#god victor just say you want to fuck him

[vinilatothemax]

Like Okay bro, take your iced coffee and leave.

gay people can never be normal they always gotta say some shit like "he was a being formed in the very poetry of nature. his wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. his soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination".

[24kmar]

𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐀 (A. Donaldson, T.Duncan)

𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐀 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: A. Donaldson x Fem!Reader, T.Duncan x Fem!Reader

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 18+ MDNI, SMUT, Sugar Baby! Reader, Female Manipulator Reader(Wolf in sheeps clothing), Daddies money reader 🤭, Age Gap! (Early 30's art and tashi, early 20's reader), power imbalance, language.

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: When Tashi and Art see Pro! Tennis player reader they cant help but be infatuated. She's just so perfect, on court and off. When she starts moving up in the tennis world, they decide to take up on this oppurtunity. Offering to coach her and take part in her success and her life.

𝑩𝒐𝒓𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒂 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘. 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒈𝒐. 𝑶𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒅 𝒉𝒐? 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒊𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒄𝒉, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆.

You were used to getting what she wanted, growing up the golden child with daddies money. Always winning, in tennis and in life. Being signed to NIKE. Truly a born stunner. And thats just what tashi and art needed.

When they went to a standford tennis game, only for the nostalgia (lies, they saw you play at standford and needed to have you). Sitting down after finally getting away from the crowds of fans. Thats when they saw you, stretching and getting ready for your match. Getting ready to win.

Seeing you play gave them the rush, the hope they needed. With each grunt, each step you took, each roar of victory. They grew more and more hungry for you. You were so power hungry, so ambitious, just like tashi. Just perfect. After winning the match (of course you did) they came up to you.

"Y/N L/N" tashi spoke walking up to you.

Turning around hearing your name, you were met with the stars of the tennis world.

"Oh my god, tashi duncan, art donaldson. Its amazing to meet you." You beem shaking their hands. "We've been watching you" tashi speaks " you're good, really good." Art finishes for her.

"We would like to make an offer." tashi says, art looking at you up and down. Observing everything you have to offer. "How would you like us to coach you?" Tashi offers. This isnt the first time you've gotten an offer to be coached, theres been many more instances to which you've declined.

But not now, you couldnt pass this up. So you said yes. And the rest is history.

They wanted to make you better at tennis ( they really just wanted to have you to themeselves). You gave them something they both needed. Giving art something perfect to worship, a star. And tashi, a lover and a winner.

They worshiped you, giving you anything and everything you wanted. Making sure their stargirl was always fed and never left hungry. To the victors go the spoils. Shopping sprees, fucking you till you couldnt handle it, even then giving you more. More, more, more, always more, what you deserved.

Controling your each and every move, and you let them. You were really the one in control. Only letting them think they were to boost their ego. Letting them do whatever they wanted, aslong as you got what you wanted.

Now you're here. Art between your legs, drinking in everything you have to give him. Tashi next to you, making sure you'll make her proud at your match tomorrow.

"Mmmm a-art m'gonna cum" you moan out

"Only winners get to cum" tashi whispers in your ear. Shivers going down your spine.

"Are you a winner prinncess?" Tashi asks you, biting your neck. Thats when art cuts her off with a harsh suck to your clit. Whimpering into your cunt when you pull at his hair.

"Answer me now or i wont let you cum" tashi whispers in your ear.

"F- fuck, yes im a winner!" You moan out pathetically

"You gonna win tomorrow? Gonna make us proud, princess?"

"Mhm!" You grab at her, reaching your peak.

And thats what you did, you won. Like a star, a winner, a born stunner.

[icarusredwings]

Thinking about how canon it is that Logan's cptsd and truama is so bad that his brain quite literally just DIPS sometimes like in days of future past when he blinks out and Charles is the one who calms him down.

How he grabs charles up and growls at him that he dosn't know who he is, where he is, or how he got here. He sees one of his best friends in the future and screams "What the fuck is that!?"

Charles and Hank just look at him like bruh weve been over this already. He says "Ill handle this," while looking at Logan when talking to Hank, then tells Hank to go stop Erik.

Logan recognizes this as Charles having authority over this big blue beast of a man, somewhat submitting to his word, litsening that he is infact 'Logan' and that he's spent the last couple of days with them (establishing that they are friends not foe) and then- in the most pathetic way ever- Lies to him. Tells him he's on "really bad acid"

Logan is still very spooked but just gives a little nod.

This is the quickest I've seen ANYONE gain his trust when in states like this other than Jean and Kurt, who was stupid enough to bear hug the feral woods man charging at him with his claws out.

Kurt is one of the few people without telepathy (even though Charles sacrificed his for his legs) who can get to Logan very quickly with minimal damage.

And I feel like... Wade might be just as stupid. He's so stupid that Logan would growl at him, shove a fist full of knives right through him, and Wade would just stand there like "ouch. Anyway- what's got you all riled up, peanut?"

So he'd do it again. And again. Annndd again.

When he finally does think Wade is dead, he just gasps and sits back up. "Look if this is about what I did with your toothbrush-"

Logan could decapitate him, and still he would just chase after his head like, "Aaw not cool man, do you know how much it hurts to put this thing back on? 3 days of neck pain, that's what."

It would both freak logan out and confuse him enough to become grounded, that shock factor of "what the fuck just happened???" enough to regulate his heart.

Logan would stare at him, baffled, watching as he sits there and tries to reattach his head. He'd look at his bloody claws, look at the mess on the floor, blink a few times, and honestly might start batting at his head with pure curiousity.

"Oh my god, you're such a cat."

How was he talking still? Maybe he was sleeping. Yeah, that's it. He was dreaming. This was a dream.

The only real issue he would have is keeping Logan inside the apartment until he calmed enough to realize that this wasn't a dream- this is real- you just decapitated your room mate.

Because god knows that once you set a feral wolverine free? You won't find him again until he wants to be found, which can be weeks, months, years even.

He needs that soft authority. The type that's built on mutual trust and respect. The type where he has the ability to leave and return at his own will. The moment you try to pin him down, tell him that you have higher authority due to some made-up rank, that's when you lose him. Logan subconsiously has an animalistic based sense of authority and hierarchy.

Charles had "control" over this blue beasty creature, and to Logan, that means he's head hancho in that moment. It makes Logan recognize that there's a reason, too, seeing as Beast could easily destroy such a scrawny pathethic looking man, right? It's only natural for his systems to lay out like this. Having constantly battled for "dominance" with Victor also plays a part.

Despite being in the military for so long, hearing someone is captain does not add up in his head unless they deserve to be captain through strength or size. It's why while Wade (who technically is stronger than him) dosn't show agression to "prove" his status, Logan realizes that his claws being usless plays a big part.

It's like when you go to fight a battle in a video game only to realize that your fire powers do absolutely no damage on the fire based enemy, if anything, fueling it by giving it more fire.

A "aw shit sorry fam my bad" type of submission such as wolves do. While usually related, juvenile males will still try to prove dominance with the top male only for the top male to quickly remind them why they are boss in which case the juvenile wolf will be like "Damn sorry- My bad original gangster I was just being silly"

Logan also needs a reason to stay. Charles telling him that logan has stayed with them makes Logan believe he should stay with him longer.

He needs that beacon. And right now?

That talking head that he's pushing around on the floor is pretty entertaining.

"...how are you talking?"

"Oof look wolvie I love you're embrassing your true self but let's not open that can of worms The comics are contradicting, and by rights, I shouldn't be able to control my limbs anymore, but I can. Now- be a big, strong kitty cat and give me back to that handsome man over there, will ya?"

His body is just casually sitting there with his arms out, wanting his head back.

".... i'm so fucking high."

"I wish. If you were high on catnip you wouldn't have sliced me to bits."

"Heh... you're funny."

"Aawww!! Really?"

".... what happens if I punt your head out the window?"

"Woah woaH WOAH PEANUT LETS NOT GO THAT FAR! SAFEWORD!! I NEED THE SAFEWORD!"

But alas. He fogot the safeword.

This has been your PSA that safewords are important. Be safe, kiddos.

[cranberryjuice-posts]

You could write a Clarisse la rue x fem! Jiu jitsu (or judo) fighter reader? You decide the rest of the story, but I would like it to involve a rival relationship between lovers, where Clarisse challenges the reader to fight alone, but it ends up becoming a kissing and making out session.

I love your writing by the way <3

- rivals -

Pairings - Clarisse La Rue x fem! Jiu jitsu! Reader

An - i finished this and I reread the prompt and I’m not sure if it meant for An already established relationship or not but I hope this is good 😭😭

An pt2 - FUCK YEAH I WROTE SOMETHING GOOD ASF‼️‼️

Clarisse La Rue.

Clarisse fucking La Rue.

The woman who always had some shit to say to you. Even when you were just minding your business and helping some new kids learn to fight she just had to tell you everything you were doing wrong.

And of course the one fucking time she was right she just had to have that same usual shit eating grin. What was her problem anyways?! Why couldn’t she just leave you alone why was she always up your ass.

——

You stepped into the arena tossing your duffel bag aside. Today Chiron had put you in charge of leading the wrestling and hand in hand combat class, your co-teacher was unknown but you figured it was probably Luke once again.

While tying your hair up you heard a strong voice speak “what are you doing”. Turning around you saw clarisse standing cross armed with her spear attached to her back. “Get lost I’m about to teach a class”

You gave her a sarcastic look “really? Because I’m about to teach the hand in hand combat class”

“No your not” Clarisse walked close, speaking like she knew it was true.

“Shut up clarisse, gods Your so fucking ignorant” you scoffed turning around once again to finish preparing, great Clarisse is your co-teacher. Whatever it was just for an hour anyways.

The arguing didn’t stop however, both your egos being hurt little by little with what was saying. It continued up until the kids arrived, Infact it didnt stop until a camper had luke show up to break up the argument.

He walked in, linked his arm with yours and dragged you to another section of the arena before dropping you down.

“Dude!” You complained, standing up eventually and dusting the orange dirt off of you.

“Can you teach the class or not cause your run time is currently being taken up with you and clarisse arguing.” He spoke with confidence and his usual charmful smirk.

“We’ll be fine.” You gave him a harsh look, mainly annoyed by the fact that you both were paired together. “Speaking of which why were we even paired together”

“Because Chiron wants you both to not only get along but with the fact your both the best with hand in hand combat you both got paired”

You just gave him a sarcastic smile. Mumbling ‘dick’ to him ask you walked away you quickly got to the wrestling mat. You clapped your hands getting everyone’s attention including clarisses. “Let’s start with stretches then we’ll move into pairs to do some basics”

“Or” Clarisse quickly interjected “we move into a death match where everyone wrestles one at a time until we have one standing”

“That’s stupid, start with basics so they can warm up” crossing your arms you were firm on your stance.

“That’s slow and boring and keeps the group longer than they need to be here” the argument was starting up once again. Wanting to just blow the whole thing off you thought of an idea.

“Fine. Me and you on the mat winner gets to choose how the class goes and looser just goes along with it” you offered which clarisse quickly accepted.

Shifting on the mat you both looked at one another ready to end the disagreement. As a kid shouted announcing the match to start both you and clarisse went at each other.

Grabbing her waist you slammed her to the ground only for her to break loose and try to pin you down in return. The match lasted for close to five minutes before you were ultimately decided the Victor.

Standing up breathless you noticed clarisse was not only embarrassed but also royally pissed off. “Go on! Go do uh.. go do the basics or whatever” you panted shooing the kids off.

“You ok?” You asked bending down offering your hand out only for clarisse to hit it away. “Fuck off I have better shit to do than this anyways” she scoffed standing up and walking away.

Whatever. She wanted to play the spoiled brat who’s who is hurt then fine, she can act like that for however long she pleases.

——

Sitting at the campfire you sat on the ground resting against your friends leg while drinking a soda. It was peaceful to say the least, everyone was singing, clarisse wasn’t around, and your mind was clear.

It was peaceful until clarisse came over and stood in front of you. “Me. You. Rematch in an hour” she practically demanded.

“Excuse me?” You chuckled confused by it all.

“You heard me in an hour me and you are gonna rematch in the arena.” She glared down at you.

At first you just rolled your eyes muttering an ‘ok’. Though once she didn’t move you realize she was being serious. “Fine! Damn well have a rematch or whatever”

“Don’t be late” finally leaving you scoffed again shit talking with your friends.

You stumbled into the arena, looking around you didn’t see clarisse anywhere. “Hello?! Damnit larue It’s fold and I’m freezing my clit off!” Yelling is what got the girls attention.

“Shut up oh my gods” she groaned “why are you so descriptive damn”

That cause you to giggle. “What is it a Crime for me to be descriptive”

“Yes.” She spoke quickly shutting down your good mood. Walking towards the wrestling mat that she finished setting out clarisse lifted her shirt to wipe off her sweat.

Shaking your head you let go of every thought that Clarisse was attractive out the window. She wasn’t. She was just some girl who had a problem with you.

You both took your stance ready to just get this over with. Partially on your end not hers.

The fight went as stated. She lunged at you, you blocked, she tried to pin you down, you broke free and so forth and so forth. It continued until some how you managed to find yourself on clarisses waist with her arms above her head and the gasp for air coming from you both.

It was silent. Sitting there under the night with only the faint fire torches lighting your view for some reason clarisse looked, oddly beautiful. Her curly hair and soft brown eyes framed her face perfectly. The small scar on her cheek which you knew was from her spear and the light pink lipgloss she wore sparkled.

Wait.. when did clarisse wear lipgloss. The same for her perfume it was way to feminine for her actually it smelt a lot like silenas signature scent, roses with vanilla. Before you thought about it you both were leaning into eachother.

The kiss was soft and slow. Hesitant but enjoyable. You let go of her hands and replaced you hold onto her face while she found herself on your waist.

The slow kiss soon turned more heated. She sat up helping shift the weight and give her more control. Predicable. Before she could slide her tongue into your mouth, you pushed her back down taking away her opportunity and giving it to you.

“Even making out you just have to be the best” she muttered into the kiss only fueling your anger. You just ignored her tangling your hands into her curls you broke the kiss only to repeat it instantly after.

What was supposed to be a regrettable make out soon turned into you both having yet another competition on who could be the best. After a certian point You pushed clarisse Away breathless.

Sitting back you just started to yell. “For the Gods clarisse you just can’t let anything be normal!”

“Me?! Your the one who’s perfect at everything! Know what I bet you kissing me was just another way to prove your just better” she stood up accusatory.

You Only followed suit equally pissed off. “What?! Are you insane! Clarisse what makes you think I’m better than you”

“Because!” She shouted. “Everyday you have to be better at everything! From wrestling to talking with others! To even fucking doing your hair and talking with other girls and it pisses me off because why do you even bother with them!”

You took a step back confused. “Wait… you jealous that I flirt with other girls? Why?” You asked tilting your head slightly.

“Yes! Fuck YN your so stupid” she rubbed her eyes in frustration before yelling it out. “Im in love with you damnit!”

Wow.

All sense flew out the window, grabbing clarisses Shirt you kissed her once again. This time you did it softer, gentler any word that could describe it. Neither of you tried to fight each other instead you worked together. Leaning into one another, hands tangling into each others hair, grasping each others bodies it was like you both were desperate.

Breaking away you softly panted against her lips. “I like you to.. a lot actually Your like really pretty” that just sealed the deal for you both, causing yet another makeout.

——

[knyontop]

Patrick stalking hc's???????

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OFC MOOTIE PIE :3

Patrick Hocksetter x fem!reader

Ft: Patrick hocksetter, Henry bowers, Victor criss, belch huggins, and our beautiful reader.

Tw: bowers gang, patrick himself, stalking, stealing, toxic behavior and friendships, stalking (obvi), please beware!!:(

Patrick:

・the fact that this is just him and its not even him being yandere is scary😭

・Patrick can be rather silly sometimes!!!!

・soooooooooooooooo your the new girl which means your obviously a target for the bowers gang.

・Patricks always there looming over your shoulder, its like you can feel his eyes looking at you while your walking home.

・he watches you sleep through your window, maybe even came in and stole some of your panties.

・sharing is caring right? (He definitely shared them with henry)

・he will find out every little thing about you, maybe not right away but he will.

・your his favorite little toy to play around with, he wants to be in your life just to make it hell.

・he gets off on your fear, he gets off on your tears, he gots off on you.

・you have no choice wether or not hes apart of your life. You dont make the decisions for you anymore.

・when the bowers gang sets eyes on you, you dont get a say in anything anymore.

・Pattrick doesn’t like when others mess with you now dont take this the wrong way he just wants to be the one who makes you cry the hardest.

・he cares about you in a way that someone would care for there pet or how a kid cares for its toy.

・he will learn your schedule pretty quickly, he will wait outside your house with Henry, Victor and Belch so they could drive you to school.

・they walk you out so they can ether take you home or go somewhere to do God knows what. Its a surprise every time!

・Patrick also leaves interesting “gifts” at your door.. so I hope you like that! (He does it just to scare you)

・remember Patrick is always watching.

・dont even try to tell a trusted adult, ”So, you like being a little snitch huh?” He always finds out.

・you cant hide from his gaze. “Your tits looked nice in that bath~”

・”Awh… poor thing, are you crying? Are you scared of big bad Patrick?” He would say with that sadistic grin on his face. He gots off on your fear, he will mock you for it.

・dont trust him, if hes doing something nice for you he expects something in return. “Who was there to hold you? Who was there Y/N? Fucking me. So now, you gotta repay me dont ya?” He snickers.

・good luck with Hocksetter, your going to need it.

