#great way to make us sound cryptic as fuck

[steddiealltheway]

(Set right before season 4)

Steve rushes over to the Henderson house after an ominous call from Dustin saying, "Come over as soon as you can, it's an emergency," before hanging up dramatically.

He can hear his nail bat rolling around in his trunk every turn he takes as he gets there in record time. He grabs the bat out of the trunk and rushes to the door, not bothering to knock before he barges in.

He's met with the sight of Eddie Munson staring at him with wide eyes as Dustin yells, "No! No! Don't swing! Not a code red!"

Steve sets down the bat and lets out a deep breath. "What the hell, Henderson?! I could've seriously taken you out with this thing!" He hears Dustin give him a half-assed apology as he tries to get his heartbeat to slow down. "Next time, don't leave such a cryptic message, okay?"

"Okay," Dustin says, holding his hands up.

"What the fuck is that?" Munson asks, staring at the bat.

Steve points at him and says, "Language," before turning to Dustin and asking, "What's he doing here?"

Dustin sighs and gestures them toward his couch. Steve shoots Eddie a look before taking a seat right against the arm of the couch. It's not that he hates him, hell, he's pretty sure he's gotten weed from him before. It's just that he doesn't like sharing this older brother role with another guy - especially one who likes to make dramatic speeches on top of lunch tables.

Based on the way Eddie is similarly leaning away from him and uncomfortably fidgeting with his rings, he can tell there's a mutual tension between them. Dustin doesn't pick up on it as he sits across from them, acting like he's about to deliver the worst news ever.

Steve leans forward a little trying to get Dustin to finally spill and tries not to lean back immediately when he sees that Eddie is doing the same thing.

"Okay, Suzie and I were talking, and her family is considering visiting Hawkins."

Steve smiles. "That's great, but why-"

"Why are you acting like that's bad news?" Eddie asks, finishing Steve's sentence. The two glance at each other, and Steve tries not to size him up.

Dustin groans, "Because I need to take her on a proper date! We weren't able to go on dates during science camp, so I want this to be special. Of course, this is all contingent on whether she can convince her dad to give us alone time..."

"I could be your chaperone, but I'd ditch you once you got to the movie theater," Steve offers.

Eddie scoffs, "Yeah, a date with Suzie will not be at a movie theater."

Steve crosses his legs and turns toward Eddie. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you knew something about dating. Wait a minute." He directs his attention back to Dustin, utterly horrified. "You asked me and Munson for girl help?"

"Don't sound so shocked," Eddie says, but Steve ignores him.

"Yes," Dustin states simply. He sighs and gestures between the two of them. "Steve, you're a lady's man and you know exactly what to say and where the best date spots are, but you pick up the worst girls. Except Robin who you refuse to date." Steve doesn't have time to argue before Dustin points at Eddie, "And Eddie understands all the cool nerd stuff that Suzie and I like, and he's super charismatic. So, I thought we could combine your abilities to create the most epic date in the history of dates."

"No," Steve and Eddie both say at once.

"Guys-"

Steve turns to Eddie and raises an eyebrow. "Why are you protesting my help?"

"Because try as he might, Dustin can't convince me that you aren't an asshole that has never actually wooed a girl. You get by with your pretty looks and think that's enough."

Steve's mind lingers a bit on the "pretty looks" for some reason, but he pushes past it to say, "Please, you're telling me you know a single thing about wooing a girl?"

Eddie leans in with a bright smile. "You heard it from Henderson, I'm charming."

"Charismatic," Steve corrects him, "But I haven't seen a shred of that yet."

Eddie tosses an arm over the back of the couch and scoots in until Steve is trapped against the arm of the couch. Steve tries not to show Eddie how much the sudden closeness is affecting him.

"I could easily charm your pants off, big boy," Eddie says with a wink.

Steve's eyes betray him and flicker down to Eddie's lips. "Please, I'd easily beat you to it."

Eddie tilts his head and looks at him through his lashes. "Are you saying you want to charm my pants off, Harrington? I'm flattered, but I'm not that kind of girl."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Is that a bet?"

"Do you want it to be? Because it kind of sounds like it."

Steve blames his series of bad dates, the meaningless sex with girls with no substance, and the weird tension between them for his response. "It's a date, Munson."

"So, I'm going to assume that was the weirdest way of you two agreeing to help me," Dustin says, startling Steve away from Eddie who he was definitely not just about to kiss.

"Jesus H. Christ," Eddie mumbles under his breath as he moves away, seeming to have also forgotten where they were.

"Sure, we'll create a date for you two and trial-run it for issues," Steve says.

Dustin smiles wide and giggles, "See, I knew you two would help if you just put your dumb differences aside!"

"Something like that," Eddie mutters. "But hey, what does your gut say? Where do you want to take her?"

Dustin shrugs. "I like the idea of the movies."

Steve slowly looks over at Eddie and gives him a cocky smile. Eddie's mouth twitches momentarily into a frown, but he ignores him. "I'll think of something special to do after, but Harrington can fill you in on a movie date."

"I thought you were the expert on wooing," Steve snarkily replies.

Eddie huffs, "Movie dates just aren't my thing."

If they're actually trial-running this, Steve will make it a point to make movie dates Eddie's thing.

"That sounds great. Thank you both!" Dustin says, still ignoring the obvious tension.

"Well, I've got to head out, but it was good seeing you," Eddie says with a genuine smile that Steve thinks he would like to see more often.

"I do, too. Hey, I'm glad I could help. Next time maybe don't make it sound like a nail-bat emergency though," Steve says lowering his voice before grabbing the bat.

He follows Eddie toward the front, but they both stop and turn to mess up Dustin's hair simultaneously. Steve pulls his hand back when Eddie's hand runs on top of his. He looks at him with his eyebrows furrowed.

"I told you you guys are similar."

Steve thinks that Dustin's right, but maybe they're only similar in the way they both obviously care for him.

They finish their goodbyes and head out into the cold January weather. Steve clutches his jacket tighter around himself - he had forgotten to grab a heavier coat in his rush over. He turns to Eddie and says, "Hey."

Eddie turns to him and raises his eyebrows.

"Want to trial-run that date tonight?"

Eddie frowns at him. "I thought you were joking."

With that, Steve should take the clear out given to him and agree. Yes, it was just a joke. Instead, he says, "It doesn't have to be."

It's a long few seconds of Eddie staring at him before he gets a quiet response of, "Yeah, sure. Uh, let's go to my place though. I don't want your reputation to be tainted if you're seen in public with me."

"I wouldn't mind," Steve says sincerely. He's not sure why he's so adamant about this date, but maybe he just wants to see where that moment on the couch could truly lead. "But hey, your reputation would also be tainted if you're associating with me."

"And we wouldn't want that," Eddie says with a small smile. "The freak and the king. What would people say?"

This surprises a laugh out of Steve before he says, "I think your place would probably be a little more intimate than a movie theater."

He can't tell if Eddie's cheeks suddenly flush a little pinker from the cold or a blush. "I told you, I'm not that kind of guy."

"More intimate doesn't always mean sex. You know this."

Eddie laughs and shakes his head. "Why don't we continue this conversation at my place so you don't freeze to death?"

"I like the sound of that," Steve says, making his way to his car and trying to hide the huge smile that's trying to split across his face all because of Eddie Munson.

He rushes to shove his bat into the trunk, hoping that he won't have to further explain that to Eddie. But based on the way his eyes linger on it, he's thinking he won't get away from questioning too easily.

Luckily, he has prepared his Harrington charm for this moment. And boy, he's going to be using it as often as he can to prove Eddie wrong.

Part Two (aka the final part)

[blindrapture]

Opeth: The Last Will and Testament

Opeth's new album came out! and I got it in the mail.

I've listened to it twice now and it's getting its hooks in me. it's a fascinating little thing. it's exactly 50 minutes long and is easily the densest piece of music Opeth have ever put out. it reminds me of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick in terms of sheer density, and also hey by complete coincidence this album guest stars Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson (on flute and spoken-word parts). it also stars the lead singer of fucking Europe for some backing vocals. "The Final Countdown," the guy who sings that, he's on this album.

this album sounds nothing like I expected. well, no, I'm pretty familiar with Opeth's work by now and this album is entirely in keeping with what they like to do. but there's still something surprising, paradoxically, about the fact this album sounds like what I expected the album to sound like if someone took the concept really seriously. because I didn't expect the concept to be taken that seriously! I don't really know Opeth for their concept work! they can tell a story, sure, and they can make comically cryptic lyrics that aren't supposed to be all that cryptic, but.

well, again, it's like Thick as a Brick! it's almost a dry joke, it's a clear concept and it takes it very seriously and just commits to it!

look at this. the lyric booklet folds out into this beautiful thing.

look at that! that's a full-on last will and testament (of a fictional character), and that's the lyrics to this album.

this album tells a story, but it tells it entirely in epistolary form, through found objects. this will and testament is the majority of the album, and a private letter is the final song.

it's a cool idea. it removes a lot of the drama, since the actual narrative here is of a bunch of adults standing in a stuffy room hearing this will and testament being read aloud. but it still uses that to provide drama! this man's life was strained! and his three children are going to find out some things!

I'm.. I'm gonna talk about the plot. technically spoilers, but c'mon, come and listen to this.

this is cuck metal. this isn't a rock opera, this is a cuck opera. this is a fucking story about a great cuck of a man. the kids aren't really his kids. and he waits until he fucking dies to tell them that. he was a cuck!

that's a funny way of putting it, yes. but not inaccurate. this was a very rich english man, a very conservative man with strong beliefs in heritage and legacy, and he struggles with that as he agrees to raise these two sons that his wife had without him. and he instead latches onto his daughter, who he had with his handmaid-- he cheated on his wife for this, because he needed to have an heir. and this daughter comes into life "disfigured" but healthy. she has some sort of chronic illness or disorder, I don't think it's specified, but she will live a full life, and this father accepts that and loves her. and it is to her that he leaves his estate, his funds, everything. the sons get worthless but sentimental trinkets. the daughter gets everything.

so the actual last will and testament gradually reveals all that. in it, the father alludes to the love affairs, the secrets he and his wife kept, his feelings about bloodlines, his jealousies, his frustrations, and he leaves everything to his daughter.

but then the final song takes place later. the daughter is now living in the estate, her estate. and she receives a letter from that handmaid, her mother. and the letter tells her some things too. her "father" was infertile. he fucked the handmaid, but nothing came of it. she, instead, came from a poor father, the handmaid's actual lover. but the handmaid told the rich patriarch that this child was his, so that he would agree to care for her and keep her alive. so in the end, all that obsession with bloodlines was tragic. the patriarch was infertile!!!! he left everything to Just Some Fucking Kid! and never knew!

and that's!!! how the fucking story ends!

I love this so much. I love the way this plot is told. I think it's so fascinating a choice.

but then! what about the music? y'know, the proof of the music is in the listening, so what is it like to listen to?

well!!!

it's.. fucking dense!!! it is so dense!!! a thick soundscape of emotion, kept under a stiff upper lip as we just have so much more to get to. it's appropriate to the concept.

there's flute on here, there's mellotron, there's a live string section, there's hand-claps and some of the sweetest basslines I've heard in a long time. there's wild drums that go nuts at the slightest provocation. there's frequent chugging guitars that keep the action moving forward. and there's vocals. there's fucking vocals. the vocals are a constant back-and-forth between folksy evil and soulful crooning, and beyond that they're a constant back-and-forth between clean and GROWLS Opeth has GROWLS again!!! Opeth hasn't had growls since fucking 2008!!!! and if you've never heard Opeth's growling vocals before, ohhh my goddd they're so good, they're so pronounced and controlled and fierce.

but the word of this album is "dense." you gotta keep that word in mind. it is proggy to a perfect pulp, it throws everything at you, your first listen won't even be a rollercoaster, it'll be an onslaught of ideas and sensations. this is an album that requires multiple listens. I need to give it plenty more. it comes and goes very fast, you have no idea where the music is going to go, and every moment is filled with details in a rich mix. it could be downright overwhelming. absolutely.

but for me??? for me???? for me this is christmas. this is exactly the kind of album I've been craving. this album is a challenge, something to sink my teeth into, something to track and interpret every way 'til sunday. and it's an immediately rewarding challenge, because it's not noise music or anything like that, it's prog rock!!! it's smooth classy rock music! all the elements are recognizable, everything is familiar! when I revisit a song and dig into a passage, I'm rewarded with "oh I just noticed the guitar does this really cool riff here!" the whole album is that!

it's fucking FUN!!!

this album is FUN!!!

this is music to HAVE FUN LISTENING TO!

I will leave you with the album's single. because I gotta demonstrate what I'm talking about. if you read all this, I want you to hear the music!

here is Paragraph 1, here is how the album begins.

so I've gotta listen to this album more.

thank you, Opeth!!!

[katyspersonal]

How do you think Aldrich would speak? Is he rambling on philosophically like Aldia? Goofy and cryptic like Micolash? Is he flamboyant and manipulative like Shabriri?

I KNOW IT'S YOU @heraldofcrow !!!!!!!! There are only three people left that care about Aldrich: Tail does not send asks on anon, and I am literally right here, which only leaves YOU!

But yeah... He is the only of The Guys for whom we do not have any speech patterns reference, isn't he? I mostly come from the context and analysing characters' place and motivation in the story. Whereas Aldia is like Laurence and Micolash combined (affectionate), Aldrich is like Laurence and Micolash combined (derogatory)! THIS MAKES SENSE AND YOU KNOW IT OK!! He is of course less selfish than Laurence and Micolash in corruption, and past his epiphany about how the world is doomed anyways he wants to take people to the """better place""" (?) with him; be it by assimilating them into his body or be it by teaching them how to mingle with the horrors of the Deep on their own accord! I guess the 'still caring' aspect is just common Dark Souls thing, huh. BB guys just go 'fuck you plebs I'm out' fdshjsdhsd

I imagine Aldrich being giddy like Micolash, but with far more energy and genuine joy about his ramblings, however morally twisted, whereas Micolash feels completely lost in his madness and laser focus on reaching Kos, only acknowledging the Hunter because he is being hunted lol. Micolash feels very... sleepy, for a guy that spends his boss battle running, if this makes sense? Aldrich likewise emits strong excitement for what he witnessed but also wish to share it with allies and victims both. Whereas Laurence is revelling in how 'holy' and 'heroic' he is by doing things for humanity that no one else would dare, Aldrich would have less egotism about it and go more the 'don't worry guys I have a plan for us all you can trust me!' route. Less focus on how great he is and more focus on some twisted "reassurance" for everyone that everything will be alright.... that he secretly hopes would not work because people being scared and desperate is more fun for him 💀

I also have fun taking the line 'a right and proper cleric, only, he developed a habit of eating people' seriously, as in, he funny enough does try to be "good" despite what he's doing fdsdgfs That would mean not getting prideful, being generous and inviting, not holding grudges, all that. And all this comes naturally, he barely has to put an effort in it? He naturally smiles often, giggles between sentences and laughs off most of the unpleasant things, he gets smug but in a self-confident way, not in an insecure asshole way. It is just very hard to get to him, his self-esteem is as thick as his body I swear fdshdshfd Honestly, he'd be a very pleasant male mom friend (not to be confused with dad friend) in a way less insane setting? XDDD LISTEN I know it sounds weird, but you are a writer with a very strong intuition, you can probably paint the vivid picture from my (sorry) attempts at describing.. Actually, here are a few examples from when @val-of-the-north wrote his dialogue:

I absolutely love this vibe. Basically from time to time I ask Val to "talk" with me as a character that has no dialogue in canon, because Val is an actor (like, seriously) and always psyched for breathing more life into characters that never spoke in canon. Dude you should see how he depicted Sulyvahn and Alberich, I am still impressed so much, he's crazy good???? What we do is that I share the vision and very precise descriptions of what I imagine about the character (as what I literally just did above), and Val cooks according to my recipe as someone who actually knows how verbal communication works xd An autist and an actor the best team-up!!!!!!!!

I hope this helped though! (Use it to write a more unsettling shitpost skits if you want to fsdjsdfh)

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased To Meet You, chapter 13

Summary: Time and reality catch up with Frankie and you, and it’s your last night together in the orange bedroom. Are you two ready to part, even temporarily?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

TW: cryptic mention of self-harm. Please see the additional note at the end (to avoid spoilers).

A/N: Welcome to the angst fest. This chapter kept me awake for months, yearning for this man, so I really hope you like it, and him. And also, they’re filthy.

My endless love and gratitude to my beta. @meandorla, you are wonderful and an absolute dream✨ Your kind and wise words during the holidays kept me up and going♥️

@heythere-mel provided me with the Spanish translation and with so much kindness, Mel your cheerful mood is everything, you are pure sunshine ☀️ Thank you 😘

@deadmantis Thank you for all the inspo 🧡 Please keep them coming 🙂

Word Count: 5.1k

[prev] * [series masterlist] * [next]

Chapter 13: Perfect Day

The room suddenly falls oddly silent, as if in the aftermath of a natural disaster, or a car crash, until the sounds of your combined panting resurface. He’s lying heavy on top of you, his face sunk into the crook of your neck, and you welcome his crushing mass, your forehead pressed on the cool, hard surface of the tiled bathroom floor, your shoulders heaving furiously. 

