#didn’t cry until the final montage

[galwithalibrarycard]

…..his reward was saying goodbye. Who gave RTD the right to do this to me? *sobbing*

(Defensively adding, it’s not my fault I didn’t have easy access to Doctor Who until very recently ok I know I’m fourteen years late here)

[verysium]

『02』 出発: departure

ft. rin itoshi, sae itoshi

summary: a star's life is its counteraction against death, an endless deadlock against the brute force of gravity. in the constant struggle between space and time, rin cannot tell if he is being held up or held down. perhaps he has already dictated the terms of his own demise. cw: epistolary montage, mentions of blood in film, rin violently crying and throwing up, highly implied hallucinations, swearing, suicidal ideation, disillusionment and lots of hard angst. word count: 4.9k

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Two weeks after Sae took off from Haneda Airport, his words still lingered inside Rin's mind. His brother had left with a fiery flick of a grin—a gaping, white-hot maw right where his mouth should have been. It blazed then sputtered cold in his gums by the time he turned back around, but Rin still knew what he saw. The smoke never lied.

A triple tap of tongue against hard palate, the message moving fast as light. Something had flickered between Sae’s teeth. Something about split knuckles and brotherly love. Something about calling him back.

But Rin couldn’t hear over the boarding announcements, the roar of engines propelling out of the runway, the heat waves of people out in front. At half past noon, his brother had already departed from Tokyo, ten thousand miles westbound in a floating aluminum dream, reeling contrails through the sky. 

And Rin still stood on Earth, waiting. Like some dumb thing left behind.

It wasn’t until his mother laid a gentle hand on his shoulder that he finally tumbled back to reality, an empty gate at his feet, no arrival or departure calling. The afternoon sunlight had grown dim, splintering against the glass windows and whirring the blood through his ears. His chest felt strangely suspended.

It was in the backseat where it all began. Three floors down in the parking garage. Fumbling through his pockets, his coat had snagged between the door and car frame, ten digits on a crumpled paper sent fluttering to the ground. Looking back on it now, he should’ve thrown that damn thing away. But he was stupid then, drunk on a heat stroke and the beginnings of terminal grief. Right on the exit of the Shuto Expressway, he made his parents turn the car back around and drive ten miles down to the nearest World Mobile, a wretched inhale of hope stuck squirming in his chest. 

It took him several weeks before he finally decided to punch in those numbers, and then another several weeks to call after that. His body shuddered, sweat-faced and suffocating, as he trailed sticky fingers down the waiting screen. The phone rang once then twice. Then rang on forever.

Nobody ever bothered to pick up.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

2013 年 6月 17日 Nii-chan, 

It still feels like you never left. And I say this with a miserable lack of sincerity because you did in fact leave just two weeks ago. Kaa-san still makes your bed. Square corners and all. Your duvet goes in the pile with the rest of my laundry. 

Just the other day, I think I saw your shadow. I was sunbathing on the roof when I felt something brush against my back. Does Spain have big shadows too? I hope so. A country with so much sun must leave those poor shades short and stunted. Maybe they’re just a little shy. Be nice to them, will you Nii-chan? Not everyone can shine as bright as you do.

I hope you’ll make friends soon. Write to me often. I want to know everything.

2013 年 7月 7日 Nii-chan,

How are you? I didn’t receive anything in my inbox, and I checked with Kaa-san twice. She said you didn’t text me, but there is no way such a thing could have happened. Perhaps old age has finally gotten to her, or maybe something’s just wrong with this phone. Either way, I should’ve asked her to buy me a newer model.

On second thought, if you don’t text me, I will be very upset. But it will be a childish sort of anger. You wouldn’t be very proud. You will be pleased to know, however, that I have grown a total of ten centimeters this summer, and my bones are looking very strong and wide. My shots have improved too, and I scored three goals today.

Otou-san took us out to dinner for Tanabata this weekend. He told me it is about time I became a man. I smiled and said I didn’t want to disappoint. But then he said ten and three quarters is no longer a youthful sort of age, and I suddenly felt a little mad about it. I don’t want to grow up without you. 

The festival was crowded as usual. I ate every selection of wagashi then chased it down with some of the sake Otou-san lent me from his cup. Pretty sure that was illegal, so I threw it all up on the way home. But then we all went and saw the tanzaku, so I guess something went right. I wrote down a wish, but I won’t tell you. Otherwise it won’t come true. I hung it up on the highest branch though, so that someday it might reach you. 

Tell me what you think. Text back soon.

2013 年 8月 31日 Nii-chan, 

I did not receive your reply from last time. I think this phone must still be broken. Perhaps you should check on your end. Even if it’s just a greeting, I will be content. Anything from you is fine, really.

I visited the beach again. It was peaceful until the wind blew hair in my face, and I went blind for almost fifteen minutes. I tried cutting it, but Kaa-san got mad at me. After your disaster five years ago, she said she’d never let her sons hold a pair of scissors ever again. Don’t tell her, but I laughed. Inside, you know?

Sometimes I still see the waves in my sleep. The ones at Koshigoe Beach. They cradle me, and suddenly it feels like my head is floating even though my body isn’t. You’d probably think I’m crazy. But lately dreams are the only way I can reach you. 

I do watch the news though. And I train hard. Very hard. I can pass like you now, though not nearly as good as your highlights on TV. Coach says I still need to learn. You always said the same thing. But I am nearly as tall as Otou-san now and twice as strong. That must count for something, right? I hope the guys overseas will like this new me. When I finally come over there, that is.

Make sure you aren’t training too hard. I don’t want you to overstrain yourself. And if you don’t like it there, promise me you won’t force yourself to stay. You’ll pack your bags and come home early. 

Promise me. Please. 

That you’ll come home to me.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

For the second time in his life, Rin finds himself on his knees, heaving up everything that has ever made him whole. The bathroom mourns with every dry retch of his throat, and suddenly he’s laughing into the porcelain, clutching at the sides in a mad form of desperation. His ribs shudder—tough in their hurt—yet nothing of substance ever lies between them. He’d smiled out his guts a long time ago. 

Is empty space still a space or just the photonegative of presence? 

Sometimes Rin feels like his body can never truly filled, but it can never be completely emptied either. No matter how much he regurgitates, there will always be more to come. The space inside him widens until it hangs on a threadlike line of limbo: so much to give yet so much to keep. It tugs at him—a crude form of baptism—pulling him up for air and then crashing his head beneath the waves again. 

Another harsh hurl reverberates across the bathroom tiles, this time accompanied by the loud smack of spit. He’s emptied out so much his bowels might just prolapse at any second, the boy inside him turned into some sort of liquid slop, sloshing back and forth in his ribcage. It’s all over the front of his shirt now, the stomach contents soaked for hours in bodily brine, the grief his body tries to hold. No amount of bleach is going to erase the stench.

Some days Rin just wants someone to cradle him like a child does a bird, gentle and afraid to hurt. He had a dream about this once, many moons ago. After wringing himself out to dry, he had gone to work, looping the washing line around his feet until it resembled some sort of upside down noose. Once the wind picked up, he let go of the string like a pendulum, watching his body sway in third person: up and down and up and down. In this reality, he was a creature of feathers and clothespins, his body molting in the breeze. So long as he swung back and forth in this state of suspension, he would remain in the middle, not tethered down enough to live but not free enough to die either. 

He’d simply exist. 

Some nights Rin still can’t sleep. His eyes lay limp in their sockets, two dead weights sinking into bone. He tried to pry them out with his fingers, but they only pressed deeper into his face, rigid and wax-cool to the touch. No matter what he does, Rin knows he will be too late. He can never reverse this decay—the post-mortem withering of his own heart. 

Just this afternoon, he died once again, his body slumped with the hollow weight of disappointment, his spirit sinking like a fault line into earth. He had been drying his hair in the locker room after practice, the friction of the towel’s loops causing small pinpricks of static to echo along his nape. The static had carried over hushed whispers, trailing along his scalp down to his ears. God, he hadn’t meant to overhear.

“Damn it, we’re really done for this season, huh? I’m telling you it’s the striker. We could’ve won this match if it weren’t for him.”

“I mean, if Itoshi were here, he would’ve destroyed their whole team by himself.”

“You mean the older one?”

“Of course I do. Who else did you think I was referring to? The younger one’s just been blessed up until now.”

“Without his brother, he’s just an ordinary guy.”

“Oi, Haruto, shut up! What if he hears?”

“Hear what? It’s not like it isn’t the truth!”

Rin still remembers how his surname burned on their lips, the tip of the tongue caught raw between teeth, the vowels seared into flesh. Itoshi was a burden coming apart at the seams, a title for something he could never possess. They were right and it left him smarting, reeling. He hadn’t laughed a day since Sae’s departure, but in that moment he wanted to shove his whole fist up his mouth and choke for the first time in five resentful months. The laugh had been a silent one, with tears on his waterline and a smile bruised onto his face. 

Ha.....ha.....hah.....

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he simply exists. Still young but no longer impressionable. Salt in the eyes. Salt in the mouth. Take it like a man. When he hawks back the knife, it must come out breathing and clean. Living but not dead. 

His teammates had every right to blame him. 

He can’t score goals like he used to. Can’t run and bleed. Can’t love like before. There’s nothing but shame waiting for him when the realization finally breaches the bathroom air and his teammates scramble off the benches, cleats stained with guilt. They saw his reflection in the mirror, weeping right above the communal sinks.

“R-rin! W-we didn’t know you were here.”

“Y-yeah! You didn’t hear much, did you?”

Rin had never hated his name more in that moment. They uttered it like a euphemism, hand over his stupid bullet-riddled heart, the blood too runny to salvage. It only hurt him more. So he did what he knew best. He clenched his fist, the nails fisted into the meat of his palm, eyes caught on a hardened edge. It didn’t matter if Haruto was his senior. He’d beat him within an inch of his life.

“So you call me Rin now? Wasn’t I just younger Itoshi to you earlier?”

“I didn’t....We didn’t mean...”

“Then what did you mean?”

Only the scurry of shoes answered—two scuff marks against the dirty floor, Haruto’s yelp in the distance. Rin was left all alone again, his thin shadow blown wide across the whitewashed walls of the locker room. 

“Damn coward,” he wanted to yell after him. “Run! Run and tell them how it’s not your fault!” 

But he was just talking to himself.

Is empty space still a space or just a pseudonym for absence?

He hadn't been thinking at the time. Within the liminal space of the abandoned shower stalls, he lent himself a moment of weakness. He let himself cry. The shower head was cold and dirtied, and he stood there for forty-five minutes, waiting to be filled with a warmth that never came. In the end, he let his tears mix with the brackish water, staring at the evidence of his failure before it swirled down the drain. 

He realized he must have been a mistake. There was no other explanation. The real Rin Itoshi was swapped at birth and replaced with someone else. Inside the four-walled confines of the shower stall, his imposter reared its head through the mist, long baby hair drowned down to the ears. He didn’t belong. Not in this body bathed in condensation. Not in this namesake crowned in tempered glass. But by the time the water trickled down to his nose, Rin was already knee-deep in self-doubt, wading his way into misery. What more did they want from him? No one could ever replace Sae Itoshi. Not even his younger brother. 

Not even him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Six hours post-death in the locker rooms, Rin went home and passed out with his head on the toilet seat, two slick fingers shoved up his throat and his luminous guts buried somewhere down the pipe drain. Six hours later, his lids peel back scarlet, gelatinous with haze—a ringing in his ears. Some fucker is calling him again. 

He doesn’t answer. Twice. But the telemarketer is either underpaid or rudely insistent, so Rin finally picks up just to curse him out on the line. He doesn’t need any scripted intimacy. Doesn’t need other people counting his own losses. He just needs to be left alone.

At midnight, he staggers out of the bathroom, fingers absentmindedly flicking off the lightswitch before collapsing into bed. The sheets aren’t even his own. He doesn’t notice until he sniffs the pillow and stiffens. It smells god-awful. Like tiger balm and soothing menthol. Like somebody he used to know. And much to his chagrin, the images come stumbling back: knee-deep in the salted sea, shirasu swimming around his toes. What color were his eyes again? Blue ice between teeth. Sour like a bad star. Oh, what can he remember? Disappointment peeled into spirals. Happiness running down the back of his hand. The blood of an orange, sweet and dripping. He’s forever staring at someone’s back. Always a few steps behind.

Fuck you, Sae.

There’s haunting laughter coming out from the window panes, and he can hear the waves crash on shore in the distance. Two children run across sand. Muted footsteps. One soft thump then another. The vision is so close he can practically taste it. Salt in the wind, in the eyes, in his mouth. The seagulls pluck at his eyes, but he takes it like a man, breathing and clean. Living but not dead.

One of the children stands with his arms behind his back, face hidden by the shadows of the horizon. The ocean spray nips at his burgundy fringe, the hunger of a whole world engulfed in his gaze. In the distance, a younger boy shouts his name, dark hair framed by a cowlick, turquoise eyes smoothed over by water. He runs as fast as his little legs can carry him, his arms filled with bone-white shells.

“Nii-chan, wait for me!”

Sae’s face blurs before he can turn around, and Rin is left staring at the wooden slats above his childhood bed, resenting something he can no longer remember. Why did people have to go and change? Three years later and his brother had gone straight from stealing seashells to swindling stars clean out of the sky. Three years and he still had nothing to show for himself.

He imagines the look on Sae’s face when he tells him this. Conversations over Sunday dinner. The family gathered round the kotatsu, piss-yellow light slicing every dish into halves. He spoons pickled radish and chokes Sae’s teacup till it breaks. Would it be disappointment he sees on his face? His brother’s features crumpled mid-smile, blue-green eyes wounded into a porcelain state. Why? Why haven’t you done anything with your life while I was gone? 

Or perhaps it was anger. Smoke on the lips, bruised fists, and the heat of his mother’s blazing scream. Her son bares teeth and scrapes every syllable of their surname clean. Wrestles her other son’s shoulders down to the ground and shakes until the boy—the real Rin—gurgles and sloshes up inside. Do something, Rin. Do something! Or else you’ll never make it this lifetime.

Both, he could live with. But not this. The silence that burrows into his mind while he sleeps. The constant calling and the phone that just rings and rings and rings. It’s a circle, some sick sort of cycle. Every night he dreams of war—of sights and slights and stars. Things that end then don’t end then never end. He dreams until he wakes up screaming, on his hands and knees begging. Say something, will you? Anything. Fuck, why won’t you just say something?

Three years later and his brother still can't love him in a way he understands. 

But what did he expect? Sae was like that: pale and blistering, beautiful even when burning. Last dream cycle, his brother fell down three stories and erupted into flames, limbs compacted into fine dust. Should’ve screamed but didn’t. By the time Rin got down to him, Sae was already on his feet, sputtering soot from his lungs then flaring back up like nothing had ever happened. As if his hurt was merely bursts of light gathering and bunching, violence in free fall. 