₊˚ ‿︵‿୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿ ˚₊

Im a little unsure if this is good or not😣😣 if you like it please tell me i need some reassurance on this one😭

[reareaotaku]

hiii i love ur umbrella academy work!! could u write a one shot abt yandere five and a darling who’s sick with the flu? im sick rn and need some comfort from my comfort character

Of course! [Not a fan of Adrian's actions though... Can't say I'm surprised though... It's so disappointing]

At first it was just a sore throat. You didn't think much about it. You decided to just get something to drink and move on with your day. Though, as the day progresses, it gets worse.

"What the fuck it up with you?"

You don't turn towards Five, because you knew he'd be able to detect you out in a heart beat. You hold in a cough, which causes Five to become more suspicious.

"Nothing."

His eyebrows scrunch together, before humming. He knew something was up and you knew that he knew. The problem is that Five would have never guessed you were sick. And even if he did know, he isn't capable of taking care of someone else; He can barely take care of himself. Besides, you don't trust him.

You awoke the next day with Five standing over you. You were sweaty and hot and freaked out. "What the fuck are you doing?" You manage to get out in a sore tone.

"You're running a fever. I think you're sick."

You look at him confused, before your eyes widen. He knew you were sick. You groan loudly, causing Five to frown.

"Why did you groan?"

"I didn't groan?"

He rolls his eyes but doesn't comment. He pulls out a bottle from his pocket, causing you to look at him confused.

"What's that?"

He doesn't look at you, "Medicine."

"For what?"

"You."

"I'm not sick."

He finally looks up at you, giving you a look that practically says 'I don't believe that shit.' He gives you the medicine, which you reluctantly take.

He's not good at taking care of you at all

He tries, he really does, but it's not something he ever really prepared for

It's hard for him to take care of anyone; But he wants to learn, only for you though

He probably goes to Viktor for advice, because he's the only one Five trust

So when Five does take care of you, you should really be thanking Victor

He's nicer to you than usual, which kind of sets you on edge, because why is he being so nice? You're kind of scared, but he holds himself together to make sure you know he's not faking it

It's also a way for him to prove to you that he can be a good boyfriend and he's perfect for you

Why would you need anyone when he's here? [If you even try, the person is going to disappear, so Five doesn't really have much competition]

But really, he's better at killing people than bringing them back to health

Though, if he does a good job taking care of you, he's flustered when you thank him and are even sweet to him

Maybe you should get sick more?

Because god does he love the attention

[can-of-w0rmz]

My thoughts on Frankenstein can basically be summed up in, “Victor is a dickhead but at least he’s not an incel,” and “The Creature is a dickhead but at least he’s not a rich prick”.

To this day “ermmm Victor/Creature is the innocent guy and (X other character) is the bad guy achtually 🤓☝️” takes make me so fucking mad. THEY BOTH SUCK, AND THEYRE BOTH STILL SYMPATHETIC PROTAGONISTS. THATS THE POINT OF THE FUCKING BOOK😭

Also people who think Victor was the bad guy for refusing to make the Bride and going “huh, maybe making a creature for the sole purpose of suffering and fucking you is really fucked up and not my place at all actually?” legitimately need their fucking heads checked because do you genuinely have zero reading comprehension or life experience??? Can you read a book? Can you understand basic themes and concepts? Are you actually stupid?

Victor is a terrible guy for being self absorbed enough to cheat God and nature itself, creating a being that was never meant to be born and inflicting immense suffering on it by the nature of it existing in a way that fundamentally can not be balanced out — following the Christian influences and background in which the novel was written at the time, Victor is not God, he can’t offer the creature salvation or in any way metaphysically balance out his suffering, so he just introduces him to a life of a living hell by his own design and by the nature of the fact that Victor is just a man, and the Creature himself is terrible because the nihilism inherent to his condition as Victor’s creation turns him into a murderous incel who wants to just further the suffering Victor caused, because if he can’t be happy, nobody should, so he kills every innocent bystander who Victor loved and demands that he makes him a woman like Eve who’s equal to him in suffering, who exists for the sole purpose of being his, who was created to be his.

And Victor says no, because he has actual character development and realises it isn’t his place (also, very likely mirroring his engagement to Elizabeth if you kinda follow the same reading as me that Victor never really loved her romantically and felt forced into the marriage because of his mother), which, shock horror, makes Victor a more likeable protagonist, because again, shockingly, he’s actually a pretty good guy in this one situation making a really good moral decision for once by saying “yeah I’m not going to create a woman whose sole purpose in life is to fuck you and suffer as much as you, also what if she doesn’t want to fuck you???”

Are people allergic to the concept of character development or something?? Are people allergic to multifaceted complex characters?? You feel terrible for the creature because of what Victor has done to him by bringing him into existence, and you feel terrible for Victor because of how doomed he is (in the worst way, it’s not just him suffering, he has to watch everyone he loves being forced to suffer because of him) by his one mistake and how he doesn’t have any way to fix it. A creation with no God, and a Man with the weight of God upon him because of his own mistake. They’re both doomed. That’s why it’s so good, THE BOOK IS A FUCKING TRAGEDY WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR SOME PEOPLE TO GRASP???😭

[sheeple]

Heirs of Hogwarts | Part 4

Genre(s): Nuisance to Lovers / Fake dating / Fluff / No Voldy au Fandom(s): Harry Potter Pairing(s): Mattheo Riddle x Hufflepuff!Reader Summary: After finding out your (now ex)boyfriend cheated on you with the girl he told you not to worry about, you decide to get into a fake relationship with the kid of another founder of Hogwarts. What could go wrong? Warning(s): It's the (badly written) smut chapter (is it obvious that I don't know how kissing works?) / Weee Woo mature smut hour is here!!! / semi-exhibitionistic (office fucking while the door is locked?) / The oral fixation is back / dunno if I missed smth. A/n: The long-awaited final part of the series. And I swear to GOD if the tags don't work I'm going to screeaaAAAMMM [Masterlist] [HoH masterlist]

When Mattheo opens his eyes, a ray of sunshine peaks through the curtains and it falls over your sleeping face. In your sleep, you have tucked yourself closer to his body.

Mattheo can't help himself but smile. He rests his head on his fist while he reaches out and brushes a strand of hair away from your face. Oh, how peaceful you look — how at ease with him beside you.

At his touch, you scrunch your face and turn away, nuzzling into his chest. You grumble something and he laughs.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

Groaning, you reach for the covers and pull them up to hide yourself from the light. "What time is it?"

Looking over his shoulder towards the small clock on the bedside table. "Half past eight."

Another groan comes from you and you push the covers just down so your face is peaking out with a pout. "Way too damn early..."

At that moment your door gets kicked open and the twins storm in. "Get up! Mom made breakfast and she has given you ten minutes to get dressed.

As Danny drags you out of your bed and into your bathroom, Victor gives Mattheo a stern glare. "You listen to me, Riddle. If you hurt but one hair on our sister's head you're a dead man! Understood?!"

Mattheo nods dazed, not jet have been really woken up before the invasion.

With one last curt nod, Victor turns around and marches out of your room. Not before saying, "If I were you I would get dressed. Mom doesn't like tardiness."

The way one-half of your brothers send you sly looks while the other half glares daggers at Mattheo as the two of you join your family at the breakfast table makes you want to be swallowed up whole by the ground.

"Slept well?", muses Felix as he peels a tangerine and gives his wife the segments.

Pursing your lips, you wait until both your parents aren't looking before flipping him off. He returns the gesture, only to get whacked by his wife — who in turn winks at you.

As Mattheo tilts his head towards you and as he parts his lips to say something, Victor calls out, "Hey! No canoodling at the breakfast table! Felix and Jean were bad enough, we don't need to experience you two being disgusting too."

"Hey!", both you and Felix call out, offended. Felix because he and his wife were called disgusting, and you because of the accusation of canoodling while you were literally doing nothing.

As you and your siblings bicker — because let's be fair, Felix needs to pull Herbert and Danny into the argument — Mattheo looks around the table with a fond smile.

It's nice to see how your family is. Even while you bicker and pester each other, he can see you hold so much love for each and every one of your brothers. And they do for you. And now he can see certain traits that you do that come from your parents or that all the Hufflepuff siblings do.

It's nice. It makes him jealous deep down.

When you notice Mattheo's faraway look on his face, you reach under the table to hold his hand. You give him a squeeze and in return, you get a smile. A genuine one luckily.

The two stay like that until it's finally time to go. After all, you have so much homework to do.

Your mom hugs you with tears in her eyes, having always found it difficult to let her babies go. She also gave Mattheo a tight hug and made him promise to come back another time. Maybe for the summer holiday, he can join you and your family at your vacation home — the idea was protested with grumbles from most of your brothers.

Your father pinches your cheeks before clapping Mattheo on his back and shaking his hand. "It was nice meeting you, Mattheo. Take good care if my daughter, will you?"

"I wouldn't dare otherwise", he smiles while reaching for your hand.

Waving goodbye, the two of you walk back to the portkey. And with a final deep breath, you touch the small cup and get sucked in a portal.

With a slight stumble, the floor changes from grass to the creaking floorboards of Sprout's office. You manage to catch yourself by the desk.

Having let go of your hand, Mattheo takes out his wand while he walks towards the door. He peaks his head out and looks around the corridor. Once he closes the door, he casts a locking and silencing charm upon it.

"What are you doing?", you ask laughing as he slowly turns around.

Mattheo says nothing but strides towards you. Taking your face in his hands, your breath hitches as his thumb rubs circles over your cheeks. Your eyes flicker over his face as you recognise the look in his eyes. It's the same as last night.

"Matt", you whisper, pressing your forehead against his.

He silences a groan by biting his bottom lip, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. "Tell me now if you don't want this. Tell me and I will stop. But once... I can't stop- won't stop. You fill my every thought, awake or at night."

You trail one hand up his body and place it on his shoulder, moulding your body against his as he presses you against the desk, his own hands simultaneously travelling down your body. He grabs the backs of your thighs and hoists you up the desk.

A surprised yelp escapes your lips and Mattheo seizes the opportunity to crash his lips against yours. His eyes close shut as he laces his fingers into your hair, holding your head in place to deepen the kiss.

You moan as you grind against him. Mattheo's all-consuming, all over. You feel and smell nothing else than him. One of his hands is in your hair while the other travels down your side towards your knee. How he grabs the flesh of your thigh to pull you even closer ─ if that is even possible.

Wrapping your arms around him, you throw your head back as his lips travel from the corner of your mouth towards your neck. He peppers open-mouthed kisses, running his tongue over your skin and sucking softly. You bite your bottom lips so as not to sound too desperate.

While his lips assault your neck, Mattheo's hand has travelled from your knee up your thigh to underneath your skirl and his middle finger toys with the elastic of your underwear.

Your body moves like it has a mind of its own and your legs open further to give him room to slip his hand beneath the fabric.

As he explores and rubs slow circles on your clit, he groans loudly. "Gods", he breathes out, his forehead resting against your shoulder and his eyes trained on the movements of his fingers hidden under the fabric of your panties.

"Matt... please", you beg, squirming at the teasing touch.

As if your plea snaps him out of a daze, he rips his hand away from your core ─ earning a desperate whine from you ─ and he pushes your underwear down your legs, stuffing it in his back pocket.

He pulls your hips to the edge of the table while he drops to his knees. Looking up at you through his lashes, asking your permission to continue.

"Mattheo I swear if you don't soon- OH!" You moan loudly as he licks a stripe up your pussy. Your hands shoot to his curls and you pull on them as he continues his ministrations, pulling moan after moan from you.

His lips wrap around your clit and you swear that you see stars. A finger prods at your entrance, slipping in easily with how wet you are. Soon, a second finger gets added and you can't help yourself. "I could eat you for lunch", he groans.

"Please Mattheo... please!"

With one last kiss, he pulls away and looks up at you, his mouth and chin glistening. "What is it, baby?" He leans his head against your thigh while his thumb rubs lazy circles around your clit.

You groan and whine, writhing under his heavy gaze and stimulation. "I... please- do something. I feel so..."

He pouts, speeding up his fingers. "Do something? Okay." He rips his fingers away and you feel like you could die.

"Not that!", you hiss, glaring at him.

Mattheo chuckles and rises from his kneeled position. "You're oh so cute when frustrated, love." He grabs your cheeks with one hand and pushes his soaked fingers into your mouth.

The taste of your own arousal dances on your tongue and you moan, closing your eyes and sucking on his digits. Mattheo can't help but watch you with fascination as you hold his gaze.

You grab his wrist and pull his fingers away with one last kiss. "Fuck me, Mattheo Riddle. Fuck me so good that I forget that our relationship used to be fake." You use his own words, which earns you a growl.

Mattheo grabs your hips and turns you around so that your ass is up in the air and your chest laying on the desk. He pushes the hem of your skirt up so you're fully exposed. A groan escapes him while Mattheo grabs two hands full of your asscheeks and pulls them to the side.

One hand leaves your skin and you hear the metallic sound of a belt buckle before a zipper. You look over your shoulder and see that he has pushed his pants just down enough to free himself. He strokes his length a couple of times before lining up with your entrance.

With one fluid trust, he's fully inside you. You grip the edge of the desk and a loud moan rolls from your lips. You're so full. So filled to the brim.

Mattheo swears he's in heaven. Your pussy is pure ecstasy. "So... tight", he says with a clenched jaw, trying his best not to immediately spill inside of you.

Rolling your hips against his, you look over your shoulder with your bottom lip between your teeth. Mattheo has his eyes closed and his head thrown back. The grip on your hip is bordering on bruising but it feels so good.

You can't help the moans coming out of your mouth when he bottoms out before pulling out of you completely and plunging back in. It shocks your entire body and Sprout's desk he has you folded over.

A hand travels down and you roll lazy circles over your clit for extra stimulation, his own hand engulfs yours and moves in sync with you.

It makes your body buzz and you feel the end coming closer and closer. Squirming underneath him, stars flood your vision and soon you feel yourself teetering over the edge.

Mattheo, feeling your pussy convulse around him, pulls you up and presses you against his chest. He captures your lips in a fiery kiss and helps you ride out your orgasm.

"Shit", he curses under his breath, the squelching sound of your cum sending shivers down his spine. "I don't know how much longer I can hold it."

"Cum in me", you moan, arching your back.

You don't have to say that a second time because Mattheo swears he's in heaven and cums almost immediately with a loud grunt, his head thrown back. You moan with him and he holds the both of you still.

The two of you stay like that until he has gone soft and you are starting to cramp. As he pulls out, you feel a dollop of his cum run down your leg. Mattheo drops to his knees and licks it up.

"No", you squirm, feeling so overstimulated that even the thought of his tongue touching you makes your pussy twitch.

He helps you up on the desk and cleans you up with a towel he conjured. "How are you feeling?"

"Good", you smile, "Tired. Spend."

Mattheo returns your smile as he pulls you closer for a kiss. Once he has enough, he presses his forehead against yours. "Come to my game tomorrow."

You smile, wrapping your arms around his neck. "And do what? Watch my house beat yours?", you tease.

"You could sit there all prettily in my jersey while watching me beat up your ex."

A laugh escapes you. "That way to original deal wasn't it? You distract my parents while I distract Malcolm. All so Slytherin can win the house cup."

Mattheo smirks. "You know it, baby." He takes your face and traces your lips with his thumb.

"And after that?" You lean into his touch.

"After that, I am going to fuck you silly in the locker room showers and make you moan my name so loud everybody knows you're mine."

And he did just that. With his knuckles still bloody from punching Malcolm in the face — nearly earning a suspension when he almost didn't stop — he holds your hands in a tight grip as he ploughs roughly into your cunt as the water from the shower makes his sweater cling to your skin.

And you bet the school did know your two definitely were an item after that.

Tag list (bold means I couldn't tag you): @mylosz0 @kermits-bitch @jolly4holly @daisiesformylove @frogtape @dancing-inasnowglobe @slytheos @undercover-smutlover @reverse-soe @nikkissecretlibrary @moon-struck-meraki @bengbengbengi @justhavingsomefun1 @itsamusical4lifee @genshingeeksworld @y0urm0m12 @alnitakstarsky03 @mel-vaz @slytherinboysappreciation @sailtomarina @bubybubsters @jasmine2105 @abaker74 @lovelyygirl8 @vickykazuya @eltrss @llpovi @m1kasawps @sol3chu @ledtassoo @itsarajr @glittervame @glittervame @mjlock @universallyblizzardlove @hoeforvinniehackerrr @iamkaku @elltheawkward @hey-there9-its-me @mattheosangel13

[dark-fics-4-you]

In crocodile tears, would coryo pretend to be some hero or something when he gets reader some medical help or like calls for help for her because I know reader would have to go get some medical help for her injuries, like would he say he found her like that and just stays by her side and quietly whisper to her that he can and will get away with his crime and will do much worse to keep his goodboy™️ image up

Or would he just leave her there to let her think about what he said and what he's done and like kinda talks to someone else about his victory and then they walk back towards reader and find her all fucked out and traumatized and coryo just acts all surprised and asks the other person to go get help while he 'takes care' of her before like the authorities or like the ambulance and tells her to stay silent and to just play along so that he could find some way to fix his mess

And if he does find some way to frame someone else for what he did to reader, would reader's parents thank him over and over again and like pressure reader to invite him over or something (y'know just so that coryo can see how similarly they grew up or something, also how furious would he be if he found out that maybe reader is actually just 'better' than him)

Sorry this was kinda long and scrambled up but I've been thinking about crocodile tears all day and I'm geeking out over your fics omg 😭

Please don’t apologize for how long it is, I loooove detailed asks <333

Crocodile Tears drabble

cw: noncon oral m!recieving, noncon kissing, gaslighting, manipulation, physical abuse

I think Coriolanus would 100% try to play himself off as the hero. This is the same night that his mentee won the Hunger Games. Everyone is already celebrating him, and then he reports that he not only found Reader, but that he helped ward off her attacker??? He would eat that attention right the fuck up.