More time passes before he can untangle his arms from underneath your limp body to raise himself on his forearms, his spent cock still sheathed inside you. The bite mark on your flesh is bright red, blood just beneath the surface of the indentation. He can make out all his teeth, count them distinctly. What has he done? 

“Shit, fuck, I hurt you,” he husks in alarm, withdrawing from you. You whimper as he moves, and a new wave of panic floods his brain. Supporting the weight of his body on his right arm, his left hand flies to the fresh scar and he starts thumbing it in a frantic rub.

“Leave it,” you whimper feebly, words barely articulated, and they don’t quite reach him over the din of his own breathing. 

“Shit, shit, shit!” he grits nervously, wiping your skin faster.

“Frankie, I said leave it,” you say louder. 

His thumb stills on your skin. With great difficulty, you brace your hands on the rug and laboriously turn onto your back between his legs. You can’t help it and you gasp at the sight of him, his soft, wet curls contrasting with the gravity of his frowned brow, his dark eyes with his skin of gold, smooth and freckled. You don’t think about your next words before you let them out. 

“God, you’re so beautiful.”

In the years to come, in the darkest, empty hours of the night, when you’ve run out of ways in which to hurt yourself, you will think he was never meant for you in the first place. Too soft, too smart, too beautiful. How could you possibly have kept a man like him? Better that he was taken from you before you had a chance to lose him.  

“Help me up,” you whisper once you’ve steadied your voice, and he slides a firm hand under your back to sit you up straight. The exhaustion that weighs you down is a pleasant one, and you use the momentum to climb onto his lap and straddle him, circling his broad shoulders with your arms, your chest snugly fitted against his. The crease between his brow has grown deep again. You press your lips to it and tighten your embrace.

“You can’t hurt me, Frankie, not like this,” you coo, tracing random figures on his back with the tips of your fingers, “I meant everything I said.” 

Your body’s vibrating under his palms, and when he pulls back a little to better see you, the look on your face reaches deep within him, slowing the wild thumping of his heart. You trace a trail of kisses on his eyelids, down the side of his nose, the edge of his jaw, and when you meet his lips, he opens up for you immediately. You kiss your certitude into him, and he swallows all of it. Slowly, languidly, until he stands up, lifting you easily to carry you back to the bedroom. Which is just as good, you don’t think you’ll be able to walk anytime soon.

He lays you on the sheets, and neither of you break that kiss. And you remain safely tucked in his embrace until, finally, you fall asleep.

There’s a pattern to this, he notes, sitting on the edge of the bed, relishing your even, quiet breathing. You’ll rest if he rails you. You’ll let go if he fucks the doubt out of you. 

Should he cover you? The heat hasn’t abated, but there’s a light breeze rustling the orange curtains, and you might be more comfortable if he pulled the white sheet over you, at least up to your waist. But perhaps all he wants is to wrap you in his scent again. 

He watches you a while longer before he can tear himself from your sleeping form, fencing off thoughts of the morning to come. He can't let them taint what little time you two have left. But he has to think, however, about after. How to formulate his request for a bond to tie you to him. He could take your number, your address. Ask you to wait. Word it, plain and clear. He’s yours. You’re his. 

Is it fair, though, asking you to attach yourself to a man who will most likely one day go to war? You’re younger than him, just a few years, but enough to have him question his rights to ask this much, if he even has any. You’ve a mind cut out for books and learning and academic achievements. What has he got to offer? Piles of paperbacks, a bag of clothes, and a pair of orange curtains. Questions about his past, an empty space where a father should stand.  

He’s got himself. That’s all he has. He knows his worth. And he’ll offer you that. You could try, at least for a while, cheat the distance, ignore the passage of time, write and call and fly across the globe into each other’s arms at every occasion. Would it work? He knows the answer to that. It’s in the tranquil, rhythmic rise and fall of your chest, in your emerging confidence, in your serene, sleeping face. It’s in your touch and in your eyes and in your trust. It’s in the peacefulness he’s never known until now. Of course, it would work.

Standing up, eventually, he walks over to the stack of clothes you neatly folded the day before, and slips on his black briefs. Another glance in your direction, and he goes to the kitchen sink, opening the tap to fill up a tall glass of water.

On the countertop near the front door, his cellphone lies face down where he threw it when he came home with you on Friday night. It feels like forever ago, now. In the best possible way. 

Unsurprisingly, the phone is dead, and it takes him a few minutes to retrieve the charger, in his bedroom by the bed, and walk back to the other room to plug it in. 

He thought himself ready, but reality still kicks him in the gut when the small Nokia screen lights up, ominously glaring with 12 missed calls and 16 unread messages. He runs a weary palm over his face before he can bring himself to look into it, and he lets out a relieved sigh when he realises that most notifications are from his sister. 

There’s a weekend’s worth of her daily reminders of “You can still change your mind, there’s no shame in it,” a phrase she’s delivered in person or by text ever since he enrolled. Most messages are practical inquiries about the apartment, and his last days as a civilian. Is he packed? Does he need help? Is there something in particular she needs to know before she meets with his landlord on Monday afternoon?

Frankie tries to focus on the practicalities, feeling a surge of affection for his sister. The thorough care and consideration with which she’s sending him off, despite her disapproval of his choice of path. And now, he’s not so sure if he wouldn’t rather she was still sulking. 

He’s just through sending her a fifth message, hunched over the kitchen counter, when you walk up behind him, sliding your arms around his torso and pecking a kiss between his shoulders, the tension he didn’t even register had built in his frame dropping instantly. 

You release your embrace and go around him, casually leaning against the Formica countertop, when you realise what he’s doing. 

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were… sending sms? How do you say it in English?” you ask.

“Texting,” he answers with a soft smile. “It’s fine. It’s Izzy, my sister. About tomorrow,” he adds, a tick in his jaw, a nervous tic of his you’re growing accustomed to. 

You’ve put on your panties and you’re wearing his shirt again, the sides of it framing your naked breasts. He considers asking you to keep it. He doesn’t really give a shit if that makes him sound too needy.

“She’s coming to pick you up, right?” He nods and you ask again, “What time are you leaving?” 

“6 a.m.,” he replies, his teeth slightly clenched. 

You mull over your next words. You’re intuitive, but far too sincere to be considered subtle. Incapable of concealing anything, despite your inclination for secrecy. So you opt for a straightforward question.

“Do you need time alone to get ready? Perhaps you should rest, I should leave you-”

He stands up straight, rising to his impressive full height, silencing the rest of your sentence with his silhouette towering over yours. 

“Stay.”

You tilt up your head to look him in the eyes, dark, overshadowed by that damn crease between his brow. 

“I will. I am.”

You grasp the countertop so you don’t sway when he smiles so deeply his dimple shows. His arm goes around your waist under his shirt and his hand splays possessively in the small of your back. 

“I like your skin,” he says, strengthening his hold. 

“I like your lips,” you whisper, and you reach for them, the kiss deepening rapidly, threatening to become something else, something more, until the ringtone of his phone pulls you apart.

He doesn’t let go of you as he reads the message and answers it, and when he’s done, he throws the phone on the counter and returns his full attention to you, pressing his mouth on the fresh scar at the base of your neck. He was so quick to figure what gets you off, but you still feel sore from earlier, in the bathroom, so you resist the pull in your lower belly and ask, “Can I help you with something? Do you need to tidy up the place?”

As you say it, you realise the apartment is already as clean as it gets, but Frankie picks up on your hint and slightly draws away from you, giving you a little space. 

“No, not really. Izzy’s coming tomorrow afternoon to pack up the sheets, the towels, and the curtains. The rest isn’t mine.” 

Your eyes widen as your eyebrow shoot up to your hairline and you gasp in horror, “Jesus Frankie, you’re telling me your sister is gonna see those sheets?”

His laughter rumbles from the depth of his chest. It’s the first time you hear him laugh so resoundingly, and your heart sinks a little because it retains the breathy quality of his voice.

“Yea, and she’s gonna see you too, tomorrow morning, so she’ll know who’s the culprit.”

You burst into a silly giggle and slap his shoulder in mock reproach. He draws you in again, wanting to feel you laugh with his whole body. He can’t help his next question, he needs to know and it’s better to ask now, with the light mood you two are in.

“When are you going back home?”

You scrunch up your nose to think, not even sure of what day today is anymore.

“End of August? Uni starts in October, so I’ll have a month to work full time and save some money.”

“What will you do with the rest of your summer?” He does his very best to conceal the ache from this one, your remaining time on this continent, that he won’t be spending with you, before the ocean spreads your two bodies further apart, but it’s useless, it seems. You tuck yourself against him before you answer, speaking into his neck.

“More museums, probably. Coney Island. I’ll go back to the Algonquin, take pictures. I want to see the Guggenheim again.”

He nuzzles into your hair, his words muffled, “You been to the MoMa yet?”

“Yes,” you look up at him, “but I prefer the Guggenheim. The building itself, I mean. It’s 80% of the experience, to me. I don’t know, it’s so… sexy?”

You chuckle in self-derision and hide your face in his neck again, and you feel more than hear his breathy laugh. 

“Sexy? You wanna elaborate?”

You lean back against the counter, moving away from his heat so you can focus and think over your arguments. 

“Ok, yes, sensual might be a better term. The coiling structure? It’s like… an ascent? A building orgasm? I find it somehow soft, yet dramatic. I like the open space that doesn’t feel impersonal, it’s like a womb, I don’t know. I don’t necessarily care for the art in it, actually, I’m more classic in my tastes, but this building does something to me,” you finish, throwing your palms up.

You bask in his luminous smile, the gleam of his soft eyes that have regained their warm, brown shade. 

“Yea, ok, I understand.”

At times, he thinks you might be aware of the extent of what you do to him. But mostly he’s convinced that you haven’t got a clue. 

“Do you like the MoMa better?” you ask.

“Not anymore, I don’t,” he jokes. 

He pushes the half-full glass of water towards you and you drink it up, before asking again, “Who’s your favourite painter? Do you have one?” 

“Oh yea, that’s easy, Gerhard Richter,” he answers quickly. 

You furrow your brow, “That’s super abstract, no?” 

“I guess, maybe, not everything. Who’s yours?” he adds, taking a step closer to you after you’ve put the glass down.  

You rest your hand on his forearm as you pause to decide.

“Eugène Carrière, probably.” Frankie shakes his head, indicating he doesn’t know the name. “He was a 19th century French painter… He painted in grey, brownish, kind of sepia tones. I don’t know how to explain it, I’m not an art student,” you shrug, always a lingering apology about your words. Yet, you carry on, “What I love is that, it should be dark, and gloomy, but it’s not. It’s very luminous, lots of golden tones. And what I like best is that, from afar, his paintings look defined, but the closer you get, the blurrier the edges, the brush strokes look so light, almost… I don’t know, not there?”

Frankie swallows the lump in his throat before he can close the distance between you completely. Tilting your face up between his thumb and index, he kisses your parted lips, peeking out his tongue to find yours. He only breaks it to lean into the crook of your neck, breathing you in, and pecking the mark he left there. 

“Fuck, baby, I really love your skin,” he whispers against the imprint of his teeth. 

You press your body into his, where he stands tall and strong, with all of your strength, and he doesn’t even budge. 

“And I really, really love your lips.” 

—

The light’s grown dim again in the orange bedroom, a dreaded physicality of the time you got left. 

Standing by his nightstand, Frankie’s been staring into the empty box of condoms for the past two minutes, as if this might conjure up an extra one. He could run to the deli on Manhattan Ave, but that would lose him a half hour between your arms. Still, it’s better than not having you one last time. 

When you exit the bathroom, his sadness startles you. You see him tossing something back into the creaking drawer, but can’t make out what it is, and it’s only when you level up with him that you understand. 

“Hey, it’s fine” he says, more to himself than to you, his voice restrained, “we don’t need to– you’re probably still sore from-”

You silence him with your entire body thrown against his, arms flung around his shoulders.

“Frankie I don’t fucking care, I want you inside me, I want you to fill all my holes,” you plead.

“Take this off,” he rasps, nearly ripping his shirt off your shoulders.

You expect him to be rough again, urgent and brisk in his need; he cradles the back of your head in his hand, instead, kissing you as he lowers you onto the bed. His hands roam restlessly over your body, his palms pressed on your skin, as if trying to cover you entirely and all at once. He breathes you in, your cheek, your temple, your hair, his muscles shuddering under your touch.

“I wanna taste what I do to you, baby,” he murmurs in your ear in a low, husky tone, and you shut your eyes, your arousal pooling down your folds at his command, “I wanna drink you up, I wanna remember your taste.”

He nibbles your earlobe, skates the bridge of his nose along the line of your throat, and when he reaches the slope of your shoulder, Frankie thinks to himself, “one more, just this one more,” and draws in your skin with a strong suck, his cock hardened at the sound of your moan, the expression of your total abandon. 

His eyes remain locked on your face, his lips sealed to your skin, this is about recording you, in whole and in parts, the sensation of your reactions, the thrill of your shivers, and he’d suck on your skin harder if only he knew how this will end, that what is to come are too many years imprisoned in his head, rummaging through his memories in search of your forgotten taste. 

His mouth slides along your collarbone, and he tastes you there, too, gathering on his tongue the salty flavour of your sweat from the dip of your throat, oblivious to his own grunts, lost in the light touch of your fingers on his back. You writhe underneath him, and it’s like a dance. 

Cupping your breasts, he kneads the soft flesh, gentle at first, then with a mind to imprint his touch, so that you too won’t forget. You wrap your legs around his waist and twine your fingers in his curls. You won’t forget, that is your curse. 

He sucks in your nipple, pulls on it between his teeth and when you hiss your pleasure, he decides that one last mark is not enough, he’ll leave another one on the swell of your breast. 

Then it’s a sharp inhale between your legs, spread by his broad shoulders, his nose pressed to the dampened fabric of your underwear. Your hips arch against his face, and he holds you down with an arm barred across your belly, the other one clutching your thigh, biting your clothed mound with a primitive grunt that makes you quiver and quake. 

Words get stuck in your throat when you want to beg him to take, take, take, so you buck your hips again instead. 

Frankie shuts his eyes, resting his forehead against your panties, willing his waning control to endure just a little longer. Willing himself to savour when he wants to devour. 

The slow drag of the cottony fabric along your legs is a never-ending torture, followed by the soothing graze of his stubble, but he feels you squirm under his hold, and he has no desire to keep you waiting too long. To you, he knows it now, there’s nothing he will ever deny. He licks a broad stripe along your core and, slowly, dips his tongue inside your cunt. You exhale your relief, tugging at his hair with the urgency of despair. 

Thorough and gentle all at once, he drives his tongue in and out, deep, unhurried, and meticulous, the curve of his nose rubbing on your swollen clit, and when he feels your legs twitch, he releases his hold, and pauses. Kissing it better, in hopes to make it last, when he knows you won’t be able to give him as much as you want, as much as he needs, and anyway, that’s not how he wants to make you come. 

Ruefully, he draws away from you, kneeling between your open legs, and your body goes slack on the bed with his retreat. 

No words are spoken. Holding your core against his throbbing cock, a bruising, possessive grip on the dip above your hips, he waits for you to lift up your head, your dazed, unfocused eyes finding his. And on your imperceptible nod, he lines himself up. 

He wants to watch, he needs to see, where he splits you open, and the look on your face as he slides inside you bare, inch after inch, your tight skin catching around the heft of him. His eyes flick frantically between the place where you’re joined and your beautiful face, your parted lips, your hooded eyes, the unquenchable want he finds there. 

The nightstand lamp casts a golden hue in his dark eyes. You record his loving gaze, it carries all the tenderness you’ve never received. You record the warm tone of his skin, the feeling of his touch, the delight of his scent. 

Your hands skate up his forearms in a soundless request. He leans forward, covering you, his fingers splayed on your sides as yours find the V shape of his hair on his damp nape. 

His strokes are deep, barely pulling out before he thrusts in even further, grinding his hips against your ass, tracing open-mouth kisses along your jaw, under your ear, down your neck, and you’re sinking in, engulfed, from within and from outside, all around, enveloped in his scent, lost in his warmth, wrapped in his arms.

You want to call him darling, or chéri, you want to say mon amour, but all that passes your lips is Frankie, because it is the sweetest name, because it tastes like honey and floods your inner world, because Frankie is all that there is left inside your brain. 

Years from now, you will still cry out his name, your face hidden into your tear-stained pillow, your empty body heaving with pain, with want, with regrets, the faint prayer of Frankie Frankie Frankie flowing out of you. 

So it is Frankie, you say, as you take his hand to place it on the soft flesh of your lower belly, your skin glistening with his sweat, “Frankie, can you feel yourself inside me? Can you feel me around you? Can you feel it?”

Frankie watches the tear that rolls down your temple, his chest constricted with a brand-new sort of pain, he presses his hand harder, and his forehead to yours and he whispers, “I feel you, baby, I feel everything, I feel only you.”

A heavy sob shakes your chest, so Frankie hooks his arms under your knees and his hands around your shoulders and crushes you under his weight, buries himself inside you and grinds. Heels shoved into his back, you’re blindingly stretched around him, he knows you’re going to feel him for days, with what he’s making you take, knows that’s what you want, too, and something primal rips in his chest, he wants to tear it open and fit you in there, carry you with him everywhere. 

