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quin-ns · 7 months ago

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The blue V (JJ Maybank x Reader)

Series summary: JJ has a secret, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold onto it. He discovers his breaking point when his best friend starts to show interest in you, his step sister, who he’s already fallen hard for

Series tags: step brother!jj, dual pov, jealousy, one sided john b x reader, drinking, inappropriate relationship, public sex, oral sex (f receiving)

Series masterlist + OBX masterlist

JJ was trying to grapple with the fact that you kissing him somehow resulted in an awful night. It should’ve been a dream come true, but then you took it back in an instant.

He made himself at home on Pope’s couch for the next few days following the movie night, not knowing how to face you.

He thought he’d ruined everything when he kissed you that night in your room, but then in the morning, you’d given him some sense of relief. You didn’t hate him, and you were willing to forget about it. It wasn’t exactly what JJ wanted and sure it hurt like hell to agree, but at least he hadn’t lost you entirely.

But then it seemed as if you changed your mind almost immediately, evident by you going out of your way to ignore him at the movie. JJ couldn’t blame you for that, he had a feeling you were only trying to spare his feelings that morning. You were so loving like that, but he should’ve known that you always saw him like a brother—then he wrecked that, like he did with most good things.

JJ resolved to hide out until the movie was over in an attempt to accept his fate, but then you came along… and you kissed him. He was so happy to be wrong, but then you decided you’d made a mistake and decided it couldn’t happen again.

Everything had become such a mess. JJ wished he could blame you, or John B, or someone that wasn’t himself.

JJ wondered where he’d be right now if he hadn’t kissed you that first time, if he hadn’t crossed that line that there was no turning back from.

He couldn’t come up with an exact answer, but he guessed it wouldn’t be on Pope’s couch, pretending to be asleep so he wouldn’t have to get up just yet. He liked to think he’d be with you.

“I know your awake,” his friend said, calling his bluff. JJ reluctantly opened his eyes to find Pope standing over him, looking down with a brow raised. “Maybe I’d be more sympathetic if you told me why you were sulking.”

“I’m not sulking,” JJ argued. “I just know you’re gonna make me work.”

Maybe it was a believable enough lie, because Pope snorted.

When things got bad, JJ would usually stay at the Chateau. No adults around to worry about, and John B had the extra space for him—and you, on most occasions. It wasn’t like they weren’t on speaking terms, but JJ knew he overreacted and didn’t feel like apologizing quite yet. Plus, from what Pope mentioned, the other boy was busy anyway.

Or maybe it was just an excuse, he couldn’t know for certain.

He appreciated Pope for letting him stay, even if he’d begun to wear out his welcome. JJ could handle Heyward’s back handed comments, he’d dealt with worse. It was better than being at home, especially without you.

That was another thing he learned from Pope, that you were basically living at Kiara’s. He’d crack a joke about great minds thinking alike if you were around. But you weren’t, and he still blamed himself.

JJ wondered if Pope got the information from you or Kie, but he didn’t let himself ask. It didn’t really matter in the end as long as you were okay, even if you weren’t talking to him.

After he stormed off from the concession building, leaving you behind, he convinced Pope to pack up and head out early, leaving you and Kiara to finish the movie without them.

The entire drive back to Pope’s house, he dodged his friends' questions, and suppressed the urge to run back to you.

He wasn’t used to fighting with you, or even being mad at you, and he hated it. But he held onto that anger, because he knew if he saw you and you asked for forgiveness, he’d break. JJ clung to the stubbornness because it was easier. Even if you weren’t trying to hurt him, you had. It was bad enough feeling like he fucked everything up, but you giving him a taste of reciprocation only to regret it sent his mind in a spiral.

You told him that you couldn’t. Not that you didn’t want to. He reminded himself of that.

So if you did want to, what was so wrong about it? Really? He loved you, and you at least imagined a world where it was possible you could love him back the same way—enough to kiss him, at least. Maybe it only seemed wrong because of the way you two were acting.

You’d never been good at dealing with your feelings. That was something JJ learned the two of you shared.

JJ wondered what you were thinking right now. If it wasn’t for Pope practically dragging him off the couch to get ready for a day of grocery deliveries, JJ could’ve spent the entire day trying to guess what was going on in your head.

JJ wasn’t exactly thrilled that Pope drove them to the Chateau after all the deliveries were taken care of, but he didn’t protest, either.

Truthfully, he did miss hanging out with John B. The two of them had been best friends for what seemed like forever. Even he knew that the building resentment towards his friend didn’t feel right.

When JJ thought about it, like really thought about it, he bet that if he genuinely told John B to forget his feelings for you, his friend would try. He was a good guy like that.

JJ’s only problem was explaining himself, and that’s what kept his mouth shut about the entire thing.

John B didn’t mention it either, just greeted him and suggested the three of them go out on the boat to fish in the marsh.

There was a strange sense of relief JJ felt when John B didn’t apologize, because he wasn’t ready to either. The silent acceptance of one another’s presence was enough for them to get on with things.

It was late afternoon, so they’d be able to fish for a little while. They each had lines cast, sitting scattered along the boat. JJ happened to be on the front of the boat, while John B was on the right and Pope was on the left. They had to keep it balanced enough that it wouldn’t tip.

“He’s not so bad,” John B explained as JJ tuned back in. “He’s just really into his boat.”

Right, John B was talking about work.

“He’s paying you enough, right?” JJ piped up, looking away from his line to his friend. “To have you on call like this?”

“Not exactly ‘on call’, but yeah. Ward’s being fair,” John B explained with a shrug.

JJ smirked to himself as he looked forward. “I still think Ward wouldn’t notice if we borrowed his boat for the night.”

John B scoffed out a laugh.

“He definitely would, JJ, it’s not happening.”

“I’m not spending my summer in jail,” Pope joined in.

John B and JJ exchanged a smile over their shoulders, and everything seemed back to normal.

“We should’ve invited the girls,” Pope said randomly. “Kie would’ve made sandwiches and Y/N always brings her speaker.”

“Kie won’t let us keep anything we catch and Y/N gets bored if we’re stopped too long,” John B countered. He smiled to himself. “If Y/N were here, she’d already be jumping behind the wheel and driving way too fast.”

JJ found himself chuckling, because it was true.

“When she drives it’s like she’s trying to throw us all off,” JJ added fondly. “But we let her anyway.”

“It’s not like you can argue with her,” John B continued. JJ shared a smile with John B at the thought. “She always wins.”

“It’s ’cause you guys let her,” Pope joined in, causing both JJ and John B to turn and look at him. Pope shifted to face them. “What? It’s true. Especially JJ.”

JJ couldn’t argue because it was true, like Pope said.

A curious look appeared on John B’s face.

“You think the girls talk about us when we’re not around?”

The three of them shared a look at John B’s question.

“Probably not,” Pope finally said, turning back to his line. He sounded almost disappointed.

If Pope liked you too JJ might have to jump into the ocean.

John B exchanged a look with JJ before asking, “You good, man?”

JJ swore he noticed the same selfish worry on John B’s face, and it reminded him John B was supposed to be an obstacle.

“You think Kie even notices me?” Pope asked.

JJ felt a weight off his chest. Somehow he’d forgotten about his own suspicions about that. He’d been so caught up in his own self destruction, it was hard to keep track of everyone else.

“We’re all friends, man, of course she does,” John B supplied, but he knew that’s not how Pope meant it.

“Right,” Pope said. He got to his feet, evidently done with trying to catch anything. None of them had been successful yet. “Just forget it,” he decided, reeling in his line. “We have rules for a reason.”

No Pogue on Pogue macking. It was supposed to maintain all of their friendships with one another without anything getting complicated or anyone getting hurt. The more JJ thought about it the lamer it sounded. It was pretty useless now.

No one knew quite how to respond to that, because if John B and JJ told him to ignore the rule, things could get weird. If they told him to follow it, they’d be hypocrites.

As John B got up to go to the wheel after reeling in his line, JJ watched him. He wondered what John B would have to say about it when it came to you.

You were someone worth breaking rules for, JJ knew that all too well.

He tried to smother the sudden wave of jealousy that threatened to overtake him. Him and John B were cool now and he didn’t even have to address the argument. That should’ve been a win in JJ’s book, but he couldn’t help but think about what would happen the next time you all hung out.

It made his stomach turn to think he might have to wait a while for that. He hadn’t seen your face in person in days, hadn’t heard your voice in just as long, and he was going through withdrawals. Photos in his phone of the two of you together only made his heart ache when he looked at them before sleeping. JJ tried to dream of you, but when he woke up he could never remember the details. There was only a familiar pang in his chest that he took to mean he had.

Every time he zoned out, he remembered the kiss. Mostly the second one, where you had kissed him. Where you’d held him and he’d pressed his body to yours.

JJ cleared his throat, face growing flushed at the memory. If you hadn't rejected him, JJ wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to stop at just kissing you that night.

He looked out in the murky water, getting only ripples of his reflection. It looked wrong without you at his side.

Back at the Chateau, they lounged on the porch, now avoiding the topic of you and Kiara. They all did it in a not-so-subtle manner, but no one commented on it either.

JJ was relieved, because the longer he thought about you, the more he started to internally spiral. It didn’t help that John B was right there, sitting on the couch that fueled the fire not too long ago.

He wasn’t even sure you liked John B like that, but JJ still held enough overall doubt to keep him on his toes. He didn’t think you would kiss him either, or that you’d reject him right after. He was finding it harder to read you these days and it got to him.

“There’s gonna be a party on the beach tonight,” John B mentioned once steady conversation began to dry up. “Apparently everyone is going.”

Everyone. That could mean you.

For as far as he’d gone out of his way to avoid you to spare himself, JJ missed you. He wanted to see you. JJ couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone this long without seeing you and it was becoming unbearable. Another part of him wanted to go to get an answer. If he could just talk to you, maybe he could get you to see his side of things. If he couldn’t… JJ didn’t want to think about it at the moment.

“I’m down,” JJ replied, already getting lost in his own mind, trying to formulate what to say to you. It excited him in a strange way as all the outcomes he wanted overtook his brain. He zeroed in on the positives, the ones where he got exactly what he wanted—to be happy with you. “How ‘bout you, Pope?”

“Yeah, sure,” Pope agreed with a nod. “I just gotta stop by my house first.”

Having dinner with Pope’s family was nice, but JJ was itching to get out of his seat the entire time. He should’ve stuck with John B so he could be at the beach party by now, but he couldn’t say no to Pope, and Pope couldn’t say no to his mother.

It was way past sunset when they finally got to the Boneyard, and the party was in full swing. People cluttered the shore, music blasted from a speaker somewhere, kegs were placed about, filling the red solo cups that nearly everyone carried in their hands, and a decently sized bonfire was lighting the entire scene.

The entire car ride, JJ had been preparing himself. He decided he was going to tell you everything. Maybe you had some idea (well obviously, he didn’t kiss you for no reason), but he was going to lay all his cards on the table.

Stupid things had good outcomes all the time, right?

They hadn't so far but he had a lingering bit of hope as he reminded himself you’d kissed him too. You wouldn’t do that for no reason, he was sure of it.

JJ actually felt pretty good when he crossed into the sand.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Pope announced, to which JJ just nodded.

He began to look around, knowing you were here. He had Pope text Kie to make sure. In hindsight it was a little intensive to Pope, but JJ could make it up to him later.

When he found you, you were sitting on a fallen tree trunk that had sunken into the sand since the last big hurricane knocked it down.

Just seeing you took his breath away, you always did. You didn’t seem real to him, he didn’t know what he’d done to deserve you in his life but he would be forever grateful.

And then, from a distance, he heard you laugh. He should’ve had the forethought to look who you were talking to, but JJ had been so distracted by the sight of you after many days without.

One flick of his eyes to the left and he sucked the air back into his lungs.

Right next to you was John B, sitting too close for JJ’s comfort. The two of you were talking and flirting, probably. JJ had eyes, he could see the way his friend was looking at you.

He swallowed, forcing himself to look away.

He didn’t see the point in watching any longer, a sour feeling was already building in his gut. Then, shocking even himself, JJ did something he had a hard time doing all his life.

He walked away.

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paper-starz · 1 year ago

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WELCOME HOME THEORIES AND ANALYSIS! FRIDAY THE 13th EDITION!

HUH?? A surprise Welcome Home Update???

WITH LORE AND SECRETS?!?!?!

Ohohohoho! You know yours truly loves lore! And oh boy... Theres a lot to unpack here.... So buckle your seatbelts folks! I might've discovered something BIG

WARNING! THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE HALLOWEEN UPDATE! OH AND THIS IS GONNA BE VERY VERY LONG!

Ok, first things first, THE THEORY

I might've figured out who the main antagonist could be, and it's not Wally or Home. In fact, it has been staring at us the entire time, we've just never realized it.

I think the main villain of Welcome Home could be the spooky swirly void living inside of Home.

"WHAT?!?! This early on in story??" I hear you say! "This couldn't be possible!"

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE DEAR VIEWER! And truth be told, there could be multiple antagonists in Welcome Home, but all evidence points to this swirly guy being the source of everything wrong thats happening. Also, from now on, I'll be calling it the Entity. (Spooky swirly man sounds so silly!)

EVIDENCE 1: It makes people sick.

It seems like the Entity emits some kind of black "ink" that makes people sick once you touch it. It also seems like the WHRT knows about this too! Going into great lengths to order everyone to wear gloves.

Writing on sticky note atop vinyl glove box reads: Put on gloves before handling ANY art. Call me if we run out!

Not to mention that think ink also seems to effect anyone psychologically, making them want to discover more about Welcome Home, even if it harms their own health.

In the ABOUT US page:

When I unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open. Open. Open. I want it out. I’m going to get it out.

In the STAFF ONLY page:

Everything is so disgusting to touch. Sometimes the mail doesn't come for weeks. I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope.

I keep getting phone calls, now. Or at least, I assume that's what's happening. I keep hearing it ringing. All day, sometimes. I check my phone and there's no new messages. I thought maybe some of the site staff were pranking me, but I tore up the workspace and couldn't find another phone that might be ringing. All that was there were the toys for the exhibit, and obviously those couldn't be ringing. But I kept hearing it anyway. The phone ringing and ringing... ...I keep digging and digging. I've poured over every recovery the WHRP has given me access to, every inch of their website, and the things I find make less and less sense. If I didn't know better I'd say everyone was coming together to pull an elaborate prank on me. I can still hear the phone ringing now. I don't know how to answer the phone. I need to answer the phone.

