#i made this for exactly the reason you think i did

[wncestnoir]

KISS CAM. the drabble no one asked for but here you go.

Dean loved baseball. The crack of the bat, the smell of overpriced stadium food, the cold beer in his hand—it was all part of the experience. Sam, predictably, was being a little bitch about it, sulking in his seat like he had something better to do.

Which, okay, maybe they did have actual work to focus on. The possible demon three rows down wasn’t going anywhere, but Dean had argued that keeping a low profile meant blending in. What better way to do that than kicking back and enjoying a game?

Then the music changed. The crowd cheered. Dean looked up—and froze.

Right there, on the stadium’s massive screen, were their own stupid faces, framed by a blinding pink heart with KISS CAM stamped over it like a goddamn brand.

Dean choked on his beer. “Oh, hell no.”

Sam’s groan was pure agony. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The crowd was loving this. People were whistling, laughing, egging them on. Someone behind them hollered, “Come on, fellas! Don’t leave us hanging!”

Dean shifted uncomfortably. This was bad. Not because of the kiss itself—hell, he’d done worse things for a case—but because this was Sam.

His brother.

And yet, when he glanced at Sam, all wide-eyed and pink-cheeked, the only thing worse than the sheer wrongness of the situation was the way his stomach did a weird little flip.

"Just shake your head," Sam muttered. "They’ll move on."

The crowd was already booing. People were pissed. Like they’d just insulted the sacred ritual of public make-outs or something. Dean could feel dozens of eyes on them. If they kept refusing, they’d stand out even more.

And, well… if there was one thing Dean Winchester hated, it was being the centre of attention when he didn’t wanna be.

“It’s one kiss,” he said, mostly to himself. “We walk outta here without a target on our backs. No big deal.”

Sam looked like he was reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this moment. Dean wasn’t exactly thrilled either, but screw it—sometimes you had to take one for the team.

So he leaned in.

The second their lips met, the crowd erupted. It was supposed to be quick—just enough to get people off their backs. But then Sam’s mouth softened against his, his breath warm, and for some insane reason, Dean lingered.

His fingers bunched in Sam’s shirt before he could think better of it.

Sam didn’t pull away.

In fact, he—Jesus Christ—tilted his head, deepening it.

A bolt of heat shot through Dean’s spine, something too raw and too unexpected. He barely registered the roar of the crowd, the distant “Holy shit!” from someone too close. His focus narrowed to the way Sam tasted—familiar, but not, and why the hell did this feel good?

He made a noise before he could stop himself. Low, almost surprised. Sam gripped his arm, his fingers warm through Dean’s jacket, and shit.

Dean yanked himself back first.

His breath was coming too fast. His heart was doing something stupid in his chest. Sam looked just as wrecked—flushed, lips red and wet, staring at Dean like he was waiting for something else.

Dean swallowed hard.

“Well,” he said, his voice rough, “guess we’re committed now.”

And then, before his brain could catch up, he was pulling Sam in again.

To hell with the case.

______________________________________________________________

because i couldn't get the idea out of my head 😌 just a silly little something ig 😂

[pinksugarscrub]

Eye Spy

Batfam! x Batmom! Reader

Synopsis: a video made by @TrixkyGoddess on tiktok. Thank you for letting me cook lol

Word count: 1k+

Warnings: chaotic children

~

Running a business is hard but an industry? Ten times worse because the world is on your shoulders. How you find the time to balance your personal and work life is the topic of every gossip magazine. However this social season your face is on the front cover for an entirely different reason.

It’s completely baseless. Utterly baseless. Truly, it’s ridiculous how journalists can come to the conclusion you have a romantic interest in Lex Luthor of all people. 

Ok…maybe there was merit to their claims. 

You didn’t exactly flaunt your marriage with a wedding ring like most couples. God knows how often you lose or damage your jewelry so of course it wasn’t very practical to have Bruce buy you a new one every few months (even if he insisted it was fine). A ring itself was a hazard for Bruce when he was in his suit regardless. 

So was it logical for people to believe you weren’t committed? Unfortunately yes now that you think about it.

It’s likely these same columnists gave up on the ‘will they won’t they’ headlines when neither you or Bruce made a move. At least publically.  

It was just smart for the two of you to keep your relationship private. Bruce had his priorities with your safety and Gotham villains while you had to keep your work on the batmobile and an array of gadgets quiet or else Foxteca would lose its credibility.

Of course people were quick to notice Bruce’s lack of dates after a month or two but no one seemed to suspect a thing. Just that Bruce’s love for you went unrequited or there were personal issues present that held you back in the words of Vicki Vale.

Either way, you’re ready for this month's issue to fade into existence before you have Lois commenting on your relationship from Metropolis. She’s already teased you enough for organizing a formal dinner with the man responsible for the late nights your husbands spend with the Justice League.

You just have to get through tonight. Try not to cringe at Lex’s personable facade. Pretend you hold no ill will. Finish the business deal. Then you could go home and complain to Alfred while you waited for your family to return home.

Nothing could possibly go wrong hero wise when they were all on patrol. Conveniently at the same time but you ignore that in favor of the idea that they at least have some faith in you. In your heart you know you’re wrong.

-

“Ten minutes from the rendezvous point.” 

“Thanks Oracle,” Dick huffed. Adjusting the communication piece in his ear after it nearly slipped out after a jump. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t see.” Tim answers. Shifting in his spot beside a gargoyle to try and get a better view of your office window.

“I’ve always found the other window better for spying on mom.”

“Cassandra.” Damian scowls. Very close to shoving someone off the roof. “What you all are doing is an invasion of privacy. Have you no decency?”

“It looks like she’s setting up for a date.” 

“Deflecting from the question does not change my position on the subject Todd.”

Stephanie snickers beside Damian. Resisting the urge to point out he had moved closer to the edge of the building they were situated on.

“A date?”

Everyone’s startled by the sound of Bruce’s voice but not because it carried through the comms so abruptly. 

“Stop looking at me.” Bruce glares when various pairs of eyes shine in his direction. They’re not deterred.

“He’s here!”

Simultaneously everyone returns their attention to Foxteca. 

“Hurry up Dick,” Steph hisses. “You’re missing it.”

Duke mumbles in agreement. Laser focused on the client you’re meeting. “Do you guys see what I see?”

“Luthor.” Jason nearly gasps. Grinning from ear to ear a moment later. “Oh this’ll be good.”

“B did you-”

“No. I didn’t know.”

“Oh shit. Mom’s in trouble,” Steph whispered. Oohing under her breath as she shook Damian by his shoulder.

“Here, here—” Dick landed swiftly. Out of breath. 

“Why dinner?” Tim mumbled. Rubbing his chin. “Especially in the office.”

“It must be because of the columns.”

“Less publicity.” The lenses of Tim’s domino mask widened. “You’re right Cass.”

“I can’t believe she would risk it,” Jason barked. 

Barbra sighed while staring at her screen. “It’s (y/n) we’re talking about. Self-made billionaire. Of course she would.” 

“He pulled out her chair!” Steph cried. Interrupting everyone’s train of thought. 

“That does not mean anything Stephanie. It’s simply proper etiquette.”

“Say that to his hand on her back!” She pointed. Adamantly looking around for any form of support.

“No wonder she’s been so secretive…” Dick murmured while glancing over at Bruce. Grimacing, at the slouch of his posture.

“Somebody call her! This is a matter of life or death.” Steph cried again. Falling to her knees.

“And say what!?” Tim snapped. Shaking the binoculars in his hand. “She’ll know we were spying on her.”

“We’re going to lie you idiot.”

“Twenty bucks says she notices before they come up with a plan.” Jason whispered conspiratorially. 

Cass smiled under her mask. Nudging her shoulder with Jason’s. “You’re on.”

It wasn’t the family’s proudest moment. Steph frantically scrolling through her contacts. Damian quarrelling with Tim while Dick tried to keep the peace or at least return everyone to some sense of normalcy.

“Uh, guys.” 

“Well if you disagree with this so much you can leave!”

“Guys,” Duke pleaded. Sweating as you stared into his very soul, cell phone in hand.

A ring echoed through the air. The familiar melody of a Batman jingle Dick found on the internet in his earlier Robin days.

Everyone was silent. Still as a strong gust of wind blew by. Then the music stopped.

“Scatter!”

-

You sighed. Tapping your heel impatiently on the tile of your office. Watching the blur of colors and capes you followed the line of grappling hooks until your family disappeared into the night. All except for your husband. 

“Bruce Thomas Wayne.” You spoke slowly into the phone. 

Bruce sagged deeper into a puddle. His cape almost makes him look like a blob or an entirely different entity.

“Bruce.” You shook your head. Keeping your voice low so Lex couldn’t overhear. 

It’s safe to say the manor was devoid of any life when you arrived. As if any one breathing would disrupt and possibly end the space time continuum. 

Waking up to breakfast in bed certainly was fun but tickets to your dream destination was the icing on the cake.

[lookitseddie]

3 times darlin' almost said 'I love you', and the one time they finally did.

↳ Thank you so much to @penumbra-mayhem for beta reading this for me, you're the sweetest <33

Enjoy!

Tank almost thought they couldn't say it. That those words just happened to not be in their vocabulary, but they knew that wasn't true. They had said it before— when their parents used to tuck them in and tell them a bed-time story. They had said it when their family left for Washington without them.

So, why was it so hard now?

David's house was quiet, which was an eerie feeling in itself. His house was never quiet. Never empty. Either filled by the background noise of the television, or the soft chatter of pack members that seemed to always be there, but never this empty.

David's cleaning the kitchen again. He doesn't need to, he's done it three times already just today. He's keeping himself busy, Tank knows that, but they can't help but cringe at the fact that he's still wearing his suit, and it hasn't been five minutes since they came back.

"David, you should rest. The funeral was... tiring." To say the least.

David doesn't move, doesn't speak. They expect him to say something in that gruff voice that he's been using too often nowadays— The one that made him sound like Gabe— but he doesn't speak. Instead he lifts his head up, and Tank sees something they know will be burned into the back of their head forever.

"Shit-"

His eyes are glossy, red as can be. He blinks once and the tears come pouring. They don't even have the time to brace themselves before he collapses his entire weight onto them and his body is shaking with sobs. Somehow, they manage to lower the both of them to the ground softly.

They stayed there for... hours, maybe. Neither of them said a word the entire time. Tank wanted to, but they just couldn't shove out the words stuck in their throat like a clog— I love you.

This time they were sure. Their mouth had opened, and a noise was escaping just as his fangs sunk into the inner side of their thigh. Their flesh ripping open, their blood pouring out straight into his mouth, and him taking it all in like a starved man. They were so sure.

But, Quinn was out the door before they could make it through the sentence. The sound of the door shutting closed left them in pathetic silence while they held paper towels over where his mouth had just been. Their mind was too hazy— from blood loss and something else— and they were almost grateful. They didn't want to think.

They didn't want to think about what would've happened if they had seen it through. Would Quinn laugh? Would he brush them off? Worse of all— Would he say it back?

They didn't know. For better or for worse, they’d never find out.

Beeps and flickers of hospital equipment surrounded Tank as they sat stiffly in a plastic chair that was too small for them. Their eyes were heavy, fists clenched on their lap, as they stared at the unconscious person on the bed.

Quinn had crossed the line. Hurting them was one thing, but going for their friend? A low blow, even for him. Tank's heart was pattering with pure rage that had now replaced their initial horror. The idea of revenge stewed in their head, just about to boil over. While they knew the "sensible" thing to do was to stay here, keep their friend some company, their body itched to run out the door, and to put that fucker in the dirt where he belonged.

Maybe they should've stayed. Maybe they should've taken that unconscious hand in their own and whispered those three soft words like they wanted to. They should've waited for those eyes to open so they could repeat them to ears that could actually hear them, but they didn't.

They had a vampire to track down, afterall.

"You know that thing's almost as old as you, right?”

Sunday mornings were starting to become Darlin's favourite. They were always lazy, and for some reason, the house always felt more cozy and home-y on these days. They didn't know why that was, exactly, but then again, they didn't care.

"Yeah, and?"

Sam snuggled closer into their side while they tightened their arm around his shoulder. He could feel their heartbeat against his ear, and they could smell his shampoo. The needle in between Sam's fingers worked expertly over the rip on his red flannel— the thing was more stitches than cloth at this point.

Darlin' rolled their eyes at his playful response and didn't bother with challenging the southerner on the topic any further. They weren't one to talk anyways with their own jacket— blood stains and everything— hanging on the hook behind the front door. They both had a knack for giving old, battered things a home.

Instead, they buried their nose into his hair, and let their body relax into his. Their other hand snaked around his waist to pull Sam even closer until he was basically sitting in their lap.

"... I love you."

"I love you, too, Darlin'."

[flambeaufelid]

This is a fantastic post. Especially that idea of it basically being about "pure escapism". Never really put that together myself before.

I think this is part of what was so great about the abridged series. The complete rejection of that premise.

SAO Abridged, for those who don't know, is often lauded as the greatest abridged series ever. Surpassing the OG show by miles, telling a legitimately better and more resonant story. But when asked how it does that exactly, most people just talk about how it cleans up a lot of plot holes, or is funny, or something like that.

These are good reasons to love it, but reading this analysis made me realize that it's also perhaps in part because it's an anti-escapist story.

In SAO Abridged, Kirito is a complete fucking jackass from the word go. He doesn't care about anything or anyone other than himself. And at first the show seems to present him as in the right- everyone else playing the game is basically braindead, he's BETTER than them, his numbers are higher than theirs.

But. That's not an escape.

Sure, he can tell these people that they're worthless. But it solves nothing. He still has to deal with them. He loads into the game, and the first thing he sees are ads. Sachi dies because she "lives out in the boonies", and has a bad internet connection, and lags out in the middle of a fight. The abridged series never, EVER, forgets the real world. Kayaba's motive in this version is simply that he was overworked, and went crazy.

And even though this version of Kirito also loves this game, he constantly runs up against it's edges- he learns to HATE the NPCs, he accidentally fucks up his taste buds eating max-level food, he kills someone in episode 4 because she makes fun of one of the few things the game didn't change: his voice.

In the finale of the abridged Aincrad arc, we see a version of Kirito who loves this game, yes, but also clearly wants to stop playing.

"It's true. This world means more to me than the real one ever did."

"But the longer we stay here, the greater the chance I'll lose the things I love about it most of all."

("HIS FRIENDS!!! HE'S TALKING ABOUT HIS FRIENDS!!!" Yells Klein, off to the side.)

(BTW I rewatched part of the canon episode for the first time in a decade to make sure Kirito didn't have an equivalent line there, and FUCK did I forget how BAD it is. But no, as far as I saw, he doesn't.)

Abridged Kirito wants out because he finally has found value in others. He's willing to sacrifice his escapist fantasy to save everyone, and get on with his own real life. I suppose you can say the same of canon Kirito, but... I just don't buy it as much, with him. I don't know why canon Kirito wants out, other than maybe reviving Yui. I think he really wanted to stay forever, deep down- whereas abridged Kirito slowly but surely outgrew this world.

Sword Art Online (anime)

Sword Art Online is a Frankenstein monster. Here is every episode of the first arc and how it was adapted:

Episode 1 is from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 2 is from a more detailed rewrite of the story, Sword Art Online Progressive, published in 2012 (only a few months before the anime aired).

Episode 3 is from the second volume of the light novel, published in 2009.

Episode 4 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, in either 2002 or 2003.

Episodes 5 and 6 combine a side story published in 2007 and another side story from the eighth volume of the light novel, published in 2011.

Episode 7 is from a side story published shortly after the original web novel, likely in 2003.

Episodes 8, 9, and 10 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

Episode 11 and 12 are from a side story published in 2003.

Episodes 13 and 14 are from the original web novel, published in 2002.

By stitching together stories written across an entire decade, often with wildly different purposes and goals, the anime is tonally erratic, with glaring plot and character inconsistencies. For example, Episode 3 is a tragic episode in which Kirito brings several low-level players to a high-level floor, leading to their deaths. Kirito is traumatized; he later explains that this incident is why he plays as a solo player, so nobody else will ever get hurt because of him. Episode 4, by contrast, is a lighthearted episode in which Kirito—having learned nothing, because this story was written six years before the previous one—brings a low-level player to a high-level floor as bait for dangerous player-killers. When the low-level player is comedically groped by a tentacle monster and cries out for Kirito to save her, Kirito only shrugs and says, "Come on, it's not that powerful." He's ultimately correct, and this time the player survives, but what happened to his trauma?

These inconsistencies, combined with Sword Art Online's massive popularity, made it the favorite target of the fledgling anime video essay community circa 2014 to 2017. Though it's possible to do a longform video poring over every single plot hole for almost anything, Sword Art Online made it easy; half of its "plot" was never intended to be arranged in this way, and even when there was intent, it was the intent of an amateur author writing their first-ever story. You couldn't generate a work more perfect for endless nitpicking and angry rants in a lab.

But if the show is blatantly incompetent, what made it so popular?

It's tempting to ascribe its popularity to "right place, right time." By 2012, the year Sword Art Online came out, the internet had changed the primary way people interacted socially. Rather than being bound by family, proximity, race, creed, religion, or so on, people grouped together by hobby. "Gamer" was now a community-binding identity, an attribute that distinguished a person and their niche online space from the othered outside. And the Gamers craved legitimacy. They craved the approval and recognition of mainstream culture. They craved representation, that feeling of seeing yourself reflected in the world around you.

The world refused them. The mood of the entrenched pop cultural elite was best encapsulated by Roger Ebert, famous film critic, who had been waging a years-long crusade against video games as an artistic medium. In 2005, in response to the live-action Doom movie, Ebert said, "Video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic." He reiterated this claim in statements and essays in 2006 and 2010, and in March 2012, on the eve of Sword Art Online's airing, described Dark Souls—Dark Souls!—as a "soul-deadening experience." "Video games can never be art," he asserted plainly later that year.

In this milieu, it makes sense why Gamers glommed onto Sword Art Online. If nothing else, Sword Art Online takes video games seriously, more seriously than any non-video game media before it (asterisk; excepting .hack). This seriousness manifests in a consistent theme, a singular perpetually present thread that lingers even as plot, character, and tone skew wildly, stated by Kirito to Klein in Episode 1:

"This may be a virtual world, but I feel more alive here than I do in the real world."

