#anyway now i have no one to play with and its making me kinda sad

[bittsandpieces]

thinking about how I used to play geotastic with my ex but he stopped wanting to play with me when I got better than him

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OH ARTHUR BENNETT.. such a gorgeous and intriguing character. terribly burdened by a GRUESOME set of crimes, his light suffocated by a HEAVY century of GUILT. so tragic, so dark and broody, and yet PAINFULLY awkward in any social setting ever

[gothteddiesdotcom]

can’t stop thinking of all my past connections with people tbh :/

[gibbearish]

am finally back home and can say without a doubt that i am just fundamentally not built for long distance travel however the train was much nicer than planes

[kitkat13001]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖⋆ ˚❆ 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜

>> touya todoroki x reader

>> hero au, starts sad ends cute, established relationship, kinda cheesy touya but wtv 😋

it’s depressing, sitting here in the middle of your apartment all by yourself. if you were with the others, you would be having the time of your life right now. himiko and jin had promised to a throw a legendary christmas party this year. they’d even convinced tenko to go, which was a feat next to impossible. 

but you’re not at the party. you’re sitting here, on the couch in front of the christmas tree, all by yourself in the middle of the apartment. alone. 

you’ve been nursing a cup of hot chocolate to try and fill the empty space inside you, void of warmth, but it’s been cold for a while now. 

there’s christmas music playing in the background on the radio, and like it can read your mind, the infamous ‘all i want for christmas is you’ comes on. the singing voices are almost mocking you, their cheeriness the exact opposite of the way you feel. 

you know you should at least be trying to have some fun. you’ve got messages from all your friends sending pictures of the party, checking in on you, telling you it’s not too late to come over. you still can’t make yourself get up from this couch, and with your attitude right now, its probably best you stay home anyway. 

touya was out on some mission or another. you’d pleaded with endeavor to let him stay, but no dice. it was last minute and he needed the backup. leave it to enji to make his son work on christmas eve. 

you flick the radio off irritatedly, the room going silent. 

you sigh, leaning back into the couch, and turn on the tv, just for white noise. the grinch is playing faintly, but your eyes are closed. 

it’s eight pm. and you’re tired. you don’t remember the last time you were tired at eight pm. 

eventually you drift off in your misery, floating between sleep and consciousness. 

touya rolls his eyes at the obnoxiously loud christmas music coming from down the hall. damn rowdy neighbors. 

his key jingles in the door and it creaks loudly as he cracks it open. touya winces, hoping the noise won’t notify you. 

he’s surprised to find your sleeping form curled on the couch, a cold chocolate on the coffee table and a blanket draped over you haphazardly. 

he sets his things down, the dull thud of his bag hitting the ground and the rustle of his coat being put on the hook. 

touya hums softly, the song from the car radio stuck in his head. 

“i’ll be home for christmas,” he murmurs, pulling the blanket up to cover your whole body. “you can plan on me.”

he sinks onto the couch, maneuvering so your head is resting in his lap. 

“please have snow,” he sings softly, stroking your hair. “and mistletoe.”

he eyes the living room, all the decorations you had put up while he was gone. trying to cheer yourself up, probably. the thought made touya’s heart squeeze.

“and presents by the tree.”

his gaze falls on the small array of presents underneath the christmas tree. there weren’t many, given that it was just you and him in the small apartment, but just the idea of wanting to give each other something was more than enough for touya. 

“i’ll be home for christmas,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “if only in my dreams.”

you give a sleepy mumble and crack one eye open with a lopsided grin.

“you’re not santa claus.”

he chuckles. “no, but i figured this was better.”

you cling to him, nuzzling your head into his torso. your vice grip on him doesn’t lighten. 

“you’re home.”

“yeah, doll. i’m home.”

divider by @/saradika-graphics — more holiday fluff, for touya this time 😋 hope you like. if you want to submit a holiday request, try to get them in this week please! 🩷🩷 - 𝚔𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚢 !

[secretly-a-polar-bear]

I think an interesting concept would be a rival group full of characters that parallels of the characters of the main cast.

Caine’s would probably be a drill sergeant like character that’s named Abel and has a nose as its head with only eye brows to expression himself.

Jax’s character would probably be small fox character, who’s actually pretty nice and actually tries to help gangles parallel when their mask gets broken.

Gangle’s opposite would definitely have the mask motif but probably wear a sad mask but have a happy mask underneath, kinda like a “woe is me” but in a way where it’s obviously fake. I don’t know what their actual body would be, probably cardboard tubes because ribbons are usually sold on a tube, though they could be a knotted string.

Kinger’s would be a checkered piece who’s very level headed that does rebel against Abel a lot.

Now we’re getting to the harder characters, ragatha’s character would be a toy that can’t be changed or moved easily, I was thinking of a little toy soldier, kinda like the ones from Toy Story, I think this little man would be very blunt. I like the concept that the little fox follows them around like they’re this cool older brother.

Ok I know that everyone is going to be asking why I made ragatha’s character a toy that can’t be easily customized when zooble is right there being ripped apart and remade. Well the thing is ragatha is made from a material that can be squished and added too very easily, zooble is made to be customized, that’s their whole gimick. Also zooble is what I can only assume is hard plastic.

Zooble’s oppisite is a slime, I don’t have much on this one, it’s moldeable, but can’t be changed once you add color to it. I don’t have much for its character, it’s just there, but unlike zooble we don’t get the angsty teen attitude, in fact Abel is the only one that knows what it’s saying.

Pomni is probably one of the harder characters to think of, because every archetype is taken. Let’s make them a king/queen, oh we already have royal characters, let’s make them a ringleader because actually pomni’s “jester’s” motif is actually a fool, oh wait there’s Caine. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, idk a maid? While yes in media it’s directly opposite would probably a king or a ringleader leader especially since they’ve basically become lower in status than those characters. Jesters were a pretty high level status, so our best option for an opposite character for pomni would probably be a maid character that’s name roughly translates to forget or something. I’m sure y’all could think of better.

Anyways of course glitch studios isn’t gonna do this idea, because that’s way too many characters in one episode, coffmo already had to be killed off because the main cast was too much. Also then the question of who created them or if they’re npcs. Would come into play. I’d imagine that Caine made them to add more pizzazz to adventures but like, I like to imagine Caine hates Abel so why even make them? I just think this concept is fun and would work for fanfic adventures especially since I’m sure tadc is only getting one season, of course that can change.

[melodic-haze]

MORE SAD SUB ARLECCHINO. PLEASE. I NEED TO EAT. like shes in absolute TEARS SHES SO ME I LOVE HER PLEASE FEED ME MORE.

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!Arlecchino x dom!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: A lil petplay (it's like one paragraph)

☆ — NOTES: I lied about not writing for this week lol I needed a distraction. Anyway combined these two bc they worked very sillily together hope yall don't mind 🫶 also YES I DO REMEMBER YOU 🎀 anon w my first ask about Arle :333

Oh man oh man oh MANNN I wanna do soooo many things to her auhfhthgh

Much as I ADORE absolutely ruining this absolute UNIT of a woman, I also want to take care of her and dote on her so much to the point where she fucking cries from being treated so well UGHHHHH

I feel like there are times at night when she remembers what she had lost in order to get to where she is right now (the chance to have a life that went in a more conventional direction, along w ESPECIALLY Clervie) and while she has learned to deal with the feeling itself in solitary, whenever you see her look out the window she is no longer The Knave—this was Peruere, a lonely girl yearning for something from so long ago

Even when she seems like such a self-assured person, all that composure threatens to fall into pieces the moment you, the one she now holds so achingly dearly in her heart, go to hug her and tell her that she's no longer alone :( no matter how many times you tell her or no matter how many times this scene repeats, it will never stop affecting her so deeply :(((((

I do think that she actually does love to sit on your lap. Sure, maybe it's kinda unnecessary and even more than a little embarrassing, but it makes her feel cared for instead of the way around that she's used to 🫶

"Who would've known that the real reason why you like being on my lap was for this, though..?"

You curled your fingers up in order to emphasise your point, hitting that specific spot within her that forces out a strangled gasp as her thighs make a feeble attempt to close themselves off.. despite the fact that you were comfortably sat right in-between.

Arlecchino makes no effort to answer you properly right away with one of her ever-so-composed words of wisdom or whatever they may be—she opts to tuck her head into the crook of your neck as fat tears roll down her cheeks, your skin almost as wet as her drooling cunt that you just can't get enough of.

(Her makeup is smudged too, though by this point it doesn't really seem like she cares.)

Though with the way your other hand was wrapped around her, softly stroking her back as if soothing your crying mess, and the way her own arms were clinging onto you, you both knew there was so much more to this position beyond your carnal actions.

Something much more emotionally charged, something much more than she usually let herself handle.

And perhaps it might also be because you had been at this for a while; your little lapdog was desperate for a release every time.. only for you to take the chance away from her, as if faking your pet out of her sweet treat. You couldn't help but play with her a little, not when her reactions are often the sweetest—uncharacteristic whines making its way out of her lips as she pleads you to fuck her silly, to--

"--make me forget for a brief moment, please-- ah..!"

And as her loving partner, of course you'd want to comfort her in whatever way you can.

"I'll make you forget your very title, Peruere."

"Please--"

Especially if it means fucking her until all that longing is long gone.

Need her to go from crying about who she had to kill to crying about who she ended up gaining in the end (and crying about how you make her feel too :3)

Just softly tell her that you love her, sing her praises, take care of her, kiss the tears rolling down her face, give her everything that she hadn't been meant to have or hadn't even realised she could ever have as the 'monster' her past has created

I just really really wanna spoil her and make her cry by overwhelming her with so much affection she doesn't know what to do with as someone who doesn't often let such things dictate her actions dude idk 🤷‍♀️

[kiiwiigii]

The Red-Eyed Boy pt. i

Pt. Two | Three | Outtake

Alec x Swan!Fem!Reader

Summary: When Edward goes to the Volturi seeking death he accidentally exposes Bella's sister. Not taking any chances Alec is sent to finish you.

Warnings:

I haven't written ff in forever soooo...

Also I have trouble with the whole Y/N thing.