And he was beautiful, Rin thinks. A boy of the blaze, man in the making, hair aorta-red, staring right back at him. By the time Sae opened his mouth, Rin’s arms were already open, ready to embrace the glittering shards. He crumpled before him as a building does a god, set alight on his brother’s palm. Strike me. He begged, blood around his mouth. Strike me anywhere and set me free. 

But that’s not what happens when you die. Not when his brother said it best.

I think I’d die and become a star. 

So he holds onto this life. Bunches it between fingers and twines it around his fist until he knows the person he’s dying for. Until he’s blacked out and dreaming in that damnable backseat again. Experiencing everything in the third person—the news, the screen, the slow-motion reels of an astral body wound up in constant replay. He can only watch as his brother slowly becomes a stranger in his own life again, and it guts him every time.

Sae Itoshi Dominates at Junior Championships, Secures Victory with Hat-Trick. Future Star? Sae Itoshi’s Sensational Performance Stuns Fans and Scouts Alike.

Who the hell is Sae Itoshi? Man, celebrity, celestial body? Not even his brother knows. But what Rin has learned over these past few years is that all stars are really just dead people, housed in a mausoleum of glittery beginnings and explosive endings. It’s binary—circling, really. A blinking eye in the sky, ticking time bomb, crying corpse, then everything wailing before its implosion. Sae could never comprehend this. The smoke-sputtering reality beyond tangible substance. This form of dying. 

But dying isn’t even the worst part of it all. It’s people like him who suffer. Unlucky stars are cursed with another, forced to revolve around each other. If one collapses, the companion gets ejected out the deep end of space and time—stumbling, groping, searching. 

Three years later and he’s still searching. 

Hey Google: Can stars still be seen from Madrid? 

The results for light pollution pop up. In a city of light, even light cannot be seen. How ironic, he thinks, that Sae is now a shining thing, flaring tendrils a million light years away. Post-nebula and he still loses himself in people who look exactly like him.

But that past has already come and gone, leaving nothing but the future behind. In the next dream cycle, Rin too will die, sputtering and choking, like a firework lit from within—violence in free fall. And when the time comes, he will leap off the fire escape, the city blocks spinning and spinning, every second a little death. The faster he falls, the more alive he’ll feel. He’ll drop all the way down until the only way he can go is up. And then he’ll ascend, floating past the skyscrapers, the streets, the sprawling metropolis. His toes curled, caught on the hook of night, the burnt flesh peeling back on bone. Floating until he disappears, his body nothing but white light.

Someday his brother will drown himself in his own artificial brightness. And Rin will follow, screaming, rearing, and set ablaze.

If you die Nii-chan, I think I’ll die along with you.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

There are rare moments when seasons die a sunless death, quiet and wilting into the earth. Rin’s final birthday without Sae falls on one such month—a red September during which nature bleeds, the autumn leaves rusting around Engakuji Temple. He’s taken up long walks during that time, pacing for hours around the park nearby. Something about taking his mind off things. Something about counting his own losses.

By late afternoon, his hands are shoved fist-deep into his coat pockets, on track to finish his ninth lap around the perimeter. The daylight has long pooled down his back, tiny dollops of brightness slow-dripping and honeyed, settling into the hollow divots of his spine. The mise-en-scène frames him in a languorous ochre—the kind of lighting reserved solely for an aged romance. And the wind plays his lover, its post-meridian breath tender as it brushes against his cheek. It’s all a range of motions from there. He takes another step, adjusts a stray earbud, then tugs his scarf all the way up to his nose. Ten laps now, and he still walks. The only time he ever stops is when he stalls mid-way to check his phone. 

Zero messages received. Message not delivered.

His thumb hovers briefly over the send button. The cursor at the end blinks with an almost human hesitancy before it opens its mouth, swallowing everything back up. The screen clears itself again, reduced to nothing but absence: a small square of light where silence reigns. Rin sighs before trudging home, a thousand words lodged into the back of his throat.

Nii-chan, I miss you. 

The kitchen is empty by the time he slides open the shoji, removing his shoes with practiced ease before padding across the soft tatami. His mother’s gone on an errand for groceries, her hastily scrawled note tucked under his door with a bowl of persimmons. The house is empty, the joss sticks still smoking in the living room, tips warm and powder-soft. He grows heady on their incense, locking himself away in his bedroom and drawing the curtains. His old Fujitsu laptop whirrs to life, propped up against two pillows and an oversized owl plush. This time he puts on a splatter film, splayed on his stomach as he reels through the opening credits.

He can watch without the subtitles now, even converse with tourists at the station in Enoden. He recalls his teammates’ faces last Saturday—breaths held tender, jaws slackened with faux horror—when he gave out directions in perfect English. Sae would’ve been proud, if only he knew how much it meant. But lately, there hasn’t been a single interruption to Rin’s nights alone, despite how desperately he longs for one. The most his English is good for nowadays is translating the kooky foreign films he puts on rotation, ninety minutes of runtime for thirty-one evenings.

He must have gone through a dozen franchises by now: Halloween specials, 90’s vintage, slashers, the paranormal. The American flicks still remain his favorite, mostly because of the chainsaws. Something about the suspense of disembodiment scratches an itch inside his brain. Like the adrenaline before a final goal, moments before he implodes—naked body slathered in pools of primary color.

In the darkness, the films weave together: a tidal wave of light that washes down his bedroom walls. The victim shrieks before she is bathed in an eerie swathe of red, pierced at the helm of a bloodshot lens. Something about her death is both alien and terrifying, and Rin feels himself come alive again. 

At climax, the light from his laptop is nothing short of searing, carving-knife intensity digging slowly into thin, rousing bodies. He can only watch as the killer sharpens his blade, each stroke a day-bright epiphany, cutting little wounds into the night. His figure is lit up from behind, illuminated in such a way that Rin can see his organs and count every one of his ribs. The scene peels back like water, reflecting montage after montage on the glass display case next to his closet. The trophies electrify themselves in the shadows, each silhouette splayed neatly on the shelf and serrated round the rim. The metal handles distort the characters’ faces in two-frame slashes, decapitating nose from ear, eye from mouth. Another scream rips through the background as Rin digs graves into his palm. This time the murderer chases a mother down the stairs, gleeful when her child fails to keep up. 

He’s seen this scene play out before—three years and eleven months ago, when he first got himself killed. It’s the final match against Tokyo Metropolitan Youth, and he’s running on fumes, ten minutes into additional time. There’s only a few more meters to the goal area, the footsteps fast approaching from his left. He has to make an escape. The opponent closes in behind him, knife in hand, and all he can do is run, body barreling straight toward the camera. 

The impact hits him right before the shot, his leg flaring out in some desperate attempt at a goal. The ball soars as he stumbles forward—violence in free fall, the boy inside him lit from within. In the final moments before he combusts, time stretches itself thin over his bones, smoking and exorcized from the fire. The shadow of his killer looms behind him, arm raised with the promise of metal and memory, the blade gleaming in sparse light. 

Got you.

The child on screen turns around, facial features contorted in dramatic horror. Rin can hear her scream before the lips even part. He can already predict this ending. He can predict the next one after this too. Plight of the final girl: last to die but forever immortalized in her own grief and helplessness.

In six months, he will be named the most valuable player for Kamakura United Youth. In another six, he will be hollowed from the inside out, cursed to feel only the loss inside every win. This motion picture has rewound itself one too many times, the credits rolling and taking him along with them. End scene and he’s standing there in a pool of his own triumph—the grass strewn with painted carcasses—a thousand boys dead at his feet. His knees make hard contact with the earth, nothing but penitence in his eyes. This is all he knows: love and its smoking aftermath, the weight of it iron-hot on his tongue. Victory has never tasted so bitter. 

But it always ends the same. For the final girl, the film star, everyone crucified by the crowd. All good auteurs come from a long line of men who have already run out of time, color pooling past their waists, crashing in over their heads. They don’t want to die, so they preserve their souls into billboards, spool strands of silence into substance. They only shoot what is in their blood: the sensational guts, glory, and gore. Because what better way to keep your memory alive than burn it onto the emulsion side of thirty-five millimeter filmstrip?

The red lights have begun to feel suffocating—the last of his breath now a belt around his neck—as the cameras pan down to a mutilated body. Rin secretly envies the child’s soaked shirtsleeves, the ground beneath her perfused in violent color. If only he could be filled with something that beautiful. But instead he was given the body of a pale child filled with longing, constantly waiting for a change and constantly wishing for something to flow out of him. 

Eventually the clock strikes twelve and Rin closes his laptop, the backs of his eyelids whited out, brain overstimulated from the psychedelic screams. His brother’s portrait blurs in his peripheral vision, overexposed from the red glow, staring up at him from the cluttered nightstand. And in the moment, he briefly wonders if Sae left Japan in search of a new image. Perhaps Spain was just ninety minutes of solid technicolor screen where people could scream without horror, where the protagonist could freely bleed. And in the end, there was no death. The audience remains seated in theaters, their memories replaying over and over, bodies forever housed in cinema.

At the director’s cut, Rin’s consciousness falls under, hand still clutching the frame. End scene and Sae’s blown-out face smiles just a little into the darkness.

© verysium 2024 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[perpetuelledaydreaming]

Ivy | chapter fourteenth

listen to: Right Where You Left Me- Taylor Swift (playlist here)

warning: infidelity. violence. blood. for this chapter is mostly grief.

word count: 2.1k

series masterlist + read the next chapter early on my ko-fii!!

The sunlight filtered through the trees, casting dappled shadows over your batter body. The blood on your hands had dried by now, as well as the tears in your eyes as you drove through the narrow grey road. With no helmet on, you finally feel like you can breathe as your mind plays over and over again a collection of the last twenty-four hours. 

Rooster’s bloody lip, Jake’s blood on his face. The way they looked at you and everyone looked at you as you exited the base with blood dripping from your body. How you’d brushed off Jake as he tried to talk to you after the exercise, how you’d undressed willingly to Bradley, how you didn’t tell him you were his. Jake’s face when Bradley told him you’d slept together, Bradley’s face as Jake told him you’d been together for five months. 

You barely realize you need to stop before you go farther than you intend to. You hear the soft rustling of leaves and the distant chirping of birds. Summer was slowly slipping away; it ended for you when Jake and you had broken things off, though. Your heart weighs heavy as you walk on the grass; a part of you wants to keep pulling away from this. 

You hadn’t been there in a while. 

You’d visited only once since you’d come back. 

“Hey, Dad,” you start softly, your voice quivering. Kneeling, you brush away the fallen leaves, clearing a space to sit beside the cold stone. You trace your fingers over the engraved name, the memories of him flooding back. 

Thomas ‘Iceman’ Kazansky 

1959-2022

You wonder what you can say; your heart feels so heavy as you watch the tombstone. A constant ache that you had never indeed addressed. 

“I really wish you were here right now,” Tears well up in your eyes as you continue. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I feel like I’m messing everything up,” 

You pause for a moment, watching his name expectantly. I wish you could feel him, hoping he could send you a sign. You need him here, you’ve fucked up everything, and now you’re entirely alone. You’re alone because he left you so, so soon. He isn’t there. He will never be able to make it right. You broke everything, and there’s no way to make it right. 

Suddenly, grief overwhelms you. Your shoulders shake with the weight of your emotions, and your tears fall freely, splashing onto the grass beneath you. 

“I don’t know what to do, Dad,” you admit through your sobs. “I’m angry at myself for letting it get this bad, I’m angry at you for never allowing me to look beyond what you wanted, I’m angry for,” you stop yourself. It is useless to blame anyone but yourself; it is your fault. Silence lingers for a second. “I should’ve been happy with just Rooster, right?”

You stare at the stone as you bite your inner cheek. 

“Right?” you whisper, your voice barely audible. Deep down, you know it can’t be the truth; you’re lying to yourself and him. It can’t be true because you know that being as happy as you were with Jake meant that it wasn’t a mistake. 

“I don’t know how to make it better, and now we will go to a death trap together, and,” you take a sigh, attempting to calm down the way your chest aches. “If I choose one, I lose the other,”

Defeated, you sit next to the stone, your back to one of the sides while you try to stop crying. The lump in your throat doesn’t surrender until a while has gone by. The memories of Ice flood back, a bittersweet montage of all the lessons he taught you, the compilation of them in your mind. To find clarity, you go back to those moments. You go back to what you learned, hoping to find an answer. 

Tears well up in your eyes as you recall Ice’s voice. A lesson you learned when you started to fly with him, you can feel him. In one of those times, he let you take control of the flight when you were barely a teenager, one of those airplanes he’d gotten just to teach his kids, which mostly ended up being just you. 

“Don’t let anything get in between you’re flying,” he’d told you during that sunset after you’d made a wrong turn. “Nothing gets between you and this plane. No fear, no tears, no one, and nothing. You and your wingman have to get home safe before and above anything,” 

When you open your eyes, leaning drowsily back against the stone even further. You can finally breathe as you make your decision. You want it to stop; you want to put a pause on your life, on the decision, and you are hurting—they're hurting. You want to save their lives and know you’ll put them in more danger if you don’t stop.  

“Dad,” you murmur as you turn to the rock, secretly hoping to see him beside you. “I wish you were here,”

You can feel him; you can imagine him nodding in understanding; you wipe away the few tears in your cheeks before standing from the grave. 

You don’t arrive at your house until the twilight of the day casts a warm, golden glow that bathes your body in a soft, ethereal light. That is how Jake’s eyes fall on you; you seem so small. You have looked like that for Jake since this morning. The first time Jake had seen you like that was after you’d told him about kissing Rooster, then when he’d broken up with you. Before, it wasn’t feasible for Jake to see you in another light that wasn’t strong and decided, confident in yourself. 

You curated yourself so well in front of everyone before, he’d come to realize. No one is close enough ever to see the cracks. He wondered as your eyes fell on him if it was indeed a privilege to see you this torn apart. It didn’t feel like it, not when he could see your swollen nose and the dried blood on your body, eyes bloodshot from crying so much; he knew it well. It felt like even less when your eyes darted to the other side of the door, where Bradley was standing. 

They’d managed to get themselves to the nursery before they continued to tear themselves apart. Still, while Bradley was getting the stitches to his busted lip and Jake was getting checked to see if his nose was not effectively broken, they were biting each other’s heads off with insults and allegations. 

It wasn’t Jake’s proudest moment; the regret of letting you go alone in such a state was also eating him alive. 

At least until now, you don’t seem as broken anymore. 

Bradley notices it first, though. Perhaps because he has known you since he could remember, maybe it is because he also knew his uncle Ice like the back of his hands, he is not quite sure. But he is confident that, for him, it is pretty obvious that you’ve made a decision. 

You know he’s aware of it too, the way the corner of his eyes wrinkles, even with all the bruising, you can see it too. His face was etched with concern and anticipation, then something worse, fear. Jake’s anxiety doesn’t scale up until you speak. 