Of course before this happened he would set the record straight with you, maybe he’d do it while he was pushing his cock deep into the back of your throat. “You’re not going to- fuck- you’re not going to tell anyone that this happened, do you understand?”

You looked up at him through teary eyes as his hand wrapped around your throat, urging you to slide your lips up and down his length faster. He couldn’t contain his groans as he watched the saliva drip down the corners of your mouth as you sloppily took all of his cock.

His voice was breathy, and his eyes were fixed on watching you. A far cry from the classmate he had admired many times before tonight, now you looked a mess, lips puffy and eyes red and tear filled. Coriolanus loved how pathetic you looked now. He wondered if you would ever dare to talk back to him again.

“If you ever tell anyone about tonight or about what happened during the Games, I swear to god Y/N, I will fuck you so hard that you’ll be begging me to treat you as nice as I did tonight,” he sneered at you and your stomach turned at his threat.

For a moment, Coriolanus really wanted to cum all over your face. He imagined forcing you to leave the building with his sticky seed dripping down your face and tits, he wanted you to feel humiliated as you walked past all of your classmates.

He knew that the rumors would spread like wildfire, your reputation would be ruined. On top of your friends either witnessing it firsthand, all of your professors would find out no doubt.

However, much more appealing was the idea of Coriolanus coming to your aid, of him saving you from an unknown attacker. If the entire Academy already thought he was a victor, why stop now?

After he came down your throat and forced you to swallow it all, you were surprised when he hurriedly pulled your clothes back on to your limp body, before dressing himself as well.

You were still too dazed to protest when he pulled you up, wrapping an arm around your waist and walking towards the party.

You felt so out of it, and your memory after leaving the control room was spotty, but you remembered seeing concerned classmates and hearing Coriolanus explain that he had rescued you from an attacker and that you needed medical attention.

You also didn’t miss all of your classmates thank Coryo for saving you.

Don’t think for a second that he would leave your side, opting to ride in the ambulance with you, identifying himself as “Y/N’s boyfriend,” and holding your hand the entire way. The EMT’s thought he was whispering words of encouragement and that your panicked look was only due to your injuries and the trauma from the night, but it was actually because of the threats he was calmly hissing into your ear.

“Remember, you didn’t recognize the guy and you didn’t get a good look at him,” he raised an eyebrow and leered over you, “right?”

You nodded, trying not to attract any attention.

“And you don’t even want to press charges, right?” He purred in your ear, hand snaking to the back of your neck and clamping down. You tensed when you felt him grip the back of you neck harder, trying to get a small reaction from you that only he would notice. “Better to just try to move past all of this.”

When you finally arrived at the hospital and got wheeled to a room, you were greeted by your parents immediately, who tearfully attempted to talk with you.

You had only just opened your mouth to speak when Coriolanus interrupted you, “I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Y/L/N, she’s not in any condition to be talking right now.”

“And just who the hell are you?” Your father demanded of the unfamiliar blond.

“I’m Coriolanus Snow, I saved your daughter tonight,” his head was held high and when he started recounting his twisted version of the events that had occurred tonight, only you could have spotted the devilish gleam in his eyes. “She’s lucky I got there when I did,” he concluded, “I just can’t imagine what might have happened to my Y/N…”

“Wait, what do you mean by ‘my Y/N?’” Your mother asked, looking up at Coriolanus incredulously.

“Well, I wish I was telling you under better circumstances, but,” he cleared his throat, pretending to be embarrassed, “Y/N and I have been dating since the day of our tribute assignments.”

When your parents immediately changed their tone and began heaping thanks and praises onto ‘your boyfriend,’ the man who had just raped you so brutally, he had sent you to the hospital, you felt like you could be sick, and the nausea swirling in your stomach had you reaching for the trash can by your bed and hurling the remains of what was left in your stomach into the bucket.

Coriolanus dotted on you, rubbing your back and whispering words of encouragement loud enough that your family could hear. His faux concern for you was so sickening, you would have thrown up again if you had anything left in your system.

You were in the hospital for 2 excruciating days, and several of your classmates came to visit, all of them bringing flowers or candy or other gifts, but you never got a moment alone with them because Coriolanus stayed by your side the entire time.

When your nosey peers asked you or Coriolanus to recount what had happened, Coriolanus would shut them down, insisting that neither of you wanted to talk about it for your sake.

And while it was true that you weren’t anywhere near being able to talk about what happened that night, that didn’t mean that you wanted him literally at your bedside and never leaving you alone with anyone, not even your family.

If they asked for time alone with you, his grip on your hand would tighten and you knew you had no choice but to tell them that you wanted him to stay in your room, “Mother, I- I just want him here right now, I would feel too anxious if he left.”

They always obliged, never forgetting to thank Coriolanus any chance they got, and by the time you were discharged and you thought you were finally going to have a moment alone to breathe, you were feeling more than ready for some space away from the horrible man.

However, to your horror, you realized that your family had taken what you had said in the hospital after being coerced by Coriolanus too literally.

When he followed you to the car, you thought he was just saying goodbye until he climbed into the backseat with you and you gawked at him before looking over at your parents.

“Oh yeah, we forgot to mention,” your mother warmly replied, “Coriolanus offered to come to our apartment for a few days to help take care of you. We figured it would be good, considering how much he helps your anxiety.”

You felt your stomach drop, a pit of anger and disappointment blossomed in your gut and it took everything in you to force yourself to smile and thank your parents.

Coriolanus’ hand squeezed yours and you tried your best not to cry.

After you arrived at the apartment, Coriolanus helped you out of the car, making you lean on him for support as he helped you to the entrance to the building.

The blond was taken aback by the street you lived on. It was just a couple blocks away from his, and he had walked past these apartments many times, completely unaware that you lived here. It was a modest apartment building, honestly not much better than the one Coriolanus lived in.

But how could this be? Wasn’t your family wealthy at least? As he made his way up the stairs, supporting your weight as you leaned against him with his arm firm around your waist, he couldn’t help but compare all of the similarities to his own apartment.

Hell, if anything your apartment may have been a tad smaller than the Snow’s, although yours was much tidier.

It was around dinnertime when you had arrived and you had just wanted to take a nap before eating, but instead you were treated to some excruciating alone time with Coriolanus, during which he lay in your bed next to you, holding your stiff, nervous body close to him and running his hands over the goosebumps that decorated your skin. Your breath caught every time he paused over one of the bruises that he had left on you, and you winced when he would press the pads of his fingers onto them, silently threatening you.

It felt surreal laying in your bedroom, the place that was supposed to be your safe space, with Coriolanus, knowing that he could overpower you and fuck you at any moment if he wanted. And that fear was exactly why you didn’t try to get away.

You winced when his soft lips came to your bruised neck and he kissed and sucked at the tender skin. The way he had one of your hands pinned, fingers digging in to your sore wrist, reminded you of the first night he assaulted you and you tried to blink away the tears forming in your eyes as panic rose in your chest.

“Relax, Y/N,” Coriolanus whispered against your throat between sloppily nipping at your skin. “I’m not going to do anything to you tonight, baby. Gonna wait till you’re all healed up so you can feel every fucking inch of my cock dragging along your walls.”

You let out a quiet sound at his words, but it was hard to tell if it was a sob or a moan and Coriolanus felt his cock throbbing against the material of his pants.

“Although,” he thought aloud, looking down on you and admiring your pretty, plump lips, which were glistening, wet with a mix of saliva and your tears, “maybe I should give you a reminder of what I could do to you if you decided to feel brave and blab about that night, hm?”

You fearfully shook your head and you were about to protest when your mother knocked on your door, letting you know that dinner was ready.

You looked to Coriolanus and he nodded with annoyance after a few moments of hesitation, allowing you to respond, “Okay! Thank you, we’ll be there in a minute.”

He sighed in frustration but got up and began pulling his shirt back on before he glanced over at your teary eyes and messy hair.

“Clean yourself up in the bathroom, you look pathetic,” he ordered and you ran some cold water on your face to try to make the puffiness go down.

When he was satisfied with your appearance, you dressed, trying to swallow your discomfort before you left the room, but when you sat down at the table with your parents for dinner, you still couldn’t believe how it felt to be eating family dinner with that man.

As Coriolanus regaled your parents with stories from the Academy and lies about how you had started dating, you realized that tears had begun falling past your waterline again.

And no one at the table noticed or said anything about it.

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin: Episode 8 "Great or Little Thing" Series Finale Breakdown

So first and foremost I need to give a shout-out to everyone who's been following this with me and helped me week after week process and articulate this show, this brilliant Penguin Braintrust without which I would be incredibly lost on how to even begin breaking this thing down this way: @davidmann95, @wil4x, @book--wyrm and my friend Lucas who is not on Tumblr.

And so we're here at last, in the end of the show. This took forever. I need a goddamn break. This isn't enough and will never be enough but it'll have to do. So let's get to the episode that has had the world joining hands in the unanimous urge to see the absolute shit kicked out of Oswald, and has made the character at last earn this:

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 3) (Episode 4) (Episode 5) (Episode 6) (Episode 7)

So who would have guessed that cartoon dirtbag Rex Calabrese was still gonna turn out to be less of a cartoon dirtbag than Oz the moment we stop seeing him through Oz's eyes. Still a terrible person by every metric, but terrible in the same way a lot of Sopranos characters are terrible: this is, at the end of the day, a job, and you can talk to them, you can sit at a table to get down to business with them, and you probably know people in your life like them, and maybe you can even count of them to get real and even help you when the chips are down, even if it doesn't mitigate everything else that they are or do. At the very end, he was neither the benevolent god-king that Oz saw him as, nor was he the absurd dirtbag gangster we had him pegged as - there was never anything exceptional about Rex Calabrese, he's just a real criminal. Maybe the realest in the show.

I said in the last post that Francis burned with hate at everyone in the world except the person who most ruined her life and haha WOW was I wrong, because it turns she's known the entire goddamn time, and quite possibly no one has ever hated him more than Francis.

Most people in the show who hate Oz do so because he's a destructive bastard who craps on their lives directly, or because he's a lying sneaky fuck who does nothing while their lives are ruined, and Francis has had to deal with both longer than anyone else. I can't possibly count every single way this wildly recontextualizes every single interaction, every moment, everything that Francis has shown us and done since the first episode, because I'd have to recap EVERY scene and line of dialogue she has and we still have so much else to get through.

Why was Francis was so effectively able to withhold affection and hold his feet to the fire and give him that bottomless pit of yearning in his stomach that's driven him to move mountains in pursuit of it? Because Francis wouldn't have loved him even if he gave her the entire world at age 12. She never had any affection or love left for him. Oz was always chasing nothing.

And all along it was Rex who shaped the entire course of Oswald's life, as well as prefiguring his dynamic with Victor, with a single conversation. Oswald spend his childhood wanting for Rex Calabrese to notice and like him and be his friend, and he has no idea how much Rex actually affected his life.

That fateful night at Monroe's was never the feel-good story about his Ma summoning the willpower to live by dancing away the grief, and it was never even just the night of the eternal promise that Oz thinks back to, it was a fucking trap to kill Oz. Nothing he has in his life is real, nothing he says is true, he has never not lived in complete total delusion.

The sheer disgust in Deirdre O'Connell's face at the "I do too". How much of her personality we completely understand was born from this absolute resentment she's nursed for decades towards Oz.

And this rotten little turd comes at her with a perfect speech that hits her every insecurity and bitterness and spite and situation and convinces her to give him another chance. The nature versus nurture thing again - Oswald was shaped by hardship, by decades of hard work and neglect, by the total absence of his mother's love while in turn being forced to live in stunted childhood dedicating himself to always taking care of her, and maybe what we're seeing here is heavily distorted by Francis's POV - or maybe he was always a little monster, because this guy talking to her is The Penguin, the same guy doing the same things in the same way, either way it doesn't matter. Again, born fucking ready.

So now we see our three major supporting characters - Sofia, Victor and Francis - all of them have shown that they had a chance to walk away from Oz, to not let him ruin their lives further. All of them could have left Oswald behind, and all of them should have left Oswald behind, but they had to come back and justify the choice to do so, they had to get satisfaction, it couldn't have been for nothing. Victor had his car and a girlfriend in a bus waiting for him, Sofia had a jet to take her to Italy, and Francis had Rex Calabrese ready and waiting to put him down without a word. All of them had a chance to get out of the show and never look back, but like Oz, they had to rectify and overcorrect for an insult.

Sofia can't walk away from Gotham without punishing Oz for turning her in, for killing Alberto and further lying to her, she can't accept that this man, this embodiment of Carmine's legacy and hold over her, is still out there unpunished getting away with what he's done. Victor can't walk away from Gotham knowing that his parents did everything right and still died for nothing, that every hurtful thing Oz said was right, he can't let "They don't give out awards for dying in the projects" be the last word in his and their lives. And Francis can't walk away from Oz, who killed her two sons and keeps lying about it, who ruined her life and now keeps promising he will take care of her and acting like everything will be fine, she can't let this pass even if she can't kill him either, and so she'll make him give her the world and die trying.

The tragedy of what happened is what hurt/broke them - the added insult of what Oz said or did is what they just can't live with. It can't be for nothing.

Goddamnit it, it was really just too telegraphed for it to not happen the way it did.

I fucking knew it the moment the episode started and we got the grungy boss orchestral take on the funny Penguin chords that we were in for some calamitous shit.

We see at first that, in spite of seemingly failing, Vic has graduated to the point he can give his own speeches, gain his own allies, run his own cons - he's not just Oz's proxy, but will manage to convince the others to become such as well, and he's coming at this from a place of complete sincere belief in everything that Oz says, all of the man of the people rhetoric he will so thoroughly pervert and then sell to the people actually responsible for everything he told Victor he was fighting against.

Zeke walks up to him nearly crying about how Sofia blew it all up and Vic instantly asks back where's Oz - not because he doesn't care about Crown Point, but he's already processed it and has already learned with Oz how to just barrel forward regardless, now it's time to get to work. Victor who so readily throws himself into rescuing Oz again and again. Victor who's lost everything - he doesn't have his family, he doesn't have Graciela, he doesn't have the other mobs backing him up, and right now he doesn't even have Crown Point anymore, all he has is Oz.

The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul's strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife - The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Sofia dressed in two thematically appropriate outfits - the red scarf echoing both the first outfit we see her in, back to covering her neck but in control of her own collar, and the outfit we see her the farthest back in time with at the start of Episode 4, and with her final crimson fur coat outfit accompanying her final greatest triumph and ultimate defeat in the show. Not only that, but in this episode she also gets to perform characteristically appropriate stylized torture - holding a family intervention and therapy session with mafioso torture tactics to try and wrench the truth out of her victimizer, enacting calculated sadistic yet righteous justice via psychological breakdown, and ultimately allowing the woman he victimized and wronged to take her killshot at him.

See, it's not just that Sofia Gigante is a Batman Villain, or that she's well passed the threshold of supervillain. Cristin Milioti doesn't play Sofia like she's a new character, which she basically is, and she isn't just playing a tortured gangster lady protagonist dipping into camp villain territory, which she also is - she plays Sofia Gigante like she's been a Batman Rogues headliner for decades now stepping into the spotlight once again, like she's the dark modern revamp of someone Adam West would have thought and she's just always been around showing up in stuff along with The Penguin, like she's only not fighting or teaming up with Two-Face in this because he's not here yet. It is crucially important that Sofia passes every standard of Batman Villain imaginable with flying colors, in part because it helps to reinforce that The Penguin is a monster all his own.

Even here, with as much power as she's ever possibly held over him, reduced him to a whimpering begging mess to be killed off in a second, she is so shocked at the sheer brazen selfishness and delusion and level of bullshit on display, that even now he won't break character and think about his actions and admit to what he's done not even to save his own mother from mutilation, that she just loses the script entirely. Her entire show of power collapses and she physically recoils from sheer disgust at just how low Oswald is, at just how much he lacks the ability to even suffer for what he's done. Realizing that there is simply not enough of a soul in this filthy beast to even torture, and that however much she hates Oswald for ruining her life, someone had a prior claim all along.

Eve - Sofia - Francis in the end united in, however much they may dislike each other, however different their circumstances may be, there is nothing they could possibly do to each other that would be worse than what Oswald has done to all of them, joined in silent agreement that their rage ultimately belongs in a bullet fired at Oz's head and that they deserve their kill shot at this man.

"I had enough to give, Oswald".

This really is gonna be the high point of Francis's life from this point on.

Aw man, I liked Sofia's scruffy dirtbag detective, I wanted him to stick around as one of the reocurring characters like the movie cops

Oh Victor, sweet kind Victor, you couldn't possibly ask for anything worse in the entire world.

Oz feebly already beginning to lie and spin his new version of the events, that Sofia stabbed him and fucked up with Ma, and here comes Victor with the reversal of their dynamic, seeing this guy who's been brought low by the oppressive force looming over his life that he must defeat (because all that Victor knows about Sofia at this point is that she used to be Oz's boss and is now out to kill them, that she is scary as hell, and regardless of whether or not she was the Hangman, she just bombed his fucking neighborhood) and reaching out to him with a speech about solidarity and dignity and self-worth and picking yourself up by your fucking bootstraps to save the day. And Oz responds by coaching him on how to be a better bullshitter. Because to Oz, he knows the playbook by heart, but Victor meant it all.