Language

Kinda, sorta NSFW I guess? Lot's of kissing.

Word Count: 1,938

A/N: Alec is aged up.

Aro let his mouth twist into a cruel smirk. Apparently, the Swan girl was dead, a sad waste of possible talent he lamented silently, but what was done was done. Edward had had no intention of turning her anyway, so what did it matter?

However, there had been another problem that Edward hadn't meant to expose.

Her sister.

"NO!" Edward shouted. "No! No, she's not aware. She doesn't know-"

"Now, now Edward. We cannot take chances, you know this. The girl already has her suspicions."

Edward's face crumpled into a half snarl. Going to the Volturi for your own death was one thing, but not only had he been denied this sweet relief, he had sentenced another to death. Surely he could get them to understand that Y/N was completely in the dark. Sure she had suspicions but that was just it. Suspicions. And aside from a few shopping trips with Alice (in which Alice had to practically drag Y/N out of the house in an attempt to get to know her better) she had stayed relatively far away. What Bella should have done, he thought with a cringe.

"Alec." Aro called over his shoulder.

Alec was at his master's side in less than a second, staring blankly ahead and awaiting orders.

"You are to head the Swan household in Forks. Take care of Bella's sister."

"Of course Master."

Alec gave a bow before sharing a look with his own sister and heading out of the throne room; Edward's renewed attempt at talking Aro into sparing the other Swan girl's life fading away ever so slightly. He couldn't help but smirk. Fresh blood that didn't have to be delivered. A chance to hunt. Maybe he would play with his food before he finished her off. Make her run. Make her beg. Or perhaps... a different kind of begging. A begging brought on with kisses and meaningless words whispered in her ear. His smirk twisted into a smile. There were always different ways to play, right?

Dad,

I'm with Alice. Edward's in trouble. You can ground me when I get back. I know it's a bad time. So sorry. Love you so much.

Bella

"You gotta be fucking kidding me."

With a groan I let the letter slip from my fingers and back to its original place on the kitchen counter. I knew Bella was still healing, but never in my wildest dreams did I picture her dropping everything and just taking off for the boy who dumped her.

I paused, leaning against the counter with my head in my hands, wondering if I should just go ahead and call dad or wait to break the news to him when he got home. On the one hand if I called him now, it would distract him from his job... however if I didn't tell him now and he finds out I knew before he got home, I could possibly land myself in hot water and get grounded myself. And oh boy was Bella going to get grounded. Probably for the rest of the year if not her life.

She probably figured I'd find the letter first and would butter dad up anyways. Soften the blow that his eldest daughter went missing with a barely half-assed explanation. Well, she would be wrong about the latter at least. She'd be dealing with dad by herself on that one. As much as I loved her, I didn't want to be mixed up in her shenanigans.

Mind made up, I picked up my cell to make the dreaded call, and as expected dad picked up on the first ring.

"Uh, hey dad..."

I'm dreaming of him again. The boy with the red eyes.

He was standing in front of a familiar house, just watching. Waiting. I could see it in his eyes as they flicked back and forth. He was contemplating something, his head tilting just slightly as he took in the sloping roof and the off-white siding that was in severe need of cleaning. A truck and police car rested in its driveway, silent and empty.

My heart leapt. Why was he in front of my house? I'd dreamt of this boy plenty of times before, but never had he been in my own yard. Or anywhere I was even familiar with.

Instead, he was usually shrouded by a fine black mist. Sometimes, if I was lucky enough, he would simply be doing something rather mundane, like reading a book or walking in a garden. Other times my dreams would be rather violent, and I could hear the screaming of his victims as he ripped them to shreds. Then there was the girl that usually stood by his side. If the boy was violent, she was easily a hundred times worse. It was like watching a horror movie come to life and I couldn't close my eyes. I found that I didn't want to close my eyes. He was fascinating to me.

Or maybe it's because I'm a weird and sick individual.

He circled around to the back of the house now, his eyes trailing upwards until they landed on the second-floor window, a smirk beginning to curl on his lips.

My window.

I woke up with a gasp, clutching at my sheets.

What the fuck?

My imagination was finally getting away from me.

I couldn't help but look towards my window, still tightly shut and locked, only the soft glow of fairy lights winking back at me. Untangling myself from my sheets, I slipped from my bed and plodded over to the window. Nothing's out there, I thought. It's a stupid dream. They've all been stupid dreams. The red-eyed boy doesn't exist, Y/N. I unlocked the window and pushed it upwards before sticking my head out and looking around. Of course, I couldn't see worth shit but I squinted my eyes anyway, you know, just in case it would help me see better.

The yard was dark and empty. No handsome, red-eyed boys anywhere to be found.

I almost breathed a sigh of relief before a loud jingle broke through the silence, causing me to jump and slam my head into the window.

"Fuck." I hissed, cradling the spot that I could now feel a nice bruise forming.

It took me a moment to realize that the jingle was coming from my phone. Scrambling towards my dresser I managed to trip on the sheets I'd thrown off just minutes ago and go crashing to the floor. Tonight was just not my night. Despite my new entanglement, I reached up and managed to grab my phone, flipping it open without looking at the caller ID.

"Y/N? Y/N?" The voice on the other end was frantic.

Bella. I finally let out a breath I didn't realize I had been holding, the tension easing from my shoulders for the first time in days.

"Who else would it be?"

Despite my irritation and anger from her stunt I couldn't help but crack a grin as relief flooded through me. She was safe. I could already feel the hysterical laughter bubbling up. But that was quickly quashed as a new voice spoke from behind me.

"You're just as clumsy as your dear sister."

I whirled around and promptly dropped the phone as my eyes took in the dark figure standing at my feet. He was beautiful. Sinfully so. Dressed in all black, his pale skin stood out all the more. Agonizingly perfect and flawless, with dark hair sweeping across his forehead. And his eyes. Oh those eyes. My dreams didn't do them justice. Didn't do any piece of him justice.

"You." I breathed; eyes wide.

He suddenly tensed as our eyes met.

"You." He repeated.

Before I could blink, he was right before me, a gloved hand cradling my face. My mind was going haywire, trying to comprehend just what was happening. What was this pull I was feeling? What is this warmth? Did he feel it too?

"Your eyes." I whispered.

He arched a brow in amusement. "What of them?"

"They're beautiful. Like- like rubies." I stuttered quietly, feeling myself flush. "Am- am I dreaming again?"

Now both brows shot up. He probably thought I was crazy. And at this point he would be right. The boy that I had literally been dreaming about since I was a child was right in front of me.

"Y/N!"

The faraway crackle of my phone pulled me back to reality and I slowly picked it up, watching the boy in front of me. He made no move to stop me, only brushing a cool thumb across my cheek.

Wait, when had he lost the glove?

"I- I'm here."

"Did you hear anything I said?"

It was Alice Cullen

"Er- no."

"Listen," Alice began hurriedly. "I know this a lot to take in, but Alec isn't going to hurt you. It's- mates are a complicated thing in the vampire world."

"I'm sorry, what now?" I blinked rapidly as I tried to process what she was saying.

There was a low growl before I felt the phone being taken from my hands gently. I would be lying if that growl hadn't sent butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

"Cullen. Given your talent I think you would know that Y/N is perfectly safe with me." He leaned in as he tilted my head back, his nose running along my neck. "She is my mate after all."

My breath hitched at not only his words but the little nips and licks he began to trail along my neck, cool against my flushed skin. Oh gods, this could not be legal.

"Please inform Aro that Bella's sister will be coming to stay with us soon."

With a click he snapped the phone shut and molded his lips mine. I was pretty sure that my heart was about to beat out of my chest. Finally, he let me come back up for air with a small nibble on my bottom lip and burying his face back into my neck, his hands running down my sides in a slow caress.

"So- so you're Alec?"

He let out an actual purr at the sound of his name. "Say it again."

"You know people usually introduce themselves before making out right?"

There was a growl in response, and I almost let out a moan. Oh fuck, please stop doing that. It was doing weird things to my body.

"Alec."

He lifted himself up to look at me again, eyes no longer that beautiful ruby red but nearly pitch black. He kissed me again and again, swiping his tongue along my lower lip before delving into my mouth with a hunger that shot heat straight between my legs. This time I moaned. He chuckled as he pulled away, placing light kisses along my jaw until he reached my ear and nibbling yet again. Lord did this boy like to nibble.

"I will be back, mio cara."

Suddenly he disappeared just as my door opened and my dad stood there looking rather alarmed. I just blinked at him in a daze.

"I heard voices." He grumbled, looking for all the world like he had just rolled out of bed... which he had.

I felt my face heat back up, trying to figure out exactly what he had heard and trying to come up with an excuse.

"Uhm. I heard from Bella!"

For once my sister saved the day.

NEXT

{Masterlist}

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[foxaftershocks]

Oh my gosh I just read your most recent Lars Pinfield oneshot and I am in LOVE with your writing. Is it possible for you to do one where reader is with him & Lucky during the power outage scene, but like not *in* the main area they are at, more over by the Possessor's room. Hopefully you kinda get what I'm saying lol

I think I got what you were saying. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it even if I didn't.

Watching the possessor try and get Lars’ attention shouldn’t have made you feel a burst of warmth in your chest and yet there you were, pressing your lips together to suppress a smile.

��Can’t play right now,” Lars called as the chair tapped against the window.

You were sitting on the floor in front of the enclosure, knees bent towards your chest as you enjoyed the calm of being in the lab at night. During the day it could be so frantic, all kinds of noises and motions going on as the other researchers worked. At night like this, it was quiet, easy to just exist in your own body as you did what you loved. Especially given it was only people you happened to love still there too.

Or rather, person.

“I know you see me working,” he called over as the possessor continued to try and get his attention.

You stifled a laugh, the chair drooping down in sadness. It was like having a puppy in the lab and Lars had clearly been designated its favourite person.

“If you’re good later on you’ll get a tennis ball,” he said.

The chair perked up, the screech of the metal loud in your ears. You tapped on the glass, bringing its attention back to you. You smiled in, playing with it to give Lars and Lucky the chance to finish up their work in peace. The sound of their work was a familiar backdrop as you let your attention slip away from them.

