiss” and “The Hive” – he repeatedly referred to his encounter as “the entity formerly known as Jane Prentiss” in MAG040.

Jane Prentiss’s death also came with other losses: the Archives in which Martin had taken refuge weren’t actually safe either. Tim went through hell with Jon. Sasha died, unnoticed, in Artefact Storage, and was replaced by the Not!Them. Gertrude’s body was discovered, together with the reveal that she had been murdered, leading to Jon suspecting his co-workers of being her killers. The original team only lasted through season 1; and although nobody amongst the remaining ones died in season 2, the team continued crumbling altogether – Jon against everyone, irremediably losing Tim even before his death an entire season later. Only Jon and Martin are left, now; but it was not surprising that, when discussing about “Jane Prentiss” with Helen, Tim and Sasha were right around the edges, too, because they belonged to that time, had been involved with her too:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall. HELEN: More of a legacy than some people get. ARCHIVIST: … It was meant to be a gate, I think. A hole that she… rotted into The Corruption itself. Maybe the start of a ritual. […] Huh? You’ve got hands. HELEN: Sharp enough to pull out worms. Kill a few old men. Maybe stab an overeager Archivist… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

“Kill a few old men” like Paul McKenzie (MAG027, MAG146). “Stab an overeager Archivist” like Jon trying to make Michael release Helen Richardson (MAG047). “Sharp enough to pull out worms” like Michael preventing Sasha from getting infested:

(MAG026) SAHSA: As I stood there, staring at the wallet, I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. I looked up to see Michael, reaching into my shoulder. Its fingers were long and distorted as they reached through my skin, cutting it like paper. I screamed. After a few seconds, it withdrew its hand. Held there was a single silver worm, wriggling pathetically in its grip. I hadn’t even felt the thing burrowing into my arm.

And Tim had been the one to discover the circle of worms, during MAG039’s events, as he described it to Jon in the following episode (and if it was indeed “the start of a ritual”… then, Tim stopped that one, too), leading to Jon confirming it for himself some weeks later:

(MAG040) TIM: No, it’s just… I think I was still gassed, and it was dark, but… I found a room. ARCHIVIST: Go on. TIM: I didn’t stay long, ‘cause it had a lot of worms in, and they weren’t acting like the others. They were sort of… wrapping around each other, like they were trying to form a… thing, like a structure or something. A ring. I was probably still out of my skull, and half-hallucinated the whole thing, but it looked like they were trying to make a doorway. ARCHIVIST: A doorway? Is it still there? TIM: No. I pumped two full extinguishers into that room. Nothing was getting out.

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: It was almost impossible to retrace my steps. I tried to remember my route using what vague oddities I could remember as landmarks: a burned door, a particularly warped corridor. But trying to find them again was useless in the winding passages. In my increasing panic to find the way out, I almost forgot the things I had originally gone down there to look for. Then I found the circle of worms. When Tim had first described it, I had only half-believed him. I’m sorry, Tim, if you’re listening, but the CO2 had done some strange things to you at that point. He had the right of it, though. By the time I found it, there was little left but a thick carpet of dead worms, but a few were still embedded in the wall providing the clear outline of a circle. The ceiling was higher here, and all told it must have been about… ten feet in diameter. Its size was not the most disconcerting thing though. Inside the circle, the stone was… wrong somehow. Solid, but oddly wavy, like chocolate that’s melted and then re-hardened. It took me a minute or two to work up the courage to wade through that shallow sea of filth, but I did, and when I touched the warped wall, it felt soft and porous. But stable. I turned and left, but not before noting that another path also appeared to have been pushed through the worms on the floor, though when it had happened or who had made it, I couldn’t say.

What I still find curious, however, is that… Sasha and Tim were there in spirit; Helen referenced specific events that they experienced. But they weren’t named. How come Jon has stopped mentioning them at all, and has barely had any thought for Tim all through season 4? The way Jon found out about Tim’s death was different from Sasha’s, but still: in both cases, he learned about it six months after the fact. In Sasha’s case, it had left him shaken, starting in MAG078. It was a subject painful enough to make him snap at the worst time: revealing his cover when hiding from the Not!Them in MA079 because it was taunting him about it, or snapping at Nikola during The Unknowing:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: […] And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NOT!SASHA: [CLOSE AND DISTORTED] There you are.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Who are you?! NIKOLA: Who am I? Tim, of course! Who else would I be! ARCHIVIST: You’re not– you’re not… Tim. NIKOLA: Oh, you caught me~ I’m… Sasha! ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NIKOLA: No~! Really, it’s me! Sasha– whatever her name was! Back from the dead, just like you wanted~! ARCHIVIST: Get away from me, or, or I swear I’ll… I’ll…

So why, although they’re almost present, although there is the faint ghost of their experiences, they’re… not? (Not named, barely remembered, almost never alluded to. This season, it feels like they… never existed, never died tragically.)