The NEWS PAGE also mentions ringing! (This could be the same person who has been affected by the ringing)

So many guest signatures… So many of them are trying to communicate. What are you telling me for? Do you think I can answer? What are you trying to do to me? I’m closing that guest book, I’m not playing this game anymore. The ringing is enough.

And even affecting them physically as well!

NEWS PAGE

What is it, I hear you pleading! Clawing at your screens just as we have! Coughing, headaches, nausea- I know. I know. It will take a lot of cleaning, preparation, and polishing on our part, but it is a worthwhile labor of love.

Coughing, headaches, nausea.... The Restoration Team is growing sick, yet they are completely obsessed with restoring more evidence for Welcome Home.

They even know that they are growing sick, they wear gloves, they clean, they prepare, they polish the artwork over and over and warn anyone NOT to touch the ink, but it's not enough. They need to restore Welcome Home, even at the cost of their own health.

Heck, the entire page (and studio) is literally dowsed with black ink!

And it seems to be growing too...

Theres more stuff on the walls I keep hearing phones ring.

"More stuff" as if he's surprised, as if there were less ink on the walls than before. And he keeps hearing phones ringing... Its growing...

And it made its way into the real world....

EVIDENCE 2: SALLY'S HORROR STORY!

Ah yes! Some evidence from the Halloween Update! This time, from Sally Starlet’s Macabre Menagerie of Monstrous Mischief Making! Specifically, I want to analyze the "noticeable gap" in the audio, the only part where the WHRT did NOT transcript. (This was written by yours truly btw!)

SALLY: What?! No, no, and no! …It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here. So many stories have risen about their origins… But I know what it is searching for. It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here. It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering. Even the occasional unfortunate insect that has crossed its path is not enough… Those who have lived through the night say it isn't quiet about it either. They always say you can hear when it gets closer to you. Do you know what sound it makes? I hear it. Every. Night. You can hear it too, if you listen. Especially if you wait next to your window. First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…

Now, I know what you're asking. Why even bring up this little story at all? What does this story have to do with the Entity?

Context, my dear viewer. If you listen closely, the audio is too clear. No static, no nothing. This segment is also the only part where it didn't get transcripted because it was "inaudible". Which is strange, because you and me and you and that guy and me can hear it just fine! And THAT is why it got me theory senses tingling.

Plus, the story is about a monster too! Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

So let's analyze!

"…It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here."

This could be talking about the Entity. We don't know what exactly the Entity wants, just that it looks like it's determined to reach a goal that we don't know much about.

"It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here."

It feels like this is talking about the portal-like properties the Entity has. "Gobbling" up neighbors whole and sending them to another dimension, ours.

Sally also states "That is why so few live here", which makes me question how many neighbors used to live here before. Perhaps Julie's siblings, Howdy's family, Barnaby's mom? Were they sent to another dimension? Where are they now????

Not only that, but Sally makes it clear that it goes after neighbors at nighttime. And what time does Welcome Home usually update? 7 PM (*Now, this time could be different because of timezones, but the updates usually happen during the night)

"It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering..."

"First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…"

I think Sally is giving us an EXACT description on how the Entity managed to break into Home.

1st, theres rustling in the bushes. Home does have bushes surrounding him.

Then, a scratching on the pavement and walls as it crawls up. The Entity could've broken into Home by either climbing through the window or through the roof.

Finally, a guttural sound. Now... where did I hear a guttural sound in Welcome Home before.... Oh yeah! Wally. <- Click this handy-dandy clip and you can hear something quite monstrous right below Wally's voice!

"Wait a minute.... Did you say Wally has a guttural voice???"

I did, dear reader. I did.... Which brings me to my next point:

EVIDENCE 3: POSSESSION AND PUPPETEERING!

Throughout our inspection of the Welcome Home website, we've seen countless times of Wally becoming more and more distressed as each update comes out.

But we've also seen a lot of inconsistencies regarding our lil' Darling! In fact, I even compiled these into a theory in which there could be 2 people hacking into the website!

And while that I still do believe there are more than 2 people hacking into the website... I don't think the Question Answerer is the one doodling. He's still hacking onto the website, but unlike Wally, he writes it out.

The last piece of evidence just proves its the same guy writing this! The Question Answerer!

I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope. (see above)

Ok but if the Question Answerer isn't the other guy doodling... then who is making all of the inconsistent doodles??

Why, the ENTITY!

Not only are the doodles inconsistent, but even the sound of Wally's voice sound... quite off if you compare enough audios.

For example! Compare the interview audio with the newest Happy Haunting audio, do you notice anything peculiar about Wally's voice? Especially in the Happy Haunting audio? (If you have trouble finding it, compare these few timestamps below)

4:08

4:51

8:45

13:39-15:29

It sounds... off. Robotic even! It's slow, and the articulation is way different from the interview audio. In the interview audio, you can hear how happy Wally sounds! Even in this audio (and this one too), you can hear Wally growing increasingly frustrated. Yes, its still monotone, but you could hear emotion!

But the Happy Haunting audio, it's neutral. Yes, it IS monotone, but it feels like someone doing an impersonation of Wally rather than Wally actually speaking himself. In fact, the audio reminds me of the phone audio right here. It has the same pauses and neutral tone, save for the very audible growl right underneath Wally's voice.

But speaking of the phone audio.... Did you catch that?

...Do you know who I am? [The heart beat and ambience resume.] [Gasp.] Oh no. Well that’s not neighborly at all. We’ve never met before. But don’t worry. Even though you and I haven’t spoken before, I’ve seen you... Every time you have looked into my eyes. I want to know… What did you see? [Silence.] I hope you saw a friend, but I’m not sure you saw a name... Stand still. Let’s start over. Ring ring ring. Click. Hi, I’m Wally. I’m so happy to finally meet you, I think you’re the absolute most.

...That's strange, isn't it? We definitely HAVE met Wally, not formally, but we do know about him (this fandom is proof of that!) So how come Wally is saying that we haven't?

Especially when in another audio, he says that we DO 'know him'.

…Why won’t you answer me, neighbor. Why can’t I hear you. You know me. You do. Please open. Let me in.

Contradictory, isn't it? We can't both know Wally and NOT know Wally at the same time. That's impossible....

Unless the phone audio Wally isn't our Wally... its the Entity.

Technically, we DON'T know about the Entity. It's not a character in Welcome Home and the things that we do know about it are just mere theories and speculations. It is our 'first' formal meeting with it.

Then why did it introduce itself as Wally? WELL BECAUSE ITS POSSESSING HIM! It's trying to convince us that it is Wally, using his signature catchphrase and even saying 'I hope you saw a friend'. Besides, if you were a weird portal monster, I doubt you would introduce yourself as one if you wanted to trick someone.

And if this possession theory does turn out to be true, it does explain the major inconsistencies happening in the website! Such as the doodles!

The Hearts!

THE HANDWRITING

THATS NOT WALLY'S HANDWRITING! He writes in CAPITAL LETTERS and in RED (not all lowercase and in blue!).

WALLY CAN'T DRAW HEARTS SO WHO'S DRAWING EM???

AND BOTH OF THOSE BARNABY DRAWINGS SURE DO LOOK INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. ALMOST AS IF SOMEONE WITH LITTLE DRAWING EXPERIENCE DID IT.

But if you still need a bit more proof to convince ya, here's some more!

W a L L y: You won't write back Wally: You're looking for me. Silly. Silly.

I think W a L L y is our Wally! He's getting desperate, but he knows that we won't be able to write back. Wally on the other hand is the Entity, it knows that we are looking for the main big bad antagonist, and it knows. It even mocks us.

And I think we've seen evidence of these possessions before. Look at none other than the bug audios!

In every single one of these bug audios, we are in the perspective of Wally himself. But in these bug audios, Wally doesn't say anything at all. Rather, he sits unmoving, listening into the conversation whether he has been invited there or not!

In this bug audio, Wally has been listening in on Sally and Howdy's conversation the entire time!

But thats not all! All of these bug audios are connected according to the conversation between Barnaby and Home! Which means that all of these bug audios are happening on the same day at a very short period of time, which is concerning on just how frequent Wally appears to be disassociating. Or if that's even Wally at all!

If that is the Entity controlling Wally, it feels like he's observing them, studying them. Perhaps that's why the audios always cut out whenever a neighbor says Wally's name, it snaps him out of that trance and reminds him that he is in fact the real Wally!

Which brings us to our latest bug audio (and by far the most worrying one), the Candy Spider! The Halloween Bug?? Idk it's this one <-

We've just gotten proof of Wally munching on an apple. This would've been fine and dandy in any other situation, but remember viewer! Context matters! Especially if we put into consideration that that is not Wally.

BARNABY: ‘Ey, how’s my little devil doin’ over ‘ere? You guardin’ my apple for me, pal? [There is a brief pause. What is he doing.] BARNABY: Oh— heh, I guess ya didn’t do a very good job at it. [Barnaby calls out to the room] Hey! Who took a bite outta my apple? I think I see some fang marks, Frank!

Yeah that SURE is definitely not worrying. Nope, none whatsoever!

Oh boy... I think that's everything. Well, not everything everything. I still don't think the Entity is the only bad guy, just the main one! The Playfellow Workshop is very suspicious, and while I do believe Wally and Home are most likely victims of everything that is going on, I don't think I should say that they are quite innocent yet.

In the banner, they are the only two NOT separated by hearts! It seems to me that they are working together to give out more evidence to the WHRT.

And Marlo... another company that is VERY suspicious. What did their logo look like again?

A house logo with an eye in the middle.... Why does that look so familiar?

AH.

Well that's clearly not suspicious!

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sunnynwanda · 2 years ago

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Surrender

"Seems like I've won again," Villain gloats, their smile all teeth as they land near their panting nemesis.

“Oh fuck off,” Hero groans, pulling themselves up from the ground. Every bone in their body feels worn down and ancient. The past two months have taken their toll on their body. Hero brushes their fingers over their sore thigh, a huge bruise already forming along the outer side of it. “Asshole.”

“It’s your fault, sweetheart,” Villain claims, unfazed when Hero grants them with a scowl. “I thought you knew how to put up a fight.”

And no, Villain did not intend for it to sound insulting. It just came out wrong. It’s not like they did not enjoy their battles. This was their favourite pastime. What could be more fun than an intense clash with a worthy opponent?

Except, Hero did not seem to appreciate their efforts anymore. Not for the last couple of months, they did not. And that would hurt Villain’s pride if only they weren’t so confident. Hero had hoped the evident lack of enthusiasm and vigour would make Villain question things, but alas. Villain was oblivious. Blissfully so.

Hero clenches their teeth, suppressing a growl when Villain decides they didn’t take enough beating yet and charges at them again.

“How many times am I gonna have to beat you for you to understand you can't defeat me?” Villain’s tone is scornful, almost mocking. Hero is on the verge of plain eliminating them. Solely for attitude.

Oh, how they want to show Villain what they’re capable of. Give the dense little shit a taste of their own medicine and send them flying across the city straight into the hospital. A month in intensive care would do them good.

But they cannot.

“How many times am I gonna have to lose for you to realise I'm not trying to defeat you?”

The words slip out before Hero can stop them. Villain freezes in their tracks, and Hero mirrors them. Maybe this is for the better. God knows how long it would take their fool of a Villain to figure it out.

“Excuse me?” Villain looks scandalised, eyes wide open as they take a step back, hands gesturing between them. “What the fuck are we doing then? Ballet?”

“Well, you're obviously trying to beat me to a pulp,” Hero scoffs, grateful for the shock that reserves Villain from another attack.

“I’m really... not. I just want you to surrender to me.” They explain, surprised at the easiness of their own revelation. Their eyes roam over Hero’s frame, bruised and bloodied. “That leaves my question unanswered.”

“Hm?” Hero straightens, pushing off the wall and striding towards Villain, who remains frigid despite the wheels in their head, turning at an ungodly speed.

“If I'm the only one fighting to slay you,” they start, watching Hero’s every movement with caution and... anticipation? Villain shakes their head to set their thoughts in place, yet they are left floating around aimlessly. “What are you doing exactly?”

Come to think of it, Hero was much stronger than them. The only way for Villain to score a win was by outsmarting them. Which they often did, but now it felt like Hero was the one that tricked them. A revolting thought for a genius with a reputation to uphold.

“Struggling to get you to realise a thing or two,” Hero sighs in exasperation, hopeless at this point. The charming dumbass they called their archnemesis was never gonna get it, were they?

“Like?” Villain persists, refusing to admit their agitation. Hero is within reach now, and Villain struggles to keep their hands at their sides. Their fingers curl into fists to resist the urge to grasp them and demand an explanation.

“Like the fact that I've been slayed a long time ago,” Hero’s voice is a whisper as they take one last step, coming face to face with their enemy, their noses inches apart. It takes Villain a second to register the words and the meaning behind Hero’s smile. “I surrender.”

With an audible growl, they push Hero back and press them against the wall with a hungry kiss.

“Took you long enough,” Hero grins, earning a pointed look. Villain shakes their head, leaning in for another kiss before taking their idiot of a hero home to patch them up and lecture them on the virtues of oral communication.

Masterlist

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from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras · 7 months ago

Text

Since we’re talking about Helm Hammerhand again in light of the latest War of the Rohirrim news, I’m gonna use the moment to unload my take (alluded to earlier this week) that Helm’s life and legend are a lot less heroic and a lot more ambiguous than they’re often treated.

The popular version of Helm is that he killed the troublemaking Dunlending upstart Freca with a single punch before leading his people through a combination war-famine-climate disaster and dying on their behalf as part of the effort. But that story misses a lot of the details and ignores the things that were very much Helm’s fault!

Let’s start with Freca. First of all, he was actually a Rohirrim, not a Dunlending. He claimed to descend from King Fréawine, and maybe you don’t believe him about that. Fair enough. But he both physically lived in Rohan – he had a stronghold near the Gap of Rohan – and was a member of Helm’s own royal council. So he was absolutely a citizen of Rohan, even if he perhaps had Dunlending heritage (as would many people who lived in the border area).

Now, was Freca a jerk? It sounds like it! He was rich and influential and he “paid little heed” to Helm and only bothered to show up to councils when it suited him. Not great! And he eventually showed up to one such council “with many men” to seek Helm’s approval for a marriage between Helm’s daughter and Freca’s son, Wulf. All that suggests that Freca was an ambitious schemer who probably didn’t have good intentions and might have been an actual threat. But Helm’s reaction on that day was unhinged. He calls Freca fat, makes him sit around waiting before Helm will speak to him, “forces” Freca outside, sends Freca’s men away with the assurance that the two of them are just going to talk, then insults him again and sucker punches him to death before designating his entire family (“Who, us? We weren’t even there!”) as enemies of the kingdom. That seems…over the top?