“Will you come inside?” 

The words come from you reasonably soft, but they pick it up immediately. The determination is unwavering. You are resolved. Neither Jake nor Bradley, who’d been pushing for an answer in the morning, were ready for you to have decided it that fast. The tension in the air is palpable as you open the doorstep into the room. The sun’s dying rays paint long shadows on the floor. 

Jake and Bradley suddenly are apprehensive about entering the place. Holding out at the other side of the threshold as you take off your shoes and look for clothes, you cringe as you watch your jacket and shoes from the day before on the misarranged couch. Quickly, you rearrange everything as well as you can while waiting for them to come in. You hope Jake doesn’t notice, but he does. 

He can’t stop following you with his gaze. 

“Aren’t you going to come in?” You ask them without looking, effectively avoiding Jake’s unwavering gaze. 

Bradley’s frustration is suddenly palpable as he watches how nonchalant you’ve turned after all this. “You’ve chosen,” he says as he enters the room. 

It is strange how much can change in 24 hours. Yesterday, barely at the same time, he thought he was getting you back. Now, nothing can be farther from the truth. 

“I have,”

Jake clenches his jaw as he expectantly waits for you to say Bradley’s name. He wouldn’t be surprised. He knows he was never the good guy; he knows he has played dirty before, trying to force you to decide. He isn’t the good guy you would’ve wanted. For a second, he lets himself think that he might be able to be happy for you and him. 

“I’m not choosing either of you,”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I’m not,” you state firmly. Bradley’s frustration is evident, but you press on, your gaze steady as you continue. “I’ve thought about this long and hard, and I refuse to let my emotions control my decisions. It’s not fair to any of us, and it’s time to put an end to this,”

Bradley’s voice takes on a skeptical tone. “How are you putting an end if you are not making a choice?” he scoffs. 

Your eyes dart to him, the tan skin and his caramel hair. You know him so well that you can trace the wrinkles in his forehead by memory now that he’s frowning. It seems unfair to him; how could it not? He had you this morning, in a bed, in his arms. An illusion. 

“We are going to get ourselves killed if we continue down this path,” you answer back firmly, your chest heavy as you watch Jake and then Bradley. “Nothing is more important than trusting each other, and we have less than a month to do so.”

Bradley persists, his frustration simmering. “You’re using the mission as—”

“—an excuse,” Jake’s voice suddenly interjects firmly. You snap your head towards him as you watch him softly. There’s nothing in those sea-foam eyes that can tell you what he’s thinking. 

You counter, “It isn’t an excuse. I’m doing what’s best for the sake of your well-being, for our well-being, for the team. I am not choosing either, and that’s my decision.”

Bradley’s brows furrow. “You’ll have to pick a wingman.”

You bite your inner cheek as you lean against the marble table where Jake and you’d spend so many nights together. Him cooking, you reading. Conversations always ran long. If it wasn’t conversations that ran long, it was kisses. 

“Maverick’s going to be my wingman,” you state softly, without looking at them, avoiding their reaction. 

“What?” they bark at the same time. The disbelief is palpable.

“I’ve called him. You are better off without me, and you’ve done this exercise with each other. Neither Cain nor Simpson want to see me interacting with either of you in the sky anyway,” you try to sound as reasonable as you can, but there’s no hiding that you’d also convinced Maverick of the choice. 

Bradley persists, “But we’ve been—”

“The decision was taken,” you interrupt firmly. “The mission is first, and I’m taking my emotions out of the equation, and that’s it,”

Bradley’s mouth opens for a moment and then closes. He stares at you wide-eyed, with utter shock at your words. There wasn’t a day where he wouldn’t think to fly without you before, not being your wingman but putting him together with Jake; even after everything, it feels too much like a betrayal. 

“You’re running away from them,” Jake speaks suddenly. 

Your eyes dart to him. There’s a feeling of betrayal in his words. It wasn’t a lie. Part of you knew it was the wisest decision, but it was a decision where you would’ve been let off as quickly as you could, without hurting the other one, without letting the other one go on a mission with a broken heart. You were washing your hands from this mess. 

“I’m not,” you retort. Your heart was racing, your voice suddenly turning strange and hoarse. 

The effect those sea foam eyes have on you is not fair. You feel naked now under them. You twisted yourself in so many ways for them, for them to keep looking at you like they used to. 

“And after the mission?” Bradley’s voice breaks whatever thoughts you had on Jake. 

You look down. Not wanting to answer because you wished that there wasn’t a timeline, that this could be suspended in the air, your eternal wish. 

Jake’s eyes linger with yours; he knows it already.

“She’ll have to choose after the mission,” he says softly. Already too aware of what was coming. 

“You’ll have to choose then after the mission,” Bradley agrees, lingering heat from the previous events from the night before still simmering in his chest, all that anger turning into harsher words. 

“If we don’t die first,” Jake replies. It’s barely a whisper, but all of you get it. 

If you come back. If all of you come back. That word always taunting you, now you couldn’t look at either of you anymore. 

“Let’s worry about not dying first. I want to shower now. Can you please go?” you say, avoiding their gaze. 

Jake’s the first to leave; you know his steps by now. You don’t need to see him; he doesn’t need to see you to know you’re both defeated. Bradley, though, lingers in the sun for a moment. He wants to say it almost involuntarily, always waiting for more information, always expecting you to confide in him. 

Now, you seem as cold as Ice was. 

“You know you’re making a choice here, right?” Bradley insists as he decides to leave; you raise your head to watch him. “Not choosing is a choice. Choices have consequences too, Brat.”

an: Honestly I am so thankful to anyone who is still reading this. I am so excited for the next few chapters we are only missing five and I really want to end this by the end of this month. thank you all for still keeping up with this I know I've been flaky and I am sorry! everything hasn't really been easy but your comments light up my days.

Taglist: @laracrofted @double-j @inky-sun @alanadetigy @teenwolf01 @beebslebobs @materialgirl01 @daisyhollyxox @piceous21 @elicheel @supernaturaldawning @midnightdevotion @hangrymama @ashann7 @maverick-wingman @snap-crackle-and-pop-blog @ebonyhogan24 @teddyluvs2sing @happypopcornprincess @untoldshortsofthefandoms @xxshea-barnesxx @sweetheart-im-the-boss @je-suis-prest-rachel @bregarc @imagineteller1 @abaker74 @lilylilyyyyyy @nemtodd-barnes1923 @loveless-simp @fucktthisworld @deliciouslydisturbed365 @laluneveillesesureux @emma8895eb @tandefeaffe @potato-girl99981 @jstarr86 @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @mirrorball-6 @grxcisxhy-wp @that-one-random-writer @dempy @zbeez-outlet @djs8891 @sgt-barnesveins

[thelargefrye]

🗝️ with dad!Mingi please

(Also I love how your page is builded)

[ AN UNFORGETTABLE MEMORY MONTAGE ] — “thank you for staying by my side.”

pairing : mingi x f!reader genre : idol au, dad!ateez, fluff, slight angst warnings : allusion to postpartum depression

note : thank you so much!

mingi felt like he was going to cry at any moment now. he didn’t want to move, taking in the image of you and moongyu sitting with each other in front of your drawing tablet. mimi curled up next you as you say in the floor where mingi usually finds you working.

mingi knew how hard you struggled with your mental health before and after giving birth to moongyu. mingi did his best to support you in any way he could, and despite you never being the best at expressing your emotions, he knew you appreciated him. he knew you loved him and he knew you loved moongyu.

it just took you time to show it and mingi was prepared to watch until you felt comfortable enough again.

and right now mingi felt like you were getting closer and closer to that moment.

“ma…ma!” moongyu said clapping his hands together as he laughed at most likely nothing.

“what is it, gyu?” you ask looking down at your one year old who looked up at you and giggled.

mingi noted how the two of you looked more alike now than in any other instance. he’s used to hearing how similar moongyu looks to him, but mingi is convinced he has more of your features than him, people just aren’t you to seeing you and moongyu side by side.

mingi watched with a smile at how moongyu clapped again before reaching over to pet mimi’s tail. the cat lifted her head up to look at the baby before she got up and stretched. she then wandered over to where mingi was standing and moongyu’s eyes followed the cat before his eyes landed on the rapper.

“papa! papa!” moongyu says excitedly, clapping as he smiles to his father.

you look at your son before following his eyes to see mingi standing at the entrance of the living room. he gives you a smile that you return before he makes his way over to you.

he sits down next to you, and gently takes moongyu from your arms as the boy was happily reaching over for his father. “hi, moonie, have you been good for mama?”

“of course he has,” you say not looking at him as you focus back on your panel in front of you. “he’s probably the most well-behaved baby in the world,” you add and mingi can tell you’re smiling.

“he only does that because he loves you so much,” mingi says as he begins to play with moongyu’s legs, holding them up and doing kicks. this action earns a laugh from the one year old.

however mingi’s eyes linger on you and how you seemingly stiffen a little and he wonders if maybe he’s crossed a line. were you not ready to say it? was mingi accidentally forcing you to move too fast.

“i’m glad he does,” you begin softly, still not looking at him, “because i love him as well.”

“y/n…?”

“and i love you as well,” you say as you finally turn to look at your husband with tears running down your face.

“oh y/n,” he says pulling you towards him as he holds you and moongyu close to him.

“i’m sorry i’ve been a terrible wife and mom. you both deserve so much better than me.”

“no, no, don’t ever say that. me and moongyu… we couldn’t ask for someone better because there is no one better. we’ll wait for however long it takes until you feel better.”

“mingi,” you say wrapping your arms around his waist and hiding your face in his chest. “thank you for staying by my side.”

send an emoji + a member for a walk down memory lane.

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 10

I wonder why MangaGamer decided to release these chapters individually later on. Do you think it just comes back to money again? Umineko has four episodes per arc release, so I just wonder why didn’t Higurashi get the same treatment I wonder. It’s not particularly a big deal, but it’s just something I wonder. Especially since Rei, and Hou+ have three or so chapters a piece.

Mashed Caterpillar, and Drowned Ducky, I would assume. A bit more elaborate than I would have assumed these punishments to take, Drowned Ducky especially. I figured it was just getting your face shoved into a bucket of water. Not shoved in a locker and then potentially drowned that way.

Not to detract from the horror, or to linger too long here, I admit that I was curious how these punishments were portrayed in the manga adaptation. This probably says something about me but I couldn’t help but laugh at the notion of someone getting killed by chickens. It just seems too silly to me, I’m probably wrong here, and there are numerous deaths via chicken in the world on a yearly basis but it just seemed really silly to me.

I know it’s probably meant to augment the horror of the situation, but the Xs just detract from it I think. You’re probably meant to mentally supply what the torture actually is, but I just find the constant XXXX-ing to be somewhat irritating. Eventually when Takano briefly remembers the torments in a much later section it’s mentioned outright that she was forced to clean this toilet with her tongue. In the manga she was dunked headfirst into this toilet as well. No clue about the anime, but I’m going to just go ahead and assume that it’s a similar situation there.

Again, it’s never explained how much time has passed since the failed escape attempt, and when Hifumi found her. In the broad scheme of things it doesn’t really matter I suppose, whether it was the very next day, or four months later, Hifumi Takano did wind up finding his former students child and adopting her. Which I suppose helps sell why Takano is so dedicated to honoring the memory of this man she calls grandpa.

Well it’s not quite being given your last name by an Imperial officer, but I guess it’ll do. Also, surprise, Miyoko was Miyo Takano the whole time!

That’s a nice gun you got there Mr Chekhov.

I get the feeling that this breathing exercise demonstration is more to inform that Hifumi might not be the brilliant scientist Takano views him to be. That his “eccentric and silly” breathing technique is actually representative of him not being all there mentally.

What follows is a brief description of Hideyo Noguchi’s research into yellow fever that eventually took his life. Yet despite dying during his research into yellow fever in North Africa, Hifumi has a great respect for this researcher. So, wanting to be as good a scientist as his hero Hifumi routinely takes trips to Hinamizawa to research the Hinamizawa Syndrome parasite.

His old pal Koizumi is here to inform Hifumi that he’s wrangled up some interested people who might be willing and able to pay Hifumi to research Hinamizawa Syndrome in earnest. So gussy up your science documents, you’ve got financial backers to impress Hifumi!

During their time they had a jaunty and lively 1980s movie style cleaning up the research montage, until finally two weeks pass and it's time for the presentation.

[icameoutonthetardis]

Many thoughts and feelings from this latest episode of Willow.

I loved the training/travel montage. You could tell that they were all having fun and enjoying themselves. Really felt like they had some growth and bonded up until the whole “god it’s been months and we’ve gotten nowhere” part. My favorite parts were Tanthamore confessing and finally getting their kiss (no trolls this time!!) and Graylora bonding as they practice magic together (Graydon confessing nearly made me cry from how much he thinks he doesn’t deserve love and is ok pining for the rest of his life).

I *knew* Arik was going to break but I didn’t know he’d get a haircut to really show his villain side (still very funny that Sorcha only seemed worried about Kit turning evil). I think everyone knew the Girl (guess she’s the princess of Cashmere??) was bad news but there was a moment there where I almost thought she was actually good and the writers were just trying to give sus vibes on purpose. That moment did not last thanks to her talking about Cashmere right after they met the innkeeper who talked about losing track of time while looking for the princess of Cashmere.

I really want to give them all hugs after this episode especially Boorman and Graydon but that’s not necessarily new honestly.

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

Love Until We Freeze Ch.8 Day 7 - Breck/Reader

[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 ]

Warnings: Dead dove, do not eat. No use of Y/N, gender-neutral reader, overwhelming hopelessness, various attempts at murder, wishes for death, reader accidentally hurts themselves again, reader is the coldest they've ever been, oral sex, jerking off, mentions of reader's abuse, character death, sex.

Wordcount: 10966

Summary: You were so close, and now there was no way to get back down to the hotel before your parents left, unless...

Notes: It's all been building up to this. One final test for the reader, and it isn't an easy one even compared to yesterday. On a lighter note, no, the man in this chapter isn't Matty this time despite the name I picked, because I wrote this before I started sneaking cameos in each fic, plus the second my bff mentioned he could play the man I was picturing in my head I started blushing so hard I forgot how to type oop- so he's played by Lucas MacGyver instead lol

6AM, Sunday morning, your family was leaving today.

Chet kept you up all night as you were regularly examined, your vitals checking out even with the zaps you kept receiving. You couldn’t do another day of this, you might actually try and grab it from him if you found out they still needed to keep an eye on you, see how long you could last with the barbs pressed to your temple. They seemed to sense your resolve on the matter, Chet escorted from the room as you eyed the device in his hand, the burns from it still stinging as they were looked at as well. 