This statement defines Asuna, who stops seeing her time trapped in the game as years stolen from her life, and instead learns to live each moment as if it were truly real. It defines Silica, mourning her dead Neopet and willing to risk her actual life to revive it. It defines Lisbeth, hurtling a million miles into the air but still for a moment enraptured by the beauty of a digital sun shining over a digital land. It defines Griselda, murdered by her husband Grimlock for motives he can only confusingly explain as related to how she "changed" in the game, how she became more confident, more self-realized, while he sank into despair (he was not a Gamer. He lacked the Gamer spirit). It defines Yui, the sentient NPC whom Kirito and Asuna adopt as part of a pantomimed marriage that the show's nauseatingly boring second arc is about protecting against an outside world that does not acknowledge it. And it defines Akihiko Kayaba, the game's creator, who when confronted at the end over why he trapped 10,000 people in this death game, can only say that he no longer remembers, before rhapsodizing about the "castle in the sky" he so achingly desired to bring to life. Unstated is that, to make it truly alive, he needed to make it—and the people inside it—capable of death. This logic is twisted, even more bizarre than Grimlock's murder confession, but neither the scene's wistfully poignant tone nor Kirito's responses reject it.

As the video essayists have done, it's pathetically easy to pick apart Kayaba's rationale. But to mire oneself in the story's logic is a mistake; Sword Art Online is not a story guided by logic. What matters is that Kayaba's illogical words are consistent with the ethos that underlies the narrative: The virtual world is as important as, or even more important than, the real world.

The anime's production values reflect this ethos, too. Sword Art Online looks strikingly cheap for its level of popularity. In almost every fight, still images with blur lines vibrate in tacky simulation of animation. There is no dynamism in the camerawork, and sword duels are often depicted in shot-reverse shot so only one participant is on screen at a time. Nobody interacts with their environment; every battle occurs on a flat, empty plane. Some of the monsters are CGI and look awful. The character designs are bland and generic. Even the music, by the otherwise-excellent Yuki Kajiura, sounds like phoned-in B-sides from her work on Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) and its sequel film, Rebellion (2013).

But what the show does expend effort on is its backgrounds, which are both visually inventive—floating islands, towering columns that hold up the sky—and depicted with glimmering post-processing effects to bathe them in sunsets, sunrises, rainbows, and starry nights. First and foremost, Sword Art Online sells its virtual world to the viewer, makes them believe in that world the way the characters in the story do.

And in having that world sold to them, in expressing its legitimacy and the legitimacy of those (hero or villain) who believe in it, the Gamers had their rallying cry, the work of media that finally said: You are seen.

But was it really Gamers that Sword Art Online saw?

While Sword Art Online is invested in selling its virtual world, it is not invested in selling its virtual game. The in-universe Sword Art Online is primarily defined by its lack of gameplay mechanics, rather than those it actually has. In Episode 1, Klein explains that the game lacks a magic system, which he describes as a "bold choice." In Episode 2, members of the raid party state that the game also lacks a job or class system. There is no long-ranged weaponry; everyone uses melee weapons, usually swords. The only strategy during raids is human wave tactics, where armies of players charge in and attack at once. The only cooperative maneuver is "Switch," a mechanic that is never explicitly explained but seems to involve a player who has already charged in backing off so another player can charge in their place.

Compared to even basic single-player RPGs, these mechanics are primitive; for an MMORPG, they're antediluvian. The point isn't whether a game with these mechanics would be fun or not (in many ways, it's similar to Dark Souls, where the basic core gameplay of dodge-and-hit is rendered meaningful by the consequences for failure), but rather that the game's mechanics have little importance within the story.

They're so unimportant that it's never explained why Kirito is so good at the game, what he's doing differently from everyone else. He's not even a grinder. He spends most of the first half of the story slumming on floors far beneath his level. It's no-nonsense Asuna who grinds hard, who tries to exploit the game mechanics, like when she proposes using NPCs to lure a boss. The plan makes logical sense, but logic is absent from Sword Art Online's ethos; Kirito rejects it, not on the grounds it wouldn't work, but because the NPCs would be killed. He prioritizes respecting the game world, while Asuna—at least initially—prioritizes respecting the game mechanics. Kirito's philosophy is ultimately proven right when he and Asuna adopt an NPC daughter who turns out to be sentient.

Meanwhile, Kirito's most impressive feat involves him ignoring the game's rules entirely. The one mechanic described in detail is that if you die in the game, you die in real life; when Kirito dies, though, he wills himself back alive to defeat the final boss.

The game, the experience of gaming, being a Gamer—none of these are part of the underlying ethos that guides the narrative decisions of Sword Art Online. Kirito didn't tell Klein, "I feel more alive playing this game." He said, "I feel more alive in this virtual world." Asuna didn't find happiness by exploiting the game, but by learning to live in it as though it were her real life. Kayaba didn't design Sword Art Online because he loves games, but because he wanted to make his world real.

This isn't a story about Gamers. It's a story about a virtual world. It's a story about the internet. It's a story about online community.

In his introduction to Speaker for the Dead (1986), Orson Scott Card describes the heroes of most science fiction novels as "perpetual adolescents": "He belongs to no community; he is wandering from place to place, doing good (as he sees it), but then moving on. This is the life of the adolescent, full of passion, intensity, magic, and infinite possibility; but lacking responsibility, rarely expecting to have to stay and bear the consequences of error […] Who but the adolescent is free to have the adventures that most of us are looking for when we turn to storytellers to satisfy our hunger? And yet to me, at least, the most important stories are the ones that teach us how to be civilized: the stories about children and adults, about responsibility and dependency."

Card, of course, wrote Gamer fiction long before anyone craved it. Ender's Game (1985) is obsessed with the mechanical minutiae of its titular game in a way Sword Art Online is not; its protagonist is successful in the mold of Asuna, able to understand and exploit game mechanics better than anyone else. But in this quote, Card describes Kirito perfectly. Kirito is, of course, an actual adolescent, emphasized by his character design and Columbine trench coat ("Don't show up to the GameStop tomorrow," you can almost hear him say), but his character is also adolescent in terms of Card's model. He spends the first half of the story as a solo player, wandering from floor to floor, doing good (usually), moving on. He lacks—or rather, avoids—responsibility. While Asuna is second-in-command of a top guild organizing high-level raids, Kirito is off on his own reviving some girl's Neopet.

When viewed from this perspective, Sword Art Online actually does have a coherent and comprehensible character arc for its otherwise inconsistent protagonist. Kirito develops as a result of his relationship with Asuna, finding through his marriage to her the responsibility that he previously forsook. When Kirito's error causes Sachi to die in Episode 3, he moves on, immediately abandons even his own trauma by Episode 4; Sachi is never mentioned again. (Of course not, since her story was one of the last ones written.) He feels no lasting responsibility for his actions. But later, Kirito realizes he could not brush off the trauma if the same thing happened to Asuna. It is through his responsibility to her that he joins the final raid and thus bears, shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, the cooperative responsibility of the entire virtual community of Sword Art Online. He has become an adult, with wife and child. He has become "more cultured, civilized[,] and empathetic," as Ebert would put it.

(And isn't that what Ebert is really saying, when he criticizes video games? That they are adolescent, childish, playthings?)

Through Kirito's character arc, and its underlying ethos about virtual worlds, Sword Art Online depicts online community via the language of marriage and responsibility that is traditionally ascribed to real-life community. This too resonated with its audience. After all, it wasn't just Gamers who craved recognition. Teenagers in 2012 had lived their entire conscious life in a world defined by the internet, and yet the "real world" considered online relationships and communities to be a joke. Sword Art Online, rather than legitimizing Gamers, legitimizes the virtual world, the internet.

But does it really even do that?

Immediately, Sword Art Online rejects the notion of online identity. Kayaba's first move upon trapping everyone inside the game is to force them all to look like their real-world selves. As per Sword Art Online's anti-logic ethos, he does not explain why he does this. Shortly afterward, Kirito looks at his real-world finger, which received a paper cut before he entered the game; he imagines it bleeding profusely, before saying, "It's not a game. It's real." By enforcing real-world identity within the game world, Kayaba possibly intends players to see the world as more real too, the way Kirito does. This fits the monomaniacal focus of Kayaba, and Sword Art Online as a story, on the importance of virtual space over any other aspect of virtual experience, and it's not surprising that Kirito tacitly agrees with Kayaba's decision when he and Klein tell each other they look better as their real selves than as their avatars. But it also alienates Sword Art Online from its connection to the reality of the internet, where personal identity is far more fluid.

Furthermore, despite his character arc, Kirito ultimately stands apart from his online community. At the end of the story, everyone lies on the ground paralyzed as he alone is given the privilege to duel the final boss, one-on-one. At this climactic moment, Kirito returns to being a solo player, while every other member of the community lacks agency, including Asuna. Especially Asuna. Shortly before the final battle, Asuna claims she'll commit suicide if Kirito dies, which is already an unhealthily adolescent view of marriage (as seen in Romeo & Juliet). Then, before the duel, when Asuna is paralyzed, Kirito demands that Kayaba "fix it so Asuna can't kill herself." Not only has Kayaba, the villain, stolen Asuna's agency over her own body, but now her husband is requesting he steal even more of it.

This, too, is part of Sword Art Online's ethos. Though the game has 10,000 people, nobody except Kirito actually matters. He is a "Solo Player" in the sense of Solo Leveling, the most popular airing anime, which has a mistranslated title; it should be "Only I Level Up." The implication of the real title is clear: Only the protagonist has agency. Kirito is the same. Only he plays the game, in any meaningful sense. The game—reality—bends to him; none of its rules, even death, constrain him.

It is total self-centeredness, a complete rejection of the responsibility to society that Card describes. This ethos pervades the show. Kirito is never wrong, even when he obviously is, like when he rejects Asuna's proposal to use NPCs as bait. The entire reason he realizes Heathcliff is Kayaba is because, during an earlier duel, Heathcliff beat him; Kirito (correctly) posits that someone who beat him must have been cheating. Everyone who likes Kirito is good, everyone who dislikes him is evil; Kuradeel, who chafes with Kirito initially over bureaucratic guild regulations, eventually unmasks himself as a sadistic serial killer. Every girl is in love with him, a harem rendered vestigial because Kirito is married to Asuna and expresses zero interest in Silica or Lisbeth or his sister or the second season's Carne Asada; but it's not about whether Kirito wants a harem, it's about the prestige of his ability to command one.

This is where the true face of Sword Art Online shows itself, what truly made it so popular, and where the core of its long-lasting influence remains.

Only the virtual world matters. Not the game, not the online community, not online identity. Only a different world, one that isn't the real world. And in this world, only Kirito matters. Sure, he'll fight to protect other people. Exactly like he'll fight to protect NPCs. In this world, real people are worth the same as NPCs, compared to Kirito. His wife is a real person; his daughter is not. But really, both his marriage and his child are a form of playacting, pretending at adulthood. When convenient, they are disregarded and trampled upon. Asuna spends the next two arcs of Sword Art Online sidelined—even viciously sexually assaulted—so Kirito can hang out with girls he doesn't even like, just because they're shiny and new; Yui is almost completely forgotten after the second arc, like a discarded toy.

This is an ethos of pure, distilled escapism. It is an escape from the real world to a false one, where every conceivable selfish fantasy is rendered real, where every desire can be granted and then disposed of when no longer wanted. It is an ethos without responsibility, without consequence.

And without shame. Sword Art Online is remarkably devoid of self-consciousness. It treats as real its virtual world, but doesn't feel the need to justify that world with logic. It doesn't feel the need to justify anything with logic; what it says is so, self-evidently.

In my Kill la Kill essay, I mentioned Sword Art Online's vast influence, and someone wrote (and sadly deleted) a well-reasoned response that explained how the aesthetics and tropes of modern isekai are much more heavily influenced by Japanese webfic that predate Sword Art Online, like GATE or Overlord or Re:Zero. That's true; I'd add that modern Gamer fiction, which is often obsessively concerned with the rules and statistics underlying game logic, is also not very similar to Sword Art Online on a superficial level. But Sword Art Online's ethos transcends genre. It can be found in isekai, Gamer lit, or even genres popular long before Sword Art Online, like battle shounen. Sword Art Online created the web fiction to light novel to anime pipeline, and in doing so popularized amateur literature and its decidedly adolescent mentality of shameless and solipsistic self-indulgence. "Only I Play the Game."

[thatonechocogirl]

What's your thoughts on Brother Bear 2? Have you ever tried drawing Nita?

saw this ask and audibly gulped because it might be controversial but uhm

since i've been on here for like, nearly 5 years now, there's one secret i feel i have to share with you all:

..i did not care for brother bear 2. i'm not a fan of it.

AND BEFORE YOU BRING OUT YOUR PITCH FORKS JUST HEAR ME OUT OKAY

if you like the movie, THAT IS FINE!! this is just my personal opinion and my thoughts on the movie, so please don't let me change your feelings on the movie as i'm just simply sharing what i think of it because this person asked

i don't really like the plot. not sure why it shifted from a familial love plot in the first movie to romance in this one

to my first point, i don't think kenai needed a love interest AT THE MOMENT. does this mean i hate nita? absolutely not! i like her; but was she needed at the moment? no. personally, i think the sequel still should've been based around kenai and koda's relationship, especially after the events of the first movie and finding that kenai had killed koda's mother. however, i do think this plot would've worked for me IF koda was an adolescent in this movie, but it seems like he's still around the same age as the last movie.

denahi and sitka aren't mentioned ONCE? not even a "oh i remember when my brothers and I used to-" from kenai? just? no mention? (i do know that denahi wasn't shown in the sequel because his VA had passed away after the first movie and they wanted to respect that by not bringing him back)

kenai lowkey DID push aside koda to be with nita. like how are you gonna off bros mom, then ignore him for a duration of the movie just to talk to your crush and even at one point consider turning back into a human? not saying he shouldn't miss being human because that's a normal feeling, but actually consider changing back? kenai don't piss me off

"well, haven't you heard of the birds and the bees? 😏" get out

it really irks me how kenai and koda look in this movie. i get it's a sequel, and sequels are usually made at a different studio and with less budget, so obviously it's not gonna look EXACTLY the same as the first one. but still, the change is just, so off putting to me

speaking of change, kenai's voice actor; he went from being voiced by joaquin phoenix, to deadass derek shepherd. this voice change is also off-putting to me not because i don't like patrick dempsey, but i just, really like joaquin's voice more. it's somewhat soothing to me and scratches some part in my brain, his range for emotions is amazing and his voice was just so perfect for kenai's character (talented bastard). so i was a little disappointed he didn't come back in the sequel, but if i'm not wrong i think the reason why he didn't come back is because he was already working in another movie

i mean there's some parts of the movie i like. i GUESS i liked some of the scores, i liked the background art, you can definitely tell kenai LOVES koda regardless of anything; like the part where kenai was trying to find koda in the mountains, he was only screaming for koda the whole time. even when he heard nita's scream during the avalanche, he still screamed for koda after seeing he was with her. so some parts of the movie definitely had me saying "aww" and whatnot

overall, i'm just not a huge fan of it. couldn't really get into it

but who am i to say anything *sips sprite*

[sepublic]

            I also wanted to discuss this as its own post because it’s the only question from the Gallery Nucleus Q&A I can find an actual video source on, but in regards to whether there would’ve been a Wittebane flashback in the show, had there been no shortening? None whatsoever, according to Dana herself; On account of A) Not wanting the audience to think Belos is in any way sympathetic, and B) Wanting to preserve the mystery of what exactly happened, because she thinks it plays into the horror vibes better. There definitely would’ve been more than what we got in canon, but not a full backstory.

            Can I say, what a relief to have actual confirmation, in one way or the other? With that in mind, I get Dana; That’s a pretty fair takeaway! Considering who Belos represents, it’s fine to not want viewers trying to think of him as understandable in any way, when we have sycophants in the media playing devil’s advocate for the current men in office; Sometimes ya gotta be firm, and if this is the writers’ way of conveying their point, so be it!

            Dana obviously didn’t want to portray Belos as evil since birth just from the memory portraits, and the overall themes of the story; But she didn’t want viewers to think Belos is sympathetic just because he wasn’t born evil, which is what you can say about every person in history, good and bad. And while I do consider that the writers made a mistake by including Hunter in the show at all, it seems Dana was at least wary about fans bending over backwards for those other white guys Belos and Caleb, which I’m really grateful for in hindsight.

            To go on a tangent, the second reason also makes me think of how the Star Wars films, which stand on their own, never really explained why Palpatine was like that, and they didn’t need to when the mechanics of the world and reality provided enough; And with Belos, we know a lot more about his background, AND he’s more humanized! The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise was all the story needed, and the mystery does add a layer of horror.

            Of course, certain people are freaking out over this revelation, so let me bring up this one popular Tumblr post going around, about how it’s important to humanize villains so the viewer can reflect on the capacity for evil of anyone, including themselves; With a very popular addition to that post being that humanizing a villain isn’t necessarily the same as sympathizing with them. The former is all Dana and the writers did, and frankly it’s all they needed to do.

            We’ve seen Luz and Lilith’s ability to fall for a cult under the promise of belonging, King feeling tough from destroying his enemies, the Collector’s possessive love. There’s plenty of good faith examples of hurting people because characters thought it was for the better, and Belos provides an example of bad faith, in addition to the show emphasizing character beats exclusive to him; The colonial white supremacist. The so-called critics aren’t really asking for what they say they are, because really, the complaints boil down not to the fact that Belos wasn’t humanized, it’s that the narrative didn’t sympathize with… a genocidal white supremacist?????

            I remember seeing Belos fans claim that the crew wrote him “differently” in S3, that they made him less sympathetic, which is silly to me not just because S3 Belos is the same guy as S2, but mask-off and in the midst of his villainous breakdown.

            But S3 was where the writers established that he was an orphan, that he wears his brother’s coat, that contrary to S2’s presentation, he DOES somehow feel guilt over the brother and Grimwalkers he murdered, and it’s an interesting contrast to his apparent apathy at the end of Hollow Mind!

            But it’s also not mutually exclusive from his prior-established enjoyment of hurting the Grimwalkers, because abusers can have mixed feelings about their abuse but still do it anyway because they ultimately still thrive on it. It doesn’t make Belos a good or tragic person, it just makes him human. The show doesn’t invite you to find him sympathetic for this, just condemn him more because of how pathetic it all is, it’s a realistic reaction based on how anyone would react to him IRL. There’s nothing different about Belos in the finale, it’s just a reminder of who he still is at his core, and being human doesn’t retroactively make committing genocide ‘complex’ because we’re all human, why does he get special credit for that?

            Again, I’ve seen some salty Belos stans claim that giving him a flashback was necessary to show how people can fall down that path, but again the show already did that. And amidst the discussion of good faith, the point with Belos specifically is that some people are just acting out of bad faith, and it’s why you can’t fix everyone, and that’s why we had the Collector’s hug fail. Because if you orchestrate genocide, then you’ve given up any claims of acting in good faith. Everyone has the capacity for evil, but realistically, it comes to some people a lot more easily than others; Even so, Boscha was a bully with no reason for it, but she still matured! And I see nothing wrong in this day and age of showing that a PoC has every right to kill a white supremacist who’d already murdered her. I swear it feels like people think belittling or hating on victims makes them subversive and not just stupid.