He brushes his lips against yours, his voice hoarse and low when he speaks into your mouth, “I’m gonna come inside you, baby, I’m gonna come inside you.” 

Tears flow freely from the corner of your eyes, sliding down to your hairline. You dig your nails in his back, and he hopes you're going to leave a mark, he’s breathing inside your mouth, and it is with his breath that you answer, “Come with me, Frankie.” 

He nods his answer and it’s only a few more strokes before he feels your cunt start to flutter, your body pulled taut in his hold, your nails breaking his skin. He buries his face in your neck and lets go, finally lets go of everything, pouring it into your wanting, open body, into your soul, thick ropes of come painting your slick walls, empties himself, fills you up, surrenders to you. 

Your breathing comes in short and shaky, but a rush of cold jolts you up when the air hits your sweat-dampened skin as his body leaves yours. 

“No!” you cry out, sitting up on your elbow to see Frankie crouching down between your legs again. 

Carefully, his fingers part your swollen, aching folds. That primal pang fires through his chest again, at the sight of your cunt leaking his spend. He wraps his plush lips around it and plunges his tongue inside you, gathering his essence and yours. Another sob threatens to break through you and you clasp your hand on your mouth to hold it back. 

When he’s sure to have it all, he sits up and braces himself over you on one arm, brushing your damp hair off your face, brushing the tears rolling down your temple with the work-worn, calloused pads of his fingers, wishing he could drink it up. His thumb presses gently on your bottom lip, prompting you to open for him, and when you do, he lets it roll down along his tongue into your wanting mouth. He watches you swallow, watches the bobbing of your lean throat. 

Years later, this image will keep invading his thoughts, in foreign brothels, in humid jungles, in scorching deserts. He will think about it in regrets that he didn’t fuck it deeper inside of you instead.

Frankie lowers his face close to yours, “I’m gonna sleep inside you, tonight, baby.” 

You nod with what little strength you have left and wrap your arms around his shoulders, your lips seeking his, as he sheaths his still-hard cock inside you. Sliding his arms around your waist, he draws you in and rolls with you on his side. You snuggle your face against his chest, his skin scalding your skin like a fever, and you fall asleep almost instantly. 

—

The night brings him no rest. He wakes up as soon as he slides out of you, pulling you in closer, burying his face in your hair until he can’t breathe anymore. 

Awake when you stir and you stretch. Awake still, or again, when you moan feebly in your sleep. 

When his alarm chimes at 5am, Frankie has barely slept. 

You jolt in his arms, mumbling, “Shit, did we oversleep?” and the pronoun nearly brings tears to his tired eyes. 

It takes you a moment to register the darkness outside, as you rub off the sleep from your eyes, perched on the edge of the bed. The air has shifted, a cold breeze wafts in the orange bedroom through the curtains and you shiver in the silence. 

Frankie slips on his clothes, finally deciding against giving you his shirt. It bears your powdery scent, he’ll take that with him. 

Neither of you want to shower the other off your skin. Instead, he packs his books and clothes in his duffle bag, and you offer to prepare some coffee. 

You’re fully dressed when he joins you in the kitchen, handing him a mug. 

“Mmh,” he smacks his lips, “you make good coffee. Strong. You want some sugar?”

“No, cheers, just milk.”

You run your fingers on his back before walking back to the bedroom, where you start folding the sheets. 

You hear him rummaging frantically through the cabinets and drawers, and when he reappears in the doorway, he’s visibly flustered.  His low voice comes in tense when he asks, “Do you have a pen?”

You retrieve a fountain pen from your purse and go back with him to the kitchen. He’s ripped a small, rectangular piece of paper, on which he writes down some numbers. He hands it to you, but holds on to it when you grab it. 

“Swear you’ll call me,” he pleads, and you know there is not enough love on your lips to ease the crease off his brow. What he needs are your words. 

“I swear,” you answer. 

When Frankie locks the front door, it’s for the very last time, two years’ worth of memories numbing his fingers. He follows you down the narrow stairwell, the atmosphere devoid of the electric anticipation it carried two days ago. 

Down in the street, you are greeted by a swirling wind and bleak morning light. Frankie nods silently in the direction of a parked VW Golf a few cars down, where a bespectacled brunette waves back enthusiastically. You offer a bright smile and a sign with your hand, and Frankie focuses on the prospect of the two of you properly meeting, one day. One day soon. 

“We should drop you off. Do you know which way to go?” His voice sounds gruff and bears the weight of his exhaustion.  

“No, thank you, you’ll be late. Don’t worry. I know my way. I’m a big girl from a big city,” you add with a wink. 

Frankie bows down his head, shaking it left and right, his resolve failing him, so you broaden your smile and cup his face in your hands. 

“I will call you tonight. I can’t wait to hear your voice. You’re going to be a pilot, Frankie! You will fly me over the fucking Andes.”

A sad smile barely lifting the corner of his lips, he’s taken aback by the strength emanating from your trustful features, no apparent traces of sadness, no more blurry edges. He didn’t fuck that into you, even he couldn’t. That strength you’re giving him, is all you.  

He gives you one last, shy kiss. 

You part, eventually. 

Taking the direction of Manhattan Ave, you turn around one last time to watch him get inside his sister’s car, the little piece of paper with his number safely tucked in your jean pocket. You should have told him to be safe, you really wanted to, but it sounded ominous, like a farewell. 

“I can’t believe you!” Izzy laughs as he takes the passenger seat in her Golf, “until the last fucking moment!”

Frankie fastens his seatbelt, flinching.

“You know you can still change your mind, hermanito? No shame in it,” she taunts him for what has got to be the hundredth time. 

“Yea, well, maybe I will,” he mumbles. 

Izzy’s hands stills on the ignition, her black eyes searching her brother’s face. Flying is the only thing he has talked about since he was 10 years old.

“Hermanito estas bien? Who’s this girl?” Izzy asks in a quiet voice. 

Frankie bends down and retrieves a red cap from the bag between his legs. He combs his fingers through his unruly curls, sets the cap firmly on his head, and your name passes his lips for what is going to be the last time in the next sixteen years. 

****

Additional note: it is not spelled out but Reader actually never had unprotected sex and she’s on the pill. Same for Frankie (aside from the pill, it’s a patriarcal world 🙄) who, moreover, just had his physicals. All this to say: please wear condoms.

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos

[glassmarcus]

The Scadu of Power Creep

I've anguished at the size of Elden Ring in the past, so it's nice that the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is in its own little corner that's still extremely large. It's not gargantuan enough to run into a lot of the same issues I had with the base game though. It doesn’t run out of unique content and the path forward is very legible. I'd say this DLC honestly has ideal world design for a souls game. The main path is clear and easy to focus on, but the side content is something you need to really earn. Half of the content in this DLC is side content, and unlike the side stuff in the base game, it's just as good as the required stuff.

Remember Ash Lake in Dark Souls? That hidden area that was hidden behind another hidden area? The one that didn’t really need to be in the game at all? Well, Shadow of the Erdtree has like 5 Ash Lakes and I love it. I love high quality content not just being optional, but something you have to investigate to access. It's fucking insane from a production stand point, but does so much for the magic the world building. This might be the best map From Software has made. It's interconnected in such a way that gives Dark Souls a run for its money, and even having a map doesn't make drawing the mental map in your brain obsolete due to how 3D dimensional everything is.

I'd love the next souls game to be of this size and using the same philosophy as this DLC. The only thing I’d add is a few disconnected areas. Shadow of the Erdtree is great, but it's also not accessible til the end of the base game. I want to see how a game like this lands without having to account for 80 hours of gameplay before starting it. Shadow of the Erdtree has its own level scaling system that powers up your stats through collectibles. This is great for encouraging exploration, as most crafting materials you find at this point in the game are useless. It was a great band aid solution, but I hope they don't have to resort to it again as it does limit the ways you can progress by restricting these materials to certain areas.

The world design is probably the most impressed I was with this DLC, but it doesn't end there. The story is surprisingly easy to follow. Characters are not being cryptic at all here. They are straight forward in letting you know what the deal is. I'm too anxious about the size of these games to stop and appreciate the plot, so this is a welcome approach. The weapons they add to the game are also incredible and made me change up my play style quite a bit. I forever need Martial Arts and Light Great Swords in these games. It’s gonna be hard to go back after playing with them.

There is one thing I’d call a disappointment and that’s the boss design. My complaints aren’t even relevant for most of them. A lot of the DLC bosses are a step up from the base game and are how I'd prefer the boss design to go down in the future. But there were about 4 or so that were kinda ass. Mostly the final boss and the first boss that actually gate keeps you. I just hate how they attack forever. It's not fun for me to play a boss fight where you don't get any openings and trading hits isn't worth it. I basically always had to use summons because I have a job and want to play more than 5 games this year. I've gone through this before in my previous Elden Ring review and it still applies, but this campaign proves that it doesn't have to be this way. 3 of my favorite bosses in the franchise are in this DLC because they don't constantly attack. They find a way to raise the stakes without giving every boss legendary actions.

I think likening the combat to Dungeons and Dragons mechanics is an apt comparison. Not a lot of people know this, but Dark Souls 1 is secretly turn based. Enemies and bosses attack and then take a moment to catch their breath and then you attack and you catch your breath. It sounds boring when you put it that way. But because you always have a turn, you can always do something on that turn. In Elden Ring it's never really your turn when you are fighting these overtuned bosses. And when it is, it's not your turn for long. Thus you have less options to counter attack with because not every attack in this game is quick. This is why I need summons to take aggro off, so I can experiment with other options that aren't a jumping R2 as a counter attack and then dodging 12 times. The average Dark Souls fight I prefer over Elden Ring because there are infinite ways to beat a boss that are valid and effective. And honestly I think Dark Souls 3 is the perfect balance between twitch reflexes and decision making that makes these boss fights great.

I remember spending 3 hours fighting Sister Frieda in the Dark Souls 3 DLC and feeling elated upon victory. It's still one of my favorite boss fights. Because while it's a gauntlet, there's a sober way to deal with everything the boss throws at you and you had time to form a strategy. I understood the boss and that's why I won. I don't think I understood a lot Elden Ring bosses. Not just because I don't have a moment to catch my breath, but also because I can't comprehend what they are doing. This is why I had little fun with the Final Boss. Yea he's hard and aggressive, but also his attacks were literally blinding. I beat him. I liked formulating a strategy to negate the more ridiculous aspects of the fight. But it felt like I didn't completely understand phase 2. So I felt nothing. I spent 3 hours on the fight, just to feel nothing. And if I spent 7 hours doing it without a busted weapon, I might have felt great, but I don’t think it would be worth the payout. This DLC really just hammered how much I like Lies of P fights and how well tuned they are difficulty wise.

I think we have reached Kaizo territory. Bosses are so roided up that instead of feeling triumph I feel like I survived some sick prank. And if people want that, that's fine. Play a mod. This isn't me being snarky. I think the power creep of bosses and trying to make each one harder has gotten out of hand and needs to be dialed back. But for the freaks who still want that, I really think official mod support needs to be in the next souls game so they can be satisfied. Because I don't want the franchise to out grow anyone, not just me. But...I also want the games to be fun to finish, so this seems to be the happy medium. Because Fromsoft won't be able to cater to the freaks for much longer.

[starlightshadowsworld]

Danganronpa 3 Despair arc episode 6.

Thonks.

Hajime having a flashback while describing what happened.

Oh boy.

Confirms he was supposed to be the Ultimate Hope.

"All traces off previous personality deleted."

You got that wrong... But for now you're right.

They really couldn't have cut his hair, like the whole time.

Chiaki asking Chisa how Hajime is, because she taught at the Reserve Course.

And Chisa lying to her.

Ouch.

I love how Ibuki is sus of Peko and Fuyuhiko's "sudden friendship."

And kicking Teruteru for getting perverted.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Few things are as Gundam Tanaka as Gundam calling a bunny a bringer of Calamity.

And than comforting said bunny and calling it BunBun.

So sweet.

Chisa got a hold of a key card from Juzo.

... Why would you want to live for Munakata's ideals?

Or die for him.

... Why?

Juzo saying he wouldn't hesitate to die for Chisa.

Unexpected, but I don't think it's jealously. Even with the close up of his fist.

They all were friends, he took her death hard, makes sense.

... Or maybe he is jealous of being a third wheel to Chisa and Munakata.

He cares a lot for both of them. It must be hard when you know both of your friends are in love.

And you're just here.

I don't like the guy but I can sympathise.

Aaaannnd Nagito is still missing.

Chisa your disguise kinda sucks but sure, breaking in.

Close the door!

Wait someone vanished?

Of course it was Junko's fault.

Junko that's curry... Not soup. I guess it doesn't matter if either way it's ending up in an eye.

Gotta love Junko talking about how great normal everyday things are for torture.

And knowing she'll some of the most elaborate executions known to man.

Imagine Danganronpa 1 but the executions are just torture via household objects and food.

... Actually don't that sounds terrifying.

The Kamakura project description...

Why does hearing about it with professional jargon make it sound so much worse?

And it's already fucked.

So Izuru has all known talents, and the trade off was losing his personality and his memories.

... Fuck.

And naturally Junko knows, somehow.

So she and Mukuro are off to meet him.

Idk why I'm suprised that Junko casually had an eyeball on her.

But did it need to be on the stick of the food your eating?

The fated meeting between Junko and Izuru.

Funny thing about Munakata being against the Kamakura project is that he basically becomes his own Izuru Kamakura.

A despair disguised under the flag of hope.

I love how he's like what if Izuru Kamakura turned against us.

Yeah that'd be awful... 👀

Annnd Izuru takes down both Junko and Mukuro.

Man has all talents.

I do like that he still sounds like Hajime.

So much more soul crushing.

The thing is Junko and Izuru are intellectual equals.

But Junko has the upper hand.

Izuru doesn't see Junko as a threat, she's able to fool him and implant the seeds of wanting despair in him.

She knows his situation better than anyone, because he knows all the outcomes and so does she.

She's bored and knows he is too.

And uses that in her favour.

Ayy Ryota's okay.

Twogami saying he's going to keep going to the hospital till he's got a clean bill of health.

Which is sweet.

And Junko in the infirmary.

Makes sense that Mukuro doesn't like Izuru, especially cos he injured Junko and Junko's fangirling over him.

Butt for Junko I'm sure she'll go with it.

"When she wakes up, tell her I'll be waiting."

Looks like the seeds been planted.

I say seeds like it was done all sneaky and cryptic but girl just despair speeched him.

And it worked.

I'd say Junko has issues but we all knew that.

Huh, didn't know Junko had a spidey sense.

And cornered, Ryota of all people.

Wasn't who I expected her to grab first... Especially because Ryota didn't become a despair.

But that doesn't mean he escaped her grasp.

... Few ever do.

[scrollsfromarebornrealm]

brainworms

fuck it, I shall be unhinged

SPOILERS BENEATH THE READMORE

but first

EVERYTHING CERTAINLY WAS NOT FINE AT ALL

Okay so ever since last August this bit of dialogue has been living rent free in the back of my head

That 'infect' line is pretty interesting considering we get a somewhat similar line in patch 6.4, when Jullus speaks to Zero on the nature of trust among mortals. Thancred also had a similar line, telling Zero to stick around the Warrior of Light and she'd learn the meaning of trust.

It also speaks (at least in my opinion) the sheer level of damage Athena's betrayal and his self-sundering inflicted on Lahabrea. This man got wrecked. He was in love, possibly high on fatherhood, is on the Convocation, enjoys a great deal of respect from his peers--and he is hurt so badly that he limits himself to feeling any and all emotions at a reserve. He prizes logic and cold hard facts. Talk about a fucking crash to the bottom!

And even with his self sundering, he still feels deeply! Call him out over his shutting out of Erichthonios and the man just stares at you like you fucking slapped him straight into the abyss. And when he rejoins himself--he's still that cold, hard, logical asshole of a man--still repressing his feelings.

Anyway. Brainworms. I'm playing with the idea (still gotta let patch things settle, get some proper sleep and the like), but fiddling with the idea that Lahabrea--or rather, Hephaistos was at odds with Junia, because like him, Junia was wildly passionate and worked more according to her feelings rather than accept and follow logical outcomes. Though when they did get along on matters it was actually frightening for all involved.

I'm disappointed that we didn't get any time with *our* Lahabrea--this version of him is post Panda and self-rejoined and *right* before the Final Days, but as I've got the feeling that Pandaemonium is a good-bye to the Ancients on a whole in terms of story (could be wrong but as of rn there seems to be no need for the WoL to go back to Elpis), this version of him is probably the best good-bye we'll be able to get. And honestly it might be better this way. Lahabrea was so unhinged at the end of it all that just sleeping in the Lifestream is probably the best medicine, if he hasn't moved onto being reborn yet.

Regarding anything with Riven--I'm now on the fence regarding the idea of Junia finding out about her future...soul-child, so to speak. I have two trains of thought--one where she did find out about Riven and the Final Days, and her assistance in securing Pandaemonium. Junia decides to protect Riven as best as she could by giving out that Riven was a familiar she created, giving her freedom to wander the world. She then gives Themis a cryptic clue regarding Pandaemonium and Riven's arrival, and finally, to make sure that she doesn't foul anything up, uses Kairos to wipe her memories and implant false ones.