‘20 minutes,’ one of the Square suddenly whispered to you as they all went to leave, ‘he’s allowing you 20 minutes, but that’s all.’ You didn’t get a chance to ask when it started as the door closed, and in your hurry you shut your eyes and tried to get some rest before you were yanked back to this. It was day 3, you were beyond exhausted, but your adrenaline was racing too much, you couldn’t do it, and when the buzzer went off again you couldn’t even summon enough energy to feel forlorn. You didn’t even feel tired anymore, you’d stopped feeling that as well, your hunger long forgotten on top of it all, you truly were numb as you just laid there and stared because it was the only thing left you could do.

The visions from your trek played like a montage over the ceiling tiles as you gazed up at them, and you repeated them over and over until it became too much and you finally broke down; you’d been crying all week, but the hopelessness of your reality hurt too much, you couldn’t take it as you wailed loudly into the blood stains you’d left behind, your mittens rubbing comfort into your arms as you curled up as much as you could. They’d been right there, if only you’d waited out the storm, or left a day earlier, then maybe they would’ve been around to see you, be able to hear you, save you. This was unbearable, you felt paralyzed as you lay there, so beyond numb that you didn’t think you’d ever know how to feel anything but this ever again.

Your breathing started to even out as your door opened much sooner than you expected, and your relief felt hollow as you finally saw Breck standing there with his sunglasses on again, it’d been days since you’d seen them and they made the room feel colder as he looked down at you. It took him a moment before he did walk in, a small remote leaving his pocket and clicking in the direction of the camera as the red light turned off, he needed privacy, this wasn’t good. You didn’t feel fear though as he stepped onto your bed with his boots, at least they were dry as he straddled you, but no heat came off of him, he wasn’t going to touch you this time.

He just stared at you, his mouth a hard line as you tried to see his eyes, and you felt so small under his unreadable gaze as you managed to sit up, your legs still under him. You tried to speak but nothing felt right, not after everything you’d confessed the night before, not when you didn’t even know if he’d heard it. You expected him to still be upset with you, but if he hit you now it would only add to the damage, or maybe be lost in the sea of fire you felt under your skin as the cold room did little to cure it. He stared until you couldn’t take it any longer, and when you lifted up your hands to feebly take his glasses off you felt everything come crashing down as your eyes met his.

He’d been crying too, and he was furious.

The gun came back out as his glasses hit the mattress, the magazine pulled out fast to show you that it was loaded this time before he pressed it to your stomach; you’d betrayed him, he’d warned you about this, and you just braced yourself on his shoulders and waited for it to end. You sucked in a breath through your teeth when it didn’t come, Breck looking like he was working himself up to it as his anger intensified. His own pain showed on his face as he placed the gun against your temple instead, he wanted to watch the lights leave your eyes, and you tried to give him that much as the tears fell down your cheeks.

‘Do it,’ you whispered softly, you needed him to, you couldn’t spend the rest of your life up here otherwise. ‘It’s okay, I don’t wanna be here anymore, please give me clarity.’ He shifted closer, his clenched teeth showing as his fingers adjusted over the grip, just one squeeze of the trigger and you’d be free, he wouldn’t be able to save you from this one. ‘Please,’ you begged, your voice breaking the longer he waited, his other hand finding your jaw and making you hiss, ‘we both know I’m always gunna be nothing, I’m just a lost cause, I’ll never be good enough for your happiness, so just… put me out of my misery, Breck…’

He actually shook his head, so small and quick you almost missed it, his anger melting into genuine sorrow as he shut his eyes and yelled, the sound making you do so as well as you waited for the bullet, but instead you heard him take it away, Breck switching the safety back on and throwing it out of reach before pulling your mouth to his. You kissed him back as he took what he needed, not wanted, everything desperate about it all as he barely stopped to breathe. Your head tilted back as he kneeled over you, his height showing as he gripped the sides of your face tight and didn’t let go.

‘You left me,’ he gasped before kissing you again, and you didn’t hold him back as you felt something hot and wet hit your cheek, your eyes staying closed for his sake.

‘I had to,’ you replied when he pulled away again, you felt nothing from this, but you were sure he didn’t either.

‘You tried to kill me, too, you hate me that much?’ More kisses, more wetness against your skin.

‘You’d have killed me otherwise.’ He didn’t deny it, and you wished you could push him away as your hands rested against his chest just over where you’d swung at him.

He held you by the back of the head and lowered you down, the camera light still off as he broke away to brace his hands on the mattress on either side of your head; he was thinking about what to do, and you felt nothing as he looked up at the gun but didn’t move to get it. He was breathing just as heavily as you were, you’d never seen him like this, your betrayal had hit him harder than anything you’d done to him so far, and when he wrapped both hands around your throat and started to squeeze you just closed your eyes and waited.

‘Fuck!’ He got off of you, nothing in your room to damage other than your door as he punched into the wood, it actually giving way and splintering on this side. You continued to lay there even as you jumped at the sound, your hands resting over your chest as you let him decide what to do, the gun just above your head and his back to you but your hands were useless; as he picked the splinters from his knuckles you didn’t even know if you wanted to shoot him or yourself as your dream came to mind again, and that thought made you feel even worse.

He paced the room, clearly unable to decide if he wanted to hurt you or not as he lifted his foot but didn’t kick or stomp right away, his fists clenched but never making contact, your tears slowing to a stop as death floated above you like an angel, always close enough to touch but never coming near enough for either of you to. Finally he decided on the gun, the safety off as he stood above you and aimed down, this was impersonal, this was detached, you wouldn’t make a mess as you blended into the red and rusty brown blossoming amongst the white, your bandages feeling all the tighter as you stared into the blackhole above you.

‘I hate you,’ you told him, but there was no venom behind your words, just another plea to get him to stop making you wait, and he steeled himself before pulling the trigger.

Your entire body tensed as this time you heard the shot ring out, another gasp leaving you that you weren’t sure was in surprise or relief. You felt no pain though, maybe it was over that fast and you were already flying, but as you opened your eyes you still saw him there, the gun falling to his side as he caught his breath, his expression hardening again. You blinked a few times in confusion before looking around, your eyes eventually settling on the hole tearing into the mattress right beside your head; he’d missed, there was no way he could’ve unless it was on purpose, but he didn’t try again as he turned the safety back on and stuffed the gun back into place.

‘You hate me that much?’ he asked again, but you knew he didn’t want an answer as he reached down and grabbed onto you. ‘You wanna go outside so bad? Cryo not enough for you to numb it all? Fine, you can go, get the fuck out of here.’ He dragged you to your feet, your confused hope turning into panic once more as the room filled with Squares, they’d been waiting to clean up his mess again. You looked between them as you were forced into more weather-appropriate clothes, Breck letting you go as you were so protected from the cold that you actually started sweating, proper mittens even pulled over your hands to keep them warm.

You looked at him, a silent question on if he was serious when he grabbed you again and headed for the back door, no one giving him a coat this time to pull over his vest as he carried you out into the aftermath of the blizzard.

There was ice hanging off of everything, beautiful and sharp as the sun shone through the cloudy glass, and you were almost mesmerized by it as you were dragged over to what appeared to be a tool shed tucked between a few trees to help protect it from the harsh conditions. He took out his keys and made quick work of the padlock, needing to chip away at the ice frozen over it too for just a moment before opening the door to reveal everything they needed to survive up there, from shovels to window scrapers to snowblowers to even a wall of extra firewood. You looked around for some skis when you noticed the chair right in the middle of the small room, Breck starting to pull you towards it when you finally fought back.

You tugged against his grip, used the doorway to keep yourself outside, but you were still running on little food and even less sleep, and when he yanked you so hard you swore your shoulder almost popped you let yourself be thrown onto the freezing hand-crafted wood. You rolled your shoulder as he threw all of your possible weapons into the snow, emptying out the room almost entirely until it was just you and your chair, the firewood and two small windows up high on the walls to your sides the only things he couldn’t take, and when he was done he gave you his coldest look yet before slamming the door and sliding the lock through the hasp.

You got off of the chair and slammed your hands into the door, calling his name until a loud bang from the other side silenced you. ‘You find a way to get out of there, and you can go, I won’t stop you,’ he promised, and you made sure it wouldn’t just open before pushing it, then shoving it, and then slamming your abused shoulder into it. It didn’t budge, it was made to keep everything inside safe, and he clicked the lock back into place as your final test before walking away.

‘Wait! Don’t leave me out here!’ you yelled desperately as you banged on the door, the resulting silence making you bring the chair over to the wall. You stood up and tried to see out of the window but it was too high and your hands were useless, the cold instantly coming in as you cracked it open and stood on your tiptoes. ‘Breck! Don’t leave me!!’

It took you a while to pick yourself back up after you'd collapsed against the wall, all huddled up for warmth as you waited for him to come back, but deep down you knew he wouldn't; you didn't know how, but something you'd said or done had made him unable to pull the trigger after everything, but he still wanted you to hurt for leaving, even if he promised you could go for real. You had to earn it now that you had his permission, there would be no need to run and hide this time, you just needed to get out and that would be it, otherwise the cold would kill you when he couldn’t. Knowing this, that freedom was on the other side of this ice-covered wall, you still couldn't bring yourself to get up, his expressions still playing behind your eyes.

You'd only ever seen him cold, or needy, or angry, but for him to actually look like he cared about you? Like you'd hurt him by trying to leave after all your talk about wanting to go? He hadn't even looked like that when you'd nearly killed yourself, and you banged your hands off your head in frustration as you saw him throw the gun away and kiss you like he actually needed you, not just wanted to claim you.

‘I don't understand you,’ you told the empty shed, there wouldn't be cameras inside here but you wished he could hear it anyway, and you did another check of the place to make sure he hadn't gotten anything ready. The sunlight streamed through the windows and lit the place up, it was slightly smaller than the average shed since they were only storing a few things apart from the extra wood, which Breck had probably only left behind since it would've been too much of a bother to stack it all again, and you weighed your options of escape as you stood and properly took everything in.

Okay, there was the door, which was very solid and locked from the outside. There were the two windows, but they were up much higher than you even with the chair and just barely tall enough to fit you, so if you got stuck you'd be fucked. The walls looked thick but you had a lot of firewood and your new mittens were properly insulated, maybe you might be able to smash out a hole big enough to crawl through? You figured that if you caused any damage now it wouldn't matter, he was done with you, and you picked up one of the logs to test the weight. It looked to be the same wood as the entire room, it pretty heavy in your weakened state but you were determined, if you could survive a trip down the mountain in a blizzard you could escape a shed.

You started to use it as a battering ram, angling right above the handle in the hopes that the lock would hold enough to allow the hash to be knocked free, but after several minutes of that with no change you were forced to drop it and give your aching hands a rest; it was hard enough to hold anything with your fingers all wrapped up, and you cursed your timing for stopping you from getting a proper grip. Still, you couldn't give up, and you picked it back up and tried for the hinges next, your frustration growing when they were just as reinforced.

The door was a bust but this wouldn't stop you, your hands and arms getting a break before you tried with your wall idea. It worked a lot better, your hope rising with each strike as you braced the wood against your shoulder and jammed even harder, it hurting so much with each hit but you were making progress. When the wood gave way and the log pushed back into your shoulder hard enough to make you yelp you stopped, the joint throbbing as you removed the log from the hole to look outside, but when you saw what awaited you you felt your heart sink again: an inner wall of brick lay on the other side, worn with age but there all the same, they'd built this shed over the old one instead of replacing it.

You bit back a wail, you couldn't get out this way, so even setting a fire to burn the place down if you needed a last resort would only turn it into your crematorium. You touched the stone and knew that the other layer of wood on the outside wouldn't let it fall so easily, another way out snatched from you as the despair tried to creep under your clothes and claw at your skin again, your only hope the windows high above you as you leaned against the wall and stared.

You could easily picture yourself managing to get stuck up there, your torso and head exposed to the cold until the blood rushed to your head enough to knock you out; you could see yourself just hanging there, your eyes bulging and your lips blue as Breck walked up to you in disappointment, you couldn't even do this much, you really were a nothing as he radioed for some poor Square to get you down and dump your body on the other side of the mountain where you wouldn't be found.

You slapped your mitt into the ground and stood, he would not have the last word on your life even in this possible situation, your body alight with determination as you positioned the chair and climbed onto the wood. It was wall to wall so there was no threat of anything sliding to the sides, but you still had to make sure you didn't accidentally knock any out from underneath you as you unsteadily moved from your knees to your feet. With this extra height you could properly reach, your head almost touching the ceiling as you pushed open the window all the way and felt the fresh air stream in. You breathed deep and tried to squeeze through, your thick coat already catching with the amount of insulation, he really did intend for you to get down safely wearing this, but it was useless to you as it caught on everything and started to tear, the fabric caching and making you panic. 

You pulled yourself out and checked out the damage, this wasn't good, but you'd started to fit, you could see from here how you might actually be able to pull this one off, freedom was right there! You didn't want to but you knew you had to, your resigned sigh your last push to yank down the zipper and pull the coat from your body, and instantly the cold crept back in, attacking all the raw spots that still burned from yesterday; until you got to a proper hospital the cold would only make them worse and maybe end in nerve damage, but you were prepared to risk it as you pushed the coat to the other side so you could put it back on when you were out. You watched it float forever, the way down a lot further than the way up looked, if you landed wrong you could seriously injure if not paralyze yourself, and that was enough to give you pause for a second.

The coat was off and outside, you were up there, every other way was shot down, it was this or nothing.

You clenched your teeth and started to slide through, the absence of the coat just what you needed as you stood on your tiptoes and balanced just enough to rest on your chest. You kept pushing and shifting just a little at a time, once you were able to get onto your stomach that would be it, you could pray the snow and your coat would catch you and then you could take the ATV trail down with no one following you, and in your excitement you pushed a little too hard; the wood you were standing on shot out from underneath you, the others following as your body weight violently shifted back to your torso.

The sill dug into your already bruised ribs as you flailed and tried to hang on, your outstretched hand reaching for the sun as you fell down, down, down.

You were out for only a moment, at least it felt like that, your eyes unable to focus as the colours blurred above you. You were vaguely aware of the pain as you groaned, it increasing in volume as you looked around, woke up, saw what happened; you'd landed on the chair and shattered it, your head smashed into the ground, you definitely had to have a concussion after that one, and when you touched the already tender area from when Breck had knocked you out you weren't surprised to see red. The wood pile had crumbled and spilled, a good half of it now resting on top of your leg and pinning it down, and when you shifted and just felt pain you knew that you'd fucked up, that was it. 

