#the only subject i actually fucking loathe and am only taking cause i thought i had no say in it 😭

[loud-whistling-yes]

(through gritted teeth) im doing this for the A. im doing this for the A. im doing this for the A. im doi (im looking at my economics worksheet) (its empty) (ive been staring at it for an hour) 

[asetoblog]

You know, Final Fantasy 7 is one of my favourite games ever (my top favs are HZD/HFW, all games involving FF7 and - although it's getting worse - Dragon Age) and I would like to write about something that doesn't sit right with me.

Warning: this post is a Sephiroth apology‼️🌸

So, remember the end of FF7 Remake, where Cloud & Co get to the end of the Midgar highway and they meet Sephiroth? In that exact moment, Aerith tells him "you're wrong", marking the word "wrong". She doesn't mean he's wrong about something, she literally means his whole existence is wrong and he shouldn't have been there or anywhere else in the first place.

Now, that remark rubbed me the wrong way, because Aerith is the only character connected to the Planet in this story and she's supposed to be very empathetic of what and how people suffer. She also lived in the Shinra building during her childhood and she hated it, she perfectly knows how things work there and she loathes - rightfully so - professor Hojo, because she knows what an unscrupulous and ruthless man he is. This would mean she met a younger Sephiroth at some point, and yeah she was still a child, but she must've noticed he was a kind and actually very submissive guy (maybe I'll get to this later???). I think she knows he too was subjected to experiments, just like she was, but this doesn't seem to bother her and she goes straight to saying something on the line of "you shouldn't exist".

In another moment in FF7 Rebirth, you can get a dialogue with Tifa in which she tells you she is "sick of Sephiroth cruelty [...]" and so on. Now, I agree with her, all she got from Sephiroth was her dad's death, wouldn't you be fucking pissed at him and hate him and want him dead? Yeah.

Thing is, I agree with Tifa and disagree with Aerith, but all of this makes me wonder: have they thought what a horrible and traumatic life Sephiroth had until that point?

Sephiroth:

-was born an experiment

-was taken away from his own mother, never met her

-doesn't even know his father

-as a child, he's shy and submissive, never gets any friends, he thus grows up lonely

-he spends most of his life in Hojo's lab, among Mako energy, needles and treatments

-no one ever showed him affection nor love, he was simply raised like a weapon in the hands of the most powerful corporation of the world

-his only two friends, as an adult, abandoned him

-one of his two best friends tells him the truth about him without the hint of some tact, he also calls him "monster" not knowing he's feeding the "insane gene" (let's call it that) in him

-the only new friend he gets, a recruit, jumps straight to conclusions instead of trying to help him

-he always said he wanted a "normale life" and he was forced into that. He also was one step away from leaving Shinra before the accident of Nibelheim happened

There's actually more to point out, but let's just take a step back and think about how an entire life of traumas, deprivation and loneliness can drive a person wild and cause Personality Disorders, Depression and Psychosis. I'm honestly surprised he even endured so much for so long and that would mean he'd be ok if only someone really cared for him and didn't see him as a "hero", a "star" or someone unreachable. His snapping point was reading all the history of Gast and Hojo's experiments and learning more about Jenova. That, sadly, adds up to the trauma he has to face and he even cries about it, meaning he was definitely still (emotionally) sane. Perhaps, it would have taken only one word of comfort but not even Zack was there for him, instead he acted a little harsh, in my opinion.

By this I don't mean things had to go differently, because otherwise I wouldn't have had one of my favourite stories out there, I'm just trying to point out how deplorable Aerith's comment sounds, especially knowing she's so caring and empathetic. I just don't like tha fact that such a dialogue line was written, but at the end I am but a humble Sephiroth apologist.

"You're wrong". No, Sephiroth is not wrong, all the people who surrounded him were.

[lokis-army-77]

andrew neiman smut with him and another drummer threatening to take his spot ?

Come and Take Them

Andrew Nieman x female reader

Word Count: 3407

Reader and Andrew are competing with one another to become the main core drummer for Fletcher's jazz band. One day they have an argument when no one else is in the room, and hate sex ensues.

Warning: 18+ Literal smut. dom/sub dynamics, Sir kink, over stem, squirting. degradation, hate sex, use of the word whore.

A/N: I think I got a little carried away...

Masterlist (taglist linked here)

A month, that’s how long it had been since I joined Terence Fletcher’s jazz band at school. A month of subjection myself to unwarranted ridicule and harsh beratings all because I needed to prove I was the better drummer. 

I have no conceivable idea as to how this competition started but it has been going on since I came to Shaffer Conservatory to learn. Andrew Nieman, whom I thought was a sweet, puppy-esk boy, turned out to be my arch nemesis. 

We had both started off in a regular, first-year jazz band before Fletcher found each of us practicing one day by ourselves. I can still remember the look on Neiman’s face when he found me sitting at those drums when he walked into class. “This can’t be fucking happening.” He had muttered as he took the alternate seat beside me. From then on out our friendly competition turned into full out war and only one of us could win. 

Setting at the drums as everyone packed and left the music room, I watched as they all filed out, going over the song in my head. So lost in thought, I had not realized that Andrew was still sitting beside me on his own stool. 

Once everyone was out and the door was fully closed, he said, “You aren’t getting my spot you know.”

I swiveled around on the chair. “Your spot? I think you mean my spot. I am far better than you when it comes to drumming. It took you what? Two extra days to actually get the timing right on Caravan? Just admit it Nieman, you will never have the core spot, ever.”

“Fuck off, it’s mine.” I watched as he fisted his hands atop his legs, knuckles turning white. 

“Wow, real mature,” I scoffed, turning back to the drum set to practice some more before going home. 

You could feel the tension in the room, like a thick fog swirling around. The sound of my hitting the drums didn’t help either. Andrew stayed behind me, I could feel his unblinking angry stare. I stopped my playing to turn to him.

“Do you fucking mind?” 

“Yeah, I do you’re on my drum set.”

“The hell it is, go find some practice room to play in, I'm sure you still need help on your time signatures.” 

“Give me the sticks.” He demanded, holding out his hand. 

“No.” I snatched them away.

“Give them to me, now.”

“Come and take them.” I challenged, ready to pop up from my stool in a heartbeat. We sat staring one another down, the build-up akin to one of those old western standoffs. Then, Andrew did something I wasn’t expecting, he raced forward, causing me to shift back, and kissed me. 

His lips were soft in contrast to the harsh, wanting way he was kissing me. I was stunned for only a second before beginning to kiss him back. It was all tongue and teeth, hate and loathing, there was no romance or love in anything we were doing. 

I swatted at his hands as he pulled me up from my seat. He paid me no mind as he planted one hand on my waist, fiddling with the band of my skirt, and the other up on my neck, his long fingers trailing into my hair. To my displeasure, a moan flew through my open mouth when he pulled away to start kissing and sucking down my neck. 

“I fucking hate you.” I gasped when he gave my neck a hard bite. I hated myself more for liking it though, I could feel the heat pooling between my legs. 

He moved away from my neck only slightly to say, “Hate you more.” Then we went straight back to littering my neck with marks. 

As the room became hotter, I moved my hands from slightly hovering over his sides to desperately pulling at his pale blue button-up. He understood what I meant as he pulled away from me to throw it off, as well as his undershirt. I followed him, quickly pulling my shirt over my head and tossing it somewhere about the room. 

We met back together, skin touching skin, teeth clacking with teeth. He was rough as he pulled me with him on the back wall, practically slamming me against it. I was caged there between his arms.  It was then, that I got a brilliant idea. Although I did want to get off, I was not going to be the first to lose myself. I had to win in all things and hate sex was no exception. 

I pulled away from him, smiling devilishly and we watched me slowly sink to my knees between him and the wall. 

“What are you-” 

“Shut up Nieman.” I interrupted, pulling the zipper of his pants down, exposing his hard cock hidden beneath his plaid boxer shorts. Reaching my hands up, I rubbed along the hardness, grasping it firmly when I came along the base. 

“Fu-uck.” I heard him gasp above me. I smiled knowing I could for sure make him cum in no time at all. 

Taking a deep breath in, I finally pulled his boxers down, shimming them to his ankles along with his pants. His cock stood at full attention, slapping against his bare stomach. The tip was a harsh red in comparison to his overall pale skin. Just a little below average in size but he made up for it in what I could only describe as a god-like girth and a slight curve to the right.

My hand came up to give him a few experimental tugs and as I did so, his hips immediately started to buck. “Someones needy.” I laughed, only to have him yank up on my hair, forcing me to look him in the eyes. 

“You have to be so fucking annoying all the time don’t you?”

“Only to you.” I rolled my eyes and smiled sweetly before going back to pumping his cock. I watched as a tiny bead of pre-cum started to show itself on the tip, my thumb swiped over it, dispersing the substance around his head, causing him to shudder.

Slowly, I brought my tongue to his base, the trimmed hair around his cock tickling my chin. I swiped up, following along one of the veins which protruded under his skin. I could feel him shudder above me.

I licked and licked like he were a sucker or a popsicle until I felt I had had enough. Then, without warning, I took him into my waiting mouth. Saliva pooled around him at his taste, musk, and salt. The weight of him on my tongue felt nice, especially as he twitched against it in reaction to my pressing it into that certain vein along the bottom 

My hands rested on his thighs as I started to suck on him, bobbing my head up and down his shaft. I could tell he was trying to keep his noises to himself, not wanting me to hear how I made him feel, but I could hear every muffled moan and deep intake of breath, especially as I brought him deeper into my mouth.

When I started to hum in satisfaction as I brought him in and out, I felt him lean forward, bracing the hand that wasn’t holding my hair in a death grip, on the wall. 

“Ahh, shit.” He breathed out through clenched teeth as I pulled him almost all the way out and started to just suckle on his head as I teased his balls with my fingers. “Fuck, stop, stop, stop.”

I didn’t listen, I just kept suckling, throwing in my other hand to pump his cock fast. He was close to cuming as I determined to make him. My plan was ruined though when he used his vice grip on my hair to pull me completely off of him. 

“I told you to fucking stop.” He spits down at me, I just smiled innocently up at him.

“What? Were you about to cum?” I asked in a pouty tone, as though I were talking to a toddler. 

My teasing didn’t last long as I was yanked up to my feet and turned around to face the wall. I felt one of his hands on the top of my back and the other griping at my hip as he pushed me over into the wall and pulled my hips closer to him. I tried to brace myself on the wall, but his two large hands took hold of them and placed them behind my back. The only thing now touching the wall was the side of my face.  

“You are so fucking annoying. Coming in here, thinking you can take my place.” He was seething as he pulled my skirt up and over my ass, fingers splaying on the smooth skin of my hips. 

“Me? Annoying? Hardly, you’re just upset that a girl can do your job better than you.” I pushed myself back into him hard, feeling his cock against my leg.

He didn’t reply, he only took hold of my panties and pushed them slowly down my legs. When they hit around my ankles, he leaned in close to my ear, “Kick them off and spread your legs like a good fucking whore.” He ended his demand with a sharp spank on my bare ass.

If it didn’t turn me on so much to hear him call me that, I would have protested, but some sick part of me deep within went absolutely feral. I couldn’t follow his demands fast enough, he was huffing impatiently by the time my panties were over my shoes and flicked somewhere behind me. In his aggravation, he kicked my legs apart, causing me to gasp at the sudden feel of cold air hitting my moistened folds. 

His grip tightened on my forearms as he started to slide his cock through my folds, movie around my arousal. “You’re so wet. Desperate for my cock aren’t you?” When I didn’t answer and only bucked my hips back into his, he gave my ass another sharp spank. “Good whore’s answer when spoken to.” 

