#like they explicitly never got actually married they just got the papers with their fake identities

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

funny

hot

[unseeliekey]

Shuichi and Kokichi getting married 💜💙 What do you think that would be like?

IM SORRY IVE BEEN SITTING ON THIS ASK FOR SO LONG I JUST. I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON IT AND I WANTED TO DO IT JUSTICE. REST UNDER READMORE BECAUSE THIS GETS LONG.

I think! it depends a lot on the universe. i am going to ignore japan’s current stance on gay marriage for this. Post game/VR AU... I’m not sure if they would get married, but if they did, they’d go out of their way to avoid any kind of PR (maybe having learned from kaimaki’s mistakes.) It would either be very, very minimal, or... the whole class is invited (probably minus Shirogane) and it’s very big despite there being twelve guests in attendance- Angie magistrates, obviously! It’s a big affair- a little bittersweet at times, because how can it not be, and Kokichi jokes about his own death and Shuichi shoves cake in his face, and they both have people missing, but their friends are loud enough to make up for it.

It’s similar in a nondespair AU, I think, but... I like parties and I’m going to chat about them having a party! The whole class is invited (plus Shirogane this time) and so are Shuichi’s uncle, and DICE, and NO ONE ELSE. They’ve got some other friends- Shuichi through work, Kokichi through... Kokichi stuff, but not really wedding friends. I think both of them are actually quite private about it- Shuichi is shy, and the attention flusters him, and as much as Kokichi loves drama, he also. Does not like showing vulnerability and it probably gives him HIVES even thinking about it. Writing his vows takes months, (which is fine, because planning also takes months, and Shuichi has his vows down a week after they’re engaged but he spends the entire time overthinking them and ends up stammering when he actually reads them.) DICE end up having to drag Kokichi by his teeth to get out some genuine sentiments- but his still ends up filled with in-jokes and puns and on paper it’s very playful and teasing and fun, a nice contrast to Shuichi’s almost painfully earnest words.

and shuichi goes “oh. yeah. that’s fair actually.” and he ends up emailing their work emails that they never check so technically he told them. but they don’t rsvp and they don’t show up and he only thinks about them a few times.

Anyway! I don’t think the event is traditional at all. Planning is a disaster because Kokichi wants big and Shuichi wants Kokichi to have anything that makes him laugh, and Kokichi secretly wants little secret meanings everywhere. (Chess pieces on the cake, little fake detective pinboards, not-so-subtle floral language, objects that don’t mean anything to anyone but them.) Shuichi panics for a while about his friends, and his parents, and he overthinks it for a long time because he’s not sure if he wants to try and keep the event a little classier for them, or just say fuck it, because who knows if they’re even going to goddamn show up, right?

And Kokichi, who has already invited his nine people, just goes “okay, don’t invite them, then?”

And Shuichi flounders for a while because they’re his parents and it’s his wedding, and then he asks if Kokichi will be insulted if they don’t show up, to which Kokichi informs him that if they do, there’s a minor chance of a fist fight. 

Shuichi goes “you’ll fight my parents on our wedding day????”

And Kokichi goes “no, momota-chan will.”

Because his uncle is there! And Kaito is there (crying the whole way through) and Kaede! and Maki! and Himiko! and Kokichi.

I think in a post game, they walk up the aisle together, because tradition is stupid and they want to be close and they were making out two minutes before the band began to play. but in a universe where Kokichi has DICE with him? Shuichi can wait at the altar (which he is okay with, because, again, anxious) and Kokichi can walk up like the smuggest bastard you’ve ever seen. He does NOT have a veil. What he does have is the most ridiculous fucking cape you’ve ever seen. It’s white, and velvet, and furred, and bedazzled with ballet jewelery, and it takes all nine members of DICE to keep it from dragging all over the chairs around the aisle. It’s so stupid. He trips half way up. Shuichi, who is already dying of nerves, laughs so hard he almost falls over. 

A lot of things go wrong, I think. There’s only 26 people there and a photographer, and neither of them wanted to do rehearsals or anything, so the whole thing is being winged. Something gets set on fire at some point. They accidentally break open a bottle of vintage honeymoon wine from Rantaro instead of the champagne they were meant to be drinking. Kokichi’s white cape ends up stained, which he should have expected considering how stupid and big it is. Miu, weeping, calls them both whores in her speech- OH

 everyone gives a speech. Shuichi’s uncle doesn’t know many of these people that well (especially not the nine weirdos in evening gowns who no one had met prior to Kokichi disappearing to get ready), but every single one of them has something wonderful to say about his nephew. Some of the stories are ribald, or wild, or a little bit unbelievable- but every single person gets up to congratulate them, and most of them cry.

Anyway! after the speeches they all eat. and drink. there’s cake, but there’s also ice cream and pastries and a bowl of skittles that gets increasingly stick as it’s passed around, and people keep talking and keep laughing. Kokichi explicitly told DICE not to flirt with anyone, so naturally they do, with everyone, including Shuichi’s uncle, who is bemused at best. Shuichi has to run to set out a small fire at some point. 