You repeatedly begged yourself not to cry, you'd done it too much, you were already dehydrated as hell and this was getting dangerous, but you couldn't help it as you laid there unable to move. He would find you like this in who knew how many days, this would be even more disappointing to him because you'd have died slowly, cold, broken, alone, too excited to think rationally and move carefully. He'd think you not only a failure and a disappointment but an idiot, and you could already hear him as he stared down at you and gently kicked your lifeless body. ‘You didn't even make it off the bunny hill,’ he'd say, and you felt your chest clench as you couldn't help but want to prove him wrong, you could do it, you could-! ‘It would've been so much less of a hassle to just shoot you, I shouldn’t have wasted so much time on you, maybe I really should've just let you drown-’

‘Shut up!’ you screamed into the room, Breck nowhere to be found when you opened your eyes again, and you wished he was so you could chuck the wood right at his face, break his nose with it for leaving you out there after all of his talk about not wanting you to leave him. How dare he, how fucking dare he throw you out and expect you to do all of this all over again after carrying you all the way back up here. He couldn't do this, you wouldn't let him, and you pushed yourself up and assessed the damage as you'd done a thousand times before.

Your right leg was pinned but it was still in one piece, you hadn't broken it, but you still were careful as you moved the wood off of it and let it lay flat over top of them all. The leverage was good, and your left leg was spared, your arm stiff from how you'd landed but it worked, he hadn't broken you yet. You gave yourself a moment to rest as you shifted back until you were against the opposite wall, the only problem left being how to get the fuck out of there. You could pile it all up and try again, you didn't need to let this be the end of it, and as soon as you felt rested enough you began. It was slow work but it kept you warm with your coat currently freezing outside, everything else doing their jobs and protecting the rest of you. You were shivering and your teeth were chattering but these were things you were used to, the cold numbing everything that hurt again as you placed log after log.

It took you an eternity but you did it, nearly giving up a few times when the cold couldn’t numb the returning hunger, or tempted you with a long nap that you so desperately needed, but when the wall was back in place you found yourself some leverage and started the climb now that you had no chair. Your arms shook and your right leg was practically useless while you had to rely on your already injured left, your body made of stone as you fought to just get up there; the ledge made of logs wasn’t very wide or stable but it held as everything locked together, your muttered encouragements cheering you on as you reminded yourself that if you didn’t hurry your family would leave and that would be it.

You made it, a tearfully relieved laugh barked out as you then stood, you wouldn’t do it wrong this time, your arms holding all your weight as the sill pressed into every single wound littering the sides. You were panting by the time you got back to where you were, the sun peeking through the clouds to warm you as your tears fell to the ground below, and when you looked up so you could see it you froze; he was standing there, leaning against the building in the distance, all huddled up from the cold without a coat just like you, he’d never gone inside, he’d never left you. You locked eyes with him from there, he’d seen you fall and still waited for you to try again, you had finally tried just like he wanted, and he didn’t look proud as the breeze picked up and had you both shivering.

He was waiting for you to leave him.

What’re you doing? you asked yourself as you started to shift backwards, your eyes on him until you were crouching down, then sitting, then sliding off and onto the floor. Why did you get down? Why did I… Your back hit the corner and you slowly lowered yourself down, your eyes on the door as you waited, your arms wrapping around yourself as you just kept trying to rub warmness back into you, your legs spread out and resting from all the exertion. I was so close…

‘You’re a liar,’ you told the door even though you knew he was too far to hear it, he’d never let you go even if you had climbed out, there was probably something planned just like yesterday, everything he ever told you was always a lie. ‘Just get through the day, I’m just being punished, he can do whatever he wants but I won’t give in to his fake promises, not this time…’

The sun was starting to set, and you were dangerously close to falling asleep.

You’d surpassed being cold again, you didn’t think it was possible but you’d reached a state of nirvana huddled up in that corner, your numbness growing until you couldn’t even hold your arms up anymore. You thought you might be dead as you just stared at the floor, but a struggle to move your leg made you flinch, you felt it, you were still alive. The window was still open and letting in the falling snow, it piling up as you chastised yourself for not closing it, but you’d been moving on autopilot then and hadn’t even thought of it. Now you could see the frost gathering on not only the glass but down the wall as well, white filling in the cracks at the top of the pile and trying to stretch out greedy fingers for your boots. 

I wonder if they’ll have dinner before they leave, you thought to yourself as you watched the clouds go by outside the window, just barely visible between the puffy flakes floating down. I guess it depends on who’s driving, if they wanna do it in the dark… if it’s dad, he won’t care, Uncle Frank has horrible night blindness so he wouldn’t, plus he’d wanna eat, maybe Aunt Grace? 

You saw the minibus in the clouds, saw everyone already piled into it and beckoning for you to join, they were so happy to see you, they’d waited so patiently all week and you were keeping them, they wouldn’t leave without you even after the sun set, right?

I’m so tired, I think I’ll sleep all the way home and for once they won’t bug me, maybe I’ll even get my book back, I never got to see how it ended…

Your eyes welled up and the cold made them sting, but when you went to blink you found you couldn’t, your face scrunching up in acceptance as the sky got darker and you lost the shapes in the sky.

I’m… I’m never going home, am I? You couldn’t open your mouth to say it, you didn’t have the strength. I’m really going to die up here because I hurt him, why did I try to go, why do I keep act…ing… st…

Your head fell to the side, the muscles in your neck finally giving up as a tear rolled down your cheek, your mind growing so fuzzy that you didn’t even register the lock being opened. The door swung to the side, the gathered snow disturbed beautifully as Breck found you in your corner, another tear falling because he’d come for you, you wouldn’t have to die alone anymore. You wanted to thank him for this single gift but you couldn’t even make a sound, and he didn’t look disappointed or angry as he gently brushed the frost from your hat and shoulders.

His nose and cheeks were red, his own lips pale as he carefully reached under you, your clothes cracking like ice over a pond as your limbs were moved, or maybe that was just your fragile body. His hands shook as he carried you back to the facility, someone seeing him through a window and rushing to open the door for him, the Circle’s panicked questions only sounding like white noise to you as he didn’t answer. He brought you all the way back to his room, a barely living corpse as the heat seeped into your eyes and allowed you to partially blink. His bed felt like the sky as he laid you down on it even though you were getting his blankets all wet, and he didn’t even care as you soaked into his pillows with thawing hair.

‘You didn’t even make it off the bunny hill,’ he finally whispered as he took off his vest and tossed it to the floor, here it came, he was going to give you clarity. ‘You couldn’t do that much, and yet you still made it all the way to the hotel, swung at me, chose death.’ He was starting to look sad again, this wasn’t right, you needed him to hate you back so you could fly, already. ‘I couldn’t help you see, so why would you…?’

He took off his sweater and for a moment you prayed that he would smother you with it when he draped it over you, rubbed warmth back into your limbs until the frost and snow were gone, your small noises of discomfort drawing his attention as you blinked painfully and looked down at him.

‘Bunny…’

You closed your eyes and cried at the name you’d grown used to as he lifted your hand and removed your mitt, your frozen fingers cooling his burning cheeks as he held you to him, and when your attempts to move allowed you just enough to press down and tell him you were still there you saw actual relief on his face. He placed your hand back down and turned to remove your boots, tugging them off carefully when he discovered you’d hurt your other leg as well. He tossed them onto the floor, water splashing everywhere without a care, your belt next but he didn’t look like he was going to hurt you this time, for once it was the opposite as he slipped your pants down your legs and started to rub them.

He didn’t press too hard even though he knew it would be the perfect way to hurt you, your joints aching as he stretched you, helped make sure everything was still working. You could see that the rawness around your knees and ankles was even worse, and there was a very concerning trail of marks going down your leg from where the logs had crashed, but he didn’t dig his thumbs in, see how much he could do before you screamed even with your lack of energy.

He picked up his sweater from your chest next, bundling it up and placing it behind your head, the soft wool soaking up all the cold and tickling your ears when he removed your hat, your own plain sweater coming off before he was rotating your arms, bending your elbows, pressing strength back into your stiff joints before moving onto the next thing. You just watched all the while, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when he positioned himself between your legs and hooked his fingers under the elastic of your underwear you could only breathe, too tired to beg him not to, he’d just do it anyway.

Your legs were lifted as he removed your underwear, your body bared completely to him again, and you just prayed that you were numb enough not to feel it when he moved backwards down the bed until he could lower himself to you, his hands looping under your thighs and lifting your legs over his shoulders. The warmth stung, you were still too cold and it’d seeped in too deep after yesterday and your refusal to move, but under all the pain you still felt how tenderly warm his mouth was as he kissed your inner thigh.

‘I’ll warm you up again,’ he whispered to you gently as he kissed higher, this was different than his cruel teasing between cryo sessions, he was actually letting you enjoy as much as you could as his cheek brushed against the remaining warmth between your legs. He didn’t rush into it, just let you feel him as a heat formed in your stomach, started to spread through you to combat the burn of the ice your skin had become, and when he kissed you there you let out a soft moan through cracked lips.

There was no dirty talk, no hungry looks as he kept his eyes on your body, no wandering hands as he just made sure he had access to you, and when he finally placed his mouth over you you felt nothing but pleasure. You still couldn’t move, you were too numb for that, but the sparks still spread as he hummed around you, encouraged by the sounds you were making. It was working, you were heating up in a way that wouldn’t put you into shock, but this was also bringing the pain back, your leg twitching as your knee bent a way it didn’t like. He heard your noise and fixed the angle, thinking about you this time as he continued, his tongue hot and soft as it licked comfort into you, drew out your noises in a way he never had before.

Your fingers twitched under your bandages as he got even more into it, and you felt everything that he’d been hiding behind his diamond as your hips jutted ever so slightly without him stopping or holding you down. There was nothing behind his ministrations, nothing but wanting to warm you up and please you because you were still here, you’d waited for him, you hadn’t left him, all the lies you’d expected him to reveal never said as he brought you back to life again.

Your thighs started to tremble and he held them a little tighter, not enough to hurt but to feel the life still in you, and your back arched as more feeling returned, your face nuzzling into the sweater behind your head and breathing in the scent of him; you’d never noticed before but the whole room smelt almost sterile, just like the rest of the building, but his sweater smelled like his body wash, of snow catching on old pine trees, it smelt almost like being free and flying as his tongue swirled around you and made you breathe deep with a gasp. Your hand moved without you telling it to, you couldn’t feel him through the bandages but his head felt warm all the same under your palm as you held him in place, guiding him down to do it a little faster.

He obliged, you were the one in charge of him as he sucked in a quick breath through his nose and shifted up, your heels digging into his spine as your thighs threatened to crush his head, neither addressed as he just moaned against you and gave you more. He was starting to grind into the mattress, even now he couldn’t help but chase his own pleasure but he never took his hands off of you, putting you first even as you started to shift up with each light thrust. It only added to it, the vibrations of his groans shooting through you until you were keening, holding him down and silently asking for more.

Speaking was still hard but he understood all the same, he was the only one who understood you, and when you looked down you saw him gaze up at you at the same time, his eyes showing nothing but adoration for you as you held on tight and came onto his tongue. He eased you through it, not stopping until you let go and went limp into the damp softness underneath you, Breck palming himself but not taking it any further unlike yesterday. You caught your breath as you stared up at him, thought about how he’d waited out there all day with you until he was just as cold as you were, and you held your hand out for him to take so you could pull him down next to you.

He nestled into your neck as he undid his pants and reached inside, your cheeks reddening but not in embarrassment this time as he moaned into your ear and got himself off. It didn’t take long, he was already so worked up from pleasuring you, and you moved your leg a little closer to him so he could ride out his own orgasm against his hand and your thigh. He waited until he could breathe again before getting up and stripping as well, but he didn’t straddle you, make you feel fear or unsafe, just pulled back the blankets from underneath you as carefully as he could and tucked you in, his pillows flipped over to the dry sides as well as his sweater was hung over the headboard.

He climbed back into bed and held you close just like the other night, his arm underneath you to make sure you didn’t get away, but so was yours underneath him as you adjusted yourself until you were laying more on your side and facing him. He was handsome when he wasn’t hurting you, and something about him now was almost loving as he placed his hand over your waist and held on a little tighter. ‘Did I pass your test?’ you whispered, it was still a little hard to talk but at least the words were coming now.

‘You failed, you didn’t leave,’ he answered as his grip tightened, but not in anger.

‘I thought you were tricking me again, I was ready to die out there than have to try and survive another punishment.’ He didn’t look offended, but his knee did move up to slide in between yours. ‘I still don’t understand you.’

‘I told you I’m a man of my word,’ he repeated, something aching in your chest as you refused to believe that he really would’ve let you walk right by him, that he would’ve let you go, but when you looked into his eyes you saw that there were no hidden motives this time, this the most genuine he’d been with you since you’d met a week ago. ‘You stole my lighter.’

‘You dropped it,’ you explained, and he held you a little tighter when your other hand rubbed against his arm. ‘I almost threw it away, out there…’

‘But you kept it,’ he finished for you, your small nod making something shine in his eyes. ‘You almost freed me from her, freed yourself from me… maybe you’re sentimental too, Bunny.’

Things would probably go back to normal tomorrow, when you knew you’d be trapped here and he’d have to finish his training; there’d be no more rush for you to make it down, the sun was almost set, they’d be gone by now, this was all you had left, and you pushed your forehead against his as you sniffed and lamented your loss. His hand trailed up to cup your jaw, and you let him kiss you before you realized you were kissing him back, feeling something this time as he cradled your persevering body and rubbed his own against you, his length brushing against your thighs thanks to the height difference between you. It didn’t escalate past that, the two of you needing each other as he crawled on top of you but didn’t pin you down, and when you broke apart to breathe he chased after your mouth.

‘Breck, do you love me?’ you asked before he could kiss you again, and a familiar coldness shone in his eyes as he looked down, his hand reaching up to touch the scar left behind by the last person who’d asked him that.

‘You should know better, you’re smarter than that,’ he muttered as he got back off of you, and when he pulled away from your restrained grip you just let him put on some clean clothes and walk out without another word.

You couldn’t sleep as you lay in his bed, your head playing the buzzer every time you tried, and eventually you had to get up and get dressed. Your clothes were still a bit damp but you’d be able to warm them now, his blankets had driven all the cold away even without him, even when he never came back. Fully dressed, you figured you might as well try and remember if you knew the way to see Brit so you could get checked out, maybe see if the cafeteria had anything you could munch on to get a little more in your stomach, but you were only able to make it a few steps from his door when two Diamonds approached you. You were too tired to run or fight, and you didn’t need them messing with your healing wounds by dragging you anywhere, so you just sighed at them and motioned for them to lead the way.

They exchanged a look, clearly they expected a fight after everything you’d put so many of them through that week, but it was late and you were really hoping to catch either Brit or some food or both, so the sooner they got their cult business over with the better.

They led you back to the library, the wall of windows like mirrors as you saw yourself enter through the doors, then another Diamond you didn’t recognize at all; he was almost as tall as Breck, more classically handsome, his messy, blonde hair fluffed up once it was no longer tamed by his own gray hat, which he removed along with his coat now that you’d joined him, he’d just arrived. The others left as soon as you were alone with him, you had enough context clues by now, and you looked him over before going to one of the old, leather chairs nearby to sit down before your knees gave out, that visit to Brit would have to come before food. ‘Mitch, I presume?’ you asked, knowing only one name that didn’t belong to anyone here, and he shook his head before walking over to you.