I moaned at the degrading name and bit my lip. “Fuck,” I thought, “I can’t just give into him like this.” So instead of speaking, I just nodded, hoping that would be enough to please him.

“Answer with your words or are you so eager for my cock that you’ve gone dumb?” I felt as his free hand trailed lightly up my back, over my restrained arms, and into my hair. His grip was tight when he pulled me up and back into his chest. His soft lips were pressed to the shell of my ear, “Fucking answer me, whore.” 

“Yes,” I cried, feeling defeated on the inside. It was okay though, he won this battle, but I would still win the war. “So desperate for your cock. Please give it to me, please.”

I felt him smirk against my ear, “Well since you asked so nicely, I guess I can.” He pushed me back into position against the wall and held me steady with his hand on my arms. I shuddered when he swiped his cock through my folds again, this time smoothing over my throbbing clit. 

“Ahh-” I bucked forward, not expecting the feeling of him against my most sensitive place to be so toe-curling. He hadn’t even really touched me yet and I was already coming apart. 

He paid me no mind as he slowly moved his hips back and then placed the head of his cock at my entrance. Taking his time, he circled my hole, chuckling a little as he saw me clenching around nothing, wanting, needing to be filled.

Only after pulling back and giving my pussy a slap with his hand did he decide to enter me. His girth stretched me out completely. As he pushed in, the most wonton noises were erupting from my throat. Never in my life had I taken someone so thick.

“Won’t fit,” I whined when it felt like I was starting to be split in half. I tried to move my hands, but his grip held firm.

“Yes,” He grunted. “It. Will.” He was determined to push his way inside and as I panted under him, I wondered when this would turn back into pleasure. 

I let out a cry of pain and relief when he finally bottomed out, hips coming to rest against the skin of my ass. My legs shook as I tried to keep myself from falling. Andrew felt my legs faltering and wrapped his arm around my hips, helping to keep me up.

“Don’t move.” I moaned out, “Not yet.” 

We stood there, connected, for a minute before I would let him slowly start to pump his hips back and forth. The sting from the stretch had dissipated substantially and the pleasure of feeling his cock rub against me, in and out, in and out, was almost like heaven. 

“That's it, just like that,” I relaxed my arms in his hold and tried to find a comfortable position to lean my head against the wall. 

“Fuck, you’re so fucking tight.” Lust was oozing from his voice. “The way you clench down on me feels so good.” He had started to gain speed, steadily picking it up when I showed no signs of protest. 

Tears prickled in my eyes as our movements began to push me into the wall more. I couldn’t complain, it felt really good. 

“More,” I command, voice airy. 

Andrew’s hips started to go faster and harder into me. He used his hand around my waist to pull me back into him,  burying himself deeper.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck." He felt so good, especially as he kept hitting a spot inside me that had my toes curling in my shoes. "Feels so good Andrew." My moans were deep and almost guttural as my body was overflowing with pleasure. 

"Oh, so we're on a first name basis now?" He asked, not slowing his blistering pace. "I don't think whores are allowed to call their masters by their first name." 

How he was speaking so casually as he fucked into my cunt, I had no clue. I couldn't think straight with how he was talking to me. Slowly but surely, the resolve I had at the beginning of the encounter, began to flow away, leaving me wanting more of him, needing more of him. 

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded as I moved my hips back into his.

He took his hand away from my arms, freeing them at last, and moved his hand down to where he slapped my ass. “That didn’t feel genuine.” 

My hands braced themselves on the wall, trying to grip onto anything, hoping it would give me relief. “Please, I’m sorry. Forgive me, Sir, please.” My body warmed at the humiliation of begging, calling him Sir, letting him see this unfamiliar subservient side of myself. 

“That’s better.” The praise was quick and almost not loud enough for me to hear over the rushing sound in my ears. 

It was what he did next that really thrust me into the white-hot fires of my own orgasm. The hand Andrew has placed securely around my waist, moved closer and closer down my stomach and to the apex of my thighs until finally, he was flicking his fingers roughly against my swollen clit. 

The room we were in was not well soundproofed and if anyone was walking past, or hell, even several feet down the hall, they would be able to hear every pleasured scream I let out as I unwillingly came apart on his cock.

At the moment, all I could think about was how good it felt to finally let go of the building pressure in my abdomen, but in the back of my mind, I was scolding myself for being the first to cum, after I had promised myself I wouldn’t.

“That’s it, that's a good whore. Cumming on my cock like that, fuck.” He growled out. His hips were still moving as well as his hand against my clit. “Let’s see if you can give me another, hum?”

“No, no, please,” I gasped as I felt myself clenching around him harder this time. I was worn out already, another orgasm right now felt like it would kill me. Andrew paid no attention, he just kept pumping himself in and out. His hand on my clit alternated between fast circles and stinging slaps. 

When he would hit the sensitive skin, my right leg would involuntarily lift up off the floor, trying to stop him from stimulating me further, but it didn’t work. I was exhausted and he was stronger than me. 

“Sir, please.” I cried, the building pressure becoming too much. 

“Cum you whore, cum for me.” 

With no shame, I did as he said. I let go, let the warmth flow from me. One hand quickly moved from its place to try and stop his movements, but all I could do was barely touch him with my fingertips. 

I cried out in relief when I felt his speed falter before he finally stopped moving, pumping load after load into me. 

“Thank you, Sir.” I babbled out as he slowly pulled out, leaving me to clamp down around nothing and whimper at the loss. If it weren’t for his hands helping to lower me to the floor, I would have ended up on the ground face first. 

He gently turned me to lay on my back as he sat on his knees between my legs. “You can’t really think we’re done here.” He chuckled, looking at my worn-out form. 

I was breathing heavily and my body felt like it weighed more than three tons. I was completely gone, totally having been devoured by Andrew and my own dark desires to have him fuck me until I was dumb. His large hands smoothed over my thighs and spread them out wide before he leaned down and placed his hot mouth over my clit. 

The feeling was too much, I was too sensitive, I tried to squirm away from him, but he was holdfast. His fingers dug into the plush skin of my thighs, keeping them from enclosing him. I was sure I would have two hand-sized bruises there for the next few days. 

His tongue flicked and swirled over my clit, making me feel hazier and hazier. I was too tired to keep my eyes open, to watch him, so I closed them and as I did, I swear his ministrations became ten times what they had been. With every harsh suck or nip to clit, I could feel a rush of pleasurable pain rushing through my nerves. 

My back began to arch off the floor as I felt a third orgasm quickly build. I gripped my hands into his hair as I cried out to him. “I’m gonna cum, shit, I-I-I’m gonna,” 

This orgasm was the strongest of the three, my head flew back against the hardwood floor and I swear my life flashed before my eyes. I could feel my arousal shoot into Andrews's mouth and begin to trickle down my thighs and ass and onto the floor. 

When I came back to reality, Andrew has scooted back and was wiping his face off with his undershirt. “Fuck, that was hot.” 

Dazed, I just laid there, tired and completely wrecked. Thankfully, Andrew helped clean me up with his already ruined shirt before helping to pull my bra and shirt back on. 

“Come on, you need to stand up.” He helped me to my feet, but when as soon as all my weighed settled onto my two very shaky legs, I almost immediately fell. “Shit, okay, I'll carry you out.” 

“You can’t do that, I have no underwear on.” I swatted at his hands weakly when he tried to pick me up. 

“You caught that?” He asked.

“You seriously think I wouldn’t notice you stuffed my panties in your back pocket?” 

He sighed. “Well, they're mine now, just like how the place in the concert is mine.” 

“You fucking wish, Nieman.” I yawned, leaning against his shoulder. Slowly but surely, he held me as we walked outside to the busy mid-day New York street.

“Next time,” I thought to myself, “Next time, I’ll make him cum three times. See how he likes it."

Miles Taglist: @n3ssm0nique @babyhoneystvles @xelizabethvalentinex @xxhejsanxx @luckyladycreator2 @milestomaverick @ellabellabus07

[heyhihellowhatsup0]

Hooked On Your Feelings - Chapter Two (FWB! Tom Holland x Reader)

SERIES MASTERLIST

Warnings: Some angst, language, eventual smut in future chapters, fluff

Word Count: 5255

Summary: After a bad breakup, making an agreement with your womanizing neighbor, Tom to be friends with added benefits and no strings attached seemed like the perfect idea. Until things become messy, emotions caused your agreement to crumble.

A/N:  I am HYPE to post this new chapter! Omg I just love writing this series so much its so fun writing Tom like this lol. Also low key...this chapter has an easter egg to a pervious series of mine and I’m v curious if anyone catches it but probably not because its superrr tiny but either way I hope you guys like this one! Obviously, smut is in this chapter! DM me to be tagged and I cannot wait to hear everyone’s thoughts! (Also .gif is not mine. DM me for credit please, I found on google!) Thank you xx -N

“What happened to that girl you took home the other night from The Lace Rabbit?” Harrison asked as he ordered his lunch before he took a seat at the table with Tom. It was typical for them to meet up during the week on their lunch breaks and catch up when they were not busy being wingmen for the other while bar hopping on the weekends. 

Tom shrugged off Harrison’s question as he took a bite of his sandwich, “She got a little clingy so I had Y/N help me get rid of her,” he smiled as he said your name out loud. His friends knew of you as the hot girl who lived next door who bailed him out of sticky situations. Always teasing Tom how he could never actually get you. The irony made it all too funny for him, “How’d it go with that blonde girl?” he asked to change the subject off of him.

He didn’t know if he should bring up the two of you sleeping together with Harrison. Harrison was his best friend and wouldn’t judge but he knew he’d give Tom shit for it. He’d want to know details of your arrangement or how it came about, if you were really that good and Tom didn’t feel comfortable answering that. Not if it was about you. He didn’t want his other friends knowing about you in the way he did. That was personal between you both and he wanted to show you he respected you.

“It didn’t,” Harrison admitted while taking a sip of his water. He let out a chuckle as he felt himself blushing, “Forgot her name and she spilt her drink on me. Can’t say I didn’t deserve that one,” he at least knew when he was in the wrong.

Tom cringed into his sandwich as he let out a cackle, “You definitely deserved it, mate,” he laughed with another bite. His phone vibrated in his pocket but he chose to ignore it, knowing like clock work what it probably was. It was going to ruin the rest of his day and he at least wanted to enjoy lunch with his friend before getting pissed off for the day.

“She’d probably love you,” Harrison teased. 

“Fuck off,” Tom rolled his eyes with a laugh. “I’m not taking your angry seconds.”

“Don’t knock angry sex til you try it,” Harrison smirked knowingly. 

Tom shook his head as he once again ignored the phone ringing, “I think I’m good, thanks,” he brushed it off with another eyeroll. 

He didn’t know why he suddenly felt weird talking about their last venture out at the club. Maybe it was because Tom knew where he ended up after that girl had left and he knew what that meant for the both of you. But Tom wasn’t done with his bachelor days, and even you knew that. Hell, you practically insisted since this was a no strings attached deal.

It just felt strange not telling Harrison about you. Like it was a weird secret. But at the same time, he felt oddly protective of you. Not wanting his friends to see you as some girl he was getting laid with. Or worse, a potential love interest. He knew it wasn’t going to happen. Hell would be freezing over before Tom decided on any sort of long term obligation. But he knew his friends and he knew they wouldn’t see this is a simple agreement between two friends. And he didn’t want to deal with that conversation.