Helm doesn’t have to like Freca’s proposal, but it wasn’t unreasonable — marriages of strategic alliance between powerful families are as old as time and often prudent. Helm could have just said no (though it would have been nice for him to check with his daughter because for all we know she was into Wulf!). Instead, he verbally and physically bullies Freca, lies to get him isolated and then straight up murders him. There’s no evidence this was necessary. Helm was on his home turf, surrounded by loyal men. Freca does nothing physically aggressive — he even waits as directed when Helm tells him to! — and he only gets verbally aggressive after Helm has already insulted him.

Helm could have played this much smarter and much calmer and avoided a whole lot of later heartbreak. Because when Rohan is invaded from the east 4 years later, guess who decides to take advantage of the moment to invade from the west? An army of Dunlendings led by Wulf! That results in Helm and the Rohirrim being holed up at the Hornburg for the Long Winter, where they all suffer grievously from war, famine and 5 months of snow and cold. Helm behaves admirably during this time, exhibiting courage and tenacity, and he suffers right alongside his people before dying in their defense. But he wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place if he hadn’t all but pushed Wulf into the Dunlendings arms by murdering his father and banishing the whole family.

What I think ACTUALLY happened is that Helm was a total hothead who hated the fact that Freca had an independent power base and failed to show him enough respect as king. He was pissed off at the very idea that he’d have to make a concession to Freca’s power by uniting their families, and he probably felt threatened by the possibility that Freca or Wulf might usurp him at some point. So he committed cold blooded murder and then successfully ran a propaganda campaign to paint Freca and his whole family as foreigners to delegitimize them and excuse his own behavior. And as a result, he got a whole ton of good Rohirrim (including both of his own sons, Háma and Haleth!) killed during the horror of the Long Winter and ended up dead himself.

So I don’t know. That’s not very heroic! I’m open to having my mind changed. But he seems like he’s, at best, a MUCH more complicated figure than the Rohirrim remember him as. And, at worst, he’s kind of a dick.

#helm hammerhand #freca #helm’s not such a hero after all #rohirrim #lotr #lord of the rings #Appendix A babe!

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teecupangel · 1 year ago

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Im curious about what is cannon and fannon in the AC fandom. Ive read many different origins for the scar Desmond has, but most people go with Bill being the one to give it to him. Is this because its cannon from a little known source(similiar to the fact that Altaïr can swim, as seen in the 3ds games, but most people make him unable to swim despite the fact) or is it widely accepted fannon? What about Masyaf castle? Ive read some fics about it being an Abstergo facility with the Templars having opened the Library, while others write it is just been left to time. And ofc cant forget Eagle Vision. Is it a unique ability to Altaïr only? Did his father have it too? Did every novice have to master it before becoming an assassin?

There could be others, but these are the facts that im mostly curious about. Thank you for answering. ^^

So I’m gonna break this into sections so I don’t have to think about scene transition or whatever rambling equivalent that has.

Altaïr Can Swim

We all accept that he can’t swim because that’s funny. However, if we take into consideration how Altaïr can swim as seen in his ‘sequel’, this is pretty much the complete opposite of “Altaïr has never been hit” status that he has in the fandom. They both causes desyncing so if we believe in “Altaïr has never been hit” then it’s not that Altaïr can’t swim, it’s that “Altaïr never slipped or fell into the waters” which actually points more to Altaïr being a badass. But we decided that Altaïr not being able to swim is a much funnier idea and went to town with it XD

Bill Being The Reason Desmond Has His Scar

Okay, so ngl, I also liked to write that Bill is the reason Desmond has a scar, either directly or indirectly (I mostly go for indirectly with another kid being the reason why he has a scar but Bill was there ‘supervising’), mostly because I like the plot point that getting the scar is the thing that finally snaps Desmond and got him to leave the Farm ‘randomly’.

Anyway, the canon/fanon blur a lot in this one as there are enough people that believe Bill made the scar as seen by this post.

My thoughts on that is pretty much summarized in the tags I left in that one:

#wait it's official? #or did we as a fandom just collectively saw how bill treated desmond and went #ah yes he's why desmond has that scar #seriously i hc it and it makes sense narratively for bill to be the reason why desmond has a scar #whether from training or by accident #but i don't remember it being even implied in any games #especially in ac rev where it could have easily been added in

To add to that, I’m talking about AC Revelations specifically because of Desmond’s rant in an early scene where he finally shouts at Bill for being a bad father. That was the perfect time to just drop that bombshell of Bill being the reason why Desmond has his scar but we didn’t get that. That’s the main reason why I don’t think it’s canon that Bill is the reason why Desmond got his scar but there’s 3 more scenes in AC Revelations where he could have talked about it, all of them from Desmond’s memories scenes.

I also talked about how I couldn’t find any evidence of Bill being the reason that Desmond got his scar in this post.

But the summary is I tried looking for any information about it in the books, pamphlet, manuals and references I had (I say ‘had’ because I had to leave them back in my old home after I moved due to space constraints TTATT), only focusing on any mentions of Desmond and Bill

Assassin's Creed Limited Edition Art Book (p40-41)

Assassin's Creed The Complete Visual History (p290 -292) - p291 has the line "... Desmond's father, William, adds an element of family drama..." calling it family drama sounds like an understatement considering how Bill and Desmond act around each other

Assassin's Creed The Essential Guide (p14, 66, 161, 218-219, 236, 238, 240) - this book is so weird. P218 says that Bill and Gavin shared the mentor role after the Great Purge, p237 says that only Bill took the mentor role (but didn't call himself the mentor) after the Great Purge

Assassin's Creed Atlas (p159, 165)

Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia (White Version) (p18, 158-183)

Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia (White Version - JP ver) (p18, 158-183)

Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia (Black Version - JP ver) (p17, 113-127) - The Black Version is an older version, only going as far as AC Revelations + The Fall comics, The White Version has up to 3 + Liberation

No mentions at all about Desmond's relationship with Bill in the following:

That short game manual that's inside the game disc for AC1-AC3 (JP ver)

Assassin's Creed Reference Guide (JP)

Assassin's Creed Perfect Guide (JP)

Assassin's Creed 2 Reference Guide (JP)

Assassin's Creed Archive Book (JP)

In conclusion:

The most I got can be summarized from Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia, p182

"... driven, intelligent but emotionally distant father of Desmond Miles..." " ... technically minded man, fully devoted to the Assassins and their cause, whose passion for politics outweighs his responsibility to his family. While William's wife has always been able to deal with this emotional distance, young Desmond could not. Eventually he grew to feel that his father was more of a drill sergeant than a parent and fled the compound, despite his parents' repeated warnings to never leave."

If Bill did directly or indirectly cause Desmond's scar, I could not find it in the official books I have or even on Desmond's or Bill's AC Wiki page.

Unless someone can point out where it officially states that Bill caused Desmond's scar, I believe the whole "Bill is the reason for Desmond's scar" is AC fandom's own Mandela Effect. Most probably something that started as a headcanon (and for a very good reason) and is commonly used by fanfic writers (including me) which has evolved as a Word of Dante that we, as a collective, have mistaken as a Word of God.

Masyaf’s Current Situation

There’s no official note of the current situation of Masyaf in the modern days and I think Ubisoft would probably not do anything about it narrative-wise… I’d honestly be surprised if they did anything about it if they make an AC1 Remake. Now, it’s a bit nebulous if the Templars did manage to get the library but it should be noted that the last time we see Altaïr’s Apple, Ezio let it stay in the library and the ACR novel gave us:

“The bookshop was used as an outpost for the Assassins, and Ezio stored the Masyaf Keys in the chamber where he had found the first key, underneath the bookshop.”

If the Templars got into the bookshop then they’ll find all the keys and would have everything they needed to get into the library.

However…

The Apple would find itself in the hands of Queen Elizabeth I and Mahatma Gandhi before falling into Templar hands.

As far as I can see, Queen Elizabeth I isn’t a Templar so it’s highly possible that the British Empire did their usual ‘finders keepers’ thing and this wasn’t a nefarious Templar plan. So either Ezio got the Apple out of Masyaf and hid it somewhere else that would later be found by someone (maybe John Dee?) or Ezio… just left it in Masyaf?

I wanna give Ezio the benefit of the doubts and believe that he knew leaving it in Masyaf would be such a bad idea so the Apple was most probably transferred somewhere else.

Which means that Masyaf was completely abandoned by the end of Ezio’s era which Ezio would have believed be something that Altaïr wanted to happen.

I realized now I’m rambling further and further away from the actual topic for this section.

In conclusion: we have no idea if Masyaf is abandoned or occupied by the Templars in modern day. I will also add if it’s occupied by Templars, it might be a secret ‘base’ or it’s affiliated with a non-Abstergo Entertainment section of Abstergo because, as far as I can see, Abstergo Entertainment’s headquarters are based on existing Ubisoft headquarters (ex: Black Flag’s Abstergo Entertainment is in Montreal = Ubisoft Montreal)

Personally, I think that Abstergo would take over Masyaf castle either officially or unofficially as a way to show the Brotherhood how they hold one of the most important locations in their history. That’s the kind of power play the current Inner Sanctum would do.

(It would be funny in a ‘that’s fucked up’ kind of way if Masyaf is an Abstergo secret facility that does experimental work with captured Assassins as guinea pigs which they have done in the Philadelphia facility (Fall comics) and Madrid (AC Movie))

Eagle Vision

It was actually never explicitly stated who had Eagle Vision and who hadn’t but it’s noted that humans, in general, have the capability to unlock Eagle Vision although there are humans who has an easier time unlocking it.

AC1 noted that the Levantine Assassins knew about Altaïr’s Eagle Vision but there’s no evidence to suggest that they have it as well. Most of the time, they just tell Altaïr to use his vision without saying if they have it as well or not.

(it’s just personal preference to write that 12th century Assassins, both in Masyaf and Alamut, would have some form of Eagle Vision to show how much the Brotherhood had ‘fallen’ in the modern day. Canon actually points that only a small number of people can access Eagle Vision)

#ask and answer #assassin's creed #desmond miles #altaïr ibn la'ahad #teecup analyze more than necessary #headcanon: assassin’s creed #william miles

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businesscasualart · 6 months ago

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I’m curious if you have any thoughts or headcanons about Onslaught and alcohol. I imagine being a semi-functioning evil team is stressful and if Psimon is chucking everyone’s vapes then cigs and 420 isn’t an option, then alcohol is the second best thing right? Besides drinking together is team building and leads to this wonderful thing called “actually talking about your trauma instead of bottling it up for once”.

AAAA sorry about taking so long to get around to this.

I need to stop checking my inbox until I’m FULLY ready to yap and ramble. I need that lil blue dot reminding me I have asks so bad.

That IS a good question and I’m so flattered that y’all bother with my content. <3 I think they’d be at least somewhat different about alcohol.

(Sorry for any typos in advance, I wrote this mostly at various doctor’s appointments. ALSO. Last thing to apologize for. I’ve never vaped or smoked when I wrote the last part, but I also have never consumed alcohol and that fact may be more evident in this one)

Cw: Alcohol and some references to alcoholism, uh…references to angst but maybe more comfort than angst, kinda all over the place <\3

Okay so, in the beginning, Onslaught was Mostly teens. Psimon was BARELY even old enough to drink in America at the ripe young age of 21, flat. And I thinnkkkkkk Psimon is American? Even if he’s not, it seems the rest of Onslaught is, so I think Psimon would probably step up and be all “No, no,” confiscate all the bottles and cans and it’d make the teens so mad and indignant. Literal felons are being BABYSAT. Even when they travel where the drinking age is lower.

But when the teenagers turn old enough to drink, they have a whole little birthday celebration with what they can get, and of course, offer the first taste of alcohol. Their choice for what it is, as long as the team could afford it. Of course, they laugh and tease if they recoil from the taste.

Most of the team is pretty fond of drinking, usually together. It’s nice bonding.

Devastation is the only exception to the “Psimon Says no alcohol until you’re 21” rule from the beginning. The team can argue “She is LITERALLY one (1) year old” all they want. She is LITERALLY built different, Psimon is fine with her drinking.

Idk if she particularly has a preference for any kind. She’s probably one of those who subscribe to the belief of “It ain’t right if it doesn’t burn a bit going down”. Wine is probably somewhat…nostalgic. For some reason. Takes her back to someplace she can’t name, someplace she’s never been, but I think that’d be one of the only reasons she might prefer wine. Her taste may be all over. May be whatever’s strong and good. I’m no alcohol savant, what do I know?

She likes to drink to celebrate and to bond, sometimes to ebb at stress. It takes a LOT to get her drunk, but that’s not gonna stop her from getting drunk when she has the time and money burn on it. She gets drunk and gets even more jovial and warm and open, though she’s usually relatively open. Also, haphazard. She becomes a big fan of violating people’s personal space. Hugs, patting backs, throwing her arm around them, leaning on people shorter than her, etc.

It can annoy a lot of people if she does it too much, Psimon strangely doesn’t seem to mind too much tho…aheem…

Besides that, Psimon’s generally against the team drinking to the point of drunkenness, but there’s little to actually do about it; he struggles to track all of their limits, and when he’s focusing on one, that leaves all the others alone. He tries to avoid getting drunk himself instead. Someone has to stay sober, and his psionic powers don’t mix well with too much alcohol. And he’s the leader. It makes the most sense that it’d be him to keep his wits about him.

The Terror Twins are hearty drinkers; they also can drink a lot and get very warm and jovial when drinking, like Devastation. Any outing to a bar feels celebratory with them. They decided they don’t like to get fully drunk though, not too regularly. First Tuppence decided this, then Tommy when she pointed it out to him. They don’t want to open up more quickly than they intend. Psimon can relate to that, so he defends them when they drop out. That doesn’t stop them from having fun with everyone else though, or helping when things get bad. They’re usually decent at opening up on their own time anyway.

Shimmer and Mammoth like to follow Psimon’s lead and keep excess drinking to a minimum. A couple of shots, a glass or maybe two, it really depends on what it is, but that’s it. Mammoth can take more than his sister, just by merit of him being so much larger, but he doesn’t like the taste of alcohol at all while his sister does. However, the second either of them get any kind of buzz ebbing at their senses is the second they quit.

If they’re found sitting down and downing drinks, something is wrong. They’d only let go so much if they’re trying to drown their problems. Then, they can use some company. Someone lending an ear to their sorrows doesn’t sound half bad.