Victor rebuilds Oz from basically nothing by providing him with the validation that he so desperately always craved and never got, saying all the things he always wanted to hear, poised so they can finish this together, poised to give him not only the army he asked for, but a full-blown revolution, and he never once asks for anything in return. Just, goddamnit this isn't hurting any less.

"She, sh-she'll never look at me again, all right?....unless I get this done. Got a promise to keep." Maybe the one and only time his mask ever fully cracks. For a second. He rebuilds it right back up and gets to work, but it cracked. He knows what he's doing, up until the moment he doesn't. It's that simple.

A lot of what drives Oz is acceptance, and a lot of what drives him is his desire to be accepted in worlds that have been declared, by how they run themselves and by the people that inhabit these worlds, as worlds that he was never going to be included in. And one of those worlds is the hierarchy and the hoi polloi of the political realm and the power within the political realm because he understands that all politics are corrupt essentially, and the damage that he could do then in being part of a political infrastructure of Gotham interests him. I thought it would be nice if, in that time jump, he had been invited to maybe a gala or two, you know what I mean? It'd be awkward. He'd be slurping out of the fucking teacup, there'd be stains on the table, he wouldn't really fit in, but he’d fucking love being there. - Colin Farrell

Mirroring the scene in Episode 01 where he adjusts himself next to the car, scuffing himself up to look like the sleazy funnyman the Falcones keep around for kicks, now he's dressing up as much as he can and asking Victor for input, because he truly values what the kid thinks and, goddamnit.

"C'mahn, I don't bite", pfft yeah, not in this movie universe anyway. And to the same guy you did the nose-gushing-blood bit to, even.

Minutes inside of City Hall and he already parks his ass right on Bella Real's seat - not as any kind of intentional slight against her, it's just naturally where he goes to, even before the scene ends and we see his new plans start to come to fruition.

Guy who takes offense at Viti calling Sofia a psycho and then goes up to Councilman Hady talking about the unhinged loony bin broad who went "full psycho" that he's handing to him on a platter, pointedly calling her Falcone.

At first I thought it was funny that Sal Maroni was getting blamed here for Bliss and the underground lab, but then I remembered that he was actually the one who introduced Drops to Gotham and the whole epidemic that became, so if anything it is an extremely easy part of the story to sell, even without his body being down there and all.

"You're gonna have some trouble, Oz" - pointedly smiling and calling him Oz instead of Oswald as he had up to this point, because by that point he's already a crony and already willing to work with this guy handing him all these miracles.

"You wanna be welcome? You gotta look, clean" Yes Father Pal, I Shall Become A Capitalist Caricature

You can see in the walk around, in his look at Bella Real and the mayor's office high up above and the steps, how little Ozzie's gears turn once again and rebuild his life after losing the streets and everything that happened with Ma - This is the next nest, this is the next throne, this is next schmuck I gotta cozy up to, this is the next boss looking down on me that I gotta destroy, there's the reward waiting for me if I do. This is the one that matters, I did everything in the shit and now I'm gonna get me sum goddamn respeck, Feh Ma of course.

And before all of this we see Sofia's next move, showing the ways in which she is good at this, the ways in which she truly is something outside of the worldview of what these gangsters are used to, and why she is going to lose. "Because I can". She is good at commanding a room and promising rewards beyond the wildest dreams of these street crimelords because she can offer everything they want and lose nothing she cares about for it, she will hand them everything and dip because she can, and she is going to lose because she can lose. Because she still thinks there is an end in sight for her, she thinks she will get to walk away from this universe and go meet a happy ending at a cafe in Florence.

It's not just that Sofia was born into privilege and never really lived in Gotham and could just hop onto a plane out of here anytime, it's also that she has room in her life for introspection, self-awareness, consideration towards others, and all those things that come easier when you're "born full", and not when you're the starving hustler for whom leaving the city was never an option even if he had all the money in the world, the hungry animal who wants this, wants everything, harder than anyone has ever wanted anything. The guy who has no room for anything else in his brain other than a perpetual bullshit generator set to a 24/7 chorus of "I GOTTA WIIIIIIN"

Another element to her that I really love is, she's good at this. She knows she's good at this, she was supposed to take over the family. She may not know the ins and outs of the game as it currently stands, but she is good at this. Some of it is, I think that's the only world she knows, and some of it is there's something in there, that's always been there, and she believes it is rightfully hers. There's an element of, "I need to have made it worth it for something", and if that means power, then okay. - Cristin Milioti

There’s a level for both of them that they enjoy each other’s suffering, and that sort of leads to Sofia’s downfall. If she didn’t need to see Oz suffer she might have been free. And she really gets in her own way in that regard and largely because Oz is this crutch that she just cannot let go of. - Lauren LeFranc

And here we get to the end of season 1 of HBO's The Sofia Show, the bittersweet in hindsight but extremely cathartic torching of the set as a last hard-earned spiritual victory by our hard-done-by lady protagonist. All of her family is dead, the city is out for her blood, she gathered all the remaining criminals for One Last Job with everything on the line, and she is having a very fun time with her montage destroying her home and family name beyond recovery. She is going to finish her character arc, get to finally kill her former comedy sidekick turned mortal nemesis, and hop on a plane to The White Lotus resort straight away into greener (if only marginally less fucked up) genre territory away from this ugly nightmare city. Alas, this is not The Sofia Show, and it's time for her theme suite to catch up to her once again and tell us of how very badly this is all going to go for her.

And she can't even be that shocked, when the high of burning it all down goes away, when she sees that old Ozzie Cobb wriggled his way out of this jam regardless and is now coming at her with a speech, she can't even react to it. Deep down she knows how the rest of the night is going to go. She may not have expected Arkham outright, but she was braced for a loathsome fate.

It rules so much they give him a big fat fight the power speech with a bloody revolution montage, and we can only sit there aghast with Sofia at the sheer audacity of him to act like this, like a man of the people, thinking he truly has the right to be talking like this and to her of all people.

And now we see how Oz won the gang war, and the next domino to fall on the downfall of Gotham City, and the first effect of his own rise to power: like The Riddler, he has toppled the order of things and he has turned people into extensions of himself, Victor being the first and the one who gave him this revolution, of all the little mini Penguins out there devouring the social structure of Gotham crime forever. You kill the boss, you become the boss now. Everyone can bleed and everyone can be killed and everyone must be killed in the quest to the top, no handrails or codes, they wouldn't invite him and so he crashed. After he unified the criminal underdogs, Victor rallied the underdogs beneath the underdogs, and now the streets are a jungle where there will never be an end to the wars over who gets to be atop the food chain, because they are all fighting to see who gets to be the next Penguin.

For decades people have written Oswald Cobblepot as a creep and a sleaze and an incel who hurts/kills women for rejecting him, or who is chronically insecure about them and I can very confidently say nobody ever did anything half as horrible and half as truthful and half as meaningful as LeFranc did here. We see the other reason why it was so imperative to her that Oswald not be a misogynist, and it has nothing to do with just making him more likeable or sympathetic or honorable. We get in this episode the pay off to the thoughtline: okay, he's actually a gangster who respects women, he does not act like every other prestige drama gangster who ever lived, we are going to center women in this show and he will treat them with respect - now let's watch how he HORRIBLY screws them over in the name of this respectful gentleman persona he lives by, let's watch how he betrays them in the ways that matter most, how he even makes them wish they were dead without personally ever lifting a finger to harm them, let's do some grown-up feminist commentary in Batman for a change and highlight the ways in which men profit from belittling and oppressing and destroying women even when they're pointedly not misogynistic and even self-professed genuine allies to them.

And so it is that the only Falcone mobster who isn't misogynistic towards Sofia is the one who screws her the most horribly. He will murder every man he comes across, he will murder every man he could have been and every man who is even marginally better than him in any way, he will push all of his brothers out of the nest and not tolerate any other big shot in town bigger than him and not even the only man, the only person, in town who loves him will be spared. But he is a gentleman, so he leaves the women alive (well, except for Nadia Maroni, but she was a rival big shot and worse, his boss for a day or two, so she obviously had to go eventually).

I thought about his greatest fear, and it made a lot of sense to me that his greatest fear would be that love is transactional. That if he does not achieve a level of power and give Francis certain types of things that he’s promised her she might not love him. And that informs every relationship he has on the show It was always important to me, and this was always part of my initial pitch, that if Oz was to achieve a level of power—and that is something that was not up for discussion, that was my job that I was tasked with for the season—that he has to lose something emotionally. It can’t come without a cost. - Lauren LeFranc

"the crooked politics that have allowed wealthy elites like Sofia Falcone to wreak havoc". Oz has weaponized the status quo against her so throughly that she is going away under the exact same image that she did it the first time, as a privileged serial killer and Falcone. She doesn't even get to have her new name anymore, and the rest of Gotham does not see her as the new and strange and horrific new threat that she embodied in Oz's life - she is going away as just another upper-class monster like her dad.

The triumph that Oswald has fought his entire life for, the Big One that he's scraped and fought and hoped his entire life would happen and he'd get to show his Ma at the end, the thing that he's going to throw a party for at this moment, is just a politician on tv saying things that Oswald claims he told him to say.

All of our 3 major supporting characters will thus reach the high point of their lives, on the moment before it is ripped away and they are destroyed forever. Francis gets to finally spit all of her hatred back to Oz and take her revenge on him, and her babies appear before her alive and unharmed. Sofia gets to burn down her father and his legacy once and for all, and is on her way to kill her nemesis and finally be free of it all. Victor succeeds in helping Oz win, they have revolutionized the gangs and defeated the big bad Falcone and he's done right by his new family what he couldn't do with his old one.

And of course, Oswald finally wins - he is the last man standing, he's defeated his greatest enemy, he is the big shot of Gotham and his victory is, so he claims, right there on the tv for his Ma to see, he can finally get what he's always wanted now - and then he doesn't, and then his soul crumbles, before he finishes the job by murdering his heart.

Oz didn’t need to do that, like it wasn’t actually necessary. In that moment, Victor did not betray him. He did nothing wrong. In fact, the thing that he did “wrong” in Oz’s eyes is that he loves him and that he cares about him and Oz actually cares about Victor. I think by the end Oz sees that as a really big problem because he loves his mother so deeply and Sofia took advantage of that love, and then it became sort of a weakness in his eyes. Victor saw him at his most vulnerable and for Oz to achieve the power that he thinks he needs, he can’t have that level of humanity. He can’t have that heart with him anymore. So he stifles his own heart. He kills it. - Lauren LeFranc

When he said to Vic in the sewer, “They'll tell stories about us one day, kid,” he meant it. At that stage, he actually saw that he could rise and Vic could come with him. It's only when the vulnerability and the shock of his mother being taken from him, and the place of vulnerability and danger that puts him in, that he realizes there's no more love, there's no more affection, there's no one else I'm going to have in my life that can lead me to such vulnerability as my mother has led me to or as this kid could potentially lead me to. - Colin Farrell

He's not relishing being horrible. When he realizes, "Oh God, Victor makes me vulnerable. I can't have that shit anymore." The way that Lauren wrote it, and the way Colin played, there's such sadness under the horror. You're like, oh my God, how fucked up do you have to be that the one person who you feel you have any connection with now, you have to snuff out because it makes you weak. What happened to you? - Matt Reeves

"You think she forgives me?" Once again, the mask cracks. Only around Victor. Only because of Victor. And he can't have that again.

And thus we get to the final parallel between our 3 side characters - that in the end, all they did was serve Oz's own rise to power, and hand him the world in exchange for their lives. All they were to him were additional steps in the ladder that began with his brothers. Francis gave him his life, his drive, his motivation and eternal justification, the insatiable pit in his gut driving him to do this forever. Sofia got him his promotion to Falcone lackey, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the tools with which he could become an underground boss and rally them, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the keys to his political career on a silver platter. And Victor saved his life, more than once. He helped him, provided the justification he has craved for a lifetime, rebuilt him, gave him his revolution, gave him the streets, and showed him the last thing he needed to kill to make it to the top.

Wow man let me tell my good friend, The Family Butcherer, who butchers every family he gets his hands on whether a crime family or a literal one, how much I think of him as family.

"They don't give out awards for dying in the projects"

Just like with Squid, Vic's emotional intelligence dooms him. He sees this man whom is like family to him brought to his lowest point, crushed beyond measure, in what he assumes was just a phenomenally terrible stroke of fate and not something he had any blame whatsoever for, and reaches out to pat him in the back, emotionally reassure him that it wasn't all for nothing, that his family would surely be proud of him, and that there's things to look forward to.

Vic threw away his chance to walk away into the sunset with Graciela and he just had to come back to save Oz (AND Sofia, the one who'd bomb his neighborhood) from the Maronis, the least of all possible evils in his life and his city and who never even noticed him. Victor only narrowly missed out in 2 situations that Oz would have absolutely left him to die in, so there just had to be a third where he'd die in the absolute worst way possible. Not with Sofia's gunshot to the head, not bombed to rubble along with his neighborhood, no, Mr. Carmine 2 had to make it as painful and intimate as possible.

Vic the only Number Two in town who couldn't kill his boss and in fact never even considered doing so, and so he dies - there is just no room for him anymore, not in Oz's life, nor in the new Gotham that the two built together.

LEFRANC: "You see Oz become this next level monster, I remember the take too. Jennifer and I look at each other, Colin transforms his face in this really remarkable way, that I don't think any of us fully anticipated could be achieved in that way." - The Penguin Podcast Episode 8

I knew that the general sentiment was that, by the end, they kind of wanted to, in a way, kill the Oz that we met in the film. I felt that there was a sense of creative responsibility that leaned towards, “We cannot have this man as a likable character,” which is hard I think they wanted that in the earth by the end of the eight hours. They wanted that RIP. That's gone. I hated that scene. I really did. I was fucking so pissed off. It felt in performing it as — guess what? — you would like it to feel in viewing it. It felt gross, it felt cruel, it felt absolutely insane, and it felt like Oz was reaching a point of no return. - Colin Farrell

So the day after I watched this episode, my friend Lucas messaged me in the afternoon sending me audio messages, "Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! He stole his identity, he didn't even die with his fucking name! They'll never find him! Fuck, goddamnit!" "ELE MORREU COMO INDIGENTE, PORRA" and, yeah. Yeah. That gets to the heart of it.

If Vic was just a guy taking his money, if Vic was purely transactional, if he was just another Link, he'd have made it. Oz wouldn't have given a shit about him, Oz would have died on the sidewalk when the Maronis hit at minimum. All this piece of shit wants is love, and when he gets it, when it's finally non-transactional, from the ONLY person in the entire show who loved him, he has to kill it, he doesn't know how to deal with it, he has to smother his heart.

He has to become Carmine Falcone 2, strangling the poor and vulnerable of Gotham while pinning all of his crimes on Sofia.

Vic just wanted his family back, man. He just wanted a family again, to at least show his family that they didn't die for nothing. The thing that Oz spits in his face as he dies. It wasn't for nothin.

This show has so many dozen little variations of Penguin getting his heart broken and retaliating cruelly, but this one hurts the most partially because it has no basis whatsoever on any pre-existing insult or cruelty, there was nothing that warranted this, and you still get why Oz felt that he had to do it. The lowest, weakest moment of his life, and he can never permit anything like it ever again.

Victor was his heart, and The Penguin remembered that his heart only exists to be broken.

Victor punctures the illusion, and he cannot have that. Everything about The Penguin hinges on that singular fact of his life: he cannot and will not break character. He cannot break character, otherwise he dies, otherwise Gotham City will eat him alive, otherwise he has done it all for nothing. That is the ultimate threat Sofia posed to him, and why his ultimate victory comes only from creating a perfect delusion and spinning everything that happened in service of it. Because all those things said at Monroe's? They weren't true - his Ma, y'know, it was just her disease acting up, that psycho did something to her, she wasn't thinkin straight, and it was really Sofia that stabbed him and did all that fucked up shit, and his Ma is really happy that she got the penthouse in the end and that he didn't put her down, look, she's crying tears of joy even, I gotta keep doing everything for her.

Everything and everyone in his life, he can spin in service of the delusion, they can all play dress-up with him forever, except Victor. Victor may not have the slightest clue as to what Oz actually did, but he's seen too much, he knows he has vulnerabilities, he knows the thing that Oz needs to bury far, far more than all the horrible things he's done. Killing Victor is maybe the one thing that he absolutely cannot in the slightest spin a decent delusion out of, that he did it for him or did it for noble reasons or anything other than out of disgusting self-serving weakness.

But who's Victor? Some kid who died in the projects and didn't even have a name? Someone with nobody left to mourn him, not even a street to get back to, nothing but a guy who's already forgot him?