Staying quiet was the better option. For his own sanity. And...well, would you care if he told anyone about this? Tom figured that was another rule he’d have to ask about. He didn’t want to overstep any boundaries and he knew you had a list of rules as well that he was happy to follow. As long as that meant one thing and one thing only: non-exclusive.

Harrison noticed Tom’s phone buzzing for the third time. And Tom ignored it for the third time. He checked the message with a huff of his breath before turning the screen face down on the table, going back to his lunch before he had to get back to work.

“Clingy girl?” Harrison nodded towards Tom’s phone. 

Tom shook his head, “My mother was supposed to visit this weekend but you know the routine,” he mumbled into his food, not even wanting to respond to her.

“Let me guess,” Harrison began, knowing exactly where this was going since he knew Tom’s whole story inside and out. Including the bits he hated to discuss which was mainly his family, “Going skiing with Clint in Veil instead?” he questioned knowingly.

Tom scoffed out a laugh at his guess, “Surfing with Clint in Malibu but same shit,” he corrected as he tried not to let it get to him. But even Harrison could tell he was getting bothered by it once again and who could honestly blame him.

 Always the same story every time no matter what and Tom grew tired of her antics. He couldn’t even blame Clint for it anymore considering she’d been this way since he was a kid before he was even in the picture. Only now she would just use him as the perfect excuse to get out of coming to visit.

He knew he shouldn’t care anymore but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t something easy for him to simply let go of. It was his mother. And no matter how many times he’d try she would always give him back the bare minimum and it always made him upset. She was his one final connection to him and she could care less about any of it, so why did Tom? It always got under his skin and he loathed that it did.

But he would still invite her. No matter how miserable it made him.

“Well at least now you’re free this weekend,” Harrison broke his thought while he gathered their garbage before they headed back to work, “The usual at The Lace Rabbit this Saturday then?” he suggested with a knowing smile to try and get Tom out of his mood.

Grabbing his phone, Tom clutched it tightly as he inhaled sharply. Knowing his change of plans meant doing his normal routine even though he was looking forward to the slight change this weekend, which now just seemed bleak to him

.

“Yeah,” Tom agreed as he tapped your name on his phone but hesitated when he saw his mother trying to call for a fourth time, “The usual this weekend.”

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

Your chest tensed as you got into your car after your extremely long day in the office. Everything around you felt heavy and you couldn’t wait to get home as soon as you could but you found yourself still frozen in your car. Unable to move as the moments from earlier this afternoon invaded your thoughts once again while you tried your best to move in. Even though you knew you were completely grief stricken and didn’t know what the hell to do.

The promotion was yours, at least you had thought it was by the way your boss would constantly hint at it. You knew it was never a definite thing, but you were confident in the hard work you had put into your job and knew you were a top contender for the spot. You worked longer hours, took on extra tasks, you even worked on the occasional weekend to get your work done. Taking every precaution necessary to prove that you were the best fit for the role.

Everything felt like it was lining up for you. Co-workers were giving you a pat on the back for your work accomplishments, your boss was taking note of everything you were doing, and you overall felt really good about where you stood for the potential position. So imagine your surprise when you attended the big luncheon and your boss announced his undeserving son was getting the spot instead of you.

It was both nepotism and misogyny rolled into one and it made your stomach turn the longer you had thought about it. None of it made any sense and it was far from fair. You knew you were the one more deserving of the position, the whole office knew it. Even your damn boss knew but he chose his damn son over you and it felt like a stab right to your gut.

You felt so betrayed and beside yourself as you finally decided to head home. Tears streamed down your cheeks while you tried to focus on the road but you just couldn’t ignore the facts. How were you going to be able to show up and take orders now from your boss’ son? You knew the job more than he did and it felt like a huge screw you.

On your drive home, you tried to make yourself feel better by putting on some music to distract yourself but nothing helped. You felt beyond defeated and frustrated right now you didn’t know what was going to make you feel better at the moment. It felt like the world was against you. Between finding Justin with another woman and your job, you were really batting one thousand lately and you weren’t sure when you would catch a break.

Things were not going how you planned at all. The thought of just quitting your job and starting all over again crossed your mind but the fear of the unknown kept haunting you. You didn’t know which direction to go in or who to turn to for advice anymore. You were slowly drowning and you needed someone to throw you a goddamn life jacket already.

You were relieved to finally be home. Maybe some peace and quiet would make you feel a little better, you thought to yourself while you kicked your shoes off and turned some music on for yourself. Trying to put the day behind you and focus on the present moment while you got changed into more comfortable clothes to unwind.

You jumped out of your skin when you heard a knock at your door, not expecting anybody to come by right now. Pulling your hair up into a bun, you headed back towards the door and looked through the peephole. To your surprise, you weren’t really surprised at all. You were actually sort of relieved when you opened the door and saw Tom standing there holding a pizza box.

“That better have extra cheese,” you asked with a narrowed expression while you invited him inside with the pizza that he would always bring you even in normal times. 

Placing the box on the kitchen table, Tom opened it with a grin as he showed you the pizza pie with cheese practically oozing from the crusts, “Figured it was an extra toppings sort of day,” he admitted, knowing he really needed the escape from reality. Even if it was just a pizza.

“Tell me about it,” you sighed as you grabbed a piece closest to you as Tom handed you a paper plate. You headed over towards your refrigerator to grab you both a few beers while Tom leaned up against your kitchen counter as he devoured his slice, “I’m guessing you had a bad day judging by your pizza presentation?” knowing there wasn’t really any particular reason he’d be coming over with it today. Unless if he wanted something?

You slowed your pace back from the fridge wondering if he was going to pick up on how you were feeling. You weren’t entirely sure if you wanted him to notice. Whenever you and Tom had a pizza night it was merely to gossip about your lunatic neighbors or watch a game together. You talked about casual things but never really gone into depth or prying into each other’s lives. Why did it feel like suddenly you wanted something different? Would sex change that much in your friendship?

“We can just ignore that...we don’t have to talk about unimportant stuff,” you waved it off. Tom didn’t need to hear about your miserable day. And you didn’t want to pry into his. 

He swallowed the last bite of his slice, “If something makes you upset, it’s not unimportant,” he noted. But when he noticed you just looking at him, he raised his hands in surrender. “Ignore my philosophical ass. But I’d like to hear about your day, you know,” he laughed it off. 

What the hell was he doing? He thought to himself. Don’t let personal shit ruin this. Enjoy her company. That’s it. 

“I didn’t get the promotion,” you told him. You had mentioned to Tom a while ago that your boss was hinting at it but you never went into detail with him about it. You weren’t used to Tom actually wanting to be open or the other way around. And you’d be lying if you said you weren’t slightly surprised Tom even gave a crap about stuff like this. 

Tom frowned at your answer and he felt his heart sink a bit when you told him the truth about your bad day. He didn’t know much about your job but he was sure you were a hard worker. He saw how much you loved your job and how passionate you were about it when it would come up. You would share upcoming projects with him from time to time and he would see the look on your face whenever you explained them to him. So hearing that you were passed by for a promotion was upsetting to him.

“I...shit, Y/N,” he put his pizza down as he walked over towards to give you a hug. Sliding his hands around your waist he pulled you into him as he felt you relax against his chest, “You didn’t deserve that,” he added softly.

You allowed Tom to embrace you, his warmness comforting you a bit before you pulled away and started crying when telling him about your boss’ son getting the job instead of you. Making you laugh by calling him every name in the book, you and Tom finally found a common ground as you kept venting to him.

Tom pulled away slowly, his hand resting at your chin while he licked his lips, “You’re boss sounds like a fucking prick, I hope you know that,” he told you reassuringly. The small smile you formed when he spoke made him want to keep making you feel better, “I’m glad you’re smiling,” he blushed at his confession.

Stretching your mouth wider, you flashed Tom a playful yet overly wide grin to deflect the attention he gave to you. The two of you laughed as Tom pulled away with a loud chuckle, shaking his head at your sudden silliness, “That has to be the most hideous smile. But we’ll work on it,” he told you through his laughter.

You rolled your eyes before going back to your pizza, giving Tom a look as you nudged him, “Not gonna tell me about what happened to you?” you finally asked.

Tom tensed as he tried to brush it off with a simple shrug into his pizza. The thought of his mother’s texts and ridiculous apologies and excuses continued to drive him crazy as he mumbled into his bite, “It’s stupid shit,” he told you as he swallowed the crust he was chewing, “Mom stuff, not important,” he added bluntly.

You could see the look on his face and could tell it was important to him but you didn’t want to force him to talk about it. Tom was never one to bring up his family ever to you and that was the first time you had ever heard him even mention his mother. He never spoke of his father, at least to you, so you just assumed both were out of his life for whatever reason and it was none of your business to ask.

 And Tom refused to admit it but he wanted you to ask about him. Spending hours upon hours at bars, turning his focus always onto the girl; because he knew no girl would ever want to go home with a self righteous, egotistical guy. It was never something Tom minded to do, especially with complete strangers who he would never open up to in a million years. It might have been the recent development he had with you but there was something refreshing he felt around you and as much as it freaked him out, he didn’t seem to mind.

But diving into his mommy issues with you now seemed too much to deal with right now. You were dealing with more than enough problems with your job and your miserable ex-boyfriend, he figured you didn’t need to hear his bitching right now anyway. He came here to get away from those shitty thoughts, not open those wounds further. 

Tom came here for a distraction.

Licking his lips, Tom perked up as he looked at you fervidly, “Wanna have sex?” he asked matter of factly. He figured he didn’t need to beat around the bush since you had your arrangement but maybe he was a bit too direct with his request. Tom cleared his throat as he tried to save the night, “I-I mean, I just figured since we both had shitty days that maybe we could uhm-”

“Thought you’d never ask,” you cut him off with a smirk and you perked up as well, nodding as you smoothed out your hair. Standing back up as you turned your back towards him, removing your shirt in the process, “Let’s go,” you called over your shoulder as you headed towards your room.

“Oh, we’re jumping right in,” Tom mumbled to himself as he practically fell off his chair to follow you into your room, tossing his shirt beside yours as he practically froze already seeing you completely undressed, “Christ…” he breathed out while taking you in. 

You rolled your eyes as you walked over to him, bringing your lips to his now bare shoulder, “You’re really acting like you haven’t seen me like this the other day?” You laughed against his skin while you began to suck a bruise against him, hearing him let out a gasp while your hand snaked into his pants sneakily, “Beginning to really like this whole friends with benefits thing we have,” you laughed as you found Tom’s lips.

Practically growling into your kiss, Tom lifted you up and lowered you onto your back on your bed. His lips traveled from yours, to your stomach, dipping his tongue into your belly button as you moaned quietly before he brought himself down between your thighs. His lips peppering your inner thigh before he got straight to the point because this whole arrangement meant no foreplay. Another plus for Tom.

“Darling, I think you may be the best friend I’ve ever had,” Tom breathed out a laugh as he pressed his tongue flatly against your clit. Sliding two of his fingers into your core while he slowly pumped in and out of you, “This is what got me through my day today,” he told you before he brought his mouth back to your core.

You arched your back while your fingers went towards Tom’s curls. His name began to fall from your lips while he lapped his tongue carefully, letting it slip inside of you as he continued to tease you with his mouth. His fingers sliding into you again, adding a third as he moaned against your center; allowing the vibrations to roll throughout your entire body.

“Mmm, oh, fuck...!” you cried out, yanking gently against Tom’s hair as you felt the coil beginning to burn from inside of you. Biting your lip to stifle another moan, “Fuck...yo-you’re really good at that,” you breathed out with a small laugh which turned into a whimper.