That was until the possessor slammed the chair against the glass over and over again and the power went out. You were slow to climb to your feet, uncertainty filling your body.

“Uh… Lars?” you called out.

“Yeah, I know,” he called back, “just give it a minute.”

“I’m not sure…”

With one hand splayed on the cool glass of the possessor’s cage, you hauled yourself upright, leaning on it to keep yourself steady. You didn’t like it, the ambient noise of the lab making chills crawl over your skin. You held your breath, on tenterhooks, waiting for something to happen. The tension in the air was ratcheting up the longer it took for the generators to power back on, each second stretching out for an infinite amount of time.

“Lars, why haven’t the ghosts escaped yet?” Lucky asked, slow to make her way towards you.

It was like they’d been waiting for the question to be asked. The possessor slammed its chair against the glass to the right of your hand, cracking it outwards. You snatched your hand back as Lucky screamed, breath catching.

Stumbling back, you felt a cold chill going down the back of your neck. You were slow to turn into the waiting gaze of Bonesy, the skeletal face staring right back at you. Another crack from the glass behind you was loud in the otherwise silent area.

The frantic clicking from Lars on the computer filtered through and you watched as the lights flickered back on. Bonesy was pulled back through the glass as the proton fields turned on, missing you by a hair’s breadth. You slumped forward, relief coursing through you, making you light headed. Sinking to the floor, you did your best to take some deep breaths, forehead pressing to the tops of your bent knees.

“Okay we need to shut that thing up,” you heard Lars faintly say from back in the main lab.

Only then you heard his scream. Scrabbling to your feet, you rushed over, panic taking over your brain. Any rational thoughts were gone, taken over by your need to make sure he was okay.

He was bent over in front of the ionic separator, the brass sphere on the ground in front of him. His groans of pain were going through you, striking you like lightning. Lucky was standing close by, weight shifting from foot to foot, as if unsure what to do.

You grasped his shoulder, feeling him there under your hands, real and still warm. His breathing was coming fast and he was cradling his hand to his chest.

“Lars,” you said, trying to get his attention.

His blue eyes dragged up to yours, the pain contorting his face. You clutched at him, wanting to bring him closer.

“Don’t,” he shouted as you took a step towards him.

“What?” you said, freezing.

“Don’t touch it,” he gasped out, eyes darting down to the sphere at your feet, only an inch from your bare skin. You were careful as you shifted your feet away from it, trusting him completely. He’d never steered you wrong before.

“Lars,” you breathed out.

He was doubling up again, another groan coming from parted lips. With your hands still on his shoulders, you manoeuvred him around the sphere, sitting so innocently on the floor. He followed you, trusting you just as much as you trusted him.

“Leave it there until Lars can tell us what happened,” you instructed Lucky as you took Lars towards the medical centre.

Of course the nurse was long since gone, the bay dark. You flicked the lights on, helping him onto one of the beds. He was still curled up.

“Honey, I need you to tell me what happened,” you said, keeping your voice gentle, trying to coax him out.

“Cold,” he managed to gasp out, “I touched the sphere after it failed to extract the ghost inside and it was cold. Freezing. Fuck, it hurts.”

“I know it does, sweetheart,” you said, “can I look at it?”

He was slow to uncurl, offering his hand towards you. The skin was an unnaturally pale colour, the cold burn spreading over his palm, along his finger, making you wince just from looking at it. Your hands hovered over it, not sure what to do, where to touch, if you even should.

“We should warm it up, right? Oh god, I’m not a doctor,” you muttered to yourself.

“Warm water,” he said, “I need to soak it in warm water.”

“On it.”

He watched you as you filled a basin with warm water, a thermometer sitting in it as you brought it to the right temperature. Offering it to him, he eased his hand into the water. The wince he gave and the shaky breath suggested it wasn’t more comfortable.

“Are you going to be okay?” you asked, holding the bowl steady for him.

“I think,” he hissed, “I’ll survive.”

He looked up at you, standing close enough for his knees to brush you. Looking down at him, you felt your breath catch. It wasn’t your fault. He was so handsome, even when he was in pain. Not that you should be thinking about how gorgeous he was as you were trying to nurse him back to health.

“Are you okay?” he asked, voice softening.

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t even get hurt. I’m more worried about you,” you said.

“But you were surrounded when we lost power,” he said.

His other hand hovered right over your hip, as if worried to touch you. Before he made contact, he took the bowl from your hands, putting it down on the bed beside him, keeping his hand submerged. You didn’t know what to do with your hands without hold it, fingers twisting together.

His touch rested on them, stilling your wringing hands. You looked back into his eyes, the touch of your skin against his making your heart flutter. The way he was looking at you was making your head spin.

“If anything had happened to you…”

You wanted to know what the end of that sentence was going to be.

“I’m okay,” you whispered.

His fingers slotted between yours, holding your hand. Pulling you forward a step, he tugged you between his legs, thumb brushing along the length of your index finger. Your breath caught.

“We could die,” he said.

“We’re not going to die.” You weren’t even going to entertain the thought.

“But we could. And if we do I’m not dying without ever doing this.”

His hand disentangled from yours, reaching up to cup your cheek. Guiding you down, your eyes fluttered shut, waiting for him. His breath ghosted over your lips before they brushed together. You whimpered, pressing closer, fingers closing around his shoulder again.

The groan he let out made you draw back, worried he was in pain again. He didn’t give you the chance, pulling you back in, kissing you deeper. Clearly the pain wasn’t too bad if he could kiss you with such skill it had your knees turning to jelly.

“Hey guys, is Lars okay?”

You drew back from him, cheeks heating up as you whipped your head towards the door. He chuckled, falling forward, forehead pressing to your stomach. Your fingers found their way into his hair, winding around his curls.

“I’m fine,” he called back before Lucky stepped in.

“Are you?” you asked.

You gently lifted the hand from the bowl of cooling water. The skin still looked wrong, too white, like a layer of wax over his palm.

“We should probably go to the emergency room,” you said, “I don’t think we’re equiped to fix this.”

“Can you drive?” he asked.

“Of course.”

You left Lucky with strict instructions to not touch the sphere and to keep an eye on the ghosts. After the night you’d had, she needed to make sure nothing more happened while you took care of Lars.

And yet if this was a portent of things to come, it was only going to get worse.

[qtboni]

hi AGAIN.

ugh i cant get out of your fucking page. its like i live here like a rat

im back, hi, have another req bc i just thought of it and needed it in my veins.

how about some comfort from fatherfigure!price? like reader is sad kinda and he helps? maybe reader "accidentally" calls him dad, nothing to /srs

(im mentally okay i swear😭)

idk if you even do price tbh, i haven't seen it on your page tho

anyways i needed to write this somewhere or ill forget and like wither away into nothing or sum shit

im being dramatic. i think.

okay thats it bye bye dearest boni.

(sorry im constently blowing up your asks😭😭)

HAI LOVIE !! THIS WAS SO FUNNY TO WRITE AGHSHS ALSO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LOMG OMG.

╰﹒ 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐃 𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐄 ?

PAIRING: Captain 'John' Price X Reader

C/W: comfort & humor! + gn!reader, explicit words, price playin' wit chu, somebody ate your cake (it was soap don't tell him tho /hj)

W/C: 1.3k

"What's got you looking so down today, sergeant?" Captain Price asked in his usual stern voice as he entered the living room, noticing the dejected look on your face.

You had been sitting on the sofa for hours now, cleaning your holster and moping around. He approached you with a glass of water in hand.

"Somebody ate my cake," you slowly replied, your voice heavy with emotion. You didn't usually get sad over such small things, but today, you feel so tired.

"Are you telling me that you're this upset over a slice of cake?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his tone. Captain Price raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised to hear something like that coming from you.

"I guess I am," you said, your voice barely audible. You shrugged and looked down at your holster, not wanting to admit to being such a crybaby. "I was saving it for this specific rest day to ... indulge myself with sweets.."

Captain Price's expression softened as he placed the glass of water down next to you. He sat down on the sofa next to you and put an arm around your shoulders.

"Listen, sergeant," he said in a comforting tone, "It's okay to be upset about something. Everyone has their own quirks and things that are important to them. And in our line of work, we need to be able to deal with any situation and not let little stuff like this get us down."

"Thanks, Cap'," you said, a hint of embarrassment in your voice. You smiled at him, grateful for the reassurance.

"Any time," He replied with a soft smile. He then stood up and left the room, returning a few minutes later with two fairly large cookies, handing it to you. "Here, this should cheer you up."

"No way," You were overjoyed, your face lighting up with a smile.

"Yes way," He replied, playfully eyeing the cookies then to you. "Have it, yeah?"

"Dad, oh my god," You squealed excitedly, taking a bite out of the cookie, savoring the taste of the sweetness and the tenderness. "This is so sweet of you. Thank you so much!"

Oh no. Dad? Did you just call your captain, 'dad'?

Avoiding the embarrassment of calling your captain 'dad' in a moment of vulnerability, you silently prayed that he hadn't heard it. This was going to be awkward, and the thought of having to explain yourself was making you cringe.

Just play it off...

Now as much as Price wants to give you the other cookie for you to eat, he retracted his hand away from your grabby hands, not letting you get one.

"Cap?" Your hands stay levitated, clearly ready to munch on the cookie on your Captain's grip.

Did he caught on?

"Hm?"

You had to think fast. Change the subject before things got too awkward!

"Are.. are you going to eat that?"

"Nope."

"Then why- actually no, just- isn't that for me?"

"Correct," He chuckles as he continued dangling the pastry infront of you.

Silence.

You stared at him incredulously, your hand visibly itching to just pounce on the cookie and munch on it.

What was your captain doing?

"See, the funny thing is, kid," He trailed off as he waves the cookie back and forth with his hand up in the air. He smirks when your eyes followed the cookie's movement. "I haven't thought much of being a father."

Shit. Play it off...

You hummed in confusion, tilting your head in curiosity.

Where was he going with this? And also, can he just give you the cookie? After all, he gave it to you, right?

Just give me the cookie, dammit.

