#it was impossible to get EVERY single bit of dialogue but i think i got most of the important stuff

[fore-seer]

the angel and devil on inigo's shoulders

[heartlogan]

living to learn

✮— logan x f!mutant!reader (set in deadpool & wolverine)

✮— summary: logan mulls over all that he has lost, and all that he has found, in the void

✮— a/n: i was enabled by yall - please heed the warnings! you dont need to read pt 1 to read this!

✮— warnings: MAJOR DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE SPOILERS, major character deaths, angst, incredibly sad backstory, dead kids / teenagers, practically a genocide of mutants, suicidal ideation (from logan, kind of), reader acts as a mother figure for someone, incorrect dialogue from dp&w, a smidge of comfort, again ANGST, lmk if there’s more!

part one | masterlist

✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶

It’s almost impossible not to linger on the things that you have lost.

And for Logan, it is impossible.

He spends every waking moment craving for the touch of somebody he lost, and he’s painfully aware that it’s all his fault. He caused the loss. And he’s the only one left to mourn you, because god knows the humans won’t.

Even for him, some two hundred years old, it’s all too painful. And he has experienced plenty of pain in his life. But this? Losing you? Losing everyone? It’s too much. So, he does what he can, he pours so much alcohol into his body that he can’t think, can’t imagine what your final moments must have been like.

But between bars, when his healing factor wears the alcohol down, it’s all he sees.

He imagines you there, surrounded by all of your loved ones except for him, unable to save them. And he can remember finding you so vividly, can remember the ashy tone your skin had taken on, all the life drained from you. He can remember exactly where he found you, in front of the doors, your dying action being to try and save the kids in the mansion. He prays to a god that he doesn’t believe in that you died before they did, because knowing that you hadn’t been able to save them would have killed you.

And the other X-Men, they died the same way. Trying to protect each other, trying to protect those kids. And perhaps the only one who knew that it was all in vain would’ve been Jean. Jean, who he found in front of the children.

Where was he?

At some bar, surrounded by humans he couldn’t care less about, all because he was selfish. All because he didn’t want anybody thinking he wanted to be part of the team. God forbid he actually care about something.

And because of his selfishness, his fear, he lost it all.

He lost you.

So when Wade said he could fix Logan’s universe, he would’ve done anything to make that happen. Anything that Wade asked for, he would’ve done. And as soon as his universe was fixed, Logan would go to you and get to his knees, he would beg for your forgiveness.

And all of that, that hope that had evaded him all those years, was for nothing. For an educated wish.

Logan couldn’t do anything but resort to his old habits, grabbing the first bottle of actual alcohol he saw, and finally numbing the image of you dead in his arms.

“There’s five of us.” Elektra told Wade, and Logan paid her no mind. Everything was futile now, pointless. He was only helping Wade to help the team, to help you, and that was likely impossible. So whatever these so-called heroes were planning, he wanted no part in it.

Logan had already secured his legacy in his universe, and it wasn’t the one you had always imagined for him. He was the Wolverine, and he was every bit of violence that name suggested. Because even though he hadn’t been able to save the X-Men, he sure as hell got his vengeance. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, until every single human who was remotely involved in the blood bath at X-Mansion was dead.

You wouldn’t have been proud of his actions, true, but you were dead.

Cassandra had mentioned something about temperance, earlier, and it hadn’t taken him long to recognise that you were the anchor of his. Without you, Logan hadn’t managed any sort of self-restraint. He had slaughtered people. And he could only bring himself to regret those that hadn’t quite deserved it.

By the time the red had faded from his vision, Logan realised he had gone too far. He hadn’t just killed the ones who had murdered his friends, but anyone in connection to them, and anyone who had gotten in his way. The only reason he wasn’t arrested was because they were too afraid of him, and the only reason he hadn’t been killed was because he couldn’t fucking die.

Even the fuckers that had slaughtered the X-Men couldn’t figure out how to kill him, and that was a sick kind of irony.

“Logan, that’s who I was telling you about! X-23!” Wade said excitedly, pointing across the room at a teenage girl, who stared at him like she was seeing a ghost. From the sound of what Wade had said earlier, she probably was.

And the sight of her, for some reason, tugged at his chest. He drowned the feeling with more whiskey.

✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶⊶⊷⊶⊷❍⊶⊷⊶⊷✶

“Hey.” Laura greeted you, fidgeting with the strap of her bag as she watched you enter the back of the base, carrying a bag full of food. She seemed nervous, and you couldn’t figure out why.

“Hey, Laura, everythin’ alright?” You asked fondly, glancing at her as you started unpacking the supplies that you’d found scattered across the void.

She hesitated, glancing back through the doorway she was stood in, before focusing on you. “Yeah. Uh, I need to talk to you.” She said, sounding incredibly serious, which wasn’t unusual for her. Laura had been through so much, including everything that she had told you about her life before the void. Being here hadn’t made her life any better.

You immediately paused your actions, and turned your full attention towards the teenager across from you. You nodded for her to start.

“I was out patrolling earlier, and I found some people.” Laura said slowly, thinking her words over thoroughly before she spoke them aloud. She didn’t want to make this any worse. “I drove them here, and we’ve made a plan to attack Cassandra’s first thing. Except for one of the two, who doesn’t want to help.”

“Okay…” You said cautiously, almost confused. “This all sounds good, doesn’t it? Whoever they are, they can stay here if they want. Fill me in on the plan, and we’ll handle it.”

“It’s… okay. It’s about who they are.” She clarified finally, giving up on trying to approach the situation cautiously. “It’s a variant of him. Of Logan.”

Your chest squeezed painfully immediately, and you hand to hold a hand to your sternum to try and ease it. If it were any other situation, Laura may have made a joke about you having a heart attack, but she knew better. She knew how she had felt when she first saw the man, so she could imagine how you were feeling.

Immediately, your heart was torn between rushing to see him, and refusing to lay your eyes on the man at all. You weren’t sure you could handle seeing him, or, well, a variant of him.

It hurt too much. Every day you were reminded of how you had failed to save him, but you had to keep going, for the others in the void. Because they needed you, just as much as you needed them. Laura needed you.

She knew your pain all too well, having lost her own Logan. So you knew what she was telling you was the truth. There was really, finally, a Wolverine variant in the void.

“You okay?” Laura asked, after you had been silent for more moments than she was comfortable with. She was looking at you with such concern, and you could tell that her own heart was practically bursting in her chest from the sight of him.

“Are you?” You asked in return, eyebrows raised as you finally started to get a grip on yourself, shaking yourself from the pit of loss you had begun to get stuck in. She nodded, and you nodded yourself before pausing to think. “And this… Logan, he doesn’t want to join to Cassandra’s?”

Laura shook her head, looking down momentarily. “No. He’s… he’s as messed up as my Logan was.”

You approached her, drawing her into a silent hug. She squeezed you tightly, and the strength her mutation — Logan’s mutation — had given her wasn’t lost on you.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” You asked her quietly, and felt her nod against your shoulder. “Alright. Where is he?” You questioned, silently steeling yourself to face a copy of the man you had lost. The man you had loved.

She pointed you in the right direction, letting you go with a simple, “Good luck.” The entire walk outside, you were holding your breath, trying to prepare yourself somehow. As if this was something you would ever be able to prepare for.

And the moment you saw him, you knew it was all in vain. Because nothing could’ve prepared you for seeing him again, after all this time.

For a moment, it felt as though time was stood still, suspended.

Until he opened his mouth. “‘M not lookin’ for company.”

It was him. His familiar voice. The voice that you would’ve recognised anywhere, even after so long not having heard it. He sounded just the same as your own Logan, the same gruff tone to his voice, all grumpy expressions and furrowed brows. You could imagine it all as though your Logan was still alive, as though he was actually here. It took more than a moment for you to recall that this wasn’t your Logan.

You shuffled over to the log he sat on, the sun setting over the trees surrounding the two of you. He lifted the bottle of whiskey to his lips, glancing at you as you sat. His entire body went shock still, and he turned to look at you fully.

You smiled, and prayed he said nothing about the way your eyes became watery. “Hi, Logan.”

He said your name, sounding as though he was a mere man sat before a god, reverent. The bottle slipped from his hand as he spoke it aloud, his eyes watering immediately, his lip trembling as he looked at you like he was seeing you for the very first time.

“Are you… her?” He asked hesitantly, hand hovering halfway towards you, and you hated to be the bearer of bad news. But if you had to be conscious that he wasn’t yours, it was only fair for him to know the truth.

Reluctantly, you shook your head. “I’m sorry. I’m not your version of me, and you’re not my version of you.”

His hand fell to his lap, but he didn’t take his eyes off of you for a moment. He seemed reluctant to believe you, and you couldn’t blame him. He looked just like your version of him, grey streaks and all. But it wasn’t him, you knew, because he wasn’t coughing up blood, wasn’t actively dying in your arms.

You cleared your throat, glancing to the fire before him, watching the way the smoke curled into the slowly darkening sky. “My Logan died. I—I couldn’t save you. I’ve been here, in the void, for a year, I think.” You elaborated slightly, not wanting to overwhelm him with information. “I’d like to go home. Mourn my losses.”

He stared at you, saying nothing, fingers still outstretched where his hand lay.

“Laura said you weren’t coming with in the morning. I was hoping you might change your mind. We need your help.” You continued, trying to remain convincing despite the shake in your voice.

But that seemed to do the opposite of what you wanted, and he blinked out of the trance he had been in. He started shaking his head immediately, fingers clenching into a fist. “You got the wrong guy. I’m not… I’m not who you think I am.”

“Maybe not, but, Laura told me you were always the wrong guy, up until you weren’t. And to her, that means something. To me, too.” You said, hoping he wouldn’t pull away further than he already had. As selfish as it was, you didn’t want to lose another Logan. You wanted to see him and his friend succeed, even if you didn’t. Maybe, this time, this Logan, you could save him.

“You don’t get it.” Logan refuted, shaking his head, glancing towards the fire as the sun finally finished descending the horizon. He seemed to get lost in the blaze, and you watched his eyes become unfocused, showing him images that weren’t really there. “I failed them. My team. You.”

You stayed quiet, wondering if he was going to elaborate, or if he was too caught up in his vision.

“D’you know something’?” He asked, blinking until the fire came back into focus. “You used to beg me to wear this suit. So did Storm, Scott, Beast. All of you. And I refused, because god forbid anybody believe I wanted to be there.”

“What happened?” You asked him, wanting to reach for his hand, but knowing it wouldn’t help him get through this.

“I went out. And the humans went mutant hunting. By the time I stumbled home shit-faced from the bar… you—you were all dead. Every single mutant in that house.” He explained, his voice shaking, his lower lip trembling once again. You were almost certain he was seeing those images again, because he squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth.

A surge of sympathy shot through you. You wanted so badly to comfort him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but you knew he wouldn’t believe it.

“So now I wear this goddamn suit as a reminder. To remember all of you. To make sure I never forget what I did.”

You released a deep sigh, the story sounding familiar to you, in some ways. He glanced over at you, seeing somebody else for a moment. After another few seconds, you reached into your shirt and pulled out the dog tags you had been carrying with you. You turned them over in your hand, running your thumb over the inscription.

He glanced wearily at them, and you reached out, grasping his fist in your own hand and pulling it loose until you could fit the dog tags in his hand, which you then squeezed shut. “I carry these with me, for the same reason. To remind myself that I failed you. That I can’t take that back. That I have to do better, even if all I want to do is give up. You aren’t the only one who did something wrong, here. If I could fix my mistakes, I would, but I can’t. So I carry on. For Laura. For anyone who needs it. And it seems like this… Wade needs it. From you.”

His hand was splayed open, turning over the dog tags in his palm as he listened intently to you.

“Be the hero you weren’t the first time around.” You told him finally, reaching out and placing your palm in his, squeezing around the dog tags, before letting go.

You went to stand, and he stood after you, reaching out.

“I—I know you aren’t her. I know that. But can I pretend, for a minute, that you are?” He asked you, and the vulnerability of the request wasn’t lost on you. Your Logan rarely ever asked for anything, even if he desperately needed it, so you could only imagine the courage that this Logan had mustered to ask you that.

You nodded, silent.

There was a pause, and he looked into your eyes, searching for something that you didn’t know you possessed. But he seemed to find it.

“‘M sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Logan told you at last, the apology seeming to burst from the depths of his chest. “I love you. I have loved you the whole time. I should have told you as soon as I felt it.” He confessed, and you saw the dog tags hanging from his fingers as he reached for you. And you couldn’t help yourself — you reached right back.

Your hands landed on either side of his face, so full of care, and you watched the tear run down his cheek. His own hands gripped you tightly, scared to let you go.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, voice broken.

“It wasn’t your fault.” You told him firmly, before rushing forward, pulling him into a hug so tight you could’ve heard his metal bones creak. He buried his face in your hair, breathing you in, and held you tight. “I don’t blame you. I love you.” You said, breathing the words into his ear as though that would make him believe it. He gripped you tighter, squeezing you against him. “I love you.”

You cradled the back of his head with one hand, pressing him close, because you were just as scared to let him go. Distantly, you heard Laura call your name.

After a moment, you pulled back slightly, only to press your forehead against his for a minute. You could pretend that he was your Logan, selfishly, just for a moment more.

Laura got closer, calling out your name once more, and you pulled back to look in his eyes. “I love you.” He told you one last time, before he allowed you to pull yourself from his grasp.

You had no idea whether he would be joining your group tomorrow, but you walked away from him with an empty chest, wiping away the tears that had dared to fall during the encounter. You would leave the last of the motivational speech to Laura, who you smiled gently at as you passed her in the woods, nodding towards where Logan still stood.

Logan had gotten what he needed from you. And you, from him.

[alexsoenomel]

About Love(Dean Winchester x Reader drabble)

Summary: You and Dean have a conversation about life before falling asleep.

Warnings: None

Note: I saw this kind of dialogue in Neil Gaiman's American Gods and since I'm trying to get back to writing I decided to write just that, no descriptors, just dialogue.

"Dean, what was your dream before becoming a hunter?"

"I've never really thought of that, why?"

"I've been thinking about my dead dream and started wondering about yours."

"And what was it?"

"I was young and lost, so I had a couple of things in mind and that would also change from time to time. From a psychologist to librarian, but one thing always stayed and that was I wanted to write books."

"You never told me you like to write."

"Used to. And you never told me about your dream."

"I never had time to think about that. My old man gave me a riffle before I even realized I could have a dream."

"That's impossible everyone has a dream."

"Dreaming wasn't a thing in our household, I guess."