With his head peering up at you, Tom flashed you a cocky smile with a playful wink as he licked your folds teasingly, “Did you seriously doubt my abilities to make you cum with my mouth, Y/N?” he raised his eyebrow while pumping his fingers now tantalizingly slow, “You’re gonna pay for that comment,” he said to you.

“Just...shut up and make me cum, Tom,” you told him through another gasp as you felt his teeth drag teasingly against your already throbbing bud. His lips wrapped around it as he sucked more harshly, doing exactly as you had asked him to do, “Ungh...oh god, okay. Yeah, keep doing that,” you instructed as you began to grind your hips against his mouth.

Tom took it as a challenge and picked up his pace, beginning to flick your clit faster while he continuously sucked on it. His three fingers now entirely coated in your warmth as he felt you clenching around them. His pants feeling tighter from his hard on while he knelt at the end of your bed trying to bring you to where he wanted.

His free hand splayed against your stomach, holding you in place while he felt you trying to squirm around from the way he was making you feel. Rubbing your clit in between his breaths, Tom looked up at you as he licked a solid stripe down your center, “Let out how you’re feeling from today and cum for me, Y/N,” Tom commanded. 

Your eyes shut as you did exactly what Tom had suggested. Completely coming undone from beneath him while you released as much of the tension from earlier as you possibly could but in the most amazing way. Your eyes rolled back into your head while your back arched as Tom’s tongue continued to work you up while you were at your highest point.

Letting out a breathy laugh as you started to come down from it, feeling Tom begin to kiss his way back up your stomach with a smug look, “Don’t give me that look,” you rolled your eyes at his cockiness as his tongue traced along your neck, “I could do what you just did to myself, you know,” you tried to knock him off his high horse a bit while he pretended to be wounded from your words.

“Ah, but you didn’t. Did you?” Tom reminded you as his lips found yours. His hands still in between your thighs as he brought them between you both, showing you his coated fingers while he tasted you off of them, “Tastes like I made you cum because you wanted me to,” his smugness only elevated as he pushed himself off of you as he laid on his back on your bed.

“Need I remind you that you came to my place like a porno with a pizza looking to get laid,” you retaliated as you shifted so you were now hovering over him. Your hands guiding towards his belt buckle to get him out of his restraintive pants. The pleading look on his face made you just as smug, “Sounds like you want me to do just about the same thing, am I right or am I right?” you sang in his ear.

Tom helped you get the rest of his pants and boxers off, feeling himself spring out as he stared back at you with uncertainty, “Did you...just call me a porn star?” he questioned as the two of you let out a laugh.

“You wish, Tommy,” you teased as you ran your tongue down his abs, placing small and open kisses against his stomach as you made your way down to his legs while your hand carefully gripped his hardened length, your thumb running the pre-cum around his tip while you already heard him gasping for you.

Gripping your bedsheets with one hand, Tom reached around to create a makeshift ponytail to hold your hair. Cussing under his breath as he watched your mouth wrap around his tip, swirling your tongue around it while your eyes searched for his. He was really trying to hold it together but you were already driving him crazy.

“Let’s see what you got, Y/N,” Tom challenged you with a heavy breath as he tightened his grip around your hair, “Sometimes, girls think they know exactly what to do but-OH FUCK!” 

His words were lost as soon as your mouth went straight down to his base. Suctioning as hard as you could before coming back up his cock painfully slow. Moaning your name as his chest began to heave, Tom felt his thighs start to quiver from under you. Even just watching the way you were working on him was enough to make him whimper right now.

“Fuck...okay, yeah I take that back,” Tom gasped as his nose crinkled up while his other hand white knuckled the sheets, “God, your mouth is fucking perfect. Why haven’t we done any of this shit before?” he was in such a fucked out haze, he wasn’t even sure if anything he was saying made any sense at all. But he felt his stress from earlier going away finally. Even if this was just a short state of bliss, he was grateful for it anyway.

“You really want me to answer that or would you just prefer me to keep sucking your dick?” you sassed while you kitten licked his tip. You watched from the end of the bed as Tom bucked his hips into your mouth to try and get more contact from your lips but you pulled away from him and just kept licking his tip.

God, you were good, Tom thought to himself.

‘K-keep going,” Tom finally breathed out, flinging his head against the pillow to brace for the impact.

Hollowing your cheeks, you pushed yourself all the way down his cock. Your tongue flicking the base in between as you began to feel him throb inside of your mouth. You could tell he was close so you moaned softly into his cock, watching as Tom shuddered from the sensation you just sent through him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Tom cried out, moaning your name as he rutted his hips into your mouth. His pupils blacked as he felt the heat rising in his body, “Shit...I’m gonna cum, Y/N,” he warned as you pulled away, running your hand down his shaft as he began to come undone for you.

His warmth spilled out into your hand and down his cock while he let go finally. The stress somewhat leaving his body as it did yours while the euphoric high peaked for him. Your lips crashed against his while his tongue parted your lips to find yours, tangling them together as he moaned against your mouth while riding out his high finally.

You waited for Tom to catch his breath before you smiled against his lips, placing a small peck against them as you pulled away with an even bigger grin, “Yeah, you’re welcome,” you gave him the same arrogant tone he gave to you moments earlier before you pecked his lips again.

After taking some time to get yourselves together mixed with the continuous fooling around underneath the sheets, you and Tom finally decided to get up and end the night. Even though he didn’t want to leave, he knew he probably shouldn’t overstay. Primarily, Tom was adamant about never spending the night at a girl’s place that he slept with. That made things complicated and he didn’t want complicated. But since you and him had rules to not make things messy, he wasn’t sure if that applied to you. For now, he wanted to play it safe so he got himself dressed again.

You pulled on an oversized t-shirt, realizing both of your hair looked a mess. Luckily you were already home and Tom was down the hall so it didn’t really matter. You wanted to say something to Tom, that you were thankful he came by tonight. You were thankful even before sex was on the table. It felt nice to have him as an ally to swing by with a pizza when he didn’t even know you needed that.

“...is it weird to say I’m glad you came by?” you gestured towards your bedroom while you walked with him out into the kitchen where the half eaten pizza was left, “I know we haven’t really made too many rules about it but…” you trailed off with a nervous laugh as you smiled at him awkwardly.

“Like we said, zero weirdness,” Tom reminded you as he padded his way over to you. He grabbed a leftover crust from the box and shoved it in his mouth, clearly starving already from the workout you had just given him. He smiled while he chewed lazily, his mouth still filled with pizza crumbs, “But I’m happy to come by when we have shit days...and make you cum as well,” he smirked deviously. 

The door opened as you smiled back, “Doesn’t have to be just bad days, you know. We could...screw whenever we feel like it,” you told him, hoping that it wasn’t too much.

“Did you just say screw?” he whipped his head towards you with a loud laugh.

“Alright then, I guess I’ll just leave you to the girls who leave you unsatisfied then,” you fought back.

Tom leaned against the door with his mouth gaped open, “They do not...leave me...unsatisfied?” he questioned himself, knowing that that was true, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

“Then why are you here?” you placed a hand on your hip, feeling the smile pulling at your lips while you messed around with him. You certainly weren’t in this mood earlier before Tom came around.

Pressing his lips together, Tom rolled his eye at you, “Fine...we can screw...whenever,” he leaned in closer to you with his eyes big as he mimicked your voice when you said it, “As long as we keep this thing strictly what we intended, you can use me whenever you need, Y/N,” and he meant it.

You didn’t back away when he sealed his words with a soft kiss, paired with his trademark grin. Tom pulled away slowly, taking in the moment as he wished you a goodnight quietly before kissing you against the cheek, “Like I said, best friend I ever had,” he said softly once again.

“Am I interrupting something?” A voice broke from behind the two of you. Both of your eyes widened towards each other as you both simultaneously pivoted your heads towards the staircase where the voice was coming from.

Tom closed his eyes with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to ignore Harrison staring at the two of you with a crooked grin. Making it known to Tom that explaining this was going to be a lot tougher than he had imagined.

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[stars-are-just-ghosts]

harrisco 12.

Here it is! I hope you enjoy it! -QD

* * *

It was nearly two a.m. by the time everyone began to leave the West's house, the Christmas party fully wound down and people exhausted from the frivolity. Harry had never really been much for parties of any sort before getting close to Team Flash. And normally, he'd been able to weedle his way out of them. Claim he was content on his own, or tired, or busy. None of which anyone really believed, but they also knew how stubborn he was.

The problem there was Cisco Ramon could be just as stubborn at times.

This time, he'd practically shoved an ugly Christmas sweater into Harry's face and demanded that he get off his 'tall-dark-and-brooding ass' and get moving. When Harry barely budged, he then informed him he'd hidden Harry's pulse rifle and was not ever giving it back unless he came.

The result was Harry begrudgingly wearing a very colorful and festive sweater with a depiction of Grumpy Cat in a Santa hat, and following... well, grumpily... along.

He never counted on enjoying these things.

It always surprised him when he did.

Watching Caitlin and Barry sing on the pint-sized karaoke machine, the lady Snow half buzzed off of spiked egg nog, had been a small delight. During dinner, Iris ended up inhaling a bit of too-spicy apple cider and flipped a spoonful of pumpkin pie at Joe's face during her coughing fit, which had Harry chuckling before he could stop himself. And at one point, he even let himself enjoy a badly played game of charades with everyone.

Though the highlight of the entire evening, start to finish, was Ramon.

The man was effortless in his joy and happiness tonight. It oozed off him, sinking into everyone around him. And for some reason, he seemed to be doubling down his efforts on getting it to latch on to Harry. Not that Harry would complain in the least. A slightly clingy, pushy, somewhat buzzed and completely glee-ridden Cisco Ramon was a gift in itself.

The easy bickering between them flourished with each passing hour, till they'd been practically in tune with each other's words in a way that only they ever seemed to accomplish. Cisco spent a great deal of time sitting right next to Harry, lined up side by side like he was trying to steal Harry's warmth. Or maybe his soul. It was hard to tell. And Cisco would touch him a little more than usual.

There had always been this thing between them. Nothing Harry could ever put a name to, nothing he could accurately describe. It hung in the air like a promise... like a piece of mistletoe, just waiting for one of them to make a decision.

And after tonight, it was very clear to Harry now what decision he would make. If he trusted himself enough. Truth was, he'd fallen for Cisco Ramon a long time ago. But he would never allow himself to tell the other man. It wasn't the idea of rejection, or even of losing their friendship. It was the idea that he could ever hurt Cisco. And he knew he could. His temper, his past, his... everything. He wasn't an ideal partner, not for anyone. He was better off alone. And Cisco was better being with literally anyone else. Or so Harry tried to convince himself.

Tonight, it was a little bit harder to feed himself his own lie.

They'd been walking for nearly ten minutes, Harry's hand hooked easily into Cisco's arm to keep him from slipping all over the place. It had snowed that morning. Nothing heavy. But the ground was wet and slushy and Cisco was one or two more drinks away from being drunk. He was also tired, Harry could tell. By the heavy way his eyes blinked, and how he would breathe in deeply every now and then just to let the cold air wake him enough to keep walking.

Cisco could have taken a cab, but had insisted on needing the fresh air. Harry hadn't been about to let him walk alone.

"You're glad you came tonight." Cisco said as they got to a crosswalk, looking up at Harry. Ramon's cheeks were slightly flushed, steam billowing out from between his plush lips into the cold air, his hair somehow still perfectly in place, his scarf haphazardly wrapped around his neck and shoulders. He looked... delightful. He looked like a dream.

He was a dream.

"You're assuming." Harry forced himself to say. Cisco chuckled and began walking again.