(- Especially in this episode, I had to wonder if Jon hadn’t been relistening to old tapes lately. Because his description of the worms… was really, really reminiscent of Tim’s own interrogations right after Prentiss’s attack:

(MAG040) TIM: Well, yeah. There weren’t so many down there. I think they were almost all in the Archives. I have a theory, actually. I think they weren’t ready to attack when you found the tunnels. It’s like, something in the Institute slows them down, and makes them, um, heh, sluggish. And that noise they make? That squirming sound? They don’t make it when they’re in the tunnels. I don’t know why. It was only when they came into the Institute. Maybe the light, or the aircon, or something? I’m not sure, but I think it made them weaker, and they’ve been down there for months, breeding, building up their numbers until there were enough to properly bury us. Except you found that hidden passage, and they had to act.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: I’ve been wondering what they were doing down here. Though they must have been down here for… weeks, months maybe; spreading, growing. They could have spread all the way through these tunnels, but they didn’t. They didn’t find Leitner down here, didn’t find… Gertrude’s body. Didn’t find… whatever else is here.

Another thing is when Jon said that Elias had called The Corruption “Filth”:

(MAG152) HELEN: Hm. Not exactly impressive, is it? ARCHIVIST: Less complex, certainly. But I think that’s the thing about– … what did Elias call it… “Filth”. I don’t think it really plans much. It just starts to grow wherever it can get a foothold and… if no one stomps it out in time: Game Over.

It’s… actually not something Elias had said on tape recently. Post-reveal about The Entities and Jon being involved with them, I think the first one to allude to The Corruption as “Filth” was Mike Crew:

(MAG091) MIKE: But I knew that Filth was not for me. Buzzing flies and rot disgusted me, but they never spoke to my soul. I threw the book into a sewer, and began my hunt.

However, Elias immediately gave Jon MAG102’s statement after Jon revealed that he Knew that Gerry and Gertrude had been collaborating at some point (Jon had included Gerry in the list of Gertrude’s collaborators in MAG099, before his month-long kidnapping!), and that statement was about The Corruption, so Elias might have made a mention off-screen. Or… or Jon remembered this line:

(MAG040) ELIAS: But… honestly, I didn’t fully appreciate what you’d been talking about until I turned that corner and we saw what I can only describe as a… a tidal wave of filth rushing towards us.

… and it was so long ago, and so… inconspicuous?, so I’m not sure that Jon had noticed and would remember that one. If he’s been relistening to old tapes lately, however… Given how Jon has been expressing nostalgia, is having an identity-crisis, and how Annabelle had pulled out his very first statement from MAG001 as a taunt in MAG147, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jon is said to have relistened to them all recently.)

- … And the last one of the original assistants was also there peripherally, through… the jar of Jane Prentiss’s ashes – Martin was the one who had somehow managed to obtain it from the ECDC, because he wanted to give it to Jon as a proof/reminder that Jane was dead, cremated and gone:

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: I have a small jar on my desk of what are supposed to be [Jane Prentiss’s] ashes, though I don’t believe it for a second. I think… Martin just gave me a jar of dust to try and calm me down. Give me something to focus on, for closure. I hate to say it, but it does appear to be working. A victory for the placebo effect, it would seem.

(MAG055) ARCHIVIST: … say it again, please. JORDAN: Excuse me? ARCHIVIST: What you’ve just said – can you say it again, so I have it on tape? JORDAN: Oh, okay. Jane Prentiss is dead. ARCHIVIST: … You’re sure? Completely? JORDAN: Yeah. I watched the incineration. ARCHIVIST: And there were no… complications? Like… wasps, surviving worms that escaped; err, movement from the body during incineration; noises from it, like screams, or chanting; weird feelings, li– like a thousand, tiny crawling things are moving across your skin? JORDAN: Waw. No. Nothing like that. Just the smell. But, I mean, I’ll get to that. It went well. Nothing left but the ashes I gave to your friend. Which I shouldn’t have, by the way, so… keep it to yourself. ARCHIVIST: Of course. And, thank you.

(And the fact that Martin managed to get someone to give him something although they shouldn’t have is still *squint.* to me. We know that Martin can be persistent and nagging until he gets what he wants (he had managed to get Jon to come eat with him in MAG053), but is it… absolutely mundane, Martin’s Absolutely Normal Power, or is it… spooky. Martin, what the heck are you.)