"Let alone..." He paused and looked at you in the eyes. Shit. "Someone calling me one, aye?"

You feel like you could sink into the ground and vanish from existence. The embarrassment was too much to bear!

"...Who?"

Bye.

Captain Price chuckles at you, "Don't play dumb on me now, sergeant."

Your mind is racing, trying to think of something to say. You stuttered a reply, "I- Capta-"

But before you know it, he interrupts your thoughts with his sharp wit.

"Oh? It was 'Dad' a second ago, wasn't it?" He retorded with a proud smirk playing across his lips, looking at you with an air of amusement and teasing. He knows exactly what to say to get under your skin and he's not afraid to use it to his advantage.

It's clear that he wants an answer, but all you can do is sputter a few incoherent words before retreating back into your shell. You feel a mix of embarrassment and frustration, wishing you could come up with a clever come-back, but the only thing that's clear right now is that Price has you stumped.

"Sergeant?" He calls out to you teasingly, awaiting for your reply to his question.

"Mhm?" You can feel your ears slowly turning red as your Captain's teasing hits a nerve. You can't seem to quite meet his eyes, instead looking at the ground with an embarrassed blush. You fidget with the straps of your holster, unable to quite figure out how to respond.

"Wasn't it 'Dad' a second ago?" Captain Price repeated as he raised an eyebrow, looking at you with a mix of amusement and confusion.

You blush in embarrassment as you realize he wouldn't let you get off easily withyour slip-up. You look down at the ground.

"I'm sorry, sir," You quickly clear your throat, hoping to regain your composure. Still unable to break your gaze from the floor, you mutter, "It won't happen again."

Suddenly, the cookie appeared in your line of vision that was still situated at the ground. You heard your captain sigh and tutted, drawing your attention back to him.

The cookie! The cookie?

He held the cookie out to you, a small smile playing on his lips as he waited for you to accept it. You were initially taken aback, feeling a surge of warmth and gratitude toward your captain.

"Didn't ask for an apology, kid," He said with a playful frown, seemingly amused by the situation. He took your hand and placed the cookie on it, his gaze locking onto yours. "Was just surprised is all, hm?"

"Still," You cleared you throat as straightened your posture and looked up at him, albeit still feeling the sting of embarrassment. "It's my bad."

"Mhm," He hummed softly and raised his hand up to your head. He gently pats your head affectionately, yet his hand ruffled your hair, leaving it disheveled. "Whatever floats your boat, kid."

The soft pat on your head sends shivers down your spine, and you give him a grateful smile.

"Thanks, Cap', again." You beemed up with a smile, raising the cookie to his vision.

He gives a small nod before turning to leave, leaving you with a sense of warmth and contentment that stays with you long after he's gone. You watch as he offered a small wave goodbye and you respond the same, feeling a sense of gratitude for his kindnesses and understanding.

You were about to take a bite out of the delicious cookie he had given you. But just as you were about to revel in the sweet taste, you heard his voice once more calling out to you and startling you.

Turning around, you saw him standing there infront of the doorway, his eyes gleaming with mischief as he continued to speak.

"Though," he began, his voice low but full of laughter spilling through, "The cake's delicious, kid. Would have it again, 10 out of 10," he finished with a wink, and you couldn't help but gape at his leaving form.

What.

"Motherfuc-"

navi / masterlist

[boguspearl]

So what are my thoughts for Arcane season 2? Well from what I've seen in the trailer, I think almost every character in the series is going to go through a massive shift, starting with caitlyn in the first season caitlyn was calculating smart not rash (okay not rash enough to wage full on war, but rash enough to let a criminal out of prison) she was new to the scene but she knew that she didn't want war with the undercity, but now in a fit of blind revenge she's going to war anyway

And by the looks of it Vi's right along side her she's given up on Jinx its even the first lines of the trailer, she starts out fighting along side the enforcers, along side caitlyn, but we see her off on her own broken, this most likely because she's finally seen just how far caitlyns taking things.

However the biggest change of this season is going to be Jinx, in the first season Jinx was crazy, but things are about to take a turn i mean sure on the surface we see her bombing the city leading a revolution piloting an airship while looking deranged but looking deeper does she really look completely insane.

Personally i think she looks kinda sad, i mean sure they show her looking completely done with it all ready to blow the world that's wronged her apart, but there's something deeper I think we're going to start the season with Jinx truly regretting what she's done, she's going to panic as the floor gives away beneath her and that will be her tipping point the point where there's s small possibly of her being reached, but there's no one left to reach her no one left willing to try, caitlyn wants her dead, Vi has given up on her, Silco is dead her hand, she's alone, alone except for sevika who will most likely use her to rule the undercity Jinx will be forced back into believing what she's doing is right

Until eventually she's going to snap, she's going to see that she has nobody and she'll be exactly who they think she is and she'll be more broken than ever.

But never mind all that the real thing that i think the arcane trailer is showing or more accurately hiding is the enemy. Okay hear me out we all know that season 2 just like season 1 will be releasing in three separate arcs each obviously show casing a separate story of the same season, now while Netflix has released three separate posters for said arcs they seem to have only given us one trailer, now if you look the trailer like that you can see the story breaks of the arcs, in the first part they show a clear enemy jinx, Vi and Cait are trying to take her down, the second the people of the undercity as they rise up but near the end there's nothing each shot fired each punch thrown even jinx threatening to burn it all down unlike the beginning of the trailer we aren't shown the enemy, this concerns me because who are they fighting, am I reading into this is it still Jinx that's the enemy or is caitlyn and Vi fighting each other or and what is most likely is there a new enemy something so feared that it actually makes them all fight together in some strange twisted way and if so what, i mean im actually clueless I've never played the game or gotten into anything else part of this universe so i have no idea what they could be up against.

Anyway thanks for reading my craziness, debates bellow

[wonwooslibrary]

svt as boyfriends ♡ jihoon edition

member: woozi x reader

genre: fluff, bullet points

word count: 878

summary: jihoon’s boyfriend things

warnings: a very small mention of periods, and that's it

author’s note: hahah i actually forgot to write this time!!! but hey i'm on break from school now so I had time to whip this out and post if for all the woozidans who are about to knock my door down for forgetting abt our precious jihoonie's day anyway please enjoy !!! <3

Jihoon is the epitome of a quiet bf 

He just kinda exists and so do you and you both love it like that 

He’s also the (obvs) producer bf 

Quality Time

I think that Jihoon’s favorite thing to do with you would be to teach you how to write or produce music 

Or even accompany him at the gym because even if you don’t work out too, this man cannot, for any reason, miss leg day

He likes showing you what he is interested in, and of course, you love listening to him talk about his hobbies

I think he would also be the type to just…enjoy whatever you like, too

For example, you would have a show that you both specifically watch together, and maybe even read a book together and talk about the characters in them you liked or something 

Also !!! coffee dates !!! Y’all would totally have a specific date night on like Thursdays or something and you would always so to a coffee shop or a cafe or something and sit together and talk aaa he’s so sweet 

Cringy movie scenes like a large milkshake with two straws is the perfect way to summarize these dates too 

Words of Affirmation

Surprisingly, I don’t think Jihoon would be big on pet names or nicknames…he’d just stick with your name or a nickname you like being called 

He says it makes it easier to not call you something embarrassing in front of his friends, but we all know its because if he makes nicknames, you will too and he refuses to be called something cute in front of other people 

Always compliments you!!! And encourages you!!! 

“Y/N-nie, you’re working so hard, of course you’ll do great on that exam” 

Or even “Y/N-nie you’re such an amazing person and I am glad that you’re with me” 

Jihoon cannot physically or mentally take a compliment so if you compliment him back he’ll just be like “thanks…?” before destroying you in a compliment war 

Mans likes words so ofc like his quality time, he would write the most perfect songs ever for you and they would perfectly express his love for you in ways he would otherwise not be able to comprehend 

Physical Touch

We all know this man is a cuddle-bug on the inside, so of course that means that Jihoon has his needy time aka he must be the little spoon: no ifs, ands, or buts

I think Jihoon would appreciate a good back hug from you if you’re taller than him, and if you’re shorter, he loves when you rest your head on him :( 

I don’t think Jihoon is one for PDA, obviously (poor Hoshi) so there would be barely any proof to an outsider that y’all are actually dating to begin with 

Likes to keep hand-holding to a minimum, especially when in the studio, but he doesn’t mind when you sit with him and put your legs over his lap 

Or even play with his hair while he is working !! He likes soft things just only when you guys are alone together 

He’s just a shy baby fr 

Acts of Service 

When he comes home late, he makes sure that the apartment is tidy and clean before showering and going to bed because he knows it stresses you out seeing a messy place as soon as you wake up 

Cannot make food for the life of him please do not allow him in the kitchen unless he has a very specific task (he has zoned out while humming new melodies too often and burnt food is not a pleasant smell for your apartment) 

Always makes sure that you’re phone, watch and computer/tablet are plugged in at the end of the night, because you need them to be just as prepared for the next day as you

He would totally get sad if you do all the cleaning by yourself because he says that you work too hard making the messes, you don’t need to be cleaning them too 

You say the same thing to him when the boys make a mess in the living room when they are drinking and you offer to help clean up 

If you have periods, when you are getting close to it starting, he makes sure that your products are always stocked up so you don’t have to worry about getting anything 

Gift Giving 

Two words: Spotify playlists 

Jihoon would be over the moon with both making them for you and also receiving them from you 

I feel like Jihoon is also the type to just randomly show up with something and hold it out to you and just say “this make me think of you so I got it” 

Is super embarrassed when he does so but you love it so he’ll get over it when he sees how happy you are 

Is definitely not one for huge and expensive gifts like jewelry, cars and all of that stuff, but loves getting little trinkets and stuffed animals for you because let's be real: who doesn’t like a really cute and soft plushie? 

Doesn’t like receiving gifts because he feels bad when others spend time and money on him but >:( how dare he!!! He needs to be appreciated!!!