[flayedprideparade]

the majority of stranger things fandom has such an uncomplicated way of thinking.

they view everything in black and white, and take everything in the show at face value, so much so that they cant even conceive of bad writing when it's staring them in the face. they'll observe eddie being the most hamfisted and clumsy mouthpiece for the writers, trying to push the stancy/jancy love triangle with people he's known for all of 2 days, but they won't say, 'well, that's not very good writing'. instead, they'll ask, 'what deeper meaning were the writers trying to convey! that's a very awkward and stilted way for a real human person to act, but surely there must be a clever reason for it that i'm just too stupid to see'. and then they'll turn around and they'll say billy is pure evil. that he isn't meant to be forgiven, and that he got exactly what he deserved. because the scenes saying he's irredeemable were written so much LOUDER than any scenes that were added later, where the writers started second guessing where they wanted to take his character, or started thinking maybe, just maybe, the abused teen trapped with his abuser with absolutely nobody in his fucking corner deserved a modicum of sympathy.

people think that billy being racist and abusive and full of rage means he's unambiguously meant to be a more loathsome villain than the giant, unknowable monstrosity from another dimension. they genuinely believe that the only possible shot at 'redemption' he had was dying--and even that fell flat for plenty of people. because it wasn't satisfying. he didn't have to make up for any of what he did. he didn't have to live with the consequences of his actions, or try and rebuild his ruined relationships. he didn't have to face the reality that no one is obligated to forgive him or accept him back into their lives, even if he does change.

i think what breaks my heart the most is there are lots of us who have billys of our own. lots of us who have complicated, clashing feelings about those relationships, just like max does. and however unintentionally, the message that we shouldn't have hope that racists and abusers can change, and the only way they can show true compassion for the people in their lives is by literally dying for them...

dude, that sucks.

billy could've had so much potential on another show. in the hands of more capable and compassionate writers. instead, they're just dragging his character's corpse around and beating it like a dead horse for drama, unable to decide how even the person he was closest with feels about him. vilifying him even after they tried to change their minds and say, 'no, you should pity him, you should forgive him' when he died the previous season.

people don't want to accept that billy could've realistically, believably changed in a way that would've made even his detractors rethink how they feel about him. because that wouldve involved acknowledgement that morality isn't as black and white as the show wants you to believe. that shitty people can change, even if it'll be hard, even if it'll be messy, as long as they do the WORK. and writing about it takes work. work the duffers didn't want to put in.

but you're so right. people aren't ready for THAT conversation, and they probably never will be.

[sadrottengirl]

Masterlist

the golden marks

Jinwoo x Fem!reader

Chapter 4

(not proof read if we die we die)

Jinwoo had taken more time then necessary to come back all thanks to that white tiger guild scout.

He walked up to his door, ready to open it before he gets hit with a incredibly strong aura his whole body shifting into gear, who exactly was in his house? And why did they have such a strong aura he quickly opened the front door not bothering to close it behind himself.

He felt his world crumbling down when he heard the sound of his very own sister scream, he moved a neck breaking speed and slammed the door open.

Silence fell the only audible sound was the tv which showed the very same woman that was sitting on his couch, that's when Jinah's voice boomed in the silence.

"Jinwoo why didn't you tell me you where dating a S rank hunter?!"

...

"what-" "WHAT??!" you both said at the same time in very different tones.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

"oh now I get it!" Jinah fist hit her other hand, before she let out a amused chuckle "there was literally no way you could bag her! Now it makes sense" Jinwoo didn't know weather he should feel offended or just ignore his sister.

"I'm sorry I caused you guys so much trouble" you scratched the back of your head, "what no way! You where super fun to hang out with" the younger girl flawed her hands.

"oh since your already here why don't you join us for dinner, it's late and the extra company would be nice right?" she tried her fingers pointing to her brother, he shrugged "I'm not opposed to it".

"oh there's really no need!" you tried to reason feeling guilty, but seeing Jinah disappointed face made squeezed you heart so reluctantly you accepted.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

This was a mistake.

You and Jinah had almost managed to burn down the house, she was panicking so hard you almost tought she was about to pass out mean while you still had a smile on your face eyes wide tears at each corner.

Thankfully Jinwoo was able to avoid tragedy, so both you and the young girl have now been kicked out of stove duty.

She decided she didn't want to waste her time and went to sit back on the couch, while Jinwoo did anything that had fire involved you tried to cut the vegetables.

"well your good at cutting things at least" his smirk could be heard threw his voice, "precise cutting his my whole trade mark! I'd be concerned if I wasn't good at it" you laughed, looking at him not stopping your quick skillful cutting.

"ouch-" you exclaimed letting the knife fall onto the counter, the crimson liquid falling out of you knicked finger, he quickly interrupted what he was doing to check on you, "are you alright?" his face slightly fell, you nod "yeah just knicked myself a bit it's no biggie" you kept you voice light trying to not worry him, "here let me see" he softly the hand with the ingured finger inspecting it

You watched his cunning gray eyes as he brought you in front of the sink to was the blood off, he kept his hand firm on yours until the water went clear once more, he let go just an instant to search for the first aid kit that was situated right beneath the sink.

"just hold still" he softly wrapped a band-aid on you finger, "there, it's not too tight right?" you nodded your cheeks slightly heating up.

You walked back to your station and tried to pick up the knife but it was gone before your hand could lay a finger on it, "I think for everyone's safety you should join Jinah" your eye twitched, "jeez getting thrown into the naughty corner already" you whined as he praticly pussed you outside the kitchen.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

You all sat down on the table food displayed onto it, "I'm glad we have the extra company!" Jinah said before covering her mouth on the side her brother was, "he's been real boring to talk to lately" she whispered, "you are aware I can still hear you?" she jumped resuming her frantic eating, you let out a giggle.

This felt nice.. You where glad you weren't inside your apartment alone eating instant noodles, having to hear the painfully silent house, that reminded you of just how lonely you truly where, that was also the reason why you bearly ever stayed in your house, being all alone made you wildly uncomfortable.

Jinwoo was watching as you and his sister engaged into conversation both laughing as if you had known each other for forever, he couldn't help but fell his own lips perk up at the sight, this felt right.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

"I'll get to my room to finish study!" Jinah stretched getting up from her chair, her brother just hummed and she walked off not before sending you a quick smile and wave.

"I'll have you wash the dishes" more than and offer it was a matter of fact, "there's no need your a Guest here" you frantically shock your head "I insist! I wasn't much of a help in the cooking department so.." you deflated a little.

"I'll wash and you can dry them!" he let a sigh "fine you win then" so you did exactly that, you let your mind wonder to the man next to you, 'his aura is stronger than before and I can't think of any reason other than..'

Your mouth worked before your brain did and you said in between passing him a clean plate "have you experienced a re awakening?" his eyes went wide hand kissing the plate, thankfully you where quick to save it, "wow I guess that's my answer?" you awkwardly laugh.

"no you got it wrong-" he turned to face you "you can't lie to someone who isn't gonna belive you" you closed your eyes, "Jinwoo Sung E rank the weakest hunter of man kind, that rings any bell?" you tilted your head "not the first time we meet, you've been to that Caffè a lot" you blink, at this point he was genuinely sweating what if you decided to reveal his secret?

"dude calm down stop staring at me like I'm about to steal your wife" you deadpanned at him, "I'm not going to tell anyone your secret" he let out a sigh of relief "but!" of course there was a but.

"since I kinda like you! I want you.. To fight me" you turn yourself now infront of him, "deal?" he stared at you as if you where a crazy person before smirking, "your kind of weird you know that" he raised his hand to meet your own "I get that a lot"

The deal was struck and what was supposed to be a one off fight became a completely different deal.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

An:

Yay for once I actually go over 3 chapters of a fanfction this is a moment in history take a picture!

Anyway I can't wait to write Cha's jealous scenes AHHHHH they so are going to fight over you.

[thelostclassics]

Just found your blog - it’s so lovely! I love how you write soft!Henry and the reader. I like to imagine the reader as a bit of an antithesis to the ‘cold marble’ that is the Greek class; so a soft, gentle, affectionate, calming and soothing type of person bewilders Henry at first. Until he starts developing a need for it xD

Love the request! Thank you so much, lovely! xx

The softness in the cold marble.

Summary: Henry ends up finding comfort in Y/n kind and gentle affection.

Pairing: Henry x fem!reader

Warnings: use of Y/n, mentions of death and murder (Bunny’s), conflicted Henry, soft!Henry, comfort.

He hated her.

She didn’t fit. How could she? She was the light when everything he saw was dark.

He didn’t understand how someone could be so kind and calm, how someone could be so innocent about the cruelty of the world.

She didn’t fit and he didn’t liked that. He noticed it from the start, there was something about her that was out of tune with the rest of the group, not in knowledge or intelligence-for in that she equaled, if not surpassed them- but in the way she existed. While the others moved with the rigidity of ancient statues, with the aloof elegance of Greek gods sculpted in cold marble, Y/n was something else. Something softer, warmer.

It unsettled him. She was the messiness in his life.

It puzzled him how she looked at him, with a tenderness without judgment, with an infinite patience that no one had ever had with him. It confused him how her hand reached for Francis's in automatic gestures of affection, or how she arranged Richard's coat on his chair without even thinking about it, making sure it didn't get too wrinkled.

It stunned him, most of all, the way she touched him.

Henry was used to touch, yes, but always with a purpose. A handshake, a casual nudge, the pressure of a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. Nothing more. Nothing that couldn't be logically justified.

But she… she did it without an apparent reason.

Once, while he was reading in the library, she passed behind him and slid her fingers gently down his back in a distracted gesture, without even pausing. Another afternoon, while they were discussing Catullus in Latin, she took his wrist in her hands without warning and turned his watch to check the time, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She offered him contact without demanding it. She offered him gentleness without expecting anything in return.

At first, Henry didn't know how to respond.

He stood still, rigid, waiting for her to realize that this was pointless. But she didn't. She never did.

And then, without realizing exactly when it had happened, he found himself looking for it.

Looking for her. He hated that even more.

He found himself looking for -missing- her comfort and soft smile.

He would linger beside her more than necessary, allow her hand to brush his as he walked, pretend not to hear when her voice softened as she spoke to him. There were times when Y/n would look at him with her unwavering gentleness and Henry would feel something inside him break and rebuild at the same time.

He hated that he felt like that with her, and hated how he would think about her every day, every hour.

Then, everything went downhill.

There was something about the way the silence stretched through the trees that made everything seem denser, more unreal. As if the world had been suspended in an endless instant before shattering into a thousand pieces.

Bunny's body lay at the bottom of the ravine. A jumble of flesh and bone, almost unrecognizable amidst the blood-stained snow.

Henry watched him motionless.

He felt nothing at first. No horror, no relief, not even guilt. Just a strange stillness, as if time had stopped at the exact moment Bunny ceased to exist.

He turned around to look at the group, then he hated himself. She was standing there without moving, anyone would have thought that she was serene, that this didn’t affect her at all, but Henry, Henry had spent way too many days observing her, spending time with her. She was scared, he could see it in her eyes.

That day, she went to his house, something about borrowing a book. In any other circumstance he would have been somehow happy that she visited him, but not today, he didn’t want her to be involved in what they were going to do, didn’t want her to see what they were going to do.

He offered to drive her home, of course she said it was okay, and one thing lead to another and know she had just witnessed the death of Bunny.

Henry hated himself for that.

He didn't come home that night.

He couldn't.

The air inside the car had become stifling, and though the others were talking quietly, organizing alibis, rehearsing answers, he could only hear the dull echo of Bunny's fall echoing in his head.

When everyone returned to their homes, he parked his car in front of Y/n’s house. He wasn't sure what he expected to find there. He just knew he needed it.

He waited a bit inside the car and then walked towards the house.

When he knocked on the door, it took her a few seconds to open it. She was wearing a light robe and had her hair in a messy updo, as if she had just woken up. Her eyes met Henry's and her expression changed instantly.

“Henry...” she whispered.

He said nothing. He just stepped forward, crossing the threshold as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Y/n closed the door behind him and stood watching him, as if trying to figure out what to say to him, how to comfort him without breaking down herself in the process, how to make him see that she was there for him and always would be.

He didn't know how to start.

He had spent weeks planning every detail, every possibility, every consequence. And yet, at that moment, in front of her, everything seemed to fall apart.

Y/n took a step toward him.

She didn't ask any questions.

She didn't press him.

She just lifted a hand carefully and rested it on his cheek, a barely perceptible brush.

It was then that Henry felt something crack inside him.

An imperceptible tremor ran through his body, and before he knew it, Y/n was already embracing him. Her arms closed around him with unexpected firmness, her hands running up and down his back in an instinctive gesture of comfort.

Henry didn't move at first.

But then, almost without realizing it, he allowed himself to lean into her, to drop his weight into her warm body, into her familiar perfume, into the one thing in the world that didn't feel broken.

“I’m sorry” he finally said, in a low voice. He was sorry, sorry for what he did, sorry for how he did it, sorry because she was part of it too.

“I’m scared” she responded. Her voice was a murmur against his neck.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, as if to say that he knew she was scared and that he was even more scared.

For a long while, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, the slow, heavy beat of Henry's heart, Y/n's warmth wrapping around him like a shield against the cold of the night.

“Do you want to stay?” she asked, after a while.

Henry closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

Y/n nodded and took him by the hand, leading him to his room as gently as one would lead a frightened child. In that moment, he was so grateful of her comforting and gentle presence.

That night, Henry slept for the first time in a long time.

———

A/n: hey angels! This took me more time to write because I wasn’t sure how to approach it, but I ended up really liking the result. I was going to continue writing how they started to date and etc but realized it was already pretty long, but if anyone wants to read that I will gladly do a second part.

Let me know if you want 2 part. Have a nice day, my loves!! 💙

[atleastpleasetelephone]

Ain't That A Lotta Love - Chapter 8

A story that starts on the set of the 68 Special, with Elvis and his long-term girlfriend Dorothy Valens. Dorothy has been with Elvis for a long time for good reason - she's no pushover, and she has a habit of getting exactly what she wants. As Elvis' career starts to get back on track, their relationship fundamentally changes too.

Need to catch up? Masterlist is here.

A/N: Elvis, Dorothy and Steve have a sleepover!

Pairings: Elvis x Dorothy, Steve x Dorothy

Word count: 3.1K

TWs: Reference to drug use, MMF threesome, a lot of smut, praise kink, daddy kink.

The next night Elvis reaches for his pills as usual and then finds Dorothy’s hand over his. He looks at her questioningly. 

“Can we just lie here for a bit? Before you turn into a zombie?”

He nods and puts the handful of pills on the bedside table, settling back down as she puts her head on his chest, her fingers playing with the hair there. 

“You okay, Dodo?”

“Mmm. Yeah. Just missing you.”

“I’m right here, baby.”

“But you were busy all day.”

“You had the guys to talk to. Jerry.”

She sighs against him. “Yeah I know. But I wanted you.”

“I gotta do this filmin’, baby. Ya know that.”

He strokes her hair gently and wonders about her strange clinginess. She’s always been independent, as long as he’s known her. He found it a little off-putting at first, and used to wonder if she really liked him. But he’s got used to it now, and found ways to get his share of clinginess elsewhere. 

“I know,” she murmurs back. 

“Hmmm. Listen. After this is done, why don’t we go back ta the house an’ have a long weekend, jus’ the two of us.”

Dorothy perks up. “Really?”

“Sure. Why not? Quality time together.”

She runs her hand over his chest again. “That would be nice.”

They’re both silent for a while, and then Elvis finds his mind drifting back to the events of the night before. 

“Never thanked ya properly fer what ya said ta me,” he mumbles, a little awkwardly. 

“Hm? When?”

“When I was strugglin’ ta go on. You and Steve. Ya saved my bacon.”

She smiles against his skin. “You just needed reminding who you are, that’s all.”

“Yeah but ya did it for me, Dodo. Made me believe I could do it.”

Kissing his chest, she snuggles into him a little more, humming with pleasure. When she doesn’t say anything else, Elvis finds himself continuing. 

“Had a good time up there. Forgot jus’ how much I enjoyed performin’.” 

She smirks, thinking about just how much he had enjoyed it, all over the inside of his leather pants, but she just hums again and carries on tracing patterns on his skin with her fingertips. 

“Enjoyed it a bit too much…” he mumbles, feeling himself colour at the memory. Not just of the event itself, but of his girlfriend and Steve both seeing the stain and knowing what had happened. He’d spent the whole of the day trying not to look the other man in the eye. 

“You’re just passionate about the music,” Dorothy replies, not for a moment suspecting it’s anything else.

“Ahhmmm.” Elvis starts to tell her there was another reason for his excitement, and then stops himself. But why is he stopping himself, he wonders. After all, it was Dorothy who’d brought up the whole him and Steve idea in the first place. “I uh… S-Steve was lookin’ at me…” he mumbles, and then stops. 

“Oh yeah?”

He clears his throat awkwardly and then just replies, “yeah.”

Dorothy deliberately stays quiet. She thinks there’s something that her boyfriend wants to tell her, and sometimes when he’s in two minds it’s best for her to just wait. Prodding him tended to make him clam up. 

“He was jus’ lookin’ at me… an’ I…” he pauses for a moment and then closes his eyes and lets the rest of the sentence out in a rush. “I was nearly fuckin’ there anyway an’ the way he looked at me jus’ made me bust a nut…” he cringes inwardly at his own phrasing. But there it is. The truth. Steve Binder had looked at him so intensely it had made him cum in his pants while he was being filmed for a TV show. Jesus. 

“Well, you were looking good enough to eat,” Dorothy remarks, smiling to herself at his little admission, as well as the memory of how good he really had looked on that stage. 

Elvis lets out a little breath and opens his eyes again. “Ya think it’s weird?” He asks.

“What, pumpkin?”

“Thought I was inta girls.”

Still idly swirling her fingertips around on his chest, she thinks for a moment about how exactly to phrase it. He’d been so upset the day before when she’d suggested he might have a thing for Steve that she doesn’t want to set him off again. 

“I don’t think it’s weird. You can be into both. I am.”

He huffs a little. “It’s not as if… it’s not like I want his dick in my ass…” he replies, gruffly. 

I didn’t ask if you did, she thinks to herself. Also, interesting that you’ve thought about it that way around… 

“You think he’s cute, though?”

He grumbles in response, thinking about Steve’s face and whether it could be described as cute. “I dunno. He’s a guy. How do I know if a guy is cute?”

“Hmm. Okay then. You like him as a friend?”

“Sure. Yeah. He’s a decent guy. Tells me… things I need ta hear.”

“And you like the way he treats you?”