That Victor Aguilar? Never heard of him

“I will never think my mother doesn't love me. She was having a bad day when she stuck that bottle in me. She was under a lot of pressure. She nearly lost her finger. She stuck a bottle in my belly. It was a bad day. She didn't get a good night's sleep the night before.” It's that kind of thing. He'll make up fucking whatever. He's already lying when he goes, and he's stitching up his belly, and Vic says, “What happened?” And he says, “Sofia, she stuck me with a bottle.” He's already beginning to bury the truth. - Colin Farrell

He needed your love, and then you didn't give it to him, and you didn't obey, and you didn't do those things that he needed, and then you mentally aren't there for him in the way that he needs, but he's got to physically keep you around because he's too weak to not do that. He can't give you the gift that he promised you in Episode Six, he's too weak of a man to do that. And so he needs to hold onto you, but under his terms. - Lauren LeFranc

There's a thing that happened on that last day that made my blood run cold, which was I felt Oz not love me anymore. I felt his coldness, and I think that Francis felt it too, and she always had so much of his attention and so much of his love. I don't even think she realized how much she had until he withdrew it. And when he withdrew it, it was utter and… slightly terrified. I was just lying in that bed, I just felt the love leave the room. It's a real thing, and it's gone, yeah, and I think Francis feels it, too. - Deirdre O'Connell

He's this man who is clawing his way to the top, and I knew he wanted power, but what what does that mean for him? That's where I started to conceive of like, he wants his mother's love, and he wants people's affection. He wants to be revered. That was like the main thrust for me of what defines power for Oz, and then by the end you realize that, when he doesn't get those things, he doesn't get his mother's acceptance, he still gets it. He makes sure he gets it. - Lauren LeFranc

So bowled over and miserable I was that I didn't even notice until later that he was wearing a version of the classic Bronze Age/Triumphant get-up.

If the pattern of his life is unjustifiably cruel retribution for slights and insults, perceived or not, by the end Francis had done it to him as well. That she never loved him and in fact always hated him more than anything and anyone else is the biggest insult of all, and so he punishes her the most cruelly, knowingly or not.

"You are who you are, and you couldn't change if you tried."

He will never stop telling Rex Calabrese stories, he will never stop bringing up his brothers and mom as a sympathy ploy, and even if he will never truly love her again, he will never stop ruining the world in her name, he will never stop, he will never stop, he will never stop.

You had to sit through 8 hours chipping away at all of his fun and charm and wacko comedy antics and motivations and all the scruples and principles that he turns out to have less and less of, until he butchers them all in the very end along with the heart of the show. Penguin burning through all of his lovable quirks and charm, everything that we loved about him in the movie, until he comes through as a black-hearted bastard of unlimited malice who will never stop growing and getting worse and putting more lives in danger. Not only as much of a lowlife backstabber as we initially assumed him to be in the movie, but far worse than what we could have imagined.

I said as much that the first episode marks the transition from The Batman to The Penguin with the titlecard, and this brings it back around. The show dies with Victor, we get Sofia's post-credits Nick Fury Tease with Selina's letter and with Selina's theme playing and a final grace note of hope for Sofia, and thus the only character in the show to end with anything resembling positive, and then we get the first scene of The Batman Part 2. showing us the horrible thing in this world that Batman will have to defeat for us.

RIP Bella Real, we all know this asshole is gonna become mayor, and he's not waiting for the next election.

Credit to @book--wyrm for pointing out one more horrible fucking thing, that at the final dance, his hands are covered in scratches, much like the hands of Carmine Falcone when he comforted Sofia.

“One of the very early things that Lauren pitched was that ending with Eve where she looks like Francis,” said Reeves. “He can’t get what he needed from his mother because she’s no longer in that state because of the dark events and what he’s done, so he recreates it in this other way with Eve, and it’s very disturbing,” said Reeves. “That was something we thought was a great idea and was so emblematic of this guy’s internal state. It’s like, even as he now seems to have gotten that first major step toward being the kingpin, you know that some part of him will never be filled. - Matt Reeves

When I read that, I was like, “Oh my god, we're going full Bates Motel here.” But again, it speaks to what has become a pathological inability to accept the world that he has played such a heavy hand in creating. As far as he's concerned, he's just doing what he needs to do to live the life of a good son. And look, his mother can't talk anymore, so he needs a surrogate. I mean, it would be kept out of the sexual realm — it wasn't about that. It was about the intimacy and the tenderness and the pride that Oz always so deeply needed to feel his mother had for him, and pride in him, that he never really got from her. The one time when he finally can say to her, can go to her bedside and say, “It's done. Everything you said that I was capable of, everything you said that I should aspire to, it's done. I am now the boss. I took it from everyone else.” And he gets nothing back. His mother's already gone. That's just too horrific for him, so he needs a surrogate. He would say to Eve, “Look, I'm grieving. I'm finding it hard to deal with the fact that my mother's alive, but she's not here. She's gone, but she's fully present at the same time, physically, but she's nowhere there. She doesn't recognize me. I don't recognize the woman she's become. Do me a favor. We used to dance together and talk at the end of the night. Would you put on her dress and just let me pretend?” But it was twisted. It was twisted, but I dug it. He needs it from his mom so much. And again, his imagination is so potent that he just cast her as that figure, that most prominent and most powerful figurehead in his life, which has always been his mother. She's got to stay alive. He's got to hear that he did well from her. He's got to hear that she's proud. Look, by the end, he's bananas, as they say in the film. Good cop, batshit cop. At the end, he's batshit. - Colin Farrell

Remember when this show had fun Dolly Parton end credits, remember when this almost looked like it was gonna be fun and light-hearted compared to the movie and The Riddler: Year One

So turns out all along they actually had something real twisted planned with the name Karlo, and the Clayface concept that evokes. Asking his prostitute girlfriend to shapeshift into his crying comatose mom in the room upstairs so he can finally get the dance with her atop the world that he craved his entire life and have her tell him how proud she is that he ruined everything forever.

It is not a good ending, but it is his happy ending. He achieved everything he wanted in the smallest possible amount and at the highest cost imaginable, and thus he burns more than ever to take more and more in the name of a satisfaction he will never, ever have. He ended his arch-nemesis, and he didn't have to kill her, that's not what a gentleman does. He got the streets, and he's poised to take political power, and there is nobody left to care about, nobody except the only person who's ever mattered. He can still keep taking care of Ma as a justification for all the shit he will do now and forever, but he doesn't actually have to take care of her anymore, he doesn't even have to love her or grovel her for validation anymore: He has a Ma who will tell him everything he wants to hear, forever.

Of course, he may not have his three dance partners anymore - his Ma is in a vegetative state, Sofia has been locked away once again, and that kid, what was his name again, ain't around. But then, he will simply move on to new ones: He didn't actually lose his first dance partner, his Ma is fine, look at her telling him how proud she is of him and everything he's done and how unstoppable he is now. And he has a new partner in City Hall who is all too eager to play along to everything he says and does, who will receive and spit back his rhetoric just as Vic did to the streets of Gotham. And if he's defeated his nemesis and dance partner, well, not for long. There's a new one waiting for him. He never wins without losing. He will never again live without his next dance partner there to hound and foil him at every turn. There will always be something in the way.

It was exciting to me, the idea that we’re going to meet Oz as a mobster, and to play him as just a man. There’s nothing fantastical about him. There’s so many people like Oz in our world who hold a lot of power, who also connect with people because they speak, on some level, the truth. They can be charming and engaging, but also really terrifying and calculated, and not necessarily doing what they say that they will do or caring for people in the way that they say that they will. It felt so timely and so important to really engage with a guy like Oz and not turn away from him, but actually turn towards him so we can start to unpack, in our own society, what makes a man like Oz so appealing, and what makes him equally appalling. - Lauren LeFranc

I think Oz has always been someone who believes that everything he’s saying in the moment is true, and he creates worlds and illusions for himself to merit his actions. He does it sometimes very briefly in impulsive moments, and then sometimes more methodically, and in the end the fact that he didn’t get from his mother what he’s always desired isn’t good enough for him. So he has to create this strange fantasy live in this delusion of his own making, and pay Eve to dress as his mother and force her to tell him he she’s proud of him. So mentally, emotionally, Oz is embracing his own delusion. I think, for the audience, I hope they more deeply understand him psychologically and realize that there is a deeply broken man inside. He is violent and problematic and and very emotional. And that’s really the man that will carry into the next film. - Lauren LeFranc

And it has to end in a total reversal of the movie ending - The Batman ends with showing there is a light in the darkness, that this tortured broken man can fix his mistakes and lead us into something better. The Penguin ends by grabbing your face and desperately yelling at you SOMEBODY FUCKING SAVE US, HE WILL ONLY GET WORSE. The Batman ends with telling us Batman can save us all, and The Penguin ends with telling us Penguin will kill every last one of us in real life if he hasn't already, if nobody stops him.

And so I'll leave these last partings words to the Penguin Braintrust as we close off this series - see you all in therapy and in theaters when The Batman: Part 2 drives us all completely insane once more.

@wil4x

I don't think this Penguin is someone Batman can tolerate, I don't think Bruce can ever save Gotham's soul with a force of corruption as big as Penguin taking root in the seats of power. No amount of informant work can justify letting a monster like Penguin stay "King of Gotham". I think there's an argument to be made that Oz is a bigger threat to Batman's overall long-term mission than guys like Joker or Riddler. Those are huge immediate threats, but Penguin does a lot more long-term damage to the very soul of Gotham and its people. As long as The Penguin is on top, there's no hope, Gotham will never not be the most corrupt and nightmarish place on earth with him in charge

@book--wyrm

He will truly climb anything no loss so great it can't be flipped into an asseet A nuke Francis armed out of pain and grief and desperation and despair And poor vic Only wanting to do good And instead he saves gotham’s own typhoid mary of misery

@davidmann95

so the thing is Oz kills hope for Gotham forever in this

he's replacing the mayor who stands for hope at the end of The Batman with a corrupt comics rando built on a lie so he can install himself as the power behind the power forever Batman can't be alluded to in the slightest until the very end because it can't be until there's no lingering 'aw, I don't want my boy to get Batman'ed' it can't be until we understand truly and completely why this man proves the necessity of someone out there to stop him

The other stabs at this with Oswald, from what I’ve seen, are trying to make him low-down and dirty and vile enough to be a ‘proper’ Batman villain. But this already made him low-down and dirty and vile. And made us love him for it. This isn’t about ‘fixing him’, this is about taking him all the way to the top He’d accept no less

This is about making him operatically nightmarish enough to be a guy Batman is going to fight forever

Lucas

VENGEANCE, GET OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

[thenightshadowqueen]

Okay I said I had more to say about Victor and Eli and I’m rereading Vicious again so here we go. (This is going to be a long one.)

Okay. I’m going to try and get my thoughts to be coherent but I’m struggling because oh my fucking god I just want to scream about them. That being said, I’m going to try to make sense, but this is mostly just going to be a rambling rant of all my thoughts of them.

The thing is. The thing is. Victor is obsessive by nature. He picks one thing, and he lives for it. For the majority of Vicious, what he lives for is revenge. He never thought about the after. In Vengeful, his obsession is finding a cure. But back at Lockland, his obsession was Eli. He saw this monstrous thing, hidden under this near-perfect façade, and he was fascinated. Eli “stole” Angie (his previous obsession, from the way he talks about her in the few mentions she gets), and Victor couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry, because he was too interested in Eli.

From what we know of Victor, he almost never finds someone he can tolerate, let alone someone he likes. And that must be desperately lonely, living like that, but he wouldn’t have realised that. Not until Eli. So no wonder he can’t let him go, even after everything. And Victor doesn’t keep grudges. He kills people out of necessity, yes, and practicality, but not out of vengeance. He doesn’t hold on to things. Except for Eli. Because when you have that much love for someone, and you base so much of your life around them, and then they betray you (how Victor sees it), you can’t just let that go. You can’t just move on. Victor didn’t just feel betrayed; he lost his best friend (and the man he was in love with). And that’s not something you can forget.

Now, look at it from Eli’s perspective. He’s spent his whole life trying to mimic human emotions, trying to be like everyone else, trying to bury this thing inside him that doesn’t fit in. And then he meets Victor, and he sees himself. And, slowly, he starts to realise that he can open up. He can be himself. I don’t think most of this was conscious for Eli—he’d spent so long masking that I don’t think he even knew he was doing it anymore—but I think it’s a big part of why he was in love with drawn to Victor. Imagine spending your whole life repressing yourself, and then finally finding someone who not only accepts your sharp edges but craves them. That would be so fucking addicting.

And then Victor kills Angie, and it’s like confirmation of everything Eli was afraid of: that this dark thing in you really is evil. After all, its mirror, your best friend, just murdered your girlfriend. (Again, I don’t think this was conscious for Eli, but I do think it played a role in the path he went down.)

But no one has ever understood either of them like the other did, and no one ever will. And because of that, they’re both so deeply, wholeheartedly obsessed with each other. They spend so much of their time planning to murder each other, trying to impress each other, playing these dark games with each other. Victor could have just sent a message to meet up with Eli, but instead, he set up an elaborate riddle game via the police EO database. Entirely unnecessary, but crucial to them and their deepseated obsession with each other. And Eli played along. And in Vengeful, Eli could have told Stell that they were hunting Victor. But he didn’t. He couldn’t, because he needed to be the one to kill Victor. Victor was his, in whatever way you want to interpret that phrase.

And I guess that’s what it boils down to. Victor is Eli’s, and Eli is Victor’s. His to love, and his to hate, and his to kill. And that is the great tragedy of Evervale.

[etherealily]

guilt // f.odair

[1/3] Long. this was queued, idk if I've already promised another character before this is out.

Part 2 : Art

Finnick Odair + fem!reader. Warnings : Cuss words, SFW but discretion advised, mature themes.

Desc. : But is it in his nature?

You do NOT have permission to repost and/or translate any of my fics.

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'Suck on his sellout cock, go ahead', your mind taunts you as you traipse behind him into the Victor's Village, a place where you simultaneously hoped you'd live and you'd never step into again.

See, Finnick had always dominated your childhood.

You grew up watching him charm the nation, be welcomed back to the District like he was God.

One of your biggest flexes was that you got to see him in person in a parade once, when he'd come back from one of his many Capitol visits.

However. That all changed once you became fifteen. Because you'd finally got some fucking sense and realized that the people at the Capitol, the Hunger Games, none of it was fair, it was all fucking shit.

And you hated Finnick all the more for it.

Prancing around, doing promotions, adverts, sending children to die, being the Capitol's bitch. You'd narrowly escaped your last chance to be reaped, but you still wished he'd choke on his ridiculously expensive Capitol meal.

You couldn't respect him.

But. But, it wasn't like you'd ever tell him that, though. Because when Finnick Odair talks to you, you fucking talk back.

And when he tells you he wants you to come back home with him after seeing you by the ocean one night, you go, no matter how much you'd rather fucking kill yourself.

"This is my house.", he smiles, and waits expectantly, as if you're supposed to applaud.

"It's nice."

He doesn't look disappointed or surprised at that. In fact, he seems mildly entertained. "Get in."

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"And then, maybe, just bring your hand up the side of your leg? Yeah, yeah, just like that. Okay, yeah, sweetheart, that's it."

Click.

"And this is for..."

"Modelling."

"For the Capitol?"

"Who else?"

You raise a brow, your mind immediately picturing some rhinestone encrusted Capitol asshole getting off to a picture of you. You shudder.

"I'm joking. It's for me."

"For you?"

"Feel free to look around.", he says, offhandedly, as he looks through the camera at all the pictures he'd just clicked of you. "Maybe something will catch your fancy."

"You brought me here to... take pictures of me and... let me take whatever I want from your house?"

"I'm a weirdo, sweetheart."

"What will you do with the pictures?"

"I dunno. Can't publish them anywhere. I guess I'll just use them.", he mutters, more to himself than you, but you catch it. He looks up and then clarifies, "To improve my photography skills."

Thank fuck.

"Why me?"

"You're a good subject."

Your fingers move almost fluidly past various things, bottles of expensive liquor, watches, jewellery that he probably stole from his long list of Capitol lovers, and a single, slightly pathetic looking conch.

"I'm a subject? Like... math?"

He snorts. It's condescending, he's aware - there's no way you'd know. You've never been out of the District.

"It's photography lingo. A subject is who you're taking photos of. You have the correct facial structure for my lighting to illuminate you how I want it to. Hence, you're a good subject."

"Oh."

He continues flicking through photos and adjusting the background, taking a few trial shots with the result of his tinkering, until he seems to notice that you haven't spoken in a while. "You like the conch?"

"It's pretty."

"So are you."

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. Ugh. There he goes again, back to Finnick Odair, Capitol man-whore instead of Finnick, photo geek.

You turn to him. "How much did it cost? Twice the wine?"

"I didn't buy it. I found it, back when I was eleven."

"You've had it for almost a decade?"

He licks his lips, his hands pausing their scrolling of the camera's gallery for a moment. "I guess it has been a decade."

"What was it like, though? When you won?"

"Won? Won what?"

"The Games."

"Oh. Uh... bittersweet."

"Bitter? Why would it be bitter?"

"You ask a lot of questions. Sit down."

You know the truth. He just didn't want to admit that there was nothing bitter going on. He won because he was hot, and now, he continued reaping the benefits of his genetic lottery win.

You sit, still looking up at him as he comes to kneel in front of you, turning his camera to you. "What do you think?"

The pictures he's taken of you have an unsettling ethereality to them. In one, you're looking out the window with your back to the camera, your outfit hidden by a rose he'd apparently been holding in front of the camera.

A white rose.

It featured in every fucking picture, so much so that you almost asked him about it. Key word : almost.

In one of the more lighthearted ones, the rose sat in your mouth.

"They're pretty nice."

"Is your vocabulary limited to those two words? Pretty. Nice."

"I don't know what else to say."

He regards your face for a moment - like, really fucking observes you - before fiddling with some knob on the camera. "Take off your clothes."

That shouldn't have surprised you as much as it did.

"What?"

He looks up, confused. "Take off your clothes and I'll take some pictures."

"What? No."