If another team member is in a similar situation and needs someone to simply sit next to them and just be, or listen, Baran and Selinda are quick to be there for them.

Junior drinks for fun, he’ll seize any opportunity to drink. That man is getting “Krunk” as the kids say. He doesn’t know his limits and if he did, there’s no telling if he’d actually adhere to them. He WILL blackout if no one keeps an eye on him. He will be puking in the trashcan. The rest of the team has to steer him away from opportunities to drink lest he develop alcoholism at the tender age of 5-minutes-into-being-able-to-legally-drink.

His mood becomes turbulent and fragile. He’ll typically be happy, loud, reckless, aggressive; but at the mention of the wrong thing or at the sight of something that takes him way back, he can breakdown rather easily. It’s actually pretty common for his drunken stints, when they get out of hand, to end in tears. Junior has to be one of the least repressed members of Onslaught, due in no small part to moments like these; where he lets his emotions run rampant and they go down a bad path.

He’d expect ridicule, but Onslaught is actually very sympathetic to his struggles and complaints, whatever they may be. He can air his dirty laundry as much as he wants with little to no judgement, something he’s not used to. Once he starts, it’s hard to stop, but the team will listen until the end and it’s something he’s really grateful for. Despite being a troublemaker and general criminal, he tries to pay the team’s kindness towards him forward as much as he can.

If Psimon does end up drinking to lose his troubles, he usually does it alone, when everyone else is asleep. Or at least when he thinks everyone else is asleep. Sometimes someone will wander about looking for a late night snack or a glass of water, or even search for him himself. He dislikes being caught like that, dislikes not being so impervious and put-together for the team.

Without fail, they’ll sit with him awhile. They’ll ask, they’ll listen, they’ll joke or comfort or sit in silence. Psimon will wither in place or try to get them to leave him be, but they’re a stubborn lot. They’re far from the most “upstanding” of company, but they treat him with the same care, empathy, and concern he tries to treats them with; and Psimon finds afterwards that, despite not enjoying being caught in a state of weakness or forced to open up, he wouldn’t have rather it have gone any other way.

#thank you for the ask! I hope I actually Said Something in all of these paragraphs I feel insane #Feel like the world’s brokenest record rn. If this is so slapped together after all this time I’m so sorry.#Have I been tip toeing on the edge of burnout for months or is this a Mental Illness #Eh back in the day it was all called laziness I’ll call it laziness #Laziness can be conquered‼️💪 WE BALL‼️#h hopital #I do have one more ask in my inbox. It’s relating to The Love Glove. But it’s from a mutual who said I could take as long as I want so uh #I AM OVERSTAYING THAT INVITATION! In my defense I need to see Clockwork Orange first it’s actually imperative to the headcanons bro I swear #Psimon Says y’all suffer the weight of crime until you’re 21. Go mutilate a furby or raid a candy shop to feel better. (/j /hj)#psimon #simon jones #yj! Simon jones #Yj! Devastation #Icicle jr #cameron mahkent #Selinda flinders #Yj! Shimmer #Baran flinders #Yj! Mammoth #Tuppence terror #Tommy terror #Terror twins #Businesscasual writing #…when did I start taking tumblr writing requests #Ig these are so half hearted wishy-washy in terms of “is it writing? Or is it blorbo rambling?”#Blegh. Thank you anyway #I’m so sorry for the delay #I love when people ask about my Blorbos. My lil guys.#Onslaught my beloved #Young justice

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chelastuff · 1 year ago

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The Big Alchael Meta Post

So, I'm obsessed with Alchael. I think it started as joke, but like my relationship with YIIK, it progressed to a point where I could no longer pretend it was ironic.

I’ve made Alchael related metas before, but none of them really cover everything I wanna say about them. Because of that, I figured it would be easier to just make one giant Alchael meta analysis that goes over everything in one place.

Sometimes, I’ll half-jokingly say things like “Alchael is canon and the most important relationship in YIIK”. While it’s true that it’s a joke and hyperbolic, I do think that there is some real strong evidence that Alex is into Michael in a way that goes beyond platonic affection, and that Alex’s obsession with Michael is massively important to the plot. If you’re totally new here, you’re probably wondering where I’m even getting this from, especially since a lot of people’s impression of Michael is that he’s there for comic relief early in the story, but he becomes irrelevant after a certain point only to come back when Proto-Michael happens. But in this post, I’m gonna lay out my reasoning and begin to unravel some of the Alchael related layers in the story. Also, it’s solely going to be focused on 1.25 - so no I.V stuff (I will probably have more to say on them after it comes out, but that will be its own post).

I. Background

I’m gonna start by hitting you with some general background knowledge in case you aren’t super deep into the meta-conversation and theorizing surrounding YIIK, so here it goes:

Alex, being an unreliable narrator, changes aspects of the narrative to suit his own delusions and wants. Alex presents the story as taking place in 1999, but it actually takes place in 2016. Similarly, Alex claims that he is 26 and Michael is 19, when Michael is actually older than Alex.

The biggest evidence of this comes in the form of the ONISM post “Weird game a QT’s brother made”, where Michael describes “seeing this girl” and playing a game made by her kid brother. Allison is Alex’s older sister, so if the girl in the story is Allison, it would mean Michael is around Allison’s age, making Michael the older one. The post would also indicate that Michael’s primary relationship was with Allison, not Alex.

Of course, all of this is very different from what we actually see in the game, and I think once we figure out what changes were made and why, it can be very revealing. Michael, instead of being Allison’s friend, is now recast as Alex’s best friend. Instead of being his actual age, he’s permanently stuck at 19, studying for the SATs forever. And importantly - Allison is completely gone from the picture, totally erased from the narrative aside from a few references to her. The fact that she was the one who Michael’s primary relationship was with is gone completely. Alex effectively erased Allison from the story in order to take her place - and this place was Michael’s romantic interest.

II. Nubile

So, given that Michael in YIIK is effectively fulfilling a fantasy/delusion of Alex, I think it’s worth pointing out some lines that are kind of… strange, and in my opinion, are further evidence that Alex’s obsession with Michael goes beyond simply wanting to be his friend. Mainly, I want to point out this exchange:

(footage source)

For those who don’t know, the definition of nubile is “(of a young woman) sexually attractive” or “(of a young woman) sexually mature; old enough for marriage”. Haha, funny joke right? Michael is using a word to describe an attractive woman, but he’s not a woman! How unexpected!

I’ll circle back to the nubile thing in a bit, but for now I actually wanted to point out something else about these lines. If we assume that the relationship that we see between them in YIIK actually represents what Alex wishes it could be, it’s strange that Michael still delivers lines that are mocking Alex in this way, isn't it? It’s also interesting that Michael’s go-to insult is often calling attention to Alex’s body, and that in this case, he uses this to point out just how attractive he is in comparison. The comparison isn’t even solely about fat shaming Alex here - the use of the word “nubile” is pretty explicitly making it about being more sexually attractive than Alex.

The game calls back to the “nubile” joke in the next scene:

I almost feel like I’m being redundant with my analysis at this point, but, like, come on. Now Alex is the one pointing out Michael’s relative attractiveness, and Michael just straight up nonchalantly agrees with him! Sure, this is the kind of joke flirting that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary between friends, but once again keep in mind that all of this is being presented to you through Alex’s filtered lens, which is why I believe that it highlights the specific belief of Alex's that Michael is more attractive than him. With the use of the word "nubile", it makes it specifically about Michael’s sexual desirability and compares him to a woman! It’s stuff like this that really makes me doubt that Alex just innocently wants to be Michael’s friend, and makes me think there’s some other stuff going on here.

III. ONISM / Obsession

Now, I want to jump all the way to the near end of the game to highlight a monologue that happens right before the New Years Eve segment, wherein Alex reflects on his past with Michael, how they fell apart, and the inconsistencies within his own story. I highly encourage you to watch this scene and the monologue yourself, especially since I see a lot of people glaze over it in let’s plays, due to the sheer amount of (seemingly irrelevant) detail that it has. Here is a link.

The first thing I want to point out is just how much about his meeting with Michael that Alex remembers and is able to recite in excruciating detail. With how much Alex is able to go on and on, we are shown how many details he remembers about the summer Michael moved in and the house he lived in. I don’t think anything in the game is described in as much detail as Alex describes Michael’s house. Yet, when it comes to remembering how old Michael was when he moved in or moved away, and what year he moved away, Alex contradicts himself multiple times. I believe that the reason why he’s stumbling over himself when it comes to the timeline is because Alex’s timeline is wrong. I think It might even be an instance where he knows he’s lying, and he’s scrambling to cover his lie.

Then, Panda reminds Alex that he and Michael had “a falling out”. The details of this are fuzzy, but it seems to involve Alex traveling to Canada to meet Michael and ultimately being stood up. Although, I think it’s very possible that the actual reason they “fell out” happened before this, and Alex is omitting those details. I find it pretty wild how obsessed Alex must be in order to fly to another country just to try and fail to rekindle his relationship with Michael.

However, it seems even after this “falling out” happened, Alex never actually got over Michael. Not only does Alex wish for a world where Michael is 19 forever and thus never leaves him, he also remains a regular visitor of his website, ONISM. In fact, it’s Alex’s obsession with Michael’s creation that sets the stage for the entire plot. It’s how Alex discovers Semi’s disappearance, and where he gets the basis for the version of her (Sammy) that he creates in his head. This is one of the main reasons why I say that Alchael is the most important relationship in YIIK.

I.V. Losing My Religion

Throughout the game, you receive phone calls from someone who calls himself “your best childhood friend” and who is very heavily implied to be Michael. In one of these calls, he describes listening to “Losing My Religion” with Alex.

The song is also brought up in the monologue before New Years Eve that I mentioned already:

So, it seems like Losing My Religion is a song associated with Alex and Michael’s relationship. Given this, is it possible that we can learn about them from the meaning of the song? Michael Stipe, who wrote the lyrics of the song, has consistently said in interviews that the song is not literally about religion, but rather about a narrator who has unrequited love for someone else, and loses his composure in front of them. He even referred to it as a “classic obsession song” in two separate interviews.

Now, it’s worth noting that the timeline that is being presented in those screencaps actually makes zero sense. Losing My Religion became a hit in 1991, but if the game takes place in 2016, Alex should have been born around 1990 (. For this to make sense, Alex would have to have been listening to Losing My Religion with Michael when he was one year old, and with how vividly Alex remembers the summer that Michael moved in, I just don’t find that very likely. (Sidenote: This also wouldn't make sense if the game actually did take place in 1999, which would place Alex at 18 in 1991 - around the time he would have started college).

In my personal opinion, I think what’s more likely is that this is an extension of Alex’s main character syndrome. If you’re the main character of reality, a song is a hit when you listen to it the most. If this is true, it means that Alex was repeatedly listening to a song about unrequited love and losing your cool around a person you’re obsessed with right around the time that he met Michael. Very interesting! On a related note, when I was researching the meaning of Losing My Religion for this meta, I came across a Michael Stipe quote where he said “I've always felt the best kinds of songs are the ones where anybody can listen to it, put themselves in it and say, 'Yeah, that's me.’”, which kind of blew me away because this is exactly what Alex does with all media, so it would make perfect sense if he did it with Losing My Religion as well.

With that, I'm going to end the analysis here. Although this covers pretty much everything I wanted to say about the Alchael implications in the base game, I get the feeling I'm probably going to have more to say about them when I.V comes out. I also may write some more YIIK metas on other topics, so let me know if you'd like to see that. Until then, thanks for reading!

#yiik #yiik meta #alchael

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oliverreedmasterass · 1 year ago

Text

I'm SO excited to share this collab I did with the unbelievably hilarious @jmkho!!

Words: 4.7k

Synopsis: GVF make their way to a haunted house for shits and giggles. If you've read Alex (@jmkho) and I's stories before, I think you know where this is headed...

Warnings: language, mentions of paranormal and supernatural events, blood

👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃

“Jesus,” Sam let out as they stood observing the house. It looked like any regular old mansion. Nothing screamed out ‘haunted house’ to him and he hated that.

“What?” Josh questioned his younger brother as he stood tapping an annoyed foot on the ground with his hands on his hips.

“Just…not very Halloweeny is it? I mean if you’re gonna make a haunted house and have people walk through it….put some effort in and throw some webs around. Lazy.”

“Well, I found this on Groupon and thought, hey, we haven’t done something like this for a long time. Might as well get haunted a little!” Josh wiggled his eyebrows at the rest of them. “It would have been cool to try to find a listing for a real haunted house or like a haunted cabin, or even ship. Hell, I’d even take a haunted shed at this point. But it sounds like a ball of laughs to explore around.” Josh paused and sighed. He studied the house and couldn’t help but agree with Sam over the lackluster outside. Not even a pumpkin or a fake skeleton in place. Careless.

“I’m too brave for haunted houses,” Sam confidently stated. “I’ve never been in one that’s scared me before, I just don’t think it’s possible. You obviously wasted your money on this, Josh. It’s not gonna be worth it.”

“Sam,” Danny tried to quiet him, since it was evident he was upsetting Josh.

“I mean, with haunted houses, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, right?” Sam looked around at everyone with his eyebrows raised. “Like you have rats, cobwebs, and moaning noises. How is that scary? That’s just what Jake’s room looks like.”

“Hey!” Jake protested.

“Haunted houses are a cash grab. If I really want to get spooked, I’ll just look up photos of Mick Fleetwood. That guy looks like he has a lot of secrets that he needs to keep to himself.”

Everyone stared blankly at Sam, unsure what to say in response to his monologue, and then shuffled to the front entrance to explore. The door creaked as they opened it, and that in itself was enough to get 5 stars from Josh and reconsider his initial disappointment. Nice that they committed to the experience and made the doors creaky. He was excited to add that detail to his review.

The place was huge. A gorgeous, mahogany staircase was the first thing that greeted them as they got through the door. Danny let out a whistle. “Wow.”

“Still no cobwebs,” was all Sam added, not hiding the fact that he wasn’t impressed or happy.

“Shall we look around? Get a feel of the place?” Josh asked, beaming a huge smile. He didn’t wait for anyone to agree; he just turned and skipped to the stairs.

Jake followed after him along with Sam, who let out a sigh, and then Danny, who was eyeing around the house.

“I call the master bedroom!” Sam suddenly called out, pushing his brothers and Danny out of the way so he could book it to the largest room.

“Sam!” Danny yelled after him. “We aren’t staying here. We’re only supposed to walk around.”