[vvatchword]

In Defense of BioShock Infinite

Although I had preordered BioShock Infinite with all its bells and whistles, I did not actually play it until January 2023. And lordy, I had me another Experience with a capital E. How the hell a bunch of urban Yanks could capture my experience as a queer democratic-socialist atheist struggling with her roots as a rural evangelical-cum-fascist is kinda magical, honestly. As to the game itself, it didn’t hurt how good it looked—the kickass skyhook gun battles—that novel setting—the complex characters—that delicious historical setting—that bloodthirsty critique of America—and to top it all off, they had pulled yet another Cassandra. Hell, speaking of which—not only was the game fun, it was fucking smart. It was intelligent, memorable, and meaningful in a way I hadn’t experienced in video games for years.

Now, back in 2013, when I had realized that I would be spoiled for Infinite, I left the BioShock fandom. After completing the game, I headed to Tumblr to re-engage, wagging my whole body like an excitable golden retriever, only to discover that BioShock Infinite was remarkably absent, and when mentioned, brutally derided. 

“I hate BioShock Infinite and all my friends do, too,” someone said in the tags under a post. 

I was utterly befuddled and deeply sad. I wanted to talk about BioShock Infinite! I wanted to dig into it, uncover unexpected ideas, learn new things, talk shit, make new friends—the full fandom experience. And instead I kept stumbling into hateful diatribes and super-charged disgust.

Obviously, I first looked at myself and my own judgment. Had I missed some obvious problem or misread some theme or dialogue? This wouldn’t be the first time I’d snapped down on a hook. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

There are two parts of BioShock Infinite that are unquestionably terrible: the fridging of Daisy Fitzroy and the false equivalence of violence between haves and have-nots (lol what are the have-nots supposed to do, ask nicely?). Additionally, one could look at the use of real Native American tragedies as tasteless. Personally, I do not—in the same way that I don’t find it tasteless that real war victims were used as inspiration for Splicer deformities. This is what really happened; this is commentary on events that really happened to real people. 

At this point, I’m sure I don’t have to explain why two of these themes are Unequivocally Bad. 

Anyway, I thought that perhaps these were the reasons BSI had been condemned to Super Hell.

I was wrong.

How Criitcsim Werk

This wasn’t the fandom I’d made friends in over 2010. Hell, this wasn’t the fandom of 2013. This was a fandom made up of Babies. They were making their first coltish stumblings into media criticism and with it, dredging up the same brain-dead bullshit from Tumblr circa 2008.

Suddenly I was brought face to face with people who seemed to think that if a character couldn’t be likable or good that the story itself couldn’t be likable or good; that one bad element means the story is unsalvageable (lol u pussies); the implication that one is bad for liking it; the destructive juvenile insistence that media accurately measures its fans’ moral qualities en masse like an astrological sign. This goes far beyond simple like or dislike and plunges head-first into Puritanism: praying loudly on street-corners instead of quietly in a dark corner where God might hear you.

At one point I had a kid go off about how they wouldn’t take time to understand Booker DeWitt’s perspective because he had (fictionally) taken part in a genocide. (That same person said the Native American element had been employed for shock value, a thought that sometimes keeps me up at night, because it is legitimately one of the dumbest criticisms the game has ever received.) At another point I saw someone acting personally offended that (fictional person) Dr. Suchong’s (fictional) data was being stolen (in a fiction) by a (fictional) racist who would (fictionally) take credit for (fictional person) Suchong’s (fictional) inventions “while calling him slurs”. Sure, a better question would have been, “Why would the creative team opt to do this” rather than assume intentional racism from a Jewish creative director with an in-office multi-ethnic team in the year of our lord 2013, but why not handwave the choice with prurient moral dismay so your audience won’t beat you to death with bats? 

It was as though fans were treating these completely fictional characters as real people whose personal gods had opted to torment them, and that their tormentors merited the kind of censure that psychopaths should receive. As I hope all of you understand, this is fucking madness.

More than once I saw people posting about hating the studio or the creative director in ways that seemed intense, unreasoning, and excessive—notably an “I Hate [Irrational Games creative director] Ken Levine” stamp (rofl the more things change amirite). People get so performatively moralistic about it that I started wondering if I missed something big along the way. Was there some secret Voxophone I missed swearing fealty to baby Hitler or some shit?

Double Standards

At the same time, I was utterly confused. BioShocks 1 and 2 both featured some absolutely ghastly bullshit based on real-life horrors and a thick mix of complicated human beings—many of them victims who have become monsters. The fact they are grounded in historical tragedies is a huge part of their appeal. Hell, I don’t think those games would have had half their meaning without World Wars I and II and the threat of a third.

A gay man who feels so cursed by his orientation that he is incapable of intimacy and systematically destroys his ex-lovers—including the man he loves the most. A Korean who survived Japanese occupation and a Jewish Holocaust survivor repeat the violence and traumas exacted upon them and their people, subjecting a new generation to agonies unthinkable. Chasing the shadows of Bolsheviks, a Russian citizen becomes the brutal tyrant that he loathed. A rich lawyer with an easygoing drawl designs a concentration camp and systematically harvests hundreds, if not thousands of political prisoners, selling them out to medical testing for a quick buck.

But a Native man who destroys his own people and class to ensure his own survival and social acceptability is too far? This character is where people drew the line, so much so that the entire game is disavowed? Hell, if you’re just talking about Booker (rather than Comstock), he doesn’t have anywhere near the largest bodycount. If we were to judge on the metric of human misery alone, Booker wouldn’t even hit the top ten. 

Keep in mind that the most-discussed BioShock game on Tumblr is BioShock 2, and that one of the biggest fandom favorites is Augustus Sinclair—the easy-talkin’ Georgia lawyer who sells your character into horrors past all human comprehension, as he sold hundreds before and after you. Sinclair is a motherfucker so vile that BioShock 2 gives you no choice but to murder him. But Sinclair is also pleasant; good-looking to some; spends the whole game making sweet love to your ear; is one of the only true positive experiences you experience in a horror story. Unlike DeWitt, a man who is brutal and awful from step one, Sinclair is smooth and sweet. Unlike DeWitt, Sinclair’s victims are faceless, completely fictional, and carry no political or social baggage.

People fuckin’ ship this guy with Subject Delta, his explicit victim. He’s usually described as a squishy cinnamon roll. In most fanfiction, he often gets to escape to the surface and fuck Delta while helping raise Eleanor as Dad 2. It is rare that I find fanfiction that acknowledges his monsterhood in all its glory. In fact, I can only think of two.

Literacy Comes in Levels

My problem with the over-the-top hatred of BioShock Infinite is along the same lines as my confusion at Twilight and Harry Potter hate: there is so much worse out there (how much do the haters actually engage with media if they think this is that bad—yes, even considering the shitty creators themselves!), the hatred far outweighs the sin committed (in BioShock’s case, the truly bad bits are not central enough to derail the larger narrative), people don’t seem to hate it so much as they want to be seen hating it, fans want to enforce an unspoken rule hating it (bitches this is poison. Stop this), and there’s something about the hate that stinks of poor reading comprehension.

A great metric for general literacy is the newspaper. In journalism, you’re writing for the lowest-common denominator, which for years here in the USA has been about a fifth-grade reading level (about 10-11 years old, for my non-American readers). The AP posted an article a couple years back about how the general reading comprehension of Americans needs to be dropped to a third-grade one (8-9 years), and baby, I’m here to say it’s true. 

Most of the problem is that the American education system is shitty as fuck. The rest of it is from an extremely American disdain of intellectualism and the arts. People are not taught how to interpret art or literature—a difficult and subtle skill which involves accepting such truths as “multiple contradictory readings can exist and yet be simultaneously correct”, “the author can be a complete tool and still be right about things”, “the author can be a great person and still write horrifyingly incorrect bullshit”, and “worthwhile works can be ridiculously long and it really is your fault for not having an attention span”. 

Media criticism must be learned through trial, error, asking questions, confidently swaggering into a public space to announce your brilliant insight only to have your ass handed to you (usually by your older self ten years later), being willing to admit you swaggered confidently into a public space to state bullshit and then amending your bullshit only to produce more bullshit, and otherwise making a complete and utter cock of yourself. We are taught to fear and flee pain and failure, despite the fact this is how we learn and improve. Because we judge our value by whether or not we are “smart,” we are afraid of displaying that we don’t know something or might be mistaken–better not to try at all than to reveal ourselves to be fools. And yet the best way to learn is to crash up against someone else and be proven wrong!

American parents are terrified of hurting their children to the point that they spare them cognitive dissonance of any kind, disavowing difficult art—without any appreciation for the fact that art is how we provide safe spaces to explore key human experiences, better preparing us to face those difficult subjects when there are real-world consequences (sex, gender and social expression, grief, violence, predation, illness, interacting with people of different ideologies, whatever new issue is pissing off some smooth-brained old motherfucker somewhere). 

If parents and teachers aren’t teaching us how to interpret art, we’re probably never going to develop the skill at all, or crash unsubtly into it in a piecemeal fashion (hello it me). Another unfortunate side effect is that these readers tend to be blitheringly superficial: they are literally intellectually incapable of reading deeper than the uppermost layer of a text. The curtains are always blue.

And let’s not forget the role moral performatism plays in media criticism, which although faaar from new, has reached hilarious levels in the age of social media. What’s important isn’t understanding something, it’s finding something to symbolically burn at the stake so everyone knows God loves us: please keep loving me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t throw me on the fire—for performatism is not for outsiders. We long for human connection so fucking much that it’s more important to destroy what might point out our fallibilities than it is to let ourselves stand in the furnace and burn out the dross.

What do you think the point of BioShock Infinite was?

Emotional Machines

Let’s face it. Human beings give a lot more credence to how something makes them feel than they do its complex invisible reality. We are not logical creatures; we are emotional ones. Our logic is too new a biological mechanism to override something as powerfully stupid as our primal lizard brains.

Knowing this, let’s take BioShock’s most popular characters. The first two are Subject Delta and Jack Wynand, the protagonists of BioShocks 2 and 1, respectively; and why not? They’re the characters we play. In the first two BioShocks, whether or not you kill Little Sisters determines the ending you receive. In other words, Delta and Jack can only be as “wicked” as the players are. 