Elvis hums and thinks for a moment. “Yeah I guess so. He respects me. He uh… I never feel like he’s doing things just to make me feel better. He’s not like the rest of the guys.”

“So you just might like to spend a bit more time with him?”

“What d’ya mean?” Elvis asks, suspiciously. 

Dorothy finally moves her head to look at him. “Just what I said. You like him, maybe you might want to get to know him better. Not just professionally.”

She watches as he examines her face for evidence of her mocking him in some way, and then sighs softly when he finds none. 

“I guess.”

She shuffles up his body to kiss his lips gently. “He’s a good kisser too, just in case you were ever tempted.”

“Dodo!” 

His hand finds the side of her face as he scowls at her, starting off furious but finding himself unable to stop a smile after a few moments of her amused face looking back at him. 

“I’m just saying. He’s a good kisser, you’re a good kisser…”

“Sure he don’t wanna kiss me, Dodo.” 

There’s a touch of bashfulness to his reply that makes her heart swell. She strokes his cheek. 

“Everyone wants to kiss you, pumpkin.”

***

The rest of the days go by in a similar blur of filming, jamming, singing and dancing. Elvis flirts outrageously with Susan, one of the dancers, and Dorothy is almost a little sad that there’s no opportunity to have a little fun with her. She’s giving as good as she’s getting, and doesn’t seem like the sort of girl to just roll over. But there’s no time to spend with Steve, so there’s certainly no time to spend with someone new. The evenings are so full of the usual nonsense and Elvis refuses to let there be a moment where he isn’t surrounded by people. Dorothy is about to lose her mind, and probably would have by the final night, if it weren’t for the promise of a whole weekend together without the rest of them. The wrap party is long and tiring and she starts to wish for some of Elvis’ uppers to help keep her awake. Finally people are drifting away and he seems to sense that the end is near. 

“Alright, see y’all tomorrow. Me an’ Dodo’ll go ta bed.”

She pokes him lightly in the side and when he looks down, tilts her head to one side and makes her eyes big. He suddenly remembers his promise. 

“Actually, forget it. See you guys Tuesday.”

Joe blinks at him in disbelief. “Tuesday, boss?”

“We’re gonna have a long weekend together,” he explains, squeezing his girlfriend to his side. “Alone.”

Dorothy can tell Joe doesn’t like the sound of this at all, but he can’t really demand to be in their house. It’s not as if they’re overrun with spare rooms, and Joe has his own place anyway. 

“Sure thing. Well, see you both Tuesday.” 

Elvis waves him and the other guys out, and then sits down on the sofa with a sigh. “Thought he was gonna demand ta get in bed with us or somethin’.”

Dorothy rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Just as she’s starting to relax, there’s a knock at the door. Elvis frowns. Surely everyone had gone?

“Yeah?”

“Uh, it’s Steve.”

“Come in!” Dorothy shouts, before Elvis can say anything else. She watches him blush and sit up awkwardly straight, his legs jiggling about nervously. 

The door opens and Steve appears. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Dorothy replies, smiling and walking over to him, her arms going around his neck as she tilts her face up for a kiss. 

Steve can’t help his hands creeping to rest on her hips as he presses a chaste kiss to her lips. He’s not sure why he hung around until he saw the rest of the guys leave and then knocked on their door. Well, he is sure, he wanted to see them. Both of them. He couldn’t let them leave without… well, without what exactly? His brain is a whir of thoughts and emotions and he doesn’t quite know where to start sorting them out. 

“Hi,” Elvis says, quietly. 

“I uh… I thought you might’ve left,” Steve begins, untangling himself from Dorothy to stand in front of the other man. 

“Tomorrow.” Elvis isn’t really sure why he didn’t just get the guys to drive him home with them. Why they are both still in the empty studio sleeping in the dressing room. 

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”

The tension in the room is so thick you could cut it with a knife. But despite that, all three of them are exhausted so Dorothy just says the most straightforward thing she can think of. 

“I dunno about you two, but I’m beat. I need sleep.”

Steve tries to swallow his disappointment. Apparently he’d wanted one last tryst with Dorothy, at least. 

“Yeah, um… okay. I’ll be seeing you then.”

She shakes her head quickly and laughs. “No, you don’t have to go. I mean there’s no space for you in the bed, but I’m sure we could make something up for you on the floor. If you want to stay.”

Steve looks a little awkwardly from her to Elvis, who is currently studying the carpet like it’s the answer to all of his troubles. 

“Well um… only if you’re sure?”

“We’re sure,” she replies, and then gives Elvis’ foot a little kick with her toe. “Aren’t we, El?”

“Uh… yeah. Sure. Be nice ta, um… have a coffee with ya in the mornin’.”

Steve decides to take that at face value and agrees enthusiastically, helping Dorothy dig out blankets and pillows and an extra comforter. It’s not the most comfortable place to sleep, but there’s something unexpectedly nice about being included in their bed time routine. Even though the floor is pretty hard and once he drops off Elvis snores pretty loudly, Steve finds himself smiling in the darkness. Not many people get to be this close to him, or Dorothy. There’s something more intimate about this than the things they’d done with their clothes off. 

***

Early the next afternoon, when all three of them are awake, Dorothy persuades Steve into the bed and he lies behind her, wrapping one arm around her waist. She has on shorts and a cropped pyjama top, so his hand is warm against her bare belly. He breathes in her smell and finds himself smiling again, relaxing into being with her on a morning where they have no plans. 

Elvis looks at them together through sleepy eyes. He can’t help the pang of jealousy he feels that there’s another man touching her so intimately. 

“What’re ya doin’? Today?” He asks. 

Steve shrugs. “No plans. Go back to the condo and eat some decent food for a change. And tonight try and get some sleep. I’ll be editing on Monday.”

Elvis’ eyes light up at the mention of editing. “Really? How long d’ya think it’ll take? When will I be able to see it?”

His enthusiasm is catching, and Dorothy can feel Steve shift behind her to become more alert and awake, moving his hand to gesture as he explains everything they’ll need to do and how long it will probably take. “So by August, we should have a rough cut you could see.”

“August,” Elvis repeats, thinking about what exactly he’s likely to be doing by then. Probably still filming. “Have ta see if I can get away from the movie set for a bit.”

“What’s the movie this time?”

“I think this one is gonna be good Steve, it’s a western an’ there’s a proper plot an’ I have ta grow a beard…” he pauses to stroke his chin. “Gotta get started on that this weekend. And there’s proper, uh… lovin’ scenes, y’know…” he blushes a little at the thought of being filmed making love, eyes darting away from Steve’s face. “Proper grown up movie this time.”

Steve is still kind of amazed that Elvis Presley gets so shy talking about sex, and that he calls it “lovin’”, but the mention of the lovin’ scenes has the older man a little red too. And has him moving against Dorothy, almost without thinking. 

“Sounds good. Sounds better than the usual stuff the Colonel has you doing, anyway.”

Elvis sighs. “Yeah, I sure hope so.”

The pause in conversation makes Dorothy wonder if something else might be on the cards, so she wiggles back against Steve a bit and moves one of her legs to try and get some contact with Elvis. 

Her boyfriend laughs, then looks over her shoulder at Steve. “Think she wants somethin’?”

Feeling his heart race, Steve replies, “think she nearly always wants something.”

“Hey!” Dorothy cries out, mostly pretending to be offended, and Elvis cracks up laughing. 

“She does, doesn’t she? So demandin’. Always tryina have her own way.”

“I am here, you…” Dorothy starts, and then finds the end of her sentence completely muffled by a hand over her mouth. Steve’s hand. 

His eyes flick to Elvis’ for reassurance and the other man grins. “‘Bout time someone shut  her up.”

Steve grins back, as Dorothy struggles a little, feeling adrenaline course through her veins and warmth spread between her legs. Wondering what they might do to her together has her unbelievably turned on. 

“What d’you wanna do with her?” Steve asks. 

“Why don’tcha lay her down?” Elvis suggests. “I’ll let ya fill ‘er up, since you’ve been such a good friend. An’ I’ll find a way to keep her quiet.” He smirks as he says it, thinking about how much he enjoys the feeling of her mouth around him. 

The excitement of the moment has obviously made Elvis a little more lewd, but he still doesn’t actually say the word pussy, and Steve is briefly concerned about misinterpreting him. He feels like the relationship is always one wrong move away from Elvis having enough. But when he gets Dorothy on her back and slips off her shorts, he realises he must be right because the other man is busying himself at her head, and after a little while of licking and fingering, he hears Elvis tell him that he can “fuck her if ya want ta, Steve. She’s a good little ride.”

Steve groans as he slowly pushes himself into her tight pussy. He can’t hear her reaction at all, as Elvis has moved from kneeling to the side of her head to straddling it, his legs pinning her arms down and his dick all the way down her throat. The younger man can’t remember the last time he fucked her mouth like this, something about the end of filming has got him over-excited and he feels like he’s lost his head a little. As Steve starts to pick up the pace, he finds his eyes drawn to the ass in front of him. He shouldn’t be looking at it quite this intently, but it’s so perfectly round and it’s right in his eyeline and… fuck… before he can think any more about it he feels the rush of his orgasm coming towards him like a train. 

“Uh… I’m uh…” he forces out. 

“S’ok,” Elvis pants in response, feeling himself close too. “Y’won’t knock her up.”

Good job, Steve thinks as he cums, tumbling into ecstasy. There was absolutely no way he was pulling out in time. 

Elvis follows a few seconds later, making Dorothy cough a little and her eyes water. They both flop down on either side of her as she tries to get her breath back. The overwhelming feeling of being the plaything of two big strong men has her head spinning. And she still hasn’t cum. She whines a little, looking over at Elvis with big puppy dog eyes. He chuckles. 

“Reckon we should let her cum, Steve?”

The other man grins. “She was pretty good…”

“Alright then. We’ll let her.”

He slides two fingers between her legs, curling them expertly and rubbing the spot inside her that he knows will make her squeal. His other hand caresses her face, looking down at her and telling her what a good girl she’s been. He glances briefly over at Steve, and then when the other man doesn’t make any kind of move, removes his fingers and grabs Steve’s hand, a mess of arousal on both of them as he encourages the older man to rub her clit. Replacing his fingers, he leans down and kisses Dorothy’s neck, listening to her breathing as it speeds up. Steve rubs firmly as he starts to kiss her belly, watching the muscles there start to tighten as she hurtles towards her orgasm now too. 

She squeals as everything turns white, blinding pleasure that makes her back arch off the bed and her palm slam into the mattress. Lips press against her skin as she writhes in ecstasy, tenderly kissing her through it. When she eventually comes to, she opens her eyes again and looks up into Elvis’ face. 

“Thank you, Daddy.”

Kissing the side of her face and then her temple, he smiles. “Think ya should thank Daddy Steve, too.”

She turns quickly, looking over at the other man. “Thanks, Daddy.”

Steve somehow manages to blush and kisses her other cheek. “That’s okay, babe.”

“So troublesome ya need two Daddies ta keep ya in line,” Elvis mumbles into her neck. 

Dorothy grins and reaches up to dig her fingers into the hair of each man. She can’t help feeling like rather than the end, maybe this is just the beginning of her little experiment…

***

Taglist:

@arg-xoxo @from-memphis-with-love @msamarican @blursedblegh @returntopresley @eapep @everythingelvispresley @i-r-i-n-a-a @arrolyn1114 @jhoneybees @polksaladava @lookingforrainbows @jkdaddy01 @epthedream69 @lustnhim @elvisslut @pomtherine @that-hotdog @ladelinee @angschrof @fairybloodsucker @deltafalax @makethemorning @elviswhore69 @ilovequeen978 @wildhorseinkansas @pocketfulofpresley @dkayfixates @iloveelvisss @kxnnxy @presleyhearted @lvrdollep @nebulamorada @iloveelvis2 @18lkpeters @elvisbdoll

[trippinsorrows]

just need you to know i smiled the whole time reading this. honestly. truly. 🥺

and, man, i appreciate you commenting on the introduction, because i really wanted that to be attention grabbing, just because given everything that happened, the entrance needed to be good. 😭

yessss. lmao. that's exactly the dynamic i was aiming for with jacob being included in the group now. he most definitely a lot (mans threw father time out the window like it was nothing), but so is roman. hell, all these men, but roman is more controlled with his crazy. jacob ass just wild asf, and so roman def does have to adjust to that for all the reasons mentioned. lmaooo you know i had to have him drive that ambulance, friend! and, you can bet he was driving just as erratically as he be acting. 😂

it truly felt so strange to not have or show any scenes with and of solana outside of that brief flashback snippet. but, it was also necessary, as i wanted to focus on roman and his journey/challenges navigating all of the things without solana to help/comfort him. 🥺 we also saw that roman struggled a bit with deciding on how honest he wanted to be with jimmy, and i too agree that he made the right decision in not leading them to believe her dead. that just felt too....cruel, almost.

i 100% agree, and as i've mentioned before, no one wins or was going to win, regardless of what decisions were made. the damage is done, the relationships borderline irreparable. at least, for right now. jimmy has every right to feel hurt and angry with roman for the "treatment" he and naomi are receiving, but he also has to acknowledge why roman is so upset and hurt. and, he has every right to be. conversely, we know roman's pride is a big struggle for him, and he's stubborn, so yes, i'd say some part of him is keeping his wall up with people who played no active role in the coup. still, like he pointed out, jimmy knew rikishi was on some fake shit and never said anything. that's still betrayal in roman's eyes. also, i'm so happy to see you point out his not telling jimmy the truth about rikishi. that was very telling and powerful. shows that even with all that's happened, roman still loves his cousin and doesn't want to deepen his hurt.

mmhmm! we've seen some glimpses before, but roman definitely secretly struggles/has struggled with insecurity regarding a few things. i believe we'll see that explored a bit more in book 2. 👀

lmaooo. yes. honestly, truly it's roman's love for solana and her pleading for jey's life that spared him. as much as roman didn't want to kill him before, as we clearly saw in this chapter, baby boy is on a murderous rampage. he dropping bodies left and right, and i think he would have killed jey based off high emotions and moderately to deeply regretted it later. it would just be more trauma for him. banishing jey and excommunicating him from the bloodline was the next "best" thing. and yes, roman don't ever wanna see that man again in life, bruh.

not to mention, and i think i saw a few people comment on it, jey was clearly upset with roman. i don't want people to get things mixed up though. jey 1000% regrets his role in the coup, but nicki being killed in the process only recharged that anger with roman. he's angry with roman and blames roman for nicki's murder. one might also wonder how he feels/will feel when he finds out solana isn't dead, so roman's wife lived and his didn't......hmm.

ahhh! you know what's crazy! that was discussed! solana wanted roman to take dulce with him for the exact reasons you mentioned. she didn't want him to be all alone in the house. 🥺 and, roman considered it. he really did, but he ultimately chose for dulce to stay with solana, because he knew she'd more or less be in that house all day by herself, alone, and he didn't want that for her. not when she could be with solana. 🥺 50/50 on if that convo will be included in a flashback for the next chapter, but in the event it doesn't, there ya go lmao

yessss. the murderous trio all gon be in the same city! heaven help anyone who crosses any of them. 😭

listen!!! we don't talk enough about alicia and lita who be out here doing the lord's work for these unhinged ass niggas. someone needs to just go on and give them both a raise atp.

chile.....i guess they mama said, "welp, it's time for me to fuck some shit up again." 😭😭😭

@proceduralpassion

looking through your eyes + thirty eight | part one

authors note: see at end of chapter.

warnings: angst and graphic depictions of violence. gore. torture. not for the faint of heart.

story song inspo: ‘looking through your eyes’ by leann rimes

***gif credit goes to @romanreigns ***

cast+ masterlist +story playlist + taglist request form

words: 12k

"We need Tribal Combat!"

"There's no time for that! We need a leader now!"

"We need to follow the order of command!"

"What command? Roman is dead! There is no order anymore!"

"This is why he should have been dethroned a lot sooner! He left us no heir!"

"The child wouldn't be old enough to rule anyway!"

Aleki runs a hand over his haggard face. In a matter of weeks, he feels like he's aged another ten years.

He's getting too old to be dealing with this shit, and that's exactly what all of this is. A bunch of shit.

"Tribal Combat is the way our ancestors would handle a situation like this," he finally speaks. The situation being the fact that for the first time in his lifetime, the Bloodline is without a leader.

Roman is dead.

Solo is dead.

Roman left no heir, thus there is no clear path moving forward for what should occur. The past two weeks since the former Tribal Cheif's murder has been nothing but chaotic to say the least. Aleki is far too prideful to admit it, but a part of him blames himself. He should have known better than to trust Rikishi to get the job done. Should have known that just like he did years prior with Jey, he'd fall short.

Should have known his plan was not without holes. Holes that have left them in the mess they're in now. Allies demanding to know who is in charge, threatening to sever partnerships with a syndicate that boasts no formal, official leader.

A mess.

"And just how do we determine who is eligible for combat?"

Someone, another annoying voice, inserts their question among the mumbled conversations.

Another Elder handles the answer, offering, "it could be open to anyone."

Sione sighs, saying more to himself than anyone in particular. "Nakoa's bloodline has ruled for generations."

"And now his bloodline is all dead," Aleki counters. Cold. His voice and expression are as cold as the ice in his veins. "His son in his stubbornness has damned us to this mess." He gestures around the room, anger growing as he mulls over the situation. "We should have never allowed him to rule for so—"

His pending rant is cut short by the arrival of another attendee, which instantly has him scowling for two reasons.

One, all attendees who were allowed for this audience are present and accounted for.

Two, the identify of said attendee has him pissed.

"Dwayne." His voice is clipped. "This is a closed—"

"I don't give a fuck," comes the dismissive response of the man nearly insufferable as his late, younger cousin. Dwayne saunters over to an occupied seat, easily grabbing the seat by the back, yanking it out and knocking the person to the ground. A smug smirk sits on his face as he plops down and props his big ass feet on the table. Dwayne lifts the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose to the top of his bald head. "Oh, don't stop on my account."

"This doesn't concern you," Sione dismisses.

"Come on." The 'n' drags on as he props his hands behind his head. "I'm still Bloodline, aren't I?"

"You were apart of Roman's Bloodline, and he's dead now, so you have no place here anymore." Someone, an attendee whose name Aleki would never bother to know, counters with a huff. "Plus, where the hell have you been the past few weeks?"

Dwayne shrugs. "Around."

"Around." Someone else mocks. "Our empire in on the brink of collapse, and you've just been around."

"It's like candy ass small dick over here said." Dwayne gestures with his thumb. "I'm unemployed."

The insulted man slams his fist on the table, shooting up, "you smug son of—"

Dwayne quickly silences him by pulling out his Glock G-19 and shooting him directly in the temple, his lifeless body instantly dropping to the floor. Gasps sound around the table, Aleki angrily calling for security.