"Don't think I didn't see you, Harry. You can't deny how much fun you actually had. I was watching you the whole time." Cisco's comment made Harry raise a brow, slow his steps once they got to the other sidewalk. Cisco paused as well, both men stopping. But Ramon was looking at him with curiosity.

"What were you doing watching me?" He asked pointedly. Ramon's brows slowly went up. And the flush in his cheeks got even redder almost instantly.

"I, well... ya know. You..." He stopped talking, something thoughtful passing over his features. Harry couldn't help but stare right now, at the sparkling in Cisco's beautifully dark eyes, at the way he focused on Harry's own hues. It took Harry's breath away, like it almost always did. And he almost always could hide it. But something passed over Ramon's features, a look, a knowing. "What are we doing?" He suddenly asked. The question made Harry's brows furrow lightly.

"We're talking?" Question for a question.

"No duh, Harry." There was a soft dusting of humor in Cisco's eyes. "I mean... all the time. You and me. We're... close. Not just friend or colleague close. Closer than that. And I feel like we're getting closer every day." He stepped right into Harry, reaching up and tugging Harry's coat lapel a little flatter. "But we're always dancing around each other, ya know?" His words made Harry's heart stutter, flare, and ache all at the same time. But Cisco couldn't be saying what Harry thought he was saying. It just... wasn't possible. Right?

"I don't recall there being any dancing tonight. Unless you count Iris attempting to do the macarena during charades." He smirked a little, the slight curve of his lips catching Cisco's gaze. The shorter man chuckled and shook his head.

"Not what I meant, Harry, and you know it." Ramon sighed a little. "If I'm wrong, and I really don't think I am, then tell me I'm wrong. Right here, right now. And I'll never say another word about it." Cisco demanded, but softly.

Harry could read nearly every emotion Cisco had to offer by now. And what Harry saw on his face, in his eyes, was hope. And fear. Hope that Harry wouldn't reject him. Fear that he might. It made Harry swallow hard, his own anxiety flaring. Because, fuck... he didn't want to reject Cisco. Not Cisco. Never Cisco. But could he live with himself if he went into this knowing that someday he might just hurt him? Could he really so selfishly subject Ramon to his anger and grief and self-loathing ways on such a level? Could he-

Harry froze in place.

He didn't get the chance to finish running through his thoughts and reply to Ramon. Because the shorter man had a much different idea.

The feel of Cisco's cold but softer than soft lips on his own erased every thought, every worry, every possible argument Harry might have had. And before he could think logically about it, he was relaxing. He let himself move against Cisco, their lips slipping together in deliriously wonderful presses. Harry brought his hand up to the back of Cisco's head, fingers curling into his hair, his other sliding around to Ramon's back and holding him firm. Cisco's hands had minds of their own, clinging to Harry in near desperation as they began to deepen that kiss into something far more encompassing.

Cisco tasted like eggnog and warmth and... did joy have a taste? Because he tasted like joy. The way his tongue slid along with Harry's was just like dancing. And Harry couldn't get enough of this, would never get enough of Ramon.

The kiss ended naturally, leaving them both heaving hot breath into the winter air, hands still decidedly stuck to each other, foreheads pressed together as though separating themselves would be a truly horrible idea.

"I knew I wasn't wrong." Cisco whispered, then smiled. Bright, beautiful, joyous.

"Are you sure about this, Ramon?" Harry had to ask, had to know. He lifted his head, studied the slight swollen quality to Ramon's mouth, brought a thumb up and slipped it across Cisco's lower lip. Goddammit, he was delicious. He blinked at the urge to take those lips again, and forced himself to look in Cisco's eyes. Because this was important. Very, very important. "I'm not..." He swallowed, cleared his throat a little, let his hand fall, "I shouldn't be anyone's first choice." Cisco's expression grew stern in a heartbeat.

"You think I don't know what kind of asshole you can be?" He scolded. "Cause I do. And I know you think you don't deserve to be happy, either. Which is total crap." He sighed a little at what had to be a stunned expression on Harry's face. Then he brought his mouth back up, a soothing kiss lingering for a few breaths before he pulled away again. "I also know you're the strongest, bravest, most intelligent, caring, loving man I've ever met. Which means I'm good with all the stuff you think I shouldn't be. Because I can handle all that, as long as it means I get to have the rest."

Harry's smile was slow, but full-blown affectionate in a way he would never be able to disguise.

Kissing Cisco again was all the response he had.

Eventually, they made it the last two blocks to Ramon's apartment building, just to stop on the stone stairs and kiss again. And again. Now that they could, it was like they didn't want to stop.

"You can spend the night, if you want..." Ramon offered, when they'd separated just long enough to get a word in. Harry chuckled, pulling back enough to really examine Cisco's face. "And don't you dare ask me if I'm sure, because I am. I'm very..." Cisco inhaled sharply as he looked Harry over, "Very sure."

Harry couldn't say no to that.

He'd learned he couldn't say no to much of anything when it came to Cisco Ramon. Not that he regretted that in the least.

He did stay the night. In fact, he rarely slept in his own bed again after that.

Life went on exactly as it had before. He and Cisco kept their well-earned rhythm, their dynamic changing only as much as how physical they were with each other and how annoying it was to everyone else.

Cisco never once thought it had been a bad decision. Harry found himself steadily agreeing, a little more every day.

And eventually, he began feeling something he didn't know he could feel... joy.

All thanks to the stubborn love of Cisco Ramon.

[tigerdrop]

hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

[asthesamcroflies]

REQUEST: Shattered

So, I had a request come in via messages, which is fine by the way, I can just post the details of it in order to reply publicly - I have to confess it’s something different for me, but I decided to give it a go to challenge myself. I don’t think I’ve ever written anything with that Son-on-Son vibe before, not for any particular reason, I just tend to have stuck closer to canon. Hopefully it’s not terrible lol - I did end up not going down the smut route, just cause I thought that slightly ambiguous, unspoken feel worked for this. I did kinda get all up in my own feels lol, so fingers crossed you guys like it...

Here’s the request details: Chibs, Tig, Juice (mentioned. Post series.) - Sad, Romantic, Smutty (if you want, it's not required) - 18, 15, 21 Past Chibs/Juice. Prez/VP dynamic. Chibs is shattered, he needs love, he needs peace of mind. Tiggy sees clearly this.

Prompt 18: “Please don’t do this.” 15: “Do you still think about her/him?” 21: “Would a kiss help?”

Shattered

It was late. Or early depending on how you wanted to look at it.

For once though, the Samcro clubhouse lay quiet and deserted. Almost. The new, eager-to-please prospect had tried to stay on to clear up, but had probably been barked at to get the hell out. That was an end to the night that was becoming more and more common – Sons, hangers-on and croweaters slipping away in the face of their stern president’s glare.

His vice president sighed heavily at that, wiping a hand over his face as he leaned in the doorway and took in the slumped shoulders and reaper on the back of the man he’d vowed to support come hell or high water. He could remember a time when the brash Scotsman was the life and rowdy soul of every fucking party.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, huh?

Tig knew, perhaps better than most, what it was to carry guilt, remorse, self-loathing. He’d been there for the near-apocalyptic series of clusterfucks that had torn right to the heart of their club and all but destroyed it, so he knew the burden Chibs now had to bear in trying to see what could be salvaged from the ashes – all while desperately trying not to ignite any simmering embers that could flare up and burn them all to the ground all over again.

But it never got any easier to see him struggle under that weight.

He was about to speak, to make his presence known, when Chibs downed whatever was left in his glass and slammed it down on the bar, before stumbling to his feet and crossing the room to stand in front of the framed mugshots of members past and present, those honoured and those who now hung upside down, crossed out, disgraced and a warning to those who may come after them not to stray too far from the club’s rules, spoken and unspoken.

Tig knew from his own reaction to that wall, once a source of pride, how deep it cut Chibs to see it now. In both their minds, Jax Teller still deserved better than to be remembered solely as having brought shame on the patch. Their young president had lost his way, had made mistakes – catastrophic mistakes at that – but he had suffered for it enough and, at the last, had owned his part in his own downfall. Those he had left behind couldn’t help but cling to their love for their young president, or else what had it all been for?

But they had to put up a façade to appease Packer and the other club presidents. They knew the enormity of Jax’s crimes and the price that had to be paid. It didn’t mean they had to like it.

But as Chibs’ hand reached out for a different photo, touching it lightly before his fingers curled into a tight fist, Tig knew there was a fate that was even more complicated for the Scot to come to terms with. He had loved Jax like a brother, like a son even. Juice … Juice had been something else.

That fist lashed out, shattering glass that bit into flesh and drew a hiss of pain, even through what was undoubtedly an alcohol-induced fog. But despite lifting the hand to examine the damage, despite seeing the shard of glass still embedded in it, Chibs only slowly clenched that fist again, forcing it deeper as blood seeped from the ragged wound.

Tig was the one who winced.

“Please don’t do this,” he blurted out, unable to witness any more of this without intervening.

Chibs slowly uncurled his fingers, never turning around. “Go home, Tiggy,” he murmured, the words slurred and his accent thicker than ever.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m gonna leave you in this fucking state,” his VP scoffed, finally galvanised into action and snatching up what he hoped was a clean cloth as he strode across the clubhouse to take charge. “Lemme see this mess. Jesus…”

He had to force himself to be less gentle than he’d have liked, for reasons he didn’t care to fully explore, but he was still careful as he examined the bloody hand Chibs had been left nursing, tutting over the shard of glass before slowly working it out and pressing the cloth to the wound to stem the bleeding. It looked worse than it was, but it was still bad enough.

“You might get away without stitches,” Tig decided. “So you wanna thank your lucky stars, brother, because I can’t sew for shit.”

“Lucky,” Chibs echoed dully, with a bitter little laugh. “Aye, that’s me – real fucking lucky. I need a damn drink…”

“No, you fucking don’t,” Tig insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders to steer him away from the bar and into a seat.

“Just leave me be, Tigger,” the weary president sighed, raking his uninjured hand through the salt and pepper of his hair. “I ain’t exactly good company right now.”

“What’s new?” Tig snarked, but there was nothing but sympathy and concern in those sharp blue eyes as he sat down opposite his closest of brothers. “You can’t go on like this, man. Ain’t right.”

“Got a choice, do I?” Chibs demanded, the raw agony in his voice and in his brown eyes making even his battle-hardened VP flinch. “Want me to throw up a rope and have done wi’ it? Like… Like Juice.”

Tig stood up so fast his chair overturned with a crash and he jabbed a furious finger in his friend’s face. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he seethed. “Don’t you fucking dare! Tell me that’s bullshit. Tell me you wouldn’t. Tell me!”

“Aye, aye, fine,” Chibs reneged, taken aback even through his haze by the strength of the response to his flippant suggestion. “Fuck, I … I ain’t taking that way out. I ain’t, brother. Sit the fuck down.”

Still furious, Tig glared at him the whole time he was righting his chair and banging it back into place, before sitting down opposite him again. “Asshole,” he snapped, his glare only intensifying when Chibs actually managed a little laugh, wiping his hand over his face.

“Ah, Tigger,” he sighed. “Good to know ya care, brother.”

“Course I fucking care, shithead,” came the heated response. “You think I stuck around for the good of my fucking health? I said I’d always have your back and I damn well meant it. So you don’t get to punk out on me like a little bitch.”

“Your TLC could use some work…”

“Fuck you.”

Chibs chuckled humourlessly. “Love you too, Tigger. You gonna at least let me have one wee drink now me hand’s stinging like a motherfucker?”