- Thinking again about Jane Prentiss now, when Jon Is Like That, is also a punch because! When I had begun to listen to TMA (towards the end of season 3: I was spoiled about Tim’s eventual fate before I even met him, spoiled about Jon growing powers and the risk of him becoming monstrous), I had… stopped at Jane Prentiss’s statement, wondering if it was supposed to be Jon’s fate, too:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “Something, not moving but that wants to move. Wants to be free. It itches, and I don’t think I want it. I don’t know what to do. […] If I wanted to be helped. I don’t know if I do. You must understand, it sings so sweetly, and I need it, but I am afraid. It isn’t right and I need help. I need it to be seen. […] I… I haven’t slept in some time. I can’t sleep. My dreams are crawling and many-legged. […] I hope you will forgive me for such a rambling story. I hope you will forgive me for a great many things, as it may be I do worse. […] Sings that I am beautiful. Sings that I am a home. That I can be fully consumed by what loves me. […] I wanted something beyond myself […]. Perhaps I’ve always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me, and it was the happy, smiling Jane who called herself a witch and drank wine in the park when it was sunny. Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion that hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretense that there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home. That love us in their way. I need to think. To clear my head. To try and remember, but remember what? I was lonely before. I know that. I had friends, at least I used to, but I lost them. Or they lost me. Why was it? I remember shouting, recriminations, and I was abandoned. No idea why. The memories are a blur. I do remember that they called me “toxic”. I don’t think I really knew what that meant, except that it was the reason I was so very painfully lonely. Was that it? Was I swayed and drawn simply by the prospect of being genuinely loved? Not loved as you would understand it. A deeper, more primal love. A need as much as a feeling. Love that consumes you in all ways.”

Especially the bit about her friends calling her “toxic” – aouch, Georgie……… did. So. It’s happening.

- Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back to The Mystery Of The Tunnels. Little things about them:

* They reacted/adapted to a Buried book, Leitner might have messed them up even more in the process:

(MAG080) LEITNER: An unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even begin writing the book until 1846, and the text of this one varies markedly from the version that was distributed. It gives an acute sense of the walls pressing in around you, and if consumed recklessly will physically entomb the reader. Over the years I have found that it interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels. […] In retrospect using The Seven Lamps so much was perhaps unwise. It is possible I unbalanced Smirke’s architecture somewhat, however cautious I might have tried to be.

* Leitner’s mention in passing was the only time, I think?, that confirmed that the tunnels themselves are SmirkeTM. But we do know that Smirke and Jonah had done… something together in Millbank, and that it was Beholding-related:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls. […] This is, of course, assuming you have not taken the path of The Eye that I know has called you – called us both – for so long, even since before we began our work on Millbank. […] I am not a fool; I know well enough what this dream is likely to mean, and I warn you again that if you have any remaining ambitions to use our work, to try and wear The Watcher’s Crown, you must abandon them!”

* More specifically, they are likely remnants of the old tunnels under Millbank:

(MAG040) MARTIN: I wandered for a while. It’s a, it’s a maze down there, Jon. I don’t know how far the passages go. Maybe miles. I think it must be the old Millbank Prison, like Tim was saying before. I even found some stairs at one point, but I really didn’t want to go down them.

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: […] I had done what research I could on Millbank. First proposed and designed in 1799 by Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher who wished to test his theories of the panopticon prison, where cells would be arranged in a circle around a single, central, guard tower – so all cells were observable at once. It was to have six such areas, arranged in hexagons, giving it from the air the shape of a vast, angular flower. It’s not clear why that original plan was abandoned, but from 1812 onwards, a succession of other architects were brought in to try and finish the project. Finally, three years later, they brought in Robert Smirke. He saw the project to completion in 1821, with a design remarkably similar to Bentham’s original. However, whereas Bentham’s would have been geometric, and easy to navigate, Millbank Penitentiary as it was built was more often described as an eccentric maze: twisting corridors, doors at strange angles, and narrow passages so poorly lit inmates would need to feel their way along. Throughout much of the 19th century it was where prisoners were kept before transportation to Australia, and the brutality of the jailors was said to be second to none. Its position on what was then marshlands hardly helped, with sickness and disease rife within their walls. It was a huge complex, covering much of what we now call Chelsea, but when it was finally closed in 1890, it was demolished. Flattened. Which meant that what I was in now couldn’t be the old prison itself. It had to be something built bellow it.

So, a place infused with prisoners’ misery, involved with ~the Panopticon~ project – constant surveillance, constant fear of being watched without being able to know if you really are and by whom.