"You need to leave now!" He hisses. Aleki glances toward the door, wondering why the hell security didn't come barging in at the sound of a literal gunshot.

"See, I would, but I don't answer to you anymore." Dwayne replies in a significantly more serious voice. Gone is the nonchalant "devil may care" attitude. His big body shifts as he moves both elbows onto the table, gun still in hand. "I only answer to the Tribal Chief."

Aleki hisses. "Roman is dead. There is no Tribal Chief."

Dwayne's growing smile can only be described as sinister and predatory. Knowing. "You sure about that?"

Seconds later, not even a full minute, the sound of grunts and thuds from outside the conference room. The Elders and other attendees looking around in confusion.

Except for Dwayne.

He just keeps smiling.

And an almost thunderous sound is accompanied by two more unexpected arrivals. One significantly more unexpected than the other.

Jacob Fatu's unhinged, crazed look of insanity is accompanied by his big body throwing down two dead guards, their heads awkwardly and sickly hanging from their lifeless bodies. Snapped. Their necks have been snapped.

But, that grotesque sight is severely outmatched and borderline underwhelming compared to the inconceivable sight of a dead man walking.

Roman's hair is down and wild, his murderous gaze steady and focused forward. Brass knuckles attached to a chain are secured to his right fist. The table of men are suddenly in shambles, falling over and working to put as much distance between themselves and the man everyone has believed dead.

Again, everyone except Dwayne.

Aleki can barely compute what's happening before him. So much so that there's no time to react, no time to think, just a tremendous of pain that courses through his aged body. Because one minute, he's in his chair at the head of the table, and the next he's on the floor, an enraged Roman having slapped the heavy metal chain against his body.

The old man cries out in agony as the chain is whipped once more, cutting into his skin and laying heavy onto his already brittle bones.

"Please!" He begs, allotted a brief respite as Roman redirects his focus onto Sione and the other Elders, each being mercilessly whipped with the chains.

Punishment.

He's punishing them.

"You wanna take me out!" Roman's infuriated voice slams against the walls the same way he starts to slam his fists against the broken, bloodied men who sought to see him six feet under. "It ain't ever fucking happening!" Roman lands a bone breaking kick to the neck of one of the elders, killing him instantly. The next is killed not directly by Roman but by proxy, as he screams for Jacob.

Jacob, who grabs his gun and shoots out a window, marches over, snatching the man up, dragging him to the window and not wasting a second of a minute to toss him out of said window.

Onlookers watch in horror as one by one, Roman kills them all in various brutal ways. Suffocation. Slit throats. Snapped necks. A brutal beating with the brass knuckles. Various, violent methods and manners in which each meet an untimely, grisly demise. But, the best is saved for last. Aleki. A thorn in Roman's fucking side since he was a boy.

The older man is barely clinging onto life when Roman easily snatches that life away with each slap of the heavy chain, the brass knuckles slammed onto his face until it's disfigured beyond recognition. And finally, the severing of life is achieved via the slicing of the large hunting knife across his throat.

Heaving, splattered with blood, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, nothing but adrenaline and unbounded rage soar through Roman. His lethal gaze falls on the room of people who've been forced to watch the gory bloodbath.

The faintest hint of a smirk on his face.

Good.

Dwayne whistles. "Well, if it isn't obvious, he's not dead."

Roman shoots his older cousin a glare. Dwayne simply shrugs while Roman tips the chair back over, kicking Aleki's body to the side, rolling the chair and sitting down.

And silence. A piece of lint could fall off the wrinkled shirt of the man sitting a few seats down from Roman, and it could still be heard.

Fear.

Fear fills the room and dances off the walls, surrounds the men who just witnessed a bloodbath unlike any.

And then, finally, a brave—or stupid—soul decides to take a risk. Take a chance. "You're….you're alive."

Roman's gaze easily flickers to the man whose wide, horrified gaze is focused on him, trembling finger pointing in his direction. "We—we thought—"

One nod toward Jacob, and the man is barely able to stammer out an "I'm" before his head is violently forced to the side, the sound of his neck snapping followed up with the loud thud sound of it dropping onto the table.

The men around him back and cower away, eager and desperate to escape the death that's already claimed their pathetic lives.

"I was betrayed." Is the first thing to leave his mouth, the word 'betrayal' leaving a bitter, disgusting aftertaste that has him craving more blood. Craving vengeance. "They tried to overthrow me. Tried to kill me, and they should have." Roman stabs the large knife into the table, almost certain he heard someone whimper, as if about to cry. As if they were already crying. "They should have because they killed my wife, and now there's no fucking place on this earth anyone can hide or escape my rage." Saying it aloud is more difficult than Roman anticipated. Playing along with this storyline where Solana is no longer among the living. The discomfort is only quelled by the constant reminder that she is okay. That she's safe and simply waiting for him to return to her after handling business.

And, that's exactly what he's going to do.

Roman digs the knife deeper into the wood. "When I'm done with everyone involved in this shit, the only thing anyone will be able to see is red, and that's the fucking blood I'm going to paint this whole fucking town with." Sitting back in the chair, Roman leaves the knife protruding from the table. "But, until then, I need you all to send them a message."

Another foolish, ignorant, naive soul decides to ask what will be the final thing to leave his mouth before he leaves this room. "Wh—what m-m-message, s-s-sir?"

And for the first time since his entrance, Roman offers something other than a menacing glare. He smiles, but there's nothing humorous about it. If anything, it's predatory.

"That I'm coming."

Similar to the onslaught Roman bestowed upon the now deceased Elders, it's quick and violent. Jacob and Dwayne work almost simultaneously, not killing, but maiming the men. Severed, bloodied pieces cut from bodies. Fingers, noses, ears. Nothing fatal. Just warning enough.

And, it's only when each men has been left with a mark, a sign of Roman's pending revenge, they're ushered and forced out the room. Jacob landing a particularly painful looking blow into the back of the last disfigured, partially dismembered man.

Rolling his shoulders, Roman doesn't even need to instruct them on what to do next. Dwayne is reaching for the laptop, ripping a shirt off one of the dead elders to use it to clean it of the blood. "Fucking disgusting," he hisses, throwing it down once its completed the job.

Roman's eyes cut to the clock on the wall. Right on time.

He's uncaring of his appearance, focused on one thing and only.

Blood.

Roman is out for blood.

As Dwayne works to get everything set up and synced to the large TV screen anchored onto the wall, Jacob stands off to the side, waiting, observing, protecting almost.

Roman would be lying if he said he wasn't skeptical when Solana first told him about Jacob.

Told him how he allegedly protected her and vowed his loyalty to Roman and Roman only, as he recognized Roman as the Tribal Chief.

The only Tribal Chief.

Told her how not everyone in the Bloodline was involved in the coup, and many were waiting for Roman to show up.

Truth be told, Roman is still trying to test that. Test Jacob. So far, he's proven useful, offering Dwayne and Matteo intel and information on those allegedly involved and those not involved.

He's a a hell of a body to have around, capable of the most violent desecration of people. Useful. He's useful, but only time will tell to what extent Roman can trust him.

Can trust anyone, really.

"It's ready," Dwayne announces. Roman breaks from his thoughts, rolling his shoulders once more, ignoring the throb. Solana would have his ass for all the physical exertion. But, it needs to be done.

The sooner Roman handles this, the sooner he can have her back home with him.

Right where she belongs.

Dwayne and Jacob move to take seats, both on opposite sides of the table but in view of the TV that also serves as a casting source. The television screen is then filled with the exact person Roman wants to see next.

"This is a fucking waste of time." Luca's irritated voice is heard, his irksome ass face focused on something beside him. It looks like he's signing something. "Without someone of Italian blood at the head of your table, we have no alli—"

He stops, finally turning to look at the screen, and if there was ever someone to be as pale as Casper the fucking ghost, it's Luca.

"Roman." He all but whispers.

The Tribal Chief remains stone face. "Luca." He tilts his head. "You look surprised."

The younger man stammers, eyes darting around, hardening slightly when he lands on Dwayne who offers a small, mocking wave.

He then narrows his focus back on Roman. Clearing his throat, trying to play off indifference, he straightens his tie. "We were told you were dead."

"Were you?" Luca makes a sound. "I suppose that would have made things a lot more easier for you, now wouldn't it?"

Luca glares. "Just what—"

"Don't fucking play with me," Roman growls. "Do you think I'm stupid? I know you've been trying usurp me. That you were behind that missing shipment. The hit that killed our men. That you sent my brother to spy on me. That you were working with them to kill me."

Roman refuses to name them. Refuses to have their names on his lips. They're not fucking worth it.

Luca, to the best of his limited abilities, tries to remain unbothered. "I don't know what you're talking about."

At that, Roman chuckles, smiling, looking down and nodding. "That's….that's good." Roman can give credit where it's due. Albeit a paltry amount. But, just as quickly as he was smiling, he's glaring. "But, here's the fucking problem, I'm better. I'm better than you. Better than anyone else in this fucking family. I've always been better, and I always will be better." Always. "And you know what else?" A beat. "I'm always three steps ahead."

Luca opens his mouth to respond, fire and fury dancing in his irises when commotion can be heard through the TV.

Roman smirks.

Luca looks to the side, once angered, now confused, and then disturbed.

Gunshots. It's the sound of gunshots.

He curses in Italian, barking orders at what's probably security.

Roman says nothing.

It makes no difference.

None whatsoever.

He just sits back in his chair, enjoying the sound of men crying out in pain, bodies dropping, bullets being emptied into now lifeless corpses.

Luca's clearly shitting bricks, perspiring, gun in his shaky hand. He calls out another order that's cut short by what sounds like the door being kicked open.

Gunshots ring once more, back to back, strategic and aimed.

Luca curses loudly, holding onto his shoulder where he's been shot.

And seconds later, the base of his neck is exposed as another figure stands behind him, forcing his head back, gun pressed to his temple.

Matteo

True to his character, Luca uses his dying words to curse at not only Roman but Matteo who stands with a smug expression, giving Roman only a simple nod of acknowledgment.

Roman smirks.

He sits back in his chair, voice calm and collected. A contrast to the mayhem just unleashed. "Luca." The man in question struggles and works to move out of Matteo's unrelenting grasp. "Take this free advice. If you're gonna go for the devil, you should go always go for the head, because if you miss." A quiet chuckle. "He sure won't."

A loud bang followed by blood and brain matter splattering the screen, partially obscuring the view of Luca's lifeless body slumped over.

Like a bug, Matteo shoves him away, taking the seat, seemingly unbothered by the blood that stains his clothes, hair, and skin.

"It's done."

"Good." Sitting forward, Roman's mind travels to the mental list curated. "Get on the first flight back here."

Matteo nods. "Will do." The connection ends, and Roman closes the laptop.

Looking around the room, he readies to order Dwayne to start seeing about replacements for the Elders council but ultimately decides against it.

It can wait.

He has bigger, important things to worry and focus on, like making his way down his infinite kill list.

The OTC is coming.

---------

There are many, many things on Roman's to-do list once he arrives back home. Many bloody, violent things. Lives to take, primarily.

But, while that remains near the top, there are other things that also require his attention. Things he'd moderately prefer to not have to do but things he needs to do.

It's what leads him a few days later standing outside of Jimmy and Naomi's house. One of his first of many stops during his "revival" tour of sorts.

But, the minute the door is ripped open, and Roman is standing face to face, directly across from Jimmy, a new influx of confusing emotions fill him. The same way they paint the face of his wide eyed cousin.

Roman can see the way Jimmy continues to grip the door so tightly that his knuckles whiten. "It's….it's true." Roman's jaw twitches as he briefly looks away. "You're…you're alive?"

"We need to talk," is Roman's response. He looks at Jimmy. "Can I come in?"

A delayed response is followed up with an almost distracted head nod as Roman makes his way inside of his cousin's home, a place he's been in countless times over his almost 40 years on this earth. But, this…..this has to be the first time where it's felt different. Felt off. Felt wrong.

"Where the hell have you been?" Jimmy breathes. Roman turns around to face him, seeing the shock and confusion melt away into a bowl of anger. "We thought you were dead, Roman. Almost everyone thinks you and Solana—" He stops himself, pausing, eyes widening slightly. "Wait, is she—"

A pause. Hesitation. The moment Roman wrecked his brain over and over again trying to navigate the best way to handle such a tricky, complicated, complex situation. Ultimately, Solana's words and recommended or requested approach taking front seat. "She's safe."

Once the words leave his mouth, there's a semblance of regret. Like, he wishes he had gone a different route. Almost like he wishes he'd continued to maintain the story being spread about the fate of his pregnant wife.

Jimmy places both hands behind his head, walking away just enough to blow out a big breath. "What the fuck, Roman?" He growls, walking back over and pointing upstairs. "You got any fucking idea how gutted Naomi and I been?" He scowls, the anger and relief clearly at odds. "Thinking you and Sol were—"

"I know what you thought," he interrupts, hating his own emotions being at war. "You thought what we needed everyone to think."

Jimmy swallows. "Even me?" Silence. He once again motions upstairs. "Even Naomi?"

Silence

He runs a hand over his face, and in that moment, Roman can see for the first time the toll all of this has taken on him. He looks drained. "Roman….I know….I know what happened was fucked up. I'm not denying that. But, to treat Naomi and I like this when we ain't even do nothing?" He shakes his head. "When I'm already having to mourn my brother and father—"

"The same people who tried to kill me?" Roman interrupts, his voice sharp and even. "The people who kidnapped and were going to kill my wife?"

"I know that, Uce—"

"Do you?" A pointed question, as anger starts to overpower everything else. "Cause you're acting like I did something fucking wrong—"

"You did!" Jimmy snaps. "You kept us in the fucking dark when we deserved to know the truth!"

"The same way you kept me in the dark?" Is Roman's almost quiet response. He sees the way Jimmy's anger twitches, how it's briefly interrupted by what Roman considers to be a valid point. "For years, your father was trying to get ya'll to challenge me, trying to turn you against me, and you never said anything. Never told me shit!"

"I told you, I didn't realize—"

"I don't give a fuck what you did or didn't realize. I had a right to know!" He needed to know. Roman needed to know that the same people he considered family, the closest thing he had left to a father figure, even with them never necessarily being super close, was plotting against him the entire time. "If you had just told me—"

"Then what? It would have changed something?" Jimmy shouts, also unwilling to back down like the man across from him. "Would have stopped all this from happening? Would change what happened—"

"I don't know!" A forced, short, angry response as the Tribal Chief turns away, running his hand over his face. This conversation is equally heavy as it is challenging. He wasn't stupid enough to expect anything about it to be easy, but Roman can't deny a small part of him hoped it would go….different. In what way, he's not entirely sure. Just something….not this.

"Uce, we can figure this out—"

Roman briefly turns to him. "Can we?"

And, when Jimmy doesn't respond immediately, doesn't respond at all, Roman realizes in one area of all of this shit, they're on the same page. They're both confused as to how to untangle this massive mess of betrayal, lies, and hurt. Because for Roman, it's not even the coup organized by the people he once considered family, it's the fact that he also has to come to grips with that same "family" was a part of the plan that cost Roman his entire immediate family.

Left him essentially alone.

In many ways, that's what hurts the most.

But, it's also something Roman has opted to not tell Jimmy. As much hatred the Tribal Chief holds toward Solo and Rikishi, he can still acknowledge that was Jimmy's brother and father. He won't complicate his cousin's grief.

Because Roman doesn't hate him.

Doesn't hate him at all.

He just can't trust him anymore, and he's not sure if and when that will change.

Which is why he settled on the decision he did. The decision he's ready to finally share.

"When Solana comes home, and she will come home, I don't want to see you."

Gaze focused on the wall art in Jimmy's living room, Roman doesn't need to be looking at his cousin to know he's floored. "W-what?"

He swallows, recalling the specific wording he decided on. "You're out of my inner circle. I'll have Dwayne find a position for you in the Bloodline when things settle—"

"Roman—"

"Solana can decide for herself what she wants her relationship with Naomi to be, but I don't want either of you at my house."

"You can't—"

"I can do whatever the fuck I want." Even if he's not entirely sure it's exactly what he wants. It's the best Roman can do under these circumstances.

All he can do.

That doesn't mean there's not the reappearance of that damn weight that's been on his chest ever since he had to leave Solana. Even before that, if he's being completely honest with himself.

"My decision is final, Jimmy." Because maybe sticking to the facts, or rather the stipulations Roman has decided to put in place until he can navigate a better solution might be helpful. Emotions are getting in the way of business.

Jimmy just looks at him, stares at him, unwilling or maybe even uncaring of how visible his many emotions are. "So, that's it?" Roman's jaw clenches. "After everything we been through, the good, the bad, the everything in between. Almost 40 years of friendship, of being family….." He swallows, emotion and vulnerability on full display. "You're like my brother, Roman—"

"But not a brother, right?" Silence. "That's why you didn't say anything."

It's a deeply rooted point of insecurity. One that Roman hasn't really allowed himself to think too much about since he was a kid. That feeling of being "not like them." Of feeling like he didn't necessarily "belong."

An outsider among his own blood.

"This isn't fair, and you know it," Jimmy finally responds. "You're punishing me, punishing Naomi, for something that we didn't even do."

Perhaps. The Tribal Chief won't entirely deny that. He knows he can be vindictive, and maybe some part of him does want to punish them in a way he can't the deceased. But, the vast majority of him only seeks to have a temporary solution in place to relieve him of all the other very many tasks on his plate.

And, the deep fucking truth of the matter is also something he won't allow himself to admit aloud but feels fully.

He needs Solana.

Roman needs his wife to help him sort through all of this. He needs her support. Her safety. Her sage wisdom and soft way of helping him navigate these things. So, until that can happen, this is what needs to happen.

Roman takes a deep breath. For as nice and big a home Jimmy and Naomi have, it's suddenly feels a lot more stuffy than he recalls. A lot less welcoming. His presence more…intruding than anything.

"I have to go." Both a truth and a lie. The day is practically just getting started, but time waits for the Tribal Chief. He could stay longer, could maybe talk things through with his cousin.

Problem is he doesn't want to.

Not right now.

Not for a while, most likely.

Roman is a bit unsure why he's some level of bothered by Jimmy not protesting his leave. It's what's best….

Right?

"You're going to do it, aren't you?" Roman's hand is halfway to touching the doorknob when he's hit with the question. The one he knew was coming but hoping wouldn't. The one that makes sense. "You're going to kill him."

His eyes shut.

Debated. Roman debated the hell out of and with himself to try to figure out how he would tackle that one. Of course, Jimmy would want to know that. Would want to know if another person will be added to the list of lost loved ones. Especially his brother.

Jey.

Roman also considered how to respond to this, how much he wanted to share, if he wanted to grant Jimmy some sense of peace with knowing the answer or grief with also knowing the answer.