A LIST OF GUESTS WHO CRY:

-Shuichi, choking up as soon as Kokichi reaches him and takes his hands, and then continuing to sniff for the rest of the evening and weep through all the speeches,

-Kiibo, all the way through the vows and uncontrollably,

-Kaito, pretending he isn’t, taking handkerchief after handkerchief from Kaede,

-Kaede, but politely, and she smiles the entire time

-all of DICE, at different points, but they all come up with increasingly stupid excuses for it,

-Korekiyo, who has to excuse himself after the ceremony- when Shuichi hunts him down, he expresses his apology for leaving and says he’s just too happy for them,

-Rantaro, a little, the second Kokichi looks up and wiggles his fingers to show off his ring,

-Miu, the entire way through her speech. Kokichi calls her a crybaby bitch halfway through when it looks like she might be about to break down completely, and that gives her enough strength to get through it,

-Tenko, but she won’t admit it,

-Himiko, openly, only a little bit because she wasn’t allowed to be the flower girl,

-Gonta. a lot. he is one of the happiest people there and he won’t stop crying. he’s embarrassed about it but he’s too happy to stop and he probably makes Kiibo start crying AGAIN at some point,

-Maki, oddly enough, but only when Kokichi and Shuichi move to go and dance. She tries to hide it and snaps at Kaito when he teases her, but when Kaede asks if she’s okay, because they all know she’s not the biggest fan of either Kokichi or the union, she quietly admits she’s crying about seeing Shuichi so happy.

and humiliatingly;

-Kokichi. a lot. through most of it. He gets halfway through his vows and he starts sobbing. Shuichi has to hold his hands to get him through it. He cries when DICE give their blessing and he cries when Shuichi’s uncle gruffly says he’s “a fine young man, though he doesn’t approve of his methods,” and he cries when he calls Miu a crybaby bitch and when Gonta hugs him and when Kiibo sobs into his shoulder and when Kaito musses up his hair and tells him to take care of Shuichi, and he cries through the kiss even though he’s smiling at the same time.

It’s hugely embarrassing to him and years later he refuses to admit to it ever happening despite the photographic evidence otherwise. Shuichi thinks it’s sweet- he’s proud that he managed to be that vulnerable around that many people. Kokichi has called him a slur after he expressed that sentiment.

There’s a last dance, though, after everyone has been dragged to various hotel rooms or passed out drunk, and they should clean up but instead they change the music to something slow- a waltz, maybe, with Shuichi adjusting the stupid cape and Kokichi reaching up to gently fix Shuichi’s tie (which has gotten a little rumpled by this point.) And they dance, with the lights a little lower and helium balloons sagging to the floor, and they dance. And maybe they repeat their vows- not the same words, but the same sentiments. Or maybe they don’t say anything at all.

There’s no first dance as such- music is played, and there’s wine, but Kaede is the first one to start dancing, dragging her date with her and tearing it up. Shuichi’s had a little too much attention, really, and he’s happy to sit back and chat a little more casually and hold Kokichi far too closely as they watch the others slowly migrate to the dancefloor. But after a while- when mostly everyone is dancing and his heart has stopped pounding quite so painfully, and he’s had just enough champagne to feel brave and Kokichi is looking so happy under the lights, he takes his hand and drags him over to the band and requests something- (i’m thinking the lovecats by the cure, both bc goth saihara rights and because it works very well for saiouma i think.) -and then he takes Kokichi’s hands again and they go dancing.

(and obviously everyone is staring at them now, because it’s their wedding, and with that cape how can you not- but Shuichi is too distracted to notice, or maybe too happy to feel self-conscious, and Kokichi is whispering something in his ear that makes him laugh and it’s kind of hard for everyone to look away from them, you know?)

Either way, when they get to their room they probably boink for a bit and then pass out only to be woken up late for their honeymoon two hours later by Rantaro, who knew this would happen and did warn them, and who receives a very nice postcard from France a few days later informing him that they made the flight. 

[ugly-anastasia]

The Last 10 Years | Oneshot

Note: for the October Jekyll and Hyde task (write a one-shot featuring your character as first the protagonist and then the antagonist) I had an idea to try and tell Annie and Charlie’s story in the style of the musical The Last Five Years, since that is kind of the goal of that show’s storytelling style. Basically the premise is the same story told from two different perspectives, one in chronological order and the other in reverse-chronological order. Just wanted to clarify that in case the format is confusing. Enjoy!

Warnings for: alcohol, references to hazing, lots of messy/unhealthy relationship dynamics, misogyny, some nsfw topics

2021, Annie

The last time Anastasia Tremaine saw Charles King, he was shimmering. 