* Not!Sasha was searching for something in them… and Leitner thought it may have been him? But Leitner was also particularly self-centred, so maybe… maybe the Not!Them was after what the tunnels are hiding, after all. (And Martin was thinking that what Peter’s plans might be involving them…)

* Enrique MacMillan tried to dig his way down towards… that “hollow space that all eyes point towards” and the “DIG” had snuck its way into Jon’s dreams, complete with an increase of statics:

(MAG088, Enrique MacMillan) “so here I came. To tell my story, of course, but another thing as well; cold, empty and calling. There’s something here, you see. Something to be dug up, rooted out, buried within. A hollow space that all eyes point towards. And I intend to reach it, if my fingers don’t give out first. I know where to dig.” MARTIN: Uh, um, the, uh, the statement ends rather abruptly there. Based on a few scattered notes and accounts from some of the older staff, it sounds like Mr. Macmillan got in a bit of a fight, which led to his arrest, and the replacement of quite a bit of the floor in Jon’s office. There are still a couple of boards with marks on them that I’d always hoped weren’t fingernail scratches, but I guess…

(MAG120) ELIAS: He catches a glimpse of an advert above his seat: [STATIC INTENSIFIES] “DIG”.

* Daisy, Basira and Jon have all remarked that the tunnels feel… off to them. And Jon was suspecting that Elias couldn’t see anything in them either:

(MAG041) ARCHIVIST: It is… hard to put into words how it felt to be down there, in the cool, mouldering air of the tunnels. Have you ever left a crowded room, and literally felt the silence as you walked out into the night? It was something like that; a sudden, quiet… absence. Not in itself a fearful thing, but unsettling, in a way I hadn’t noticed through the fear and adrenaline of my first time in the tunnels.

(MAG103) [CLICK] ARCHIVIST: Thank you for coming. DAISY: Sure. Why down here? ARCHIVIST: I, um, E–Elias, I–I think… I think he has a hard time seeing things down here. DAISY: I.e. he’s not watching? ARCHIVIST: Maybe? I’m, I’m pretty sure it takes him actual effort so…

(MAG110) BASIRA: Tim is… Elias is watching him too closely. MELANIE: He’s probably watching me too. MARTIN: We–we could try the tunnels, uh, Jon says they might help. MELANIE: Right. […] MARTIN: Hang on… BASIRA: Not here. The tunnels. MARTIN: Right, right! Right!

(MAG114) ARCHIVIST: You alright, Daisy? DAISY: [NONCOMMITAL SOUNDS] BASIRA: Don’t think either of us like it down here. ARCHIVIST: Uh, well, no, me neither. Feels… DAISY: Empty. ARCHIVIST: Yeah.

* … they have exits. HELP, I’M REALLY WORRIED THAT JON IS ALLOWED/ABLE TO ROAM FREE IN THE TUNNELS, IF HE CAN GO OUTSIDE FROM THERE AND POTENTIALLY GO AFTER PEOPLE???

(MAG080) ARCHIVIST: How long have you been down there? LEITNER: Hard to say. I’ve been in hiding for over twenty years now, ever since my library was destroyed. Obviously I have not spent all that time below your Institute. The old Millbank prison tunnels stretch out a very long way, and there are other entrances than the one below the Archives. I have a small number of… secure locations, though since Gertrude’s death I have been reluctant to leave the tunnels.

(MAG114) TIM: … How did you know I was going to be here? ARCHIVIST: Th–The others haven’t seen you in weeks, and you’ve still been using the computers here, accessing files and books… I… I know there are some exits to the tunnels outside the Institute, so– TIM: [SIGH] ARCHIVIST: –I guessed you were using them to get in and out, avoiding any… tape recorders.

* Gertrude’s body was discovered in them, although the blood found in her office on March 15th 2015 seemed to imply that she was at the very least wounded there first. So, did she drag herself down into the tunnels? Did she hide there for a few weeks? Was she killed in the tunnels – had Elias gone into the tunnels, after all? How come Martin managed to find her body? WHY THE SPECIFICATION THAT THERE WAS NO “COBWEB” IN HER ROOM, MARTIN.

(MAG040) MARTIN: When I finally found a door, I thought it might actually get out, but instead… It was a small room. Square. There was dust on everything. Cardboard boxes were piled around. They were full of old cassette tapes. ARCHIVIST: That’s where you found her? MARTIN: Yes. She was sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the room. No worms. No cobwebs. Just… an old corpse. Gertrude Robinson. She was slumped forward, but I could see her mouth hanging open.

- Confirmation that it’s perceived as a “maze”:

(MAG040) MARTIN: I wandered for a while. It’s a, it’s a maze down there, Jon.

(MAG041) JON: To call it a maze wouldn’t quite be accurate, as a maze is designed. It is set out with an obvious goal, even if that goal is to confuse and disorientate. This place, it felt more organic in its unpredictability, as though it had been intended to be used, to be travelled, but had gotten twisted somehow.

(Martin: *uses one word* / Jon: I suddenly have the compulsive urge to explain in great details how much you’ve been Wrong and misusing it.)