"What about love? Family? Something you wanted to do when you were a kid."

"I was too busy taking care of Sam to think about my own needs and wants. But I wanted a family at one point when I got older that's for sure."

"Like kids?"

"Yeah, I told you about Lisa and Ben. I've experienced what it would be like to have a normal life and I really liked it, but the job never leaves you."

"I know. When I was a teenager I used to write stories every single day after school and I was convinced I would grow up to be a writer slash something because doing one job for the rest of my life sounded so boring and yet here we are."

"What kind of stories did you write?"

"Romance, lots and lots of romance."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, I was a lonely teenager obsessed with love and being in love. My parents used to tell me that I loved too much and guys I dated never appreciated that."

"That makes sense."

"How so? You appreciate the way I love and put the same amount of effort in this relationship."

"Yeah but it took time. I didn't really know what I was doing when we first got together. I knew your heart was made not to be broken, but I was still struggling not to hurt you. I knew underneath that badassery was someone gentle and kind."

"Hey, sue me but I still try."

"And I knew you needed time, especially since you're not really famous for communicating your feelings properly."

"Yeah, you do. You're the first person to NOT hurt me just because..."

"That's the last thing I wanna do and you know that."

"I do. You're also the first person that made me think about having kids with..."

"I know."

"I never told you I wanted kids."

"Last year when you thought you were pregnant I saw it on your face. You were so disappointed when you saw only one line."

"To be honest I was scared, but at the same time..."

"Yeah, me too."

"Do you still want it?"

"Yeah, I think about it all the time but hunting is not something you can just quit."

"I know. Maybe in another life we will find each other again, have boring jobs and a family."

"How many?"

"A boy and a girl."

"I don't think I'd be good at being a girl dad."

"Oh you'd be perfect. A little bit overprotective but she'd have you wrapped around her finger."

"Like her mom."

"And our son would admire you and would think his dad is a badass."

"I like the sound of that."

"Like I said, maybe in another life..."

"Also great music taste would run in the family if you don't count Sam."

"That's for sure."

[flagellant]

The more I think about Wildmender the more I grow invested in it. It's a fascinating interpretation of terra nil and solarpunk since so often the genre is fundamentally rooted in settler-colonialist philosophy, and even games which are intended to be the opposite of that--terra nil comes to mind as the obvious one--just end up actually revealing a different side of the factorio problem, because terra nil is an incredible impersonal restoration of ecological systems. Terra Nil acknowledges climate destruction on a global catastrophic scale and it accepts the responsibility to fix that, but it isn't shown as a human act, nor does it really allow itself the realism of just how terrifyingly impossible the task is to try and literally fix the entire world. Its game structure is supposed to be the anti-factorio but its puzzle structures focusing on efficiency and robotic engineering patterns of rewilding end up feeling more like a dialogue than an inversion. It's trying to say that the idea of humanity as fundamentally destructive is wrong while it doesn't actually ever address the human element.

And then there's fucking Wildmender. A game where you are a single human child in a world of endless wasteland and death, where the only other things are ghosts who remember a halcyon era and the hubris that ended it, wraiths which are consumed by their own greed and destruction of the land for their cursed immortality, and a couple god statues. The entire map is just ceaseless grief, filled with the literal dessicated remains of all the biodiversity that came before the countless disasters. And it's a big fucking map.

And then...the game gives you a shovel and a sickle and a mirror that shows the wraiths what twisted reflections they've become.

And the game says, "The entire world is waiting to be better, and the only way to do that is by doing it yourself, long and hard and hopeless as it seems."

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelming the task you're handed. There is not a single speck of life left in the world. You are given a shovel and a water bottle and just...expected to do something about it. To look at the literal endless wastes and think you can heal it.

This is what Wildmender cherishes that Terra Nil denies: This is an impossible task for you alone. But it has to be done...and you can actually do it. The way you can turn sand into soil and dig irrigation channels is beautiful. Every single scrap of land that you reclaim is something you had to do on purpose. You had to do it yourself. You had to actively choose how to do it.

And the game makes the reward of even just getting a bit more water into the sand feel like victory. Your starting oasis turns from soil into lush and beautiful meadows--sure, technically instantaneously by doing magic on a specific type of plant. But it took me 4-5 hours before I got there. You have to travel so far into the desert to learn how to grow grass again, and then you realize that this endless hostile wasteland is a fraction of the map you're given. And you look at this sudden profusion of meadowy grassland surrounding your spring and despite how sudden it feels you remember how big the world is. You made more progress in a minute than you did in 5 hours and it's not even a speck on the map. How the fuck is this gonna happen?

And the answer is by accepting that it's going to take a long fucking time and a lot of hard work.

That's how it's gonna happen. Get to work.

[lowkeiloki]

Could there be a good minecraft movie?

From the look of the trailer, it seems like the movie is gonna get every single thing it could possibly get wrong. They dont have faith in their audience to understand a plot taking place in a world so different from our own, so they go with the isekai plot, the single laziest direction they couldve taken.

But what would a good minecraft movie look like? It would be hard to pull off, but not impossible.

Firstly, most of us can all agree that a minecraft movie should not be live action, its a heavily stylized game and the real people in it look ridiculously out of place. the movie should stay fully animated and not overly detailed. Personally, i think the movie could look great in stop motion. Stop motion can really bring out the combination of cozy and spooky feeling that minecraft has.

what about the plot?

Minecraft is a very quiet and atmospheric game, there is no dialogue, everybody communicates, but nobody talks including steve. It's a sandbox game, because it lets you build and terraform and shape the world as you want and move towards the end goal at your own pace (if youre interested in completing the end goal at all). But also because throughout the game you're given bits and pieces of lore and you're the one to put them together to how you see them. Why are endermen hurt by water? What are creepers? Why are piglins so stingy about gold? Who built the pyramids and monuments? You don't get the answer, it's up to your own interpretation. Going back to the movie, it really should be low on dialogue. Steve could narrate the movie, but he never talks (like Spirit from "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron). He sees an enderman and makes eye contact qith it which aggrevates it, he doesnt know why it aggrevated it, but from that experience he learns not to do that anymore and manages to co exist peacefully with them. If anyone talked in that movie, it should be alex (if shes even in the movie), but she doesnt talk a lot and nobody understands her language but steve who cant talk back. Communication is done through body language and actions, the visuals and the music (and i mean minecraft music) primarely tell the story.

What would it be about tho?

When we begin to play minecraft, we're thrown into the world with no manual or instructions, we're on our own empty handed, we go through the world learning how to craft, what to do with new items we find, which mobs are our allies and which our foes. I remember playing minecraft for the first time (actually quite recently, sometime after the nether update) and i was so confused and stressed because i had no idea what i was supposed to be doing, everything was strange and foregin and there was no guide on what to do. But as i got the hang ot it, as i started exploring and gathering materials and building my base it soon became fun and relaxing. The further i went, the more confident i felt. This is what the movie should be about. Being in this unknown world without anyone to guide you and the only way forward is to try and fail and try again and face the unfamiliar and get to know your surroundings. It should be about facing the fear of unknown, letting yourself fail, breaching out of the comfort zone, not finding your place in the world, but building it. It doesn't have to end with slaying the dragon, it can end with steve realizing he is not afraid anymore, that he has what he needs to feel comfortable and all the confidence to go forward. I feel like a lot of people that grew up with minecraft as kids are now young adults and a movie about being placed in a new environmemt where you're the one to take care of yourself and nobody guides you by hand would reasonate with them quite a lot

but, you know, i'm sure another jumanji clone with jack black starring as jack black in blue shirt will do the trick just as well.

[thefirstknife]

BEL?!???

NIGHTMARES? HAUNTING?? ROOT?!!

HHELLO NEZAREC?!?? HI HELLO HI?!?!

My best friend?? my pal, my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy, my nightmare manipulatior?!?!!

HELLO?!?!

(low key sad hes not a fair weather ally but a raid boss but hey! who knows? maybe he'll have dialogue and this is just him having a grand time and seeing if we're up to snuff? coping so hard please 🥺)

Just now saw that you also sent me this, oops. Actually a good opportunity because I re-read my other reply to an ask and thought I sounded way too convinced about stuff we know nothing about. Things are rarely super clear to the point where we can be confident about new expansion story and raid.

The point about the nightmares not being exclusively his still stands (that we know of!), but as I mentioned back then, we still don't know if the nightmares are inherently tied to Pyramids originally or if the Pyramids are making them by using a resource they acquired from someone or somewhere. That's one of the things I hope we'll find out! Because it is absolutely possible that Nezarec did originate the nightmares and then distributed the source for that power to other Pyramid ships.

Looking back at the previous ask and all of this and the insisting on the "nightmare" and "dreams" stuff (which can be seen in the soundtrack names), it might be possible that they're attempting to consolidate certain aspects of the Darkness lore. It's definitely easier to tie a few things together and give us a banger raid than to leave it open. Cleaning up loose ends and all.

NO clue how this could possibly tie into what appears to be a beam of Light and plants overtaking a Pyramid and why the nightmares would be related and why Nezarec would be there and in what form. Like, there's definitely a ton of absolutely WILD shit going down in Lightfall and predicting anything is basically impossible so pretty much any theory might be right.

For all we know, he could even be in the form of an ally due to the Light beam perhaps? What got me re-thinking things is something I've noticed in the video Bungie posted about their process of making the soundtrack no less. So, in the vidoc (0:50-0:55) I saw this bit and noticed the statue with a scythe in the right side of the screen.

It intriguied me immediately because of the scythe, but you can't see much of it so there's no point thinking about it. But in the music video today? Immediately caught my attention because they showed more of it (at 4:50):

That's a whole ass creature. It looks less like a statue also. It looks kinda like a Tormentor? But not really: it has a head. At first I didn't want to bother with it more because there's literally no way to know, but then later all this stuff with the raid was revealed and it got me thinking now. Especially with your ask!

This is also presumably the Pyramid that gets hit by the beam, since we later see the cutscene with the Witness going through plants and there's a long corridor in the background which looks like this one. We have no clue what the beam actually does, but from looking at the raid image, it very clearly is in some way overtaking the Pyramid. Which is also the vibe I'm getting from the scene itself, as the plants are bursting in:

Anyway, I am losing my mind now with overthinking every single piece of footage. I would still love something new and wild in the raid, but honestly with how this stuff is set up, even Nezarec would be new and wild. Because like, how. Is this why the Witness wanted his body parts? But then again, it didn't get them because we stole them. But then again, they're on the HELM and we're heading into battle with it, unless we secured them somewhere before.

This raid image is absolutely wild to me. Nezarec could very well be a boss or a character. At least parts of him. Don't get super excited (I'm trying to keep not too excited), but at this point I simply have no clue. Well done Bungie, you have bamboozled me. For all we know, maybe the Traveler is a raid boss at this point (that's a joke. I hope).

I'll always mention something that I never see Nezarec fans mentioning and I talked about it in this post which is also your ask and also about Nezarec (😂). That he was known to the Hive, or at least to Sylok, as Nastareth, and worshipped through pain. Just for good measure.

Anyway, be prepared to be surprised as I have genuinely no idea what might be going on here or in Lightfall in general. We're truly in the wildest territory now. Forfeiting any predictions and theories and any strong opinions about what the raid will be about. It could genuinely be anything.

[iwrite-sinsandtragedies]

@organized-chaotic-disaster I totally see what you mean 😭 (tho I haven’t played the Derek or Baxter DLCs myself). Tbh I think the main reason you can’t be poly is the fact that it would be hard to implement in an already complex game with high customization of your experience, especially since it’s written by one person— idk how they’d do that tbh. And I know GB has gone on record to say that Cove wouldn’t be down for a poly relationship, but it still sucks to not have the option. I understand why poly relationships aren’t really a thing in games— a combination of monogamy being the norm irl and the difficulty in implementing the mechanic itself —but I hope one day those barriers can be broken down so it becomes an option 😭 And sorry if any of this comes across as me coming for you or something, that’s not my intention!!! I just had some thoughts I wanted to share. Overall I definitely agree that things like this could and should be handled better, and hopefully will be with future games with dateable NPCs— I’d love to explore that myself, and I wish I could with OL.

[original post]

Mm, It's certainly not impossible to add in those features [the FH series, for example, is a single writer and they've added in poly options upon fan requests] but, I can understand not wanting to put the extra work in yeah, especially since the creator has been saying for a while now that "this is the last thing I'll do for olba" like, they seem to be really trying to move on to the next project, so I get it.

It's also why I don't expect to ever get any resolution for this😔but it still does make me very sad because I really do love this game so much, it's one of the few forms of media out there that make me feel comfortable/understood/safe with myself and the lack of a poly option really takes away from that feeling quite a bit.

My main gripe though is that there isn't any conversation at all about it. Like, that just takes away from the experience of the game.

Once you choose to date Baxter, everyone just goes 'Error 404' on you and seems to outright forget that you were basically setting up to and expected to marry Cove. That, to me, reads like a failing of writing.

Like, there should be some dialogue, y'know? Cove should be able to question your relationship, even in a round-about and self-concious/self-serving way, there should be some tension there where he has to tackle his very real feelings for you and you can possibly do the same for him but, there's just none. Like, if you flirt with him in Step 2, have that romantic tension carry over to Step 3 he shouldn't be able to just shrug off all his feelings instantly. Feelings don't work that way, bro😂It just bugs me that it's so inorganic and unable to be explored. Cove and MC have a lot of history, they should be able to talk about it in every aspect, y'know?

Also! Not ranting at you specifically, lmao! I'm just sharing my feelings. Thank you so much for replying to me, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts! It's also just nice to see that someone out there also wants the poly options like me🥺we got too much love in our wee little hearts for this single romance bs lmaooo

I lowkey wish there was a mod community for games like these😂ngl, it'd be nice to just have a mod that ignored certain flags or something so that you could at least have the romantic tension still there with Cove while you romance someone else. It doesn't fix the lack of dialogue option but it'd be better than the clear and noticable lack of what was clearly there before. At least then it'd be easier to pretend there was something to bite into lol

[rplayford02]

Tim, Sean, Mira and Mars: Test Shoot

@ Filmhouse Edinburgh, 22.11.23

We returned to the Filmhouse on the Wednesday of the same week to shoot. By this time we had narrowed it down to 4 shots and had secured an extra hour’s access in the morning. We had kit drop off that same day at 4:30 and had to be out of the Filmhouse by 4 anyway so there was no room to run over schedule. Taking pack up time and rush hour traffic into account, I aimed to have us wrapped by 2:30. My schedule is linked here, and my very rushed, very empty call sheet is here.