The other line of thought was Venat. It's in line with Elidibus's explanation in Panda 2.0. Venat tells Junia that she encountered a strange being in her travels--one that reminded her greatly of her student. Junia is suspicious initially, even more so when she starts to get details of Riven's time in Elpis. Venat then 'admits' to her successor that she suspected the strange being was possibly a concept that had escaped and evolved on its own--and had decided to model itself after Junia and her actions. Junia accepts this--much to her brother Lucis' displeasure.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Either way, following Pandaemonium's stabilization, Lahabrea--who has been unable to cast out the memory of a gremlin that looked and sounded too much like a certain illogical and annoying co-worker--

(not to mention her combat skill eclipsed the most powerful of the Convocation)

Confronts Junia over Riven. Junia being Junia, effectively blocks and prevaricates on the matter. Surprisingly Lahabrea lets it drop. Yes he'd like to get his hands on the little gremlin for Science™️ but really, he did warn her away from Pandaemonium so alas.

Later on before the Final Days, he is privy to a comment Junia makes-- voicing her wish for a strong and caring daughter who could 'help the world'. This makes him stop and pause--was the little fiend Azem's daughter?

And then all the Very Bad Shit happens, Lahabrea loses his fucking mind, doesn't meet Riven again until the events of ARR and HW. By that time he's so far gone he doesn't remember the events of Pandaemonium and possibly doesn't until his soul hits the Lifestream.

"SHE WAS THE FUCKING 'FAMILIAR'?!"

Riven: *sneeze*

[death-and-other-myths]

Blue Lily, Lily Blue Deadass Book Review

By Maggie Stievfater

This is an unhinged book review/recap of Blue Lily, Lily Blue and shits about to get WIERD AS HELL for Blue and her 4 private school dude friends. AUGH!!

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

This book opens with Adam and Persephone standing on a mountain in the billowing wind doing cool psychic shit, like being able to turn and stand on the leyline and know exactly where it is. She asks Adam what he sees, he closes his eyes. She has to keep reminding him to look outside, not inside. Inside are painful memories and present anxieties. He thinks of the shattered glass things on Gansey’s mansion floor. But when he focuses, he sees 3 sleeping things that need to be woken up. Persephone sees them too, but says no.. it’s 2. One of them shouldn’t be woken up. 

So it’s been a month since Maura disappeared, leaving only a cryptic note. “Glendower is underground and so am I.” — Blue is being strong, but she can’t help but feel a little abandoned. Like we all know Maura went down there looking for Artemis. 

Luckily, we check in on Maura and she’s fine. Time doesn’t exist in the cave. So to her it feels like it’s been a few minutes but it’s really been a month. 

In the meantime, Blue and the boys have been going to hang out at Cabeswater every day. It’s fall, but when they’re there, they wish for it to be summer, so the forest makes it summer. YOU HAVE TO BE SO CAREFUL what you think in this stupid forest. It does nice things like makes the fish change colors, but if you think something like “I could just crawl out of my skin” you will literally be skinned lol. Literal-ass forest. 

There is this really beautiful part where Blue tests out the magic. She thinks of blue lilies and it starts raining blue petals. A petal lands on Gansey’s lips. He sits up and is like “Okay. It’s time.” 

Oh, Noah is there by the way. Hanging out with Matthew who is there visiting Aurora Lynch, who lives in the forest. She’s sweet beyond words. Literally a dream girl. If she leaves Cabeswater, she’ll fall back into a coma. Anyway, Noah and Matthew sit in the car to keep time. Because time moves strangely in Cabeswater.

They enter the cave and tie themselves together on a safety line. Ronan in the back, then Blue, then Adam, all led by our fearless leader, Gansey. Gansey orders Ronan to sing a song, so they can mark time (all of their watches have stopped) — He whistles Irish tunes as they walk. He starts by singing the Murder Squash song, which everyone yells at him about.

Things are going great until Gansey vanishes. Adam is yanked to the ground and manages to hold himself. Ronan grabs Blue tightly. Gansey fell down a FUCKING cave hole and for several terrifying moments, he’s not replying to them. With Adam as a counterweight (poor baby laying on the ground lol) Blue is able to peek over the hole and talk to Gansey — who is… UNDERSTANDABLY having a panic attack as he is free hanging over darkness. 

Again. We’re so used to confident, fearless-leader Gansey, it is fascinating to see him terrified. And this scene is terrifying. 

“There is something on my skin and it is reminding me of …” He trailed off. 

“Water,” Blue suggested. “Or mud. It’s everywhere.”

There was nothing but the sound of his breathing, jagged and afraid. 

Everybody realizes all at once that if they think of hornets, the magic is going to manifest as hornets. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Then they hear the sound of wings. And thousands of moving things. Turns out it’s hundreds of RAVENS that swarm out of the cave to more ghostly chanting “Make way for the Raven King”. Gansey’s like… okay I’m done being in the pit. I’m coming up now. 

The next day, Adam tries to drive into a national forest to do Cabeswater business. It sends him visions and it’s up to him to figure out what they mean. Tarot cards help. He even lined his sink with tin foil and scryed about it! I love the thought of Adam doing psychic shit. Poor baby though… he’s kind of feeling lonely. He sorted out his anger and that’s doing much better. He even thinks of how scared Gansey sounded in the pit. Like too scared to even pull himself up at first. It reminds him of how he stayed with his abusive father. Fear does strange things to us.

Later, the gang (sans Noah) is crammed in the Camaro on their way to pick up Gansey’s British friend Mallory. They’re speculating as to how to explore that pit some more. Adam is passed out against the window from being magical and doing his 3 jobs probably. Ronan is looking out the window. So we get this ADORABLE SCENE FROM GANSEY AND BLUE.

In the rearview mirror, he caught Blue’s eyes by accident. Strangely enough, he saw his own thoughts reflected in her face: excitement and consternation. Casually, out of view of Ronan, making sure Adam was still sleeping, Gansey dangled his hand between the driver’s seat and the door. Palm up, fingers stretched back to Blue. This was not allowed. He knew it was not allowed, by rules he himself had set. He would not permit himself to play favorites between Adam and Ronan; he and Blue couldn’t play favorites in this way, either. She would not see the gesture, anyway. She would ignore it if she did. His heart hummed. Blue touched his fingertips. Just this — He pinched her fingers lightly, just for a moment, and then he withdrew his hand and put it back on the wheel. His chest felt warm. This was not allowed.

Oh god oh god they like each other so much. He’s supposed to die. She can’t kiss him. Oh god.

They pick up Malory and his 30 suitcases and his dog that has anxiety and cram back in the car. Malory talks about this ancient Glendower tapestry he found under his BARN on a leyline in the UK. And he shows them a photo of it. It has 3 women with red hands on it, and they all have Blue’s face. The camera gets passed around the car and everyone agrees, that’s Blue.

Later that night Blue is ambling about the house. She talks to Persephone about how much she misses her Mom and the consensus is “Maura knows what she’s doing. If she wanted help, she’d ask for it.” — In a funk, Blue calls Gansey. Just to hear his voice. They do that a lot. They have a super brief exchange, a little joke, where she says she dialed the wrong number. And she says she might do it again. He says she shouldn’t, but he hopes she does. 

Adam and Gansey take Malory out to see the leyline. Not Cabeswater, but around the mountains of Virginia trying to find another way into that cave. Adam and Gansey have a sweet moment were Adam tells him “I’m glad we’re not fighting any more.” And Gansey tries not to overdo it with how relieved and happy he is. Then Adam goes on to say “Also, sorry about the whole Blue thing. I realize now how crazy I was to try to date her now that she’s one of us. I mean that would be weird right? Like what was I thinking?” And Gansey’s like “HAHA YEAH HAH WEIRD YEP.”

Blue is in school getting ready to talk to the guidance counselor when Noah shows up! I love this line. He’s so cute.

“I think I miss this part,” he said. “The beginning. This is the beginning, right?” 

“First day,” Blue replied. 

“Oh, yeah.” Noah leaned back and inhaled. “Oh, wait, no, it’s the other one. I forgot. I actually hate this part.”

Well the meeting goes poorly and not just because the guidance counselor is a condescending bitch who basically tells Blue she’s not going to be able to afford getting into any good schools. Things go south when Noah becomes a ghost tornado, throws paper everywhere, then dissapears. 

Blue immediately goes to the factory to look for him, but he’s not there. She peeks in Ronan’s room and sees that freaky mask from the last book. The one Calla said to destroy. It has tire tracks on it. That’s when Gansey and Malory get home. Gansey is so happy to see her there, it’s silly. She accompanies him into the kitchen slash bathroom slash laundry room and they have a sweet moment where she’s trying to act okay when she’s not, and Gansey says “We’ll find her.” And they stand really, heartbreakingly close to one another. 

When they come back into the main room, Malory is like “One of your friends is hiding under the pool table.” (Cool that he can see Noah!) and Blue and Gansey try to talk him into coming out. But he’s crying and REALLY upset. Says he’s just tired of decaying and insists they have no idea how this feels. He starts up another ghost tornado, pulling so much energy off Blue she’s feeling lightheaded. But her mom trained her for moments like this. She knows how to visualize her energy and cut it off. So she pulls the plug on Noah’s energy source before he can hurt her or destroy more things. He’s super sad poor baby and just fades away after that. And Blue feels a little fuzzy when Gansey tells her that was impressive.

That night, a well-dressed douchebag comes to the psychic house. Things are going normally until he shuffles the cards, and pulls a three of swords out of it (the heartbreak card) and is like “So ladies, how do I make this happen?” And you don’t fuck with the cards, so there’s instantly something threatening about him. He asks where the third lady is. The one that looks like Blue. And they’re just like GET OUT. So he STEALS Calla’s three of swords card and leaves. DUDE.

Oh god oh god oh god it’s the first day of school at Aglionby, and despite some truly adorable bits with the 3 boys getting along and Adam thanking his lucky stars that everything is okay between himself and his friends… Maggie drops this bomb on us. Their new Latin teacher is fucking Colin Greenmantle… Mr. Gray’s boss from the last book! AHHHHH!! Nooooo!!! Why are all the Latin teachers evil?? This is like the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position in Harry Potter nooooo!!

In the next chapter, we get to know Colin Greenmantle and he’s pretty much awful. So is his wife. They’re renting a farmhouse and while they’re definitely funny and entertaining, they just objectively seem like AWFUL PEOPLE. They’re magical artifact dealers. And have a personal vendetta against Nial Lynch and Colin says he can’t wait to fail Ronan in his class. He kind of reminds me of a man child.

Gansey and Ronan go over to Blue’s house and find the Gray Man play fighting with Calla, or teaching her how to break someone’s wrist. They tell him that their Latin teacher is Greenmantle, and Gray is like… well shit. Okay you kids don’t do anything, I’ll handle it. He tries to warn Ronan that if he does anything stupid, Greenmantle will do something horrific like take one of his brothers’ arms or something. Ronan just storms out. Gansey is sad because his friend is sad, so Blue gives him the fruit at the bottom of her yogurt. That helps a little. 

When Adam gets home from work late, Gansey shows up in his pajamas and an overcoat. He’s there with some kind of excuse about homework, but really he just wanted to chat. Adam realizes something about Gansey is off. He hasn’t really been the same since that moment in the pit. His confidence has faltered. Adam always thought he wanted Gansey to “get a taste of the real world” and experience how scary and unfair it is, but now he’s not so sure. He likes him the way he is. And does what he can to cheer him up in his Adam way. I love this line:

Adam couldn’t remember how they had managed to fight so continuously over the summer. Gansey, his best friend, his stupid and kind and marvelous best friend.

Gansey mentions that when they find Glendower, he wants to wish to bring Noah back to life. Then he heads out. We learn that Adam is hiding a letter with a court date for his father on the shelf. He doesn’t want to tell anyone about it. OH BABYYY!!

Blue gets into a fight with Orla when her cousin basically says “You need to make some actual friends at your actual school and quit hanging out with these rich idiots who are just going to leave you for the Ivy Leagues in a year. Also it’s weird how much you all love each other.” And Blue says “Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you Hey Gansey.” And they drive off together with Malory and his dog. They knock on the doors of local hillbillies, one of whom, Jesse Dittley, shows them the cave in his back yard that might be connected to the Cabeswater cave. Only he says it’s cursed, so they can never ever explore it. Now they have to decide if they’re going to persuade Jesse or trespass. 

The Gray Man shows up to Greenmantle’s farm house and points a gun at his wife’s head and the guy doesn’t even give a shit. He just eats cheese crackers while he threatens him. Piper (his wife) doesn’t care either. Greenmantle says he’s going to ruin Gray’s life if he doesn’t turn over the Greywaren in 9 days, and Gray said he’ll consider this and just leaves. I’m like COME ON GRAY. Just SHOOT THESE PRICKS like you SHOT YOUR BROTHER. But then we wouldn’t have a book and I do suppose I want to see what random way this book’s villain ends up dying in the end lol.

Adam is working alone at the mechanic shop at night during a thunderstorm when spooky stuff starts happening. At first he thinks it’s Noah, but he figures out pretty quickly that it’s Cabeswater trying to communicate. It doesn’t really know how else to communicate other then fucking scaring the DAYLIGHTS out of him and warping the scenery and showing him dead people. He scrambles to the tarot cards, flips 3 over, and focuses until he figures out what Cabeswater wants. It’s just a crack that needs to be repaired in the leyline. He’s just gotta move some rocks around somewhere. He says cool, I’ll take care of it this week and the room stops warping into nightmare world. Adam is relieved, but jittery, and it certainly doesn’t help when the fucking albino night horror monster shows up, next. 

Adam is crumpled on the ground when Ronan steps in like “Shoo. Go on, get.” — They exchange some sassy words. Ronan thinks school is lame and Adam tells him to go do his homework. Adam is making very conscious efforts not to fight with Gansey or Blue ever again, but he has a comfortable enough relationship with Ronan to know they will still have many fights. Ronan leaves in a huff. But when Adam gets in his car after work, there’s a jar of DREAM LOTION for his chapped hands that have been driving him crazy in his car. “Manibus” it says (Latin?) “For your hands”

AWWWWWWW YOU GUUYYYSSS!!! I think Ronan has a huge crush on Adam’s hands.

Gansey and Malory have a discussion about Glendower and the 3 people sleeping underground and blah blah blah. Okay then Noah shows up hahaha. They have a super cute exchange over this little metallic snowman Noah found in Ronan’s room. And then Gansey tells Noah he’d like to ask Glendower to give him life. Noah is touched by this, but doesn’t seem to believe it’s possible. The whole time they’re talking, Gansey is touching his ear because he thinks he feels hornets there. Noah stops him and blows cold air on his ears, saying “It’s okay. You’re safe. There’s nothing there.”

Because it was Noah and no one else, Gansey could admit, “I don’t know what I’ll do if I find him, Noah. I don’t know what I’ll be if I’m not looking for him. I don’t know the first thing about how to be that person again.” Noah put the clay in Gansey’s hands. 

“That’s exactly how I feel about the idea of being alive again.”

That’s the end of the chapter. AUGH I love these KIDS!! I love how much they love each other! They don’t behave like realistic teenagers AT ALL. They’re too emotionally mature and kind and intelligent hahaha But I love it all the same!!!

Also? I can’t reiterate enough how obvious it is that Gansey’s near-death experience obviously shook him. He’s been obsessed with Glendower ever since then, puzzled by the nagging feeling of “why me? Why was I saved?” — and he literally doesn’t remember who he was before this obsession. Beautiful character building.

Blue gets into a fight with Calla because she’s in an awful mood and misses her Mom so much it’s driving her nuts. Calla reveals that she misses Maura too, but their powers don’t work where Cabeswater is concerned. They can’t see events happening in it for some reason. Blue finds the list of names she made on St. Mark’s Day and takes it outside. She thought that hillbilly sounded familiar. And sure enough, his name is on the list. The Gray man is out there having a beer and I love that he’s like…part of the family now. They have the sweetest conversation and he sees Gansey’s name on the list. He tells her fate could change. Fate is a promise and promises can be broken. And he has a decision to make before Sunday. 

Gansey is laying in bed at night with his phone on his chest, waiting for Blue to call. Hoping she’ll call. (She doesn’t have a cell so he has to hope she’ll creep down to the reading room and also have insomnia like he does). Just as he’s chastising himself for wanting her to call him, she DOES. And they have a severely stupid conversation about ducks lol. But hearing her voice puts him in such a good mood. They hang up and then Ronan bursts in on him in the kitchen/bathroom/laundry room. There’s a cute moment where he tricks Gansey into listening to the murder squash song on his headphones, and after they laugh about that, he’s finally able to feel happy and go to sleep.

The next day at school, a classmate named Henry Cheng asks Gansey to sign his petition to hold an election for student council. Henry seems really sweet and like a good guy. So it sucks that Ronan is mean to him! Bad Ronan! He’s just crazy jealous. Like Orla said, it’s weird how much these kids platonically love each other.

Alright so Gansey is speaking with the principal about something we don’t know yet… so Ronan takes Adam out to the Barns. He shows him what he’s been working on… Which is trying to dream up an object that wakes up the comatose things his father dreamed. He shows Adam his “workshop”, which used to be Nial’s “workshop”, which is really just a dusty tack room with a chair and a blanket in it. Ronan shows Adam a few objects he’s made. One is this weird mirror, shifty, strange thing that Adam can’t look at for more than a second. When he holds it up to a cow, it’s ears twitch but it doesn’t wake up. 