“You’ve already had the better part of one wee bottle, by the looks of things,” Tig grimaced, before relenting and getting up to retrieve a couple of glasses and the nearly empty bottle of whiskey, pouring them both a drink and downing his swiftly. He figured he had a lot of catching up to do.

Seeing Chibs’ gaze land somewhere over his shoulder, Tig looked around to follow it back to the photos on the wall and specifically to the one that now hung behind shattered glass. And not for the first time.

“Do you still think about him?”

It was a stupid question, Tig knew that. The answer couldn’t be more obvious. But it was actually the only way he could think to even broach the subject of something deeper.

“I let that lad down,” Chibs mumbled, taking another swig of his drink. “I coulda done somethin’, stopped it ever gettin’ that far.”

“He was a rat,” Tig reminded him, although not unkindly. “That’s on him.”

“He was an easy target,” Chibs shook his head. “He tried to come to me wi’ it. I didn’t hear him out. Not properly. We were all he had and I didn’t listen, didn’t see what was goin’ on in front o’ me own bloody nose.”

For a long moment, his VP could only sit in silence, musing on all the mistakes he’d made in his own life. The hurt he’d caused, to himself and his family, to others caught in his crossfire. He knew what it was to bear that burden. He didn’t want that for Chibs.

“What’s done is done,” he said finally. “Can’t change it, any of it. Can only learn from it. But you gotta let go, brother. You gotta let go or this is gonna eat you up from the inside out.”

“Easier said than done,” Chibs said quietly, his forced smile wry. “You know that.”

“I do,” Tig nodded, after a pause. “But I had you. And you’ve got me. So don’t forget that, you prick. You’ve got me. And I fucking need you. I can’t do any of this shit without you.”

Chibs looked up at the crack in his VP’s voice to find Tig was the one with his head down now. Slowly, he reached out to let his fingers trail through those wild dark curls.

“Oi,” he said roughly. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, you hear me?”

“Didn’t sound like that,” Tig mumbled. “Never does when you start talking like that.”

“Look at me,” Chibs demanded, finally trying to pull himself together at the realisation of what he’d done. “Look at me, Tigger. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. I promise you, my brother.”

“How do I know you ain’t just bullshitting me again?”

“When have I ever lied to you? About anything serious?” Chibs demanded, albeit with a swift amendment to account for the creative ways he had been known to get around his VP when he had to.

“You said you’d stop blaming yourself.”

The hurt beneath the accusatory tone stopped the Scotsman dead and he reached out to rest a hand on his VP’s shoulder. “I am trying, brother.”

“I know,” Tig sighed, covering the hand with his own ringed fingers. “I know.”

Chibs pulled him close. “Would a kiss help?” he murmured, already planting a firm kiss on the other man’s cheek.

“You ain’t getting off that light, asshole.”

Chibs could only laugh at that despite himself, his lips grazing skin again. “Ah, Tigger, last two standing… Never thought it would be us.”

“As long as it ain’t just me,” came the quiet, yet fervent response.

It was a sentiment that both warmed and broke Chibs’ heart.

[altairattorney]

In response to your little rant about Homura's depiction in Rebellion, here's this.

"The end of Rebellion is... controversial, but let's unpack what happened here. What occurred?

Well, firstly, Homura was traumatized and tortured; the Homura at the end of Rebellion is not the Homura of PMAS; she's gone through trauma and loss that PMAS!Homura can't even conceive of. She literally turned into a fucking witch because Kyubey gaslit her into thinking she made up Madoka Kaname, according to Wraith Arc.

Then, during this process, she learns two important facts that fucks her worldview: 1) Madoka didn't want to leave her loved ones and give up her normal life if she had any other alternative, and 2) Kyubey is trying to destroy the Law of Cycles (that is, Madoka Kaname), and has figured out a means of stopping her from interacting with Magical Girls under controlled lab conditions, meaning they could eventually succeed in their objective.

That means if Homura let herself go into the Law of Cycles, she would be unable to protect Madoka, and the Incubators would eventually destroy her. Madoka will have been erased and forgotten with nothing to show for it. Homura could only cope with everything with the promise of being reunited with her and the solace that Madoka's sacrifice was worth it, and Kyubey took that away from her.

And, more importantly: Homura's wish had yet to come true. Homura's wish wasn't to be with Madoka, or to save the world. It was to protect Madoka. To be the one to protect her.

To put it in other terms, Homura was self-loathing to the point of suicide-ideation because she was worthless, good for nothing, a burden on everyone. That she should just die. Madoka saw worth in her, and tried to change that, but Madoka died.

Only one person in her entire life ever told Homura she was happy to have met her and this wonderful, kind, happy, heroic, courageous, beautiful, miracle of a person who walked into her life to tell her those words died.

DIED. FOR. HER.

Died to protect her. Died so that a worthless piece of SHIT like herself could live. Someone who had EVERYTHING in the world died with a smile to protect someone who didn't even want to. Not without her.

Not instead of her.

She was good for nothing before and now her mere existence caused the best person she'd ever known to die. She ruined Madoka's entire life by having been a part of it.

She has to fix it. She has the chance to.

She wishes, wishes, WISHES to go back, to unfuck this, to undo this, to be cool like Madoka said she could have been. To protect her. To be her shield. To be WORTH something because she protected something valuble. To pay her back for all her kindness like she'd never been able to do and finally, finally in her life, have done something that justifies everything else.

She didn't wish for Madoka to live. She didn't wish for her to be saved. She wished to be the one to save her so she could support her and reinvent herself as someone who isn't a garbage shit person.

And every single time, she fails.

No matter what she does. No matter how she compromises herself. No matter what disgusting sins she does (and she never crosses so many lines that she says she WOULD cross). Madoka keeps dying.

And most of those times. She dies for Homura. She dies, again, for Homura. She dies again and again and again and again in order to help Homura.

Until the very last time, she wishes to save Homura (and everyone else), so much that she never existed at all.

Dammit. Dammit. DAMMIT. DAMMIT. This is worse this is WORSE THIS IS WORRRRSE!

But she still tries to cope. Madoka's in heaven. She's saving everyone. Madoka had a smile. The world is BETTER, and she'll see her again.

Until the above happened. And Kyubey is going to destroy Madoka Kaname. She won't have ever been born and she won't even be saving Magical Girls. She'll truly be nothing.

Because she came to save Homura, fucking AGAIN.

And all this time she still never saved her. Never ONCE saved her. Not a single time has she ever, ever, EVER fucking saved her. Not ever, has she ever saved her, not even when Madoka made her final fucking wish.

Homura made a wish that never came true. So she never stopped being Good for Nothing. She has never made up for Madoka's kindness. She has never, emotionally, left that moment where she sobbed over Madoka's dead corpse in the water and the rain. And she's done that so many fucking times.

So that's her mindset. So when she saw the chance. She took it. If you can interact with Madoka, you can effect Madoka. So.

God dammit. Fucking for once. Fucking finally. This time, her last chance she'll EVER HAVE... she will save her.

Save Madoka Kaname. Not a vague concept. Not a hero. Not a law or a god. Not a cosmic idea. Madoka. KANAME. The person who smiled at her and said she was cool. The person who helped her buy a cellphone. The kind, wonderful person who loved and named a stray cat and pressed her face to hers and laughed and congratulated her for her accomplishments. The person who said that meeting Homura was her happiest memory.

Why can't this person, of all people, be happy? All Madoka Kaname wanted was to live her fucking life. With her family. With her friends and classmates. Living her day to day life which wasn't anything special but it was so special to her.

She WILL save her. Goddammit, she failed so many times because she always kept holding herself back but if this is her last chance then GODDAMMIT fuck it all, damn herself too.

She never cared, really, about being with Madoka. She was willing to die for her. She explicitly had plans to leave the town to Kyouko after Walpurgisnacht and LEAVE (probably to kill herself so her Witch didn't come for Madoka). She was going to die for her in Rebellion so that she'd be safe from the Incubators.

If she could save her, if she can finally succeed and protect that human smile living her human life, it's fine if Homura Akemi isn't a part of it. If Madoka can smile, she doesn't have to smile at her anymore. That's PERFECTLY FINE.

So she did it. She stole a piece of the Law of Cycles. Not a big piece. Not the Law, or the Power, or the Salvation. The Law of Cycles still functions in some sense, because there's still no Witches, there's still Wraiths, there's still Angels.

She stole "Madoka Kaname", the human being that the Goddess used to be. She stole her, yes. She took over the universe, yes. But what did she do?

She made it so Madoka Kaname existed, again. Reunited with everyone she cared about. She gave Kyouko, Mami, Sayaka, and everyone else the happiest lives she could give them without undoing their pasts (disrespecting their agency and core selves), even if it was only to keep Madoka happy in her silver garden.

She tortures Kyubey but no one's crying tears over that fucker. She seems to be letting the world run its course as naturally as possible, save for suppressing people's memories of what's really going on.

Sayaka, alive. Nagisa, alive. Living with Kyouko and Mami respectively. Madoka, alive.

Hell, the only change she made that we know of to Madoka's memories is three years in America.

Because, canonically, English is Madoka's worst subject.

And now, she's great at it.

No matter what it takes. Madoka Kaname will be happy. She deserves it. And Homura will make that happen, even if she, herself, never is.

But yeah go off about how Homura is a yandere stalker who likes to kill people."

Hey there! I thank you for your post and your insight, and I wanted to clarify that I don't disagree at all with this view of Rebellion and how it ended. I think it is all correct, actually. The problem I have with it is 1. Rebellion existing at all, and 2. the way they portrayed her choice as an act of evil conceived by a demon.

To begin with, there are a few details that I don't think really make sense considering how pmmm worked. Homura shouldn't even be a witch, first of all. Secondly, even though she cannot know for sure, I don't think Homura would have willingly told Kyubey about the world of before if there were any danger. Heck, I don't even understand how Kyubey could possibly have stolen Madoka, now that she is not an entity but a literal concept, a rule of the universe. Imo that is beyond absurd. Third, I am doubtful Homura would have gone against Madoka's wish, even though I totally understand why she did in the context of Rebellion.

The problem I have with Homura is that people thought about her as a yandere emotionless stalker who has an unhealthy obsession with Madoka even before Rebellion existed. That was a popular sentiment, and the big, big problem I have with this film is that while what she did isn't inherently bad or wrong - as you explained - the movie paints her as a LITERAL DEMON in the moment she makes that choice, and ALSO at the exact same time she declares her love canonically. That is so fucked up in so so so many ways. As not literal it may be, they gave her that creepy smile, and show that Madoka is confused in her new bubble and feels like she is someone else but can't remember why. And Homura brushes it off. As wonderful as it is that she is there, Madoka is uncomfortable, Sayaka is obviously enraged and Homura plays the part of the Evil Character.

This is just all so unfair and so wrong. It doesn't only negate the way this anime ended - and of course Homura deserved to go with peace and quiet like everyone else. No magical girl has to ever suffer like that again, including Madoka, right? (There were so many ways to reunite her with Madoka, but no.) It also visibly paints Homura as being on the dark side, and validates the horrific lens people saw her character through even before the film. It canonizes her as a lesbian in the same moment she is doing something clearly framed as wrong, and, on a surface level, reinforces her obsession. This is just a textbook predatory lesbian trope. I am sorry if you don't see it the same way, but it is just horrific to me.

I will never agree with Rebellion existing. I cannot stand the ending of this anime being undone and Homura being punched in the face and further tortured both in universe and as a character, after all the crap she went through. It is just disrespectful.

And as I said, she deserved better.