"You don't want to? But you were okay with all the previous pictures."

"Yeah, because I was clothed."

"Being unclothed is a problem for you? Being exposed? Hm? That bothers you?"

What?!

"I- look, man, I'm not trying to offend you."

"But you are. You said you'd let me take photos of you. You are not your clothes, are you? You are your self, your soul, your body."

"Yeah, but I'm just not comfortable."

'Y'know what, sweetheart, people do shit they're not comfortable with all the fucking time. Twenty-five/eight. If you can't deal with it, you're weak. Take. It. Off."

You had a feeling there was another reason he was so angry about your non-compliance, but you didn't push it.

"Please don't make me do this."

"Fine! FUCK! Am I asking you to suck my cock? Huh? I could, y'know that? I could've, but no, I asked you to help me make art, and you chickened out!", he yells, his finger scarily close to poking your eye.

Finnick Odair was no longer pissing you off.

Finnick Odair was genuinely scaring you.

"Just get out.", he mutters, setting his camera down in defeat on his couch. "Get out, seriously."

You don't even have two seconds of backing-away-time before he stops you again. "What if I killed your family?"

That scares you more. "What?"

"What if I killed your family? Or at least, threatened to? Would you do it? Would you?", he asks, and now, he's not angry at you, or frustrated, he's more desperate, frantic, as if your answer would shake his fucking world.

As if your answer would change his self perception.

"Please don't kill my family."

"Would you suck my cock if I threatened to kill your family, Y/N?!"

"YES!", you scream, flinching, almost. "Yes! I would, but please, PLEASE don't!"

Finnick Odair gazes back at you with relief, and you want to strangle him. "You would, wouldn't you? You'd do unspeakable things for your family, yes?"

Well, of course.

"Things that would make your skin crawl. Not just because you love them, but because you're responsible for them. Because you got yourself into this mess."

He's no longer talking to or about you, that much is clear.

"And it's up to you to keep them away from it."

Slowly backing away, you try your hardest not to show up in his peripheral, to make sure he stays in whatever zone he's in.

But he is Finnick Odair. So he doesn't even look up at you as he instructs you. "Don't take the conch." Like stealing from him was the first thing on your mind.

"Wasn't planning to."

"Don't tell anyone about today."

"Wasn't planning to."

"Stay."

Wasn't planning to.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. Please. Stay."

The apology only solidifies your urge to stab him in the gut. "I have to get home."

"I didn't mean stay the night. I don't want you staying the night."

Finnick Odair, as you had begun to gather, was debilitatingly honest.

"I just mean stay for a while. Have dinner and then go."

"Dinner?"

"Yes, dinner. I have turkey from the Capitol."

"What's that?"

"It's a kind of bird. It's just like chicken but better."

"What's chicken?"

"Another kind of bird."

"Oh."

He frowns at you for a moment. "You're not okay with eating birds, are you?"

"They're just... very rare, so I don't see why you have to kill them."

He sighs, looking around the room in deep thought. "I could make fish. You know fish. You like fish."

You do know fish. You do like fish. You nod.

~~~~

Finnick's fish is unlike any you've ever fucking eaten.

Living in District 4, you'd figured you'd had fish every way it could be cooked. But no.

You can't help but take more. And more. And more. You weren't hungry, and momentarily felt guilt, thinking about kids in the other districts who were, but it was divine and you couldn't bring yourself to care much.

"You like that?", he asks, from opposite you, raising a brow in amusement.

"It's really fucking good."

He whistles lowly. "Ooh, nice, vocabulary expansion. So you do cuss. I was afraid I'd corrupted you with my rough Capitol language.", he muses, looking at your plate. "You have room for dessert?"

"Doesn't everyone, always?"

He nods. "That's fair. Cake?"

CAKE? This Capitol whore managed to bring cake back to District 4?

"Sure."

That was divine, too.

"You like that, too?"

"Yeah. It's really good. The Capitol has it really good."

"The Capitol is filled with cunts who throw up food because they want to taste more."

Was that... disdain? Interesting.

"Well, seeing as you spend most of the year there, I just thought..."

He stands, clearing the plates. "What? That I was one of them?"

You watch him go into the kitchen, taking a sip of water as you do. "No, just that... no, yeah, I did."

"It's okay, I get that a lot. I just... I gotta go, do these promotions, adverts. I have to. I made a deal."

You sigh, standing and pushing the dining table chair back to its original position. "Contract?"

He clenches his jaw momentarily, before nodding, his shoulders tense. "Yeah. Sm'n like that.", he grins, his dimples emerging once more. Thirteen year old you would have swooned and fainted and died.

Eighteen year old you just lets him lead you to the door.

"I'm leaving for the Capitol tomorrow. Along with the tributes from this year."

Why he's telling you this, you have no clue.

"You should come and wave me off."

"Do we know each other well enough for that?"

"No, but I know you know the tributes well. One of them goes to school with you, doesn't she?"

Yes. Little Faye.

"Yes, she's in the eighth grade. I used to tutor her."

The reality hits. She will probably never be able to high-five you when she gets a question right again.

"You should give her courage.", he suggests. "Going in thinking you're going to die will get you killed. Let her know she can make it."

"Can she?", you ask, quietly. The answer will ruin you, you can tell.

"She's a Career."

"Yes, but can she?"

"Chances are slim." Finnick fucking Odair. Finnick "debilitatingly honest" fucking Odair. "I won't tell her that, though."

"I'll see you tomorrow, Finnick."

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His hands grip your chin and you swear you're about to kill him. You look up at him, hanging out the open door of the train carriage and holding onto you, and you're half tempted to pull him down with you because what the fuck was he doing?

You can feel it coming, the urge to slap him away, but then again, it's still Finnick FUCKING Odair, and you're not sure if there's a law against rejecting his advances.

So you just kind of let him kiss you. It's not bad, no, far from it, it's just... unexpected.

Considering it's in front of every camera in the district.

Considering you'd only known each other one night.

Considering his last words were 'you're the only thing I care about.'

Considering he said your full name an unsettling amount of times.

Considering little Faye was watching and wondering why you were calm enough to be making out with some hot guy instead of sending her off.

Considering now the entirety of Panem was either going gush at you or rush at you.

~~~~

You can't bring yourself to watch the news.

Everyone assumes it's because of Finnick.

But, ironically, Finnick's the only one who knows it's not.

It's because of Faye.

"Finnick's on TV.", you're informed at least twice an hour.

"'Kay.", is your usual response. "Faye?"

"I'm sure Finnick trained her well. And besides, the 11th is this weekend! You'll find out."

Right. You'd been invited by Snow him-fucking-self to the Capitol. Apparently, the cameras outside your house weren't enough. He needed you there, with Finnick, for promos. While children were dying.

You receive gifts from your family, your neighbours, your teachers - basically anyone you'd breathed around - for your journey to the Capitol, as if you're going to some dreamland.

As you ride the train, your head against the seat, you try to imagine this is the train that leads you out of District 4. Your family will be waiting at the destination - in your head, an actual dreamland - and you'll be fine and dandy.

As you're escorted out, you imagine you're hanging from the ceiling in full display on the TV instead of Faye having to go through the Games.

And as you're directed to Finnick's room, you imagine slitting his throat. It's funny. You almost laugh. Then, the door opens.

Dimples.

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"How is it you've never worn lip tint before?", he mutters, tutting as if you'd just misspelled a basic word. "C'mon, pucker up.", he instructs, his thumb smearing red on your lips.

You have no idea what you look like and you're not sure if you want to find out. "I thought you were a merchant."

You shake your head. "No, I said I live by the merchant sector of 4."

"Not in it?"

"Of course not. Why would I have been picking seashells to make necklaces out of if I were a merchant? I just sell shit in the marketplace. Doesn't make me a merchant."

"I mean, technically... yeah, it does.", he says, his thumb accidentally slipping and smudging your makeup over the left of your cheek.

"Right, well, I'm not merchant class.', you shrug, trying to wipe the results of idiocy that was Finnick Odair off the side of your cheek.

Finnick... seems to get it. He nods along as he continues trying to de-plague your face with makeup.

Guilt is etched on his face. Regret, a tiny bit. Sadness, festering throughout.

"What's that look?"

He doesn't seem like he's out of whatever thought he was in moments ago when he hums in response, before quickly leaping towards his bedside and taking his camera, holding his thumb next to your bottom lip, with your still messy lip tint just about seen. Click.

"What's that look?", you repeat.

"What look?"

"That one.", you say, pointing to his face as if he can see it.

"That's my sorry look. I shouldn't have sprung the kiss on you. It was a dick move.", he says, gently moving behind you and guiding your shoulders to manoeuver you to face the mirror.

He says it as if he already knows you'll forgive him.

Yes, you do. But it irks you that he seems to assume that.

"Yes, it was."

"I'm sorry. What do you think?"

"I look like the 12 escort."

"Trinket? No, no way. You look great.", he assures, and you try to believe him, but you haven't seen yourself in makeup before and it doesn't look as though it's you standing there.

"Beautiful.", he says, as an afterthought, almost, as if he were trying out the word to see if it sounded right or not. He seems to decide on the former. "Beautiful.", he repeats, nodding.

That gets your attention and you take a second glance, and suddenly, you see what he sees. The makeup isn't subtle and hidden, but it isn't what the Capitol wears. It's... pleasant.

He brushes some hair in front of your shoulders. "See? Beautiful.", he reiterates, like he can't get enough of that word now.

"You sure I'll fit in here like this? Like... dressed up?"

"Yeah.", he says, vehemently nodding before doing that thing when he looked in your eyes again. "Well, mostly. I mean, I'd prefer it if you had the easiest time possible, 'cause I kinda got you into this mess."

You nod. That checks out. "Thanks."

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The night sees you staring at the ceiling while Finnick breathes softly in sleep beside you. It's pleasant. Domestic, almost. Like what Finnick wants, you think. Like the Capitol believes, you know.

He shifts and your eyes snap shut. Why you're so afraid of him finding out that you are awake, you don't know, but you are. He reaches out, his knuckles grazing your cheek with enough purpose that you realize he wasn't asleep in the first place, either.

And then he does it.

His hand reaches out, gently feeling around for your hand, before he grips the middle three fingers on your left.

He squeezes them softly, then brings them to his chest, where his own hand lays. That's it.

You watch him actually sleep until he mumbles, shifting again. 'Y/N?"

"Yeah?", you respond immediately, kicking yourself internally. Cover blown.

"Can't sleep?"

"No."

"Scared?"

"Mhm."

"Of the photos we took today? I promise, the makeup isn't bad, and you won't have to take any more - they'll publish them and pass them off as taken over a few months, so it's not-"

"No, for Faye."

Silence. "Oh."

"I feel like I didn't get to even tell her how well she's going to do."

"You can see her."

You can what?

"When?"

"Well, not in person, but we can watch the live feed of the Gam-"

"Yes. Yes, please, thank you.'

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. "Really?"

"Yes. Yes, absolutely. When can we?"

"Well, technically, it's always streaming, so I, I guess we can go now."

You nod.

He raises a brow as if he never expected you to agree. "Okay, uh, just, uh... gimme a second to wake up, okay?"