After a lot of horrible, vaguely traumatic incidents with Uber drivers (I’m now converted to Bolt) we managed to get the kit to the location. The crew gathered outside so that once we got access we could immediately start moving kit into the auditorium. We were using the back entrance to the Filmhouse so we didn’t need to worry about loitering around with kit as much - of course this would have been pretty much impossible from the front entrance on the main road.

Once inside the camera team started setting up the camera and the lights they needed for the first shot in the projection room, then moving each piece of kit up as and when it was needed. It was slightly inconvenient going up and down the many sets of stairs (two down, one up and vice versa) every single time but there just wasn’t room to store the kit anywhere else safely.

Jenny was very kindly recording sound for me in the morning so she got set up in the auditorium as well. The cast blocked the scene with Robbie while she got prepped. They stood in for camera and lighting checks, up in the projection room, and then I got them sent back down to Jenny to be mic-ed. During this time Jake also went on a couple runs to the shop across the road to grab last minute, in case-of-emergency batteries, snacks and a lot of water.

We basically used the auditorium as a base throughout the entire shoot. We were aware how small the projection room was but of course it felt even smaller once the camera and lights had been moved in. With all the electrics and just the number of bodies it started getting quite hot and there wasn’t much ventilation so I made sure no one was in the room unless they were needed, got lights and camera switched off when possible and kept crew to a minimum.

Jenny found it hard to boom in such a cramped environment and we kept getting boom shadow. Then some engineers started working in the room next door creating the occasional beep and muttering the occasional phrase - not ideal. It wasn’t ruining the dialogue per se but it would require some work in post.

I hope I’m not speaking incorrectly saying that I think Aimee would have liked a little longer to light. I was conscious of time and probably hurried her on a little too quickly. We only ran into lunch by 20 mins in the end and that was after Robbie sprang a whip pan shot on us out of nowhere. So perhaps there would have been more time to light. But in the moment you just don’t know what else might go wrong e.g more engineers show up, they get louder etc etc. I think making these judgement calls will just come with time.

Rosie Playford is Mira

In the afternoon we were shooting the split diopter shot in the auditorium. Alex Caldow was taking over sound from Jenny, and doubling up as gaffer, and I was sitting in as Mira. My starring role had been sprung on me and I had no choice but to reluctantly take it in my stride. Did wonders for the self esteem…..

Xander (The Narrator/the bald guy lurking behind me in the photo above) had a tongue twister of a speech to read out, approximately 50 seconds long so that obviously took a few takes. Then we shot my bit. The less said about that the better. The plan is to later stitch these shots together in the edit to create a split diopter effect.

There were a lot less things for me to think/worry about for the auditorium scene and we wrapped with plenty of time to get kit packed up. We even got time to grab stills of all the HoDs in the cinema seats (for the crowdfunder or the instagram or some kind of promotion purposes).

Photos by Ben McMorran

Thanks so much to everyone who gave their time and helped out! :))

[howsitduud]

Mission: Impossible 3 + 4 Review

Mission Impossible 3 (2006): Directed by JJ Abrams

They weren't lying, there is a lot of running in this movie, but I won't lie, Tom Cruise is real good at it. As for the movie itself, I'd say that this is the first great movie in the franchise, but it's not without its problems. The beginning really doesn't leave a good impression, with Ethan getting married to a woman who never gets a single chance to show any personality and the action scenes being quick-cut bullshit in the dark so we never get a single chance to see anything. I honestly think that the first action scene is worse than any action scene from the second movie, which is saying a lot. But once Ethan goes on that mission to kidnap Philip Seymour Hoffman, it's smooth sailing. I was trying to see how far I could go without mentioning him, but his character, Davian, is the best part of the movie and the best villain in the franchise so far. He's so effortlessly intimidating and him kidnapping Julia means that Ethan now has more personal stake in this mission outside of just the cause or his job or a random woman he barely knows. I said that she's not a great character on her own, but I cared about Ethan getting Julia back by the end of the movie, and that's made better by the fact that this is by far the best Tom Cruise performance I've seen in my life. He plays vengeful sorrow so well I thought I might as well join Scientology if it means I become THAT good of an actor (spoilers: I won't). Oh, and the action is good from there because it includes some great humor and character moments. Probably my favorite moment is in the final act where SPOILERS: Ethan shows Julia how to use a gun and protect herself while he short-circuits his brain. It's a surprisingly wholesome moment and the bit where he says "I love you" before he dies is really nice, too. Overall, this movie is really good. Not amazing or anything, but I would definitely watch it again someday, which is more than I could say for both previous movies.

Final Score: 7/10

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) Directed by Brad Bird

Looks like we're finally getting to the good shit, because Ghost Protocol has some kickass action scenes. Brad Bird is a master at this kind of stuff, and he really got to flex with this movie. There's too many cool sequences to count, like the infiltration into the Kremlin, the climb up the Burj Khalifa, the chase in the sandstorm, the final fight in the car lot, all of the action scenes have such a feeling of scale and spectacle, compounded by the amazing music, cinematography and editing. On top of that, the actual story of this movie is really solid, giving Ethan Hunt and his team no way of getting backup or help from anyone they can trust and dangling the threat of nuclear warfare over their heads is a great way of upping the stakes from the last 3 movies, and I'm really interested in what they do next movie. This kinda gave me vibes to the last act of Edge of Tomorrow with how stacked the odds were against them. With that being said, I do have a major problem with the actual dialogue. The plot is rock-solid, and some characters are good. Ethan is as charismatic as ever, Bogdon and Benji are nice additions to the field, and Hendricks is played by the best villain from John Wick which is based, but I can't say I really care about any other character. Jane is kind of a nothing character, which sucks because there's plenty they could've done with her character and her revenge quest, and I don't need to tell you that replacing Luther with Jeremy fucking Renner is a downgrade in every way. Plus, there's a bunch of jokes in this movie that feels like "MCU-style humor," where the characters joke around in a serious situation in the most forced ways possible. It works for the MCU (most of the time), not so much here. Still, this movie fucking rules and I can't wait to watch the next movie later tonight.

Final Score: 8/10

[pomegranate-cuties]

[Image description: Set of photographs of text from the Good Omens season 1 script book by Neil Gaiman

ANATHEMA Just put it there. Thanks so much. Here you go. She gives him money. He wishes he had a line here. He doesn't. ANATHEMA (CONT'D) What a gorgeous village. It's like it ought to be on a postcard. Thank you... The driver goes away, thinking, all these years acting and I don't even get a line of dialogue. Anathema opens the box that she brought, and takes out...

He holds the plant up. CROWLEY (CONT'D) Everyone, say goodbye to your friend. He just couldn't cut it. The plants are terrified. No, I don't know how we show this on television either.

AZIRAPHALE Got any better ideas? Got one single better idea? Crowley glares at him, glarefully.

TITLE CARD: MESOPOTAMIA, 3004 BC It's classical Noah's Ark. Thunder rumbles but the rain hasn't yet begun. Animals head past, two by two... SHEM, HAM and JAPHETH are herding animals along, shouting at them. This could be shot in a way that implies that we have the budget to show it all if we wanted to, we just don't want to. Mostly it's animal noises.

HARMONY Kill them! They are very irritating. Greta raises her gun and is about to shoot Aziraphale when — BOOM — HUGE EXPLOSION. FIRE AND LIGHT AND THINGS BEING BLOWN AROUND. SO COOL AN EXPLOSION THAT I AM TYPING IN CAPITALS.

INT. ADAM'S BEDROOM — NIGHT Adam's in bed, with a torch/flashlight, reading New Aquarian magazines. He has a bag of sherbet lemons, which he is sucking. (The sherbet lemons, not the bag.) ADAM Brilliant.

EXT. MORBILLO DECK — DAY — PRESENT DAY Start on CAPTAIN VINCENT, played, if possible, by WILLIAM SHATNER, talking into a dictaphone. Slow pull back to reveal, first that the captain is on the bridge of the Morbillo, a relatively small, high-tech very fancy luxury cruise ship. CAPTAIN VINCENT (V.O.) Captain's log, pleasure cruiser Morbillo. Was sailing south-south-west on course for Hawaii when we realised that something was amiss. EXT. MORBILLO DECK — NIGHT Earlier: the FIRST MATE is pointing down, towards the ocean. The captain looks down and sounds like William Shatner as Kirk when he says... CAPTAIN VINCENT But that's... impossible...

SHADWELL (CONT'D) Put. It. On. And, awkwardly, Newt does. Shadwell nods approvingly. If Terry was still alive, he'd make a point of telling me that this should be shot like every war movie, where the weapons are getting checked, loaded, before our team head out to certain death. So I am writing it instead. Weapons porn. Shadwell is handing over things he is taking from the cabinet.

MADAME TRACY Here you go. Nice cup of — She looks down. Shadwell is fast asleep on her bed. He's still got his boots and raincoat on. She looks at him with... well, with love. It's probably easier to love Shadwell when he's asleep. Then she backs out of the door.

PEPPER And this is our Hogback Wood too. We don't want to go to America or Asia. Dog makes a whining noise that sounds a bit like 'or Australia'.

SHADWELL D'you see this finger, laddie? This finger could send you to your maker! And the guard looks desperately at Madame Tracy, who is delivering the kind of one-woman two-person performance that gets you Emmys and BAFTAs.

A VERY VERY STUPID THING THAT LOOKS LIKE IT'S MADE OF ROCKS AND EVIL says, not very intelligently: ROCK THING Smaaarrrterrr...

SATAN Come here! We close in on Adam's face and then on his eyes. This child is Power Incarnate. ADAM You're not my dad. You never were.

Aziraphale picks up the sword from the ground, and holds it awkwardly, as if it might go off. He's not threatening Crowley with it, just making his point that he can do dangerous out-of-character things if he needs to. AZIRAPHALE Come up with something, or . . . Or I'm never going to talk to you again.

End description.]

Best of Neil's stage directions/commentary in the good omens s1 script book

I went back and read this to help me cope after s2, as one does

[breedaboyd]

20 Questions for Writers

I was told by my friend, @the-broken-quill, to do this meme. So here it is. There's a lot to get through so let's get going. And I'll stick it under a cut so people can skip past if they want.

But first, have an aesthetic Donnie gif. Courtesy of me.

How many works do you have on AO3?

As of today, I have 220. Phew.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

Oh, God, I'm scared to look... 1,515,823 words. Yikes. I wonder how many of those are 'cock'.

3. What fandoms do your write for?

Hmm... Kind of anything and everything. If you look on my fandom list, there are 187. But, at the moment, I'm mainly writing for the Sandman, Indiana Jones and other fandoms that involve Boyd Holbrook.

4. What're your top 5 fics by kudos?

Those would be: 'Keeping Up with the Madrigals' ✑ 1,606. 'Dead by Moonlight' ✑ 408. 'Various Spiderman One-Shots' ✑ 358. 'Finish Him!!' ✑ 321. 'Mirror, Mirror' ✑ 314.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to but sometimes if they're just like 'nice', there's only so many times you can respond to it. 😅😅 I try my best to though. Had a couple of people wanting to collab/commission me and on both counts they've been very weird and predatory (not you, ZEBS) so like stay safe out there, guys.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm a purveyor of smut, see, not angst but...I do like a twist ending. 'Start Fresh. Begin Again.' has angst all the way throughout but a more positive ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I try to end on a high-note so most smut fics have happy endings. Maybe 'Second Chances'? It's not a smut fic, it's just all about recovery and a little bit of falling for one another. It's very, very fluffy because Pinky deserves it.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Sometimes. I've had to leave a couple fanbases because of this. *Cough, cough* Walten Files.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Oomph. Pick your poison, bud. We got vanilla stuff, oral, anal, breeding kink, toy stuff, public stuff, lactation, face-fucking, magic stuff, anatomically impossible stuff... The list literally goes on forever.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really a big crossover person because I feel like that would require a lot of world building but ZEBS and I have done a Mortal Kombat/Evil Dead crossover RP.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of? Why would you?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I believe so but I can't remember which one...

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yepski! My friend, ZEBS, and I have written quite a bit together. I've also done a little bit with an old friend, Brana, but the bulk of it is me and ZEBS.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

They're all OCs but Corinthian/Alistair, Klaber/Wolf and Cap/Theo. I've put so much time into developing them. I love them so much.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

There are waaaay too many WIPs that get started and then get left behind. Go through my works and drink every time you see a work where I was too optimistic with the chapter count. You will die.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Smut, of course. Specifically, dirty talk?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

World-building and scene-setting. I'm really impatient and enjoy getting right down to business.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Obviously, I'm in favour. Wolff speaks in German and Hungarian and I frequently have to put translations in the end notes. I think it adds a little depth of character if it makes sense for said character but, if you're just doing it for the fuck of it, I feel like it takes you out of the scene.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

That would be Dorian Grey, particularly the 2009 film.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Maybe not my favourite and maybe not one, single fic because it's all different fics smushed into one but I'm really proud of myself for Boydtober this year (I'm currently putting it out day by day). I've tried to complete Kinktober 4 different times and every time I've given up and gotten down about it. This year! I've prepared and completed it and it's 120k+! I'm so excited to share it with everyone!

Whew! That was a lot. Now I'm supposed to tag a bunch of people but, honestly, I don't know that many. I'll tag @the-broken-quill but then, if you see this and you wanna do it, do it.

I'm gonna peace out with my favourite gif of my favourite cowboy.

Lookit that smile! 😘😘

[whateverthedragonswant]

TW: 1x07 "Reflections"

Disclaimer: It goes without saying, if you don’t like, don’t read. And as I always say, criticism of a show does not equate to criticism of actors (or executive producers) as people so if you choose to continue, please leave all stanage (in particular, AA baggage) at the door.

Written by: David H. Goodman & Robbie Thompson

Directed by: Richard Speight, Jr.

Rating: 6/10

Pros: decent mid-season finale; A+ usage of 15x18 theme for John and Henry's scene & the usage of the Winchester theme; I have decided to adopt an alien-spider dog & I'm starting a group for all alien spider-dog moms on Facebook so let me know if you want to join (Roxy would join but she's, ya know, floating in a dimension somewhere that doesn't have decent Wifi); Samuel's entrance; the Jary kiss felt earned; Speight directing (yes, you could definitely feel it); music choices are starting to be more on point for the time period and the overall vibe of the show

Cons: The Akrida obviously being a copy of SPN demons (which is why we haven't seen too many demons thus far btw) & just the SPN copying in general, I thought this show was supposed to expand the universe, not clone every single facet of it; Bridget's own Party City wig; rather than ADR, they kept Meg's cracking loss of voice in; Dean's voiceover

Dean voiceover: “There comes a time in every hunt when the fighting starts. And the difference between winning and losing isn't whether you have the holy water, the wooden stake, or the silver bullet. It's whether you got the grit to get the job done.” - Still not quite Dean (too much of a bit of an accent present) but closer - you're getting warmer, Jensen

Isn’t Mary concerned they might hear her or John’s voice? If there was someone in there?