The morning light got in her eyes, Tennessee June out in all its glory as Annie loaded the last box into the Uber that would take her to the airport. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie could see Charlie bending down to give Harlynne and Jaxson each one last hug. The early summer sunshine seemed to sparkle on his Dri-Fit Vanderbilt Tennis shirt because of course it did. The world seemed to part for Charlie King and everything that made Annie squint and stumble and fall just painted him in brighter glory.

It was what she had always liked about him, wasn’t it? That she could look at him and see the sun? Annie’s life had always been defined by the people she surrounded herself with. Rodmilla Tremaine’s screechy daughter, Ella Ashbourne’s bitchy stepsister with the bad fake tan, and then Charlie King’s perky young wife. 

Maybe that was her mistake from the beginning. How was she going to define herself now?

2011, Charlie

The first time Charles King saw Anastasia Tremaine, she was shimmering. 

Literally. Covered in silver sparkles. The glitter bomb was a new ritual to welcome the Alpha Phi pledges, replacing the traditional surprise Jägerbomb after a lengthy hazing investigation that left the sisters scrambling to replace their traditions with those less explicitly related to alcohol. Of course, it was the first mixer of the year, so alcohol of all kinds was flowing through the Kappa Alpha house, just with enough plausible deniability to say that technically nobody underage was encouraged to drink. 

Luckily for the majority of the attendees at this mixer, they tended to have the kind of connections to get a good enough lawyer to get out of that stuff.

Charlie saw Annie sparkling as she stood on the coffee table and glitter rained down on her, shrieking in disgust (but maybe soaking up the attention just a little bit). And he knew that was his girl. She was attractive in a self-conscious kind of way, with her long legs and big nose, like maybe she was afraid she stuck out too much. It was easy to see through fake freshman confidence, and Charlie could already see her posh British accent impressing his parents. 

He hung back. He didn’t say anything yet. But Charlie had a feeling he would run into Annie Tremaine again.

2019, Annie

It was really quite plain and simple: Charlie was cheating.

Annie believed she was justified in going through his phone, because he was cheating. The signs were everywhere. He was always “going out to happy hour” after work even though he hadn’t been interested in “happy hour” since he’d started at the accounting firm six years ago. He seemed distracted lately. And his little icon always dropped off of the map on Find My Friends the same time every day. 

So when Charlie was in the shower, Annie reached across the bed and unlocked his phone. Unknown number.

Tonight again?

No, not tonight

When??? 😩😩😩 

Tomorrow?

Ur gonna make me wait until tomorrow

The anticipation will make it sweeter 😉

And there was her proof. “CHARLIE!” Annie roared, jumping out of bed and pounding on the shower door. She was justified. She had-- what was it they called it on those police procedurals? Probable cause? Annie had probable cause. Charlie came stumbling out of the shower, wrapping the towel around him and looking at her blearily. “Whaa-”

“Explain this!”

Charlie just stared at her. “Did you go through my phone?”

2013, Charlie

The plain and simple explanation was that Annie asked Charlie out. 

Two years after that first party where they locked eyes, after Annie had attracted a few whispers for stumbling through some on-off relationships with the more sensitive of the KA brothers, Annie went right up to Charlie at homecoming and asked him out. Charlie didn’t plan on getting tied down to a college girl right after he graduated. And no, he didn’t leverage any kind of power he might have had, because Annie had just applied for an internship at the accounting firm he and his father both worked at. That was her choice. Wasn’t that what feminism was all about or something?

Annie asked Charlie out with the brazen confidence of a brand new Co-Chair of Philanthropy, a confidence she would confess, taking a sip of her cosmo, actually came from Charlie’s encouragement. Last spring, right before graduation, Charlie had told Annie to go after her dreams, and Annie had decided that her dreams lied with Charlie King.

That was what Charlie had to explain to people when they raised eyebrows at his relationship with Annie. She had asked him out. It was even possible she was playing him to get her foot in the door at the firm. Right?

2015, Charlie and Annie

Charlie and Annie had a fight the night before their wedding. It started at the rehearsal dinner, when Charlie’s best man, a lanky KA brother named Ross, got into a tiff with Drizella over something political, and then Annie whispered to Charlie to shut him up, and Charlie didn’t, and now they were in their individual hotel rooms, shouting at each other on the phone.

“He’s my friend, Annie, I don’t control him!”

“I’m not asking you to control him, but you could have pulled him for a chat! Told him to tone it down!”

“Annie, why would that--”

“You have no problem doing that with me when I’m being a bitch! And I’ve done it with you when you’re being stupid! What’s the difference?”

“Annie, I--”

“I know why. It’s because you care more about fitting in with your stupid friends than you care about me! Grow up, Charlie, you’re getting bloody married!”

“Annie!” 

Silence.

“Look, Annie, I don’t know what you want me to say. I can’t travel back in time and do it different.”

“I want you to say you’re sorry!”

“Alright, Annie, I’m sorry.”

More silence. For a moment, Annie had a burning feeling that something might not be right. On the other side of the wall, Charlie had the same feeling.