He comes out of the bathroom after washing his face to find you pacing, biting the inside of your cheek. "C'mon."

~~~~

The Viewing Room is desolate except for a few Gamemakers' Assistants (GAs), that have to watch footage 24/7.

"We have to record these things all the time, just in case something happens during the cover of nightfall", he explains, as he walks in front of you and gestures to the large screen in the opposite side of the room. "Usually, the stronger Careers, from 1 or 2-", he cuts himself off. That was not what you needed to be hearing right now.

He watches as you slowly walk up to the screen, as though the soft glow from it could lead you to Faye. Your eyes dart around the entirety of the enormous screen, looking for something - anything - to announce you of Faye's survival.

"She is still alive. You'd have heard a cannon and seen a picture of her if not."

It's not the most comforting thing he can say. He's usually better at this. God, if he didn't miss his old self, but the guilt of essentially using you to keep Snow's interest off his family and on you, the - to the extent of Snow's knowledge, anyway - love of his life, isn't exactly letting him be warm and inviting to you.

But he wants to. Let it be known, he wants nothing more than to do what he usually does. Brighten people up.

"Where is she?"

"WE'VE GOT A RUNNER!", calls one of the GAs and your head snaps to a blue triangle tracking one of the tributes on the screen, and you run over to that side of the massive screen.

The lights come on in the room, and people flood in. Sponsors, gamblers, Gamemakers. Because this is prime TV. He imagines every screen in the country lighting up, because you have to watch. Every child has just been woken up because the feed's back on.

"Who's the runner?", someone asks, and Finnick turns to you, diligently tracking the blue triangle with your eyes. Blue. Ocean. District 4. It's Faye.

"Girl from Four. The boy's already dead."

"How much did I have on her?"

"Oh, c'mon, you didn't have shit on her! No one thought she'd make it this far."

"Fine, fine, but now how much?"

The sounds of cruelty almost have him zoning out, going back into Capitol-Party-Finnick-Mode. That is, until, you call him.

"Finnick?"

He rushes to your side, a guilt induced speed to his gait. "Yeah, y'okay?" No the fuck she isn't. What the fuck is wrong with him?

"Who's the gold triangle chasing her?" Gold. Luxury. District 1. CAREER.

"Uh..." Deliver it softly. Sweetly.

"Unless she's a shapeshifter, the girl's DEAD!", laughs one of the sponsors. "It's my tribute, the Career boy from 1 chasin' her, with... wait, zoom in? Oh, yeah, a dagger!"

Your eyes widen and Finnick wants to kill himself. "She'll be fine. She can swim, he..."

Can also swim. Fuck.

"... he won't be able to keep up with her." , he says, finally.

Partially true. District 1 Careers didn't have access to the ocean, not like those from 4, so it was very much possible that he wasn't trained to know about tides and currents and shit.

There's a moment where no one in the room says anything. Because they both just jumped into the water, and Faye went under.

Finnick holds your head to his chest as you cling onto him in fear. It's not even remotely close to making up for what he's planning to put you through - well, already putting you through - but he at least feels a bit like the old him. The one who could actually comfort.

The tribute from 1 splashes around a bit, looking for Faye. You've turned a bit now, your head's still in his chest, but half your face is facing the screen. You're watching, anxious as ever.

"She's not drowned.", he mutters, stupidly. Duh.

"What if something pulled her under?"

Oh fuck. Yeah. Valid point.

"I'm sure it's just a strategy."

One that he remembers teaching her.

Maybe if she uses this and beats this District 1 Career, he could be one more step closer to gaining your forgiveness, and his redemption.

For a crime that the victim wasn't even aware was being committed.

The Career flounders around a bit more, screaming, clearly, but the audio is muted here. He looks around, not willing to look under, in case that might trigger the release of any muttations the Capitol cooked up for them.

And then, he's tugged a bit, his leg down, and he springs away from the motion. Please be Faye. Please be Faye.

He's jerked fully under, and a splash of Faye's hair can be seen before both disappear underneath the midlly murky waters, a struggle very evident in the way the water's splattering about.

Suddenly, it stops.

Faye leaps exhaustedly onto the bank, gasping for breath.

A cannon goes off. Florian Jentry. District 1 , Luxury. Score : 10.

Finnick holds onto you tighter as you sigh in relief. He softly kisses your hair because he doesn't know what else to do.

Relief is the only possible emotion to feel.

No one's happy. No one's sad. You're only either relieved that your loved one isn't gone, or relieved that they're not gone in a torturous way.

Wait, scratch that. The patron who just bet on Faye is happy.

[slutforthanatos]

18+ ONLY || MDNI divider by benkeibear || mdni banner by me!!

All I can think about today is sucking Victor's cock. So here's this for all my loves who also are orally fixated on their fave. tagging: @arlerts-angel cw: m!receiving oral, reader is engaged to character, large c*ck kink, swallowing, slight dacryphilia, reader is (in my mind) fem bodied.

You both had been together for years, so getting naked in front of each other was nothing new. You both had showered together, gotten dressed in the same room, and made love countless times, so it was pretty much second nature.

However, much like your fiancé, whenever your eyes gazed upon his naked body, you couldn't help but act like it was the first time you've ever seen it- every time.

So, today, your handsome partner emerged from the bathroom, a towel clad around his waist, his body sparkling with the rivulets of water that drip down his sculpted frame. He winks at you, before heading to the dresser to pick out a pair of clothes.

Your hormonal self (of course, this was your fertile week) eyed his figure. You couldn't help but look at his large shoulders, his perfect narrow waist, and then....

He drops the towel, truly showing off his birthday suit at once. You blink, and try to discreetly glance at him- without coming off too.. creepy.

This is your soon-to-be husband, Y/N. You say. It's okay to ogle him.

Your attempts to conceal your eyeing of his, well, extremely large dick, were obviously in vain (and vein, too, right?) when he straightens his posture, looking at you.

"I can see you looking, Y/N." He remarks. "Just tell me if you want to have sex. It's okay." He chuckles.

Gosh, you couldn't help it. He's a very magnificent example of a male figure and his giant cock just.. added to it.

"I mean, if you wanna...." You twiddle your thumbs. "I have a better idea." You grin, moving to the edge of the bed, where your lover stands.

You press a kiss to his navel, looking up at him. "Can I?" You ask, pretty sure that it's obvious. "I mean, if you wanna...." He laughs, mocking your earlier statement. You giggle in response, taking his thick cock in your hand.

You pump it a few times, feeling it get more and more harder in your hand. Precum starts to leak from the tip, and you gently kiss it. You feel every vein of his dick, every inch of the Beautifully Crafted Pretty-Boy-Cock™ before you take it into your mouth.

You moan at his taste, slightly salty, but still with a hint of fruity nonetheless. Thank god for his obsession with healthy eating. You continue to pump what you couldn't fit in your mouth with your hand, which is a little less than half of his member. While you considered yourself to be pretty damn skilled at oral, of course that was in cases where the man's cock wasn't the size of the fucking Titanic.

However, your fiancé's cock was impressively large, and your poor little mouth couldn't fit any more of him without practically dislocating your jaw.

Your hands move down to his balls, squeezing them as you relish in the way his cock jerks in your mouth. He moans, his fingers grabbing your hair, moving your head to take more of his cock in your mouth.

Your eyes prick with tears at the feeling, but you'd rather be tearing up than gagging- so you continue to take him deeper until he's fucking your throat. He thrusts into your mouth, moaning your name.

"Fuuuuck," he moans. "Oh, shit. Fuck!" He says, before he spills his hot load into your mouth. The stripes of it coating your throat, your mouth, some of it even leaking out of your mouth, mixed with your saliva, as it drips down your chin.

He pulls out of your mouth, looking down at your pretty little face, and then your mouth, which is coated in his cum. He kisses your forehead, before pushing you down onto the bed. "Now it's time for me to do the same to you." He says.

Eren, Armin, Levi, Erwin, Reiner, Gojo, Toji, Geto + Your Faves!!

[ikroah]

A girl can get somewhere in spite of stringy hair or even just a bit bowed at the knees if she can show a faultless…personality! —“Personality,” Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers (1946)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #26 - Ring-a-Ding-Ding V

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Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

ohhhhh my god why did i make this script so long my hand hurts this took forever aaaaagh

Welcome to the Lucky 38! This is a script that has remained basically the same for a long time but went through COUNTLESS extremely small rewrites over the course of production just to really nail Mr. House's dialogue. He's a long-winded guy, this whole issue is basically just him doing monologues, and I wanted to make sure it was all interesting and non-repetitive. I think I took out at least three uses of "merely" from the first draft.

One of the biggest production decisions of this issue was whether or not to cut the scene with Agnes and Cass and Victor, which immediately follows the end of the previous issue. The reason to include it was because it very necessarily established the change in location from the Vegas Strip to the Lucky 38 penthouse, which would have been jarring otherwise; the reason to exclude it was that it the issue was already extremely long and I thought opening right on Mr. House would have been more impactful. Ultimately, I did keep it, which was a good decision, but only because of the literally issue-saving idea to convey it as closed-circuit television footage instead of actual panels. Every single attempt at overlaying them with the lead-in to Mr. House was way too busy, but that idea really tied the page together like a nice rug.

And lastly, the framing device of the tarantula and the tarantula hawk was actually an extremely late addition to the comic. I had already finished the first three pages when I thought of it. My problem was that Mr. House's constant monologuing and Agnes' sad expressions got pretty repetitive. I needed something to break the action up while adding thematic heft and artistic variety. I've become a real enthusiast for wasps and tarantulas over the last couple months, so this one really was just a stroke of luck. It took only minimal revisions to make room for the framing device, with the most dramatic change being the complete replacement of the last page (which was originally just a splash page of the Lucky 38 in Vegas; bookending the first and last pages is so much better). So you see, the only reason for weaving a scene into this issue of a skittish desert-wanderer getting paralyzed and dragged toward a certain demise by a predator almost perfectly evolved to destroy it was just that I like bugs a lot. That's the only reason, yep.

Original Pencils:

Due to all of the photo-collage in the final version of the comic, there's a lot of panels and details that I (thankfully!) didn't have to draw myself. Sorry that the pencil isn't blue on the last three pages, I've been on the move for the holidays so they got scanned in grayscale by accident.

I did experiment with drawing the tarantula framing device myself, but ultimately went with the photo-collage method because the artistic juxtaposition actually made it much more readable when interspersed with the proceedings in the Lucky 38.

Transcript:

EXT. DESERT OUTSIDE OF NEW VEGAS. The city glitters in the distance, nestled between the shadows of mountains, with the spire of the LUCKY 38 towering above all else.

In the wilderness, a TARANTULA emerges from its burrow.

EXT. THE NEW VEGAS STRIP. On closed-circuit television monitors, a SECURITRON ROBOT approaches AGNES SANDS and ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY, saying

VICTOR: Well howdy, partner! Fancy meetin' again here in Vegas!

CASS: What the fuck?

AGNES: Victor?

Unlike the usual police units, VICTOR's robotic "face" is that of a cowboy.

VICTOR: And heck, ya clean up nice! Sure lookin' a lot better now than when I rustled ya outta the bone orchard back in Goodsprings*--

CAP: *As was explained to Agnes way back in IKROAH #2. --Lou

VICTOR: --so how's about ol' Vic skips the rigamarole, huh? 'Fore all my yappin' makes ya want to go back, heh-heh-heh! I'm the welcome wagon, see. I'm to come and collect ya.

CASS: Agnes--

VICTOR: Boss wants t'see you, is what I'm sayin'.

AGNES: Boss?

VICTOR: Only of all of Vegas, friend!

CASS: Agnes.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA crawls beneath the starlight.

VICTOR: So why don't we mosey on over to the Lucky 38? And your good pal can come along, too!

CASS: I need to know what the fuck is going on, right now.

AGNES: I...I don't know.

VICTOR: And y'know, boss ain't ever let a soul inside before, least for not as long as I've been rollin' around on my spurs, so this ain't just an everyday social call, mind...

On the closed-circuit television monitors, VICTOR escorts AGNES and CASS to the entryway of the LUCKY 38.

VICTOR: ...but heck, I reckon ya'll oughta get along like franks on a fire! So come on! Lift's in the lobby here, and up to the top floor--and we can get the formalities out of the way before ya'll get [cut off]

INT. THE LUCKY 38 PENTHOUSE.

AGNES stands awestruck, looking upward, bathed in electronic green light. With horror, she ekes out a single question.

AGNES: ...what are you?

???: A "Hello" would have been preferable, but it'll take more than a crude faux pas to tarnish this moment. Who I am, Agnes--

What AGNES is looking at is a gigantic SUPERCOMPUTER and terminal, flanked by closed-circuit television monitors and guarded on both sides by SECURITRON police units. On the supercomputer's massive screen is the green-lit image of a face. The face

MR. HOUSE: --is ROBERT EDWIN HOUSE. The President, CEO, and sole proprietor of New Vegas--and more to the point, the intended recipient of a long delayed package.

AGNES: Oh, you...you mean the platinum chip?

MR. HOUSE: Correct. It's a...very precious artifact of the old world.

MR. HOUSE: My world, once.

In the back of the room, beyond AGNES, is an oil painting of MR. HOUSE, standing outside in front of what must have been a very large robot.

MR. HOUSE: In that world, I was the founder of RobCo Industries--a titan of innovation. We created a litany of robotic solutions for diverse markets, such as the Securitrons that you see here, and even a line of consumer-grade devices like the wrist-mounted Pip-Boy. But the platinum chip was, more than any other, my design. It was my vision.

MR. HOUSE: But it never left the factory in which it was originally made. Before it could even cool off from its assembly...we had the Great War. An international, thermonuclear bombardment of unimaginable power that annihilated the world in all of two hours.

MR. HOUSE: But not the entire world. Not Vegas. Not my Paradise. From my fortress of the Lucky 38, I saw to that. But as for the rest of the world, and my platinum chip--it took generations.

MR. HOUSE: First for the scarce remnants of humanity to crawl out from under their rocks, and for the world to at least resemble a functioning society again in which to do trade. And then for the work itself--of countless scavengers, treasure-seekers, and the like, all contracted to comb over the wreckage of Sunnyvale. It cost millions of caps, and later, New California dollars. And a not insignificant piece of my pre-war fortune as well. I, quite literally, moved mountains.

MR. HOUSE: I do not believe in providence, Agnes, but I do believe in destiny. How else to explain it? It was pristine when it was found. Neither the bombs nor the passage of time had so much as scuffed its sheen. But still...its value far transcended the mere market price of pure platinum.

MR. HOUSE: Amusingly, despite the discovery, I was still only as close to acquiring the chip as I had been originally in 2077. A final ordeal remained for me: how to ensure the safety of the platinum chip en route to its destination, from Sunnyvale to Vegas, without broadcasting its preciousness to thieves, armies, and raiders--or worse, to heavily armed fetishists for pre-war technology like the Brotherhood of Steel?

MR. HOUSE: Misdirection. Through a network of anonymous liaisons, I contracted the Mojave Express for a batch of deliveries, all superficially similar knick-knacks, to various intermediaries of myself. All but one of the orders were totally worthless decoys. But your identity as the carrier of the one genuine item was somehow compromised, leading to you getting attacked, and to the second disappearance of the chip.

MR. HOUSE: But look around you. Look where you are. You've made it, haven't you?

AGNES, still staring up at the visage of MR. HOUSE on-screen, doesn't respond. She frowns, nervous. The SECURITRONS guarding MR. HOUSE observe her stoically.

MR. HOUSE: Let me clarify: I had nothing to do with Benny's ambush. Heavens no! It goes completely against my interests. It would have been a perfectly quotidian day's work for you if not for his, and I stress, unexpected involvement. The platinum chip...belies its significance. For Benny to have not only discovered its delivery route but possibly enough of that significance to motivate such an act, this constituted a very troubling breach of my security. And I had been looking into it...but in a way, the issue seems to have resolved itself. Hm?

MR. HOUSE: A wild card. Now removed from the deck.

AGNES' gaze sinks to the floor.

MEANWHILE, a small shadow blots out the starlight in the desert outside of Vegas. It flies over the exploring TARANTULA.

AGNES looks back up at MR. HOUSE.

AGNES: I killed him.

HOUSE: So you did. I only wish that we could have spoken before you went rogue on my former protégé: if this story breaks, I can grant you amnesty, but not without controversy. And your infamy as an assassin could make our further arrangements quite difficult.

AGNES: Um...I didn't think there would be more to it than delivering the--

MR. HOUSE: Oh! Of course, of course! My apologies. Two hundred years of anticipation and yet I'm still getting ahead of myself. Well--would you mind? I've been waiting a long time for my mail.

The SECURITRON closest to AGNES wheels forward with its claw outstretched. AGNES reaches her fingers into a pocket beneath the belt of her dress to produce it: the PLATINUM CHIP. She holds it in her hand for a brief moment.

MEANWHILE, the shadow descends; the TARANTULA HAWK engages the TARANTULA.

AGNES relinquishes the PLATINUM CHIP to the SECURITRON.

MR. HOUSE: Thank you--it's a relief to pay for this chip for the final time.

The SECURITRON inserts the PLATINUM CHIP into a slot in MR. HOUSE'S supercomputer, feeding it into the drive with a CLIK.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA is fighting the TARANTULA HAWK.

From behind AGNES, another SECURITRON presents her with a stack of NEW CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC DOLLARS, which she gingerly takes in her hand and looks over.

MR. HOUSE: And I trust that you're satisfied with the agreed-upon compensation from the delivery contract, yes?

AGNES: Yeah, it's...it's fine...I'll be going now. Thanks.

MR. HOUSE: Oh? But you've only just arrived. I insist that you make yourself at home.

SFX: KZZSZZZTTT

The faces on the screens of the SECURITRONS in MR. HOUSE'S penthouse suddenly change from policemen to soldiers. AGNES recoils and tries to step away.

AGNES: H-hey, uh--

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA HAWK pierces the underbelly of the TARANTULA with its stinger.

SECURITRONS surround AGNES.

MR. HOUSE: You are the first guest ever through the doors of the Lucky 38, you know. Nobody has so much as checked a coat inside since the war, so this meeting confers you a significant level of privilege...and inevitable celebrity. The people of Vegas have always gossiped, after all. Many have even clawed at the door desperately with dreams of being where you now stand. Surely you can comprehend how this compulsion to leave after such a deliberate and remarkable invitation risks considerable insult--to both myself and my citizenry? And very deliberate this invitation was. Don't you realize: if handing off my package was all for which you were needed, why wouldn't I have just had Victor relieve you of the chip outside? No, no, you see, as necessary as its acquisition was, the chip is ultimately just a key, for unlocking a new frontier...of possibilities.

MR. HOUSE: Possibilities for prosperity, peace, and technological advancement that haven't been seen in two hundred years. Possibilities greater than anything the New California Republic or Caesar's Legion could dream of, let alone achieve, by playing pretend in the clothes of their forebearers and convincing everyone else that it's statecraft. Possibilities--which if they key is turned by human hands--become certainties.

AGNES (a whisper): Are you not human?

MR. HOUSE: Don't let the video screens and computer terminals fool you: I am a living human. No less so than you. I just live with a particular set of, well...handicaps.

AGNES: You said you'd waited hundreds of years to--

MR. HOUSE: One could argue that the world has been waiting hundreds of years for this moment. Waiting for me. For the chip. For the long-dormant doors of the Lucky 38 to finally open, to a single and specially ordained individual: you, Agnes. And there are tremendous things waiting for us, waiting for us to accomplish them, together. I certainly couldn't do them with Benny. What do you say?

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA has become completely paralyzed by the TARANTULA HAWK'S venom. The TARANTULA HAWK seizes its prey.

AGNES: ...no.

MR. HOUSE: I'm sorry--"No?"

AGNES: Yes--I mean, no. No! I don't want to help you! I...

Tears well in AGNES' eye.

AGNES: ...I just want to go back home.

MR. HOUSE: ...I see. Hmm.

MR. HOUSE: How do I put this in a way you'll understand?

MR. HOUSE: The die is cast.

AGNES, crying, looks up at MR. HOUSE again. Fear bulges on her face.

MR. HOUSE: Throughout the long delivery of this chip, several precise plans and fortuitous coincidences have aligned in just such a way as to make you, you specifically at this exact juncture, an irreplaceable asset in the ongoing endeavor of this wounded world's recovery from otherwise hopeless ruin.

MR. HOUSE: Your cooperation going forward is not merely crucial to this endeavor's success, but it's utterly non-negotiable. Should you entertain the moral issue of what's at stake, it's obligatory, even. It's why your refusal comes as such a...genuine surprise. Can't you see?