Oh boy, Samuel’s bag covered in blood, not good

So in SPN the MoL bunker in Lebanon was empty because of Abbadon, right? Idr that storyline too well, did Abbadon and all of the demons/Hell Knights wipe out all MoL? I wonder if we’ll get the answer later since I see Gil is in this episode

A werewolf, another supernatural guard, just like Mrs. Butters

“Me being in here cooked right through him” - I’m sorry, I’m just going to say it, the Akrida idea and execution is stupid - I seriously feel like this was their response to copy the demons that Dean and Sam came up against in season 1 (with YED leading to Lillith then leading to Lucifer)

Are those 3 spikes on the ground next to Akrida!Hector?

OMG SERIOUSLY WHAT IS WITH THAT HAIR??? Did they shop at the same wig store they got Sam’s wig from in the SPN series finale? That is genuinely terrible - why not just curl Bridget’s actual hair at that point? - there’s a difference between 70’s style hair and a mop head that’s been in a violent windstorm only to then be turned into a wannabe shag carpet

So if she’s the queen of the Akrida, why use a scalpel to threaten this guy? Doesn’t she have the alien spider-dog hanging around at her beck and call? Was he not able to come through the alien spider-doggie door?

Ah, there he is! (love how the guy barely spares him a glance btw)

The Ostium…interesting name...I'm not going to say what it makes me think of, I'm not going to...nope...mm-mmm...lips zipped

And just like that he knows his dad’s handwriting? - I mean, I get that he’s probably read and reread Henry’s letter hundreds of times by now but that seems rather impossible to tell that quickly? Especially not using the letter to reference?

Awww Carlos 🥺 

I’m glad they brought Millie in, it feels more like a mid-season finale episode now

Of course Carlos and Mary get pulled over by Mop Head--sorry, I mean Roxy

Ooo Meg, a little bad acting here

The best thing about this scene? Bridget - no surprise there, she always plays a wickedly entertaining bad guy

Nice move, Carlos

Meg sounded sick in this scene, like she was losing her voice a bit - girl, get you some Ricola drops or something. How horrible they made her shoot dialogue when she's literally lost her voice (yes, I know, that's the industry, but still, how does that work in the episode's favor?)

That was a nice scene between Millie and Ada

Good song choice

Awww Carlos doesn’t want to lose Mary or the group, understandable

I love Ada’s magic so far in this show - if they do bring some SPN originals to cross over, I really hope Rowena is one of them, I’d love for her and Ada to cross paths

Oh yeah, Meg is definitely losing her voice *goes all mom and picks up phone to leave Robbie another voicemail; ignores his greeting telling me specifically not to leave another message*

Ah, the infamous Dean/Winchester theme coming into play when John brings the object - this is going to be important for John’s character I’m assuming

So, Henry showed up after all (also love how they had Mary have the lighted up halo as being John’s “saving grace” in the beginning of that scene)

Wow, are they playing the confession scene music during this scene???? W O W - this is obviously very important for John (and this reiterates how important that 15x18 scene was for Dean's character)

And the Winchester/Dean theme comes back into play - wow, they’re really going all out for this one

So I’m confused or maybe I’m just not remembering, do they know Henry died before this moment or how? Or no? If not, neither John nor Millie asked him? And they suddenly knew they needed to do a seance? Or maybe it was in Henry's letter and I'm just not remembering? Like a "if you're reading this, I'm dead" kind of thing?

I think Drake did a great job in this scene

And just like that, Roxy is gone? Bridget did a whole whopping 3 episodes this season? How was she not the queen? Bridget, don't worry, you'll always be my queen, just not of a weird alien bug species - don't worry, girl, I've got you

They sure have a lot of monster essence when they only dealt with 1, 2, 3 tops so far this season?

The first kiss and a callback to the first episode - I wouldn’t say this moment was overflowing with chemistry but it sort of felt earned? Way more than another couple in another show of Jensen's that shall remain nameless *cough* Big Sky *cough cough*

I couldn't help but laugh when the door broke open and their kiss got interrupted only because it was like 'did you guys really forget that a rabid pack of weird alien spider-dogs are trying to break down the door to kill y'all?'

The Samuel save was a good one - I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the scene - not gonna lie, I expected Clark Kent's laser eyes to come into play but Tom/Samuel wielding the Akrida-sucking-ghost-trap-thing was pretty good, too...now he just has to put that thing into the Containment Unit & we're golden, then they can go to that Big Kennel in a random dimension

Gotta say, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Tom as Samuel but I’ve never been so relieved to see anyone in this show as much as I was with him

So, the monster essences are going to wake the queen, I take it? *thinks about this* Is Mary going to be in a mecha-suit soon doing battle with a huge alien spider-dog/wolf thing? Because I gotta admit, that kinda feels like where this is heading with the whole Alien queen thing (I'm not thinking Aliens, you are) - either that or a huge fucking wasp creature thing

As always, Speight delivers

Episode theme: you have to have the will to get the job done, to keep pushing forward

Monsters: The alien spider-dogs were a bit creepy when there was more than 2 of them - *writes note to self*: do not get more than 2 for the house, keep them out in the yard (good luck, mail person!), do not install any doggie doors, check out alien spider-dog obedience school, tell your neighbors not to let their kids or cats within 500 ft of the property, keep a mop head wig close by and only break out for emergencies, no bath time, and definitely do not feed these little shits after midnight

Chemistry: Mary and Carlos; Ada and Millie; Carlos and Latika; John and Mary

Ending Thoughts: Not bad for a mid-season finale for this show. I think it's starting to make its way, slowly but surely. I’m curious to see how the father/daughter scenes between Samuel and Mary play out when the show returns. I have to say, there were times I had no desire to continue this show due to the writing, the lazy-not-even-hiding-it outright copying of everything SPN, the overall mess, but it’s gotten somewhat better as it’s progressed so depending on how the mid-season premiere goes on January 24th, that will determine if I continue with the series or not (something tells me I will but because I like to be all mysterious and shit so I don't want to give the game away too soon... *whispers* I'll probably continue watching it)

[rsmrymnt-tea]

Thats so funny because I only dont care for lesson 16 and the lessons around it because i felt the resolution was a bit rushed in terms of everyone just suddenly being lovey dovey with MC cuz theyre descended of lilith. I would love to hear your thoughts on this when you get the chance!

honestly i WISH i were apathetic about lesson 16... but as a person being apathetic about something is impossible (sadly... it would bring me so much more peace if i could just not care) and so i do have a lot of thoughts about lesson 16? like bestie you've just unlocked a long long rant that's gonna be hidden under the cut

because it is just sooo absurd to me that that was somehow the best idea that the writers came up with, and the execution ended being so rushed and poorly written that it managed to make so many people think that the brothers only love mc and/or only started being open with mc about how much they adore them because of the lilith reveal. it's very much not like that at all (i have arguments for every single one of them tbh) but the way lesson 16 was written + some of the handling of some of the brothers' relationship to mc before that definitely makes more than understandable to me that people would think so.

so like, firstly i think that yeah, the resolution is so rushed and weirdly written. i think at the end of lesson 16, belphie should not be so immediately buddy-buddy with mc and there should've been dialogue from ALL the brothers that they're glad that MC is fine and isn't actually dead. the mammon favoritism from the writers kills me here—levi and beel should've said something about being worried to death and i won't take any other opinion on it! they've been close to mc and have had pacts with them for much longer than asmo and satan!! i can't even agree that asmo and satan wouldn't have been concerned because they were definitely worried when mc was sent back in time (as shown in lesson 12), and that is just a few hours away from the events of lesson 16.

not to mention, just a few hours before (technically after, but never got the chance to happen in the new timeline) they were called family—there is just no way that none of them are greatly relieved that mc is fine (because those feelings are there even if they're never said), and it's not enough that they're showing it through coddling them during that stupid scene where diavolo drops that 'there must be so much they've wanted to do for lilith' line.

in fact that line is another major issue i have with lesson 16—why did the writers think it was a good idea have that said? it just adds more to the 'oh they only love mc bc they're related to lilith' thing, and in a game where y'know, the goal is to kiss and fuck these guys, it's very weird and off putting.

(inb4 someone brings up that mc wouldn't have any blood relation to lilith and the brothers + it's been millennia (probably; but parts of canon imply that it's been like, just 200 years ago) since then so it's fine. idk but my inclination to fuck someone who drop super low if i thought/knew they associate me with being related to their sister, and it's also a little weird if they're thinking of their sister when they're with me—which isn't the case at all because the brothers very much love you outside of your lilith relation, but the handling of lesson 16 really makes it seem like youre now someone to project their affections for their long dead sister on sdgjkg especially with belphie being the only one to openly say that he doesn't like you purely bc you're related to lilith and that weird scene where lucifer's reminded of holding hands with his sister while he's holding hands with you at a carnival? such a baffling thing to make him say, writers. whatever blush i'd have would immediately drain from my face.)

i also think it's a fault of the writers that there is very, very little clear romantic attraction from the brothers to mc before the revelation. as far as i know, only mammon's been anything transparent + there's hints from lucifer and satan in lesson 12; i personally wouldnt count the time everyone was stuck in an otome because theyre were obligated to do all that or else they wouldnt be leaving the game and it was clear that they're all just saying those words to literally get points. they all make fun of mammon for having a crush on mc which sends the message that none of them are interested. while there is a huge, huge timeskip of what's apparently 10 whole months between the end of lesson 18 and the start of lesson 19, the fact that we don't get to see that development of feelings makes it feel even more like the revelation had something to do with the rest of the brothers catching feelings :/

then there's like, all the other issues i have with lesson 16 which have honestly become inspiration for dola's vitriol towards diavolo. it makes it so that all the of the heartwarming moments that mc experiences with the brothers never happened. all those little one-on-ones with the brothers when mc come back to the HoL with beel after belphie's arrested? never happened. all of them working together to get lucifer out so they can actually talk? never happened. and neither did that talk where lucifer himself tells everyone what really happened to lilith or why he's so loyal to diavolo, or the moment where mc is called family? erased. lucifer proving to diavolo and all his brothers that he cares more about his family than his eternal obedience to the prince? absolutely did not happened and is replaced by diavolo rubbing it in lucifer's face that he shouldn't have ever doubted him in the first place or some shit during lesson 16.

it's why i think mc should be so much more upset than they were during lesson 16. i get that the writers wont do that because ~blank slate~ (not saying cant bc lbr they lock you into choices and emotions you dont agree with ALL the time) but it leaves a sour and bitter taste in my mouth that after losing all of that, mc is just okay with everything. everything returns to almost normal, and we're actually in charge of making sure it goes completely back to normal! we have to help belphie bond with his brothers again!! great.

most frustrating somehow, all the things i come up with in trying to justify why that stupid lesson played out like it did feels like copium lmaooo especially since it feels like there's not really any payoff to diavolo ensuring that the only reality that exists is one where lucifer never openly opposed him in front of his brothers >.>;; it's such a weird lesson with such a weird conclusion, and an aftermath that i sped through because i could not get into the idea of my mc being so willing to help belphie bond with his brothers again so fast. i think with all the magical bullshit that they can make the brothers and diavolo pull bc OM has no rules to their magic, they couldve easily had mc come back from their mission to report that te door opened with their touch. then through some magical ritual of some sort, they go and investigate and find that lilith's spirit is just there and was the final sibling that enabled the door to open, and then diavolo channels enough magic through some obscure spell or device to get her to talk to them and belphie or whatever—literally there's so many ways that that lesson could've gone.

instead we have like... whatever the fuck that lesson is and i hate it lol

[obriengf]

like, where does one start when fangirling hard about a fic like THIS? it is all absolutely superb, starting from the eclectic descriptions of the writing itself to the brilliant realistic banter between the two main characters (the dialogue is perfection tbh).

AND THEN you see the best utilisation of too many hyphens to create such imagery for how much love this poor soul has for the reader is crazy......

He does. Stiles swallows a little. You know him so well. You know everything about him. Everything except, of course, that the crush he had on you in elementary school has metastasized into an all-consuming, all-encompassing, honest-to-god, tried-and-true-blue, last-of-dying-breed, core-of-the-sun, probably-caused-the-big-bang kind of love.

also please don't get me started on how "Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?” absolutely ruined me ... and BOY BLUNDER?!?! BOY WONDER?!?!?! ugh my heart

Stiles wanted to laugh. And then scream. And then kiss you. He didn’t do any of those things. He just said, “Can’t picture it any other way.” He didn’t say that whenever he thought about the future, whenever he pictured forever, you were always there. He didn’t ask, ‘Is it okay if I’m in love with you forever?’

like it's okay, you can fuck with my heart like that??!?!?? ^^^^^^

And then, he’d kiss you. He’d kiss you again, and again, and again, until one of you started laughing, but that’d be okay because it would give him the chance to kiss your neck and whisper, 'You’re the sky, and the mountains, and everything in-between.' 'You’re dark matter; you’re gravity,' he’d kiss the words into your skin and sigh, 'you’re the only thing holding the universe together.' But he can’t say that, so Stiles follows you into Lydia’s bedroom and wipes the sweat on his palms off on his jeans.

^^ this bit really got me. it was so fucking pretty, i reread it like 3 times.

also when stiles stepped out the window it was actually so characteristically him tbh - brilliant example of combining two fandoms together to make this fic

You are…” Stiles closes his eyes, and his voice is so soft, so devout, “you are so fucking...inescapable, you know that? You are…you’re so deep inside my head, I can’t do anything without thinking about you. It’s becoming a serious fuckin’ problem—a nuisance, actually, a nuisance. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop, y’know, like it would be fuckin’ awesome if I could just forget how you smell like going home and a goddamn spring meadow, or if I could go fuckin’ grocery shopping without looking for those impossible to find chips with the Elmer Fudd lookin’ fucker on ‘em—”

“Hot fries,” you whisper hoarsely.