They both wrote it off as cold feet. And the next day, they had a beautiful wedding, and it even made the society pages, and Annie had never gotten so many likes on Instagram. And Charlie’s mother was proud. And the fight was forgotten.

Until it wasn’t. 

2013, Annie 

Annie asked Charlie out because her mother said she should, and because her friends said that he was a sweet guy but he would never make the first move, and because a cute self-help book she had read said that if Annie didn’t take control of her destiny now, destiny would take control of her. Annie was a strong woman, and Charlie was cute and well-connected, and maybe he was a lot older, but that was the kind of man Annie wanted, anyway. Someone mature. Someone who wouldn’t walk out when things got hard. Charlie seemed steady.

And yes, maybe she told him that she had gotten her confidence from his little drunken pep talk that he gave her right before he graduated, even though that wasn’t really true. And maybe she faked it the first time they hooked up... and the second and third time, too. And maybe Annie swore she listened to all of his mixtapes, even when she found them quite boring. Men had fragile little egos, and Annie knew she could use that to her advantage. 

It didn’t matter, because at the end of things, Annie knew that she and Charlie would be perfect together. What was a little white lie here and there, a little corner cutting? It was destiny and she was just helping it along.

2019, Charlie

Cheating didn’t look good. It never did. Charlie had a kid, and another on the way, and a wife who was perfect on paper. Ross’s stare across the table at Buffalo Wild Wings (an old heartbreak haunt from the Vandy days) said all of that. But Charlie believed he deserved some sympathy. 

“She’s crazy, man!” Charlie argued.

“Charlie, you’re not supposed to call women crazy anymore. Erica--”

“I don’t care what bullshit Erica read on TheSkimm!”

“Charlie! That’s my wife you’re talking about!”

“Sorry,” Charlie grumbled, biting into his buffalo wing morosely. “But I think if she was paranoid enough that I was cheating on her that she had to go through my phone, then there’s a bigger problem. And, I’m just saying, she could’ve just asked me.”

“And you would have told her the truth?”

Charlie hmphed and threw the bone down on his plate, reaching for another wing. 

2011, Annie

The first time Annie saw Charlie, it was from behind.

But what a glorious back of his head it was! Thick chestnut-brown hair, gelled into a perfect side part but not too much that it couldn’t be tousled a little. A pink golf shirt-- there was nothing like a man who knew how to dress. And he was moving with purpose, with animation, like he knew he was the brightest star in the room and everyone around him was so lucky to bask in his light.

He was the shimmering outline of a boy you could fill in with all your hopes. And the other girls had told Annie to stay away from the older boys, that they would play with your heart and drop you by Christmas to ring-by-spring a girl more their speed. But Annie could see the pieces clicking into place. She had been raised to believe if you worked hard and wanted something badly enough and if you weren’t afraid to get your hands a little dirty, you could have whatever you wanted. And Annie wanted this. Badly.

Annie was tired of standing in the shadows. She wanted to attach herself to a boy who commanded the light, so she could shine, too. And she had finally found him.

2021, Charlie

The last time Charlie saw Annie, it was from behind, as she climbed into the car and didn’t bother to give him one last wave before speeding down the highway with the life he had spent the past ten years building.

Annie had gotten everything she wanted in the divorce. It was hard to sympathize with a cheater, especially one who already seemed to have a backup life ready to go as soon as his ex wife and kids were out of the way. Charlie didn’t really feel that way. He mostly resented Annie for blowing this up the way she had, turning one little affair into a marriage-shattering event, fleeing the country with both kids in tow. Charlie didn’t care what Ross said. She was crazy.

Mostly, Charlie mourned what could have been. He could have gone on having it all. He was doing a good job of balancing it. And he had been raised to believe that if he just managed everything tactfully enough, he could skate through life unencumbered, with nobody to say no to what he wanted. For the first time, he couldn’t. And it made Charlie livid.

But maybe it was time for a fresh start. He had Jenna, his beautiful girlfriend. He had his house, still. He had his Nashville friends, who had eventually come around to agree with Charlie that he was in the right (and Charlie believed that they liked Jenna better, anyway). 

The worst thing that Annie had done, Charlie decided, was think too highly of him. He wasn’t a man of principle or honor, he just projected that image in the settings where it was necessary. And she had been naive enough to believe in that. 

Charlie went back in the house and pulled up Jenna’s contact on his phone. From now on, he wasn’t going to lie about the kind of man he was. And hopefully, that would prevent him from repeating this whole mess over again.

[softspaceboibrian]

The Rest of My Life

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x reader

Summary: Gwilym spends the last few moments with the love of his life

Warnings: lung cancer, death, very sad, so much angst

WC: 1795

A/N: I don't even know why I wrote something this sad, I wasn't feeling at my best. I'm so sorry.