Ronan reveals that the reason he’s so desperate to make an object like this… is because he realized that HE DREAMED MATTHEW. ON ACCIDENT. When he was a child. Declan told him. So he’s terrified that if/when he dies, Matthew will be comatose, and he doesn’t want that. 

This chapter is also RIFE with Ronan/Adam flirting!

As they moved through the old barn, Adam felt Ronan’s eyes glance off him and away, his disinterest practiced but incomplete. Adam wondered if anyone else noticed. Part of him wished they did and immediately felt bad, because it was vanity, really: See, Adam Parrish is wantable, worthy of a crush, not just by anyone, someone like Ronan, who could want Gansey or anyone else and chose Adam for his hungry eyes.

And when looking at the beautiful pictures in the tack room (contrasting Adam’s father’s office, which was all trucks and pin-up girls):

It was so different from what Adam’s father had pinned to his workspace walls that again Adam considered Ronan’s admiration of him. Someone like him treating someone like Adam as someone worthy —

When Adam asks why he keeps driving all the way out here to dream, Ronan answers that sometimes he dreams of wasps. So he can’t try this at Monmouth. Also, he says, he’s dreamt a punch of epipens and hidden them all over the factory and school. WHICH I TOTALLY CAUGHT. There was a line in the previous book when those thugs are going through the drawers, and an epipen spills out. But I’m pretty sure when we first meet Gansey in book 1, it says that his one and only epipen is in the glove box of the Pig. Anyway, I think it’s sweet that Ronan is scattering them all over the place. Gansey’s allergy is so bad, epipens might not even help, but it’s sweet that he wants to try.

Adam asks why he showed him all this. Ronan replies: “I hear if you want magic done, you ask a magician.”

That night, Blue calls and asks Gansey to tell her a story about the leyline. He does. Then afterwards, he feels all floaty again after getting to hear her voice before bed. 

There was nothing inherently guilty about the moment except that Gansey burned with guilt and thrill and desire and the nebulous feeling of being truly known. It was on the inside of him, and the inside was all Noah ever really paid attention to. The other boy wore a knowing expression. 

“Don’t tell the others,” Gansey said. 

“I’m dead,” Noah replied. “Not stupid.”

Meanwhile, Colin and Piper are like… the dumbest villains ever lol. And I don’t mean conceptually, I mean intellectually. Wow I hate these guys!! Good job Maggie! They’re just so shallow and callous with people’s lives and hurtful and SHALLOW. Piper has a little rat dog now. She reveals to Colin that she bought spelunking equipment because she thinks “Gray’s psychic bimbo” is down in the underground leyline caves. Thank goodness they don’t know where those caves are, right??? EEEHHHH NERVOUS.

Blue takes the car back out to Jesse Dittley’s house and Noah tags along. She strikes a deal with this hillbilly giant that if she cleans up his yard, he lets them explore his haunted cave. There’s a cute little montage of Blue (tiny but strong) getting the job done. Jesse says “Good ant” because she reminds him of an ant lol. 

 When her and Noah are planting the flowers, he starts acting weird. He starts chanting “Blue Lily, Lily Blue” and his eyes turn into black sunken craters and he’s being CREEPY AS FUCK and getting up right in her face. Jesse sees what’s happening and shoves a mirror in between them, which makes Noah shrink away and scream and then dissapear. Jesse makes her spaghettios and they talk about the nature of the haunted cave and how his family has almost been making like… sacrifices for generations? Like he knows one day he’ll go into that cave, and be killed by whatever is in there, then his son will have to come collect the bones. Like he did for his father. (UGH right??)

Well then Calla and Gansey burst into the house PISSED OFF because it’s been 6 hours since she took the car, she only has a learner’s permit, and she has no cell phone so no one knew where she was. When they get back to 300 Fox Way, EVERYONE is there (except Noah obvs). Ronan. Adam. The whole gangs there because they were out looking for Blue. Blue explains how she knows Jesse Dittley is going to die (tells them about the corpse road) and ADAM — our sweet, intuitive, intelligent, beautiful boy — catches on fucking immediately that one of their names is on that list. He knows she’s lying. ADAM IS SO FUCKING SMART. So he finds an excuse to pull her aside and is like “Which one of us is it?” And she is quiet at first, but eventually tells him, Gansey. And Adam is crushed. Then he’s like… well I fucking know what favor we’re asking Glendower for, then. 

Alright, Chapter 26 is a DOOZY.

Blue wakes up pissed off. Just pissed at how unfair and difficult everything is. So she calls Gansey and asks her to come get her. He seems kind of in a mood too. Not a bad one, just a real genuine… no more pithy little dialogue. Just raw and…REAL!

This wasn’t the Gansey she’d seen in the kitchen earlier; this was the Gansey she secretly called at night.

They drive around. Hands holding over the clutch. He teaches her how to drive the Camaro haha. THEN THIS HAPPENS:

She pulled over. She had thought it was such a simple thing to avoid kissing someone when she’d been with Adam. Her body had never known what to do. Now it knew. Her mouth didn’t care that it was cursed. She turned to Gansey. 

“Blue,” he warned, but his voice was chaotic. This close, his throat was scented with mint and wool sweater and vinyl car seat, and Gansey, just Gansey. 

She said, “I just want to pretend. I want to pretend that I could.” 

He breathed out. 

What was a kiss without a kiss? It was a tablecloth tugged from beneath a party service. Everything jumbled against everything else in just a few chaotic moments. Fingers in hair, hands cupping necks, mouths dragged on cheeks and chins in dangerous proximity. They stopped, noses mashed against each other in the strange way that closeness required. She could feel his breath in her mouth. 

“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I kiss you,” he whispered. “Maybe it’s only if you kiss me.” They both swallowed at the same time, and the spell was broken. 

They both laughed, again at the same time, shakily. “And then we never speak of it again,” Gansey said, mocking himself softly, and Blue was so glad of it, because she had played the words from that night over and over in her mind and wanted to know he had, too. Gently he tucked her hair behind her ears — this was a fool’s errand, because it had never been behind her ears to begin with and wouldn’t stay. But he did it again and again, and then he took out two mint leaves and put one in his mouth and one in hers.

WHEW!!! Fuckiiiin loved that. Well fuck it’s kind of short lived though. On their way home, they come across Henry Cheng whose car is broken down (at like 3am?? Dude.) so he asks to use Gansey’s phone. And his presence kind of breaks the spell of the night. Blue hates how Gansey’s voice changes when he talks to his Aglionby friends. She tells him this. I think she’s so wound up and hurt from wanting and not being able to have… and probably some dumb part of her 17 year old brain wants to spoil it for reasons other than the curse. 

Because she says some hurtful shit. Like “What was I thinking? You and I would never work. We’re from two different worlds.” Gansey is pretty wise though. He can tell there’s another component than this other than her dislike of how his voice changes when he talks to Henry.

“When are you going to tell me what this is really about?” This made her heave a great shuddered breath that was close to tears. “Never.”

AW BABIES!!

Okay so, I read the next chapter last night? And literally had to put the book down. I was like NOPE! TOO SPOOKY! Too late. Too dark. Too scared. This is what happens:

It’s the day the gang goes to explore Dittley’s cursed cave. It’s raining. Gansey feels off. Just like one of those days where nothing goes right. The mood is sour. His favorite sweater is dirty, so he has to wear one he doesn’t like. YOU KNOW. He’s also like… not ready to find Glendower. He’s like the dog that chases the car and doesn’t know what to do once he’s caught it.

But weird shit starts happening as soon as they enter the cave. Adam is like “shut up Ronan, cut it out. Quit singing.” And everyone says “Ummm Adam? No one is singing.” Then CHAINSAW THE BIRD opens her little beak like a record payer and stars “singing” haunting music about “all hail the Raven king. Here he comes lalalala” and then she flies off into the cave. Ronan is like…. “NO MY BABY!” And wants to go chase after her solo but everyone is like hell to the no, Rone this cave is fucking with us. Gansey asks Adam what he thinks, and when Adam touches the cave wall, his EYES TURN BLACK. I think this is something that’s been happening for a while when he does psychic stuff. He thinks they should keep going and the cave is just trying to scare them as a defense mechanism. 

So they keep going until they find like… basically a tomb. Decorated with statues and carvings and raven stuff and it’s like… this is it. This is the tomb of Glendower. They found it and it was THAT EASY — which just totally unsettles Gansey. The whole time he’s thinking… this is nothing like the vision I had in the spirit tree (because he literally saw that moment and this space looks different. The energy is off). They find a tomb with a big heavy lid/statue on it….

They found Chainsaw by the way and she’s fine lol

And here’s where I was like…nope. Too scary. They open the tomb, and it’s not Glendower. It’s a woman with her wrists and ankles bound, laying FACE DOWN, and when they open the impossibly heavy lid, and it falls loudly, HER HEAD SNAPS ALL THE WAY AROUND TO FACE THEM and she crawls out of the box. The way she’s described, she sounds like “The Ring” girl lol all long black stringy hair. And she’s singing the weird Blue Lily, Lily Blue song and laughing. Gansey flips from nervous and uncertain to calm, collected badass in a second. This lady is in her 20’s and is coo coo bananas. Keeps flirting with all the boys. Singing nonsense. They decide they can’t just leave her in the cave, so they take her out OH FUCK GUYS! REALLY???

I have such a bad feeling about this. The psychics said there were 3 sleepers and only 2 should be woken up. The other one they said ABSOLUTELY NOT TO WAKE.

Well they get outside and it’s raining blood and windy, and the sun is out, and there’s a, um… COMET IN THE SKY?? Gansey says that in the texts, there’s mention of a comet on the day Glendower was buried. The lady says she doesn’t like Adam. She calls him a mongrel (which actually really hurts his feelings). And Gansey sets her straight like “Hey we’ve been nothing but nice to you. His name is Adam Parrish and you will address him as such” and she’s like “YES MY LORD”. Turns out she wasn’t even asleep. This witch was buried and has been lying face down for hundreds of years. They take her to Jesse and she admits to haunting his family and killing his ancestors and is like “SORRYYYYY” and then they stuff her in the suburban. Blue has a cute moment with Jesse and says “We broke the curse, so now you can live happily with you family. Please don’t die” and he’s like “GOOD ANT.”

They take her to 300 Fox Way. 

Calla: “Do you remember how I said that there were three sleepers, and Maura’s job was to not wake one of them, and your job was to wake one of the others? Remember how I didn’t say anything about the other one? I did not mean bring her to my kitchen.”

Okay well at least she’s not the BAD sleeper. I was so afraid of this witch lady at first and now I’m calming down. She’s kind of more silly than anything. She says her name is Sorrow but she speaks in poems so I don’t know how true that is. Calla tells Adam and Ronan to go get supplies for her.

Adam and Ronan exchanged a wide-eyed look. Adam’s look said, What does that mean? and Ronan’s said, I don’t care; let’s get out of here before she changes her mind. Gansey frowned after them as they scrambled to the front door.

Fucking love them. Lol I love the imagery of these two SCRAMBLING for the door. I’d be like yeah let’s get away from the lady that can possess ghosts and birds please. Alright so crazy lady says that Artemis is the one who tied her up!! As punishment? When they untie her hands, she spins around and tells Gansey her name is actually Gwenllian. And he’s stunned, because that’s the name of Glendower’s daughter.

Chapter 29 is Adam and Ronan shopping for Gwenllian (wow that’s a pretty name) and I am here for it. “I don’t even know what to get, a kennel?” — Ronan. This whole scene is really adorable. Watching them throw toothbrushes and shampoo and shit in the cart. Like we all know the guys are friends. But I don’t think we’ve seen so many scenes with Ronan and Adam casually hanging out up until now. They see Colin Greenmantle’s wife with a shopping cart full of gardening stuff that looks dangerous. But they decide to drop it and leave the store.

There’s a random scene in the parking lot where Ronan is like GET IN THE CART PARRISH. And they behave like teenaged boys for a minute and ride/slam the cart Jackass style into Ronan’s BMW. This is so cute and spontaneous, I can understand why I’ve seen so much fan art of it lol. Ronan asks Adam to tell him what he’s researched about Greenmantle so he can get to dreaming about it.

Blue has a sweet conversation with Malory where he reveals his therapy Dog is for anxiety. But he doesn’t really have anxiety. He can sense auras. And when he’s around big crowds, it gets overwhelming. He says that Blue has a BLUE aura… the color of psychics. He also tells her about when he first met Gansey, this young squirrelly teenager who blew in one day then left the next without explanation. He tells her about how he kind of still had some PTSD back then… he’d collapse and claw at his face like hornets were there. I mean poor baby had this wild experience of DYING horrifically, then having a ghost…voice…revive him and tell him about Glendower. Or was it Glendower’s voice?? It’s not specified. They talk about Gwenllian being an illegitimate child of Glendower’s and how she might have been buried in a “shill” grave. Like a fake one to throw off grave robbers.

Okay so um, this next chapter. Fuck. Ronan and Adam are hanging out in the St. Agnes church. It’s night time. No one is there. Ronan takes Adam up to the choir pews where the organ is and a statue of Mary with little candles all around her. It’s very romantic, and they behave accordingly, sneaking glances at each other. Catching each other staring. It’s all very sweet. 

So they get to talking about what to do about Greenmantle. And Adam has this plan…. But it’s a nasty plan. The problem is they need to frame this guy for a murder he actually did commit (hiring a hit man to kill Nial Lynch), but doing that is going to be really hard. So Adam has an idea to frame him for a different type of crime. One that is taken VERY SERIOUSLY and is easier to put people away for. Maggie doesn’t go into details here, but I think it has something to do with…. Illegal… children stuff….. Ronan is VERY NOT OKAY WITH THIS. Because he’s the one that has to dream up the “evidence” to plant on this guy. But he understands why it needs to be done. 

He tells Adam “fuck it. I’ll do it now. Leave and I’ll make your stuff.” And Adam is like “I don’t wanna leave. Also brb I gotta go scry/separate my soul from my body for second to talk to my forest and ask Cabeswater to show you what kind of phone Greenmantle has, so you can dream up a copy.” - the fact that Adam can do this, that he knows how to ASTRAL PROJECT by staring at a flickering candle flame, is so cool. I love that he’s magic now. 

Well when Adam comes back from his conversation with the forest, he finds himself staring at a badly beaten, carved up, dying in pain…Ronan. AUGH the description of it is so gruesome. Adam is horrified, and moves to help, but is interrupted by the REAL Ronan perched up on the pew. He explains that he tried to warn Adam. Sometimes his bad dreams come back with him. He didn’t want him to see stuff like this. (I think Adam is white as a ghost at this point) — Like, HOW MANY TIMES HAS RONAN BURIED HIMSELF? How many times has this HAPPENED? He had to dream a double of himself for the monsters to kill, otherwise he would have brought them out with him in the real world. Ronan is pissed at Adam for making him dream this depraved shit… and seeing what I’m sure is something really private (his dream…deaths..) and they say nasty words after Ronan demands Adam leave.

Back in his apartment, Adam takes a long shower. He’s going through a lot… So it doesn’t help AT ALL when his fucking FATHER shows up at his door and pushes his way in. To Adam’s credit, he doesn’t rise to any of the bait that is being put out there. His father is saying this whole court thing is ridiculous and there’s no way he’ll win. He knows the judge. Adam is just crying for attention. Etc. Etc. Adam like… retreats into himself and can feel and smell Cabeswater and the branches growing protectively around him. His body is in that room, but his spirit is somewhere else. When his dad tries to touch him, he gets pricked, and has a thorn sticking out of his hand. Then he leaves. (So cool)

Adam stood there for a long moment. He wiped the heel of his hand over his right eye and cheek, then dried it on his slacks.

AUGH this poor KID!! Fresh off this traumatic event of watching his friend get brutally murdered… he’s got a magic forest talking to him in his head… and now this douche canoe of a father comes and starts shit. Like WOW why can’t Adam have nice things??

So Colin and Piper are in the cave and you want to hate them, but then they do really funny things. Like Piper is such a dingbat. She brought her dog and is picking up poop in a baggie. You almost, ALMOST like them and then Colin says shit like this: “What I’m going to do is hire a billion million minions to come look in caves for this woman, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll just eviscerate her daughter in front of the Gray Man instead.” - AUGH. FUCK YOU DUDE. Piper stops because she hears something, but we never get confirmation as to what. Colin randomly thinks about people sleeping and wanting to wake up one of them (??Cave, what are you doing??). Then they decide to leave. 

Blue sure wishes her mom would come home. Gwenllian is hella weird and exhausting to be around. But she’s getting more likable too. She’s like the house crazy lady now. Stealing everyone’s clothes, talking to trees, and storing things in her hair lol. Gansey keeps showing up to try to get info out of her, but she’s hard to wrangle. Lately everyone has been busy. Adam and Ronan keep running off to do their thing. Noah hasn’t shown up since he freaked out at Jesse’s house. And Gansey has some mysterious after-school commitment he keeps running off to. 

Gray comes over and Gwen is pulling a vacuum around the house like a dog lol She tells him her sad story of hearing about her Dad’s advisor trying to incite war. So she tried to stab him at dinner. She was sentenced to being buried alive after that. Gray tells Blue that Adam and Ronan HIRED him to help with this Greenmantle framing thing. He won’t tell her details but asks about her haunted cave and if she thought it might be a good place to hide bodies. Then he asks her to show him, so she’s like okay!