“Hey,” Sam paused in his tracks to face Danny. “If I paid to get inside this place, you best believe I’m gonna be crashing here. Especially if they have Sleep Number mattresses.”

“I was the one who paid for our tickets though,” Josh mumbled to himself.

“Enjoy sleeping in your twin beds with creaky bed frames, peasants,” Sam called over his shoulder as he fled down the hallway, out of sight.

“How does Sam not know what a haunted house is?” Danny asked Josh and Jake. Josh shrugged, and Jake wiped his hand down his face.

“He does know. The guy just won’t pass up on a good Sleep Number mattress.”

While they waited for Sam to return, Danny and Josh scoured around the area and Jake tried to play Candy Crush on his phone. He was nowhere close to beating his high score though because he kept getting distracted by cold chills that were rippling through the room.

“They’ve got a weird AC in this place,” Jake commented, not bothering to look up from his phone at the ghost that was chilling right in front of him, watching his Candy Crush game with wide eyes.

Sam returned from “his” bedroom and let his intrusive thoughts win, body checking Josh so he nearly toppled to the floor with a loud “MAMA!”

“Bump into me one more time, I dare-“ Josh let out but stopped when a door down the hall slammed shut.

Josh and Jake let out a scream that would put Ned Flanders to shame, but Sam rolled his eyes and cupped a hand to his mouth. “Gotta do better than that!!”

Jake started counting everyone.

No one was missing, so who shut the door?

Danny leaned towards the twins as they stared at the door. “Someone must have used magnets to do that. Easy to do, I bet. Nice little gag to make the door slam at random moments.”

Josh smiled softly to his friend and then grinned. “Nice little magnet magic!” Jake laughed and agreed but still eyed the door with concern.

“I’ll be back in a second,” Josh excused himself, jutting his thumb back towards the bathrooms they had passed near the main entrance. “Gotta do the ‘biz.’”

“Just say you’re gonna take a shit, Josh, we won’t judge you,” Jake told him.

“I will,” Sam countered, raising his hand. Josh looked between his brothers, shook his head, and hurried away. Jake watched his twin leave and then, without a word to Sam and Danny, turned on his heel and wandered away.

“Okay, bye, I guess?” Danny called after him. Jake didn’t acknowledge him and disappeared into a room. “You’re not gonna leave me too, are you?” Danny turned to Sam.

“You afraid?” Sam smirked at him. Danny folded his arms across his chest.

“Absolutely not,” Danny protested.

“Yeah, alright, buddy,” Sam chuckled.

Danny and Sam strolled down the hallway. “- but then it was the perfect way -” Danny stopped talking as they both came to a halt. The ghostly figure of a man glided across the hallway in front of them.

“Oh my fucking god!” Danny let out in a hushed tone, frozen in place. What magnets could do that? Gotta be an actor. Magnets can’t do that.

“I know right…” Sam replied in an equally hushed tone before letting out very loudly, “Look at them shoes! The size of those buckles? What is the point of them? Honestly? And that jacket colour with those pants? Did you get dressed in the dark?”

The ghostly man turned to look at them, seeming offended beyond anything. How dare they!

“Or did you just put on whatever fell out of your wardrobe?”

As Sam finished that, the man let out a loud snarl and began to rush at them. Danny was concerned that the actor would end up falling over at the speed he was moving. Sam let out a loud yawn.

Back in the bathroom, Josh finished his thirty minute hair routine to get his curls back into perfect, fluffy shape.

“There we go,” Josh murmured to himself as he raked his fingers through his poof. “Fucking gorgeous.” He paused and gaped at the mirror. Letters began to slowly scrawl across the mirror in what looked to be blood. Josh watched the letters spell “GET OUT” and then glared.

Jake, Sam, and Danny were hanging out in the kitchen, playing with the old fashioned toaster, when they heard muttered curses approaching along with small stomps of feet.

“YOU FUCKWITS,” Josh hollered.

The rest of the guys watched as he appeared in the room. “WHOEVER WROTE THAT ON THE MIRROR, GO FUCK YOURSELF. I’M SORRY BUT MAKING MY HAIR LOOK THIS GOOD TAKES TIME! DON’T TELL ME TO GET OUT…..YOU GET OUT!” His hands were balled up at his sides as his face turned red from the sheers rudeness of them not understanding how much work it took for him to make his hair look so fucking fabulous. They didn’t have the balls to understand.

Jake stared at his twin, completely confused. He knew for a fact not to fuck around with Josh as his hair time. Hell, he learned his lesson about that eons ago….

“What the hell are you going on about?” Sam asked out.

“One of you wrote ‘get out’ on the mirror as I was fixing my hair,” Josh tousled the front of his hair for emphasis as the rest of the guys stared at him.

Jake’s face paled, but Danny smiled at Josh and shook his head.

“They’ve really put a lot of thought into this haunted house. They must have been using magnets on the other side of the mirror for you to see the words written out.”

“It would have been a lot scarier if they wrote out Josh’s social security number,” Sam said as he crossed his arms and shook his head with disappointment. Josh thought over Danny’s explanation and let his tense shoulders relax.

“Whoever was using those magnets had really good penmanship,” he commented, smiling off into space. Then he snapped back to reality. “So, what have you all been up to?”

“For the thirty minutes you were gone?” Jake ridiculed Josh. “Well, I bumped into Clive and he was telling me about the house.” Jake smiled.

Danny looked at Josh whose eyebrows were furrowed.

“Clive? Who’s Clive?”

Jake lifted a hand and gestured to the house. “You know…Clive! Really nice guy, kinda looks sick and pale, but good bloke. He was talking to me about the house. He was in the living room just sort of…standing in the corner staring at me.”

Danny nodded and let out a loud, “ahhh” before adding. “Okay so there’s more than one paid actor. Nice.” He smiled broadly. He was beginning to really appreciate how committed the haunted house people were to trying to scare them.

Suddenly, Josh let out a grunt and flung through the air, tumbling down the flight of stairs.

“Oh my god!” Danny cried out in horror as he watched his small friend do a flip midair. Beside him, Jake and Sam laughed at their brother’s fall. Josh leapt back to his feet at the bottom of the stairs and brushed some dirt off his jumpsuit.

“Did you see that?!” He called up to them. “Something threw me down the stairs!”

Danny looked around and realized that everyone was staring at him, waiting for an explanation. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, as if saying, well?

“Magnets,” Danny finally answered, even though internally he was screaming with fear. “It’s gotta be magnets.”

“Of course,” Josh chuckled. He climbed back up the stairs with ease and rejoined his friends. “The people running this haunted house sure do have a sense of humor.”

Despite everything that was kicking off, Sam decided he had enough. He was tired. And a tired Sam wasn’t a happy Sam.

“Right, I’m gonna retire and hit the hay, count sheep, head for slumber, pass out, head to Bedfordshire, go to-“

“We get it, but it’s only 2 p.m,” Danny cut him off. He watched in confusion as his friend waved a hand in the air before trudging off to his ‘suite.’

Danny, Jake, and Josh all stood there for a moment lost at what to do. Do they try to sleep? It was still day time! And after the stuff that had just happened, Josh was antsy to fix his hair again.

“GUYS!”

Sam’s voice broke their silence. They quickly ran over to where they heard him. He was standing stiff outside a bedroom, staring inside.

“Do you see it?” Sam asked them.

“What? Is the feng shui not to your liking?” Jake’s taunting voice went quiet as he joined his younger brother and looked into the room. The bed was spinning around on the spot while numerous items floated in the air.

Sam stomped into the room. Laughter was heard coming from somewhere as everything flew around. He walked to the bed, yanked up a clown doll and returned back to the guys in the doorway. “This! You see this? Tacky! He’s been laughing the entire time and he won’t shut the fuck up! He doesn’t even run on batteries or a pully thing.” He moved the doll to Danny and shook it. “Magnet boy, explain this and get him to shut up.”

Danny’s mouth opened and closed a few times at the sight in front of him. But all he could let out was, “those are some powerful magnets.”

Jake spun around in a full circle looking for his twin, and then stopped when he spotted Josh.

“Oh,” Jake breathed out as he watched Josh ride around the room on a floating lamp like a bull, waving his fist in the air and hooting with glee.

“YEEHAWWWW!” Josh called out before breaking into a ridiculously out of tune rendition of “Home on the Range.” Jake gazed at him in awe as Josh did barrel rolls in the air on his lamp.

Sam, entirely ignoring his brother’s spectacle, impatiently nudged Danny in the side. Danny grunted in return.

“You need to get rid of the clown doll,” Sam told him, nodding his head in its direction. “I don’t like the way it’s looking at me.”

“That’s literally not my problem, Sam,” Danny replied, eyeing the doll. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the thing.

Sam huffed in frustration. “Fine then,” he grumbled. He made a big show of removing his tennis shoes and, one by one, chucked them at the doll, striking it square in the face both times.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Sam screeched at the doll.

Unbeknownst to Samuel F. Kiszka, in that moment, the clown doll stared deep into the depths of his soul and vowed that, no matter what it took, it was going to make the hairy mean guy regret ever being born.

It took a while to get Josh down from the lamp, but when they did, Danny managed to get all of them to agree that they weren’t going to go into the master bedroom anymore. Sam was the most disappointed, but he eventually agreed that he wouldn’t really be able to appreciate the Sleep Mattress if it was doing 360s midair.

After that excitement, Jake decided to get away from the spooky room and head downstairs. He was exhausted, confused, and a little tired. He spotted a TV and perked up a little.

He let out a joyful cry as Pirates of the Caribbean lit up the room. Glorious. It’s like the house knew he loved that movie. Thank you, house!

Suddenly the screen switched to static. Jake pulled a face and grabbed the remote, turning it back to the movie. He snuggled into the sofa more as it played before the screen went static again.

“Ughhhhh” he groaned, changing it back, only for the TV to switch to a static channel again. This went on for more than Jake would ever admit, and then the TV flicked to an image that no longer looked like Pirates of the Caribbean. Instead, it was a very blue toned shot of a well. What was this, Twilight??

As he grabbed the remote and pressed a number of buttons to try and change the channel, a hand emerged from the well. A girl with long black hair began to climb out and walk towards the screen on the TV.

“I’m gonna miss Captain Jack,” Jake grumbled to himself as he looked at the remote in his hand and continued to smash random buttons.

Water began to pour out of the TV as the girl got closer, and she lifted a foot through the TV screen, out into the living room in front of Jake.

“What kind of 4D TV is this?!” He asked out loud as he watched. Water was starting to pool around the carpet, flooding the room.

“Hey!” He yelled out. “You’re getting the carpet all wet! Stop that!”

Jake’s screams at the girl who had emerged fully out of the TV, just stood there dripping wet, grabbed everyone else’s attention and they ran into the room.

“She made me miss Pirates of the Caribbean and now she’s got the carpet all soggy!”

Danny was staring at the girl in terror, but rolled his eyes when he heard the guitarist whine. “Please Jake, you know that movie by heart, get over yourself. Also…” He lifted a hand to the girl and then to the TV and simply let out,

“Magnets.”

“Girl!” Sam entered the room and called to the child, aggressively motioning at her. “What do you put in your hair? Bacon grease? You look NASTY!”

Although the girl’s face was hidden beneath her thick curtain of long, dark hair, it could only be assumed that she was frowning at Sam. Sam shook his head at her and tsked.

“You need to use a hair mask. And comb your hair in the shower the second you turn the water off. With the length you’re going for right now, I can only imagine how many split ends you have. Also, how did you get so wet? Did you just run or something? That’s disgusting.”

The girl made a sad whimpering sound, put her head down further than it already was, and slinked away.

“That was kinda mean,” Danny scolded Sam.

“She deserved to know the truth,” Sam disagreed. Danny didn’t like how proud of himself Sam looked.

Suddenly, loud chimes rang through the mansion, making them all jump.

“That must be the front door,” Josh realized. “I’ll get it!”

Before Danny could counter that he shouldn’t go alone, Josh had already bounced out of the room.

“Did the magnets cause the doorbell to ring?” Jake asked.

Josh came back into the room, his arms piled high with pizza boxes. He dropped them onto the coffee table with a grunt and then put his hands on his hips, taking in the mountain of food with delight.

“The pizza guy didn’t even charge me,” Josh announced. “That’s gotta be at least $100 worth of pizza.”

“Free pizza is the best kind of pizza,” Danny had to admit. Within seconds, they were all devouring the food, cramming their faces like ravenous wolves. Sam had taken the veggie supreme pizza and was huddled in the corner of the room, his eyes dilated, looking around as if daring anyone to come close to him while he fed.

Jake wiped his mouth with one of the throw pillows on the couch and then frowned.

“Wait,” he said, “who ordered this?”

They looked around at each other, shrugging.

With his mouth full and still chewing, Danny let out in weak defeat, “Magnets.” The Kiszkas all grunted in acknowledgment. While they continued to eat, entirely unbothered, Danny strainied to remember all the Latin phrases he knew on the off chance that he needed to perform an exorcism. Things were starting to feel a little bit too paranormal for him.

Jake let out an exhausted sigh. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

His twin eyed him confused. “Dude, it’s dinnertime, you need to eat.”

Jake shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. I tucked into that weird greenish blob thing on the kitchen floor.”

Danny’s head snapped to Jake. “What?” Before Jake could repeat what he said, the drummer took off for the kitchen. His eyebrows nearly reached his hairline when he spotted small remnants of a green blob on the floor with a straw strewn next to it. What the loving fuck did Jake eat? Slimer from Ghostbusters? Danny wasn’t sure and didn’t want to wait long to find out.

Jake nearly jumped out of his skin when the drummer came back. “What did you put in your mouth?” Was all he asked.

Jake moved back away from his friend with a yelp. As Danny went to pry his mouth open to check, Jake bolted with his friend chasing after him.

Sam grinned at Jake and Danny’s show and then turned to say something to Josh, but stopped in his tracks. Standing in the doorway of the living room was the clown doll, armed with a knife, Chucky, Annabelle, and a collection of other definitely haunted toys staring him down. Instead of greeting them with fear, Sam let out a deep and booming laugh.

“Bring it on, shitheads,” he encouraged them, waving his hand. Chucky was the first to take the bait and sprinted towards Sam with a menacing cackle. Chucky jumped to try and grab a hold of Sam’s leg, but Sam met him with his bare foot and promptly punted him out the window and into the sun. The other toys watched their comrade meet his end and roared with rage.

“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!” the clown shouted, rushing at Sam with the knife. Josh watched in a mixture of awe and horror as his younger brother went to town, kicking his feet around like a Radio City Rockette, sending all of the bloodthirsty toys soaring out of the atmosphere.