How do people want to see themselves? As good. What do people want to see around themselves? Good. (What is “good”? Uh, well,,,,,,) What do they want? Simple moral questions with simple moral answers. And in the first two BioShocks, what is moral is obvious: don’t kill little girls. It’s actually kind of insulting once you say it out loud.

In-fandom, Jack and Subject Delta are almost never painted as murderers or monsters, but as victims and heroes; I saw someone musing about putting Subject Delta on a “gentle giants” poll and I nearly choked on my own tongue. I only saw that musing because someone put Subject Delta and Jack in a “Best Fathers” poll. Nobody in-fandom really considers the “evil” or “complicated” endings as canon choices, despite those versions being fully understandable alternate readings, with a story that doesn’t make sense without them. (I don’t believe Burial at Sea is necessarily canon; in fact, I would bet good money that it is a huge middle finger lol, mostly because a number of brain-dead motherfuckers won’t take unhappiness for an answer.)

Most fandom art and writing is gentle, sweet, good: the symbolic healing of the damaged, the salvation of innocents, the turning of new leaves. These things are not just saccharine sweet—they tend to be unrealistically sweet. Now, far be it from me to demand these works cease. There’s a reason they exist. People write them because they need hope and happiness; I have enjoyed them greatly myself and intend to enjoy them in the future. But if y’all get to have your dessert, I demand the right to have my dinner.

The Colours Out of Earth

Let there be media where the opposite can also be true: where everything is unbelievably complicated and unforgivably fucked-up. Let there be characters who slide slurs into their speech without thinking. Let there be characters who destroy themselves in a thousand different ways, not all of them obvious, some of them horrifying. Let there be well-meaning people struggling with all their mights to do what is right only to destroy everyone around them and then completely miss the fact it’s all their faults. Let there be wickedness painted as goodness, superficial appearances accepted over essential and inherent values, denial of change and transformation, failure to accept that what is old must die and what is new must live, human stupidity and short-sightedness and cruelty in all their flavors. Let’s smash it all together and see how it plays out. 

Oh, badly? No shit! But “badly” isn’t the point. How does it play out?

Let there be a world of gradients—a place I can float from color to color, hue to hue, value to value, while attempting to figure out where, why, how, and by whom they transform—to taste concepts in a hundred different ways, test their textures by a hundred different mediums, insert them into a hundred different contexts. I need to understand why I feel the way I do; I need to understand morality in all its hideous, fragmentary glory. For I have been sold to a ideology of blacks and whites, and let me tell you: it prepares you for nothing, and it will always destroy what is most precious about human life.

I can no longer believe in a world where what is lost always returns, because that world does not exist. I have a reflexive need to come to terms with Finality: what I have lost, what I have destroyed, what will never return, what will never be better. I have a reflexive need to understand Transformation: what I am now, what is as of the present, what has risen shambling from the ashes, what turns to gaze upon me in the darkness. I need to understand what is wretched about me as much as I need to heal myself. How can I heal if I can’t understand how I have hurt and been hurt? 

I need to shine a light in the dark. Not to remodel it, not to destroy it—because I also can’t believe in a world where the wicked is destroyed forever—but to behold it, to learn from it, to view my own impact upon it, to accept how it has become a part of me, to learn how to do my best (because that’s all one can do). I must learn to love people more than causes, I must learn to love people rather than the act of winning, I must learn to love people rather than battle. I need to stand in that endless black with the lamp off and my eyes closed, letting the agony roll over me, burning with a fire that throws no light, rolling back and forth from an intense self-loathing to a fury at a society that destroys what is most valuable because it didn’t make them feel the way they wanted.

The Unforgivable

I believe that there are only two differences between Booker DeWitt and his equally cursed cohorts.

In the Hall of Whores: The Unmarked Slate

First, unlike the previous two games, where you enter the world as a tabula rasa and might roleplay as what you perceive as a good person, you are explicitly put into the shoes of a monster, and nothing you do can save you.

With other shitty BioShock characters, you are passively watching other people, and you are able to hold yourself apart. Sure, everyone else is crazy as fuck from using biological Kryptonite, but you’re too smart to end up a crazy fucking asshole like them! Sure, you are now technically a mass murderer, but those fuckers deserved it, damn it! 

“Look at this crazy bastard!” you say, rolling your eyes at the Steinmans and Cohens and Ryans and Fontaines. “It sure is a great thing I’m not a crazy bastard!”

You are able to escape acknowledging that you, too, in certain circumstances, might be the crazy bastard. You are being challenged to stand in the body of a person who has committed unforgivable sins. Imagine if you yourself committed those sins. Imagine what sins you have already committed. Imagine what brutalities you cannot take back. Imagine what horrors you have wreaked just by breathing.

“Ahhhh!” said players, probably. “What do you mean I’m not allowed to be good?”

Because that’s what the game was designed to do. Because “good” is a fucking cop-out and if it’s how you live with yourself wait until you find out you’ve been doing horrifying bullshit all your life without question. You can be evil by association through no fault of your own.

Original Sin

Second, the plight of Native Americans is a sin that non-Natives will always carry, and the socially conscious are aware of this even if they don’t know how to put it into words. The state of affairs being what it is, it is unlikely that First Peoples will ever be treated humanely, much less have their land returned. They must struggle for scraps of what is rightfully theirs while we lounge on their corpses. We cannot help but benefit from their destruction; we are made unwitting partners with our forebears; we steal the fruits of their lands and make mockeries of their faiths and identities. We have destroyed part of what made this world fascinating and unique and most of it can never be returned. Even if everything were to be made right tomorrow, their genocide is a sin that we will carry until we die, because the only reason we could be here at all is because they were killed. 

The obvious solution stands before us, but the powers that be are so much greater than we that we are effectively powerless, and achieving anything less than total restoration smacks of anticlimax. 

This is unbearable.

How can one think of oneself as a good person if one sees the good that must be done, but cannot achieve it? If one’s actions are meaningless? Goodness without action is pretension.

We are all Booker DeWitt. We have all set fire to the tipi. We swept the ashes away, we ignored the sizes of the bones, we built a CVS on their graves, and then we made statues and holidays commemorating Native Americans like the world’s cheapest “Thinking of You” card. We have de-fanged them, transformed them into cardboard cutouts, and set them up as cute little side characters in our sweeping American dream.

Booker is not a man. Booker is America and Americans—and America and Americans are monstrous: one part hypocrisy, two parts incessant violence, three parts constant peacocking, and four parts dumb as a stump.

The Monsters We Make

Outside of the message about “choice,” an enormous part of BioShock’s thematic ensemble is the creation of monsters. How are monsters created? Who or what is responsible for creating them? What do the monsters think made them the ways they are? Can a monster be saved? How? Is it enough to acknowledge you did wrong and want to be a better person?

Maybe most people are aware on some instinctive level of what facing one’s own monsterhood means. No one wants it. It’s not fun. It hurts. It’s embarrassing. It’s destructive. It’s admitting you don’t have it all together and might never, ever—that despite your best actions, you can have it horribly wrong at any point. In an age where we demand moral perfection, it demands vulnerability: you must admit that sometimes you’re the racist, the transphobe, the sexist, the nationalist, the classist, the homophobe, the violent, the wrong, the dumbfuck. 

Human beings are not built to be moral; human beings are built to survive. We so rapidly learn how to deal with our contexts at such young ages that we don’t have the time or capabilities to question why those contexts are the ways they are or why it is demanded we perform the ways we do.

In a very real way, BioShock Infinite demands vulnerability of us. It demands you look in the mirror and see what is monstrous in you—how you have been created—manufactured—a tool, a machine, a trained animal. It asks you to recognize that you can be a monster simply by association. And if we can’t look into the mirror and truly acknowledge that monsterhood, we run very real risks of becoming or enabling those monsters in one way or another.

Worst of all: perhaps monsterhood isn’t optional. Perhaps the monster was inside of us from the very beginning. It’s not a matter of if you become a monster, but when, under what circumstances, by whose hand. What is more, believing the “right” moral stances will not save you. Monsterhood can afflict anyone, in any ideology, any political stance, in any social movement, in any faith. The only element that can save you is to truly love other people, and even then, you can fail, for there can be states where there is no winner and ways to misread how best to treat another person.

Environment and Society: Context Will Not Be Denied

BioShock 1’s original ending is Jack-as-monster, regardless of how many children he saves, regardless of your feelings as player. He passes through the gauntlet of Rapture, but he has supped of its poison. And he wasn’t poisoned when he entered Rapture the second time—he was poisoned the minute he was conceived. He was born of it. He had no hope of ever escaping it—he never could have—he’d never had a choice to begin with.

No matter what choices you make in BioShock Infinite, Elizabeth will always kill you. Why? Because she has seen every world—every context—every limitation—every boon. And there is no way to stop what has been; there is no way to undo what has been done. The minute you have committed to a decision, you have split the universe; there is no telling what kind of person it will make you. In fact, there’s no telling which of your decisions will matter at all. Only Elizabeth can see because she is the unlimited future: your offspring stands before you, judge and jury, and you will have no choice but to accept her verdict, for despite your name, you are incapable of controlling how you are interpreted. 

Elizabeth sits across from you in the boat and stares without blinking. She sees a million million similar Bookers. Some are a little bit taller, some a little bit shorter, some a little heavier or lighter. Some more-resemble one grandparent or another. They have different colored ties. This one blinks when rain hits him in the eyeball. That one took a brutal beating back on the airship and one eye is swollen shut. That one can’t stop shaking; this one is unable to speak at all; one hasn’t yet lost hope, although even he doesn’t realize it.

They all lowered the torch to the tipi.

The baptism determined Comstock; what determined Booker?

Why Booker Is

In BioShock 1, characters are often stand-ins for larger concepts. Thus Ryan stands in as Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ubermensch; Bill McDonagh as Andrew Ryan’s conscience; Diane McClintock as the citizenry of Rapture; Captain Sullivan as law and order; Frank Fontaine as the truest expression of Objectivism in its distilled form.

Who is Booker? Most importantly: why is he?