Sometimes this book just… makes you forget what you’re reading about lol. Blue tells her aunts the hitman is taking her out, so they go on their adventure. 

I love that Jesse and Blue are friends, and I love that he calls her Ant because she reminds him of these tough African ants he saw in a documentary once. Blue and Gray ask to see the cave, and Jesse is like “Sure but I gotta warn you, weird shits been happening lately” and he shows them. And basically these like… MONSTERS are coming out of the cave. Gray shoots one and it has like…3 heads? Blue thought they broke the curse by taking Gwen out of the cave, but Jesse thinks she was holding these monsters back. So. Now that’s a thing. 

ALSO WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COMET AND THE RAINING BLOOD? Did that go away? I suppose so since society isn’t falling apart??

That night, Gwen comes to Blue’s room with a spoonful of mayo lol. I like her random objects. Gwen, in unhinged sing-song, explains that she and Blue are similar. Blue would call herself a battery. Gwen calls them mirrors. Gwen also says— “YOU’RE A WITCH, HARRY!” And Blue is a little excited at the thought of finally having a name, even if it is witch. Gwen shoves Blue to stand between Neeve’s two mirrors, and when’s he looks to her left and right, her reflection vanishes. But she’s still there in the room. So that’s weird. Gwen eats her mayonnaise. I’m sure those mirrors will mean something later!!

Also I’ve decided I love Gray. He’s on the list with the boys, and Blue, and Maura — the list of people I will be heartbroken over if they die. Gansey is at the top.

Colin notices that his wife is acting super weird. She always stares at herself in the mirror, but when he calls her name she doesn’t respond. She’s staring off into space and then kicks him out of the bathroom.

In Chapter 37, Gansey is relishing moments of high school monotony. The happiness of walking in between Ronan and Adam. Watching the crowd part for them. Dew on the grass. Coffee in the air. Normal teenager shit. They run into Henry who is still on his very passionate quest to convince the administration to instate a student council. Gansey goes to get Henry coffee in the teacher’s lounge, which is adorable that he can just WALK in there and take stuff. Then he hears someone shout Adam’s name, followed by a LOUD NOISE.

Gansey spills back into the courtyard to see that some construction workers dropped a bunch of concrete panels, and it’s broken into pieces — fine shards — all over the courtyard. Ronan and Henry are COVERED in dust. Adam is standing eerily in the center of it, perfectly calm, protected by a bubble of air. Like he’s untouched. The grass around him is completely clean. WE LOVE OUR MAGIC BOY!!! Everyone is taking pictures like “omg Adam you’re so lucky!” I love this exchange:

Gansey leaned and Adam pulled him in even closer, gripping his shoulder tightly. Right into Gansey’s ear, he whispered, voice tinged in disbelief, “I didn’t — I just asked — I just thought —” 

“Thought what?” Gansey asked. 

Adam released him. His eyes were on the circle around him. “I thought that. And it happened.” The circle was absolutely perfect: dust without, dustless within. 

“You marvelous creature,” Gansey said.

Thank you for saying what we were all thinking Gans!

Okay so the next day is the court case. Adam is, understandably, a ball of nerves standing in the courtroom. Cabeswater is there with him in spirit. He can feel leaves wrapping around his body that aren’t really there. Adam is really regretting being there alone, now. He misses his friends. He wished he could get over his pride and let them in. THEN GANSEY AND RONAN SHOW UP. Ronan even tucked his shirt in and did his tie correctly. And Gansey strides up to the judge and shakes his hand because he KNOWS THE GUY and asks to be character witnesses. So the Judge is like “I’ll allow this!” — YOU ARE SO FUCKED ROBERT PARRISH. YOU’RE SO FUCKED!!

Adam has this amazing growth moment of realizing Gansey has always seen him as an equal. It was never a charity case. It was just friendship. Like real love for his friends.

Smash cut to a few days later. I guess we don’t get to find out what happened in court yet! But Adam asks Blue if she wants to come along on Cabeswater business. He’s sitting in a gas station wondering if the pulse in his veins is blood or the leyline and Noah shows up and is like “Yeah I wonder the same thing.” — Adam is like….ummmm did you just reply to my thoughts? Noah’s like I dunno.

OMG can we appreciate this scene, where they turn on the radio and the murder squash song comes on… and Adam panicky and ejects the tape. Blue is like HOW? HOW did that make it off the internet??

Noah cackled and showed them the cassette. It boasted a handmade label marked with Ronan’s handwriting: PARRISH’S HONDAYOTA ALONE TIME. The other side was A SHITBOX SING-ALONG.

Ronan dreamed him a mix tape. So fucking cute. 

They get to the forest and a tarot card tells Adam where to head: 3 boulders making something of a natural gazebo. There he scries, and says he’s never done this in front of people before, so he doesn’t know what he looks like. He thinks it’s not happening at first, but realizes pretty quickly that when he talks to Blue, she’s not responding. And his spirit is outside his body. He figures out that some rocks need to be rearranged on the mountain to help the leyline. Cabeswater asks for the Greywarren and Adam is like nah, he’s not here, just me lol. He figures out that there is more than one Cabeswater and he doesn’t know how awake the others are or if they’re connected somehow. I guess there’s a network of magical forests on the leyline. He drifts and drifts and finds himself in a cave with a spooky red door and a woman who seems familiar, but he’s so in spirit-mode he can’t remember her. A man is with her. They tell him to GO. I think this is Maura and Artemis. But we don’t know. 

Anyway there’s a spooky red door that is eerily enchanting. It’s equal parts terrifying and makes you want to open it like you’ve never wanted anything else in your life… but you’re also afraid. Adam gets sucked into this feeling and almost opens the door when Blue and Noah cut his hand and he gets thrown back into his body. They said he just went blank, and quit blinking, then he quit breathing, so they panicked lol. GOOD FRIENDS.

They move some rocks. The leyline is so happy, Noah is able to look SOLID and human. Not even a smudge. This cute thing happens:

They staggered back toward the trail. Blue’s arm was linked around the back of Noah, and her fingers grabbed Adam’s T-shirt so that they were one creature, a drunken six-legged animal.

Suddenly Adam remembers it was Maura he saw in the cave, and he tells Blue. DUN DUN DUNNN!!

Okay but seriously though, what about the comet and what about the court case MAGGIE??

Persephone calls Adam to have a one last psychic training session, and its at a general store on some rocking chairs. Adam is trying to get some information out of her. Like is Maura alive? How do I save Gansey’s life? But Persephone is all dreamy and just wants to talk about the number 3. And how significant that number is. Then, she vanishes, and Adam asks the clerk if he came here alone or not. And she says he’s just been talking to himself this whole time. 

Oh my god Chapter 41 is NUTS. Blue races home to find Adam and Calla getting ready to do some scrying in the reading room because Persephone is missing. Adam, who doesn’t trust anyone, tells Blue “I’m trusting you” — and Blue and Calla hold his hands. Blue is going to amplify his power and Calla is going to keep an eye on the thread to make sure he doesn’t get lost. If your soul strays too far from your body, you die. Adam’s eyes go completely black. And for a moment, he speaks WITH Persephone’s voice calling out for Maura. But then his voice comes back, calling for Persephone. Calla is finally like “alright, pull the cord” and Blue has to let go of him and sever her energy so he’ll wake up. 

“Cut him off,” Calla snarled. “I know you can. I’ll pull him back!” 

As Calla used her free hand to press a thumb to the center of Adam’s forehead, Blue frantically imagined what she had done to pull the plug on Noah back in Monmouth. Only it had been one thing to do it while Noah threw things about. It was another thing to do it as she watched Adam’s still chest and his empty eyes. Another thing as his shoulders sagged and his face fell into Calla’s waiting hands.

She tried to visualize the white light pouring down to strengthen them, but it was hard when she could see Adam’s body sprawled limply across the end of the reading table. Calla slapped his face. “Come on, you bastard! Remember your body!”

It takes a minute. But when he comes to, he says Persephone is in the house. Around some mirrors? So they race upstairs and they find Persephone between the two mirrors and she is DEAD!! WTFFFF!!!

Gansey and Ronan arrive late because Gansey’s phone was off and Ronan never answers his. Gansey leaves Adam with Ronan on the porch (after saying some very sweet things to the effect of “It’s not your fault, Parrish”) — and goes inside. Calla is SO UPSET. He says he’s going into that cave and he’s going to get Maura back. Calla is like NEAT I’m coming too. He leaves the psychics in the kitchen and goes upstairs to find Blue sitting on the floor by Perseophone’s bed. And we get this adorable scene:

It was against the rules, but Gansey crouched down beside her, one of his knees against her back, one against her knees, and hugged her. She curled against him, hands balled up against his chest. He felt a hot tear slip into the dip of his collarbone. He closed his eyes against the sun through the window, burning hot in his sweater, foot falling asleep, elbow grinding into the metal bed frame, Blue Sargent pressed up against him, and he didn’t move. Help, he thought. He remembered Gwenllian saying that it was starting, and he could feel it, winding out faster and faster, a ball of thread caught in the wind. Starting, starting — He could not tell who was comforting whom.

“I’m part of the useless new generation,” Blue said finally, the words right on his skin. Desire and dread lay right next to each other in his heart, each sharpening the other.

Maggie just… wtf. Beautiful.

Gwen kind of spins into the scene and speaks in songs and riddles. Says something about how Artemis taught her how to borrow people’s eyes. That’s how she spent the last 600 years. She says some riddle about a tree at night and Gansey asks Gwen to come with them to the cave.

Earlier that day or later… I can’t tell:

Adam and Ronan stand badassily in Colin Greenmantle’s field until he notices. They come out there and exchange some threatening words like “I know what you are” to each other, and Adam produces a Manila folder. 

Oh fuck is THIS how it goes down? Is THIS the plan, boys? I thought they were going to anonymously give it to the police or something. This is ballsy, but I have a bad feeling about this. Okay well they tell him that if he’s not out of town by Friday, everything in this folder comes true. Colin is especially unnerved by Adam, who has the same regal, far-off look as Piper who has been staring at the mirrors in a trance all day. The folder contains a CHILD’S SEVERED HAND in a baggie, and tons of emails, photos, texts, etc painting him as a murderer and pervert. Holy shit, game on. 

Colin…to my complete surprise…looks at the folder and is like HAHAHA YEP. Fuck this. Fuck all this. Clearly those boys have the Greywarren and know how to use it and IIIIIII no longer care. Honey! Get your coat. Pack your bags, we’re leaving town.

But Piper says NO. I hired two thugs and we’re driving out to the boonies to enter a cave, because I’m having visions about doors, they’re calling me, and we’re fucking going in the cave. Colin comes along, hoping he can convince her to stop it on the way, but they end up running into Jesse Dittley guarding the cave and she fucking SHOOTS HIM. Gray shows up and tries to stop them, but Piper is in full on badass mode and takes him hostage. Colin and Piper get in a fight, and then she tells him to just leave. Go run off like a coward. AND HE FUCKING DOES JUST THAT.

Alright, so the Gansey gang also enters the cave on the Cabeswater side. Calla stays in the car to keep time with Matthew after Blue begs her. Adam is at the front of the line with Ronan behind him, because they figure Cabeswater is more keen to protect the two of them. Ronan also brought his ghost light, one of his dream objects. Gwen is singing her crazy songs. They find THE PIT and Adam and Ronan opt to go in and check it out first. They’re like… full on besties now. Ronan even squeezes Adam’s arm when they’re looking down the pit as if to say “Don’t fall in”

When they get down there, they find some hornet nests (EEK!!) and between Adam’s magic and Ronan’s dream powers, they transform them into birds. I did not know this was something they could do. But NEAT!! They’re Gansey’s magicians. I think it’s the same Cabeswater magic that manifests your thoughts. 

Okay so then they go get the gang and bring them down there, and they find a massive room occupied by hundreds of animal bones - just standing on the ground, fully in tact and suspended upright. Some of them are from animals that are extinct or thought to not exist, like UNICORNS and primordial beasts no one has ever heard of. Gwen says some shit like “If you cannot wake these beasts, then how do you expect to wake my father?” — and Adam hatches a plan to pull his leyline magic toward Ronan, who has his weird dream object no one can look at, and Blue can amplify, and Gansey can point the rocks accordingly. They almost pull it off, but it’s not working. Then Gansey says, with authority, “Wake up” and the skeletons become real animals. YES. I think Gansey’s magic is… commanding things. He is the group leader, after all. 

The animals start stampeding toward the exit. Ronan and Blue manage to hop on the backs of some of them, and they hop out of the room before Gansey, Adam, or Gwen can follow.

Ronan and Blue adventure! LET’S GO!! They’re in a room with a cave lake that doesn’t make any ripples when you throw stuff into it. Ronan is so done. “Hey, I have an idea! Fuck magic. Fuck this.” — When Blue looks into the lake, she sees her mother’s dead body. Ronan pulls her back, saying it’s a trick. He saw his Dad, even though he’s buried in the ground. 

This is sweet. 

For a moment they remained that way, Ronan holding her as tightly as he would hold his brother Matthew, his cheek on her shoulder. Every time she thought she could go on, she saw the face of her mother’s corpse again. Finally, she pulled back, and Ronan stood up. He looked away, but not before she saw the tear he flicked from his chin. “Fuck this,” he said again.

Man, fuck this cave for showing these kids their dead parents. 

Blue remembers some nonsense Gwen said about mirror magic, and how people (witches?) with their particular ability had mirror powers. So Blue thinks she can walk across the shallow lake and be okay. But it’ll swallow Ronan if he goes in. So she has to go alone. He gives her his ghost light, which is super sweet because that means he has to sit there and wait there in the DARKNESS.

Holy shit. So Blue makes it across the river and finds a small chamber with the creepy red door. The door that holds the sleeper we are definitely NOT supposed to wake up. She finds ARTEMUS there, kneeling and looking worse for wear, then also MAURA BEHIND HIM!! She’s alive!! And she is not okay. Apparently they’ve been down there for a very long time, trying to resist the door. It’s so bad, they can’t move. Blue is okay. She hears the door tempting her, but she is a mirror, so it’s not as bad. She ties her parents’ hands and is determined to get them out of there. 

But then Piper shows up with one of her thugs and Mr. Gray in tow. They exchange words. Piper is truly awful and very stupid — going for the door that is probably promising her fame and money. There’s a scuffle, and for some reason the cave is COLLAPSING while everyone is fighting. I forget why it’s collapsing. Maybe from the stampede. It takes some effort, but Blue and her parents make it out safely, along with Mr. Gray. THANK GOODNESS. 

Okay… but what about THE GUYS?? MY BABIES?????

It jumps to a week later. Everyone made it out okay, yay! They gang is dropping Malory off at the airport. Adam picks at the scabs on his hand and thinks about what Persephone told him:

She had told him that there were three sleepers. One to wake, one to not wake. One in between. The others thought that Gwenllian was the one in between, but that didn’t really make sense, because she’d never been asleep. So he didn’t know if it was true or not, but he sort of liked to believe that the third sleeper had been him.

So that’s interesting. Maybe the third sleeper was Adam’s psychic ability. 

One is definitely Glendower. 

One is maybe Adam.

The third is some kind of bad no no we don’t want to wake up. 

Alright well in the epilogue, Piper wakes up in the cave. And NEEVE IS THERE. FUCKING NEEVE. And Neeve says “Hey, wanna get out of this cave? Help me wake them up.” And Piper is like “Fuck yeah!” And they OPEN THE GOD DAMN DOOR. FUCK!

And this?

The sleeper wasn’t human. Piper wasn’t sure why she’d expected it would be. Instead, it was small, and black, and shiny, with more legs than she’d expected. It was powerful. Neeve said, “We have to do it at the same time to get the fa —” Piper reached out and touched it before Neeve could move. “Wake up.”

And that’s the end of book 3!!! 

As always I’m finishing this book like “HAHA I LOVED IT! I THINK? What happened???” — like some of those parts felt rushed. I wanted to see the courtroom scene, but understand why that was cut. (Would have liked to hear the results of it, anyhow!). Still curious about the comet and raining blood lol. And the 3 headed monsters that were spilling out of the cave? What were Gansey and Adam doing while Ronan and Blue were trapped in the room with the mirror lake?? Is Artemis just like, out in the world now? Is it going to be weird with Mr. Gray there. 

Well all the same, I love this book. I love these characters and their severely strange and often scary adventures. I love the relationship emerging between Gansey and Blue. I love the relationship emerging between Adam and Ronan. I love Noah. He’s scary and adorable all in the same breath. They’ve got their group dynamic DOWN with the king, the mages, and the mirror. Everyone is starting to realize their powers, even Gansey, whose power is inspiring everyone and being POSITIVE. EXCELSIOR!

There’s one more book in this series and I’m not ready. AUGH. Here we go. 

Deadass Rating: 7.5/10

Unofficial theme song: “Cosmic Love” by Florence + the Machine

[kitkatt0430]

So I've decided to go ahead with watching the latest episode of the Flash. Spoilers below.