“These feet were made for kickin’!” Sam sang and clapped his hands after sending Annabelle so far off into the distance, it seemed likely she would make it to the edge of the universe.

Danny was back from chasing Jake and stood utterly bewildered as he watched the chaos around him unfold. “Um…guys….I…I think this place might actually be haunted.”

Josh and Jake look at him, at each other, then back at him before bursting out in laughter.

“Oh Danny boy, don’t worry, it’s just magnets like you said!” Josh beamed to him before disappearing out of the room.

Danny watched him leave and then looked at Sam laughing maniacally.

Josh made his way into the sitting room and retrieved a plastic green visor from his back pocket, securing it over his head.

“Hey guys,” he greeted the room full of ghosts who were crowded around a card table. “Can I join this round?”

One of the ghosts nodded towards the single chair that was by the table. Josh plopped himself back into it, not noticing that all the other people were hovering above the ground and definitely translucent. A ghost that looked like she was from the Industrial Revolution slapped a hand of cards in front of Josh.

“Good luck,” she said in a Cockney accent.

“I don’t need luck,” Josh shook his head at her. He studied his cards, which were entirely out in the open for everyone to see, and then let out a delighted laugh. “Oh, you’re all going down.”

The ghosts frowned at his hand, which was a 2 and a 7. The game picked back up and, after watching the ghosts throw chips into the middle of the table, Josh studied the cards on the table and started to whoop.

“Go fish!” he shouted and did a little dance. He was met with blank stares. “Sorry if I’m a bit too excited,” Josh added. “I just like to live in the now, you know, really take in the present because, I mean, you never know, you could keel over dead any second! I just love to live life. It’s so wonderful to be alive.”

Danny had joined Josh in the sitting room and gaped at him.

“Josh,” he hissed, trying to get his attention. Eventually, Josh looked back at Danny.

“Hm?”

“Quit being a dickhead.”

“Huh?”

“You’re saying, like, the worst things you could possibly say right now.”

“What?”

Danny looked around, his heart thundering in his chest. “I think they’re all actually dead,” Danny whispered. Josh looked like he didn’t follow a single word that had come out of Danny’s mouth. “You know what?” Danny sighed. “Just forget it.”

Josh shrugged, unbothered, and returned back to his card game. He noticed that all of the ghosts were still staring at him and puffed out his chest with pride.

“Take your time to process my words of wisdom. I know it’s some deep shit.”

One of the ghosts gave Josh a big thumbs down.

Jake made his way back to the living room to see if the TV had fixed itself and the girl had bothered to clean up the damn mess she had made. To his dismay, the TV was in fact NOT fixed as it was still stuck on the image of the well, but the girl had climbed back inside the screen and was sitting on the edge crying.

Jake jumped when he saw Bruce Willis still standing in the corner. He was confused why the star was there but nonetheless excited.

Jake let out a breath of courage and moved towards him as he cleared his throat to get the man’s attention. It was weird seeing a Hollywood star in a random living room, but especially weird to see Bruce Willis with brown hair.

“Hey, hello. Hi. Mr. Willis? I…I’m sorry to bother you but I just wanted to say that I loved your work in Die Hard, it’s my favourite Christmas movie. I quote it all the time at the wrong moments.” He beamed at the actor.

Bruce Willis stared blankly at him. “I’m sorry you must have confused me with someone else. I’m Dr. Malcom Crow….I’m…not sure why I’m here. I’m a therapist ... I remember a shot…”

Jake realized he was actually speaking to Bruce Willis’ character from the Sixth Sense and paled. “Ah….um….okay gotta go…bye.” There was no way he was breaking the bad news to the guy.

After getting a Gatorade from the fridge to power up following his battle against the “haunted” toys, Sam found Jake, Josh, and Danny and took in a deep inhale. Danny’s face fell when he saw that Sam’s mouth was open and ready to talk.

“This haunted house is beyond weak,” Sam complained. “There aren’t any fake cobwebs, rubber snakes, or strobe lights. It’s literally just a normal house with a bunch of magnets! I’ve never been so disappointed in my life.”

“You would moan about how cheap this haunted house is if it did have those things,” Danny countered. Sam frowned at his comment.

“What matters is this house had the potential to be truly spooky, but everything just felt weird. I mean, nothing has scared me one bit.”

“No!” someone yelled off in the distance.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Josh rushed over and nearly yanked the door off its hinges.

There, stood 2 men in coats with glasses and clipboards.

“Fellas, you completed the study.” the first man boomed.

The rest of the guys joined Josh at the door. “Study? What study?” Danny asked the men. One was jotting down notes as he looked at each person and the other man spoke to them.

“You applied to take part in our haunting simulation study….you….you weren't aware?” The man was perplexed and then pointed to the other man’s clipboard and said, “Jot that down.”

They stared at Josh. “I thought it was a fancy groupon,” he let out.

“Interesting….thank you for your participation, but….what the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

All the members of Greta Van Fleet stared blankly at each other. Then, their faces cracked into goofy grins.

“Awwww shucks!” they all called out to each other, slapping their knees. Audience laughter played overhead.

Those Greta boys did it again!

#greta van fleet #gvf #jake kiszka #josh kiszka #danny wagner #sam kiszka #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fanfic #gvf fic #gvf fanfiction #gvf fanfic #jmkho #fic collab #halloween #haunted house

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burnt-to-cynders · 10 months ago

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Okay, I’m gonna stick to the raw evidence I’ve seen, so here’s the facts that I have available to me.

I have barely ever even seen predstrogen post pictures, period, let alone seen a mistagged nsfw picture on her blog. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, but I can’t find it so I can’t assume it’s there.

On the other hand, I have seen examples of several anonymous asks, sent both to her and other tumblr users about her, that would definitely constitute harassment.

A few of those asks were sent by non-anonymous users and all the one’s I have seen have been banned

I have seen the cars and hammers post.

The cars and hammers post is so hilariously not a threat I’d be laughing if the subject of the post were not taking it as an excuse to ban a trans woman for life from the platform he executives.

Several different tumblr users have pointed out that there is an ongoing harassment campaign against predstrogen, presumably referring to the asks I mentioned in 2.

@photomatt answered an ask last night about the growing sentiment among trans women on tumblr that staff is transphobic, in which he claimed that she had made multiple TOS violations, including posting unlabeled nsfw pictures, threatening people, and harassing them. He also misgendered her initially, but edited the post after several people pointed it out(although first he changed the wording to refer to “the account”)

When pressed to show these tos violations, Matt provided a screenshot of (initially url-less, later shown to be) predstrogen commenting on how she thought posting about her death wishes about Matt would get her banned, which he later added the context of the above post being the cars and hammers post.

Predstrogen’s account was banned, as well as the second account(apparently she has had to make new accounts a few times due to getting banned for similar issues, but I’ve only followed her for less than a year) she made to document most of the things that happened to her.

Specifcslly, her first account was banned after posting a completely sfw transition timeline photo, and her second account was banned right after posting a screenshot of the above mentioned reply, with more or less incredulity at the fact that the ask response referenced contacting the police and fbi.

Matt seems to be taking the backlash personally, publicly apologizing for the perceptions of transphobia on his personal blog and lamenting the initial ask reply. He has not done anything to indicate a reversal on the predstrogen decision, and insists that there are many more examples of harassment from her. He has answered several more asks and repeatedly encouraged people to “not patronize a business you think is transphobic”

SO, what can we draw from these facts? Well, one thing I can say, for sure, is that with what I currently know and what I have seen, predstrogen should not have been banned. Unless Matt has some significantly more egregious examples of threats, or examples of harrassment(people calling you transphobic isn’t harassment), or any examples of an unlabeled mature post(hell I don’t think I’ve even seen a labeled mature posts on her blog), then I think any bans applied to her accounts are in error and if staff are sitting on a big pile of nothing and not doing that, that is gonna draw their morality and ability to effectively moderate this site into even further question than it has been.

The terfs I’ve seen harassing Rita, at least when they’re stupid enough to leave their names visible, have been banned. I can’t follow the thread to see if claims about them being able to easily remake accounts and continue doing terf shit because i don’t run in terf circles enough to know who they were and what happened afterward. Assuming they aren’t back, this is a good thing, and I’ll give that point of credit where it’s due. However, it is worth noting that while Rita remains banned, this still looks like transphobia and deplatforming and threatening a trans woman(actually threatening her. With, y’know, the fbi). If I wanted to be extremely uncharitable, I could point out that banning terfs and trans women doesn’t make a space safe for trans women, and in fact makes it look like you’re only banning the terfs so you can say “well we don’t allow terfs so we can’t be transphobic!”

Conclusión: Im really disappointed with staff and with tumblr’s ceo in particular. It’s not hard to see why a lot of popular trans blogs are considering moving off platform and tons more are expressing general frustration. In particular, what has happened to predstrogen demonstrates a terrifying cycle that scares me and makes me worried for my own safety if I ever attract a large following on here. She has been targeted by terfs, apparently for years, in an open harassment campaign and has been threatened multiple times. She has referenced having stalkers. She is repeatedly suspended for community violations that are later referred to as “bugs”, but then suddenly one day she’s banned permanently for a post that doesn’t violate tos at all, and when she makes another account to call attention to this wrongful ban, she is banned again and threats about bringing in law enforcement are made by the ceo of the website. A woman that is the subject of years of harassment and credible threats to her safety is being gaslit about being the perpetrator of those very same things, and nothing is being brought to light to verify those claims.

#cynposting #predstrogen #🚗 🔨 💥

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thetreeshavenotongues · 2 years ago

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Spy x Family Mission 75 Spoilers-ish (But mostly just a dissertation on Melinda Desmond) :

Alright, I’ve finally calmed down enough to have actual semi-coherent thoughts about Melinda. So here we go, this is gonna be a long one.

I’ve seen a few posts calling her terrible and that she’s a bad parent but I really, deeply believe that’s not the case at all. I don’t think she’s a character that Endo put there for us to hate. I think she’s a character that’s there to be pitied.

She is clearly a severely broken woman. We got a hint of it in her reveal with Yor, we saw glimpses of the duality -her saying she didn’t care about the punch or really anything in Damien’s life at the table with her friends, then asking in the car when she and Yor were alone if Damien and Anya were friends - and then she gave us that expression.

I think we were all supposed to have our own opinions about what that face meant at the time because it was just so hard to pin down (and we have no Anya to give us insight) but now that we know a little more about her, it’s starting to make more sense. It’s warped and fractured and a caricature of what a happy smile should be. I think it shows that she has two very distinct, opposing mind sets about her life and the lives of her family and because of that she’s a very conflicted and complicated woman.

The fact that she raced over to see Damien shows us that she loves her child. She ran to that boy with tears in her eyes and dropped to her knees to hug him, that was a mother who was distraught. No one expected her to do that. Damien himself definitely didn’t. Anya even likened her thoughts about her son to a Yuri level of obsessive compassionate. But the second Damien mentioned his father a switch flipped. She fractured.

Donovan seems like a very cut and dry asshole, I’m sure he has some different facets but they’re probably all just variations of shithead. He was pretty blatant with his ideas, beliefs and ideologies when we met him, (for now) he’s an easy character to understand. Melinda, on the other hand, seems to be the opposite. I’m sure we all have our theories on her background, she’s most likely from a wealthy family and whether her marriage to Donovan was an arranged one or they actually did at some point love each other (or some truly wild Third thing that probably is the case given this manga’s propensity for curveballs), it’s clear that at this point they’re not on good terms. It’s obvious that Melinda hates Donovan, I have a theory that Demetrius may be the root of that hatred.

I believe that after he was born and she witnessed Donovan’s indifference towards their child aside from indoctrinating him with his twisted views something in her shifted. Donovan probably even made sure her interactions with her first born would be limited as he was grooming him to be his heir. I’m going to guess that not only will we find out that Demetrius looks like Donovan but he will act like him too. My theory is that she wanted a second child, not Donovan, (especially since it seems like Damien is the only one of these rich kids with a sibling) Melinda wanted a child to teach to be good and to love and dote on since she saw that Demetrius was too far for her to ever actually reach. But I think that even that didn’t work out the way she wanted and it probably became evident to her pretty quickly that even though Damien as the second child would never get as much attention from Donovan as the first, she still wouldn’t be able to completely remove his influence from their shared child’s life. And every time that she saw him, her precious second attempt, search for approval from a man who she hates some of that hate transferred over to her feelings for Damien, (because to her, why would he love a man who clearly has no love for him when she’s right there showering him with it? Why does he care about that man’s approval when she’s right there giving him hers?) I think Damien’s desire to be loved by both parents, and her witnessing that she can’t change that slowly chipped away at her until she became this heavily fractured, incredibly wounded woman who probably had no healthy coping mechanism and it developed into this severe dissociation when it comes to her thoughts on her children.

It’s heavily implied that Damien and Demetrius have very different personalities and I’m assuming that as much as Damien looks like his mother, Demetrius will be a copy of his father as a way of showing us which parent they take after. Demetrius was his fathers project and Damien was his mother’s (failed) attempt at combatting that influence. And I think that’s why her thoughts about Damien that first time are so…let’s say enthusiastic (obsessive), and why when she hears him talk about his father - a man who couldn’t even be bothered to show up after his child was in a bus hijacking - we see her thoughts jumble. We get both sides, the incredible love and the bone deep loathing and unfortunately both are directed at this softest, sweetest of beans.

TLDR: she’s complicated and needs much therapy.

#spy x family #spy x family spoilers #melinda desmond #spy x family mission 75 spoilers #spy x family mission 75 #it’s long. I’m sorry #damien desmond #they’re rich they can afford therapy seek help guys

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midnightbrightside · 1 year ago

Note

Look here’s part of my interpretation of Krisnix

Particularly Phoenix’s feelings towards towards him

My headcanon is the timeline goes a bit like this

Year 1: I don’t know how I got disbarred but Kris is the only one who believes in me so I like him, I’m gonna cling to them for support

Year 2: Ok Kris is looking kind of sus but I’m just gonna ignore that since Edgeworth still hasn’t had time to visit me. Sure there’s something else I’m missing

Year 3: Ok the signs are pointing to Kris but if I just zeno my thinking some other factors/excuses will materialize

Year 4: ok no all the signs are saying he did it out of spite but if I just huff enough copium the facts will change and the only person who’s been able to support me in person and not through time zone screwed phone calls and e-mails won’t be the one who ruined my life

Year 5: Ok so the facts haven’t changed and he’s an asshole but I’ll fix him like I fixed Edgeworth. He says he cares about me so it must be true (after all wanting something to be true really badly makes it true right?) I’ll fix him!