Roman swallows once more.

And, he walks out the door.

-----------

The only way for Roman to decompress from his heavy conversation with Jimmy and all that will come from the decisions that have been made is to cope the best way he knows how.

Murder.

Roman needs to cross off another name from his hit list.

Two, precisely.

"Where the fuck are they?" Dwayne complains and swats away a pesky fly that seems to prefer to fly around and in his personal bubble. "Fucking hate the outdoors."

Matteo snickers. "So, you wouldn't accompany Afia, the kids and I on a camping trip?"

Dwayne just stares at him. "Do I look poor to you?"

Roman manages a chuckle and a thought of something else. About the sacrifice Matteo is also making by being here with him. Standing with him. He's also separated from his wife. From his children. Agreeing to no contact to help keep Solana being alive a secret.

Roman swallows.

He didn't really realize until just now how massive an ask that was.

And how Matteo never once hesitated to agree to join him.

The sound of a truck engine revving is a welcomed distraction and something that allows Roman to reorient his focus to the task at hand. Jaw clenched, he watches the ambulance come to an abrupt stop followed by the drivers door being flung open.

Jacob's large body drops down, his boots leaving imprints in the slightly muddy ground as he stomps to the back of the truck and snatches the door open.

Hate fills the Tribal Chief as he watches Jacob angrily and almost erratically yank the two hospital beds out the back, both participants crying out in pain as they tumble onto the ground.

But, the cries of pain from one ease into a sick, twisted, laugh.

Roman's stomp onto his neck effectively silences that laugh. Seth's brown eyes peer up into him, that deranged smile on his face causing Roman to lift his foot and stomp once more. Seth almost instantly coughs up blood.

However, it's wheezing from the rotund man on the ground a few feet away from the lunatic under him that snatches Roman's focus.

Carefully, slowly, he walks over, anger accompanying each step until he kicks Paul over, a loud howl leaving his former advisor's mouth.

Tears stream down his face that has a large bandage on the right cheek and other unhealed cuts around various areas. "Pl—please."

Roman growls. That damn word has easily become one of his least favorites.

Similar to Seth, Roman lands his boot down on the top of Paul's fat neck. As the man screams out in pain, Dwayne chuckles.

"I know that hurt."

It all must hurt, Roman realizes. Hurt tremendously. Good.

For the first time, he takes in the sight and state of the two men before him still in hospital gowns. Their legs and arms covered with bandages, peaks of red, burned skin peaking out, the lesser of their injuries minimal compared to the latter end of severe.

Severe…

Nothing will ever be severe enough for them.

Roman barks for a knife, and the minute he's handed one, he crouches down and begins cutting. Not just the bandage. The fresh, still healing skin graft underneath the bandages as well. The screams of pain are ear piercing and music to Roman's fucking ears.

Methodically, like a butcher mastering his craft, he cuts away, ignoring the blood and body matter that splatters and splashes his clothes, tossing the mangled, ruined patches of fleshto the side like trash to the can.

Around him, no one interferes, no one stops him, and no one damn sure responds to Paul's blubbering as he transitions between screaming, apologizing, and eventually begging for Roman to just kill him.

That last is definitely on the agenda. Just not yet.

Because, one he's done butchering victim one, he transitions to victim two. Seth. Seth's torture is the eerily the same, the maniacal laughing eventually melting into sobs of agony. But, he doesn't beg for death, doesn't beseech the Tribal Chief for mercy.

No, that doesn't come until Roman is handed the electric chainsaw.

It comes then. Screams and shouts of unimaginable pain as Roman saws off arms and legs, one by one, blood shooting and spurting out. Again, the man intent on making their last minutes on earth nothing but horrific, forever uncaring. It's satisfying in a demented sort of way, but Roman doesn't care.

They're getting exactly what they deserve.

Heaving and sweating from the exertion expended through the torture, Roman only stops when all that remains is exposed bone from where he cut off their arms below the elbows and their knees slightly above the knees.

He would have continued too, if not for the fact both men are starting to lose consciousness, and that won't do.

He wants them awake for as long as humanly fucking possible.

Especially for the grand finale.

Roman snaps, speaking to Jacob. "Douse em'."

An order that doesn't need to be repeated. As Roman lifts off his shirt that's caked in blood, pieces of bone, and human flesh, tossing it to the ground, Dwayne hands him a towel to dry off and remove some of the other unmentionables.

Jacob moves quickly and efficiently, pouring the gasoline all over what remains of Paul and Seth's carved up bodies. Drenches them.

And with a wicked smirk on his face, Matteo tops it off, tops them off with the cherry on top.

An accelerant.

He forces their mouths open, the sound of them gurgling and choking sounded out with a kick to the side of the head. It's effective, allowing him to empty the bottle that he tosses to the side.

"Done," he says, voice ice cold as he goes to stand beside Dwayne and Jacob. None of them showing even the slightest hint of disturbance. If anything, there's more of a pleased, satisfied aura.

Recognizing they've reached the end of the road, that the men are mere minutes away from unconsciousness—and death—Roman stalks over to them. Slowly. A predator enjoying the final moments of his prey's existence. Moments that must consist of pain beyond human comprehension.

He looks down, the sight grotesque and enough to evoke vomiting from anyone without a seasoned stomach, but Roman is anything but. The sight makes him smile. The putrid smell of exposed bone, organs, and extensive blood pleasing to him in every sense of the word.

A dark, quiet chuckle leaves his mouth. "So much for that spoiler."

Stepping back, his eyes dart between the both of them, studying and committing the grisly image to memory.

Gratifying, indeed.

And without much thought, he pulls out the matchbox, lighting two matches, each thrown onto the men.

Turning on his heel, Roman walks away, tuning out their screams of misery and suffering.

"Let's go." It's spoken to the three men with him as they head out of the forest and to their SUV's. Extracting his revenge on the two men grants Roman with a sense of relief. He's relieved to know those two fuckers no longer breathe, or will breathe, the same air as him.

But, as gory and sadistically satisfying as Paul and Seth's deaths are, it still doesn't dull or ease the mixed emotions that fill the Tribal Chief at the thought of his next task.

Arguably, one of the hardest he has to complete.

----------

There's one reason and one reason alone why Roman asks Matteo and Dwayne to be present for this.

One very valid, important reason that can't be ignored or pushed aside. It's not his preference though.

Not really.

This is so personal that it feels almost wrong to have other parties present, but Roman also knows himself. Knows that when he fully succumbs to that uncontrollable rage that dwells within him, he can't see or think beyond it. It totally and wholly consumes him. Controls him.

Thus….his need for a contingency plan.

Roman has his back toward the door that's flung open, the intensity causing nearby photos on the wall to shake. Roman sighs. As effective as Jacob can be, he's…..a lot.

The Tribal Chief turns around just in time to see one cousin throw down the man Roman also once considered cousin.

Considered family.

Considered to be a brother.

As prideful as he can be, Roman would never deny the fact that he could have done a better job with being less hard on the twins. Less…..him. But, the truth of the matter is that despite the frosty disposition and irritation that marred a lot of their interactions, no one but the three of them know what they've been through. The countless times they've had each other's back out in the field. Protecting and looking out for each other.

The times Roman looked out for Jey.

All those moments that have boiled down to and left them right where they are now.

Jey, on the floor before him, hands on the ground, his fiery gaze on the man he also once considered family.

And seeing it, seeing Jey be upset with him?

It pisses Roman the fuck off.

He walks toward his table and grabs the brass knuckles. Both pair.

"Get out." A command directed only toward Jacob who offers no protest, walking out the same way he came in, standing watch outside the door.

"Roman…"

Roman has completely tuned out the voice of either Dwayne or Matteo. He doesn't know nor does he care.

Roman lifts his foot, kicking Jey right in the face with so much force that his body jerks back violently.

"You son of a bitch," he growls, not wasting a second to pounce on top of him, aiming for his ribs first. Jey's' howl of pain drives his determination—and fury—and distracts the Capo from his own lingering pain. The injuries that have not yet fully healed, marginally due to the fact that Roman has done nothing but exert himself from the moment he landed back home.

He'd kept his promise and continued rehab, continued to follow the doctor's orders, but that was all in between carrying out violent, bloody, brutal punishments for every fucker who turned on him.

Including the one underneath him.

And thinking of Solana, thinking of how she's not here, not with him, it only deepens the color of red he sees.

It's all he sees.

The sound of Jey's ribs cracking and his fruitless efforts to push the enraged man off him only drive Roman to lift the man up and slam him against the nearest wall. Another brutal kick to his ribs. Roman doesn't care if every single one is broken.

He grabs Jey by the chin, squeezing, enjoying the way his face remains scrunched up in pain. "You broke up my Bloodline." Not the massive crime syndicate that Roman has spent the better half of his life improving and making it into the billion dollar empire that it is now. He's referring to the family component, the familial bond and connection they shared.

That Bloodline.

"My wife isn't here because of you, Jey. You understand?" Roman continues. A part of him wonders if anything, especially that, means anything to Jey. He's unsure if Jey knows that Solana is actually alive or if he even cares, because his wife is most certainly not.

And, it's that, Roman is sure, that fuels Jey's hatred. Has him, despite the brutal beating he's receiving, refusing to cower, to show any sign of fear. Just impenetrable defiance.

"I looked out for you, I spared your fucking life, saved your ass time and time again, and what do you do?" Another fresh wave of rage, as Roman slams Jey's head back against the wall, shouting, "you break up my fucking family!"

Again, double, maybe even multiple meanings, all with one heartbreaking conclusion.

It creates a brief fracture in Roman's anger, paves the way for a small glimpse of what lies underneath all of that fury that courses through his big body. "I would have never done this shit to you, Jey."

Because, he wouldn't. Because for all the bad things Roman is, how awful he could be, he would have never stooped so low. Would have never allowed whatever prideful feelings he was struggling with to lead him down a path that could only end in heartbreak. But, Jey did. His insecurities got the best of him, and it's cost him.

It's cost him dearly.

Because as far as Roman is concerned, Nicki's death is on him.

"So just…." Jey coughs up blood as Roman realizes at some point in his inner dialogue, he'd moved back to pounding Jey into the floor. "Just…do it." Roman stops and stares at him, his own chest heaving. "You wanna kill me…..fucking do it then, Uce. It's…it's what you want, ain't it?"

Bullshit.

Roman can see right through it, right through the paltry front he's trying to put up in the face of a true life or death situation. Stubborn as all outdoors, very much like himself, Roman knows that Jey loves his kids more than anything. He would never want to "leave" them.

Especially after what's happened.

He's calling Roman's bluff, and that pisses him to fuck off.

For more reasons than the man under him and the two before him can realize.

Roman closes his eyes.

"Please." It's the pleading nature of her voice as well as the borderline desperation in her eyes that has Roman struggling. Struggling with it all. "I know….I know what he did was wrong."

"It wasn't just wrong, Solana," he calmly counters. Roman is working hard to be mindful of his tone with her. The anger that dances and burning within is 100% not aimed or geared towards her. Whatsoever. "It was unforgivable."

She swallows. "I know." He shuts his eyes once more as she continues to gently massage his scalp with one hand, the other tracing his inked arm, carefully maneuvering the ridges of disfigured skin from his burn scars. "But, I'm not….I'm not asking you to forgive him, Ro."

"No," he murmurs, jaw flexing. "But, what you're asking is a lot fucking harder."

Solana moves closer, her hand traveling to his face. "Roman….his kids lost their mother." She licks her lips and shakes her head. "We both grew up without our mothers, and I know that your relationship with yours was…..complicated, but….mine wasn't and not having her…." Her eyes watering is something he can't avoid. Can't ignore. "No child deserves that, Roman, and you know it." His silence is all that she needs to continue. "Baby, I know I'm asking a lot from you, but….please don't kill him."

He's always said and "joked" about never being able to say no to her. But, this….this might be a first. "Solana…."

"Please, Roman." Her voice cracks as she leans up, her forehead against his, breathing. "For me."

Roman is returned to the scene before him, to the decision he'd made just this morning. A decision he's not sure how he'll handle moving forward, but it's one he's accepted as his final answer.

"I'm not going to kill you," he announces. Jey can't hide his surprise, and Roman would bet his cousin and brother mimic similar expressions.

He hadn't shared his decision with anyone until this very moment.

"And, the only fucking reason I'm not is because of the woman you almost got killed," he hisses. Jey continues to look dumbfounded. "But, you are fucking dead to me in every other sense of the word. You've got a fucking week for you and your kids out of the city. Your security access is revoked, your position with the Bloodline done. You are done."

Jey continues to look around, obviously struggling to process what's being said. Like, he hadn't expected Roman to actually kill him and yet still expected Roman to kill him.

"I never want to fucking hear or speak to you ever again, you understand me?" It's a watered down warning. It's all watered down, truly. Even the fact that Jey lays before him, potentially half dead, in need of medical assistance. It's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough, even if he took his cousin's life with his bare hands. And, Roman knows this.

Still, this has to be one of the hardest decisions he's ever made.

"But, if you ever fucking step foot in this town again, I don't care what Solana says, I'll fucking kill you. I swear it on Fetu's grave." A vow to carry out the act of vengeance, love, in all the irony, prevents him from completing.

It's solely Roman's love for Solana that stops him from killing Jey.

Nothing else.

Literally nothing else.

Roman's final declaration is accompanied by another stomp, this time to Jey's face, effectively knocking him out cold. Standing up and rolling his neck, Roman grimaces and grabs at his shoulder.

Way too much exertion. Not that it makes a difference.

Jey is just one of many he plans to visit today.

He looks over his shoulder, uncaring and unwilling to discuss what transpired. What's done is done.

Roman so casually, and coldly, walks over Jey's slumped, unconscious body and snatches his jacket off the hook behind the door. "Let's go."

Footsteps of the other two men follow him swinging the door open, Jacob standing at attention.

"Make sure he's gone by the time I'm back," Roman commands. What's done has been done, and while there's a tremendous amount of unspoken, unresolved issues between himself and the man he's just effectively banished indefinitely, it's not a task he's up for.

Not now.

Not ever.

Roman meant what he said.

Should Jey ever try to return to the city, Roman will absolutely kill him.

But, until then, he might as well already be dead.

Because he is to Roman.

---------

Following Roman's dramatic, bloody return from his supposed demise, he places the city on lock down.

No one enters, and no one leaves.

Armed guards, a mixture of verified Bloodline loyalists as well as soldiers from the Legado Del Fantasma, remain stationed at every entrance into the city, whether it be by land or harbor, to ensure that this order remains non-violated.

Roman intends for not a single fucker to escape his bloody vengeance.

And bloody, it most certainly is.

Nothing but unbridled rage courses through Roman's body as he spends the weeks making his way down his list eliminating target after target. Traitor after traitor. Life after life, taken.

Doors are kicked down, pieces of shit dragged out. Some granted quick death. Simple head shots that leave blood and brain matter splattered in the nearest vicinity. Some are tossed off of buildings, leaving their splattered remains for all to see. Some are used as examples. Their tortured, mangled remains tied up on display in the middle of the streets as both a reminder and a warning. A reminder of what happens to all who dare to cross Roman fucking Reigns, and a message to those who played in any role in the coup that he's coming, and he's coming for blood.

Roman has the city in a state of terror and fear. Families keeping their children in the house. Picking them up and dropping them off to school to avoid being caught in the cross hairs. A bit unnecessary, as despite Roman slipping back into that dark space that consumed him before Solana, his few morals remain the same. Women and children are off limits.

Neither of those groups are included in his hit list.

Everyone else though…..tough.

But, while the adrenaline that races through him fuels his revenge tour, that fuel of sorts easily melts away when he arrives home later in the evening. Arrives to an empty home. No sweet, delicious aroma of Solana's cooking to greet him. Or the pitter-patter of Dulce's feet as she races to the front door, eager to jump at and try to lick him but mostly just wanting to be petted and to have her belly rubbed. Being able to come up behind his wife, holding her, kissing her temple, taking in the feel of her body up against his.

Things he'd gotten used to.

Things he misses.

He misses a lot.

He misses her.

He thinks about her, about what she could be doing, about whatever pregnancy symptoms she could be experiencing, as he follows along via the app she'd installed on his phone. He checks daily, each time wondering about the swell of her stomach, imagining the excitement she must feel. Or, the sadness.

Because there is something undeniably sad about them not being able to experience this together. Something that was so important to her.

Important to him.

Being there with her to support her as she carries his children, their children, is important to him.

But….but, her safety comes first.

Their safety comes first.

Her absence is with him every fucking second of the day, though on the back-burner when the sun sits comfortably in the sky, and he has the distraction of his murderous rampage. But, when the sun is replaced with the moon, and he lays in that same bed where they've made love countless times, where she's laid on his chest, talking about her day. Where he's held and slept with her, rubbing her belly, allowing himself to feel genuinely happy for a long fucking time.

All of that is soured and dampened by the cruel reality. Solana is not there. Dulce is not there.

She's not with him. They're not with him, because of them.

And then the rages builds up all over again.

It's a vicious, cruel cycle. One that he can't escape. One that leads him to the place he wasn't expecting or planning to visit anytime soon.

Too difficult.

But, necessary.

"Not gonna lie…." Lita trails off, shifting in her seat. It's one of the few times he's noticed she's not almost casually lounged, legs tucked under her. She's sitting with both feet planted on the ground, a small frown on her face. "Believing you to be dead only for you to show up with quite the return….and now having you in front of me, I'm not quite sure where to start except to tell you that I'm so sorry about Solan—"

"She's not dead."

Silence.

Lita, for all her expertise and experience, can't hide her shocked expression. "What?"

Roman looks away. Just as he battled with whether or not to tell Jimmy the truth about Solana, he experienced the same battle regarding just how honest he wanted to be with Lita.

That's not to say he doesn't have a host of other issues he could probably, definitely, benefit from talking and working through with her.

Like the two panic attacks he's had since returning home.

Or, the several nightmares that have awoken him from the little sleep he has received. The nightmares that started when he was in the hospital in Mexico. The reason Solana refused to go home and leave him alone, staying and sleeping with him. Comforting him.

She's his comfort, and not having her has him six different shades of fucked up. On top of the pre-existing level of fucked up-ness he is on any given day.

If there was any doubt in his mind before just how codependent Roman is with his wife, this whole experience has successfully zapped it all away.

Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that Solana isn't here, and he's not okay, so he needs to find a way to get his shit together.

And, the woman before him is his best bet.

It didn't take much research and digging to realize Lita had no connection or involvement with the coup, thus eliminating her from the hit list. But, there's still this overwhelming importance of only keeping Solana's true status a secret from anyone who doesn't need to know.

And, while Roman wouldn't consider Lita someone who needs to know the truth, it would help him a hell of a lot considering the whole reason he's sitting before her.