When Gwilym finally got out of the audition, he turned back on his phone and found 7 missed phone calls from Joe, 4 from Lucy and a couple from Ben. Obviously something had happened to her, he knew it, he could feel it. And, even though deep down in his heart he knew exactly why he had so many missed calls, he wanted it to be good news. He needed it to be good news.

While dialling Joe’s number, he got inside his car, his heart racing in his chest. “Please, mate, answer your phone” He kept repeating, switching to speakerphone to avoid getting stopped by the police on the way to her.

“Gwil, thank God. Where are you?” Joe seemed worried. A lot.

“I’m on my way. Do you have news?”

“Hurry up. She...” He stopped talking, and the line went quiet for a few moments. Then he spoke again “She’s not good. She doesn’t have much longer.”

“Tell her I’m coming. I’m 5 minutes away. Tell her I’m almost there.” Gwil’s voice sounded calm, but if Joe could see him in that moment, he would know exactly how he was really feeling.

“I’ll tell her. But, please, get here as fast and as safely as possible” Joe tried to comfort him, before hanging up.

Five minutes later, Gwilym was running towards the front entrance of the hospital. Once inside he didn’t even need to say who he was, why he was there: almost every nurse knew him and knew her. So he raced down the halls of the hospital, bee lining between interns, nurses and doctor, his only goal in that moment being her room. Finally, he saw Ben pacing in front of her door, Lucy sitting on the chair right out side of the room, Rami trying to comfort her. At that sight, he stopped for a moment, feeling his heart breaking. But then Ben saw him, and immediately raced towards him. “You’re here”

“How is she?”

“Not good, but stable for the moment. Joe’s inside with her, trying to keep her busy”

Gwil simply nodded, walking slowly towards the door, his heart dropping in his chest with every step. He always knew that day was going to come, since the day they found out.

--------------------

They had been sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like a lifetime. They had been waiting for the results of the exams for days, but they felt like months, years even. She hadn’t been feeling well for a while at that point: it had started with a simple cough, but the syrup didn’t have any effect. Soon she began feeling pain in her chest area, getting worse and worse. But the moment the doctors really started to get worried was when she first coughed up blood. She had done any exam possible, even though they both already knew exactly what it was.

“I’m sorry that you had to wait for so long. Please, sit down” The doctor was a rather young woman, 5 or 6 years older than Gwil, with her hair in a neat ponytail, glasses that made her kind eyes pop. “I guess I should start by telling you that the results are not good. Actually they are far from good.” That didn’t help at all, but they had explicitly asked her to be as straightforward as possible. “I’m really sorry, but the results came back with the answer we all expected and yet hoped wouldn’t come: it’s lung cancer.”

Gwilym’s eyes immediately filled with tears, while she tried to stay calm, to contain herself. “How much longer?” The man asked, interrupting the woman sitting on the other side of the desk. “How much longer does she have?”

The woman looked down at the papers, not to look for the answer to the question, but to recollect herself. Telling such terrible news to such young people was never easy. “If we start the treatment right away, hopefully a year. If you decide you don’t want the treatment, well, in that case 5, maybe 6 months. But that’s already a stretch”

“Will it hurt? The treatment...” That was all she asked, all she needed to know. She was already sure about her decision to start the treatment as soon as possible, but she still wanted to know.

“It won’t be pleasant. Everyone reacts to it in different ways, but it’s never a smooth ride.” The doctor sighed, trying to keep a soft, gentle tone while delivering the sad news. “You will get weaker, you’ll lose your hair. At some point, in the last few weeks, when the situation will get worse, because it will, you will have to permanently move in here, in the hospital.”

“When can she start with the treatment?”

--------------------

He finally found the courage to walk inside the room for what was probably going to be the last time, to spend her last few moments with her. Everything was too good to be true in the last couple of days. But they always say that there’s always a last good day before the end. There had been times when things seemed to be looking up, but then quickly went back to the usual. But that time, that time Gwilym knew it was going to be the last time. He could see it in her tired smile, in her pale skin, in the way she tried to make the bandana on her head look good for him, because she too knew there weren’t going to be many other date nights with the love of her life.

“Hi, angel” Gwilym smiled, or at least he faked a smiled, while walking into the room where his girl, his fiancée was laying in bed, with their best friend who looked tired. “I’m sorry I’m late, traffic was terrible”

“You made it” She smiled at the man, trying to move a little to the side to make room for him on the bed.

No one needed to tell anything to Joe. He simply kissed the girl's forehead, before walking outside of the room to join the others, patting his friend’s shoulder on the way, as if to say you can do it. Gwilym smiled back at him, before making his way next to her, laying right next to her.

“How was the audition?” She asked, as she had done every day after he had an audition or a meeting.

He smiled, softly pressing his lips to her temple, almost too scared to break her even with such a gentle touch. “It went great. They seemed really interested in me, told me they were going to contact me as soon as possible to let me know. My manager said he thinks I basically have the part” He talked softly, his hand gently tracing her features, as if he was trying to take it all in for one last time.