‘Topher, you’re the one Breck has been… training all week, aren’t you?’ he asked right back as he looked you over concernedly, and you flinched as you gave a wide shrug and let your hands fall back onto your lap.

‘In the flesh, what’s left of it,’ you joked, it all you could do as he then looked unhappy about what’d been done to you, his worry actually matching Brit’s to your surprise; as you examined him right back, you realized he held an air about him that none of the others did, but he couldn’t be from the Council that Breck had spoken about because he also wore a diamond and they wore jackets with their hotel’s logos on them, symbols of their statuses.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said as he walked up to you to inspect you closer, and even with his air you didn’t feel threatened by him, not compared to Breck, he wasn’t dangerous like the rest of them.

‘Yeah, I’ve been saying that too,’ you muttered, the two of you turning to the door as Breck was pushed inside; he stumbled a little, the push more of a shove as the door was slammed in his face. He glared at the door before noticing not only your company but you as well, and when he asked what you were doing there you couldn’t figure out which one he was talking to.

‘Word’s gotten back to the Lodge about what you’ve been doing, they received several complaints from many of the members here over the past week and couldn’t ignore it once Brit got involved,’ Topher explained, the air around him getting heavier as he motioned for Breck to take the other seat opposite you. He stared the other man down as he leaned against the long table in the center of the room instead, his expression cold as you recognized the hatred in his eyes and instantly knew who the third person in the room was.

Topher was the Double Black.

‘What I do to my Bu- my charge isn’t any of the Lodge’s business, I was promoted here for a reason,’ he told him as calmly as he could, but you knew that tone as well, he didn’t like being talked down to, and he hated being underestimated.

‘You were, but that was before we saw what you were doing.’ Breck stiffened as Topher walked over to the small table by him where a folder sat, and his frown created harsh edges around his handsome features as he flipped it open and took out a stack of screenshots from the security cameras. ‘Kidnapping, abuse, violence, things that we consider to be actual torture; the Uler Insitute promotes Happiness, Freedom, and Self-Evolution, where is any of that in your teachings?’

‘My methods are my own, I know what I’m doing to get results,’ he was quick to explain, but Topher just held his hand up to silence him with a look of incredulousness.

‘Just like the last one? There are cameras everywhere in this facility as the main branch, do you really think that the Council doesn’t know that you tripped her?’ This shut him up, your eyes going wide because you thought you were the only one who knew such information. ‘You’ve been abusing your power ever since you became a Diamond, killing members of all status to your whims, not to mention what went down here two years ago- does it kill you that much to know that I was the one they chose, not you?’ You saw the corner of his mouth twitch, you knew how much Topher was right, and he was in danger. ‘From this moment forward you’re to be stripped of your level and excommunicated from U.I., and as soon as your “bunny,” as you insist on saying because you think it makes you better, even though it doesn’t, is taken care of then you’ll be placed before the Council to decide if you deserve exile or death for your crimes against the teachings of Edmund Casey.’

‘You can’t-!’ Breck shouted as he took a step forward, Topher holding up his hand to silence him again but he wouldn’t be, not this time. ‘I’ve dedicated my entire life to the Institute, I believe in everything he taught and I’ve been trying my damndest to teach it to everyone in my care, it’s not my fault they never fucking get it like I do-!’

‘That’s enough! Casey was wrong when he made you a Circle that day, and it should’ve been you that died, not Mead,’ Topher snarled coldly, the emotion not matching his eyes as pain shone behind them, Breck taken aback as you covered your mouth in shock. ‘She was more of a member than you ever were, she was my friend- she was the only one to see past your bullshit and it’s a goddamn shame that you got her in the back before she could finish taking you down.’ Breck was at a loss for words, but not because he was surprised, but because he was furious, and you almost wanted to rush over there to try and calm him before he killed anyone else in front of you. ‘You’re a disgrace to this Intutute, and honestly, I hope the Council votes for exile just so I can know you’re still out there, killing yourself over this every single fucking day, because you were so much of a nothing that you had to try and drag everyone else down with you.’

‘Stop-!’ you shouted, both men looking at you as you stood up. ‘He’s cruel, and- and he hurt me, and so many times I've dreamed about burying him like he tried to do to me but… he’s not a nothing, no one should ever…’

Topher just looked between you before going back to his screenshots, and even though you could tell it hurt him to do so, he didn’t back down as he held up one from the first time he assaulted you, your eyes unable to turn as you couldn’t stop yourself from looking away. ‘This? This man right here? Look at this and tell me he’s not a nothing,’ he sneered in disgust at the reason for your pain, your eyes shutting as you shook your head. ‘What about this time, on the course? How he’d prioritized his own dick over your health while you lay there in the snow?’

‘Stop it, please…’

‘Don’t forget last night, the camera picked up that you’re a virgin, would he still not be a nothing if he’d actually-’

‘Don’t!’ You slapped your hands over your ears, your shoulders shaking as Topher set down the pictures with a sigh and walked over to you to place a hand on your right one, the surprise and pain making you flinch hard away like you’d been hit instead. ‘Please…’

‘He does this to everyone, promises them everything Casey tried to teach him and then feels no remorse when they don’t measure up, you were never special to him.’ His voice was softer, genuinely sympathetic unlike everyone had been as you looked up at Breck in misery, your left thumb scratching at the bandages of your right hand as he just stared you down without emotion.

‘You told me I was the only one…’ you murmured, his eyes flashing as he frowned.

‘I never touched the others,’ he insisted seriously, and Topher agreed.

‘You didn’t, but does that make this any better? You’ve fallen off the mountain, you’re a danger to everyone up here, and tomorrow I’m taking you both back to Portland so you can stand trial,’ he told him coldly, your heart sinking even more as you looked up at the other man.

‘W-why am I going to Portland?’ you stuttered, his hand leaving you.

‘We all know you don’t want to be a member, but you still know too much now, thanks to him, so I’m going to arrange for a hotel position to be available to you in Portland; it’ll be a good job, no rent, no bills, just a steady paycheck and a warm bed on site, we can work around your skills so the transition is easier.’

‘Wha- I don’t want that, why can’t we just try and catch up to my family, it can’t have been too long since they left, I won’t say a word to anyone, I promise-!’ you begged, Topher frowning in confusion before looking at Breck and sighing again.

‘He never told you,’ he muttered to himself in realization, his pity for you only growing to your dismay, your knees wobbling unsteadily as you looked to Breck in fear.

‘To- told me what?’ you asked cautiously, even though you were terrified of the answer.

Topher just stared Breck down in a quiet order to answer, but he wasn’t going to take anything from him anymore, not after his loss of status; he wasn’t, but the moment Topher opened his mouth and you pleaded with him with your eyes he couldn’t help himself, you were his charge. ‘They left, the day after the search party,’ he explained, your ears ringing again as Topher held you up with warm and gentle hands, the exact opposite of Breck’s. ‘They searched while I was down there, but as soon as they heard the statistics of missing persons being found they decided it’d be too much to stay after their loss, so… you were never going to find them when you left m- us, yesterday.’

‘No, nonononono…’ you moaned as all your fantasies of them waiting for you, welcoming you back, taking you home were shattered one by one like ice, Breck’s face emotionless again as Topher tried to get you to sit. ‘They didn’t leave, they didn’t just abandon me here, they’d have kept looking all week, didn’t they? You… you’re lying to me again, I still mean something to them, I… someone… I’m more than just a few hours of searching, aren’t I? I’m not… noth-’

‘Easy, it’s okay, a lot of us were left in the cold when we joined, our family is each other now, you’ll still be able to understand Casey’s teachings in Portland,’ he soothed you, another caring voice that meant what he said, but you were inconsolable; he’d just let you believe that you still had a week, that the few people in your life loved you, but Topher wasn’t disagreeing with what Breck said, and you almost wished that they’d have died out there on the mountain while looking for you because at least that meant that they stayed- ‘Come with me, you can stay in one of the empty Diamond rooms, and tomorrow we can catch a plane and I can give you everything he promised but was never going to give you, okay? You can leave the mountain now.’

You looked up at him as the tears streamed down your cheeks, his smile comforting and true as he encouraged you to stand, Breck silent as he watched you reach for his hand, but the moment you saw the solid protrusion sticking out of the back of the top of his pants you knew that you couldn’t leave, not yet. You pulled the encompassing bandage free from around your fingers before grabbing Topher’s gun and flipping off the safety the same way you’d seen Breck do it, the Double Black backing up in surprised caution as you pointed it at him, and then at Breck. His eyes widened a little but he didn’t beg for his life, he already knew you wouldn’t do it, but he’d hurt you so much that it was taking everything in your power to not pull the trigger now that it was pointed at his chest.

‘Will you kill him?’ Topher just asked carefully, still holding his hands up as his eyes flicked between you and him, and your face scrunched up sorrowfully as you just shook your head in indecision. ‘Given what he’s done to you, I don’t think anyone will mind back home if you kill him now, no one will ever have to know, just like all the ones he’d made disappear over the years.’

‘And if I kill myself?’ you then asked as you raised the gun to your head, keeping your eyes on Breck so he could see the lights leave them just like he wanted, just like in your dream, but he didn’t look excited about the prospect anymore as he stopped himself from taking a step forward.

‘Then I won’t stop you, just ask that you at least take the satisfaction of paying him back for everything first, so you can savour that in your final moments,’ he requested, he wanted you to at least have that for yourself, not because he wanted to get rid of him, he was good, he was offering you an escape, he was everything you wanted Breck to be… Your hand trembled as you saw yourself in the reflection, another fantasy of doing exactly as he asked playing in the glass as you watched Breck and then yourself fall to the floor, end of story, no more pain.

‘I don’t wanna go to Portland, I just wanna go home,’ you told him with a choked sob, and he frowned sadly as he turned to Breck, made sure he saw exactly what he’d done to you.

‘I know, but you have no home now, he made sure of that the moment he brought you here,’ he condemned him, the gun pointed at him again as you knew it to be true. ‘I’ll give you all the time you need to shoot yourself, no one’s watching tonight, no one will blame you for this.’ You steadied yourself and aimed, your heart pounding so hard you were sure he could hear it even from over there as the hammer slowly started to pull back along with your growing pressure on the trigger. 

‘Bunny,’ Breck finally said as he stared you down, but he didn’t sound remorseful or like he was about to beg for his life, Topher instantly snapping at him.

‘You don’t get to talk anymo-’

‘I never left you,’ was all he had to say, and you felt clarity as you aimed and fired.

He flinched as the shot filled the room, your hands still shaking as Topher slowly turned to face you, his eyes wide and confused as he started to stagger, and then fell into a crumpled heap on the ornate carpet sprawled out underneath him. You both stared at him before you pointed the gun back at Breck, but you both knew you couldn’t kill him just as much as he couldn’t kill you. You turned the safety back on and tossed the gun aside before running to him as fast as you could with your limp, his arms wrapping tightly around you as you clutched the back of his vest.

‘Don’t ever leave me,’ you pleaded into his chest, and he just nodded before pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

‘You’re the only one who understands me.’

Your fingers were horribly cracked and blistered from the blizzard’s damage as you grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him down to you, kissing him needily as he backed into the table, Topher staring lifelessly up at you as you shoved that stupid puffy vest off of him and ran your hands over his chest. He brought your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to it before taking over for you, his sweater pulled off before silently asking if that’s what you wanted too. Just having that almost made the tears flow harder as you nodded, you knew you needed him now, he was all you ever had, even your own family didn’t try as hard as he did even though his love had nearly killed you.

You killed your father in your head as he took your sweater off too, for allowing everyone to give up on you.

You killed your mother as he undid his belt, every scoff she’d ever given you when you’d tried to talk to her about your depression becoming nothing but a distant memory.

You killed your uncles as he hopped up onto the table and pulled you close, your aunts as you undid your pants with shaking fingers until you needed help, your cousins as he slid back just enough for you to climb up and straddle him.

Your entire family was dead to you now, Breck was all you had as you rolled your hips against him until the pain in your leg made you stop, his groan at both your pain and pleasure only urging you on as you watched him shove his jeans down his hips until he was pulling himself out and jerking off for you. It filled you with want, your hands still useless as you tried to do it for him but was batted away before you could do any more damage. Instead, he tugged your own pants down until you were bare to him, his fingers slipping into your mouth before finding that aching part of you that welcomed him in as you braced yourself on his shoulders. 

He stretched you again, your knee screaming as you rode his index, the second not coming fast enough as he spread and scissored you until you were ready. This wouldn’t be easy, it was your first time and there was no lube to be found in this library, but you didn’t care, you’d lived through worse than this. You held his head to your neck as he sucked and bit down hard, and when you guided his other hand to your mouth so you could lick a stripe over his palm he groaned at the feeling before taking himself in hand. 

‘So perfect for me,’ he panted as he leaned back just enough so he could line himself up to you, your teeth sinking into his shoulder and marking him right back as you sank down on his cock. He filled you up so nicely, your body adjusting and swallowing him deeper as you sat on his lap, your jaw slack as you just breathed. He whispered praise into your ear as he grabbed you by the hips and got you to move, your legs shaking hard as you lifted enough to almost pull out, the head catching on your rim, Breck allowing you to fall back down hard as the table creaked under your weight. ‘Fuck, Bunny…’

You did it again, then again, each one sending shockwaves of not only the expected pain but the best pleasure you’d ever felt in your life, and when you started to speed up and he found that spot inside of you you cried out so loud he silenced you with his mouth. He helped you bounce on his lap until you couldn’t support yourself any longer, Breck leaning back until he was laying down and you were resting on his chest. His hands lifted you as he started to fuck up into you, his fingers digging hard into your ass as he kneaded and gripped strong enough to bruise, just more to add to the tapestry.

‘Harder, please fuck me harder,’ you begged as the pain gave way entirely, and he bit his lip before doing the best he could, it not enough as you braced yourself and sat back up so he could go even deeper. Your hands made a diamond on his chest as you covered his bullet scar, your body finally warm as you let him fully take you over, own you just as much as you’d always owned him, and when you looked up and saw yourself riding his cock with a big smile you finally understood what it meant to fly as you reached between your legs to touch yourself.

Your moans started to cut off as it all built up into just him inside you, you’d never leave this place because he was here, and you held his hand as you cried out and came so hard you saw stars. Your head fell back as you felt him come deep inside you, the heat so good that your back arched all the way, and the last thing you felt was his hand holding yours while the other wrapped around your lower back to keep you from falling as you finally passed out.

[jmflowers]

Ok I got a little carried away so you can choose all of these or just like one or two. For the Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🍓 🔪 🏜️ 🦴

Thank you!!