Blaine is such a fucking idiot. Wow. Like, that's how he's gonna break Caitlin's dead to the team? And has he considered, even once, that the version of Frost he brings back might not be the one he knew? Frost didn't meet him until after she split from Caitlin. The remnants of Frost in Caitlin - if there are any - may not have the first damn idea who Mark is. But what she will know? Is he killed her sister, that she sacrificed her life to save, in order to bring Frost back.

Oh wow, what a complete and utter moron, I hate Blaine so damn much.

Where's Hartley, I'm tired of the Snow plotline already.

Oh, there he is. Flirting with his boyfriend and they're adorable. Oooh, do Hartley and Roderick own this club? The flirting made it sound like they do. Or at least Hartley does. He and Roderick being adorable together is so great. This is everything I've wanted for those two since Roderick stopped being Sleeping Beauty in S6. (Gosh has it been that long?)

Pied Piper vs. the Fiddler - I do like the way their sound tech interacts and the fight, though short, is fun.

(No seriously can someone just stab Mark Blaine a few times. Whoops, he's dead, how terrible, let's forget about him immediately? Like, is he just being particularly awful in this episode or has what little tolerance I have for him eroded entirely after skipping most of S8?)

Anyway, Snow does not seem thrilled about Mark's plan. She's probably afraid to die and is too 'new' to life to be able to admit it. And I have to wonder if really she's just Caitlin with amnesia and Frost's powers?

Anyway, seriously, just fuck Blaine.

Thank goodness Hartley still knows where all the stuff in Caitlin's lab is. Or at least has a general idea, anyway. Though I'd like to think sometimes he just hung out with Caitlin for old times sake.

Oh no. Barry please do not make excuses for Blaine. I'm so tired of this guy. Though Barry being all cryptic on 'we have to go' is hilarious.

Chester - TECHNOBABLE

Iris follows that so much better than I did. She's so smart and awesome and let me just fangirl over her a bit.

Hartley muttering at, and cussing out, his gloves as he tries to repair them. Most relatable moment on this episode so far.

Snow certainly has Caitlin's desire to help people, worrying about Hartley clearly being hurt. And she realizes how worried about Roderick Hartley is. Listening to him worry about Roderick. Awww

But Snow makes a good point. Change is something you have to choose for yourself. Trying to force a change for someone else isn't going to work. *staring right at Blaine* But Hartley has already changed - while having Roderick back in his life may have made choosing to change easier, Hartley made that choice before Roderick was saved and thought there was no way to save Roderick. He made that choice when he went to save Barry from Godspeed. Everything after was just follow through.

Everyone fighting over who Snow should die to resurrect. Do any of them even hear themselves? How awful and, quite frankly, like bad guys they sound? She's her own person now and she deserves to live, even if the way she came into the world was awful.

>_<

Okay, so Iris' reasons for choosing Frost are kinda dumb. *sigh*

Snow loves nature. (Sky High anyone???) Snow is very sweet, but I do think they're spending too much time drawing out this plot line. That said I'm so glad that Cecile at least actually takes the time to ask Snow what she wants.

All this retconning with Thomas Snow. Seriously, none of that fits in the established Caitlin&Frost timeline. How much did the multiverse reboot change Caitlin and Frost's origins? But whatever, at least they finally decided it should be Snow's choice.

(No, really, what would make more sense is if Thomas had considered using a CRC type machine to get rid of Icicle but ultimately was too afraid Icicle would use it to kill him instead. Then that could have been a development that happened later when he locked himself away to try and find a 'cure' to Icicle. And a brain scan from Caitlin's childhood? What did they want to do, restore Caitlin to a twelve year old's mentality? Brains change over time. Oh wow, so much was not thought through in this retconning.)

Oh no! Roderick! Hartley, seriously, learn to ask for help when you need it? Lucky him, Barry came anyway and showed him what he needed to do to save Roderick.

Hartley - You figure it out, I'm busy. *grinning at Roderick because awwwwwww look he's so in love*

Snow picking the name Khione - I'm so glad she got to pick her own name.

That said, seriously. Who is gonna tell Cisco about all this? He's gonna be so pissed off.

Hartley destroying the CRC. Yes, finally, someone with some sense around here. Well, if we can't have Cisco and Caitlin friendship this season, I'm liking the Hartley and Khione friendship. Blaine threatening Hartley... is it bad I'm hoping something comes of that so Hartley can kick Mark Blaine's butt? Since clearly Hartley's the only one with any sense whatsoever.

Let's hope Hartley sticks around for more episodes. *finger crossed*

Iris, yes, make fun of Barry's dancing more please. Someone stop him. And Chester. Please. This is the kind of dancing Angel was terrified of dancing like on AtS.

Oooh, looks like Hartley will be in the next episode too. (checked out the trailer for ep 3) Guess I'll be checking in for that one too.

So it does seem like no one is properly upset or grieving over Caitlin or really mourning her which... is disappointing. Barry at least feels guilty over their last interaction but Blaine's just like 'let's kill her extra dead for Frost's sake'. Ah yes, what a wonderful person he was for Frost to date.

All the 'this is what Caitlin would want' going on just sounds like them handwaving over the fact that Caitlin was grieving and depressed, never got the help she needed for the multiple traumas and deaths of loved ones she endured, and she was not in any way, shape, or form thinking clearly when she tried to resurrect Frost. Her death was a terrible and preventable tragedy and it's like no one wants to look too hard or else they'll have to accept their culpability in failing one of their friends. But sacrificing Khione to resurrect Caitlin or Frost would have just been repeating Caitlin's mistakes so... it took them way too long to come to an answer that should have been obvious as the only ethical choice from the start.

Anyway, I want more Hartley and Roderick being cute together because they're now the cutest couple on the show. Sorry Barry and Iris, but you've been usurped by the cute and flirty duo. But then Barry and Iris were only the cutest couple on the show 'cause Cisco and Kamilla left, so... *shrug* (Grant and Candice do what they can with the show's writing, but 'babymoon'? They're not spinning that as romantic, there's just no way. But at least they're acknowledging that Iris should be pregnant sometime relatively soonish.)

(I did actually go back and watch Ep1 before this. And, um... it had some good parts. But I also skipped around a lot 'cause I got bored. It was not the best time loop episode i've ever seen. It was middling of the road as far as episodes went and reminded me more of the reasons why it took me so long to start shipping Barry/Iris on the show in the first place. Namely, did Iris ever actually choose Barry? Or did she, after Eddie died, let herself get pushed into a relationship that she didn't necessarily want because everyone was pushing Barry as her destiny? Not that she didn't clearly find happiness with Barry, but... well, this is one of the reasons why i say canon does them dirty. Barry/Iris has been hit and miss as a result and it's not a good sign that the final season started off with something that felt more like a miss than a hit.)

[alynwrench]

BOO!!

.

.

.

.

Did I get you?

….No?

…..Well maybe this essay worth of questions will! HAHA!

How nonverbal is Lore? Does he say a word every know and again or will he speak full sentences if he has too? Also is he nonverbal by choice or did something happen?

Kepla keeps the circus running via identity fraud. I’m assuming it’s the creators identity he is stealing, but is there anyone else he's snatched the identity of?

Lore and Kepla’s relationship. Tell me more. Give me the lore. Hehehe. How do they interact with each other? How does Kepla feel about Lore sneaking off to kill people?

How do the two interact with strangers vs someone there more close with?

Their opinions on the law? I assume they hate them but I thought I would check.

Is Lore eating the people he kills?

They’re both evil, but do they have soft sides? For example, would they kill a child? Do they have any limits for how far they are willing to take things?

Outside of fire tricks, what else does Kepla do at the circus? Any other tricks he does? Besides identity fraud. What does Lore do at the circus?

Annnnddd - this question totally won’t give away what I’m doing - do you have an ao3? I would love to browse through your bookmarks to see what you enjoy reading!

I’ll officially start working on your gift around Sunday, so feel free to take your time in answering.

There may be a few more questions I have - based on your response and just random ideas slapping me in the face - but for today this is all ^_^

I hope your having a great day and are having a blast with your own gift!

Toodaloo!

⁃ Your Secret Skeleton

OOOGHHH HII... HEHEHEHEHE SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG IVE BEEN... THINKING. 1. Think Ferb from Phineas and Ferb! But more.. cryptic LMAO. It's just the way he is! Nothings happened and its not by choice. 2. Besides the occasional stealing of credit cards forgotten by guests, not really! Some lore about their creator as far as this little AU goes, they were made by Henry's ex girlfriend from his robotics class in high school out of spite for him breaking up with her and focusing on his passion, she 100% ripped off the Sun and Moon design he made in collaboration with the others for Fallfest. I know some of this is a long shot and may not entirely make sense, but long story short she wasnt a good person and the animatronics took that into their own hands LMAO 3. God, it is genuinely so conflicting. There's a bit of everything in there? Hatred for each other, fond respect, some aspects of love, appreciation, deep sadness. They're dependent on each other emotionally but they cannot stand to be around each other. 4. They're both cunning and soft towards guests, Kepla using fruitful and energetic words and keeping people on their toes with his skills, Lore moreso engaging with others through body language as he doesn't speak to guests. No one knows what his voice sounds like during hours, only do the other animatronics know. (Which he sounds like moon with a deeper rasp). They engage the most with children and occasionally adults Whereas with people they know, in this case the other members of the circus, Kepla is an ASSHOLLLEEE always ordering people around as, even though they do have a ringmaster (freddy) he's more for show, for visuals. He focuses on his own act more than organizing the place, Kepla takes it into his own hands. Lore is cold and avoids everyone the moment all the guests are gone, if you want to find him you have to track him down either because he's in his pool isolating or wandering away from their carnival to hunt. He is kinder than Kepla, but that doesn't make him any better. 5. Fuck the law 6. Good question! He is not. It's simply for adrenaline / sport 7. Neither would EVER kill children, though even though they both kill Kepla's strikes are rare and calculated and typically only for individuals who are on their trail (such as authority or guests who are trying to discover the mysteries of their traveling circus), and Lore's are typically for strangers dumb enough to fall for his traps. 8. Like i said earlier Kepla does organizational responsibilities and keeps everyone and their acts in check and gives (unwanted) criticism, Lore simply sulks in his pool all day. he is a soggy boy. 9. I DO have an AO3! Its AlynWrench! but uhhhh

But as for fanfictions and stuff I enjoy I do like Love, Death, and Rollerskates by @ spadillelicious (its my fav of all time fanfic, if ur reading this for some reason hi moot i gotta spread the propoganda) and Confused Spirit by @ midnight-mourning (once again hi moot SPREADING THE PROPOGANDA) I dont read as much as I should... ahehehe... i have a LOT on my to-read list but im GUHH. it takes a lot of work on my own end to get myself to read the fics ive been meaning to read THANK U FOR YOUR HARD WORK, SOLDIER!!!! I SALUTE YOU, feel free to throw more questions at me! Honestly I dont have a lot planned for these guys so this is helping me brainstorm..

[mywifeleftme]

197: Thin White Rope // Moonhead

Moonhead Thin White Rope 1987, Frontier

I cross-post the reviews in this series to RateYourMusic.com, to an old account I hadn’t touched in ten years, in recognition of the fact I am reconnecting with a previous version of myself. Reviewing’s what I used to do when I was eighteen years old and there seemed no other way of transferring the passion I had for music into some, any, ear. A welcome side-effect of making this extra step has been realizing how much of the internet ten-years-gone remains, the pre-social media communities of people who fervently believed that like Mogwai was somewhere near the apex of what can be accomplished in music—and still do believe that, in their enclaves outside today’s compromised feeds.

Anyway, every once in a while someone writes a review of a record on that site that goes so exactly to the core of things, it feels superfluous to add to it. Here’s RYM user steinib on Thin White Rope’s Moonhead:

Long before Americana became the genre it is today the Thin White Rope were there, howling like the desert wind. Their vision encompassed the enormous stretch of the desert as well as the constellations above, filled with foreboding and tremor. Their sound was always primitive and epic at the same time. The lyrics cryptic and dark but full of pristine beauty. The art of the Swinging Danglers (as they often referred to themselves) is nowhere better presented than on Moonhead. It starts with a drum loop that sounds really huge, followed by a flow of controlled feedback (always on the verge of exploding without ever bursting into white noise). The restrained tension soon finds perfect match in Kyser´s harrowing, growling vocals. This trembling sound is accentuated by the contrast of two crisp lead-guitars that occasionally rear their heads like two snakes in perfect counterpoint, each weaving their separate lines around the other´s neck. With the distant but ominous-sounding drums and a steadily throbbing bass, you feel like you are trudging, as if against your will, to an uncertain fate. On your way you may pause to reflect on the sheer beauty around you (the awesome “Thing”) before continuing. It is a journey full of unbearably tense moments (“Crawl, Piss, Freeze”) and passing thoughts of bones, deserts, loss, paranoia and emptiness. Moonhead is a compelling experience, but it is also a delicate affair, intricately woven by instruments that seem to participate in an ongoing, fluid conversation. It is a rare sync that gives every single note a particularly strong sense of direction. Every album by Thin White Rope shares this quality of musicianship. Some are noisier (In a Spanish Cave), more subdued (The Ruby Sea) or perhaps a bit uneven (Sack Full of Silver) but all contain that haunting quality. Moonhead, though, remains their most uncompromising and consistently great work.

All of that is exactly the fuck right. I had this album going in my headphones on the long walk down Dundas Street in Toronto on my way to where I’ve been staying at the time of this writing, and it fit deeply into the vibe, assuming the vibe was “serial killer on the prowl.” Thin White Rope are Television from an evil parallel world; they are the force that haunts a rock club twisted into a vape store; they are the moonlit desert a friend and I rented to stay the night, where while breaking off bramble to start a weak fire my hand came inches from a black widow, its belly gleaming like a wet ruby. Mostly I hope that when I die, I don’t awaken where the Rope lives, cold on the other side of the mirror, watching pitiful creatures on the surface scrabble for purchase.

197/365

[chorusfm]

The Menzingers – Some Of It Was True

The Philadelphia-based punk rockers, The Menzingers, are showing no signs of slowing down on their great seventh studio album called Some Of It Was True. Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, the War on Drugs, Waxahatchee), the album feels as reinvigorated as the band themselves, and highlights the band’s songwriting improvements from moving away from more introspective songs to more worldly issues that affect the lives of everyone around us. While their last record, Hello Exile, was drenched in the cloud of COVID quarantines, Some Of It Was True finds The Menzingers reaching outside of their usual comfort zone of writing by expanding upon the ideas they’ve tinkered with over their storied career, and quite possibly, creating their most fully-realized work of art to date. This album was recorded at the legendary Sonic Ranch in the heart of El Paso, Texas, and this foursome utilized the strengths of producer Brad Cook to create a record that not only moves the needle of creativity further down the line for The Menzingers, but also makes for an ultra-memorable statement as one of the best albums of 2023. The record blasts off with a cautionary tale called “Hope is a Dangerous Little Thing,” that finds lead vocalist Greg Barnett admitting that, “I’m afraid I love someone / Who’s in love with someone else / For years I’ve kept it to myself / Pretending we are picture-perfect / But I barely got my shit together / Cracking under little pressure / I’m afraid I’m not the one / The one you want is someone else.” It’s a heart-wrenching way to open an album that’s filled with plenty of twists and turns. Things continue to remain interesting on “There’s No Place In this World For Me,” as Barnett’s emotive vocals carry far above the foursome’s instruments in the best way possible. The well-constructed refrain of, “Sometimes I can’t help but think / There’s no place in this world for me / I’m never where I want to be / There’s no place in this world for me,” is as heartbreaking as it is relatable. ”Nobody Stays” is a slow-burning mid-tempo track that finds its lyrical material clouded in mystery. The cryptic second verse of, “I’ve come to find / The skyline lost its mind / And I can’t find your name / Only old ghosts remain,” allows for a brief glimmer of light to shine into the headspace of the band when they penned these words. The title track features a rockin’ bass line from Eric Keen that helps drive to the anthemic chorus, and keeps the album laser-focused. My personal favorite in the set comes from the recently released single, “Try,” that accentuates the dual-guitar attack from Barnett and Tom May in the best way possible. The heartbreaking admission in the second verse of, “All grief, no relief / Same story on repeat / Too broke to save the world / Too broke to save myself / When you’re falling slowly / It’s not your fault / So tired and lonely / It’s all fucked up,” is a good invitation into the current state of the world. Sometimes it feels like we’re doing all we can to “fix” things, but we fall flat on our face due to some type of roadblock. The front-half closes out with “Come On Heartache,” a heartfelt ballad that showcases the improvements in The Menzingers ever-evolving sound. The pre-chorus of, “I detest your pitter-patter in my chest / A cruel conviction, thinking you know what’s best / The way you tense up every time she’s near / The way you give up when she disappears,” is punk rock bliss, and makes a song even The Clash would’ve been proud to call their own. Things remain interesting with the slow-building “Ultraviolet,” that puts the spotlight directly on vocalist Greg Barnett as he tells a vivid story of falling head over heels in love with the person you’d want to spend all your time with. I really related to the lyrics of, “You always saved the little gems / The hotel pens, the bar napkins / So when the moment ends / We could remember it,” since it reminded me of the little trinkets I collect from place to place that I’ve been to with… https://chorus.fm/reviews/the-menzingers-some-of-it-was-true/

[gerogerigaogaigar]

The Pixies - Doolittle

Way back when I said that Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was the best rock album of the 90s I did a little google search to remind me whether this album came out in 89 or 90 to see if I had to amend that to second best. Doolittle is one of my top ten albums of all time. The atmosphere maintains a sense of apocalyptic intensity even at its calmest moments. From the manic screaming on Tame right to the surf punk of Wave Of Mutilation. There are deceptively intellectual themes running through Doolittle too. Death, and torment run through the whole album with a strong focus on biblical violence. Dead recalls the story of David and Bathsheba in brief which leads to the the most amazing lyric of all time "Uriah hit the crapper". Gouge Away is about Samson and Delilah, and Monkey Gone To Heaven alludes to biblical numerology. A lot of lyrics are also deliberately vague leaving the meaning of the songs obscured surrealist imagery. Wave Of Mutilation according to Frank Black is about businessmen driving their cars into the ocean to commit suicide and Here Comes Your Man is about homeless people dying in an earthquake. All of this says nothing about how catchy these cryptic songs are. The melding of punk, alternative, surf rock, and generous use of triads and Hendrix chords leads to a discordant but focused album that manages to be infinitely catchy despite being extremely noisy. More than anything Doolittle, despite being fairly eclectic with it's sound, evokes a very cohesive mood. It's a weird simmering anxiety that sometimes bubbles to the surface but is never relieved. All of punk and alternative music has come home to roost in Doolittle and honestly if music had stopped right after it released that would have been fine.