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: They didn’t find Leitner down here, didn’t find… Gertrude’s body. Didn’t find… whatever else is here. HELEN: It is a maze. One of the reasons I like it. ARCHIVIST: Mm. [SILENCE] … I can’t see things properly here. I thought it was just me, something interfering with my connection to The Eye, but… I’m wondering. Maybe it affects everything else. Like this place is some kind of… “universal blind spot”. Everyone gets lost, down here. HELEN: What a fascinating idea. Although… some of us are always lost, in a sense. ARCHIVIST: Wait– Are you saying you can navigate it? HELEN: Not exactly. But my door has been part of these tunnels for some time, now. ARCHIVIST: Wh– [SPLUTTERS] What’s it hiding, wh–what’s in the middle? HELEN: A delightful surprise…! [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH]

(Helen says “Let s1!Martin breathe, Jon.”)

So, “maze” and not a “labyrinth”.

- … if the place has to do with Smirke&Jonah’s previous involvements with the Beholding, is… The Distortion staying around because ultimately, The Eye’s ritual attempt could take place here? It was a Beholding-touched person who had stopped the Great Twisting (Michael Shelly, orchestrated by Gertrude), so… is this payback. (It would sound awfully coherent and straightforward for The Distortion, but…).

- We know that Michael-The-Distortion’s characteristic laughter, with the little sigh at the end,  directly came from Michael Shelley (it was his laugh, recorded on tape, in MAG099 when he was working with Gertrude); Helen-the-Distortion had begun to laugh with some echoing recently, but this time around, it was full-blown The Laugh.

I always had a bit of trouble trying to picture The Distortion but, in the middle of the discussion with Jon, I feel like I… got to understand it a bit more, thanks to this episode? It’s plural; sometimes a bit more Helen, sometimes not. Sometimes, Helen is “she”, sometimes it’s “I” – and always a bit of both, always multiple and “more” than who Helen Richardson was (it knows about other entities and their schemes, it remembers past and present victims). It took a bit from humans who were consumed, from people who went through the door, and those things are swirling and sometimes coming out to the surface?

- Helen made a lot of… actually good points re:Jon’s decisions, (in)actions and complacency until now regarding The Eye:

(MAG087) GEORGIE: Come on, I’m not throwing you out, Jon. I know you wouldn’t be here if you had anywhere else to go, and I… I do want to help, but… y’know, you’re a good person. You were, at least. But whatever this is, it’s messing you up! [SIGH] Look I’ve, I’ve got work to do. You listen, or don’t listen, or cross-record, or whatever you want, just… just think about it first, okay? You can choose to leave it alone. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] [TAPE PLAYER IS LOADED] [CLICK–] […] GEORGIE: That’s it. Whatever the hell this deal is, the tapes, documents, I don’t want them in my house. ARCHIVIST: Look, look… No, no… Look, you, you don’t need to be scared. GEORGIE: I’m not! You are! Look at you, you can barely stand! ARCHIVIST: But I… But I need– GEORGIE: Listen to me, Jon. I can’t stop you doing… whatever secret bullshit you want to do, and I’m… not going to throw you out on the street, but I’m not having it in by home. ARCHIVIST: No… No, they won’t. I’ll make sure it doesn’t… I’ll keep it far away. GEORGIE: No, you need to stop. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I can.

(MAG107) ARCHIVIST: I feel… a lot better! … I’d love to rattle off a lot of potential other reasons for this, nice rational causes of recovery, but… I feel we’re past the point of transparent rationalisations. It looks like the recording of statements has now passed over from psychological compulsion into… a more physical dependence. I don’t whether this is… some sort of classical addiction or something a bit deeper. But either way, this is not the time for experimentation. I’m on a deadline, and if I need to be reading statements to stay well enough, then I suppose that’s what I shall do.

(MAG111) GERRY: Hmmm… Well, she could make people tell her stuff, sometimes. They’d suddenly get real talkative, and lay out whatever she needed. She didn’t do it often though. I don’t think she liked it. ARCHIVIST: [PERKY] Oh, er, I can do that, too. GERRY: Huh. Do you like it? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know. I… I never really thought about it. … Yes, I… I suppose I do. GERRY: Hmmm.

(MAG129) MARTIN: Yes, I’m not an idiot, Jon, but it’s no… worse than working for something really bad, so… ARCHIVIST: At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people!

And there was the fact that Jon began to refer himself as “The Archivist” when introducing his statements in season 4, too. Was it a supernatural compulsion? Something he has been doing consciously, identifying with the status, giving it… more strength than the “Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute”, which was lowering it to a simple job?

(I can’t help but wonder, too, if, at that moment:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…

Jon was clearly answering what (he thought) Elias wanted to hear, there, but… if Jon had refused to take up the title, refused to identify with it, if he had just obstinately answered “Jonathan Sims”, again and again, would things have proceeded differently…?)