Stiles stops pacing for a moment and nods at you, “Thank you—hot fries. And I would love it if I could walk down the street, just once, and not look for a dog to take a picture of, just so I have an excuse to text you without looking like I was just thinking about you—even though I was obviously just thinking about you because, re my previous ranting, there’s literally not a single second of the day that you're not on my mind. You're just…inevitable.”

“And…I am Iron Man?” your smile is wobbly.

Stiles gives you a flat look over his shoulder, “You’re a smartass—but I love that. I love everything about you—even the way you talk through my favorite movies and force-feed me a vegetable once a week.”

^^legit probably one of my all time favourite character interactions and dialogue that I've ever read in a fic 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

i honest to god could write feedback and praise for every single line of this fic. everything about it is composed so beautifully and brought to life with the most amazing amount of realism and imagery. i could honestly see myself reading it over and over again. seriously lizzie you better not have any ounce of doubt for your writing EVER because are so consistently amazing and i am in constant awe with everything that you do and write 💖👏🤌

𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒏 𝒈𝒐 // stiles stilinski imagine Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Isaac Lahey, Malia Tate, Kira Yukimura, Allison Argent Pairing(s): Stiles x you, Word Count: 8.9k Tags: human!au, fluff, childhood to friends to lovers Warnings: there are a few little nsfw mentions in the middle, so MDNI. Stiles does go out on a window ledge, but i have to make it clear he has no intention ever of jumping lmao.

A/N: this is basically just one day i thought what if stiles had a nick x jess first kiss because he seems stupid and awkward enough to jump out a window. and thus this nonsense was born. also the pov switching was new, so you’ll have to let me know if you’re a fan or not.

The thing is, Stiles isn’t an idiot. He’s stupid, but he isn’t dumb. He knows that it’s not normal to think about your best friend like this. That being so intensely attuned to the curve of her spine when she stretches or the hint of citrus that clings to her hair after she showers isn’t exactly platonic. 

And he really doesn’t want to be that guy. You know, the guy who just wants more, who gets upset when he can’t have more—the guy who can’t be friends with the girl who doesn’t love him back. So. Stiles stuffs it down. Deep down. And he’s content to die like this because he needs you. 

There are other girls. Boys too, after a latent discovery freshman year ( one that surprised no one but himself ). They come, and they go, and Stiles makes due with what he can have because he knows this is how it has to be. 

But they aren’t you. 

A blatant fact that ruins anything real before it even has the chance to start. 

So here he is: 24, single, and perpetually in love with one of his three roommates—but, hey, at least he does his own laundry now.

Stiles watches you on your bed, sitting on the floor like a child, while he pretends to work on a case report. He feels a little like a child too, the longer he stares at you—like a little boy with his hand in the cookie car. 

He plays with the fluff on your rug to keep his hand busy, tugging on it a little too harshly when you pull your hair back with the scrunchie on your wrist. Stiles feels like a cretin when his eyes follow the rise of your breasts as you fiddle with the knot on top of your head. They trail over the flex of your collarbones, and he sinks further into his shame when he imagines tracing the lines with his tongue. 

You catch him staring, and his throat bobs with his swallow. 

“What?” you ask with arched brows. You grin at him like you know something. 

Fuck, what if you know? 

You asked him something. Stiles knows you asked him something, but he can’t remember what. He just swallows again and fumbles for his coffee. Stiles knows that he should be desensitized to it all by now: your clever mouth, your deft fingers, your fluttering lashes, but he’s still startled by it every so often—like right now, when you look like you’re about to say something snarky at his expense. 

“Does it look that bad?” A few strands of your hair slip from their loose hold when you shake your head at him. “Are you moonlighting with the fashion police? I thought you’d be a little busy living in the murder capital of the world.”

Stiles laughs a little, mostly because of the simple fact that your hair always looks pretty. He said it the first time he saw you, blurted it out like a baby lamb. Stiles knew, even at six, that he should be embarrassed, but he just couldn’t help it. He was so little and completely overwhelmed by his first case of puppy love; the words had nowhere else to go. He’s gotten better at swallowing the praise-vomit, but he still notices. You’re always pretty. He’s doing his best to ignore it. 

“That’s St. Louis actually,” Stiles says. He burns his tongue on his coffee and pulls a face that he knows gives him a double chin. 

You slide off of your bed and kneel down next to him. Your knees press into his thigh, and it feels like something more, something profound, but he knows it doesn’t mean anything. You’re generous with your affection; you make everyone feel special when they’re around you. Stiles loves that about you, how you make him feel like he’s so smart, so vital when he knows that he’s moderately clever at best and really a lot closer criminally obsessive most days. 

“Can you tell me anything about it?” you hum, nestling your chin in the hollow of his shoulder. 

Stiles can smell your body wash. It’s sweet, fresh, and tickles his nose pleasantly—marigold and aloe. He’s seen the bottle in the shower. Sometimes, he has to bite his fist and turn the water to freezing when he accidentally imagines your wet, sudsy body, lathering the scent of marigold from neck to toe. It’s the in-between bits that make him especially nauseous with guilt. 

“Huh?” Stiles mumbles, pressing his singed tongue to the roof of his mouth. 

You poke his cheek and say, “You’re eating your lip. You only do that when you get stuck in a case.” 

Stiles can think of several other things that make him suck his top lip between his teeth, but he is stuck—most likely because he’s spent the last hour watching you. 

You frown, and he smiles a little at the wrinkle between your brows. You smooth out his own forehead wrinkles with your thumb and say, “It helps you sometimes—talking. You think best out loud.”

He does. Stiles swallows a little. You know him so well. You know everything about him. Everything except, of course, that the crush he had on you in elementary school has metastasized into an all-consuming, all-encompassing, honest-to-god, tried-and-true-blue, last-of-dying-breed, core-of-the-sun, probably-caused-the-big-bang kind of love. 

Stiles has tried, and failed, to think of a way to casually confess how he feels. How do you even begin to break something like that to a friend? Over Chinese food? After a few beers at your favorite bar? During one of your Buffy binge nights? How is he supposed to say, ‘Hey, so I’m kind of totally and irrevocably in love with you, and it’s ruining my life a little—but that’s okay ’cause I can’t be happy unless I know that you’re happy’ without blowing up his entire life? 

He can’t. So Stiles stuffs it down again with a sip of his coffee: black and bitter, a little like his heart when your not-boyfriend, boyfriend texts you. And he knows that’s so incredibly unfair of him. He knows that he’s needy, and pathetic, and far too possessive of your attention—it all makes him a little sick with self-loathing. 

You have every right to remove your warmth from his side to respond, and Stiles thinks that if a guy can make you smile like that, he must not be all bad. You seem happy. When isn't feeling sorry for himself, Stiles is happy for you. 

“The local police think it’s gang-related,” Stiles says eventually. His voice is raspy from his burnt throat and too loud in the silence of the near-empty apartment. 

You slide your phone back into your pocket, and Stiles tries not to feel victorious. “And you don’t,” you scooch back to his side, ducking your head over his shoulder to see his screen. 

“No,” Stiles combs his fingers through his hair and sighs, “I don’t. It’s too easy.”

“Follow your gut,” you say, poking his abs, “he usually knows what’s up.” 

“You know what he’s sayin’ right now?” Stiles’s back clicks as he stretches and rolls his neck around in slow circles. It does little for the perpetual ache along the ridge of his skull, but it gives him some space from you and your stupidly sweet smile. “It’s time for chimichangas.” 

You smile at him again, and Stiles blames the swooping in his stomach on hunger. “I think you deserve a little more than off-brand, freezer-burned Tex-Mex.” 

“Don’t knock Great Value,” Stiles grumbles, rubbing a hand over his face. His lips, swollen from an afternoon of tearing into them with his teeth, tug into a tired smile when you wave your hand impatiently in front of his face. He wraps his long fingers around yours and says, “She’s been there for me through everything.” 

“Higher standards, Stiles,” you roll your eyes, crinkled at the corners with your grin, “you’re in desperate need of higher standards.” 

Stiles wants to laugh, feels the impulse itch his throat. High standards are precisely his problem. 

“Maybe you should stop being such a brand snob,” Stiles pokes you in the side, a spot between your ribs that he knows is ticklish. You laugh and shove him away with a firm hand; Stiles goes willingly, stumbles into the doorframe just to make you laugh again. 

“I am not a snob,” you push yourself onto a barstool, socked-feet dangling below. He smiles as you swing them and then knock your ankles together. You used to do the same thing on the playground swing set. “Not liking over-salted garbage is not snobbery.”

Stiles reaches for the open bag of corn nuts on the island, needlessly resting his palm on your lower back under the guise of balance. Your skin is warm, and he’s too busy thinking about how his hand must’ve been molded around the shape of your hip to notice how hard you’re biting your lower lip. 

He tosses a few corn nuts in the air and catches them in his waiting mouth, smacking his lips together until they’re free of nacho cheese seasoning. He grins at the look on your face, and he wants to kiss the tip of your scrunched nose. “See,” Stiles sucks the leftover orange dust off of his fingers. His voice is muffled by his thumb when he says, “You’re snubbing my snacks right now—like a little munchie elitist. How dare you; they probably won’t ever recover.” 

You laugh, as expected, and snatch the bag from the counter, not expected. “You’re literally biting your thumb at me!”

Stiles leans against the counter, rests his forearms on the granite, and watches you chew with a dumb, fond smile on his face. You’re just so clever, all wrapped up in keen smiles and sharp wit. You keep him on his toes, always have—Stiles hasn’t ever met anyone else who can spar with him so well. He doesn’t think he ever will. Admittedly, he hasn’t looked that hard; his heart just isn’t in it—who else would paraphrase Shakespeare in the middle of a mock debate? Who else could possibly look so wily and wicked while doing it through a mouthful of, objectively, terrible gas station eats. 

“Purely accidental,” Stiles taps his fingers against the counter, and his shoulders lift with a small, oh-so innocent shrug, “it’s what we professionals call a ‘serendipitous turn of events’.”

“A professional what?” You grin at him. It’s one of his favorites, the one that says you’re about to tease him. “Sadist?”

“Oh,” Stiles’s brow quirks as he leans forward onto his arms, “so I torture you? Being around me is torturous?” 

“Yes.” Your chin jerks with a small, sharp nod, but the only thing Stiles can see is your pouty bottom lip. 

Sometimes, Stiles swears you do it on purpose—turn him on in the most inconvenient of moments. Make his heart swell into his throat until he devolves into a lovesick caveman. You have to know what you’re doing to him when you walk around in those little tank tops with the lace trim and the sleep shorts that ride up to the swell of your ass. It can’t be accidental, the cute laugh-snorts you’re so embarrassed of, or how you get so excited when you see a bird in a parking lot. It’s all too effective to be a coincidence.

Like right now, the way your lip balm shines under the kitchen lights and exaggerates your pout. You must know how completely and utterly kissable you look, and Stiles can’t do anything about it—now that’s torture. 

You give him mercy and tuck your pout away for a solemn line instead. “You’re evil; you never close the cabinets or take the trash out.” 

“Careful,” Stiles grins and snaps his teeth in the air, “I bite too.”

You lean across the island, and it’s torture, the way your arms squeeze your chest and push your cleavage to the neckline of your shirt. Stiles pointedly avoids looking at the round flesh. It just looks so soft, so plush—so ripe. His teeth ache. His tongue salivates. He craves with reckless abandon, and he’s never satiated. 

Stiles knows you’re a smart girl, but sometimes he forgets. You’d have to be pretty dense, after all, to not see the ravenous gleam in his eyes. You certainly don’t seem to notice it now, not with all that fondness twisting your lips into a grin. Stiles often wonders, worries, how you’d look at him if you knew. Disgusted most likely; he’s disgusted with himself half the time—but you’re so sweet, and so understanding, you’d probably forgive him. 

Pity, Stiles decides, if you knew, you’d pity him. He can’t decide if that’s worse. 

You rest your finger between his brows, and his dark lashes flutter, brushing against his freckles like they stamped the specks onto his skin. “Eat your nuts, monster,” you drag your finger along the slope of his nose and then ‘boop’ the tip, “and then preferably something with a single gram of protein.” 

Stiles grumbles to himself and searches the fridge for something that will placate your relentless bullying. He picks up the whipped cream and rolls the chilled can around in his hands, squinting at the label. 0 grams of protein. Stiles scoffs. Reddi Whip is, like, 75% milk, right?

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he forgets to shut the fridge door until it starts beeping at him like it's a personal offense. 

“Work?”

Stiles barely hears you, nose almost smooshed against his screen. “Huh?” He stares at his phone, eyes rapidly flicking back-and-forth, brain turning over how to counter the latest move on his ever-changing chessboard. 

Stiles finally registers what you said when he begins his reply to his unit chief. “Oh…yeah.” His thumbs fly over his screen at a speed that, frankly, shouldn’t be humanly possible, “One sec…”

“You need a break.” You stand and place your hands on your hips in an adorable show of strength. He knows that you’re going for stern, so he bites his twitching mouth lest he invoke your actual wrath. “You’ve been working 18-hour days for the last two weeks.” 

That’s an exaggeration, but Stiles doesn’t argue. He feels like it’s true. His stubble is out of control, and he’s afraid to look in the mirror and see exactly how dark his eyebags are. He only stopped by to shower and get a fresh change of clothes, but you came out of the bathroom in your little pink bathrobe and distracted him. 

Stiles hates that robe. Detests it. He wants to burn it. He wants to rip the flimsy tie off with his teeth. 

Mostly, Stiles wants to tuck you under his blankets and snuggle into the fuzzy fabric until he falls asleep. 

He wants, he wants, he wants. That’s the problem.

You pry his phone from his hands and slip it into your back pocket. “We’re getting drunk tonight,” you say, and you say it in a way that he can’t even argue with. You say it like it’s a fact—you’re informing him, not telling him. Stiles is usually happy to comply. 

That’s how you’ve always worked, after all: You point at a crocodile infested river, and he goes merrily, merrily, merrily down the stream, with a stupid, dreamy smile on his face. 

It’s just. He’s functionally useless at doing anything without you. You take care of him. Always have. 

Way back, when he was pre-Adderall Stiles, all baby energy and undiagnosed ADHD, you shoved a kid off of the swings when he made fun of Stiles’s babbling and twitching. He still babbles and twitches, but at least now he knows why. He doesn’t have some parasitic monster inside him; he’s just Stiles. 

You’ve always known that—how was he supposed to not fall in love with you? 

And after his mom died, you let him cry on your shoulder until your shirt was soaked through. He got snot all over your collar, and you just squeezed him tighter. Held onto him until he could breathe again, and then you said, “Want a grape soda?” and he almost started crying again because right then, at that moment, that was somehow the only right thing to say. Maybe because it was you, or maybe it was because you knew him so well. Maybe, it didn’t matter. 