“I’m sure you’re going to be great in this movie too, as always, after all”

Gwilym’s smile quickly turned into a frown, tears welling up in his eyes, the realization that she wasn’t going to be there to support him through it as she had always done hitting him hard in the face. How was he going to be able to pull through it? Who was he going to run lines with? Who was going to be by his side at the premiere? Who was now going to be his most honest judge?

“Please, don’t. Don’t cry. Not right now. I want to spend the last few moments of my life with you and I want you to remember them as happy ones.”

“I was so ready to spend the rest of my life with you. I was ready to start a family, get married as we wanted, travel around the globe with you, then maybe settle down and have children.”

“You could still do it, you know that”

“But without you, it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing will be the same.”

“Gwil, my love, please, listen to me.” She faintly took his hand in hers, trying to calm him down, even just a bit. “We knew this day was going to come, and we were lucky enough to have been granted for more time we were supposed to by God knows who. But tomorrow I won’t be here. I know it’s sad. I know it hurts, I can only imagine. But please, please, promise me one thing: don’t put your whole life on hold for me. Go on, keep living, fall in love again, start a family with someone who loves you just as much as I love you. Do all the things you wanted to do. Don’t let your life end with mine. You’re strong. Keep living. Keep making people happy. And maybe remember me from time to time. Remember the girl that loved you so hard that gave her life for you. And when you’ll be old, grey and bent, when your time will come, I’ll be there, waiting for you.”

Tears were streaming down his face, wetting his cheeks. He was ready, he didn’t want to lose her. Not yet. He needed more time with her. But there was not much more time left. “How can I fall in love with someone else if my heart belongs to you?”

“You’ll find out that it’s easier than it seems. Your heart needs to love and be loved. You’ll need time, you’ll need practice, you’ll need support from your friends, but you’ll go on.”

“I don’t want to”

“But you will have to”

“Don’t leave me. I’m not ready to spend the rest of my life without you.”

“I know, love, I know.” She whispered softly, stroking his cheeks, trying to wipe away the tears. “But, please, allow me one last wish: let me spend the rest of my life with the man I love. I want to bring with me the image of you smiling, that is the last thing I want to see.”

At those words, his heart broke. But, somehow, he managed to wipe away the tears from his face and smile, like she had asked. It was hard, but it was for her, and he would do anything for her.

Ten minutes later, Gwilym walked out of the room, eyes full of tears. He didn’t dare to say a word, worried he might break down right there, in front of everyone. All he did was look at Joe and softly nod.

Everyone stayed silent, all he could hear was Lucy softly sob into Rami’s chest. But he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the looks from all the people around him. So he simply started walking, walking away from them, from that place that screamed her name, that kept screaming “she is gone”.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

https://fashion-trendin.com/kieran-culkins-shirt-is-off/

Kieran Culkin's Shirt Is Off

When Kieran Culkin first started reading the script for “Succession,” he wondered whether it had been sent to the wrong person. The HBO powers that be originally thought he’d be a good fit for the character of Greg, a bumbling nitwit who gets high in his first scene and spends the rest of the first season failing to sidle his way up the ladder of a massive media and entertainment conglomerate owned by his great-uncle, Logan Roy.

Almost from Greg’s first line, Culkin knew he was wrong for the part. “He’s already a lot younger than I am, and just the voice ― I was, like, this is not me. I am not right for this.”

When I met Culkin at a small restaurant in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan last Monday, it was just as clear to me as it was to him that he’s too old to play a character like Greg. But something in the Roy family’s dark saga held Culkin’s attention anyway. He said he kept reading the script, which follows the foibles of the billionaire Roy clan as its individual members vie for power within. A few pages later, Logan’s overconfident third son, Roman, appears, led into a meeting by a man hired explicitly to burn sage.

“Hey, hey, motherfuckers!” Roman proclaims to a room full of his father’s business associates.

“And I was, like, ‘Oh, who’s this fucking guy?’” Culkin said.

Culkin eventually got the part of Roman, an incompetent and lazy man-child who believes he wholly deserves the title of chief operating officer, even though he has little interest in doing any of the work that comes with it. Among the many nefarious faces that make up Logan’s Waystar Royco empire, Roman stands out as perhaps its most cynical ― a ratings-obsessed media executive motivated solely by profit. At one point, in his interpretation of corporate disruption, he takes off his shirt in a meeting, flexing and joyfully screaming “Blood!” at the thought of layoffs. During another, he gleefully tells his sister about a new viral video that is “evidence of precisely the kind of disgusting, liberal, metro butt-love that makes our viewership angry enough to buy pharmaceuticals.” To Roman, nothing could be better.

Culkin can’t say exactly what drew him to the morally depraved heir, described by his father as a “moron” and his brother as a “walking fucking lawsuit.” But it’s not hard to imagine some small part of Culkin was intrigued by the idea of playing such a sneering member of a media empire.