[mindwideopen]

Ok, have they invented this neutralizer yet?! For those of you not familiar with the movie men in Black, this gadget that tommy lee Jones is holding is a machine that when activated, causes you to immediately forget the last experience you had. And I can use this gadget in my life. Matter of fact, I’m in dire need of it. There are a lot of memories in my life, that I need to get rid of. Purge. Release. Let go. How?

So when you think of a memory, you reactivate the feeling you felt when it first occurred. So I pose this question, to myself; how do I forget, memories that hurt, and don’t serve me anymore? A huge conundrum. Because I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I still get sucked into the same trap I always do: Victimization.

I, am a victim, of my own thoughts. My focus is ass sometimes, depending on my mood, and where I allow my mind to go with said mood. For example, this morning. I woke up, and wrote about how I’ve never felt included or that I belonged. The world of entertainment is exclusive only to certain people, and I am not accepted or one of them. They are on the inside, and they blocked, deleted, dismissed, and shut the door on me. The end. Ok, sure. Here’s the proof; unemployed, no friends to collaborate with, not famous or rich, and people are abondoning me like flies that fly away from shit after they’ve had their fill. Not a good thought tragectory for success. So all I see now, is the evidence of that of which I believe.

“My shit, is better than your shit! I get paid well, to produce my shit. I feel, that YOUR shit, is inferior shit, so I will block you, even though we were contemporaries at one point in our lives. You went your way, I went mine. My shit got noticed. My shit, got accolades and awards. And your shit? Still shit. Oh, and I no longer want to be associated with YOUR shit, cause your shit, again, is shit. So later, never.”

“Oh yeah? Well my shit, isn’t a sell out to the mediocre shit that is shit! And just because you’re recognized and praised publicly for your shit, doesn’t necessarily mean that the shit you produce, is good shit. I happen to believe that your good shit, isn’t. And I’m true to my shit. At least I’m into my own shit. Your shit you sell to someone else that has the same shit going on. And shit n the shit. Shit is as shit does. So there!”

And never the 2 shits shall mix again, in the shit pile, of life. These last 2 paragraphs? Are shit. They are the energy of this: fear. Let’s break it down: indignation, judgement, separatism, more judgement, non inclusion, rash generalization, labeling, even more judgement, hate, and then.... competition, jealously, bitterness, hurt, jadedness, anger, loathing, and yes, fear.

Thank you, agent j...

On the flip side, maybe that wasn’t how we on both ends feel about one another after all, and we just believe it, due to our fears.

Agent J (played by the wonderful, will smith): ok you two, this is how this it’s now going to go down. Person being ridiculous and not in the love # 1, you say this:

“Well, i don’t think your shit is inferior to mine. I never thought that. I was rude about your shit because I felt attacked. I may not understand all your shit, and I’m usually so busy with my head up my ass looking at my own shit...”

Person not in the love being ridiculous #2, you say this:

“We all are.”

Ok, #1 say this:

“Yes, but I appreciate and value you as a person, and our opposition and shit, isn’t an issue for me anymore.”

#2 say this:

“Really? Cause I’ve always admired what you’ve done with your shit. I mean, you’ve gotten a big big platform for your shit, and that’s cool n shit. And I’m glad that we’re discussing this shit, and our collective shit, finally, cause years have gone by, and all this time I’ve been thinking that you hate me and my shit, cause I haven’t seen you in years, and we’re not in each other’s lives anymore.”

Person #1 say this:

“Really?! You don’t hate me for the success I’ve had with my shit?! I blocked you because I read your shit and I basically thought you were sour shit with your shit, kinda being shitty about me and the shit I’m all about.”

Person #2 say this:

“No, if I insulted you with my shit, I definitely didn’t mean it, and I’m glad we’re cool with the shit now.”

Both of your non loving dumb asses:

“Yeah. Shit. All this time wasted thinking shit about one another...”

Agent j. (Continued): Both, understood? Yes! Great! Go forth, in love!

Agent J, has got it down. Did you take notes? No need. All it is, is empathy, understanding, and communication it. In this case, that’s what love looks like.

There are only 2 true emotions that all emotions end up breaking down to, and those are fear, and love. Anything that doesn’t come from a loving place, is fear. “You are NOT like me.” Fear. “What you do, is not ok with me.” Also fear. Fear comes in many packages, and not all of it is immediately recognizable. But if you stop to think about it, it is about the loveless behavior we exhibit, due to our basic need to be understood, and to belong.

“Why should I belong?! Why?! If they don’t accept me, fuck em!” Fear. “She’s a complete mook! She uses terms like mook, which I judge as a racist term, but in actuality the meaning is italian slang for someone who is an idiot. Fine, she’s not a racist, but she’s judging someone as an idiot! Still hate her...” also fear. Fear runs rampant in our society right now. Hate, is real, because people believe in it’s existence, and react to it because it’s real to them. Our beliefs, create our past, current, and future reality.

So, men in black. A great trilogy of movies. Very smart, very cool, and extremely ahead of the curve as far as human evolution is concerned. They have gadgets for the things that we have control over ourselves, with our focus, and our perceptions about certain subjects. And I would like to be neutralized now, for reactivating all of my past “shit” beliefs about others, and myself. Because I now feel, like shit, having thought about all the past shit that was shit.

So, I pose this question to myself; “if you have that neutralizer machine that allows you to forget what you have just experienced, would it work on the thoughts you remember about the times you felt like shit if you reactivate the shit, by remembering it?” My husband thinks it’s different, and it wouldn’t work. He maintains that you have dragged all of your new experiences to support the old ones with you to your present when you reactivate it. I believe that if the feeling is reactivated, it’s still the same effect, shit, so instead of going back in time, and deleting the actual moment, you should be able to reactivate the feeling within yourself, and eradicate it with the neutralizer. Well, who’s right? Actually I don’t know. Cause how much of your past does it delete? 3 minutes? 10 minutes? Months? Years? There must be a setting or something. Cause in the first movie it’s a few minutes, right?? Then in the 3rd movie at the big climax I won’t give away, it’s like years. Like 3 or 4 years. So he forgot the shit. I mean he forgot everything and everyone and all the shit in between. So, at what point do you remember, what you clearly forgot? And the jump cut would be serious. You’d be like, “holy shit! I was in the shower, and now I’m sitting there eating ice cream on a park bench with some old people in a park on a sunny day and I think I looked like I could be in a karaoke video cause they ALWAYS film shit like that, and why? Cause I need to see a scene of 3 birds molting while I’m screaming“painkiller” by Judas Priest the karaoke version where it sounds like a synthesizer orchestra instead of that good hard rock shit?? And no! Both they and I ARE NOT satan worshipers, & Were also not satan his or her self because We are damn good people... shiiiiit... but wait, I shouldn’t speak for other people, so just forget that I said ANY of that shit, ok? Ok, agent j?

Agent j: yeah? (Say it in the low eddie Murphy is voice, like when he’s reeeeaaal serious n shit.)

Kari: can you delete all the shit I just said up until the point right before this entire thing I just wrote?

Agent j: no. (Say it in Eddie Murphy’s looooow voice again, the one he uses when he reaaally doesn’t want to engage in conversation with you, cause he thinks you’re a crazy witch with semi good grammar, cause I had to fix the “you’re” in “you’re a crazy witch” because autocorrect likes to make me look like I don’t include people and shit. YOU ARE, ok autocorrect?! I know what I’m trying to say! Do you? No! You don’t! So don’t change my shit! I’ll let YOU know when I want my shit changed! You better recognize n shit, witch or some shit...)

Kari: ok, fine. I’ll continue then... (sighs. Hey I tried for ya, people. Don’t say I didn’t ever do anything for ya...)...It’s just NOT not a good subject. All I can say is I love love, and all of loves peoples, which is ALL people, ok?! Cause people think orange is a political party to me, and it’s not, ok?! It’s not! It’s people who choose to be mean and crap like, alright? Cause there’s good people everywhere and why focus on the people who rip on you 24/7, cause you’re worth more than that! So yeah! I endorse my “LOVE shit! Argue with that by yourself n shit, cause I’m gonna love your mean ass regardless, ok? Cause that’s what love dictates my ass to do! Ok?! Yeah! So none of this hate shit any of your asses, ok? Cause I can’t take the shit. Any. More.... and, I love you. I also love those who chose not too, whenever that is, cause no one is 💯 in hate all the time, people are a mixed bag of moods and energies. Take this monologue for example! Good luck with THIS apple, and I love apples, and I love all people who love and hate and are indifferent to apples, therefore I love and choose all people, I engage with all inclusive energy and behavior, I celebrate differences and similarities both, I relish in the love that can be possible when people take the time to check in first with themselves, take ownership of their feelings and energy, and lead from a place of love and empathy, I care about you, and I care about others, and I care about me, as a part of the whole, and I love people, period. Love is the way, anything else is hell on earth. (takes deep breath, cause if you’re performing this monologue, you also have to read what’s in the parentheses too... so I had to make it worth performing, oh! & you better take some voice lesson or learn how to do Netherlands exercises or breathe deep from your diaphragm if you have one in or not to get waaaay down there to say all this shit in one breath, the way it’s intended to be read, or performed, cause I’m like Shakespeare’s first folio where he has a specific way to write and have you perform it with built in inflection called, “iambic pentameter” but no, I’m not Shakespeare, I’m a person seriously fucking with you, but I mean all this shit, at least the love stuff), only I’m naked and wet, cause they zapped my shit in the shower, and planted me in the park as a joke. Well, that shits not funny! Ok?! Cause I’m in a park naked with some old people lookin at my taters and my tots and my non tots in my Netherlands, ok?! So no! Don’t do that shit! Ok? No!

On second thought, we both are. Because our beliefs dictate what is real and true to us individually. So what he believes is true to him, and what I believe is true to me.

That poses another question; “how does one get on the same page with people who are not open to changing or adjusting their beliefs?” Some people are cool with not sharing the same opinions as others. “Oh well, I guess we can agree to disagree, cause I love your crazy ass regardless of our differences.” My ma and I are like that. She and I share different views on a lot of things, but we make it work, because we respect one another’s right to our beliefs, but come together, and choose to focus, on our similarities underneath it all. Do we both love? Yes. Do we both want the best for people? Yes. Do we both agree that love is a great thing to focus on? Yes. Great. Agreed. Love it is!

Love, is our neutralizer. Men in black is awesome, but in 2020, we’ve forgotten the basic principle of love. Love neutralizes the fear. Love brings us straight back together, where it feels better. Being right is great, and feeling indignation is satisfying for a few minutes, hours, months or years, but it never lasts. Love feels better. The reason why we choose to separate, is from a past hurt that we’ve experienced and have reactivated within us. I do it all the time. I find reasons to support my hypothesis that all people disrespect and disclude me. I find reasons, to stay in fear cause it feels safer not to engage.

I’m writing this for myself, as a reminder to stay open. But staying open to me, feels unsafe to people who take my openness and subsequent vulnerability for granted, and use it to their advantage. That’s another unhelpful belief I have. When you support yourself, and love you, you start to recognize that maybe people aren’t all that different from me after all. Maybe we all feel fear, and the need to protect ourselves. Makes sense. So, finding a common denominator (my son is doing math now, so I’m into that line of thought) is important not only for equations but for humanity’s interconnectedness as well. Finding common ground, and similarities, is important if you make it so. Feeling a safe place where we can agree, and all land not feeling taken, and trust is a first step to acceptance. And acceptance is a gateway to inclusion. And inclusion is a gateway to belonging. And belonging is a shared desire of all people. The feeling of love, when unrequited, hurts. So does the unrequited love we have for ourselves.

Thanks again agent j. Continually redefining ourselves, and our definition of love is very important, because we only feel the love is unrequited, when we rely on others to fill us up.