… At the same time: it’s “The Distortion”, who has always gotten its kicks out of confusing people. It’s a predator who likes to toy with its preys, with the added dimension that it explained that “Helen” had made a decision to stop feeling guilty over her actions – because she wouldn’t be changing them. It feels like victim-blaming (like Elias did when he gave his whole speech to Jon about his choices: sure, indeed, Jon could have elected other options… but there is no such thing as uninformed consent. Not knowing what you’re signing up for and being denied the opportunity to back out is arguably a choice; is it truly a choice when you don’t have all the parameters, and are manipulated/groomed/raised into doing something you didn’t want…?); and also like the “Helen” part of the Distortion is trying to “help” Jon feel better by inviting him to do the same (Helen liked Jon, it might be a way to alleviate his pain, as she told him in MAG146: “It would be better if you embraced it.”) in order to feel less bad about her own choice – if Jon, if anyone succumbs, then, nothing to be done, right? It happens anyway. It’s not their fault. They “chose” but they didn’t have any choice in the first place, since the results is the same for everyone. It’s not their own personal choice to give up.

- Re:Helen being manipulative/confusing on purpose…

1°) Avatars referring to Jon as “Jon” are usually a Bad Sign:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE] So what do we actually know? ELIAS: Jon… ARCHIVIST: Don’t you dare [SLAMS ON TABLE] “Jon” me.

(MAG121) OLIVER: Hum… Hello, Jon. Do you… m–mind if I call you Jon? I… I mean. You don’t actually know me, it’s just… well. “Archivist”, it’s so… formal, isn’t it? And I do kind of know you…? […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG147, Annabelle Cane) “‘Free will’ is a funny old thing – isn’t it, Jon? Can I call you Jon? I’m going to call you Jon.”

(MAG152) HELEN: Hello, Jon. Been a while since you’ve been down here. […] Cheerio, Jon! Enjoy your brooding.

2°) Helen presenting the idea of Jon giving up and attacking someone again as unavoidable certainty (while highlighting that Jon has no Spooky Knowledge on the matter: it feels like he could die without… but he doesn’t know. It might not actually be a necessity. It “just” makes him suffer. If he attacks someone, it would be about comfort rather than survival.), and presenting the relationships within the Archives team in a specific way: not as friendship or stemming from affection… but only as a “responsibility”?

It’s true that Jon never chose Basira, Daisy and Melanie as his assistants. He never was exceptionally close to them – Melanie and him disliked each other, Daisy was threatening towards him and hated what he had done to her, Basira… used to like him, a bit, and that was all. Meanwhile, Jon had asked Tim to come with him in the Archives (and had calmed down as soon as Tim had conveyed that he was getting too heated, in MAG033; they had a very good relationship, Jon trusted and followed Tim’s warnings), Sasha could interrupt a statement to nitpick pronunciations with him just like that (he liked her! she sounded like she was probably his favourite!), and Martin was… Martin…, so by comparison… the current Archives team is not really made of spontaneous friendship. But affection seemed to have grown, and Helen is casually negating all of it, implying that Jon is only holding off on statements to preserve himself, while it could be many other reasons (and “not wanting to disappoint the others” would be absolutely valid!):

(MAG152) HELEN: Hungry, are we~? ARCHIVIST: That’s not…! I haven’t done anything– HELEN: Yet. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I feel like if I don’t… I might die. Fade away into nothing. HELEN: Do you “Know” that? ARCHIVIST: No. But I– … I can’t die. They need me. HELEN: Come on, Jon, no excuses. They don’t need your protection. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] What, are you going to look after them? HELEN: And how would I do that? […] When has your guilt, or your “sadness”, or your hand-wringing, ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants? ARCHIVIST: I, uh, I–I have not been taking statements…! HELEN: You’ve sworn off other people’s trauma for now… because you were caught. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] HELEN: Because continuing would endanger you. But other than that, when has your discomfort ever actually stopped you walking the path of The Beholding?   ARCHIVIST: I… I don’t know…

(Joooon… you would have an answer to that, though. It was when you decided to trust the assistants, and when you burned Gerry’s page, even though it caused you pain and EVERYTHING was telling you to not do it.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: That’s it, then. I, I think. Except… [PAPER] I, uh… I haven’t burned it. Gerard’s page. … G–Gerry. I, I… I know there’s more he could tell me. He, he wouldn’t, of course, I, I, I know that, b–but he, he, it would still– b–be– there, that, that, that knowledge. I– It it would, it would still exist, I– I, I, I can’t. I… I want to help. I, I want to. But I… uh… I’m scared. On, on tape, just… just– just do it. [UNCAPPED LIGHTER] [HEAVY BREATHING] [SOUND OF A FLAME] Do it! [HEAVY BREATHING] [CRIES OF PAIN, BURNING SOUND] [HEAVY BREATHING, MUFFLED] I… [CAPPED LIGHTER, SHAKY VOICE] … you owe me one, Gerry. Rest in… … Just rest.