Booker is a fictional character with a brutal background based on historical events, alternative and true. Booker might be Lakota; Booker might have undergone forced Anglicization; Booker might have been ripped from his parents; Booker is a product of violence, perhaps literally. Booker is American exceptionalism distilled. Booker is the past in constant judgment of itself, unable to live with itself and unable to die. Booker destroys what is best in him and around him in exchange for belonging. Booker has sold the future to absolve his sins. Booker has sold his daughter because he is a fictional character in a work of fiction who needs to be propelled.

Booker is a shell, a sluice, an environment. Booker is the broken shape you are meant to fill, horrified. His internal shape should torture you as it has tortured him: the messy slaggy soul of a shitty tin soldier.

Does Booker take the baptism and become Comstock? If so, it might be his second one. His last name literally means “the white.” His first name can mean “author.” It is most likely his second name: an attempt to rewrite himself. And when he was unable to rewrite himself the first time, when the cognitive dissonance boiled at the edges of his skull, he found there was only one way to cleanse himself the second: to remake the world entirely. To force transformation on everyone else. To take vengeance on a world that could never love him, never want him—to create a world that has no choice but to love him. If he can’t change the world’s mind, he’ll change the world.

Note what he opts to do: to take the fight to the environment–to the unyielding universe.

Context Is Everything

It is no mistake that BioShock Infinite occurs in 1912: the sinking of the Titanic is often credited with ending an unfettered optimism, a period when the Western world believed technology had brought the human race into a golden age. With World War I—which would follow a mere two years later—came modern warfare and all the horrors thereof, not the least of which was the realization that humans had created a kind of war that could destroy the entire world. World War I also seeded the rise of the United States: much of the wealth of warring Europe—itself fat on the blood of subjugated peoples and stolen lands—would rattle into America’s coffers.

It is also no mistake that BioShock 1 directly follows World War II. With WWII came a heightened terror—that this war is not the last war, that there will never be an end to war, that war will go on expanding and expanding until it has consumed us all. World War III would not be denied: prettily packaged in the ideals of its children, it simply followed the utopians down to their underwater tombs. According to BioShock 1’s original ending, World War III is not a matter of if—it’s a matter of when.

But even more important than the history in the BioShock games are their settings. Mute leviathans, Rapture and Columbia determine all of your behaviors: from where you can exist in space to all of your desires and goals to how you choose to present yourself to how you opt to behave. Isolated in extremism—whether that extremism is the crushing depths of the ocean or the unbearable lightness of the air—most of their power is that they simply cannot be escaped. You can’t outrun them. They are everywhere. They are everything.

Like Lovecraft before it, BioShock acknowledges the greatest horror of all: you cannot escape your context. Your context does not only involve your immediate surroundings. It is also historical; contains zeitgeists from various cultures and subcultures; is filled with pressures both personal and impersonal, human and nonhuman. Many of these forces can hurt you. Many more can destroy you. What you do to survive depends very much on where, when, and with whom you must live.

Human beings are not built to be moral.

The Death of the Future

In the film Operation, Burma!, a soldier asks Errol Flynn: “Who were you before the war?”

“An architect,” says Flynn.

Who were you? Because that “you” doesn’t matter now. That “you” is irrelevant. So you’re an architect. What the war does to you; what these deaths mean to you; your past, your education, your loves and desires and forward motivation, the you that could have been outside war, the you that slogs alone into the brutal future—all completely irrelevant. Your forebears don’t care so long as you can bleed. 

Children are the manufactured tools of their creators—helpless before the enormous strength of their elders and the zeitgeists that enclose them, poisoned by their parents’ insecurities and flaws, utilized like weapons regardless of the cost—often with great love.

Consider something more than the traumatized culture: consider the society filled with traumatized children; consider the traumatized society. Consider channeling children through that trauma over and over and over again, if you can. Poisoned—poisoned—poisoned—all of us poisoned. Poisoned by those who loved us most. Poisoned by the people we trusted. Poisoned by the people who meant to make a better world.

I believe it is notable that creative director Ken Levine is Jewish; I have read from multiple accounts that the European Jewish diaspora was uniquely traumatized from the Holocaust and passed that trauma down upon their own families. I sometimes wonder if he saw that firsthand.

The fathers eat sour grapes; their children’s teeth are set on edge.

Choice: Player Expectations and Entitlement

For players who experienced BioShocks 1 and 2 with their multiple endings (Good, Bad, and “ok bye then I guess” respectively), it must have been jarring to suddenly reckon with being a monster. How often I see players grousing that nothing they do will change their wicked pasts! These players completely miss that the only meaningful choice had already been made, that it had nothing to do with the player at all, and even if they had been there, DeWitt was still unforgivable. The only way to go on was to bow out and allow the future to redefine herself.

Nobody was ready for that shit. 

Like it or not, BioShock 1 had set a precedent. Not everyone’s going to read up on creator intentions. If any keyword came blaring through the noise, it would have been “choice.” Most players only recognize choice by the ability to make it, not the absence of it, and most of them weren’t equipped to recognize that its lack was the point. The meaningless choices were commentary, and they were as much about the player as they were about DeWitt himself. Not every choice will be meaningful, will it? And there will be choices you make that will be momentous, but they will seem very small when you make them.

Because most players had experienced what they thought was a basic moralistic tale in the first two games, and would see Infinite not as reflection upon America’s destructive personality, its obsession with a meaningless Good/Bad duocracy, and the infinite, cyclical nature of violence, they saw Booker’s death as corrupted artsy claptrap.

“I did the good schuut,” they say. “I want the good schuut end. Where happy end??? Where treat :(”

Bitch the future is here. 

Time to die.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

Generally I despise essays that end with, “But the real fault lay with the clueless motherfuckers who played the game!” Often, if enough people complain, there’s something to it; the message has been obscured somehow. Details or explanations weren’t clear or intuitive enough, some mechanism isn’t working somewhere, some character needs to talk more or less, some setting needs to be transformed. O artist: stop whining and get cracking. If everywhere you go smells like shit, it’s time to look under your shoe. 

But sometimes it’s true that a piece of media is on a level folks aren’t equipped for. Think of every literature and art class you’ve ever had, if you’ve been fortunate enough to have one. There’s always someone scoffing in a back row, like here are all these jokers making more of something than they should. Similarly, some of you have been arguing with me this entire time, saying: “I just wanted a video game. I just wanted to shoot something and feel better and instead I get this bullshit ending that makes no sense.”

First of all, smart bullshit (and even fucked-up attempts at smart bullshit! Hi BioShock 2) gets to exist on this Earth along with Gmod and Roblox or Schuut Big Tits 84 (there are 84 tits and you must shoot them all. They explode into smaller tits) or whatever-the-fuck-else you think is a worthwhile gaming experience. Second of all, miserable bullshit also gets to exist, and what did you fucking expect if you played through either BioShocks 1 or 2? When you hear a football player quavering out in the darkness for his mom to pick him up, how’d that make you feel? What did you think was going to happen to Jack after pounding back the entire Plasmid library, the cancer cocktail that explicitly destroys the fuck out of its users? Third of all, if you missed the smart bullshit going on in BioShock 1 and didn’t think BioShock Infinite might be larger in scope in more ways than one, that’s on you. Fourthly, if you were simply satisfied with saving like, 15 kids from a violently-perishing city of thousands and call it good, I mean… is that really where your thoughts end? Are you really that fucking small?

It’s Not You, It’s Me

You ever meet those motherfuckers who talk shit about Shakespeare or modern art? And you’re just left there staring with dead eyes at this poseur who mistakes playing devil’s advocate for intelligence, cheek resting on your fist, thinking about the fanfic you’re writing, wondering who it’s for, remembering that all your smut-writing friends get ten times the viewers, and considering throwing yourself in front of a bus.

Yeah, there’s a personal element to this: the fact that BioShock Infinite is the kind of art I like and long for and want to make myself, the fact that the game was successful and yet the studio was closed, the way its DLC was so rushed that the story plopped out like half-baked mystery meat—realizing that the same forced rush was at 2K’s behest for BioShock 2, as well, and wondering how good art can ever be made in this unforgiving capitalist hellscape. The game was weirdly niche and I’m not 100% sure I’ll ever experience anything quite like it again. And with the whiners in this fandom, the loud ones controlling the narrative, some fresh brain-dead exec in some brain-dead publisher might be like: “We must keep it safer and simpler for these fuckin babby adult!”

Nah bitch nah. Naaaah. Cry some more while I enjoy me my fucking dinner. I’ll eat it while making loud smacking noises and keeping unbroken eye contact. Come here. Let’s look at each other. It’ll be like Lady and the Tramp but we want to punch each other. What truer form of love can there be here in the modern world?

I keep having to remind myself that this response isn’t new. I keep having to remind myself of my place. I keep having to remind myself why I write, why I read, why I like to experience art to begin with. It’s not for the reasons other people do it. Oh, I want the same emotional release as everyone else, I want the same rollicking plots, I adore the same tropes. I seek out everything and anything for a good time; I’ll read Moby Dick today and a smutty 5,000-word abortion with the world’s most suspect grammar tomorrow. I don’t give a shit if it’s low- or high-brow; there are all kinds of ways to have fun and there are all kinds of ways to engage with art, and lord knows I’ve done my share of smooth-brain criticism. The problem is that I’ve always wandered off by myself, sunk into an all-consuming reverie, on tracks that no one else ever seems to be on, and then looked up to talk excitedly about something only to realize I’m alone. And whose fault is that?

By the same token, maybe I haven’t talked enough. Maybe I spend too much time with my mouth shut. Maybe I haven’t stood up enough for things that are worth our time, worth talking up, worth setting on pedestals.

I tell you, BioShock Infinite will stand the test of time. It’s too good for this. It’s too good for you, warts and all. Some of you will grow to understand that; some of you won’t; many of you will shrug and go on with your lives (and this is fine; it is only a video game). But I’ve truly not seen anything like it. I can’t believe a mainstream video game was allowed to be so fucking brutal about the American juggernaut, and what’s more, that it sold like hotcakes. Plus, I can’t think of any works in recent memory that have struck me so close to my own heart. No creative work has made me start beating a monster’s face into a washbasin for ten hours only to lift her by the scalp and see my own eyes looking back.