Year 6-7: ok being around him is very weird and I’m upset he disbarred me but I need to figure out what his tragic background is so I can fix him, then I can reform the court system and he can be like Edgeworth except he doesn’t leave me for Europe 😤

*Kris commits murder*

Phoenix: … so I guess I can’t fix him :/

I genuinely think for a least a while Nick had to have some kind of fix it mindset with him

I mean Edgybaby was said to have forged evidence and Nick didn’t really care. I really think murder was the final nail in the coffin

Thoughts? Is this a valid timeline? I know some people like it where Nick realizes what happened immediately and just hated Kris internally all 7 years but to me that’s boring

I have even more complicated thought of Kris’ thoughts of Nick so look out

this is so real and also mostly how i see phoenix' s thoight process tbh!! especially the years of ignoring red flags only to then try and "fix him", he'll drag out the denial as long as possible. besides hes dealt w corrupt guys before, he was willing to give edgeworth for a lot, and its very possible he didnt know kristoph was capable of murder until turnabout trump.

and fuck how DEVASTATING must that be? to spend years knowing someone intimately and being willing to overlook all of the signs because the support and companionship they offer is more reliable and consistent than anything youve had before? only to end up feeling like you dont know them at all (might be working on a little drawing about that atm actually 👁👁 work is hell tho and slowing me down so much)

#ask #oreocookiezzz

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painsandconfusion · 2 years ago

Text

The Call

Waking Dreamer - Part Fourteen

(tw: doctors call, bad news, emotional whump, sickness, gaslighting/manipulation mention)

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“You don’t think he sounds a bit…controlling..?”

Aaron frowned over at Jeremiah, going back to his cleaning. Running an extra cycle through the espresso machine - he didn’t think he did it well enough last night. He scrubs at the grounds of black that linger above the portafilter. “You sound like Jessie.”

“I’m serious,” Jeremiah’s voice dipped - hands distracted by filling the pastry case with a fresh batch of blueberry lemon scones. “I don’t know I just…isn’t it odd to you that both me and Jessie think Everett is a little…off?”

Aaron took in a deep breath, flushing the system through. Letting out the breath as hot water washed away all remnants of cleaner. “I don’t think you know him. He’s a good guy - he takes care of me. I’ve been…wrong lately. I’m a handful- no, don’t contradict that, it’s a fact - point is, I’ve been stressed and not sleeping and waking the poor guy up at all hours of the night, and he’s being so sweet.”

Jeremiah sighed, closing up the case. “...sure.”

Aaron frowned, turning back to Jeremiah. His mouth opened to retort, but all thoughts were cut off by a buzzing at his pocket.

A text. He’d ignore it.

Mind moving to try t-

Another buzz.

…a call, then?

Aaron sighed, pulling the phone from his pocket.

His mind froze as he saw the caller id. Center Hospital.

Jeremiah was staring at the phone, too. “..you gonna answer that?” He looked..anxious.

It was making Aaron anxious.

“I’ll keep opening.”

Aaron nodded, silently stepping away and into the storeroom. He answered the call, bringing the phone up to his ear. “Hello?”

A soft but professional voice came onto the line. “Hello - is this Aaron Visser?”

Somehow that just deepened his frown. A little curl of dread pulled into his stomach. “It is, yes. Can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Tara with Center Hospital. I’m calling this morning because you’re the listed emergency contact for Jessie Morales. Does that sound correct?”

Aaaaaaand yup. Dread. That was definitely dread twisting cold through his blood.

“...sir?”

Oh- He needed to respond - right -

“S-orry - yeah. Yeah, that…should be right. Is he okay??”

“He was admitted this morning. He was working and collapsed - evidently he’s been in pain a few days now and it spiked last night.”

Aaron could feel the blood draining from his face.

Jessie was hurting last night and Aaron wasn’t even there. He picked Everett. He…oh no…ohhhhh no no no that’s guilt. Sick, twisting guilt clawing up his throat.

His voice came out a little more strained than before. “..wh-at kind of pain..??”

“Severe. The doctor is running some tests now. Can you come in?”

“I-I mean yeah- yeah, of course. I’ll…I’ll find someone to cover my shift.”

“Perfect. Stop by the front desk and they’ll direct you.”

“..thank you.”

“My pleasure. Drive safe.”

“Thanks..-” He didn’t even remember to say goodbye or return any kind of well wishes before his thumb numbly poked the end call button.

He stepped back into the kitchen, mouth opening. Closing.

Jeremiah just nodded. “Go on. I’ll figure it out.”

Aaron melted a little inside at not having to explain. He just nodded, swiping his keys form under the counter, and heading out the front door.

[Previous | Masterlist | Next]

(tags: @prisonerwhump @mabledonut @whumpawink @happy-little-sadist @paleassprince @distinctlywhumpthing @wormwriting @villainsvictim @thecitythatdoesntsleep @whumpworld @siren-of-agony @bandages-andobsessions @deltaxxk @pinkieglitterheart @whumpasaurus101 @warm-my-whumpee-heart @hold-back-on-the-comfort @halloiambored @snakebites-and-ink)

Just ask to be added/ removed from taglists! I havent updated this one in a WHILE so I might be missing some people. Just yell at me in the commentssss <3

#doctors call #bad news #emotional whump #sickness #gaslighting/manipulation mention #medical whump #waking dreamer #aaron #jessie #jeremiah

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blackbutler-readerinsertsandjunk · 1 year ago

Note

Hi there! I'm the lady behind a fair chunk of the Peter requests. May I please request "I feel like I can tell you anything" with a side of "you know what I love about you?" for Peter? I love your blog by the way. And don't feel like you need to rush yourself. Take as long as you need.

thank you so much for sending all the requests, I've loved them all!!

and thank you so much for the support, you're very sweet <3 <3 <3

things that you want to hear.

Your affection for PETER occasionally hits you at the strangest times.

Case in point, all the things you adore about him bubble to the surface currently, as you’re watching him work on a new routine with Wendy. Your feelings are all over you about him; the way he takes charge, his determination to perfect the performance, even his sour attitude is something that strikes up a warmth in your chest.

It must be something he notices ― the lovestruck expression you’re looking at him with while he practices. When he and Wendy decide to take a break, he’s over next to you, stretching out over the crate you’re perched on. “Oi, precious, wot’s with the starry eyes over ‘ere? Y’ look almos’ like y’re gonna jump over the moon ‘r somethin’.”

“What do you mean?” you chuckle. You stretch out next to him, rolling over so you can be face to face. “I’m just looking at you, handsome.”

He rolls his eyes. “’Course. Damn, wot was I thinkin’?”

You bite down on another laugh and reach over to trace your finger over his chest. “No, I’m serious, you horrible man. You know what I love about you?”

“Absolutely nothin’?” he snorts. Even so, he reaches toward you, lazily splaying his arm over your waist. You can feel in the slow, less than energetic movement of it that he must be incredibly tired already. Despite the fact that he apparently thinks you’re having a go at him, he still wants some attention.

Well, it’s your turn to roll your eyes. Does he really not believe he possesses a single redeeming quality? You don’t understand the way he thinks sometimes. “Don’t say things like that. There’s plenty about you that I love. And I was going to tell you all about it, if you didn’t immediately launch into some negativity.”

One eyebrow raises at you. It’s as if he thinks that there being one thing to love about him is strange enough, and more than one is an impossibility. “That right? In that case, y’ oughta talk faster. Go on, then, list it off, I won’t interrupt again.”

What a liar. You think he’d physically die if he had to not interrupt you while you’re talking about your love for him.

Regardless, you decide to call his bluff and press on. “There are a lot of things, you know. Maybe most people don’t see everything that I see, but you shouldn’t sell yourself short. I mean―” You’re quick to move past that based on the look he aims at you, probably thinking that was meant to poke fun at his height. “― I feel like I can tell you anything. You know?”

Your fingertip traces heart shapes on his chest. “You’ll be honest with me. Brutally so, sometimes. You’ll always tell me the truth, even if I may not want to hear it. If I come to you complaining about something that happened, I can trust you to tell me, ‘That wasn’t y’r fault, c’mere so I can give y’ a kiss ‘n’ make y’ feel bet’er’ or ‘That was all y’, sweet’eart, but ev’ryone fucks up sometimes so gimme a kiss anyway’.”

Peter huffs, though he’s got the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Oi, I don’t think I like y’ mimickin’ me. It’s way too fuckin’ accurate.”

You laugh and lean over for a kiss. “The point is, I like that about you. I love that even when I’m the one who did something wrong, you tell me that I did something wrong… but you don’t harp on it. You don’t… stop loving me.”

“Why would I stop lovin’ y’? Obviously y’ know wot I’m gonna say, ‘cause y’ said it y’rself ― ev’ryone fucks up.” He returns your kiss eagerly. All his exhaustion is forgotten, evidently, just so he can come alive in your embrace. “… Glad y’ told me this, at leas’. Gives me the chance t’ tell y’ somethin’.”

You tilt your head. “What’s that?”

His arm squeezes around your waist. It’s rough and reassuring all at the same time. “I ain’t never gonna stop lovin’ y’, precious. There’s things I’d leave people f’r, but I know y’ ain’t gonna do any’a that shite. So there ain’t nothin’ y’ could do that’d make me stop lovin’ y’. Got that?”

For all his faults, all his bad attitude and distrust in the rest of society… Peter seems to have a lot of faith in you. That’s one more thing you love about him.

So you lean in for another kiss. “… Got it, love.”

#onehellofashadynerd #Black Butler #Kuroshitsuji #Peter #reader insert #romantic #fluff #UGHHHHH he deserves it <3 #one hell of a queue

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thetenthdoctorscompanion · 2 years ago

Photo

Summary: When a deal goes south, Tess does the one thing she hates more than anything else—accepts someone’s help.

Words: 2.9k

Warnings: Another chapter that doesn’t actually have Joel, language, canon-typical violence with guns, explosives, and blood, trading of pills, mentions of stitches, implied tess/joel

Masterlist | Previous | Next

November 2012

It was hard to be optimistic as a smuggler; in fact, Tess would go as far as to say it was nearly impossible. Ninety percent of her job was anticipating problems and preparing for the worst case scenario. What if the deal went south? What if the payment was short? What if the goods were a bust? What if the customer was a rat?

When you trained yourself to look for the worst in people, it was hard to hope for the best.

Tess leaned against the brick wall of the alley and checked her watch. She’d give the guy two more minutes, and then she was out of here. Plenty of people were willing to pay for pills, people who were eager enough to show up early so they didn’t waste her time. The only reason she was settling for this meet was because she needed the ration cards sooner rather than later. Tess was wearing three button-down shirts—two of hers and one of Joel’s—but the cold front in Boston was still kicking her ass.

She was about to call it a day when a shadow eclipsed the entrance of the alley. The man wasn’t a soldier, but he was burly enough to be one. Tess noted the red flag and then tucked it away. He’d probably built the muscle by hauling bodies and construction materials. Judging by the way he flinched at the sound of his own boots scuffing the pavement, he wasn’t the type to start an altercation…probably.

“I should have left,” she told him coldly as he approached.

“I know, I know,” the man mumbled. “Sorry. Here—”

He reached into his pocket, making Tess tense up. He didn’t look like he would start anything, but you could never be sure, especially with first-timers. It was always risky meeting with new customers, but Tess was willing to bet this guy hadn’t bought from anyone else before either.

“Here,” he repeated, handing over a stack of papers. “Is this enough?”

Tess reached for them automatically; it didn’t click how few there were until she’d closed her hands around them. She blinked at him, too shocked even to be incredulous.

“You’re joking, right?”

Evidently, he was not joking. He looked at her quizzically, and Tess was suddenly so furious that she had to laugh.

“Buddy, I wouldn’t let you lick the fucking bag for this much.”

“But—”

“Let me tell you how this goes,” she cut him off, pointing between them. “This? Isn’t a buy. It’s a consultation. You tell me what, I tell you how much, then you get me that much—and it’s a hell of a lot more than this.”

“Fine,” the man replied irritably, “how much?”

“Eighty.”

“Eigh—eighty?” The man blustered, looking up and down the alley. “You’re out of your damn mind!”

“You are if you think you’re paying any less. They’re pills, not bottlecaps.”

“No, no, no—Maria—Maria said it was like twenty.”

“Well Maria’s a fucking liar. Eighty or I walk.”

The man shook his head furiously, but didn’t outright deny her. He ran a filthy thumb over his lower lip and sighed. “I need them now. It’s gonna take ages to save up that much.”

“Well then, I guess you better learn the value of time.” Tess plucked five rations from the stack and held it up for him to see. “This is for wasting mine.”

She shoved the rest of the cards into his chest and stormed down the alley. Her hand hovered just outside her pocket as she listened to the man scrambling after her.

“Hey, you can’t do that! This is—we had an agreement!”

“No. We were making an agreement. I’m saying no.”

“You don’t understand! I need those pills! I fucking—”

Tess whirled around and, in a fraction of a second, had her knife pressed to his throat. The man’s breath stuttered as he froze, and Tess trying to ignore the sick thrill she felt in her stomach.

“I don’t give a shit what you need,” she hissed, taking a step closer to him. “Everybody needs something. You need pills. I need a jacket. I need the last twenty minutes of my life back that I spent waiting for your ungrateful ass to—”

BANG.

Tess dropped to the ground at the sound of the first gunshot. Her companion swore loudly and ducked, trying and failing to make himself as small as possible. It took a few seconds for them to realize they weren’t targets; the gunfire was out on the main street, yells and screams getting louder as FEDRA or the Fireflies or whoever the fuck it was continued their attack. Tess relaxed, but stayed down. She still had time to get out before things got too nasty. If she back out the other end of the alley, cut through the old hair salon—

The explosion cut off her train of thought. It nearly cut off her arm too. Tess bit back a scream as a chunk of brick collided with her shoulder and knocked her flat on her back. Between her skull slamming against the pavement and the pile of debris raining down on her, she wasn’t conscious of anything but pain. She was certainly warmer now, but that had less to do with the weather and more to do with the blood that was slowly saturating her three shirts.

Air rushed into her chest when the bricks disappeared. Tess tried to blink the world into focus, peeking around the black dots that were clouding her vision. She was pleasantly surprised when she realized her would-be customer was trying to clear the wreckage—less so when he started patting her down.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Tess wheezed. “I didn’t bring the pills, you stupid fuck.”

The man faltered, but checked the rest of her pockets just to be sure. Tess expected him to drop her and make a run for it, but he surprised her again by pulling her arm over his shoulder and hauling her to her feet. Her instincts kicked in as she tried to fight back.