When you were finding reasons to not do it, and you still forced yourself to do it because you had promised Gerry.)

(- Meanwhile: if Jon is feeling like Hell after a few months, and is confused and tired (his voice is… raspy)… once again, how does Elias feed. It’s been a year. How come he’s managing. Has he done something to the prison, is he actually in control of the whole place.)

- Oh Gods No, Jon:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: … Fine. I get it; my feelings mean nothing to it. HELEN: Mm, not true. They carry a certain flavour, a seasoning. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] [NASAL CHUCKLE] I see. HELEN: [LAUGHS, ECHOING] I am enjoying our time together.

… is now deliberately making Beholding puns.

- One big distinction from other avatars, regarding Jon, though? He still… doesn’t put the blame on his victims. It’s him doing something awful to them, he takes no pride in it. There is still that “guilt”… and an absolute lack of zealotry regarding The Eye? Elias was all over Beholding in MAG120. Hezekiah got all over The Buried in a year and half. But Jon… still isn’t waxing poetry about Beholding?

And same: he… still hasn’t attacked anyone, although his surveillance seems quite loose. Why has Jon agreed to stop, since he’s been confronted about it and unable to keep on being in denial or finding a scapegoat through The Web…? There have been talks about how he will come back to it, how it won’t last, but… no discussion about the reasons he would have to stop, although he admitted that he “[did]n’t want to stop” (MAG147), and has indeed been stopping since then. I don’t think that it’s only as Helen said, that he’s restraining himself for self-preservation…?

- … There is now an additional dimension to the fact that Jon was keeping his rib in the same drawer as Jane Prentiss’s ashes, since he explained how he was… likening their situations:

(MAG140) BASIRA: Er… Jon. What’s this. [DRY SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Mm? … Oh. That’s… [SILENCE] That, uh, that’s… my rib? BASIRA: … Right. [PUTS IT DOWN] ARCHIVIST: Yup… BASIRA: And… the jar of ashes. ARCHIVIST: Not– Not mine; I–I mean, it belongs to me, I–I guess, but it’s not… Er, stationery is in the other drawer?

(MAG152) HELEN: Hello, Jon. Been a while since you’ve been down here. ARCHIVIST: [ANGRY EXHALE] I didn’t come here to see you. HELEN: Oh, come now. I’m sure I’m more interesting company than the late Jane Prentiss. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall.

(I first misunderstood this passage and there was something really striking about the picture of Jon going back in the tunnels where Jane Prentiss had hidden, and from where she had attacked them, going back to that special spot with the circle of worms and going back in time to when she was the current threat, holding the jar of ashes in his arms… But he doesn’t actually have the jar with him.) This is not just about Jane Prentiss specifically, though. Jon has had a trend of focusing on avatars and their stories to try to see what is the logic, where he fits in:

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. [PAUSE] These things that… loom so large over our lives trap us, and push us, and… sometimes kill us. But they never actually tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. So we scheme and we plot, lash out at each other without ever really knowing why. […] [SIGH] … We’ve been back in London for just over a week, now. I’m… more or less recovered physically. It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.

(MAG148) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Did he mention it at all? My, uh… BASIRA: Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn’t seem too fazed by it. ARCHIVIST: [LONG SIGH] Right. BASIRA: What? ARCHIVIST: … I–I don’t know, I mean… We still don’t really know… what Elias actually is…? I thought… Maybe if he was more like me than we realised… BASIRA: He might have some advice? ARCHIVIST: Stupid, I know.

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: I cannot tell how much of the change that comes over someone, when they are taken by one of the Fears, is a… direct product of their influence, and how much is their own mind, desperately contorting itself to accept and justify the awful things they find themselves drawn to doing. I have read… many statements now by those who are changing, who are becoming… something else, and few, if any of them, seem… entirely rational. Entirely the people that they were before. And how can I tell, I suppose? My job is to view people at their lowest, their most fearful and unstable moments. Perhaps there is less change there than I imagine. Certainly… I don’t feel different; I have no desire for pseudo-religious philosophising or… delighting in the suffering of those I harm. … Then again, I suppose I’m hardly in the best position to judge. Perhaps to anyone listening to these tapes, I sound… remarkably similar to Hezekiah, or to Manuela. … Or to Jane. […] HELEN: But that’s not why you’re here, is it? ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] … Yeah, mm. … I’ve been thinking a lot about Jane. She was the first, you know? The first I actually… “encountered” like… [SMALL HUFF] like us. She seemed so… inhuman. Like everything she used to be was… stripped away…! HELEN: And now? ARCHIVIST: … I wonder how much of her was still in there. How much did she choose to be what she was? I read her statement, she was… [SIGH] She was scared. I assumed she’d been possessed completely against her will, but now I’m not even sure that’s possible…! HELEN: It is astounding the sort of things you’re willing to choose, given an unpleasant enough alternative, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: How much of “willpower” is just… safety. Comfort by another name. The option to choose and be fine. […] HELEN: But we’re not talking about me, are we? ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … When does it stop? HELEN: What? ARCHIVIST: The guilt… The misery… All the others I’ve met, they’ve been… cold. Cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does The Eye… make me monstrous? HELEN: [LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] Why would it ever do that?