After all, Culkin’s distaste for the tabloid industry is beyond well-established. (“No matter what’s written there, it’s a total lie, even the person’s name, lie, lie, lie, lie, everything’s a lie,” he once told New York Magazine.)

But let’s not lump Culkin into that hyperpartisan Level 10 “FAKE NEWS” category of 2018 American paranoia. Mostly because when he told me “Now it’s a thing, ‘fake news,’” and I said, jokingly, “Fake news. You’re a believer,” he got nervous and pushed out a quick “no,” immediately realizing the millions of different ways such a quote could be aggregated, recirculated, quoted out of context and otherwise misinterpreted. You can almost see it now, can’t you? “Kieran Culkin Joins the Chorus: Media Is ‘Fake News.’”

Culkin’s distrust is of a more justifiable form, born out of a lifetime of his surname showing up in headline-grabbing tabloid fodder. From the moment his parents, Kit “The father from hell” Culkin and Patricia Brentrup, entered into an ugly, obsessively covered custody battle to when the National Enquirer proclaimed his eternally famous brother, Macaulay, had “6 Months to Live” in 2012 (he’s still alive), Culkin’s last name has served as a way to move and make paper ― the most intimate moments of his life repackaged as factually questionable entertainment content to sell ads against. 

Ron Galella via Getty Images

Macaulay and Kieran Culkin at the fifth annual American Comedy Awards back in 1991, just months after the release of the blockbuster hit “Home Alone.”

“There are things that are out there in the world as fact because it was written in print that are just completely false. My brother did not divorce his parents. They did not fight over his money,” he said. “But that’s out in the world as fact.

“I learned at a very young age to be, like, ‘Oh, I get it: It’s bullshit,’ shit that’s written in print.”

In person, Culkin ticks most of the boxes of adulthood: In his 30s. Takes his coffee black. Enjoys talking about his favorite East Village dives. Married five years. Nice watch. Clothes that fit. Hair slicked around his head just so. Like Roman, Culkin drops a “fuck” or “shit” every ninth word or so, as when he said to me, “Hold on, I’m going to eat the fuck out of these pickles. You say something for a minute, ’cause I’ve got a mouth full of shit.”

But no matter how many fucks he lets out ― and by my count, he let out around 25 over 40 minutes ― Culkin remains stuck with a membership to the official Former Child Actors club. Macaulay, or Mac, if you’re in the know, was always the main draw ― history’s most famous kid actor without a drink named after him. But Kieran was there too, in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2.” He found himself on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” before the age of 10, and schmoozed with Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” before his voice dropped.  

Which is probably why ― and here I’m guessing ― Culkin might have been a bit annoyed when HBO suggested he audition for Greg.

But after 10 episodes of watching Culkin-as-Roman take part in his family’s imperious game of human chess, it’s hard to imagine the actor playing anyone else. If Jeremy Strong ― who plays Kendall, Logan’s cocaine-addicted second son ― is the show’s tragic star, Culkin is its nervous energy. There’s something in the way he pushes out a phrase like “What a pathetic beta cuck,” or belittles doctors and waiters alike.

What sealed Culkin’s interest in his character came in the first episode during a family softball game, when Roman points to a kid on the sidelines, the son of the site’s groundskeeper. Everyone grows quiet as Roman whips out his checkbook and starts writing a check for $1 million. Hit a home run in their game, Roman tells the boy, and the money is his. For the child and his family, it’s a potentially life-changing moment. For Roman, the child is nothing but a momentary subhuman toy to mess with and cast aside. After the child is tagged out at home, Roman can’t control his laughter. “I’m sorry, I can’t give it to you,” he says as he tears up the check. It is a degrading, truly awful moment of television.

“Oh, I get it,” Culkin remembered thinking, “he’s a fuck face.”

When Culkin filmed the scene, he embodied evil, letting out a cackle so cruel it sets the show’s moral compass for the remaining season. Culkin himself is not sure where his ability to play somebody like that came from.

“Being able to connect to some degree, not in a positive way, with these characters is odd to me because I don’t know the multimillionaires, I don’t know the super-rich, yet I know assholes like that,” he said. “I can’t even quite specifically pick out who I know that is exactly like that, but it’s weird that you can still, for me, relate.”

“Succession” suffered from a slow start, only truly hitting its stride around Episode 6, when Kendall leads the board in a tense vote of no confidence against Logan, who’s recently suffered a stroke, unleashing a sequence of events within the Roy family that are both comical and horrifying.

Culkin owns up to that. “The first three episodes to me, it’s not like they’re unwatchable,” he said, “but it’s not quite the show yet.”

Which, according to him, is fine. Some shows don’t grab you on first watch, and one in particular in his opinion: “I probably shouldn’t even say this on record. The example I have is actually [the British comedy] ‘Peep Show,’” which was coincidentally also developed by “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

But the first season of “Succession” gained enough momentum before concluding Sunday evening for HBO to pick it up for another season ― making this the first time Culkin has ever been part of a television show that made it to Season 2, according to his IMDB page, a small victory in his more than two decades on-screen.