MR. HOUSE: I'm not a fascist, Agnes--I would never force you. But given the circumstances, I'm entitled, wouldn't you agree, to at least a brief demonstration of my vision? The vision that the platinum chip promises? Victor has surely seen your companion to the presidential suite by now--my other Securitrons can escort you to the basement, where I'm sure you can make a...properly informed decision.

The SECURITRONS close in on AGNES, who screams in protest.

AGNES: No! I said no! I already delivered your chip, I--I killed Benny! I-- I-- ...what do you want with me!?

MR. HOUSE: Haven't you been listening? I want what's best for you--for us. I know it's a lot, but bear with me for one moment longer, and I can assure you--that this is the beginning of something very incredible.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA HAWK has dragged the paralyzed TARANTULA back to the entrance of its own burrow.

The TARANTULA HAWK shoves its helpless prey into the hole, and then crawls in after it.

The TARANTULA is not seen again.

[stusbunker]

Spotless: Animato

Chapter Thirty Four

Featuring: Dean Winchester/Reader

Other characters: Gibson Child OMC, Bobby, Annie, Victor, Charlie, both bands and roadies, nameless DJs

Word Count: 3160

Warnings, etc: Mutual pining, still unbeta'd, the last of Uncle Dean for a while, drinking and mild drug use, smoking cigarettes (do not come at me for this), Kevin calling Dean out publicly but subtly.

Series Masterlist

The rapid beat of a double-stroke roll woke Dean from the haze of sleep. He cracked one eye open and found the source of the wake up call. Gibson, sitting on the floor in Dean’s suite, was wailing on the coffee table while watching a random infomercial on the hotel’s tv’s world class Sunday morning programming. At least the little dude hadn’t gotten into Dean’s guitars without asking. 

“Gibby! What gives, man?”

“Oh, sorry,” the little boy didn’t even look back, instead he lightened his efforts into a tapping from the original knocking.

Dean huffed and fell back onto his pillow, muttering to himself and the ceiling, “I guess we’re up for the day.”

They had spent the night watching old monster movies and eating pizza. Dean had even taken Gibson to the hotel’s pool for a dip before the adult only hours kicked in. He had no idea how Pam and Lee kept up with the kid on a normal day, Dean was fucking beat. And that was after he slept more than double his usual night’s rest. 

How was it after nine already?! No wonder the kid was bored.

“You hungry? Probably should see if the buffet’s still going,” Dean asked suddenly.

“Okay!” Gibson dropped his sticks on the coffee table and hopped up with the unbridled energy of youth.

“Yeah, uh, I gotta throw some real pants on, dude.” Dean dragged himself to the edge of the bed and rolled his back. “Give Uncle Dean a minute and we can head down.”

Gibson nodded, but then ran to the counter in the kitchenette. “I made you coffee! They’ve got the little cups. But that was a while ago.”

Dean raised his eyebrow and surveyed the damage from his perch on the bed. “You make one for yourself?”

“Yep! It was gross. And the pink sugar didn’t help.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because it is gross. White or brown are best— no matter what Uncle Sam says.”

Gibson giggled, walking carefully over to Dean with the paper cup sloshing slightly. Dean wanted to help him, but he looked so proud of himself that Dean just sat back and clenched his hands as he awaited the delivery.

“Thanks, buddy,” Dean diligently took a sip. It was god awful. Cold, sure, but also really bitter and thin. Thankfully the kid didn’t think to add anything for him. He sighed and took another gulp while trying not to breathe and taste it more. “Uh—-yeah. Can’t start the day without some fuel.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah, man, of course. Now, I am gonna get dressed, find your shoes so we can get some grub.”

Turned out, the continental breakfast was already being cleaned up when they got back downstairs. Gibson’s spirits dropped instantly, but Dean assured him it was alright, and took the little man over to the attached restaurant that was hopping with the brunch crowd. 

“Look who the cat dragged in!” Bobby’s voice caught Dean’s attention as they rounded the corner with the hostess. “Make room. Miss— these idjits are with us, sorry they don’t have any manners about showing up on time.”

“Alright, I’ll— uh, I’ll let your server know.”

Dean had the wherewithal to murmur and hand over his thanks and apologies right in time to get a surprised smile. Kevin and Annie were on Bobby’s right while Sam and a very hungover looking Victor filled out the left side of the six person table.

“Rough night?” Dean teased.

“It aint over yet,” Victor lamented.

“Ooof! Been there, man. More bacon’ll help.”

Just then their server returned with two extra chairs and a busser slid in two extra place settings for them. “Thank you— thank you both. Seriously.”

“Of course, let me get you some menus.” Then the server disappeared in a flurry, weaving through the crowd of people in various states of dress and sobriety.

Kevin nudged Gibson with his elbow. “How was the sleepover at Dean’s? I bet he snores.”

Everyone around the table laughed.

“Bite me, Kev. Gibby, steal me one of his fries would ya?”

Gibson looked back and forth between the two men. “What?! No.”

Dean just shrugged. “He deserved it.”

“Two wrongs don’t make it alright,” Gibson told him knowingly.

“Yeah, UNCLE DEAN,” Sam butted in.

“From the mouths of babes,” Annie said, shaking her head in amusement. 

Kevin just laughed and took an obnoxious Dean-sized bite of fries.

“So— last day on tour until school’s out, what do you want to do today?” Bobby asked the star of the table.

“Is Mom and Dad awake? I want to see them ‘fore Grammy comes and gets me.”

“And you will, dude. I’m guessing they’re just up in their rooms getting dressed or something. It’s still early yet.”

“What timezone are you in?!” Bobby gave Dean the stink eye.

Dean ignored his manager and just ruffled Gibson’s hair. The menus appeared and they all settled in for another hour of each other’s company. 

        Dean knew it had to be hard for Gibson when they were on tour, he’d lived his own childhood with his dad barely there. But to have both parents out of reach for months at a time seemed worse. That’s why they made sure to give Pam and Lee breaks on the road, fly them home for three days at a time when they could. And they let Gibson come along when he didn’t have school.

It still felt like a worse case scenario though. He didn’t even have a little brother to make the days go by faster. Lee’s mom and their nanny were all he had outside of school friends. And the dogs. At least the kid got pets too.

Dean never did.

“Full House, bitches!” Charlie declared and threw her cards into the center of the table. “Jacks over twos.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Madison exclaimed, leaning in to inspect Charlie’s hand herself. She’d tagged along with Lee’s mom down to San Diego so she could join in on the Vegas leg of the trip. 

“She always pulls it out, I swear to god. I don’t know how, but she does,” Sam muttered and tossed his hand to Dean to shuffle for the next round.

They were an hour into the trip to Vegas and the mood on the bus was contagious. No more little ears and eyes to worry about, meant that the bottles and the bongs came out and the chips were stacked high across the tiny table. 

“Alright, alright, fair hand. Get your cards in, and maybe you can win some of them stacks back. If you’re lucky,” Dean taunted, collecting the rest of cards and sliding them back into a deck to be shuffled. “Trouble? Ante up.”

You tossed your share into the pot and took another sip of your drink. Dean felt your eyes on him as he dealt, bottom lip between his teeth in concentration. Technically, he knew everyone was watching him as he doled the next hand, but your attention felt heavier the last few days. Maybe you knew something he wasn’t ready for you to know.

Maybe you were waiting for him to fuck up again.

Or maybe it was all just wishful thinking and you weren’t really watching him at all. Either way, he was preoccupied with it all when he picked up his cards to find absolute trash.

“Oh Christ. I’m going to need more to drink. KEVIN! Another round of shots, if you don’t mind?”

You chuckled. “Dealer can’t deal to himself, huh?”

“Apparently not,” Dean muttered, not even bothering to pick up his cards again.

“More chances for the rest of us at least,” Madison pointed out and placed her call bet.

The afternoon turned into night while Bobby drove on. Games and ridiculousness ensued. Just when they stopped for dinner, Dean found himself in the playful overlap of drunk and stoned. 

He hummed a few bars of some pop number that was playing over the truckstop speakers and Kevin joined in in harmony as they trudged across the parking lot to the twenty four hour diner. Lee came in for the chorus and they started getting louder and sillier with it, doing the monkey walk with Dean in the middle of the two shorter guys.

Dean couldn’t hear the radio station any longer, but they carried it along, finishing the number strong while guessing at some of the lyrics. When everyone had reached the double doors of the restaurant, he caught you and Charlie with your phones up recording the shenanigans. Meanwhile, Sam and Madison were giggly, leaning a little heavier on one another than most people would be at just after seven at night.

“Alright, cool it you damn buffoons. Let’s see if they’ve got room for everyone,” Bobby grunted before disappearing inside.

“Looks like you guys are the fun bus!” Donna greeted, as SPS and company caught up with them.

“Just gettin’ started darlin’,” Dean drawled, nodding and smirking. “Though I doubt it’s all charades and crochet on Big Bertha over there either.”

Jody took a swig off of her flask. “Oh, fuck no. Nancy knits, but that’s about it. But that’s only when the Adderall kicks in.”

She dangled the metal bottle out towards the circle of waiting musicians in offering. Kevin and Pam both took a pull and passed it back. Then the equipment rig pulled in and the headcount shot up even more. Benny sauntered over with a knowing glint in his eye as he stepped right in between Dean and Donna. 

“We think we gettin’ in or gotta spread out to the fast food joints?”

“Hard to say, looks pretty dead in there, but that might mean there’s a small staff too,” you answered as everyone’s head craned to look inside.

“Alright, well I’m heading over to the cancer section until we hear one way or the other,” Jody nodded towards Annie and Patience smoking down the sidewalk. 

Dean perked up and followed her like an earnest puppy. He wasn’t a habitual smoker anymore, but he definitely still imbibed, especially on the road. Sam’s influence could only go so far. But oddly, you were trailing along behind him, followed by Jesse and a newer, yet awkward roadie that he’d only heard called Chief.

You actually pulled a pack out of your purse and held one out to Dean expectingly. “What?” you asked like an accusation.

“Are you just smoking because you’d knew I would be or—?”

You exhaled your first pull and offered him your lighter. “It’s been a fucking week, okay? Let me have this until we hit the states with actual vegetation and I have to deal with allergies too.”

Dean lit his cigarette nodding and blew out a smoke ring. “You don’t have to justify it to me, I was just checking I’m not the bad influence.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re always a bad influence, doesn’t mean I still didn’t choose it.”

That got him a little hot, if he was being honest. And he felt his smile all the way to the tips of his ears. “Damn, Trouble. Always knocking me back on my heels, you know that?”

You took another drag and shrugged, looking around to see everyone else somehow in their own conversations. “Part of the job.”

“Nah, that parts all you.” Dean said without even meaning to.

You looked up at him and gave him a little squint. “You need to eat something or you’re gonna be miserable in a couple hours.”

“I’m trying!” He huffed, gesturing with his cigarette towards the front doors, right as Bobby made his glorious return.

“Listen up!” Bobby glanced around at the bands and accumulated crew. “They’ve only got room for thirty folks, so line up and whoever is stuck at the back’s gotta find something else. We’re pulling out of here no later than ten o’clock, so be on time or be left behind.”

You chuckled over the hard-learned line.

Dean sucked a deep pull off his cigarette, trying to speed through it and getting lightheaded in the process. 

“Uh,” he exhaled and looked over at you then over you towards the rest of businesses in the travel center. “We trying to get in or we taking a walk?”

“I’m finishing my square.” You pointed to yourself and held up your cigarette.

Dean couldn’t get over your sass tonight. “Alright, then. A walk it is.”

It ended up with Jody and Patience sticking around while you and Dean finished smoking and then all four of you headed to the Arby’s across the parking lot. 

“Alright, folks, we got a quick segment at the end to wrap things up. Phantom Traveler, are you ready to ‘Hit It or Quit It’?” the gruffer DJ asked them from his chair across the room.

They barely all fit in the little sound booth, but managed to squeeze together to make it work. Lee, Pam and Kevin were on the three stools they provided, while Dean and Sam hovered over them to get at the shared mic. It was six o’clock in the morning and Dean didn’t know if any of them had even slept. But there they were anyway.

“It is five questions we ask in rapid succession and you just say the first thing that comes to mind. And since all five of you are here, we’ll just go down the line— or clockwise I guess,” the younger DJ explained.

“I’m game!” Dean exclaimed, futsing with the ball cap on his head.

Pamela, who was holding the mic, winked. “Let’s hear ‘em, boys.”

The DJs laughed. “Alright, Pamela’s ready. First question: Who’s got the craziest ex’s of the band?”

Everyone ‘Oh’d!’.

Lee leaned in and said deeply into the mic. “I’m sitting right here!” 

“Couldn’t have planned that one any better!” Dean teased.

“Wait! I want to hear the answer though!” Kevin butted in, steering them back on track.

“NEW KID doesn’t know these things yet!” The first DJ said excitedly.

“Oh, this is too easy, though,” Pam rumbled.

“Yeah, sorry, bro, everyone knows this one,” Dean tacked on.

“Eat me,” Sam snapped back.

“But yeah, it’s Sammy for sure,” Lee agreed.

Sam rolled his eyes but the DJs just ate it up.

“Okay! Second question is—- for—- Lee! Favorite venue you’ve ever played?”

“Seriously? He gets a real question and I got a Cosmo question?” Pamela said, annoyed, but not quite into the mic.

“Seriously— I’m just reading off the list,” the younger DJ promised, holding up a clip board.

“That one’s easy— Harvelle’s back home.”

“Hands down,” Sam agreed.

“Best burgers in Nebraska, too,” Dean tacked on.

“Ellen’s gonna kill you,” Pam warned.

“Totally worth it,” Dean shot her down.

“Yeah. Nothing like playing for your hometown,” Lee finished.

“What a bunch of saps!” The older guy teased. “Okay, okay, I’ll let you have it. Sam— third question: Who would you still like to collaborate with? You’ve got Annie Hawkins on the latest album, you’ve played with some of the greats at some special events— I know you all were close with the late, great Rufus Turner and now you’re touring with his granddaughter’s band Sheriffs, Psychics and Secretaries. Who else?”

“Uh, honestly? I’d kill to play with Sarah and Provenance, even though our sounds are totally different. Maybe Mick Davies? Especially now that he’s left Men of Letters, I am looking forward to what he works on next.”

“Wow— those are not names I expected to come up today. But, yeah, okay— always the wildcard Sam Winchester!” The younger DJ seemed genuinely surprised and maybe even impressed.

Dean could tell it annoyed Sam, but he was always way smarter than anybody gave his bodybuilder-shaped self credit for.

“DEAN! Question numero four: If you weren’t a rockstar— okay, musician– what would you be doing?”

“Right now I’d be sleeping, that’s for damn sure.”

Everyone laughed and nodded. “I don’t blame you there, but for a job?”

Dean scratched his three day stubble. “I always say I’d have made a killer mechanic or car restorer, but, uh, honestly at this point in my life I’m going to go with firefighter.”

“Nice, very heroic.” The first DJ approved.

“Dude!” Sam gave him a look that asked if he was alright.

Dean shrugged. “Well, hopefully we won’t have to find out. Just a reminder we’ve got two shows at Cesar’s Palace tomorrow night and Wednesday!” he plugged like they needed help selling tickets.

“Which are completely sold out! We’ve got tickets for our listeners tomorrow morning at seven, eight and nine if you listen for the code to play.” The younger DJ picked up where Dean left off. “One more question and you guys can get on with your days. And it’s for Kevin Tran— the newest member of the band, stepping up for the now reclusive Cas Novak. Fifth and final question!---”

Dean flinched at Cas’ name coming up, but all things considered, it could have been a much more brutal comment. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw Bobby whisper something to you through the glass in the adjoining room.

“In one word describe your bandmates.”

“One word total or—?”

“One word a piece,” Sam clarified.

“Yeah one word total. Band. That’d be the worst question answered ever,” the first DJ joked.

“Okay, okay, I got it. For Pam I’ll say ‘badass’. Lee’s word will be ‘groovy’. Sam gets ‘salad’ and Dean can have ‘Trouble’.”

“Oh, fuck,” Lee actually had to cover his mouth. While everyone else just about choked on their own spit. 

Dean glared at the kid, but didn’t say anything, counting down from twenty in his head.

“It is going to be a very long tour, folks,” Sam tried to ease some of the tension, clearly the DJs did not get the significance of what was just said.

“Alright that is a wrap with Phantom Traveler, in town for just a few days on the start of their latest tour. Thank you guys, it was a blast. Their fifth album drops next month. You guys have been digging the new single, so we’re gonna close with that as we get these guys on their way.”

The intro to ‘Baby’ played in the background as everyone handed over their headphones and shook the DJs' hands. Their marketing people came in for some quick publicity shots. Dean spotted you getting matching angles, where you stood behind their photographer, for the band’s socials.

God, he wasn’t ready. He had no idea if you caught what Kevin had said or if you knew he was really talking about you. The little punk had to go and say that shit on air of all places. 

One thing was for sure, Dean’s time was running out. Sooner or later somebody was going to let it slip and it wasn’t fair to you to hear it from anyone but him. Now, he just had to figure out how.

Tagging:

@deans-spinster-witch

@mrswhozeewhatsis

@cosicas-cuquis

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@suckitands33

@ladysparkles78

@deans-baby-momma

@stoneyggirl2

@sassy-pelican

@leigh70

@globetrotter28

@winharry

@lastactiontricia

@rockhoochie

@brightlilith

@coldhearted93

@djs8891

@beautiful-places-blog

@n-o-p-e-never

@spxideyver

Chapter 35: Cambiare

[ch6douin]

I was inspired by pictures of cats on the aftermath of meeting their owners or random people who love cats with lipstick on. Imagine players in their world with their lil plush counterparts and one night after being given a little too much booze by demi characters are seeing their plush counterparts covered in lipstick marks. Player is seen with smeared lipstick the same shade.

Victor is fucking unsure of what to do. He’s hiding in his room, face pushed into his pillow. Laying on his stomach and swinging his feet. Victors plush is seen admiring its kiss marks. Also wick probably got a kiss mark on his forehead. Everyone but victor getting a kiss smh

Andrew is still reeling from spotting his plush self coated in lil kiss marks. They make eye contact. Andrews like “Huh?????” His plush counterpart says nothing but lowers its head almost bashfully.

Ganji is both sorta flattered but also probably one of the ones trying to figure out how to clean his plushie off. Not until after he’s done marking this down in his memory tho.

Emma has the same reaction as victor. But probably is seen skipping around holding her plushie self. Is in a good mood for remaining week.

Also i wanna add Demi witnessed all of this and had the time of her life. The mighty player being a very very affectionate and cuddly drunk is one thing she had not been prepared for but my god. Cutest thing ever. Only one of the survivors to be given a kiss on her forehead. Got some good cuddles too.

Freddy plush is only one to be unkissed. Freddy plush is seen to be bitter about this and has been a bully. Freddy acts like he dont care but it keeps him up at night. Fuck freddy. All my homies hate freddy.

Oh god that is so cute anon (all my homies hate freddy too)

The thought that you spared some time to pepper kisses on the soft material of plushies that resemble them makes some of them absolutely smitten. Are you trying to send them an indirect message? Does that mean that you...you wanna kiss them? Are these your hidden intentions?

Thanks to you, they cannot help but panic whenever they are alone with you. Some of them are pretty good at pretending not to, but Andrew for example? Every time you move towards him you can see the way he looks away and scowls in embarrassment. Yes, embarrassment, he is not mad at you surprisingly. And clueless you don't even know why some of them are acting so weird because you don't remember anything. Demi is happy with the outcome, she had the privilege of seeing you in a vulnerable state no one else ever did, and she got real kisses too.

"There you go. Run around or whatever you have in mind..." Ganji murmurs, messily stuffing his pocket with the washcloth he was just using as his plushie jumps from his lap and scurries away with enthusiasm, Ganji figures out that it is about to run around the manor looking for you out of all people. Even he didn't know why the plushie was so attached to you, it was squirming out of his lap just a few seconds ago, earning an annoyed grunt from Ganji who just wished to clean the evident lipstick marks from its grumpy face. Why did that thing like you more than himself? No matter how much he contemplates, nothing comes up to soothe his confusion.

Then, he is thinking of these kisses much to his dismay. How they were scattered over its chin, cheeks, eyebrows, nose...lips. And he knows that it was you because he decided to pay attention to you and let his eyes linger and there it was, the same tone of those goddamn lipstick marks. He knows that you pressed your soft lips all over the little bundle of energy and let it stumble its way back to him, so dizzy and lovesick. Lucky thing—no, he did NOT just think that. There is nothing else to do besides slumping on his chair with a sigh, hands running through his curly hair.

He doesn't want to let his guard down, however, it's so painful not to think of having you plopping your lips against his instead.

(that was supposed to be MEE bro)