The Wailers - Catch A Fire

There were a number of reggae acts in the early 70s that managed significant international success, but none quite as universally as Bob Marley and his band The Wailers. Catch A Fire was their fifth album, but it was the first to make it big in the states. The production is slightly nicer and that definitely allows Bob Marley's soulful voice to shine through. Marley definitely had a richer texture to his voice than most of his contemporaries and that likely helped him become a household name.

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

I'm gonna go ahead and say it. This album is overrated. After War Pigs we get two completely throw away tracks before hitting a sort of stride and then ending on the fantastic Faeries Wear Boots. Honestly most of this album is good but not great. I like it, but I don't think it quite stacks up to their debut, Master Of Reality, or Heaven And Hell.

Madonna - The Immaculate Collection

Hey Rolling Stone, can i ask a question? What the fuck do you think you are doing? You already put two Madonna albums on this list and now you're saying a hits collection tops them both? Every album she released in the 80e was good actually. You could have put one of those on here. Her self titled debut, Like A Virgin, and True Blue are all worthy of being on this list. If you scrubbed some of the outright garbage from this list you'd have room for all three of them and more!

Adele - 21

An album that is bad all the way through is just bad, and an album that is bad with one or two good tracks is frustrating, but opening with two very strong songs and then delivering nothing but banal piano ballads for the rest of the album? Thats torture. It makes me so mad that Rolling In The Deep and Rumor Has It are really good songs that show off a blues rock side of Adele that she never ever visits again. If orgasm denial was an album it would be 21 by Adele.

[blackquillchillin]

I love this! I imagine they end up crashing together a lot, regardless of if Apollo and Athena have their own housing or not. It leads to some fun shenanigans.

Some of my thoughts:

Apollo has the best grasp of the chemistry involved in cooking, but isn't always great at improvising if they ran out of something. Nick barely grasps the chemistry, if at all, but feeding a small child on the money you earn playing poker and playing piano at a dingy bar means you learn what works, even if you don't know why it does. are they great meals? nope. but they are meals! and you won't starve!

Blackquill briefly crashing with the crew post-release, but pre-finding his own place. He finds it very overwhelming. If they are all sharing one apartment, he shares a room with Apollo, whos kind of scared of him. If not, he just ends up in the building a lot. Athena brings him. He's glad to make the acquaintance of everyone, but so, so glad when he finds a more permanent spot. Teaches Trucy tricks you can do with a real sword. learns way more about magic then he ever wanted to know.

They really struggle to play games such as werewolf or resistance, because they involve outright lying. they've tried it a few times where you have to tell a lie with your statement, regardless of if it was true or not. results were mixed.

Phoenix honestly isn't good at trivia, but he'll be damned if he'll admit it. double-down, insist the card is wrong. present flimsy evidence on why. if you tell enough lies, you can buy enough time to....wait, this isn't court. what are you achieving? At this point Apollo is pretty sure he's doing it just to mess with the group. possibly him specifically.

Edgeworth occasionally visits the office, when he's in town, which isn't that often. He and Phoenix sound kinda cryptic when reminiscing, but its not because either of them are trying to be. It's just how they are.

Maya visits all the time! she's Trucy's self-appointed aunt/big sister. when she goes to visit Khura'in, Phoenix cries in his office later that night. Gumshoe is there more often then you'd expect too. Trucy tells him he needs a warrant to enter. they go back and forth for longer then you'd think. (don't worry, its a jest. usually.)

Athena will be browsing the web for hours when things are slow, and immediately follows it with the most insane questions to everyone in the office, and then going for a run. "would you still love me if I was a worm?" "If we were on a deserted island, who would you eat first?" "would that be fucked up or what?" bonus points if Apollo was trying to focus.

Spirited debates on what the best steel samurai thing is. Phoenix doesn't have an opinion, unless Edgeworth is there in which case whichever option would piss him off, Trucy's answer is based on the cinematography, involved, Athena likes whichever one she and Simon used to watch, and Apollo hasn't seen it. Any of it. this man doesn't know any pop-culture.

At some point, Athena and Trucy make sims of everyone they know. Then they start drowning them in the pool, because they're bored.

every time a truly hopeless case lands in the agency's lap, they take bets on how long Phoenix waffles before taking the case. He's hopeless.

Athena mixes in a bit of every language she knows into her day-to-day life, and sometimes dosn't realize she's switched. It annoyed Apollo, so he started intentionally including Khura'inese in his day-to-day speech. Athena became more aggressive about including more and more languages in her speech. It's started to get out of control.

Debating Subs vs Dubs for any show, ever, even if its originally made in America, and thus they all understand it. no show is safe.

Trucy has doves for her show. She makes everyone get to know them, "so the doves won't be scared of you" turns out to be a ploy so they can't use not knowing what to do with the doves to get out of being her assistant. no one sees it coming.

Maybe I have more then just a few thoughts. whoops.

my favourite thing about WAA is just them being friends without the trauma and courtroom drama. Which is a really big thing to ask of Ace Attorney so I have to make everything up lmao. SO

WAA going on a cozy cabin trip together. They unpack together, Trucy makes a fun vlog, Athena can't make her bed because of a stubborn bedsheet, everyone goes fishing (Phoenix falls into the water), they have a fun barbecue, Apollo tells everyone about the stars (many hugs involved), Phoenix makes the best pancakes for whatever reason. I can list so many things they'd do

WAA having fun game nights together. Many chaos involved, and poker being absolutely hated by Apollo and Athena. Athena is really good at Mario kart 8 deluxe for some reason. Trucy ALWAYS wins trivia nights

Literally just a normal day at the agency. They have minimal work and interact with eachother because they're stuck with work :]!!

WAA going to Eldoon's noodles!!!

WAA cooking/baking together. If not, Apollo usually cooks for everyone else because he's the most competent at it

Sleepovers at the office!!! Phoenix is usually not there though. I like to think Apollo, Athena and Trucy watch bad movies together and make tierlists on how bad they are

Phoenix, Athena and Apollo watching Trucy's shows and cheering her on!! Bonus points if Athena or Apollo has to go on stage and be an assistant. More bonus points if it's Phoenix

There's probably more I have thought of but this is all I can recall right now! I'd love to hear what everyone else has thought of ^.^!

[luveline]

what abt rockstar remus and reader start chatting over the phone and he invites her to a party the band is having perhaps? sirius n james see them together n tease remus maybe (goodheartedly) smthn like that :] also i love ur writing i’ve been following for months now n i literally all of it is always so good never read anything i didn’t thoroughly enjoy from u

thank you so much you're LOVELY!! part two to this but you don't have to read it ♡ fem!reader | 1.3k words

When Remus had asked you over the phone if you wanted to go to a party, you'd said yes before really thinking it through. 

"Cool. I'll send someone." 

His nonchalance had further disturbed you. Talking to him over the phone is terrifying. He's a hard guy to read when he's sitting right across from you – over the phone feels like slow torture. You'll say something and the line will go totally dead and you'll pull back the phone to check he's still there and catch the end of a laugh. Then he says something stupidly nice, like, Fuck, you're funny, and you have to stop from throwing your phone across the room. 

The driver Remus had sent for you has to give your name at the front gate, which is ridiculous. Then he pulls into a driveway big enough for thirty cars, which is more ridiculous, and it's over capacity by double that, all sports cars' worth more money than you'll likely ever see in your entire life. Famous people's parties are insane, to put it lightly.

You linger in the back seat, wondering if you're going to throw up. 

"Is everything okay?" The driver asks. 

"Do you… You don't know whose house this is, do you?" 

"Mary McDonald's," he says knowledgeably. "Mr. Lupin is waiting for you inside." 

You take it for what it is, a dismissal. "Right. Sorry. Thank you," you tell him as you climb out. 

He has the kindness to roll down a window. "You'd do well to be careful. Celebrities are… a different breed to us," he says cryptically. 

You watch him pull away in horror. 

This is where it would be great to call Remus, only your phone had died in the car and everything is starting to feel like a total disaster. Through the open door you can see that the house is teeming with people and movement and sound, lights and drinks.

There's two huge bouncers manning the door. You approach the one with the clipboard though you're seriously considering turning around and walking home. 

You give him your name and he stares. "With Remus Lupin." 

He looks skeptically to your side. 

"I think he's inside," you squeak. 

The guy checks his list and evidently finds you because you get nodded in. 

It's worse once you're actually past the threshold. You've never seen so many people, so many people with so much money. It's clear in everything about them. Designer clothes and perfect hair and better bodies. You feel a little sharp pain of nerves every time you remember whose house this is. 

You see a flash of familiar hair and decide to start there. Through a moving crowd of people and shoes that crush your toes to the living room, where Sirius Black stands to the side with an actor you're intimidated by and said actor's model girlfriend.  Your two seconds from spinning on your heel when he locks eyes with you and grins. Really grins. 

"Hey! Sweet thing!" You freeze. He gestures with his hand. The way he does it, like he's entirely unused to gesturing his hand and not having the person cede his command, is both hot and infuriating. Rockstars, you think wryly. 

"Hey," you say, not loud enough. He gets it anyway. 

"Now how are you here? We have met before, right?" 

"Right. At Devys Centre." 

"Right…" He squints and points his glass toward you, his drink sloshing over the edge. "Not stalking me, are you?" 

You're suddenly so grateful to him you can't speak. His arrogance, while charming on him, is huge, and it makes you laugh. Your shoulders relax, your jaw softens, the stress of being here and not knowing anybody fading just slightly. 

"No, I'm not stalking you." 

He steps closer and he smells like expensive cologne, like fake leather worth enough money to look real, like cognac worth a thousand a bottle. 

"Then why are you here?" 

"She's here as my date," Remus says from behind you. 

Which is not what he said on the phone. The word date was never mentioned. Its clarification emboldens you, has you beaming as you turn your head to see him. You've talked over the phone, sure, but that's only been a couple times a week for two weeks, and you only ever met him one time. There's no guarantee that this is going to work. That he even wants you. 

"Hey," he says, as if he's said it a hundred times before, as if you're familiar. 

You really want this to work. 

"Hi," you say, smiling softly. 

He dots a friendly kiss over the apple of your cheek and his hand grasps your shoulder lightly as he turns his gaze to his bandmate. His fingers are long. The press into your skin and the pressure is awfully nice. "Where's James?" Remus asks.

"That's what I'd love to know," Sirius says, smooth. He suppresses a smile badly. "I didn't realise we'd be seeing you again," he says to you. 

"Go bother somebody else," Remus says. He talks with a casual boredom that Sirius is obviously used to. 

"I'm gonna go find Jamie," he says. It's a promise of something but you don't know what. 

As soon as he moves Remus is taking his hand from your shoulder. You spin in place to face him and find yourselves very close, his dark brown eyes trained on you, moving a little less than amicably over your figure. 

"You look amazing," he says. 

You should say the same. You'd managed to forget how good looking he is. You are sorely reminded. 

"You too," you say pathetically.

"I tried to call you half an hour ago." 

"Sorry, my phone died." 

"No, don't be. I was worried maybe this wasn't the best place for a first date. I'm not trying to scare you off so quickly." 

You smile and rub your lips together, gloss sticky as you say, "I didn't know this was a date." 

"Is that okay with you?" he asks. 

His voice enamours you; the lilting cadence of his concern and the genuineness of his question is endearing beyond words. 

"Yeah, it's okay." 

He smiles and brings a hand to your face, stroking your cheek with the broad of his thumb just once before you're interrupted. 

"What's he look so chuffed about?" a loud voice asks. 

"Baby's first groupie," Sirius says. 

"Don't be fucking disgusting," Remus says. There's a quiet heat there that twists your chest. 

"Groupie as in enthusiastic," Sirius corrects himself, winking at you as he appears at one shoulder. 

A second presence at the other. "Hi, shortcake. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" James Potter asks jokingly. He inclines his head at Remus, who, to your astonishment, seems to be blushing. "With this vagabond?" 

"A girl like me?" you ask. 

"Jesus christ," Remus mutters. 

You catch his eyes and smile at him until he smiles back, hoping to reassure him though you're not sure what for. His expression softens. 

"That's bad. That's really bad," Sirius says to James like you're not there, endlessly amused. "S'like I'm watching you and Lilykins."

"Like looking in a mirror," James sing-songs.

"I'd assume there was much less contempt on our front," Remus says. 

James protests loudly and enraged whilst you repeat the word 'our' to yourself, grinning. Our, as in us, as in there's an us, no matter how small it might be.

"Do you want a drink?" Remus asks you over the low din of his friends.

"Sure." 

Remus holds his hand out and you take it. He has big hands. His fingers fit through yours like they were made to. You let him drag you to a kitchen full of too many celebrities to count. He only looks at you. 

[pcrushinnerd]

Critical Passenger -- Chapter 5

Summary: Before he fully accepted his role as Moon Knight, as Jake Lockley he played hero and made a promise to someone who has come back into his life.

Pairings: Mostly Jake Lockley x femreader, but also Steven Grant x femreader and Marc Spector x femreader because well yeah.

Warnings: None I think, allusions to nasty things?

A/N: My Defenders children making an appearance ftw. Gif not mine.

last chapter ||| masterlist

The Past

The tops of skyscrapers passed by underfoot like they were nothing. Multitudes of windows, lit and dark, passed into a single blur. The white cold moon overhead lit his path, as Moon Knight sailed through the air, finally landing on a familiar rooftop.

The red guy wasn't there yet, but then Matt did have an issue with being punctual.

After a few minutes: "Hey."

Jake turned around to see Daredevil sauntering up to him.

"Hey yourself."

To Matt, in the fiery view his altered vision gave him, his relatively new ally appeared like a slash of darkness against light.

Daredevil tilted his head slightly to the side. "You still sound like you're wearing kevlar. Hope you didn't pay too much for it."

"Just my life."

Matt was used to the small, cryptic retorts by now. Sort of.

"Well, got any intel this week?"

"No," Jake responded sullenly. "I'm almost tempted to just storm the place one night and take everyone out and be done with it."

"Hey now. We need to be delicate about this. These fucks are smart enough to know people like us are watching them, and they've planned accordingly. We don't want innocent people getting hurt."

Jake let out an exasperated breath. "This isn't how I normally do things, you know that."

"I'm aware. But your way won't help things here."

Jake felt like a man chained. Or, more familiarly, a man split. The cabbie that gathered intel by day, was the muscle by night. Although, other than the usual small stuff around the city, the muscle part of it was becoming less and less. Which irritated the shit out of him.

"Your PI got anything new?"

"Jessica has been able to track down a few ancillary individuals within the organization. Probably have no idea who or what they're working for, but could be worth checking out."

Matt off-handedly mentioned a few names--one of which was yours.

"Why did your heartbeat just jump?"

After a long pause: "Mierda...."

"What?"

"I...encountered one of them, the other day."

"...care to explain further?"

Moon Knight started to pace around a bit, delaying. He hadn't been entirely sure he'd wanted to bring you up, even knowing from your mostly-innocently-shared business card that you worked for McBradley & Associates as some sort of "executive assistant." After all, as Matt indicated earlier, you probably didn't really know anything.

And as badly as he'd wanted to, he knew he shouldn't get anywhere near you. He understood what you were doing with giving him the card, and that for your sake, he shouldn't take the opportunity.

Jake recounted how this seemingly random, bleeding woman had him take her to the hospital, how he'd felt the need to stick around and take you home, about the business card....

He wanted to smack that subtle smirk of off Daredevil's face, but it quickly fell away anyway.

"You were planning to share with the class, weren't you?"

"Yes."

Matt's hands went to his hips, as he took a patient breath.

"...at some point."

"Great."

"Like you said, she probably doesn't know much of anything. Didn't strike me as a woman who relishes facilitating sex slavery."

"Doesn't mean she doesn't know."

Jake sighed loudly.

"Besides, something doesn't sound right about the mugging story. Broad daylight, so close to the building she works in?"

"Agreed. However--"

"Maybe you should...go ahead and give her a call."