Culkin’s most acclaimed role came in 2002, when he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in “Igby Goes Down.” But that time the victory led to a full-blown existential crisis.

United Artists via Getty Images

Claire Danes and Kieran Culkin talk at a coffee shop for a scene from “Igby Goes Down.” Culkin entered an existential crisis after the film and took a breaking from acting. 

“[I] found myself at the age of 20 with a career I never chose, [and I] freaked out,” Culkin said. “I think everybody around that age has some sort of crisis. Usually, it’s like a straight-up ‘Oh, I don’t know what I want to do.’ Mine is, ‘I don’t know what I want to do with my life, yet here I am doing it.’”

Culkin took a break before eventually returning to acting, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “I was just sort of doing it in the meantime,” he says now. He took parts in movies like “Lymelife” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Did two episodes of “Fargo.” Performed multiple versions of a stage play he loved, Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth.” In 2014, he was still apprehensive. “I often think about getting out of this job, but I’m terrified that there’s nothing else,” he told The Daily Beast.

Since then, Culkin said, something clicked. He remembered coming home from work one day and thinking, “Oh, I think I’m actually enjoying this.”

“I think I know what I want to do now,” he said to himself. “I think I should do this.”

Now deep into his 30s, Culkin has established himself as a stronger and more serious actor than the “essentially retired” Macaulay ever did. And in Roman, Culkin has stumbled upon something as special as it is sinister. TV Guide described Roman as “the very definition of the hate-f―k,” but he’s probably more accurately categorized as sexual overcompensation personified. He tells his brother that his “face is drowning in pussy,” despite the fact that his various partners claim he rarely wants to have sex. He masturbates to his office view of New York City while a string of emails piles up behind him. (“It’s to gain some sort of control,” Culkin surmised.)

More interesting than his sex life, though, is Roman’s complex relationship with his manipulative and emotionally abusive father. While most people want to prove their competence to the people around them, “Roman, for the most part, doesn’t give a fuck about that,” Culkin said, adding, “If his girlfriend says, ‘No, but you did a great job,’ it’s like: ‘Fuck you. Don’t patronize me.’” What he wants, Culkin said, is his dad’s approval: “That’s the only person that can get him, the only person that can look at him and make him nervous.”

Logan does exactly that when Roman prepares to stand against the tycoon in the vote of no confidence. With his father staring down at him, Roman can only muster a meek “maybe” before he slouches into his chair like an admonished child and votes with his father. Thanks to Roman, Logan lives to fight another day atop his dynasty, while Kendall is forced, temporarily, to surrender.

Earlier, in Episode 2, Roman finds himself watching as the world repackages his family’s tragedy into viral content. He and his family are huddled together in a New York hospital, awaiting information about their famous father’s deteriorating health post-stroke, like characters in a Gothic novel, when Roman starts scrolling through Twitter. His sister, Shiv, asks what people are saying.

“Eh, rumors, you know,” Roman replies matter-of-factly. “Some of Twitter says he’s dead ― and also a good deal of rejoicing at our father’s potential demise.” He notices a short video of the “South Park” kids yelling, “Oh my God, we’ve killed Logan! We’re bastards!” and asks an employee to “find out who these fuckers are and report them or screen grab their shit.”

When Culkin’s own father was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in 2014, TMZ, The Daily Mail, Perez Hilton all repackaged the tragedy as well. The National Enquirer pounced, too, running a headline that read, “Macaulay Culkin Rejects Dying Dad: ‘Rot in Hell!’” But unlike Roman, Culkin wouldn’t have been sifting through Twitter. “That would never be something that I would do willingly,” he says of social media more generally. “Because already at a young age, there was a public perception of me.” 

Francis Apesteguy via Getty Images

Kit Culkin, Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin and Patricia Bretnup pose for a photo one month after the release of “Home Alone.” The father is now estranged from his children. 

Like Roman, however, Culkin and his siblings have a less than ideal relationship with his father. By all accounts, they have been mostly if not entirely estranged from Kit ever since their mother won custody of the children in the 1990s. Patricia, the mother, claimed during the custody battle that Kit had been abusive, and Culkin’s brother Macaulay has continued to do so throughout his life.

“He was a bad man,” Macaulay Culkin told comedian Marc Maron earlier this year.

When I asked Kieran Culkin if he has spoken with his father recently, he answered with two no’s so quickly that I couldn’t bring myself to ask a follow-up question, only saying, for reasons still unbeknownst to me, “Fuck ’em.”

“Fuck ’em,” Culkin agreed. “I’ll go on record: Yeah, fuck ’em.”

After a lifetime of his last name being splattered across the front pages of tabloids, Culkin seemed ready to move on from the controversies that have dogged him since he was a child actor with moppy hair and oversized clothes. That’s not him anymore.

What we’re looking at instead is Kieran Culkin, age 35 ― no longer a Greg and fully embracing life as Roman.