You absolutely did not get carried away! Thank you, this was fun. I don’t usually do this on my phone, but I’m too tired to get up so please bear with me. (Is it bear or bare? I argued with my grade 11 English teacher about this and I still don’t actually know the right answer���)

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

I started writing fan fiction when I was probably about 12 or 13? I literally did not have any reference point to the concept - I just loved TV and creating things and writing was an important hobby. I think I was frustrated with a topic not being given the attention I wanted in the show Ghost Whisperer (I was obsessed) so I just wrote it myself. The only way I knew to connect with fandom was through YouTube, as I’d been making fan montages for a while. I edited my story, chapter by chapter, into videos and posted it there. I didn’t end up finding fandom spaces for writing and community until I was about 18, when I joined tumblr and started reading on livejournal and fanfiction.net. I discovered screenwriting around that time, too, and fell in love with the idea of combining these things to make a career. (Only took me another decade to finally bite the bullet and dive in.) I’ve been writing and telling stories literally my entire life, and have studied the art form profusely throughout my education, but I definitely think I’ve seen the most growth in my work through the act of writing fan fiction - it fuels so much discipline while still giving you the space to experiment.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I looooove to research. I spend a lot of my time looking up words in other languages and reading articles about child development. For Vofreude I read a lot about the history surrounding the clitoris and its accurate portrayal in diagrams. I think the weirdest thing I dove deep into was how to hotwire a car, for Epithet.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

Anything. I get really overwhelmed by long comments and freak out on how to respond, even though they mean so much. (I worry that people think that means I don’t care about those ones.) I love when people make jokes or compliment in a way that’s silly. Also a huge fan of bookmark notes - I go and read those a lot. I die when someone mentions that they loved something else I wrote for a different fandom and that they’re happy to find me again in a new fandom - that feels pretty life changing. In real life, anytime I can create something that makes my mom cry is an absolute win in my books - she doesn’t cry often, but I’ve gotten her with a few specific things through the years.

I will say, I find it easier to respond to comments in the first few days after a piece is posted. I adore getting comments later - that email notification is one hell of a dopamine boost - but I get anxious about answering. And then I get anxious about there being a comment I haven’t responded to. And then I get anxious about how much time has passed since the comment was posted and I’m not sure if it’s too late to answer. Vicious game.

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

Music. Everything I create always leads back to music. It’s how I yank myself out of blocks, usually. When I listen to music, I start to visualize how things might look or feel and then I try to emulate that in whatever I’m working on. It’s easiest for editing videos, as I picture the scenes that will match up to things. For writing, I just go with the vibes. Most of my stories have an accompanying playlist that I listen to when I’m writing in that universe.

[cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien]

Solar Opposites in: Ultra Opposites Scene from “Lost Memories”: “That’s Learning to Fly” (for @avaveevo)

At sunset, Sonya was looking down sadly at a photo of her and her new family on the day of her adoption while Psylock and Electra comes up to her.

Yumyulack/Psylock: Sonya?

Jesse/Electra: You okay sis?

Sonya: I can’t believe I got Korvo to lose his memories… and it’s all my fault.

Yumyulack/Psylock: It wasn’t your fault. We should’ve been there for you on time.

Jesse/Electra: Besides, this couldn’t happen to any one of us.

Sonya: But it didn’t. It happen to Korvo…

Sonya then sighs sadly.

Yumyulack/Psylock: What’s wrong?

Sonya: When I was a little girl, I was always the smallest kid in every school I go to growing up. I felt like I was the runt of the litter. You know what that means?

Jesse/Electra: Like the smallest one?

Sonya: The smallest and the weakest.

As Sonya looks down, her flashback plays, it shows a montage of her as a little girl in kindergarten as she runs up to her classmates when it was snack time.

Sonya: voiceover It’s not easy being the smallest. You learn pretty early on that everything’s gonna be harder for you.

Young Sonya however missed her chance when all the snacks are gone, only a juice box as she sadly takes it. She then tries to make friends, but they ignore.

Sonya: voiceover When you’re the smallest, you’re always left out and sometimes you’re never feel like like yourself.

Sonya’s parents then pick her up. Then, it flash forwards to her on her first day at high school when she saw Jesse and Yumyulack.

Sonya: voiceover Then you guys came and I had no idea if you’d be perfect enough. But, you stood up for me and made feel like I belong when you saved me.

Sonya then looks at the kids making fun of Jesse and Yumyulack and starts to feel sorry for them. Then, it shows the sad flashback of her seeing parents getting aborted as she gasp sadly and watch as they drive off by the abortion officers as she starts crying.

Sonya: voiceover That’s when I started to lose hope, until you guys adopted me and took me in..l finally had a new family…

The flashback ends as Sonya looks down sadly while Psylock and Electra hugs her.

Sonya: Korvo shouldn’t have been in this mess if it weren’t for me. I’m not even a superhero. And if I was, I feel like I wouldn’t be with the Ultra Opposites.

Jesse/Electra: We had no idea. But that’s not true. We want you.

Yumyulack/Psylock: You’re our sister. You already are strong enough….

Sonya smiles but then looks down with determination as she grasp her hands in courage.

Sonya: When Korvo and Terry adopted me, I felt like I wasn’t the smallest and the weakest.

Sonya then looks up at the sky in determination as she knew what she must do now.

Sonya: And I do anything to get my dad’s memories back!

[uptoolateart]

A Monumental Finale

PREVIEW:

Cosmo Bug clutched Astro Cat tightly as they stood beside Argonaut on the Eiffel Tower, gazing out at the planet they’d just landed on.

All at once, the world began to spin. It was like a 360-degree film screen, images whirling around them in fast motion. Somehow, her eyes managed to catch the story – buildings being designed, planned, built, knocked down, the rubble being used to build anew, over and over again.

A life cycle.

And buildings being extended, renovated, remodelled – a montage of architecture evolving throughout the ages, until the film stopped, ending with the world today…a world where buildings walked freely, talking to one another, ignoring the new arrivals. There wasn’t a human or animal in sight.

Shaking, she drew out of Cat’s arms, looking up at him, then at Argonaut. They didn’t appear to have aged. Yet, they’d just gone through a wormhole, travelling to another galaxy. It should’ve taken thousands if not millions of years – but they’d achieved it in a matter of minutes. Had they stepped out of time, perhaps? Or did travelling faster than the speed of light somehow send you back in time? Was it possible to age backwards?

She gripped Eiffey’s railing with trembling hands as a monolith, like the one they’d met on the moon, hobbled over, the first of these alien beings to acknowledge them.

‘Welcome to Lithia!’ It seemed to bow, which basically meant it leaned forward, because it was an enormous block of silvery stone and metal.

‘I – and – I just –’ Eiffey sounded completely beside himself. Cosmo Bug could relate, though maybe for different reasons.

‘Indeed, indeed,’ the monolith said, as if Eiffey had just expressed something profound. ‘So, you found us at last – your ancestors.’

Eiffey blubbered some more. Was it possible for steel towers to cry? They were about to find out.

Argonaut seemed overcome, too. His mouth hung open like it was stuck that way, and actually…that was fair enough. Who woke up in the morning expecting to travel to a planet entirely populated by sentient buildings?

‘You okay?’ Cat asked him.

‘Y-yeah, just…this is just like a recurring dream I’ve been having lately….’

Okay, apparently some people did wake up in the morning expecting to travel to a planet entirely populated by sentient buildings.

She leaned over the railing, addressing the monolith. ‘Okay, so Eiffey’s here, blah blah. Now what?’

The monolith gave her a weary look. ‘Now…we move onto the next stage.’

I wish I hadn’t asked.

‘What’s the next stage?’ asked Cat. ‘Some kind of human-building hybrid project?’

The monolith gave a little jump of surprise. ‘Have you been spying on us somehow?’

Keep reading at Ao3

[firehousewithaview]

6x11 Reactions as I Watch

A collection of the disjointed thoughts I had about the episode as I watched it because I had to watch it over the course of a few hours instead of in one go

(under the cut because it got long)

The huddle omg

Buck making Daniel vaguely bitter is insane, I’m sure that means nothing

The Big Bear picture in Maddie’s living room ahhhhhhh

Jee into G

HOLY SHIT DOUG

credit where it’s due, the Buckley parents came to the hospital this time.

Buck’s face the whole time Doug is talking is priceless

I WANT TO KNOW WHY THEY CALL HIIIM CHIMNEY

Why arent you married

HE STOPPED BREATING WHEN HE HEARD ABOUT BOBBY

buck has now been struck by 2 random acts of nature

THE PARENTS NEVER ENTER THE ROOM

Albert I am begging you to leave Chim alone

The rewritten history lesson thing makes sense but I hate it (post to follow)

CHRIS INSISTED

had to pause to cry jfc that scene hurt, thanks Gavin. honorable mentions to Ryan and Aisha who were also great

on a lighter note, I will now picture all of buck’s problem solving process as if he has a mental Chim and Hen talking him

Mom brought 2  you brought 1 brb crying again

Peter Krauss has murdered me and I am thanking him

Buckleys still wont enter the room ugh

Because there was never a doubt in Buck’s mind that Hen and Chim would help him if he asked them. cool cool, I’m gonna be so normal about this

Oh man that hallway chase scene was not great for my brain but man did it do its job

Oh peter, turns out you will be killing me multiple times tonight, I’m so ready

I WAS NOT READY OH NO

Athena really said I will mom you back into consciousness and if Buck were any further in his process, it would have worked

The montage of memories ahhhhhhh

COLDPLAY Fix You how dare you

Chim <3

I’M ALWAYS GOING TO FEEL GUILTY FOR THAT ONE

Oh. I have too many bitter feelings about the Buckley parents to be satisfied with that. I’m going to pretend he was speaking solely to the parents that could have been. Moving on.

I have a family... not the same one I have here, YES SIR YOU DO

Oh the buckleys entered the room finally. Just for what might have been the end. I’ll be back to look at symbolism later

Daniel being a manifestation of his self hatred who

OHHH we’re getting some Dr Jekyll Mr Hyde action, love that

Oliver, please play more villains, I’m begging you. for science

FOR ME AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The way maddie doesn’t look surprised while his parents do, I am going to chew on a brick

2 pizzas lmao

hahaha yeah, lets talk about his traumas please. it will only take like a full season of just him

The doctor looks. so fucking done. like, seems very done with him already.

EVERYONEEEEEE

Once again I point out that the Buckleys? Not in the room. Even when random other guy was (who I want to know, please) Oh wait there’s 2 of them? tell me who you are please

Awwww they’re playing cards when he didn’t with his dream family (there’s a whole cant count in dreams thing that was big in Sterek that I’m co-opting here for personal reasons)

Bobby was different because his usual method of giving Buck advice and letting him decide was going to be too slow, this is my personal headcanon now

‘It’s better here’ where he actually gets to have the dad he chose and who chose him back

Mmmmmmm if Chim wants to fix things with his dad, fine. I will not be satisfied until they duke it out in some way shape or form. And I mean them, not Albert or Myung or anyone else. Them.

I have to give Kenneth Choi props, the realization look he gave us there makes me think there’s some interaction we didn’t get to see that was... important

awwwww, Jee calls him Pop Pop

‘she called me funny’ alright I can see them being related lol

I’ll take that. It wasn’t forgiveness, it was an open hand.

‘I’m getting you a couch’ no, you’ve been here like less than three minutes, please at least pretend you have respect for his boundaries

oh god they’re staying

awwwwwwwwwwww the birthmark kiss!!!1

But I’m putting my money on ‘it’s kinda nice’ turns into ‘please fucking leave’ really fast.

Personal issues with the directions the Buckleys seem to be going in, this episode was really good!!!!!!!!!!!

Final thoughts: EVERYONE WAS AMAZING, GOOD JOB

[mediocre-writerr]

who do you love [lexi howard]

lexi howard x reader

requested: Hiii! I just discovered your page while looking for Euphoria fics. I saw that you don’t have any Lexi Howard fics. Could I request a fic where Reader is partnered up with Cassie for a project or something and they meet Lexi and develops a crush on her, but Lexi is clueless and thinks reader has a thing for Cassie? Fluff please. Also your works are absolutely amazing!

a/n: italicized are rue's voiceover

*not my gif*

Lexi has always lived in the shadows of her sister. Every guy or girl she liked just never fell for her. They always fell for her sister. Cassie was the one in the spotlight and Lexi was just the background character.

You sat there with your earbuds in as your teacher went on and on about some project you guys had to do. But again, you weren't exactly listening.

Until he came over and ripped your earbuds out of your ear. You looked up at him with innocent eyes, "Ms. Y/L/N, you're partnered with Ms. Howard. Hopefully, she'll be able to fill you in since you weren't paying attention,"

You sent him a small smile before trudging your way over to Cassie. You heard a lot of things about her, but you didn't really care what everyone thought around here. Most of them were assholes anyway.

"So were you paying attention to anything he was saying?" you asked as you plopped down into the seat next to her.

"Not a word, but my friend Kat heard all of it. If you want you can come over tonight, we can start working on it, getting it over with," she offered and you nodded. 

“Sounds great,”

You see this was the start of a beautiful friendship for Y/N and Cassie. They became as thick as thieves. Everyone thought that Y/N and Cassie would eventually get together, but the entire time Cassie was just trying to get her newly found best friend to admit feelings for her sister. 

And those feelings started, cheesy to say, but at first sight.

You knocked on the Howard’s door, bouncing on the balls of your feet. You didn’t really know how to feel, Cassie was popular and well you? Not so much.

The door swung open and you swore your jaw dropped all the way to the floor. You were met with the younger Howard sister. She was beautiful. Her beautiful brown hair fit perfectly with her fair skin.

“You must be Y/N?” she says, snapping you out of your daze.

“Yeah, that’s me. Hi, Lexi, right?” you asked, stepping into the house as she held the door open.

“Yeah. Cassie went out with Maddy, but she texted me and said she’s on her way back. You can come in, you don’t have to wait outside like a dog,” she joked and you laughed together softly.

The two of you sat together on the couch. Your eyes gazed to the TV to see her watching Crazy Rich Asians. One of your favorite movies of all time. The screen was showing the montage of Rachel trying on all the different dresses for the wedding.

“This movie is a masterpiece,” you tell her.

She nods, “This is my first time watching it and I’m completely sold,” 

“Oh, you haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. The wedding scene is-” you put your fingers to your lips and kiss them, “Chef’s kiss!” 

“Hmm, I’ll have to take your word for it,” she said.

You continued watching as the wedding scene started. Lexi’s eyes were glued to the TV, but yours kept drifting towards Lexi. The way she watched intently as Kina Grannis started singing “Can’t Help Falling In Love”.

The scene ends and she looks at you, tears boarded at her eyes, “Why am I going to cry?” she laughed.

“Because it’s one of the most beautiful scenes in history,” you told her. 

The two of you just stared at each other. Her doe brown eyes were captivating and you couldn’t help your eyes from drifting down to her lips. There was a moment where you thought she did the same thing. 