Plus….while Roman isn't sure just what trust means to him anymore, he trusts that if she didn't know before, the bodies dumped in the streets, should be all the reminder of what happens to anyone who crosses Roman fucking Reigns.

"She's….she's in hiding. Safe." He clarifies, not willing to offer much more than that. "I'm not bringing her back home until I'm sure it's safe to do so."

"I see…." Lita trails off once more, slipping into her usual sitting position, legs tucked under her. For some reason, it makes Roman feel slightly more relaxed. "It all makes sense, then."

He eyes her. Skeptical. Cautious. "What do you mean?"

She takes a deep breath. "Roman, I don't….I don't fully understand how all the crime shit works, but I know and have heard enough to know that you were betrayed, Solana was kidnapped, and my guess would be that they tried to kill you both." He says and offers neither agreement or disagreement. "I can understand why you're so angry and why you've been on a murder spree, making the town look like something out of a horror movie, but it's….it's deeper than that." She tilts her head, assessing in a low voice. "It's even more personal, because she's not here….you don't have her with you, and that's….difficult, I'd gather."

He looks away once more, fist forming at his side. Roman's voice is also low and quiet, as he admits aloud for the first time, "I'm not….I'm not used to it." He swallows, pushing back the pride, knowing he needs to talk about this. To unload at least one thing on his plate. "I'm not used to….to being without her."

He doesn't really know how to function properly and normally without her. Just knows how to channel all of that frustration in his killing and torturing.

"I'm sure," Lita murmurs.

"I—" He struggles, the word a tremendous weight that weighs him down to the point of needing release. "I miss her."

Lita presses her lips together, voice sympathetic. "Are you….are you able to spe—"

"No," he interrupts, voice gruff. "We're no contact to ensure her location can't be tracked."

"I see." She's quiet for a few minutes, eventually and gingerly approaching all of the other shit Roman now has added to his collection of baggage. "I've also heard that….that you were betrayed from the inside. That it was….some of your family members."

"They were never my fucking family," he growls. Roman has shifted from that place of vulnerability to that stainless steel wall of defense. "And don't fucking call them that."

"My apologies." She nods, recognizing that the extent of his regression might be more than she realized. Understandable though. Completely understandable. "Can I ask you something?"

His hesitation is noticeable. "What?"

"With Solana gone for the time being, who do you have?"

It's a delayed response. The question requires contemplation.

"My cousins, Dwayne and Ava," he finally answers, and for the first time, in a long time, Roman allows himself to be honest about the very thing he's avoided for years. Tried to pretend wasn't a thing. But, it is. And, it's been more than proven in the past few weeks. "And Matteo….my brother."

This time, Lita expertly shields her surprise at yet another shocking confession. "Your brother?" He says nothing. Expected. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had a sibling still living."

Tense and partially uncomfortable, Roman nods. "It's….complicated."

"I bet," she murmurs. "Do you…do you want to talk about it?"

No. He doesn't want to talk about anything. What Roman wants to do is be with his pregnant wife. He wants to not have to deal with any of this shit. Wishes it never fucking happened in the first place, but it did, and now he's here trying to use a dollar store mop for a rainfall of issues.

But….

But, in this midst of this storm of epic proportions, there have been some glimpses of….something.

Like the fact that Roman can't and won't continue to deny something he's spent his whole life avoiding. Trying to avoid.

That he has a brother.

That despite all off the bitter feelings of resentment and jealousy toward the man that got the same short end of the stick that he did, Matteo has more than proven himself to be someone Roman can….can trust.

Such a difficult, virtually impossible thing considering what happened, the depth of the betrayal, but the truth of the matter is that Matteo and so many others showed up when Roman needed help the most.

Needed his brother.

It's why he's decided to stop denying the truth and maybe, just maybe, himself.

Roman shifts in his seat. "I've…I've realized that….I should…probably try to form some kind of relationship with him." Because, it's time. "It's what Solana thinks I should do, and….one of my aunt's dying wish that I….make things right with him."

"Sure." A pause. "But, what about you, Roman? What do you want?"

A lot of things. The biggest thing? His wife back home with him, so he could have her by his side as he works through all this shit. But, that's not an option. It's not an option, and he has to learn how to be without her for the time being.

Has to learn how to navigate the waters closest to him.

No matter how much he hates it.

"I—I—" He also hates this fucking stuttering and stammering. It's so unlike him. "I don't know how….how to go about that."

An almost embarrassing admission but a truth, nonetheless. Solana is good with these sorts of things. Not him.

Lita keeps a contained smile. Regression has certainly occurred but not, perhaps, as much as she initially believed. There's something there she intends to grab and hone in on as much as she can while still acknowledging his already complex treatment plan just got significantly more complicated.

"Well….." She starts, standing up and walking over to grab the infamous box of Giant Uno off her bookshelf. "Murder and mayhem, I don't know, but that…." Trailing off, she takes a seat, offering another small, patient smile. One step at a time. "—That I can certainly help you with."

----------

"Ya know," Ava starts, lifting her beer from her mouth after taking and swallowing a decent ass amount. "I'm a little offended none of you fuckers have invited me along for the kill tour."

Dwayne chuckles, the beer in his hand looking significantly smaller than it actually is due to his big ass overall size. "Didn't realize that was your thing, cuz."

"Psshhh." She makes a sound, leaning back in the chair, lifting her middle finger to the sky. "They came after our family. Of course, I want my pound of flesh."

Matteo's smile is small as he traces the mouth of his bottle. "Well, there still remains a few outliers we haven't caught."

Being reminded of that makes Roman scowl as he tightly squeezes the bottle in his hand.

Despite his shutting down the city, a few bitches were perhaps smart enough to get the hell out of dodge when they realized Solo was also dead. When they realized that while Roman had been "eliminated," not having the protection of the men who led the charge meant their fates were left up in the air.

So, they ran.

Not that it's made a difference. Roman has accompanied Dwayne on various trips to other states where the Bloodline has locations, where tips from traitors who were dumb enough to stick around and ended up singing like canaries from a little bit of torture. Or, if Roman doesn't accompany Dwayne for said trips, Matteo does.

They're smart enough to know it's not wise for all three to leave the city at once. Not when they're working to restore order and balance.

A process that's…..going, which is good, but it's still going, which is the problem.

It's been two weeks, and they're still not there. At that point where Roman can bring his wife home, and that….that's been rough, to say the least.

It helps to have the people around him, but even them combined together don't equate even half of the comfort and relief his wife provides him.

"Good," Ava replies, smiling craftily. "Save some for me, then." She then gasps, looking around the room. "Has big ears told you what we came up with for you know what?"

At that, Roman rolls his eyes, but he can't ignore the skip and leap of hope that dances within at the shift in topic and conversation.

"Hopefully, you did most of the thinking, cause Lord knows this man ain't got a romantic bone in his body," Dwayne scoffs, gesturing to Roman who only scowls in response.

"I'd argue there's maybe one there." Matteo shrugs. "Or, half of one."

Ava snorts. "More like a quarter." Roman flips her off, something she entirely ignores. "Anyway, so here's what we came up with…."

As Ava moves into specifics, excitement painting her face and accompanying her hand gestures as she almost illustrates what they, what Roman primarily, intends to do for his wife upon her return. A plan months in the making, marked and interrupted by several setbacks but something he's ultimately decided to follow through with.

Roman tunes them out to a certain extent, focused less on the conversation at hand and more the people.

In under a year, his life has taken such a turn. Many unexpected turns. He's gained and lost, lost and gained, gained some more, lost some more, and started all over. Overwhelming in a lot of regards, especially considering the latest chapter has easily been the most traumatic.

But, there's also something else he can't deny. Something he's been working on in therapy with Lita, that he'd love to be able to talk with Solana about, but something he can't really deny, nonetheless. Even if he wanted to.

He's gained such a loyal, strong inner circle. People who, if he continues upon the path of honesty, have always been there for him. It's just been him, Roman, who's kept that wall up.

The wall that, according to Lita, kept the "bad" people out but also kept the "good" people from getting in.

She wasn't wrong.

Roman has spent so many years pushing people away, only letting a select few close to him, and while a few of those select few have caused him an insurmountable of pain, hurt and trauma, there still remains the fact that he still has people he can trust.

He still has family.

Even more, Solana's several statements regarding as such return to the forefront of his mind.

"The girls deserve to have a big family who love and support them, Ro."

Solana was also right.

His family might look slightly different now, but they're still family.

"I—" He cuts in, interrupting the conversation among the three regarding that. Equally important but not as germane as what he wants to say. Needs to say, really. "I want to thank all of you."

"Hell hath fucking frozen over." Ava scoffs. "Did you just…..thank someone?" She smirks, crossing her arms, head tilted. "I didn't think you were capable of that shit. Not unless it's Solana."

Roman scowls, but he doesn't disagree. "Are you done?" She rolls her eyes and lifts her hands in a defensive manner, signifying her silence. Roman shifts in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable with the three sets of eyes on him. "I know I….I'm not the fucking best with this shit, but I….I do appreciate the three of you. What you've done…..for me." He primarily looks between Dwayne and Matteo. "Especially you two….you saved my life." He swallowed. "I don't….I don't take that lightly."

"You better fucking not," Dwayne shakes his head, sipping some of his beer. "I don't risk my life for just anyone."

"And, you're not just anyone, Roman," Matteo adds, his tone more on the serious side. Sincere. "You're family."

"We're family," Ava corrects, looking among the men. "A dysfunctional ass family of killers and shit ton of trauma but family nonetheless."

Roman chuckles. "Yeah…." He clears his throat, carefully trying to balance vulnerability with some element of business. "Matteo…." His brother looks his way, eyebrow raised. "You said you trust Vinci, right?"

Vinci. The man who assisted Matteo in making his way back to Italy without the Administration finding out, allowing him the element of surprise needed to carry out his hits. A man who, according to Matteo, has worked hard for and with him for over a decade.

He offers no hesitation, just a nod of confirmation. "With my life." Skepticism is raised. "Why?"

A bit of a delayed response, because that damn trust thing. Roman isn't sure how he's supposed to trust anyone outside of the group of people who helped him ever again, and while this Vinci fucker isn't anyone he knows, Matteo does. Matteo is vouching for him, so that has to be enough.

For now.

"We'll need someone we know we can trust to handle business over there." At that, he and Dwayne share questioning expressions. "Because I need you two stateside with me."

Matteo is the first to respond, that skepticism still looming. "Yeah?"

Roman rolls his neck, explaining. "I….I need people around me I know I can trust." A survey of the gatherers. "And outside of Solana, I don't know anyone I trust more than the people in this room."

Ava sits forward, seeing her cousin's gaze on her. "Wait…." She lowers her beer, small smile growing on her face. "You're inviting me into your inner circle?"

Roman nods. "You may be a pain in the fucking ass majority of the time, but you're smart. Loyal. I know I can trust you, and I know you'd be a valuable asset."

"Hell yeah, I would." She agrees. "Some estrogen to tamper down all that testosterone would probably do you all some good."

Roman doesn't entirely disagree. He just continues to share the tentative plans he's been mentally mulling over since returning home. "I'm also….I'm considering including Escobar."

"Escobar?" Dwayne's look of skepticism sure. "Brotha, you sure you didn't hit that big ass head of yours at some point?" A sarcastic question, of course, but there's also a hint of truth. "You hate Escobar."

"Dumbo hates everyone. What else is new?"

Roman ignores Ava. Her being on his council will be….an adjustment, for sure. "I did, or I do, but….I can't deny what he did, and Lopez wants him to be the liaison between us and the Cartel, so it only makes sense to include him. In some things. Not all."

"Isn't he technically your in-law as well?"

"Don't remind me," Roman mutters, trying to wipe his brother's valid but irritating reminder from his mind.

"I hate to break it to you, Roman, but it seems Solana's maternal side of the family is….large." Matteo's comment doesn't help, but it's not meant to. Meant to remind The Tribal Chief that his future is most likely filled with forced interactions with….people. "It might benefit you to get used to….large family functions."

"Make sure that Stephanie girl is there."

Matteo frowns. "Did she not tell you, not so eloquently, might I add, to fuck off?"

"Sure did." Dwayne answers. Proudly, almost. "I'll wear her down."

"Oh my God." Ava rolls her eyes, standing up and heading to the kitchen. "I need another beer."

"I'll join you," Dwayne announces.

"Please don't," she objects. Not that it makes a difference as he says something about warming up a slice of pizza.

Their departure leaves Roman and Matteo alone. A blanket of silence befalls them. One that has Roman moving around in his seat, eager to down the rest of his beer. In the madness and chaos that's thrived and consumed his life in the wake of fixing everything, this evening of just….calm, of normalcy, is appreciated.

Needed, even.

"So…." Matteo starts, placing his beer down on the coffee table. "Your inner circle…"

The younger man nods, stroking his beard. "Well, there are openings now."

While Roman is dead serious, Matteo laughs quietly, shaking his head. "I bet there are."

For the Elder council as well, but that's also being taken care of. Another task Roman is overseeing with the help of his cousin and the man before him.

"Thank you, Roman." Matteo's voice has shifted to a serious, solemn tone. "I don't take the honor lightly. Especially after what's happened…."

Roman says nothing initially. Just nods as something unfamiliar and indescribable fills him. Emotion, maybe? Some form of it, perhaps. He just knows it's partially settled by the conversation he had with Lita about this.

One step at a time.

"You've earned it." Is the response he settles on. The latter portion of his response a bit difficult for him to share but a truth, nonetheless. "Besides, it might be kind of hard for us to work on this….brother shit, if you're on the other side of the world."

While it's not the first time Roman has referred to Matteo as his brother, it's certainly the first time he's verbalized it in an accepting manner.

Especially in front of Matteo whose small smile can only be described as one of relief.

And joy.

Happiness.

"I suppose you're right, fratello," he hums. "I suppose you're right…"

Fratello

Brother.

And for the first time, Matteo's use of the word doesn't anger Roman. Doesn't pick at a long-term, never healing, always open, fresh would.

It feels relieving.

Healing.

---------

Despite an evening of relaxation and camaraderie, the next day brings about more work. More shit to work through.

"So…." Matteo starts as the two walk into Bloodline Headquarters, Dwayne planning to meet them later in the day, tasked with carrying out a side quest for Roman. "Who are we killing today, fratellino?"

Little brother.

Again, no irritation. No vexation. Just….the calm.

"Depends on who pisses me the fuck off," Roman mutters, and the two brothers share a small laugh and chuckle that's almost instantly washed away from both the minute they walk into Roman's office to see someone already waiting, sitting in Roman's seat.

Roman's fist forms at his side. Alicia's days are fucking numbered.

"You got a minute to tell me who the fuck you are, and maybe I won't blow your brains out just yet."

The man smiles. Older. Very old. His face reveals that he's seen decades of this world past him by, his eyes filled with countless stories of mischief and mayhem. A smirk on his face accompanies him standing, revealing a height rivaling Roman and Matteo's. He comes to stand in front of Roman's desk, leaning back with his arms crossed over his slim build.

"Well, I'll be damned." His voice is thickly accented. Familiar. Italian. "Can't say I ever saw this shit coming."

Roman is ready to kill the old man and be done with it, but Matteo grabbing his arms stops him from adding to his never-ending kill count. Roman looks over to see Matteo's head turned slightly, studying, observing, but something else. Something unfamiliar. Alarmed. He looks alarmed.

Roman frowns. "What?"

But, Matteo says nothing. Not to his brother, at least.

"Nonno?"

And, at that, Roman's gaze shifts back and forth, quickly, between the two men.

His chest tightens, asking again, but for a completely different reason. "What?"

Gaze on the old man, Roman sees how he simply raises his chin, offering a nonverbal response. And confirmation.

Only then does Roman see it. The slight but now visible similarities between not only Matteo and this man, but himself and the man.

In all of them.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Matteo speaks in Italian, his voice even, the former shock and confusion easing into a coldness that Roman often feels and see in himself.

"Well." The older man makes a sound, rolling his shoulders, face turned up in a brief grimace. "Given all that's happened the past few weeks, we realized it was time—"

"We?" Roman cuts in. It's the first thing he's said to the man he now recognizes the same way Matteo does.

His nonno.

Their grandfather.

This is their maternal grandfather.

"Hi, boys..."

Another voice speaks, but this time, this time there is no word to describe just what courses through either of the brothers as they turn around in almost perfect synchronization. Initially guarded and partially alarmed, that's punted away the minute their sight confirms what the auditory already knew.

Roman doesn't get disturbed often. If ever. It's not in his character. Matteo's neither.

But, it's a miracle that neither man stumbles back at the sight before them.

She stands in the doorway, an expensive, beautiful, intricately designed scarf over her head, tied under her chin. A wrap that slender fingers with disfigured looking skin slowly moves to undo, allowing it to crumple in her hands. She swallows, the lines on her face prominent as she frowns, her familiar light brown eyes bouncing between the two stunned men.

The weight on Roman's chest has grown to an unbearable amount, so much so that it prevents him from speaking. From thinking. From breathing, it feels like.

No, Matteo is the one that finds the wherewithal to speak the word Roman can't find in him to verbalize.

"Mom?"

------

welp. do ya'll agree with roman's decisions regarding jey and jimmy?

also, yes.....matteo and roman's mother is still alive.

reminder: next chapter is the last one.

[julesnichols]

hiii again!! so building up on your tags about mark and helly's first time, i think the scene is even more tender and loving bc as you said about him having "the illusion of control", him leading a little is entirely directed towards causing her pleasure. i think him already knowing her body from the ortbo is something he channels towards showing her what her body can do for her, and the eye contact also shows that he's always looking for her reaction and responding to that the most. so it's also like him leading her through what he already knows about her, like she's getting to know herself through his memory of her if that makes sense?

I'm so sorry this took me forever to get to 😅 for context, this was about my tags on this post

And yes!!! It does make sense.

Helly starts the whole thing off by telling Mark that she hates that Helena stole that moment from them, and that Helena controls her down to the way she dresses. And then when Mark offers to tell her what happened, Helly stops him and says she wants her own memory, not Helena's. The biggest reason Helly has sex with Mark at that moment (though obviously, I think she probably wanted to before, but I just mean as the immediate catalyst) is her wanting to reclaim her first time with Mark for herself. They can't ever go back and make it Mark's first time again, but it's still Helly's and Mark wants to make it good for her.

So that's where what you're saying comes in, I think. He's gentle and reassuring when she's nervous and he only undresses as much as she does, following her lead on that. He has experience that she doesn't because of Helena, but presumably since Helena and Helly share the same body what Helly likes would at the least be similar to what Helena likes.