Look into those eyes. See your own stupid impulses pouring out. Your own stupid excuses, your violences, your sins—your claws, your teeth, your costumes, your hilarious attempts at interpretive dance. The beast doth protest too much.

O, monster—behold thyself—and tremble.

[dramaturgydrakes]

Hnmmm I’m bad at asking questions but I want to know more about baby!hermes AU/any headcanons you have for epic!hermes so uhh use this ask to shameless share stuff

ok ok i dont actually have too much cuz its like 6am BUT.

rebabied hermes AU

he has a cow plushie. possibly made by penelope? either way it’s funny

ABSOLUTELY tried to steal ody’s cattle first thing. ended with anti-hermes measures aided by apollo

has woken up ody and pen several times playing the lyre like a guitar in the middle of the night. for funsies.

while he’s very bold, he’s also very easily spooked. bolts faster than a cat at sudden movements and loud noises (realizing my hermes is very catlike help)

notoriously known for “if you can’t find him, he’s causing trouble.” ody and pen will search the palace for him for hours then find out him and telemachus are wreaking havoc down in the market

he can ramble for hours. either about the same thing or he jumps topics every 30 seconds. sometimes it devolves into gibberish. penelope is VERY used to this from ody and tele and able to actually engage, while ody looks at her like “?? is this what i put you through”. telemachus is “← his ass is NOT listening” but sits thru it without a problem

for the first few weeks he pretends that he has to shed feathers just to cause problems for One Specific Servant he doesn’t like. then apollo stops by like “why tf is the palace covered in baby fluff. this is unnecessary” and hermes has to actually communicate because apollo is trained to see through his bs lol

ody tries to put him in timeout and he goes “you’re MY great-grandson!! and i’m a god!!! you can’t make me do anything!! YOU go in the corner!!!!!” which earns him a very long lecture from penelope as the alternative. never fusses over timeout again and does a very good job thinking about what he’s done. as an equivalent for stickers pen just gives him interesting little baubles that have his attention for hours afterwards

despite being a small child he still traumatizes telemachus with completely unnecessary tidbits about ody. then they go cause problems together anyways

probably more later idk lol

epic / regular hermes

he’s a stoner. this is basically accepted as canon by most fans now but i digress

this is kinda more general hermes than just epic, but: i imagine that when ody was a baby he was a BIG crier—anticlea and laertes were up almost every night trying to figure out how to calm him down. then, one night, anticlea wakes to him crying, but it stops suddenly and she panics, hurrying to his room. there, instead of something terrible, she finds hermes gently dancing with baby ody and singing lullabies that apollo used to sing to him. ody is absolutely enamored with him, just staring up at hermes with the biggest, most fascinated eyes. i imagine hermes also has his facial wings aside, but baby ody doesn’t seem at all scared of having the full attention of six glowing eyes :)

every problem odysseus causes is reason for celebration. every trick, every feat, every theft—and, at the same time, every generosity to the beggars and less fortunate of his kingdom. (i mean. hermes is a patron of groups that are usually lower class hshhs)

he and apollo are besties now but apollo absolutely still has days where he wants to throttle hermes. especially when hermes brings up the cows. hermes LOVES bringing up the cows. apollo proceeds to set his clothes on fire, like any immensely irritated big brother

sad moment but hermes has so much guilt over odysseus’s suffering. he’s meant to protect travelers, and he’s granted odysseus as much luck and protection as he can, but he couldn’t protect his crew and he couldn’t spare his great-grandson from horrible anguish. i know gods in mythos care very little for mortals, but hermes just feels different to me. in the odyssey he’s very kind and benevolent, legitimately caring for odysseus from what we can tell, and seeing his family in so much pain hurts him too

he visits anticlea frequently after her death

my brain is not at functioning capacity so this is all i got but yeah :)

[firestorm09890]

On Wuthering Heights and Canto VI (complete)

wow.

move over “Call me Ishmael” line, this is the Canto that most resembles its source book. We’ve got direct quotes! We’ve got scenes playing out like the original, beat for beat! I’m so glad I read Wuthering Heights beforehand, because unlike the previous ones where it just enhanced the experience a little (or even left me unsatisfied that they didn’t adapt certain things), I can’t imagine what it might’ve been like to not know everything in the book.

It’s kind of uncanny, actually, the extent to which things are similar. At the end of part 2 I was thinking about how there could’ve been a universe where the events of the book continued to stay the same if not for Erlking Heathcliff learning about the alternate worlds, and hey, after looking at so many universes of Catherine and Heathcliff making each other miserable, Dante (*edit: I wrote Cathy here first. I forgot it was Dante who saw it) found one where they’re happy together, both as ghosts, which! Is just the end of real actual Wuthering Heights!

We continued to have canon divergence in that way of "what if [character] had done something different?" which is always my favorite, even if some of it was just visions into a timeline where things were different. What if Heathcliff recognized he was just as bad as Hindley when it came to Hareton? What if Heathcliff and Cathy hadn't gone to spy on Thrushcross Grange that night? What if Heathcliff had stayed to listen to the rest of what Cathy had to say?

It's a tragedy, and Erlking Heathcliff, and our Heathcliff, and every other Heathcliff believed that it was the type where he was doomed from the start, because of who he is, and nothing can change that. But Dante knew that no, actually, it's a tragedy because of the choices that were made, and they can't be changed now, but you can change, and that's how you change your fate.

Individual characters

Not surprised Hindley distorted. I think this one had a lot more hate within him than the original

RIP Isabella Linton, I mean Isabella Edgar. She found someone who wasn't Heathcliff and her brother STILL stopped talking to her, and ended up being used by Erlking Heathcliff anyway

Speaking of Linton (Edgar). I don't have much to say because if I'm being honest I don't like him very much and everything he said was kinda overshadowed by his absolutely disgusting death. Catherine saying he looked like a prince out of a fairytale is very interesting considering how much he looks like the Black Swan guys

I'm sad Josephine died. It makes narrative sense but it would’ve been funny if she outlasted everyone else just like in the book

Cathy! There's a lot to say about Cathy but I'm not sure I can be the one to do it. I like her. I'm glad she was fucked up and we got our "everyone sucks here, you're perfect for each other, never involve anyone else in your business" but of course other people are getting involved because this is fucking Wuthering Heights

SPEAKING OF GETTING INVOLVED! NELLY!! I'm sooo glad they gave her the unreliable narrator trait, and managed to put the whole "burning letters" thing in there too. I'm also glad that when she did inevitably betray the team, she stayed exactly the same in personality. It's like she said herself, the happy moments in the past were real. I hope she stops associating with Hermann and goes to do something else with her life. Imagine finding out that in every universe you're wrapped up in Heathcliff and Cathy's bullshit

no Hareton or Catherine II, but Catherine I and Heathcliff did a fine job breaking the cycle themselves, I think.

there's probably more things to say about the Erlking and the Wild Hunt but I'm so tired

[yeondollie]

ʙᴀᴍ ʏᴀɴɢ ɢᴀɴɢ ౨ৎ ♡ .ᐟ

'i closed the chapter on the days we spent together.'

. . warnings ; ANGST .ᐟ, breaking up, argument, fem reader, taehyun is kinda mean, crying, heartbreak, reader is needy, taehyun gets annoyed of reader, just over all sad ecfhuehfusih !!

a/n ; i have been listening in bam yang gang on repeat its so so so good but so sad :(. the beat is so adorable and so is bibi i love her sm sm but the song is so sad and as soon as i heard it i thought about making a story with it . this is just a drabble so i dont have a word count sorry :< anyways, enjoy !! ₊˚⊹ ᰔ

"why do you want so much out of me? can i have some peace and quiet to myself? god.." here we were again. arguing with taehyun was getting more and more common, though you hated it. taehyun knew you were a sensitive person and didn't like conflict but you were just pissing him off lately.

you didn't know what to say really. though you were only trying to check up on him after work, he wasn't having it. "it's like you're attached to my hip, truly." you suck in the tears in your eyes as he says this. you didn't wanna fight, you just wanted to please him in any way you could.

"yes i-i.. i'll give you time. i’m sorry." you say, tearing still welling in your eyes. this, for some reason, set taehyun off completely. why couldn’t you stand up for yourself? it was pathetic in his eyes. “see! thats why im upset. you’re like a doormat- you get walked all over, it’s pathetic.” he scoffs, letting out a small laugh even.

holding the tears back, about to flow, you mutter out some words. “you’re r-right, i’m s-sorry.” you sniffle a bit, looking up at the ceiling to avoid the tears falling out of your eyes. you’ve never felt more pathetic in your life, it was such a horrible feeling. taehyun didn’t seem phased at all, walking up and getting in your face.

“so thats it? sorry? you think thats gonna fix everything?” he says, his face only inches from yours. it was weird, usually when he was this close he would be kissing you or looking at you longingly but no. not this time, not anymore. the only time he looked at you was with lust or anger behind his eyes.

it felt like the two of you would only have sex or only argue, it was tiring- so tiring. he used to hold your cold hand in his own warm hand. he used to kiss your forehead and play with your hair, what happened? the tears flickered down your cheek as you answered him. “t-tyun i.. i don’t know what else to d-do.” now quickly wiping your own tears.

when he realizes you’re crying, he doesn’t bat an eye. its like all his love for you was drained from his heart- you hated it so much. “you know what _____? we’re done. i cant fucking do this with you anymore. you’re just so.. so needy and dumb!” he raises his voice, now watching you flinch in front of him.

you didn’t even have the energy to stop him, watching him with blurry eyes. watching how much he changed over the span of you two dating was shocking and saddening to you. oh how you longed for the sweet taehyun you once had.

before he could exit your house, forever saying bye to him you did one last thing. “taehyun..?” you whisper, not even having the energy to talk loudly. “what?” he whips back at you. you grab his school name tag he gave you, when he first confessed his feelings for you when the two of you were still in high school.

grabbing his name tag, along with your own- you walked up to him gently. you placed your name tag in his hand, looking into his angry eyes. “so you can remember me, you promised me you’d never forget me right?”

his eyes flickered with sympathy one final last time.