The door bust open filled with laughter and Cassie and Maddy’s eyes landed on the two of you, “Hey Y/N, sorry I’m late. I see my sister was able to keep you company,”

“Oh yeah, Lexi was great. It was nice meeting you, I’ll see you around,” you told her. 

You see, my best friend Lexi developed a crush on Y/N right after that. But despite me and Jules telling her constantly that she felt the same way, Lexi still thought that you fell for her blonde sister and not her. 

“Cassie! I am not telling your sister that I like her. She does not feel the same way that I do. I am not going to risk my friendship that I’ve built with her and you,” you told her as the two of you laid on the bed in her bedroom.

She looked at you with her blue eyes like you were on drugs, “Are you kidding me right now? You sound like you just bought something from Fez. I’ve never seen my sister look at anyone the way she looks at you. You need to stop being a fucking coward and just tell her how you feel,”

“Okay, what if she does want to be my girlfriend? What if something bad happens? I lose the both of you and I can’t do that. I don’t want you to choose between me and your own sister,” you whispered.

Your heads were slightly tilted towards each other as you just stared at her, “I think you need to take advice from your favorite movie: you’re not playing to win, you’re playing to not lose. So play to win. Don’t think about the what if’s and even if things go south with my sister, I found a sister in you. You’re not gonna lose me either,” she said, “You’re one of my favorite people in the entire world, possibly my favorite, don’t tell Maddy that though. I love you so much Y/N,”

Little did the two of you know that Lexi was at the door way. She didn’t hear anything besides that you’re Cassie’s favorite person and that she loves you. 

“Awww someone loves me,” you nudge her shoulder, “But I’m for sure going to tell Maddy that I’m your favorite person. She’ll have a field day with that one,”

She pushed your face away from her, “You will not! I’ll just tell Lexi myself then,” 

You gasped, “You wouldn’t dare!” 

“Then you do it!” she exclaimed. 

Lexi avoided Y/N after that day. She also avoided Cassie. The two girls didn’t know why the brunette Howard was avoiding them. All they knew was that she avoided them every chance that she got.

It broke Y/N’s heart. She was finally ready to tell Lexi how she felt. And now, she wants nothing to do with her. No more movie nights. No more random ice cream days. But rather, Y/N going over to visit Cassie and being disappointed when their mom would answer the door and not Lexi.

You finally caught up to her as she was trying to sprint past you in the hallway. You grabbed her wrist and she looked back at you. The first time actually seeing those beautiful eyes of hers in weeks.

“What did I do? I understand if you don’t want to talk to me. I understand if you don’t want to be my friend, but please just tell me what I did. That’s the least I deserve,” you whispered, your voice breaking at the thought of losing one of your best friends. 

She shook her head, “Nothing, you didn’t do anything,” 

“I obviously did something, you’re not talking to me!” you exclaimed. 

Lexi broke free of your grasp, “You don’t need me Y/N. You have my sister. Cassie always wins. She’s always been in the spotlight. She always gets the guys and girls. Everyone I’ve ever liked, she went for them. And she always wins. I just thought for once that I mattered. That for once, the person I fell in love with chose me, but I guess I was wrong,” 

She stormed away and you were left with your mouth agape. Everything she said twirling in your brain. You immediately told Cassie all of it and your brain worked together to try and figure out a way to win her back. Until it all finally clicked.

You stood outside in the backyard of the Howard’s house. A slip n slide was in the path leading to you, switch on candles. You sat on the opposite side with a guitar in your hand. Luckily, you can play. 

Singing on the other hand, well let’s just hope it goes well.

“Cassie, I already said I don’t want to talk to you! You can’t bribe me with Bob Ross tutorials!” Lexi’s voice echoed as she closed the backyard door. 

She spotted you sitting there and she was immediately about to go inside when you yelled out to her, “Lexi please! Just let me explain, it’ll take maybe three or four minutes of your time,” 

Lexi walked down the slip n slide, but not before falling on her butt and sliding towards you. You let out a roar of a laugh as she finally reached down to you. She tried hard to fight off a laugh and a smile, but you could see it faintly. 

When you finally came down from your high she looked at you with raised eyebrows, “Well, I’m waiting,” 

You started playing the guitar. The melody you learned just hours before playing from the guitar. You took in a deep breath as you started singing the infamous song that got you to fall in love with her in the first place. 

“So, take my hand, take my whole life too. For, I can’t help falling in love with you. For, I can’t help falling in love with you,” you finish the song.

The two of you look at each other as you place your guitar down next to you, “You do matter to me, Lexi. More than you know. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you, but ever since the first night I met you I’ve always been in love with you,” 

“Cassie actually told me that I need to play to win. And if I had to slip on my ass a thousands times trying to set up this low budget recreation of the wedding scene in Crazy Rich Asians, I would. I did it because I need to win your heart, because Lexi, you already have mine,” 

A small smile breaks out onto her face as she closes the distance between the two of you. She kissed you ever so softly as you tasted the sweet taste of her lips. 

“And you have mine,” 

[j4gm]

OK SO UH

https://www.ign.com/articles/adventure-time-obsidian-release-date-trailer

ADVENTURE TIME: DISTANT LANDS OBSIDIAN TRAILER IS HERE!!! GO WATCH IT!!! OBSIDIAN WILL RELEASE ON THURSDAY THE 19TH OF NOVEMBER. THAT’S ONLY TEN DAYS AWAY.

Anyway, here’s my trailer breakdown. This is kind of just an emotional outpouring of everything that stuck out to me so sorry if it’s a little rambly.

Right off the bat I’m curious to know what’s going on with Princess Bubblegum. We saw at the end of the finale she was hanging out in Marceline’s house, and similarly this trailer depicts her having domestic moments with Marceline. So is she still ruling the Candy Kingdom? Has that responsibility perhaps passed on to somebody else? Or am I reading too much into some establishing shots designed to tell the viewer that this is set post-finale? Who knows.

The song in the background is, of course, “Monster”, the song sung at SDCC by Olivia Olson. We’ve already heard the full song, but it’s nice to hear a cleaned up studio version. I wonder when in the episode it will actually be sung, and whether or not it will be diegetic.

It looks like we’re going to be getting plenty of new Marceline and Bubblegum outfits over the course of the special. Even the establishing shots of Marceline’s house featured three different ones, which makes me think these shots will actually appear as a montage in the episode itself. It wouldn’t make much sense for them to change clothes over the course of the same scene otherwise.

Okay, as much as I want to, I’m not gonna fill this post with every Bubbline shot because I’m sure there are plenty of people doing that already.

THEN THERE’S THIS FUCKING SHOT:

The little girl on the right is almost certainly Marceline, but who is the person on the left? Simon, Marceline’s mom, and Hunson all come to mind but don’t really match the mysterious figure. It could be some kind of weird hybrid flashback scene where young Marcy is leading adult Bubblegum through her past. Whatever the case, this is clearly shortly after the war, and I am standing by my theory that the Glass Kingdom could be located in the Earth’s crater.

I don’t have a lot to say about the Glass Kingdom and its inhabitants. These are new characters and locations and it remains to be seen exactly how they will tie into Marceline and Bubblegum’s story. The animation and background design is looking exceedingly good, though. Again, this landscape doesn’t really match any of the deserts we’ve seen in Ooo so far, which makes me think this is somewhere else on Earth.

A fun Easter Egg: This shirt Marcy is wearing is the shirt given to her by Hunson in the episode “Marcy & Hunson”:

It’s interesting to see that what a lot of people assumed were spacesuits is actually motorcycle gear. I actually checked if Marceline’s motorbike is the same one she rides in the Thunder Road graphic novel, which would have been a neat tie-in, but unfortunately it’s not. Also I love that Glassboy has been duct taped to the back and covered in bubblewrap.

Oop there’s the storyboard we’ve seen. Seems like Marceline has been summoned by Glassboy to come and defend the kingdom against this mysterious dragon and its dark minions, which is pretty much what we already knew from the bits and pieces of plot information that have already been revealed.

It’s cool to see Bubblegum putting her elemental powers to use. She didn’t get much opportunity to show them off before the show ended. So far, most of the spotlight has been on Marceline, so I’m also interested to see what role Bubblegum plays in this story, and how her character will develop.

Also THE MORROW IS BACK! Bubblegum’s trusty mount was last seen helping her perform recon over Gumbaldia before the finale, but it looks like they’re getting back into the hero business this time.

We already know from the screenshot Muto posted that there is going to be a visit to a human gas station, but this looks more like some kind of bomb shelter. This is certainly one of the darker shots I’ve ever seen from Adventure Time. It looks like we’re going to be getting a lot more Mushroom War lore. Marceline’s dejected stance here makes me think this place has some personal meaning to her. If that skeleton turns out to be her mum or something I will never stop crying.

That’s all I’ve got for now. There’s probably some stuff I haven’t noticed. I haven’t looked at anyone else’s reactions or thoughts yet, I went in totally blind.

There isn’t long to wait until the special now! I was certainly not expecting a November release. Expect an Easter egg/lore breakdown from me when it drops!

Farewell for now!

[jennamacaroni]

dkaljds; okay here are my feels about this show i really fucking love.  i have to go watch top chef

here’s something to know about me:  i never expect a second season of any show (unless the first season was like.. real fucking bad) to ever be as good as the first season.  especially if that show had as nearly flawless of a first season as hacks did.  no follow-up is ever as good as that first hit ya kno

that said, i think we all know there were some serious flaws with season two.  aimless storylines, sidelined characters (uh hi marcus so sry what happened to you this season), that cr*ise episode like woof yall cmon hire a lesbian i beg you

i didn’t like some of the things they did with deborah’s character and her choices.  she just seemed excessively mean to me at times (which like yeah i know i write her super soft whateverrr its a fault of my personality) but it just didn’t seem to vibe with the character they presented in s1 who we were supposed to be rooting for (as @mollrat101has explained much more eloquently than me already please go read all their shit).  i do think it got much better in the back half of the season but still.  it was just choppy and lacked the depth and emotional punch that s1 had

but i still laughed out loud every episode.  and my heart would race and i’d hold my breath when they were in scenes together.  obvi hannah and jean’s chemistry just carries everything about the show.  but also the production was so gorgeous and the attention to detail just as good as s1.  like damn

also hannah was a fuuuuucking star.  i loved when she told deborah “we fucking did it” in the finale because yeah i felt that.  we did do it.

we got that pool scene and the balcony scene.  literal fanfic shit like 100% convinced the writing team was reading our fic (rip us omfg)

basically my takeaways from this show are these two women found a partnership and a shared sense of humor... a love language.  creatively, they thrive together (ty s2 for delivering another creative avadeb montage it was heart eyes i hope @trying-to-get-somewhere-real reblogs it every monday until next season).  they take chances for each other, they trust each other, they snap at each other, they forgive each other.  they keep coming back to each other.  so i do fucking hope we have a season three and its them BOTH realizing how much better their lives are when they’re together and they live happily ever after splitting time between the mansions deborah gets late night ava is head writer the end

(catch me crying at ava watching qvc just to see deb)

[weirdo19]

Bro I’m simultaneously laughing and crying over how quickly buck got off the ladder truck when he realized it was going down. Bestie really said “not again and never again”

The poor ladder truck, it went down so fast. I think this is the 3rd ladder truck they’ve destroyed or lost to a crazy citizen. I wonder what the LA fire department thinks about this lmaoo.

I’m giggling at buck and Taylor avoiding each other but also just want this messy break up to happen already.

BUDDIEEEE BITCHES

LMAOOO NOT CHIMNEY CHUGGING THE GLASS OF WATER AFTER MADDIE SAID I JUST WANNA TALK LMAOOO

Omg they need to stop with the parasites and bugs

“I don’t have your bone structure. I could never pull it off.” PLSSS IM GIGGLING

FROM DEAD PEOPLE, WTFFFFFFFF

Ohhhhhh poor Karen, I would still be bothered by it too. Hen should be a little more understanding man.

Nvm why’d I even doubt hen, of course she was understanding

YAYYYY DISPATCH MADDIE

HOW DID THEY GET A LADDER TRUCK SO FAST WTF

Not the team interrupting buck so he doesn’t say anything morbid and it all failing just for buck to dramatically say “until they stick a knife in it.”

IM DEAD HOW DID BOBBY NOT KNOW

BATHENA HONEYMOONNNNNN

Wtf did I just watch, IF THAT COUPLES DIES IM THROWING HANDSSSSSSS WITH 9-1-1 WRITERS. OH THEY DID NOT JUST MAKE HIM FORGET 6-7 YEARS OF HIS FUCKING LIFE. AHHHHHHHHH

DAMNNNN BUCKLEY SIBLINGS WITH RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS

okay that couple deserves better, 9-1-1 writers really screwed them over. Okay that couple is cute but having a flashback montage of them was not great use of air time. No one kill me

OMG BT FIGHTTTT, HES ON THE STAIRSSSS. OMG HE MUST HAVE ALOT OF SHIT TO SAY. Also….. that green shirt looks mighty fine on him.

Omg damnnn this is exactly what I wanted, thank you 9-1-1 writerssss. Me yelling “drag her”

Oop “clean slate” “just not together”

Also I can tell Oliver stark was mad excited to film this scene, I just know it.

YAYYY MAY AND EDDIE FRIENDSHIPPPPP

ooooo not Bobby problems, just let this man resttttt. EEEEEHHHH ITS GONNA BE AN EDDIE AND BOBBY SCENE WOHOOOO

Also eddie looks so fucking good standing like that. okay Eddie this seasons has been saying shit that hits to close to home, like that scene with his father. Daddy issues me too. Now this scene with Bobby about him taking credit of all the good things too not just the bad. Sounds like every time my therapist has talked to me.

FUCKKKK LEAVE BOBBY ALONE, LET HIM BREATH FOR JUST TWO SECONDS. IM SO GLAD EDDIE VISITED HIM NOW I JUST NEED BOOBY TO THROW THAT BOTTLE OF ALCOHOL AWAY. OMG HE OPENED THE BOTTLE. YAYYY HE DUMPED IT

YAYYYYYY SURPRISE HEN KAREN VOW RENEWAL. OMG NEA LOOKS SO CUTE, NOT DENNY WALKING THEM DOWN THE AILE IGHHHHHHH SO CUTE.

Ewww BT, WHY DOES SHE HAVE HER HAND ON HIS FACE, WHY ARE THEY SMILING, IM CONFUSED. Is this what being an adult is like, being mature because if so I don’t like it, WHERE IS THE PETTY?

I’m mad maddie didn’t have more of a reaction to chimney literally PUNCHING BUCK IN THE FACE. You know, buck the man who she raised as her own son and her brother.

EHHH CHRISSSSSSS AND EDDIE. ADORABLE

BATHENA HONEYMOONNNN

Why are they walking? Someone could literally be dying? YAY EDDIEEE, but like I needed a scene of him saying he’s back like when he left but fine this is good too.

Great season finale

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.