You spent the rest of the night starfished over your bed, and after a minute of staring at your ceiling fan, Stiles whispered, “Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?”

You looked at him and grinned, all teeth and sparkly eyes, and said, “You better hope so, boy blunder. Who else is gonna watch Twin Peaks with you a zillion times?” And Stiles knows that he was only eight, and he knows that maybe it was just because you made him laugh after all the emptiness, but he thinks that he fell a little bit in love with you then, even if he was too young to put a name to the feeling. 

He finally figured it out when he was seventeen. Stiles wanted to be an adult so badly back then—and he felt like he was sometimes, after everything he’d gone through, but in so many ways he wasn’t. He definitely didn’t know how to handle his breakup with Malia like an adult—his first breakup, his first real relationship. 

Stiles drank a lot that night. He can’t remember exactly how much, or anything that happened after 11 pm, but he does remember how you stroked his hair. He remembers how you wiped the foul mix of bile and sweat from his face with a cool washcloth and tender hands. He remembers how you tucked him into bed and curled up next to him when he asked you to say. 

He remembers falling in love with you. 

The epiphany felt a lot better when he was warm and limp from his dad’s scotch. It hurt a bit, when he woke up hungover and in an empty bed. You were in the kitchen, making him breakfast: greasy eggs and hashbrowns. After he got over seeing you in one of his t-shirts, he wondered if you’d ever get tired of cleaning up after him and all his issues. 

Stiles still wonders that sometimes, even after you crawled into bed with him the night you found out your college sweetheart was cheating on you. He stroked your hair and ignored the wetness soaking into his neck, and you whispered against his skin, “Do you think we'll best friends forever?” 

Stiles wanted to laugh. And then scream. And then kiss you. He didn’t do any of those things. He just said, “Can’t picture it any other way.” He didn’t say that whenever he thought about the future, whenever he pictured forever, you were always there. 

He didn’t ask, ‘Is it okay if I’m in love with you forever?’

Stiles wants to ask it now, while you rattle off your plans for him this evening, but he doesn’t. He chews on a corn nut instead. 

“Lydia’s looking for the right opportunity to make a move on the guy in 2B anyway,” you finish, blowing a strand of hair out of your face. 

You’re looking at him like he’s supposed to say something, so he nods dutifully, “The guy with the mullet, right?”

You roll your eyes and poke around the cabinets, taking stock of the chips and tequila. “It’s not a mullet—you’re so obtuse when you’re jealous.”

Stiles blinks because…where the hell did that come from? “I’m good on the perm front, thanks,” he snarks through the food lodged in his cheek.

“Not of him,” you say, tongue trapped between your teeth and distracted by the mixers on top of the fridge. Your back is to him from your perch on the counter, and Stiles watches you with wary eyes. It would be so much easier if you'd just ask him to get things down from the top shelves, but you never do. Refuse to, actually. Vehemently. You'll do it yourself, even if it means breaking a limb.  

You manage to keep a hold of the pile of bottles cradled against your chest through your dismount, and Stiles breathes easier when your feet are pressed against solid ground. He’s glad your eyes are still on the kaleidoscope of sugar and citrus because you’d mock the relief in his eyes without mercy. 

You line the bottles up in order of emptiness and absently hum, “Well, yes of him, I guess, because—can you check on the vodka and gin?” 

Stiles sticks his head in the freezer, grateful for the blast of frigid air, and tries to untangle the crumbs of meaning in your flimsy accusation. He comes up with absolutely nothing—on every front of his mission.  “No gin.” 

You let out a long, heavy sigh and shake your head at the dangling light fixtures. “Lydia.”

Lydia was the only person in the apartment who liked gin, but Stiles didn’t have any room in his brain for commiseration. “So, I’m jealous of little orphan Annie from 2B because…?” He leans against the counter and tucks his hands under his arms, squinting skeptically, “Just so we’re on the same page n’ all.” 

You’re texting someone. He’s sure it’s Lydia, probably asking her to pick up more gin on her way home, but Stiles can’t help but wonder if you’re inviting your…whatever you call three decent dates and one evening of alright sex. ( Oh, how Stiles loved hearing all the details when you came home. ) 

“Hmm?” Your smile is lit up by your screen and the kittenish glint in your eye, but Stiles knows it’s not for him. He swallows his pettiness before he chokes on it. “Oh, right,” you put your phone down on the counter and smirk. This one is for him, but Stiles actually wouldn’t mind if it was for someone else; the look in your eyes is downright diabolical. “You’re so adorably, blatantly jealous that Lydia is into another no-neck, illiterate jock from the gym—but the perm is pretty bad, I’ll give you that.” 

Stiles’s jaw falls, and you laugh, completely misinterpreting his stupor. He stares at you and just shakes his head, scrambling for a grasp on at least one of the million questions pinging around his skull. “You think I want Lydia?”

“Uh-doy,” you roll your eyes like he’s said something particularly stupid, “only since forever.”

He’s struck again at how you can simultaneously know him so well and not at all. “You don’t think that would’ve come up in the last, I dunno,” Stiles’s head jerks with his choppy hand gestures, “eighteen years?” 

You wave your hand and then grab his wrist, “It’s been intermittent.” 

You lead Stiles back into your room by his hand like he’s a wayward dog on a leash. He’s grateful for it. Stiles can’t do much else besides blink and breathe when he’s like this—when he’s wrapped up in a case he can’t crack.

Stiles drops onto the edge of your bed with a solid thud, feeling a bit like someone slammed a 2x4 into his gut. His tongue seems to be useless, glued to the back of his teeth. All he can do is watch you flit around your room, gathering an armful of skirts and dresses. 

You hold up a black dress in one hand and a black mini-skirt layered under a red baby tee in the other, “Pick.”

Stiles wants to pick the sweats you’re currently wearing because they’re his, but he points at the skirt. He knows it’s your favorite; you’d pick it anyway. 

You sit down in front of your vanity and pull the scrunchie out of your bun. Stiles watches your hair tumble over your shoulders. You’re insecure about it, always have been. One day it’s the color, and then it’s the texture, and he, for the life of him, doesn’t understand why. Your hair shines so prettily under the light, and it always smells so sweet, like citrus and honeysuckle—Stiles can’t decide if he wants to bury his nose in it or wrap it around his spindly fingers. 

Graciously, you twist it into an artful arrangement before he can do either. 

“I don’t want to be with Lydia,” Stiles finally says quietly. 

You stop fiddling with pieces of hair framing your face and meet his gaze in the mirror, “It’s okay if you do.”

Stiles nods and stares at his lap, twiddling his fingers. “I know,” it’d be easier if he did, “but I don’t.”

You turn around in your chair and give him a little smile. It’s fond and sweet, and Stiles feels like a hand is closing around his heart and twisting it behind his ribs. “We’ll find you someone tonight, then,” you say, popping up from your seat. You grab your clothes off of the bed and squeeze his shoulder on your way to the full-length mirror next to your closet.

Stiles turns his head when you start to wriggle out of your shirt. He knows you don’t care what he sees after years of sleepovers and lake vacations, but you don’t know what it does to him. How all your dips and curves slip behind his lids when he’s alone with his fist and too much lube. If he’s really being honest, it also happens when he’s not alone, but that makes him feel like a piece of shit for a whole other list of reasons. 

All of it feels pretty awful when it’s over—when Stiles is left with the unpleasant sensation of drying cum on his stomach and the very unpleasant realization that you’d never wear a swimsuit around him again if you knew exactly what he does with the image. 

So. Stiles does what he can. He doesn’t look when you change, tries to avoid seeing you in a towel altogether, and watches so much porn of people who look nothing like you.

It doesn’t work, of course, but he tries. That has to count for something. 

Stiles swallows and taps his fingers against his thighs. “I can’t think of anything I want to do less than interact with a bunch of drunk strangers partying in my—”

“Not a bunch,” you say around a grunt, tripping over the dragging hem of your borrowed sweats, “and not a party. Just a chill get-together of like-minded peers.”

He scoffs and tips his chin up, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “I’m sure I have so much in common with Lydia’s guest list. Yeah, we can talk about how they can bench-press two of me and that I also love me some stacking—pancakes, not steroids, but close enough.” 

There’s a whoosh of a zipper and then you’re in front of him with your arms folded over your chest and thinned eyes. “You better behave.”

Stiles grins; it’s decidedly obnoxious. “I’ll be perfectly cordial, promise. I’ll even speak slowly.”

You laugh, and Stiles knows you’re only pretending that you didn’t want to. 

“I think it’ll be good for you.” You return to your vanity and pilfer through your mess of earrings. “Y’know, to get out of your head for a little bit. It really is just gonna be us and a few plus ones. I know you, boy wonder, no parties shall ever be thrown in your honor. I solemnly swear.”

He smiles at the childhood pet name, a private little grin Stiles keeps tucked in his chest and at his feet. It falls, however, when he remembers the middle bits of your speech. “So,” Stiles gnaws on his thumbnail and jiggles his knee, “did you invite a plus one?”

You slide a gold hoop through your ear and grin at him, “Nah, I’m all yours tonight, Stilinski.”

Good. God.

Stiles wants to kiss you. He always wants to kiss you, but sometimes every inch of you rips the air from his lungs—cleaves him right in two. Like right now. He forgets how to speak, trying to remember what he can say and what he absolutely can’t say, while he imagines a life where you really are his and you know that he’s always been yours. 

You’re just so pretty in your little skirt and cherry t-shirt, and you’re so clever, and funny, and you’re looking at him like he’s your favorite person in the entire world, and Stiles feels all of it spilling over the edges of his restraint. He almost says something so heavy—so categorically, catastrophically stupid, it would ruin your friendship for good.  

Stiles swallows it back into his chest, but his voice is still thick when he says, “All mine, huh.”

He’s sick with yearning, and he’s petrified for a moment that you can tell. It seems so obvious to him. It would be obvious to anyone, Stiles thinks, if they heard how weak he sounded, how soft in his throat and reverent in your presence. 

But you don’t notice. You never do. It’s a relief, and it’s endlessly frustrating. 

“Yep,” you smack your lips together, blotting your red lipstick until it’s perfect, “I wanna win, and everyone knows you can’t win True American with a noob on your team.” 

His brow arches, and a lazy grin smears across his mouth, “Oh, so we’re getting drunk drunk tonight.”

You wink at him in the mirror, “If you play your cards right.”

Stiles does, in fact, play his cards right. He picks Scott as the third member of your cabinet, possibly because Scott can outdrink anyone…or maybe it’s because Scott knows that Stiles is pathetically into you and can’t keep his mouth shut at the best of times, but especially not when he’s drunk. 

Who’s to say, really?

Honestly, Stiles doesn’t need the advantage—Lydia’s voluntarily stuck with Isaac and the guy from 2B who can’t follow the rules no matter how many times they shout them at him, and Malia and Kira care far more about making goo-goo eyes at each other than they do helping their friend from yoga make any progress towards the King—but he’s competitive by nature and feeling exceptionally stupid tonight. 

Lydia introduced the Clinton Strip Rules solely to ogle her latest man candy’s aggressively sculpted six-pack and show off her bewitching décolletage, and it was going along swimmingly until the idiot forgot how to count. 

It was so simple. All the guy had to do was hold up three fingers—that’s all. He would’ve matched Lydia's count, and then they could've made out behind the Iron Curtain. But he didn’t. He held up two fingers and in doing so single-handedly crafted Stiles Stilinski’s demise.

Ironic. Considering the moron can't craft a compound-complex sentence to save his life. 

For a single, endless moment, you and Stiles just stare at each other, more specifically, at the four fingers plastered against your foreheads—and then the spell is broken by drunken cackling. Lydia grins like the cat who caught the canary, and Scott laughs until his face turns red. He’s loud and obnoxious with the four drinks he’s downed, and Stiles wants to shove him out the window. 

“Guys,” Stiles whines, “you don’t really—”

You finish the beer in your hand and shrug your shoulders, “It’s fine.” 

Stiles’s head whips towards you, big-eyed and fish-mouthed. He can’t form words. Can’t speak any of the five languages he knows. He’s become a Stiles Stilinski skinsuit held up by a skeleton of gelatin and faulty survival instincts. 

You smile at him a little and shrug again, “It’s just a game, right?” 

You don’t say it, but Stiles can hear it with painful clarity: It doesn’t mean anything. 

Stiles doesn’t know how to say no without telling the truth. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, not exactly. Stiles wants to kiss you—of course he wants to kiss you, feels like the whole goddamn world knows he wants to kiss you and is conspiring against him—but not like this. He doesn’t want to kiss you when it’s nothing. He’s thought about it far too much, imagined it on his bedroom ceiling in the safety of darkness too many nights, to blow it all on a stupid drinking game. A stupid gym-bro’s mistake. 

Stiles had a plan. A plan he never actually had the courage to act on, but a plan nonetheless. 

He was going to hold your face with shaking hands, smooth his thumbs along the sleek line of your jaw, look you in the eyes so that you could see the disbelief, the wonder, the awe. You’d see that he was overwhelmed to the bone, to all the nerves shivering inside the marrow, and you’d have to forgive him for being so tongue-tied and awkward—for taking so long. 

And then, he’d kiss you. 

He’d kiss you again, and again, and again, until one of you started laughing, but that’d be okay because it would give him the chance to kiss your neck and whisper, 'You’re the sky, and the mountains, and everything in-between.'

'You’re dark matter; you’re gravity,' he’d kiss the words into your skin and sigh, 'you’re the only thing holding the universe together.'

But he can’t say that, so Stiles follows you into Lydia’s bedroom and wipes the sweat on his palms off on his jeans.

You’re a little giggly while you fumble for the light. It’s breathy, and you can’t meet his eyes. Stiles feels a little better knowing that you’re almost as nervous as he is. You aren’t usually the nervous kind, after all. That’s his thing. 

Stiles slides his hands into his back pockets and rocks onto his heels, “We don’t…we can just pretend that we…did it.”

“Did it?” you arch a brow, lips curling into a wry grin. “It’s just a kiss, Stiles. I thought you wanted to win? We gotta end Lydia’s streak, or she’ll be insufferable.”

Stiles’s mouth goes dry: cottony with wanting, brittle with misery. He can’t pretend anymore; he can’t pretend that he's not dying from this.  

You can’t look at Stiles’s face. Can’t see the panic. It’s why you shuffle closer to him, stiffly reach for his shoulders and awkwardly search for the least romantic place to rest your hands. Stiles’s back thuds against the wall, and you finally dart your eyes to his. “It’s fine,” you say weakly. 