“Hey—don’t! Don’t fucking touch me you goddamn—”

“Relax,” he snapped at her. “We all need something. I need pills, and you need a damn doctor.”

A bolt of fear shot through Tess’s stomach.

“I—I’m not going to medical,” she said through gritted teeth, as if she had any choice in the matter. “A FEDRA doctor’s just gonna think—”

“Yeah, I’m not stupid. I’m not getting thrown in lockup for being a fuckin’ Firefly. We’re not going to a clinic.”

That didn’t leave a lot of options, but Tess was already too weak to argue. She’d lost enough blood that her head was spinning, their escape from the skirmish a total blur. She tried to keep track of the different streets and turns they took, but in this part of the city, everything looked the same: dirty, faded, and broken.

She and her companion were both panting by the time they reached their destination. He hauled Tess into a shitty apartment building, up three flights of stairs and, since his hands were occupied, kicked one of the doors by way of knocking.

“Hey!” a voice shouted from inside. “Jesus, I’m coming. Don’t—oh, shit…”

Tess couldn’t find the strength to lift her head, but judging by the woman’s tone, she could tell she was in rough shape.

“I’m sorry,” the man apologized breathlessly. “There was an attack and—”

“Get in, get in, go—”

The woman ushered them inside and slammed the door behind them. Tess was dropped gracelessly on a couch and promptly keeled over onto her side, fighting to stay conscious. She could hear the man explaining the situation, the woman scrambling around for supplies, but most of the conversation was lost on her. Without the dusty air and sound of gunfire, Tess could only focus on her shoulder, a searing hot pain radiating down her arm until she felt like she was going numb.

A hand pulled on the fabric of her shirt, making Tess recoil and lash out again. She landed a kick on the man’s side, but the woman holding her down barely flinched.

“I know,” she said in a steady voice, “but I’ve gotta stop the bleeding. This is gonna hurt.”

Tess had a fleeting thought to snap that she was already hurt, but a rag was stuffed into her mouth before she could manage it. She gagged on her protest and, a moment later, bit down a scream as the woman pressed down on her shoulder.

On second thought, fuck being conscious.

Under normal circumstances, Tess wouldn’t be foolish enough to pass out in a strange place in front of strangers, especially when she was already so vulnerable—but she was far from normal circumstances. She faded in and out as her layers of flannel were stripped away, as her wound was stitched closed, as alcohol stung across her skin and bandages wound around her limbs. By the time she blinked herself into full consciousness again, it was dark outside.

“Motherfucker…”

Tess tried to sit up, but a sharp pain down her arm rendered her flat. She flopped back on the cushions and banged her head on the arm of the couch, only causing her a second groan.

“Sorry, I didn’t have anything for the pain.”

This time, Tess was able to get a better look at her host. She was sitting in an armchair on the other side of the room, one watchful eye on Tess and the other on the book in her lap. Her hair was cropped short to keep it out of her face, which made her look young—younger than she probably was, if Tess had to guess. All her panic from earlier had faded, leaving her cool and collected; Tess had to hope that was a good sign for her chances.

“No pain meds?” Tess scoffed feebly. “What kinda doctor are you?”

“The kind that’s actually a seamstress.”

The woman closed her book and got up from her chair, crossing the room with a glass of water. She had to help Tess tip her head to take a sip; Tess wished it made her feel less pathetic. She wanted to get up and push through it, but her arm was secured in a sling, which didn’t give her a lot of leverage. Her eyes were working overtime to compensate, scanning the environment for threats and escape routes.

“Where’s your friend?” Tess asked when she noticed the absence in the room.

“I told Adam to go home. He was just getting in the way, and he wouldn’t shut up about his damn pills.”

“Son of a bitch…”

“Yeah,” the woman said with a wry smile. “I’d avoid him here out, if I were you. He’s probably gonna expect a discount.” She offered Tess her hand. Tess’s instincts told her not to take it, but the sling binding her arm said otherwise; reluctantly, she accepted the help. The woman eased Tess up into a sitting position and, once she was sure she’d remain upright, retreated into the kitchen. She returned a minute later with two chipped mugs, one of which she left on the table for Tess. It took a moment to identify the swirling, amber liquid, but Tess decided it must’ve been broth rather than tea. The smell was enough to make her stomach growl, but she restrained herself, choosing to narrow her eyes at her host instead.

“What about you?” Tess asked in suspicion.

“What about me?” the woman echoed, returning to her book.

“What are you gonna expect from me?”

The woman’s eyes flicked up to meet Tess’s gaze. She considered her for a moment, then returned to her reading. “Discretion, if you don’t mind. I help out where I can, but I’m not looking to become the neighborhood physician.”

“Discretion. That’s it?”

“Yup.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay.”

“Look, just cut the crap, would you? You helped me, thanks, I appreciate it, but your buddy was pretty much frisking my dead body for pills a couple hours ago, so I’m not buying the Good Samaritan act. I don’t like debt, so just tell me what you want and let’s get it over with.”

Tess huffed, trying to hide the way her tirade had winded her. The other woman sat there and continued to watch her, eyebrows raised ever so slightly. She almost seemed amused when she asked, “Are you done?”

Tess felt her face go red. She was livid, embarrassed, exhausted—all things the woman ignored as she placed her book aside and folded her hands.

“First off, Adam’s not my friend,” she began calmly. “He’s a customer to me the same way he’s a customer to you. Second, you didn’t ask for my help any more than you asked to get blown up, and it doesn’t seem like you’re asking for anything now. You’re not asking me, so I’m not asking you. As soon as you feel up to it, you can walk out that door and move on with your life. I’d suggest visiting a real clinic in a day or two for some antibiotics, but that’s up to you.”

The woman held up her hands in surrender, got up from her chair, and left Tess to think on that.

It was hard to decide which was more infuriating: the woman’s insinuation that Tess was overreacting, or the fact that Tess almost agreed with her. She’d spent the morning getting ripped off, shot at, and blown up, and somehow she felt bad for snapping. How fucked up was that?

Tess allowed herself a few minutes to drink her soup, doing a self-inventory in her head. She hadn’t brought much to the meet, so there wasn’t a lot to lose: her stack of ration cards, her flashlight, her watch, the handkerchief in her back pocket. Currently, she was sitting in her undershirt, but all three of her button-downs were folded neatly on the coffee table. All of them were shredded and stained, but someone had gone through the trouble of patching the holes; maybe the doctor really was a seamstress.

The only thing missing was Tess’s knife. It was probably laying in the demolished alley or tucked away in “Adam’s” pocket, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. There wasn’t much to do about the pain, either, but the woman had managed to stop the bleeding, and the sling was tight enough that Tess hadn’t jostled her stitches; she’d still need to get her hands on some real medical supplies. That would be a simple trade with FEDRA, though. There were still some sleeping pills from their last deal, or she could send Joel out for—

Fuck, Joel.

She’d been gone for hours—hours longer than she should’ve been. Joel had probably interrogated half the QZ by now; hopefully some of them still had their limbs.

Tess listened closely to make sure the woman was on the other side of the apartment, then grabbed her flashlight. Unscrewing the end, she slid out two batteries and a small baggie of painkillers. A dummy flashlight wasn’t the best place to hide them, but at least that idiot Adam hadn’t found them.

She threw back two pills with some water, then started to collect her things. It was a short process made even shorter by the sling. Tess looked from her bound arm to her folded shirts to the apartment window, where cold rain pattered against the glass. She just couldn’t catch a fucking break. If she’d been cold before…

“Here.” As if on cue, the woman reentered the living room, this time carrying a large blanket. “I don’t have a jacket, but this should—”

“No,” Tess said at once. “I don’t need—”

“Stitches don’t help if you catch your death out there. If you feel that bad about it, bring it back.”

Her tone wasn’t commanding—not in the way Tess usually barked orders at Joel or bullied customers. It was simply matter of fact. Despite Tess’s reservations, she couldn’t find room to argue. So when the woman held the blanket out to her again, she took it and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“Fine.” Tess tossed the bag of pills, which the woman caught with the tips of her fingers. “For your next sewing project.”

The woman opened her mouth to argue, but Tess had her own way of controlling people. One fierce look ended the conversation before it started.

“Okay,” the woman gave in, tucking the pills away. “Well…thanks.”

“Yeah. You too.”

It was as close as Tess could get to gratitude. She didn’t like being on the lesser end of the power dynamic and, no matter how neutral the situation seemed now, Tess was acutely aware that the other woman held all the cards.

She tried not to think about that as she burrowed into the thick blanket on her walk home. She tried not to think about that when Joel accosted her at the door, insistently checking her stitches to assure himself she’d be alright. She tried not to think about it as she laid in bed that night and stared at the ceiling. Even then, there was a nagging thought in the back of her mind, like a pebble in her shoe that wouldn’t let her rest easy.

Whoever that woman was, Tess owed her.

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dykeomania · 2 years ago

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hi mia :) sooo i have this very random thought about ellie buzzing around in my head, and since you’re like my favorite tlou blog on tumblr, and you seem to capture ellie’s canon personality beautifully in everything you write, i’m wondering what you may think… (sorry if i’m like bothering you, or being weird 😵‍💫)

do you think modern!ellie would initiate a first kiss with a girl likes? i’m very torn on this… i feel like ellie can be an overthinker, and is also very prone to falling in love with her friends… so i think for the sake of not wanting to ruin a friendship, she might not go for it… but then again, she did kiss riley first. and as you’ve mentioned, her sneaky confidence pipeline is very strong, so i feel like once she feels she’s collected enough evidence to infer that they’re are mutual feelings there (and that she has the power to make you nervous) she may go for it… hmmm🤔

i would love to know your thoughts, as i cannot get this out of my head, and all my friends are losers who have never heard of tlou 😑 (again, so so sorry if i’m bothering you or being weird, just ignore me if so :) … i love your blog btw <3 and i hope your day/night is going great!)

[pulls down my podcast microphone] what is with this whole people being afraid of bothering me thing, Hey. Listen. You are fine. you are not bothering me, I will hug you. talking to people on here always makes me feel nice and you're definitely not being weird at all. please don't apologize for taking up space on my blog, it's partly what it's here for, i just have a tendency to not answer asks all that frequently because ... i have a fear of disappointing -- but it's 2023 and we're gonna get over that, hey, i'm really happy you're here, hiiiiiii

so okay (trigger warning: literally surface-level character analysis and me talking for an excruciatingly long time in some lousy attempt of meeting a point at 10:00pm, as though this is me actually talking and not a literal, tangible thing that i can go back and rewrite and edit but oh no no no this one [me] is lazy, and an idiot, and banks too heavily off of the fact that this is their blog and they can do whatever they want)

[readjusts pdocast mic]

This is so real and i agree with literally all of it. because Yeah like... i think ellie has sneaky confidence but i also think that her likelihood to kiss someone else is reasonably dependent upon the situation and like the.. vibe. like let's start off with traditional friends to lovers. if you two are friends, or friends with benefits, and you've never really kissed before but there are clearly feelings involved, i feel like ellie making the first move is.. within reason. it'd probably be whilst she was in an altered state of mind, be it drunk or sleepy -- anything that calls for the vibrations between the two of you having noticeably changed enough for her to probably have the in, to kiss you. and i feel like once you would make that in visible to her, be it by flirting with her or demonstrating that she does make you nervous in a way that excites you, her confidence would pull her towards either taking steps that build up to kissing you (looking at you, very intentionally; letting her fingers drum against some part of your body; keeping silent in the moments where she is looking at you and biting back a smile because she knows that it is making you equally as nervous as its making her), or (and,* possibly) either outright asking you if you wanna be kissed or stating that she wants to kiss you, because you're asking her what she's looking at.

now Alternatively, i do view ellie as someone who is very very afraid of ruining her friendships and like we have shit to prove this, she didn't wanna fuck up her friendship with dina and only seems to really go for things once people make it directly obvious that they're into her (cat literally crawled into her lap and started kissing her when she was like 15 and then ellie was literally all over her despite her being a bad influence; dina made one move within like 4 years of knowing ellie and ellie immediately took that as her in to kiss her -- like you see what i mean). but if there is no in. i do see her to be very pensive. i feel like she would moreso be concerned with how much she is allowed to show that she Does like you, at least enough to want to kiss you. like, ellie doesn't strike me as someone who has plenty of close friends, so she definitely wants to keep the ones who she feels comfortable enough to genuinely hold close to her heart, with her. like, she doesn't wat to sacrifice that by not just catching, but acting on her feelings. and she really does like read as the kind of person who is more likely to sit in the uncertainty of a situation for the sake of keeping a friendship as opposed to like, acting on her emotions because she feels like she has nothing to lose (because you're everything, and losing your friendship is like losing everything). so like yeah she would probably be super freaked out, at first, by the idea of having feelings for you and that probably wouldn't make her wanna kiss you ..... Unless you made the first move. dina made her nervous first, so if you make her nervous enough, then she'll be excited enough to reciprocate the energy, and that leads us to square one.

but if its like enemies to lovers...

ellie is clearly jaded by anger and rage and when she's in that state she tends to not really have a second thought about.. most things, honestly. when broiled with lust, i feel as though you and ellie's first kiss comes, like. without hesitation. she doesn't think about it. probably kisses you so hard your world spins because you've pissed her off and she feels like she's got some point to prove and all she can focus on is just shutting you the fuck up for whatever reason

and then if she doesn't opt for anything beyond that like having sex with you, she'd probably get off of you and look at you and perhaps the look in her eyes would convince her to Maybe think twice about her actions (because shes an overthinker, i do agree, and i do think that that is not particularly Completely Dormant in these kinds of situations), but the second you pull her back down! Again! It's a consistent theme! Of Someone! Meeting! The Energy! she's game and she's pushing you against some kind of wall and taking things to an entirely different level

overall, i think you're right. i think that ellie is like most in that she is initially quite shy and if things aren't glaringly obvious or spelled out for her in a way that she can understand or that shifts the tone of the air, then she won't act on anything. but if she's given an inch, she's taking the mile. in any case. all of the tension once experienced by her is poured into a kiss that is long awaited and full and all she can probably think in her head is just more more more because once she actually gets the chance to act on her emotions, and to kiss you, and to release that feeling in her body, she probably wouldn't wanna stop. and tbh that's what i love most about her because she is so relatable wow yes ellie williams is so girl

#YEAH #long overdrawn explanation of a very simple concept that honestly just is an Agreement to what you've stated #im nodding my head #truly #mia what are you talking about

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