Trying to find a reason about why this all was happening to him through Agnes’s story; throwing his lot in alongside other avatars, and expressing a form of pity towards Manuela (Jon???); trying to find out if Elias’s own experience and managing methods could help him (you know you’re at your lowest when–); and now not being sure, anymore, that he’s any different from the others. Mostly concerned about (not) dealing with his own feelings of guilt rather than… finding ways to stop causing harm. Still portraying himself as passive without realising it much: wondering if he had been “chosen” (although it has some truth to it – Elias did pick him out, after all) meant that he hadn’t made the choice himself. Being at the mercy of Fears gods way above his comprehension meant that they were the only ones able to give him a purpose. Thinking that he was manipulated by The Web to attack people and feed from their traumas, meant that he wasn’t the one choosing to do it. Thinking of Jane as “possessed” meant that it wasn’t really her; that it isn’t really “Jonathan Sims”, either, cornering people and hurting them deeply. Waiting for The Eye to “make” him monstrous means that he is not becoming it almost on his own.

I’m still absolutely lost on the matter of what Jon is heading towards. We began season 4 with Oliver inviting Jon to make a “choice”: but I feel like lately, characters have insisted that… it wasn’t an all-defining, all-compassing choice. That Jon kept choosing, afterwards, and is still choosing right now, although that’s still not something that he is fully acknowledging. It feels like he’s being handed key hints about his own faults and flaws, and about his own situation, through what it isn’t; he’s been given other examples; he’s been told both by Helen and by Annabelle that he was still constantly choosing, that nobody else was making his decisions for him. But, at the same time, Jon has… never been known for his ability to self-reflect until it was way too late. So: on the one hand, Helen Richardson choosing to “stop” feeling guilty because she’d keep going could be once again a counterexample, something he will chose to not do because others have chosen this before. On the other hand, if Jon Definitely Crashes… we would have been given the keys to understand why and how it happened. So, no idea.

… But: since Annabelle’s statement, Jon has been shown interacting with Basira (MAG148), then Melanie (MAG150). We know Daisy is around, though we still haven’t heard a glimpse of conversation between them. I’m still Very Worried About Daisy (what did Jon stop himself from saying about her to Basira, in MAG148…? Does he know something we don’t? Has she secretly relapsed? Is she currently dying from withdrawal?) but at the same time… she made me want her to be the person to pull Jon up – Jon, who has been digging into avatars’ mechanisms and histories and raisons d’être… and drifting away from the “human” side of things at the same time? (Or, to make a more accurate distinction: Jon has been focusing on people and creatures who deem it acceptable and fine to feed from other people’s misery, while beginning to ignore and close his eyes to the people who are hurt by them.) I still feel like Daisy gave us the most hopeful line, this season?

(MAG132) DAISY: Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it… I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

Jon had been the one to get her out of the coffin; it would be fitting for Daisy to pull him back up, too. Daisy, who used to simply be a “rabid dog”, just a way for Elias to get Jon to develop his powers – how fitting would it be, if she was the one who had not been factored in for, if she managed to save something or someone…? I don’t know. Don’t want to be too hopeful, especially when I’m still worried about Jon’s interrupted “Daisy is–” ;;

MAG153’s title is… OUUUUUUUUUUUUUFTTTTTTTTTT. First thought is “Gertrude.” (Are her boxes of tapes & statements still accessible in Elias’s office?), obviously, then “Martin?”, then I googled it and got acquainted with the actual meaning of the expression, and PLEASE DON’T BE ABOUT MARTIN… (be it on the receiving end, or as… the one… doing it… to someone… especially not Jon… please, don’t be about any of the assistants………………).

So eh. Many potentials and D: Web? It’s about manipulation. Lonely? We know the Lukases are really good at raising/grooming kids/people. Corruption? It sounds… a lot like Jane Prentiss, uh. Slaughter? Beholding and it’s about Jonathan Fanshawe and Jonah Magnus? Oh gods, please, don’t have Elias talk in this episode, not with a title like that. Fear Entities overall (from Smirke or another architect)?