There’s a loud chorus of, ‘Kiss, kiss, kiss,’ through the door, and Stiles watches the resolve harden your face. His chest rises and falls with quick, shallow exhales. He can hear his pulse ricochet around his ear canal, can feel the sweat gathering on his palms, can taste the anticipation in the air.

You roll your shoulders back a few times and shake your hands by your side, rotating your neck in a few slow circles. “Just kiss me, Stilinski. No biggie. I think we can catch up to Isaac if you hurry the hell up and plant one on—”

“Not like this!” 

Your mouth parts into a perfect little ‘o’, and Stiles’s eyes bulge when he realizes that the pathetic, desperate cry came from him. 

You fold your arms over your chest and tilt your head with an expression on your face that Stiles can’t read for the life of him. “What,” you lick your lip, and Stiles squirms with shame when he can’t stop himself from tracking the movement, “what does that mean?”

Stiles’s face spasms, and he can feel his IQ drop by tens the longer you stare at him. 

“No, I didn’t…” Stiles’s stutters, flicking his gaze to your forehead, your chin, between your brows—anywhere but your eyes. His nose scrunches as he shakes his head, “Nothing. I just—I didn’t mean like that.” Stiles isn’t entirely sure what you think he meant, but considering he can’t decide what he means, it’s a safe bet that you’re wrong.

Stiles's hands take over for his melting brain matter, gesturing wildly every-so often like the flexing and contracting add any actual meaning to his meaningless babble. “I just, we can’t like that because that’s not…Do you know, like…? It’s very, like, you don’t…” His eyelids seem to have forgotten how to blink, and Stiles thinks he’d do just about anything for a piano to fall out of the sky right about now.

The chanting outside the door gets louder; Stiles isn’t sure if it’s real or just his anxiety. Through his narrowing pinprick vision, the only thing he can see at the end of the dark, dark tunnel is Lydia’s window. The heavy purple curtains frame the opening like serendipitous velvet gift wrapping.

Stiles swallows and nods sharply, “If you’ll excuse me.”

Stiles steps around you, and you follow his path with your eyes. They’re pinched with suspicion, but mostly concern. “Stiles, what are you do—”

“I’m fine,” Stiles tries to wave off your worries with a shaky hand. 

And then he unlatches Lydia’s window and crawls on top of a chair to reach the opening.

“Okay, this makes sense. I just need a little air,” Stiles mumbles to himself. His dirty sneakers leave a clear outline of his soles on the white fur. Under any other circumstances, you’d both be desperately trying to scrub the fabric clean before Lydia found the stains and rained her wrath down upon your very fragile, bruisable bodies. Under these circumstances, you’re preoccupied with the half of Stiles’s body that’s hanging outside the window of your 3rd-story apartment.

“Stiles!” you stumble to the wall and freeze, unsure how to pull him back in without accidentally tipping him onto the concrete three floors below. 

Stiles manages to slip the rest of his body through the window without breaking any limbs. Yet. “This is what I needed. Yup, this is—” his eyes engulf his face, a wide pool of churning honey, when he finally realizes just how small the ledge is and just how far away the ground is, “ah, ha, ha!”

“Stiles!” You cover your face with your hands and shake your head over and over again. You hope, childishly, if you spin fast enough, you can rewind time back to 10 minutes ago—when Stiles was safe on the floor and you could stop yourself from giving into the silly, stupid desire to kiss him. Just once. To finally find out how it would feel.  

You peek through your fingers and wince as he stumbles towards the left. “You don’t have to kiss me!”

Stiles disappears from view, and you tumble into the hallway. You let out a low hiss when your hip slams into a sharp corner. The flare of pain is soon forgotten, however, when Stiles slams his hands against the living room window. Everyone turns to gawk at him, eight mouths wide open and not a single word is spoken until Stiles presses his entire body against the glass. 

The window hasn’t been cleaned since you all moved in, so you can’t quite make out his expression through grime and dirt, but you can hear the shrill urgency in his voice. “This is a regret—I immediately regret this.” It would be funny, how high his voice is—approaching autotuned chipmunk territory, honestly—if he wasn’t six inches away from certain death. You can all laugh about it later when Stiles is safe on the couch, you decide. After you’ve punched him in the arm for doing something so bone-shatteringly stupid, obviously. 

Malia does laugh, and Kira smacks her shoulder. You almost appreciate the levity; it reminds you that your brain needs oxygen to function.

Scott cups his hand around his mouth and shouts, “Don’t move!”

Stiles smooshes his button nose into the glass. He inhales and exhales with mad abandon, creating and erasing a cloud of condescension with every breath. “I've made a very bad mistake! I’m not trained for this!” his lips smear against the glass, muffling his cries for help. Stiles pulls back, and leaves a streak of saliva behind. At least, that patch of the window is clean now, biohazard be damned. 

It’s Scott who ends up saving the day. No surprise there. He gets Stiles through the window and shoves him onto the couch, teeth ground in what can only be described as parental frustration. 

Scott folds his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes, “You scared me half to death out there.”

Isaac snorts and rolls his eyes, quipping over Scott's shoulder, “Are you not getting enough attention?”

“I’m fine!” Stiles groans into his hands and pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s still red from being smashed against the window, and the rest of his face matches with his embarrassed flush. “I am fine! I was partly joking and at least 64% drunk!”

“Stiles, we will talk about this in the morning,” Scott’s face is stern, and his grip on Stiles’s shoulder is just as firm, “but right now, I’m gonna go do stuff with a girl.”

Scott’s face is still solemn when he high-fives Isaac, mostly out of habit. You do laugh then. Can’t help it. A little bit of relief creeps through your constricted chest when Stiles smiles. It’s brief, a little twitch at the corners of his slightly-swollen mouth, but it’s there. 

Allison rolls her eyes when Scott holds out his hand, but she still takes it and follows him towards his bedroom.

“Shut the door!” Stiles shouts at their backs. He slumps back against the couch cushions when the thudding Scott's door closing echoes through the hall.

It’s quiet for a moment. Kira shifts awkwardly, clinging to Malia’s arm for balance when the fog of alcohol spreads from her flushed cheeks to her platform combat boots. Malia doesn’t look that concerned, but she’s always been cool under pressure…and any other emotion. 

You expect Lydia to look as worried as you do, but she has a strange, calculating look in her eyes. They’re sharp in the light of her brilliance; the jade almost looks feline. 

Lydia’s beaux ends up breaking the silence with a loose laugh. His head tips back with his chuckle, and he throws his meaty arm around Lydia’s shoulders. “That was freakin’ hilarious! I mean, dude jumped out on a ledge instead of kissing a 10. Can you believe that?”

Lydia looks wholly unamused and says flatly, “I really can’t.” She fixes Stiles with a look you can’t read, but Stiles seems to understand. 

“I know.” Stiles drops his face into his hands and digs his face into the cradle of his wide palms. "I’m an idiot.”

Everyone seems to hear a cue that you missed while watching Stiles’s chest rise and fall. Malia, Kira, and their plus one filter out the door one-by-one, and Isaac kisses your cheek before wrapping his scarf around his neck. You’re relieved again when you hear Stiles scoff; it’s something he always does when Isaac puts on one of his pretentious kerchiefs in the balmy, LA weather. It’s nice to see some things are still the same. 

Lydia stares at Stiles, and they have a silent conversation that ends with a patented Lydia Martin glare and a quintessential Stiles Stilinski squint. 

Lydia leaves with her late night delight and kiss to your other cheek, and suddenly it’s just you and Stiles. 

You wring your fingers together, gnawing on the lining of your cheek. You can’t think of anything to say. To Stiles. You never thought you’d see the day. 

The couch creaks with Stiles’s shifting weight. He pushes himself to his feet and stands in front of you. The redness in his face has faded, baring the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose that you’re so fond of. His lips part. Your breath stills, waiting. Wanting. His silence washes over the room like a flood, and you close your eyes. You’re afraid of it, witnessing the inevitable wreckage. 

It doesn’t come. 

You hear the quiet padding of Stiles’s footsteps. When you open your eyes, he’s gone, slinking down the hall to his bedroom. You stare at the place he was just standing, feeling the chill of his absence, and then it’s gone. A glaring blaze of anger warms your face, and you allow it to carry you to Stiles’s closed door. What a metaphor; the thought grinds your molars together until they screech.  

You wrench his door open, and Stiles jumps, halfway out of his jeans. He stumbles over the cuffs and almost falls on his face. You wish you could tease him, laugh until you snort and Stiles glares at you through his pathetic attempt to hide his smirk. But you can’t. Not yet. 

“You’re really just going to leave it like that?” you say, closing his door behind you. It’s preemptive; you feel a little like yelling. “That was a whole other level of stupid, Stiles, even by your standard.” 

Stiles quickly yanks his pants back up and buttons them, struggling with the zipper and his twitching fingers. “Can we just not,” Stiles rubs a hand over his face, looking infinitely older than he is, and mumbles a hollow, “actually, can we never.”

The words hang heavily in the air. In the harrowing quiet, you think: Oh god, is this it? Is this really the end?

Stiles stares at his feet, at the hole he’s wearing in the oak floor. He hears it too, the weight of what he’s done. Fucking hell, he thinks, I didn't know cowardice could be so loud.

You smooth your hands over your hair, clasping for any semblance of composure. “I just…I didn’t realize that the thought of kissing me was so…traumatic.” 

Stiles jerks his head from the floor and tugs his fingers through hair. He pulls at the roots until it stings and shakes his head, “That’s not…you’re,” he gestures towards you helplessly and swallows the millions of things he wants to say, “you.” 

“Yeah,” your shoulder lifts in a tiny shrug, arms winding around your torso like a brace, “that seems to be the issue.”

Stiles just looks at you for a moment. The lamp on his desk bathes his skin in a wave of warmth when he tilts his head. The tip of his nose casts a shadow over his lips, and you want to trace the divot in his cupid’s bow, the little lines by his nose, the hollow space under his eyes. You want to trace them all with your fingertips and then memorize them with your mouth. 

Stiles's eyes are golden in the light, and they’re stuck on yours. 

“You are…” Stiles closes his eyes, and his voice is so soft, so devout, “you are so fucking...inescapable, you know that? You are…you’re so deep inside my head, I can’t do anything without thinking about you. It’s becoming a serious fuckin’ problem—a nuisance, actually, a nuisance. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop, y’know, like it would be fuckin’ awesome if I could just forget how you smell like going home and a goddamn spring meadow, or if I could go fuckin’ grocery shopping without looking for those impossible to find chips with the Elmer Fudd lookin’ fucker on ‘em—”

“Hot fries,” you whisper hoarsely. 

Stiles stops pacing for a moment and nods at you, “Thank you—hot fries. And I would love it if I could walk down the street, just once, and not look for a dog to take a picture of, just so I have an excuse to text you without looking like I was just thinking about you—even though I was obviously just thinking about you because, re my previous ranting, there’s literally not a single second of the day that you're not on my mind. You're just…inevitable.” 

“And…I am Iron Man?” your smile is wobbly. 

Stiles gives you a flat look over his shoulder, “You’re a smartass—but I love that. I love everything about you—even the way you talk through my favorite movies and force-feed me a vegetable once a week.” 

“Stiles,” you swallow shallowly and rest your hand on his chest. Stiles stops pacing and meets your gaze with big, endless eyes and blinking butterfly lashes. Tipping your head to the side, you swipe your thumb over his thudding heart, “What are you trying to say?”

Stiles rests his hand on top of yours, clunkily lacing your fingers together for a little stability. “I love you,” he whispers, because he has to. It has to be this soft. It has to stay just between you and him, in the little bubble of air between your lips. “I’ve been in love with you since…” Stiles chews on his lip, trying to pinpoint when he knew, when he knew that you’re it for him. There are so many moments that come to mind, and he can’t pick a single one. It’s just that the line between mud pies, and t-ball, and this is so blurry. Stiles can’t tell where it really begins and where it ends. 

It feels boundless, Stiles thinks, infinity. It’s something, somewhere, past the edge of the universe. He’s yours infinitely. There is no before he loved you, and there is no after. It’s just always.

Stiles breathes and sighs out his answer, “Forever. I’ve loved you since forever, and I couldn’t—I can’t kiss you if it doesn’t mean anything.”  

Your lips curve slowly. It’s a nervous smile, one that’s afraid of the rug being yanked out from under happily ever after. “You love me?” you say quietly, voice little and meek. 

The tip of Stiles’s tongue darts out, wetting his lip. He nods slowly and rubs the back of his neck—an anxious tick you know very well. You’ve watched Stiles for eighteen years, after all. You’ve studied the tendons in his neck, how they flex when he crooks his head down to read, how it makes your belly warm more than it should. You know he flexes his fingers exactly three times before starting a test, and you know that the long veins in his arms are the most stupidly attractive things you’ve ever seen. He’s the most attractive thing you’ve ever seen, and you’ve loved him for so long it’s written in your bone marrow. 

Stiles scratches his neck until it’s pink and raw, and you pull his hand away instinctively. He smiles at you so timidly it breaks your heart, “Is that okay?” 

You nod, and nod, and nod. “Very okay. Very, very okay. The most okay of all the okay’s.” It’s so fast, and it’s been so long, but mostly it’s right. Like this is the only logical conclusion, the answer to a cold case that took eighteen years to solve. Your life has always been youandstiles, and that sounds a whole like forever. 

Slipping a hand to the back of his neck, you run your thumb along the knobs of his spine and whisper, “I am so ridiculously in love with you, boy wonder.” 

Stiles grins. It starts small, fond, tender—but the more times he hears it, every time she loves me, she loves me, she loves me bounces around his ribcage, his grin gets a little bigger, a little brighter. Soon, it stretches across his entire face and swallows you whole. He looks more than alive like this; you want to taste the electricity in his mouth. 

You smile at each other for a long time, and you look at Stiles through your lashes. “So,” you tip your chin and bat your eyes, “you gonna kiss me?”

Stiles is going to kiss you. He swears. He’s just…he’s thinking too much after an evening of not thinking at all. He’s been waiting for this for forever, and what if his lips are dry—or, worse, what if they’re too wet? What if his hands are cold and clammy, and you can feel his sweat when he cups your cheeks. He definitely feels sweaty. And nervous. And—

You rock onto your tiptoes and kiss him. It’s a little kiss, soft and short, but everything goes static and neon around you. You let out a little sigh, start to pull away—and Stiles whimpers. His hands surges forward and latches onto the back of your neck, pulling your mouth back to his. 