I think that Helly creating a tent of their own is also interesting in the context of wanting her own memory and not Helena's. I would imagine that she wouldn't want a 1:1 recreation but in her own body (and it's not). So I wonder if Mark would also try to be different with her as well. He's definitely got more control in the scene with Helly, even though it's an illusion in the sense that everything is for her benefit more than for his own. At the least, if it's solely based on what he did with Helena, it's still different both in the obvious ways such as the location but also in how gentle and slow the scene in 2.06 is (which is really interesting framing imo because undoubtedly Helena and Mark had more time at the ORTBO than Mark and Helly did in that empty room, yet the latter scene feels slower, even though I'm sure it was not).

So yeah idk exactly what this rambling is. But it's interesting what you're saying and also the way the ORTBO scene clearly influences when Mark sleeps with Helly when it's her first time and not his (and not his with her body, most importantly).

Also, there definitely are parallels so what you're saying is 100% supported (just see the gifset I made of how Mark cradles both their heads when he has sex with them).

[velvetvexations]

So, I've officially watched the IWTV series.

Sam Reid was fantastic and I'm disappointed I did not give him a chance largely because he was not the kinna guy I find beautiful in the way I felt Lestat should be, and because my initial reaction to making Louis Black while keeping him White was rolling my eyes and worrying about how their relationship would be presented. Both Tom Cruise and Stuart Townsend are Lestat to me in completely different ways, as they're two completely different characters, and I think Reid's Lestat is a third unique interpretation that hews closer to a synthesis of the Lestat of the first book with the Lestat of the later books.

The show's Louis is, for the most part, a fantastic character. One of the changes I initially hated was that changing him to a New Orleans business man around the turn of the century took away from him starting from a morally wrong position, and thus his hypocrisy, but as I've stated before I was mollified some learning he was a brothel owner, so they clearly had put enough thought into the issue that they felt the need to try and find a rough equivalent. I don't think they fully succeeded there - Louis, if anything, seemed like exactly the kinna guy you would hope was running a brothel, but the show did not abandon Louis' hypocrisy there and took pains to portray him as someone who was not honest with himself.

I again do not think they fully succeeded there, but the attempt was made, and I think that's better than if they just brushed off that aspect of the plot and left it to wither. I did really enjoy the depiction of his interest in art; it seemed like something he threw himself into because he was desperate to define himself, it was essentially a mid-undeath crisis. But as far as morality went, it was weird. Sure, he left that guy's wife to be killed, but other than that it was hard to tell how the show wanted me to feel about the fact that the main cast is all a bunch of serial killers with kills in the tens of thousands. I do not feel like this was properly engaged with, and it made it difficult to empathize with the interpersonal problems of mass murderers treating each other immorally, as though it were supposed to be shocking.

This made Claudia's desire to seek out more vampires odd. In the movie,* Louis and Lestat were the only vampires she'd ever known, so it made sense, after thinking they'd killed Lestat, that Claudia would want to find more. After Lestat and Antoinette and Bruce, this is instead portrayed as her wanting to find vampires that "aren't bastards" - but is that not already Louis? If that's her primary motivation, I do not understand Louis not being enough. In the movie, the search for more vampires comes off almost like a hobby, but in the series, it's tied to her need for companionship, even though she and Louis already have that, or should already have that. In the movie, she did not need a companion until she and Louis could feel themselves drifting apart, but here it never feels like they develop that kinna connection in the first place.

Throughout, Louis never feels like he honestly cares that much about Claudia? At least not in the past. Their relationship feels weirdly hollow from start to finish. He only even seems mildly perturbed when Armand is pretty viciously emotionally abusing her.

I think the reason for this is that the original relationship between them was soulmates. Claudia was Louis' next mistake after Lestat, in a way. The series doesn't want to go too hard on that because it's creepy and uncomfortable and awkward even though she's been wisely aged up a bit yet again, but the end result is that it can't really seem to decide what they are to each other. Louis goes back and forth between describing her as a sister and a daughter even after she made a point of demanding that she be treated as the former and not the latter.

Had I been the showrunner I'd have aged Claudia up even more so she could have the vaguely romantic relationship with Louis without it being a really difficult thing to watch as an audience member the way it is in the movie. I feel like that element is worth preserving even at the cost of most of the "she's going mad because her body is frozen at a hormonal hurricane" stuff, which the series certainly mentioned often but did not play with in a meaningful way, at least in my view. You could take that out and still have everything go basically the way it did. The bigger issue with that would be that it might somewhat negate Claudia being based on Ann Rice's daughter who died tragically young, but I don't think making her an older teenager when she died goes against that much more than making her a younger teenager. That's still tragically young, if not quite the same situation.

As for Claudia herself, one of the first things that got me interested after being sure I'd hate it is that I saw bits of both actresses in the series and was really impressed with how they seemed to embody the character. I stand by that, both performances are enthralling, but especially Delainey Hayles, which I only say because Bailey Bass did not get the chance to perform the even greater role Claudia was in season two. I really have no doubt Bass would have done equally as well.

Even so, while every second she was on frame was an amazing effort on the actresses' part that are triumphs in a vacuum, I have some issue with how Claudia was written over the course of the series. Aside from what I was talking about above about her desire for companionship, she was also the worst hit by the "am I supposed to care that they kill people?" thing, because her first few episodes they seem to lean in to the perspective that she's the worst of the bunch with her gleeful, out-of-control take to killing, but after that it feels like the audience is meant to view her as genuinely innocent and completely sympathetic. The fact that she killed innocent people on a regular basis was put even further to the side with her than it was with anyone else.

I'm a big fan of Claudia being fully Chaotic Evil, something Lestat created but could not foresee what he was unleashing. And of course, Claudia's whole thing in the film is that she is the exact opposite, in every way, of the innocent face she puts on to lure victims. I loved Claudia's character in the series and I don't necessarily mind that it was different, like with my three Lestats, I could accept this as something different, but this aspect to her arc felt inconsistent and the show seemed unwilling to examine it.

On the topic of her creation, I think I still would have preferred Lestat doing it to babytrap Louis, but changing it to Louis doing it to selfishly try and absolve himself of his guilt felt like a good stab at getting into Louis faults as a person, so I cannot be overly harsh on this point.

Something I thought the series did very, very well was making Armand so incredibly hatable. I noticed I was getting really annoyed at the possibility his and Louis' relationship was going to be validated, so the fact that he eventually was revealed to being the lying bastard that he was and did indeed plan the trial himself, and then took credit for Lestat saving Louis, was a very cathartic moment. Such a pathetic bastard.

I don't have much to compare Daniel to. Obviously Daniel is a much smaller role in the movie, really only coming alive in the last few minutes and serving as a tool for the greatest ending scene a film will ever have. People who have read the books past the first probably have more to say about that. Within the context of the series, he was occasionally bothersome, but that was in and of itself the point of his character in a lot of ways, serving to upset the narrative and flip the tables on Louis and Armand. That came across well.

Ultimately, in spite of the changes I enjoyed the series a lot and I'm very excited for the third season.

*which is my primary 'source' for the franchise, it's been nearly twenty years since I read the book but I've rewatched the film a few times a year for the past few years

[aventurineswife]

Something silly with big eater / trainer Reader (same one as before):

Quite a lot of the folks on Amphoreus having the same kind of mindset when they see Reader and thinking, “Oh they must be a rather gluttonous sloth,” up until Hyacine and Phainon (out of concern for Reader’s health, similar to Ratio) ask Reader to join them on a morning jog and Reader perks up like 🤩 and changes into their gym attire which is basically sweatpants and cropped hoodie exposing their abs, and shocking everyone with their lean but toned build. Dan Heng and the Trailblazer are very afraid for Hyacine and Phainon.

Meanwhile, the Kremnoans start paying attention like: 🤯😳🫣👀🤩😍😏😎😘 “Hello, beautiful, are you single~?” Coming from a nation that worships a war deity and would most likely value strength, they would probably find Reader checking off all the boxes of what might be typically attractive to them. The only reason almost none of them have made a move is because even they have trouble keeping up with Reader.

And, it’s no surprise that Mydei is the only one of them to keep up with Reader, and actually the first one to keep up without breaking much of a sweat.

As for Hyacine and Phainon, they were found almost dead in the baths after they finished training with Reader. 😅🫡

This is exactly the kind of chaos I love.

Hyacine and Phainon start off with good intentions, thinking they’re about to help Reader with their “bad habits,” only to instantly regret it when they realize Reader is a hyper-athletic powerhouse who just happens to eat a lot (sounds like my oc ahem). Meanwhile, the Trailblazer and Dan Heng—the only two who actually knew—are just watching in horrified amusement because they already saw this coming (THEY'VE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE 🗣️‼️).

The real kicker? Amphoreus natives losing their minds. They go from judging Reader to absolutely thirsting after them once they see how strong and disciplined they actually are. A nation that worships war and strength? Yeah, Reader just catapulted to peak desirability overnight.

And then there’s Mydei. Of course, he’s the only one who can keep up, and he does it effortlessly. The mutual respect between him and Reader would be insane, and you know people are gonna start shipping them immediately.

Meanwhile, poor Hyacine and Phainon are just floating in the baths like exhausted corpses, completely dead inside. They tried. They really did. But they were not built for this.

[ahavaas]

@runespoor7 correct! i was spitballing "what would get LWJ trip into Feelings (as opposed to hatesex)" and this is one of the things that would hit him like a fish to the face. KO'd. (*Jiang Wanyin* loving wwx better* than him? Devastating! now he's gotta fuck him to figure out what's going on there)

l o l oh man something that he'd turned down before? ahahahaha yeah let's assume yes (wwx made the original offer: it was not done gracefully and it did Not Go Well, ie JC said idk thanks for the pityfuck but I would rather get my face chewed off by bears than get involved in whatever you have going on with that lan bastard, out of my house, etc etc. LWJ was originally glad the offer was declined but also pissed about it b/c who did jiang wanyin think he was, saying no? like it wasn't extremely obvious that he wanted it??)

slj has been competently and incompetently blackmailed at this point in his life and none of it compares to chief cultivator LWJ showing up out of the blue, accurately accusing him of the one thing he figured no one would ever discover, and then (instead of possessively taking a swing or telling him to stay the hell away from his husband) going dinner's at five, wear something pretty, Make Nice and no one has to find out about it.

(would wwx believe LWJ? who knows, all the evidence is extremely circumstancial but LWJ is like I of all people have zero reason to lie about this and if he takes one look at your face he'll know I'm right, so. JC is now making nice in exactly the way he's been longing to and it's killing him! wwx is Extremely Suspicious about all this bullshit but like. JC making nice is something he's wanted for years at this point as well.)

thinking my pervert thoughts about zhanchengxian and how much of an absolute train wreck I think it would be (positive)

nah, these fuckers a) generally speaking do not communicate particularly well, b) have some real resentment built up that I do not think sex would necessarily fix, c) are not, even post-canon, really capable of being rational about each other.

considering a messy weird situationship where everyone is a little meaner than canon and coming into it from a slightly warped perspective:

wwx: yeah, Jiang Cheng has some feelings about the core thing and still might feel kind of abandoned (maybe? the most important thing is to never have an excruciating discussion about Our Feelings ever again). so to fix that, whenever we see him, we do this fun roleplay where I remind him he’s always going to belong to me and he gets treated like a toy. it’s hot and he’s into it; this is fine and should continue indefinitely.

lwj: fully seething but unable to deny my husband anything. if sect leader jiang is willing to do penance about the burial siege on his back that’s marginally acceptable (does it turn me on a little? yeah but in the way where I'm pissed off about it) the important thing is that he gets he’s not allowed to say no to anything wwx wants

Jc: as always wwx wants to have his cake and eat it too. fucking pathetic that I’m going along with it. fucking humiliating that lan wangji sees this shit. everything’s all in the past until wwx gets a hardon. it’s unfortunate that fucking the two of them is a politically smart move, particularly since I, like everyone else, have Moved On and am capable of handling this like a detached adult.

you know. hopefully you see the vision.

[hyumjim]

On harm reduction and Google

I took the last of my percocet today, which was prescribed to me after a surgery I had last week. Unlike previous days, I took a normal dose of Adderall as well today since I wanted to get some things done, but I'm cramping a bit. In the interest of caution, I googled "percocet adderall interaction" before I took it, to make sure this would not be harmful to me (although my doctor, who has a list of every medication I take regularly, would certainly have said something if it was a problem, so maybe I shouldn't have bothered. But hey, more information can't hurt you, right?

Right?)

This single Google search has taught me a lot about how profit-seeking entities taking advantage of enshittification have made it extremely difficult and complicated to access basic health information.

The TOP RESULT (and of course the one Google showcased) was from some drug rehab program called "Alina Lodge," which said:

I ain't no city-slickin' doctor with no fancy degree, but that don't sound right to me. I am not taking New Jersey's Premier Residential Treatment & Detoxification Campus at their word here. It would seem to me that the amount of each drug you're taking would probably be a factor. Let's now look at the second result... also from a drug rehab program! This one is called Banyan Treatment Center in Florida.

This is much longer and written even more poorly than the first result! We have a straightforward "NO" despite the concession that doctors will in fact sometimes prescribe these drugs together... followed by a long list of the reasons why doing this will definitely kill you. "You" are presumed to be a person who is "abusing" prescription drugs here and thus acting irresponsibly. There is no accounting for the amount of the drug you are actually taking, and therefore no allowance for any situation outside of one where you are speedballing. Incidentally, I do think that people who are intentionally speedballing are probably less likely to google "adderall percocet interaction."

Anyway, the third result is Drugs.com, and here is what Drugs.com has to say about this.

Wow, that's a really different answer! And yes, it is the answer I am willing to trust, given that it is from a reputable source that aggregates trusted information rather than a for-profit rehab facility. (I don't know how much these places charge because there's no pricing info on their website; I can only think the answer is "a lot.")

If we continue scrolling, there's some irrelevant results and then, at number six, yet another rehab website warning us of the deadly nature of this combination. This one is from Desert Hope Treatment Center in Las Vegas.

This "article" is written better than the others and as you can see, it actually includes sources, something the other two rehab sites did not bother to do. The author is a clinical psychologist, although apparently not one that works at the Desert Hope clinic (she's based in New York) so I guess they are hiring out psychologists to write articles for their website for some reason.. which is just weird. Anyway, it lends this article a veneer of polish and authenticity (I mean, Alina Lodge gave no credentials for the author of their article, meanwhile Banyan's article was written by their fucking Director of Digital Marketing!!!) but make no mistake, it's still bullshit. I mean, it is a crazy statement. The accepted wisdom is that you should take drugs under the supervision of your doctor; this website is saying even that is dangerous! (There is no elaboration as to what this means exactly, it just moves to the next topic lol). So let's look at the citation: "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, February 23). Polysubstance use facts." There's no link, so I can only assume they're talking about this little fact sheet from the CDC website. And what does that source say on the topic of prescription drugs?

Wow, that's not at all the same thing! That is a really shitty citation! Almost like these are not reputable sources of information, because they are ads. These are all ads, and I believe they are meant to make the reader feel like they have a drug problem, and the world is not safe for them, and they really need to go to expensive rehab right now. We'll come back to this later. It might be really obvious to you that these are ads, but they're dressed up to look like reputable medical sources (especially that last one), and a lot of people would not know the difference; particularly older people. This may be part of why every time I mention a medication to my mother, she tells me it's DANGEROUS.

Anyway, after another irrelevant result, at #8 we have GoodRx, which is a reputable source.

So exercise caution and look out for symptoms of serotonin syndrome, I got it! Finally some good fucking information. It turns out that I regularly take other medications that can cause serotonin syndrome too, so this is something I should be aware of anyway (although I think the risk is pretty low, or my doctors would have brought it up). As an aside, in the future I'll probably make use of things like the WebMD Drug interaction checker, where you can input any number of drugs and get a list of potential interactions in order of their seriousness. Of course, googling a potential interaction won't get you this tool or anything, because google sucks, as you know.

Back to our never-ending Google journey, I wanted to mention one more shitty result. "rehabcenter.net!" I hope you didn't think that my Google search was hampered by the lack of quotation marks, etc. That is the reason for some of the irrelevant results, which is why I later did a search with quotation marks around "percocet" and "adderall." With all the chaff removed, rehab center dot net shot up to #7 on the list! (Desert Hope also went up to #4, and GoodRx is simply GONE. Thanks, Google!) Now, you may be asking "what the hell is rehabcenter.net?" And I'm so glad you asked.

Rehabcenter.net is the property of Regard Healthcare, which owns several rehabilitation centers across the United States. Our dedicated team of treatment specialists will direct you or your loved one to these facilities if they believe it to be a good fit. All Regard Healthcare facilities uphold a quality of care rooted in accredited, evidence-based practices, and positive outcomes. (...) All the content found on Rehabcenter.net is originally created by a team of web developers, writers, researchers, marketers, and graphic designers. We pick topics of interest that are most valuable to our audience, and base them on search volume, relevance, and the latest research concerning addiction treatment. Content is fact-based and derived from credible sources such as medical journals, government agencies, and other relevant publications. (...)

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: RehabCenter.net is intended for educational purposes only and is not designed to provide medical advice of any kind. Any information found on RehabCenter.net should never be used to diagnose a disease or health problem, and in no way replaces or substitutes professional care. In the case of a suspected health problem, please contact your healthcare provider. The producers, contributors, sponsors, editors, and authors of RehabCenter.net have no responsibility or obligation to anyone (person or entity) for any harmful consequences that may happen, directly or indirectly, as a result of the content or information provided on RehabCenter.net.

This is somehow even slimier than anything previously seen here because rather than advertising for a single rehab facility, it's a fucking corporate entity. Despite all of these disclaimers, it is still very much pretending to give authoritative medical advice lol. The "article" that came up in our search has a little blue check indicating that it is "Trusted Content," and it was "medically reviewed" by a real(?) medical doctor! And what does it say about percocet and adderall, the two drugs that are currently battling it out in my bloodstream fighting to kill me?

It's very AI-generated, very DARE. And, to the point, none of this really applies to the people who I think are most likely to search for information about drug interactions, i.e. people who are using drugs for a medical/therapeutic reason. I also don't think any of this is actually helpful to "recreational" drug users or people with substance use disorders either. Because there is an obvious agenda behind these websites, it casts doubt on all of the information even if some of it is true. A harm reduction approach would actually help people who use drugs for any multitude of reasons, and potentially save lives, but this would mean presenting factual information in a non-judgmental manner, which is counter to the aims of these rehab websites, whose goal is to maximize their SEO and get people to pay for rehab. If someone is doing drugs while equipped with enough information to mitigate their risk of serious harm, then they're not in rehab, which is abstinence-only. So harm reduction is actually anathema to these people who are trying to profit off of addicts.

HELPFUL LINK ROUND-UP.

The National Harm Reduction Coalition's huge library of resources is great if you need or are interested in info for the safe use of illicit / non-medical / "recreational" drugs

WebMD drug interaction checker