Stiles slides the breadth of his large palm up and down your back, chasing the rhythm of your breath. There isn't much to chase, you think deliriously, you aren’t really sure if you need oxygen to survive anymore. You like swallowing his sounds and tasting his tongue far more than breathing. It feels like Stiles agrees with you when he wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you into his chest, digging his fingers into the small of your back until there’s nowhere else for you to go. Silly boy. As if you’d rather be anywhere else. 

He makes the sweetest little noises in-between your kisses, softening the wet smacking of lips and tongues. You chase them, learning what he likes by unraveling him one sound at a time, with a tug on his hair here, a nibble on his lip there, and your hands just about everywhere.

It’s hot. Literally. You can feel heat licking your skin—or maybe that’s just Stiles. Your head is a little fuzzy from his kisses and not enough oxygen, and logic is a distant thought. Breathing. People need to breathe. 

Stiles’s nose bumps against yours when he pulls back. He smiles drunkenly and leans in for one more kiss. It’s quick and open-mouthed, two little brushes of his lips, and it steals what’s left of the air in your lungs. 

Stiles brushes your hair back and rests his forehead against yours. His breath chills your spit-slick, swollen mouth, and you shiver at the look in his eyes. “I meant something like that.”

[lioncunt]

any way the wind blows review!!!

gonna put it under a cut but tl;dr i really really loved it and even the things that i was on the fence about i’ve decided i love as well lmfao

so i kind of knew going into both this and wayward son that the plot wouldn’t really EVER be as narratively satisfying as carry on’s. it would definitely be interesting and have a lot of cool thematic elements, but in terms of being a grand deconstruction of the “chosen one” genre, it couldn’t ever get better than carry on. and i’m so happy rainbow didn’t try to MAKE it that. she didn’t pull a supernatural and up the stakes to impossible, outlandish degrees. both wayward son and awtwb had realistic, fascinating plots that served as a metaphor for the internal struggles of the characters.

the reason i’m beginning this review by talking about the plot is because it’s what i’ve seen the most criticism directed towards. and like i DO get it, i also was taken aback at first at how the actual plot is kind of background noise for the first couple hundred pages. but like...i think it WORKS. again, this whole trilogy is a deconstruction. that’s its PURPOSE. obviously it’s doing other things as well, but it started by taking this well-worn and well-loved trope and completely turning it on its head, giving us permission to acknowledge all the damage it causes and how our love of this type of story is honestly kind of harmful. we turn off that part of our brains when we read harry potter or something else with traumatized child protagonists, in order for us to actually enjoy it, but the simon snow trilogy has always said, “hey, this is kind of fucked up, huh? you’re allowed to think that.”

anyway, the way that translates to the plot here is that there’s not always some huge mystical big bad, or obviously evil antagonist. the horror can be going on in the world around you, in the background of your day-to-day life dealing with your own shit, creeping up on you until suddenly your loved ones are spouting off nonsense that is an absolutely CHILLING allegory for eugenics, by the way, which i’ve seen NOBODY talk about. the clear political parallels were so well done, but not heavy-handed, and they worked wonderfully as an ending to this story. simon at the end being a target for an angry mob, who are victims of intense ableism themselves (the metaphor of being a weak mage = having a disability), how these religious extremists will point at what they deem abnormal and use them as a scapegoat, the disgusting “survival of the fittest” mentality leading to “i can make this society great again” - it was all just incredibly well written, in my opinion. and the fact that it happened so slowly, in the background, made it all the better. you don’t really notice how bad it’s getting until it’s BAD.

it also, again, works so well as a manifestation of the characters’ inner strife. others have put it better than me already, so i won’t talk about it too much, but the fact that the book is saying you don’t need to be like everyone else in order to accomplish great things and have a good life, you don't need to have magic, you don’t need to be human, you don’t need to be neurotypical or able-bodied or straight or white or ANYTHING these people will have you believe in order to make you obedient to them and hateful to others -- it’s fantastic. 

this kind of segues into the other big criticism i’m seeing, which is simon and baz’s one-day breakup. again, this has already been analyzed well, so i won't ramble about it, but wayward son was their breakup. metaphorically speaking. and i’m glad that it didn’t take some big, grand moment for them to get back together, even though it would have been narratively cathartic. that’s not how life works - it was so much better and realistic to have simon face the harsh difficulties of TRYING than dragging out a separation plot line that would have added NOTHING to his character. or baz’s. the only thing about their entire relationship that i would have done a bit differently is shorten the timeline, because a year and a half is a very long and honestly unrealistic time to go in a relationship without talking about sexual history or going on dates, even if there’s a lot of baggage. but that’s not that big a deal and i’m easily able to look past it.

(as a side note I'm getting annoyed at seeing all these takes that there’s too much sexual content. like i get it because the first two books are solidly YA and this is being marketed as YA even though it’s definitely NA, but like....sex is important. sex scenes and sexual content are an extremely important part of depicting the human experience. and lack of sex as well!! every single intimate scene between them was NOT super graphic and had such incredibly important significance narratively and character-wise - and yeah that includes any kinks that were brought up, like jesus they’re in their 20s and have been in a non-sexual relationship for a year and a half i think it’s pretty fucking relevant that there are intimate scenes!!! anyway moving on.)

i really loved penny and shepard’s plot - their relationship was so wonderful and charming and excellent for their characters, and i only wish we could have gotten their demon plot threaded into the larger picture, because after shepard was cured it felt like they were just standing there. that’s one of my very few complaints about the book. but they’re such good characters and i love them SO MUCH.

AND THANK GOD FOR AGATHA AND NIAMH. like i cannot put into words how fucking happy i was when i realized where that was headed. the cinematic nature of agatha and niamh helping the goat give birth while simon’s flying in the chapel and being targeted by a mob was just. so cool like i can’t even describe it it was so coooooool and then agatha and niamh KISSING and agatha found her PLACE and I'm so happy for her.

just in general the characters and relationships were fucking exquisite. i can’t help but love the way RR writes, especially her dialogue. it’s so real and three dimensional and her characters truly come alive and i care about them and love them so much. i’m so happy they’re happy, i wouldn’t have been able to stand it if they weren’t.

and everything got wrapped up so well in my opinion!! i don’t know what the hell people are talking about when they say they still have questions, like girl what about??? simon found his family, simon got a sword that isn’t tied to trauma, baz found out that he’ll get to grow old with simon, all their families are okay, penny and shepard are in love, agatha��s herding goats and a lesbian, there will probably be new threats and antagonists but they'll be able to handle them, life will continue to be difficult but they’ll get through it like WHAT do you not understand what’s not clicking i genuinely want to know. 

ok actually i have ONE single question and that’s. did baz pick up the sword at the end. because the way it’s written it sounds like he did and i like do not understand that at all. someone answer please.

anyway that’s my review 10/10 would recommend

[arvandus]

can i request Bakugou and 47?

Sure!  You didn’t specify if you wanted fluff or angst, so I went with angst because... well... this dialogue prompt is dripping with it.  This turned into another big one, just under 1600 words. 

On the upside, I’m learning that I’m much more wordy with angst than I am with fluff (a little self discovery happening here).  On the downside...

Dis is gonna hurt.

47. “Just pretend we’re okay, just for tonight. I’ll be gone by sunrise.”

“We need to talk.” Katsuki said.

The two of you sat across from each other at the dining table, but the distance felt like an ocean separating you. Vast.  Infinite.  Impossible to cross.

Those words… those dreaded words.  Everyone knew those words never carried anything good in them.

It also didn’t help that he avoided looking you in the eyes, his face pulled into a frown.  Not the grumpy frown he normally wore either. This one came from deep roots, from something that had been troubling him for some time.  It had twisted around his heart with thorny vines, locking it in a cage as it fed him dark fruit, poisoning his thoughts.

Your mouth was dry as you struggled to keep the panic from your voice.  “Okay…”

There was a long pause as Katsuki mustered the courage to say what he’d rehearsed countless times.  Even then, the words fell out in a rush, clumsy and rude.  “We should stop seeing each other.”

You knew the words were coming, but it did nothing to lessen their blow.  You felt like you were drowning.  You stared at the wood grain on the table, your vision blurring as tears immediately began to slip down your cheeks.  You wiped them away quickly with your hand. 

“Why?” you asked.

Katsuki clenched his hands together on the table. You stared at them, longing to hold them.

“Shit, Y/N… don’t make this harder than it has to be…” he muttered.

Your eyes shot up to pin him with an angry glare. “Me?  I’m not the one ending our relationship.  If you want to break up, I can’t stop you.  But the least you can do is give me the courtesy of telling me why.”

Shame filled him and he broke eye contact with you. You had a point.  You certainly didn’t ask for this.  And he should have known better than to think this would be anything but a clean, mutual separation. He ran his hand through his platinum blonde hair.  Shit.

“I don’t have time for a relationship.” He said. “I just want to focus on myself for a while.

His words didn’t surprise you… you always knew he was very career-oriented, with an almost obsessive, single-minded focus.  And the two of you had been growing apart, lately. He was working longer hours, and when he was able to see you, he was often too tired to talk or really spend time with you outside of watching TV.  But you had been patient with him, giving him space, and respecting the demands his life was putting on him.  It was wearing on you, more than you wanted to admit to yourself, but you had definitely never said anything to him about it.  You were willing to wait for him, to not stand in his way or ask for more than he was willing to give. You had hoped that all of that self-sacrifice would be enough.  That the pain you were putting yourself through by being with him would eventually pay off once he reached his dreams.

But now… none of that mattered anymore.  Was it really all for nothing?

Anger flared in you. You stared at your hands, balled into tight fists in your lap, as your tears dripped onto them. “If that’s how you feel, then why did you even get involved with me?” you demanded.

Katsuki ground his teeth together in frustration. “Because I thought I could do both, okay?”

“I never asked anything of you.  I’ve done nothing but support you.” You stated.

“Don’t you think I know that?” he retorted, his voice raised slightly.  “Do you think I like knowing that I can only give you the bare minimum?  Do you think I like knowing that I can’t make you happy?”

“Whoever said I wasn’t happy?” you huffed.

“Tch. Don’t lie to me. You think I can’t hear the disappointment in your voice when I have to cancel our dates, or when I have to work late? You think I don’t notice when you hide away in the bathroom at night to cry, after you think I’ve fallen asleep?”

The words hurt to say, but they hurt you more to hear.  You stared at him, stunned.  He wasn’t supposed to notice those things.  He was supposed to be asleep when you snuck out of bed on those nights.  And if he was awake, why didn’t he ever come and hold you?  Why didn’t he ever try to come comfort you?

Why did he let you feel alone?

“You know I hate failing at anything.  And I’ve failed you most of all.” He muttered with his head hung low.  “Let’s face it, Y/N… I’m a shitty boyfriend, and you deserve better.”

It wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair how he was in pain, when you were the one who needed comfort. It wasn’t fair that he still seemed to care about you, but not enough to love you.  Not enough to try harder… not enough to keep you.

You couldn’t stand to be in the same space with him.  You stood up from the table and moved to the couch in the living room, your arms wrapped around yourself protectively, a vain attempt at keeping yourself together as you felt your world unraveling.  You wanted to fall apart.  You wanted to scream, to cry, to bang your fists onto something.  But all you could do was sit there, letting the empty ache overtake you as his words bounced around in your mind, cutting out every bit of hope you had hidden away.

He was right.  Deep down, you knew he was right.  You did deserve better.  But you didn’t want better.  You wanted him.

You had thought that he would have left you there like that.  Either retreat to his room or leave the apartment entirely, staying away until you’d managed to gather your things and leave.  But instead, he came over and sat next to you on the couch.

Katsuki hated this.  He hated confessing to his inability give you what you needed.  He hated it even more knowing that he couldn’t change it, couldn’t be better.  He had tried… whether you ever noticed it or not, he had tried.  But the sadness in your eyes never left, and the longer it went on, the more he hated himself.  And eventually… well, eventually he just stopped trying.  He had given up.

“I’m sorry.” He finally said.  Finally.  The first words out of his mouth that he didn’t immediately hate.

“I know.” You whispered. You wiped at your wet cheeks with a tissue before balling it up into your hand.

“Katsuki…”

“Yeah?”

“Were you ever happy with me?” you asked softly.

His garnet eyes widened. Your question cut him deep, but he couldn’t be angry at you for asking it.  Why wouldn’t you question his feelings for you, after all he’d said?  All he’d done?  Without thinking it through, he took your hand in his calloused palm.

“Of course I was.” He replied.

“But it wasn’t enough?” you asked.

“…I guess not.”

You leaned against him with your head against his shoulder, your fingers twined in his.  His body stiffened.

“Y/N…” you could hear the hesitation in his voice, the warning.

“Please… I just need you to hold me.” You whispered, as more tears dripped down your nose.

He hesitated, the pull of your touch, threatening to drag him back into uncertainty. “I…”

You looked up at him.  Your tears had momentarily stopped, but your eyes were red, your lashes wet.  “I’m not asking you to change your mind.  But please… give me time to say goodbye.”  You rested your head back onto his shoulder.  “Just pretend we’re okay, just for tonight. I’ll be gone by sunrise.”

He couldn’t say no to you.  Not after those words, not with that look on your face. He wrapped his arms around you.  God, it felt good to hold you.  But he steeled his heart, cemented his resolve.  He could do this.  He could give you this one thing, even if it hurt him to do it.  It was the least you deserved.

“Okay.” He whispered.

But the night was anything but normal.  It was anything but okay.  There was no way to pretend, not with everything out in the open and sunrise lurking like a ticking time bomb beneath the horizon.  Sometimes you cried.  Sometimes you didn’t.  Little was said.

Katsuki held you nearly the entire night.  First on the couch, and the later in bed.  But no kisses were shared, no soft words of affection, no gentle touches.  And no matter how tightly he held you, the ache never dissipated.  It never got easier.  The curtain was already drawn, the decision made; all that came after was a courtesy, a final gesture of kindness in the mourning of what was already broken.

Katsuki had finally drifted off in the early morning hours, exhaustion dragging him down into slumber.  But sleep evaded you, and come sunrise, you were true to your word. While he slept, you left the warmth of his arms to gather your things and left, leaving your heart behind you.

Katsuki woke to the sound of the front door latching closed and laid there for a moment before finally sitting up in his bed. The silence was deafening, the emptiness suffocating.  Your side of the bed was already cold.  He put his head in his hands as the emotions he’d been forcing back all night finally bubbled forth. 

You were gone.