Agent j: you now believe that you are love, and have enough within yourself, for yourself, and everyone else. Now, go forth (yet again, how many times do I have to tell you this..) and LOVE dammit!

Yes. Utilizing the ability to love within ourselves eradicates all of this mess. But the bravery it takes to step out of your comfort zone to do it, that’s up to you. What do you believe? Do believe love is hard, or is it easy? Our beliefs run the show. So let’s take a look at those beliefs for a minute. How do we feel about ourselves, our lives, others, their lives, their beliefs, on and on and on. When you choose love, all of that fades into the background.

We are vibrational beings. We feel first, then think, then compare and contrast, then act. You can feel when someone is loving or not. And what we believe also dictates their supposed intention. So it’s a 2 way street. If we pay attention to how we feel, and look for love, are open to love and understanding that aids in seeing it. If you can’t get there, then choosing the next most loving thought will eventually enable you to see the more loving results in your life. But, you have to stick with it in order to witness it. And sometimes you have to really try to look for it, cause in the current energy of the world today, what you see, is what you have already thought. Old energy shows up, even if we change our minds in the inside. That can feel like ass. “But I’m different, and I’m still experiencing the same crappy thing.” Looking for a solution from the old energy you are reactivating? Probably not going to yield a result you will be happy with. The solutions come, by not focusing on the problem, at least for a bit, until you can adjust.

My son me a new term to me, “disjoint sets” the definition- they are sets that have no members in common. Basically, my old mindset. And then there’s the good ole Ven diagram, I love that one. The definition of a ven diagram is common elements brought together by circles of inclusion. My definition, probably different on google.

But the fact remains, life feels better, when we can share a common bond. Love is that bond. Love, is the underlying answer to all questions, to all comments, and all concerns. It’s a basic principle of life, that I’m still learning. I hope to be brave enough to ace it someday. Either that, or maybe some genius will invent the neutralizer for real. But maybe that’ll only be a temporary fix; kinda like reading the cliff notes. But cliff notes gloss over a lot of the good details. And I think by eliminating the love, I lose the opportunity to feel it.

Now let’s love with everyone, even those that differ from us, and really feel it. Cause you will benefit from it. Class dismissed.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The DC films have been a mixed bag, to put it lightly. As of 2020, for every fun and enjoyable superhero film like Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman, and Birds of Prey, there has been a film that was reviled or polarizing. Dawn of Justice and Justice League are both common punching bags, but there is one movie that stands out as the single most despised film in the DC cinematic universe so far:

Suicide Squad.

A lot of this comes from just how unashamedly blatant the film is at being a rushed cash in on the type of quirky superhero movie that Guardians of the Galaxy helped popularize: a bunch of wild and wacky antiheroes team up, fight a big problem, make one liners, and become a family, all while an awesome soundtrack blares in the background. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to rip off, but there’s a lot of heart and charm in Guardians that it’s not easy to replicate. And if you ask most critics… this movie did not.

Opinions on the film tend to range from lukewarm to outright hating, with IHE and the [REDACTED] Critic all throwing in their two cents. Perhaps the most damning review of all came from Mick LaSalle, who wrote:

“If you know someone you really can’t stand — not someone you dislike, not someone who rubs you the wrong way, but someone you really loathe and detest — send that person a ticket for “Suicide Squad.” It’s the kind of torment you can wish on your worst enemy without feeling too guilty: not something to inflict permanent damage, just two hours of soul-sickening confusion and sensory torment.”

There’s not much love for this, is what should be abundantly clear. And it’s really a shame, because there is stuff this film has going for it, but it wasn’t really enough to stop DC from basically hitting the soft reboot button and snagging the actual James Gunn to make a sequel while also doing their best to downplay that the events of this film actually happened. But now with a few years of hindsight, I have to go back and wonder like the heathen I am…

Is Suicide Squad REALLY that bad?

THE GOOD

Yes, amazingly, there is some good stuff here, mostly to do with the casting. At least half the cast is just pitch perfect for their roles. Famous rapper and YouTube Rewind star Will Smith as Deadshot is, of course, one of the standout examples; he brings a lot of charm and charisma to his role of an assassin who really loves his daughter, but then again, this is Will Smith. It’s hard not to love the guy in anything he does. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is another inspired bit of casting, and she truly owns the role, and Jai Courtney is perhaps the most consistently enjoyable member of the Squad, Captain Boomerang, the exact sort of stupid D-list villain who SHOULD be getting screentime in a movie like this.

Of course, the very best bit of casting is Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, in Harley’s big screen debut. Robbie has such an enthusiasm for the role that shines through even with the clunky script, and while she would definitely improve her craft for her outing in Birds of Prey, her performance here still has that spark of zany fun that Harley needs, cementing Robbie as the perfect star for the role. Frankly, that’s the feeling that can be gathered from a lot of these really good performances; they’re good, but they lack proper refinement, and so are stuck spouting the stupidest, corniest, clunkiest lines imaginable. But yes, really the worst thing you can say about Harley in this film is that her outfit is absolutely atrocious and demeaning.

While we’re on the subject of Harley Quinn, tough… while the whole situation with the Joker is something I’ll get to shortly, I think their relationship in this film is actually done well in many aspects. I’ve always preferred the original idea of “Mad Love” over the glorified domestic abuse that Joker x Harley has often devolved into, and while there is a bit of the latter, the fact that Joker literally goes out of his way to save Harley at every opportunity to the point he’s a definition satellite love interest is really good. Of course, this was thrown out for Birds of Prey, but I do think it worked in the context of this film.

Of course, we all know that the greatest aspect of this film is REALLY Slipknot, the single most powerful member of the Squad. I’ve already written an entire Psycho Analysis on why he’s the greatest villain in the history of cinema, so just read that for the rundown on how our man Slipknot climbs his way into your heart and mind.

THE BAD

So there is just a lot to go over here.

First, there’s the soundtrack’s implementation. As a blatant Guardians ripoff, everything the characters do needs to be punctuated by some sort of awesome music to tie the scene together. The difference is that where in the Guardian movies the soundtrack is used as a storytelling tool to help subtly emphasize points that the narrative doesn’t want to spell out for you, Suicide Squad just has these songs because they’re cool and because Guardians did it. Why is “Black Skinhead” playing while Deadshot tests his weapon skills? Why is “House of the Rising Sun” playing during Waller talking about the Squad? What exactly do these songs add besides background music? The opening montage of everyone in the Squad is particularly bad because the songs are just switching up really quickly as the montage goes along, which echoes a complaint I had about Little Nicky, of all films: “One of the more noticeable problems is the usage of music; in the course of one single scene, they play four different songs, and all of this is in a span of about one or two minutes. Just pick a song and stick to it for fuck’s sake!” About the only song that is really properly utilized is “Heathens,” which plays over the (admittedly cool) credit sequence.

Now let’s get into the characters, because for every awesome character in this film, there’s two that just absolutely suck or are so underutilized it’s laughable. Probably the worst case of this is Killer Croc, who despite being a stunning practical effect and probably the reason this film scored an Oscar, does pretty much nothing for the entire film, save for a short bit in the ending where he swims. You’d be entirely forgiven for forgetting he’s in the film, which is not something you should be saying about a Batman villain of this caliber.

Katana and Diablo are both characters who should be awesome, but the story givers them nothing to do and rushes their character arcs, respectively. Katana is yet another character you’d probably forget is there, even though she has a lot of fascinating elements to her character (some of which are detailed in her infamous introduction, which don’t worry, I’m working towards it), but nothing is really done with her. Diablo is actually one of the best and most fleshed-out characters in the film, but the narrative just completely fails to justify him or his ultimate heroic sacrifice; by the end, he claims the Squad is like family, but they’ve never really done anything to earn this. Like, think to the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy, where we have moments like Drax standing up for Gamora and Groot sacrificing himself. These moments only work because the characters had their relationships built up over the course of the movie so that there is a punch when these things happen. Suicide Squad really just throws it in just to have it.

Then we come to our villain. Enchantress is yet another villain I once detailed on Psycho Analysis, and my opinion on her remains unchanged. While she most certainly has a cool design, she is absolutely not the sort of world-ending supernatural threat a team of snarky jackasses should be fighting on their first mission together. The Squad should have had a mission more grounded in reality, and that can’t happen when you have an ancient interdimensional witch causing a Luddite zombie apocalypse through the power of interpretive dance. There’s also the fact that there’s never really any reason given to care about the character of June Moon, the host of the Enchantress, so the desperation of Rick Flag (a character so boring and pointless I didn’t even waste time mentioning him before) to save her comes off as hollow as most of the movie’s other emotional moments. Overall, Enchantress is just a boring generic doomsday villain who feels wildly out of place in the story and just doesn’t do anything to make herself stand out.

Then we have Joker.

I’m not really going to get into Jared Leto’s obnoxious behind-the-scenes antics, because that has little bearing on his performance, kind of like how his performance has little bearing on the film. As I mentioned before, this Joker is nothing more than a satellite for Harley. This is probably a good thing, because despite being called Joker he’s pretty divorced from most other interpretations; while he plays up the thuggish, brutish elements the Joker does typically have, everything else about him is just so jarringly non-Joker as to be laughable, from his ridiculous grill to the absolutely cringeworthy “Damaged” tattoo on his forehead. I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say he’s the worst villain in a superhero movie ever as some have, mostly because he’s not even in the film long enough to leave much of an impact. I will, however, say that so far he is the absolute worst onscreen depiction of Joker in film. Once again, if you’d like to hear more of my in-depth thoughts on Leto’s portrayal, I did make a Psycho Analysis on him a while back.

But all that aside, the worst aspect of this film is the writing. The writing is just utterly abysmal throughout, and while there are a few good lines sprinkled here and there, a lot of the dialogue is cringeworthy and the story itself is a convoluted mess. The story takes so many nonsensical turns from the get-go, starting with how Amanda Waller thinks a bunch of non-superpowered criminals could take down a metahuman threat; what the hell is Killer Croc, whose only power is “being an ugly cannibal,” going to do against Superman? That’s like if you put Leatherface up against a Predator, who would be stupid en-

...Oh. Right. Well, if nothing else, Amanda Waller has a very bright future as a designer for Mortal Kombat games. Beyond that, as mentioned above, a lot of the characters simply exist and serve little purpose in the narrative, and the ones that do serve a purpose are underplayed unless they’re Deadshot or Harley. You’d think Diablo’s tragic backstory and desire to have a family or Flag’s desire to save June from her curse would be more major elements, but nah. We don’t get much, if any, development on these fronts. And for the dialogue… well, I think this one speaks for itself:

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So I’ve been pretty hard on this film overall, I think, but here’s the shocking twist: I don’t think this is the worst DC movie. Frankly, I find the claims that this is the bottom of the barrel in terms of superhero films a gross overexaggeration. F4ntastic and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are far and away worse films with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever in them. At the very least, Suicide Squad is a fun kind of stupid, whereas those movies are bleak, miserable slogs that fail to even try and engage the viewer on any level.

And then, even within the DC movie lineup, I would not say this is worse than Dawn of Justice. Dawn of Justice has a more coherent story, and it in a general sense has better writing, dialogue, and so on… but it isn’t fun, it’s overly long, it’s incredibly pretentious, and it absolutely squanders the coolest concept for a crossover fight that there ever could be, all while giving us a Lex Luthor who is an obnoxious, whiny, sniveling brat who is utterly unbelievable as a threat. Suicide Squad almost seems within the ballpark of being self aware that it’s stupid schlock, and I find that infinitely more respectable than a film that, regardless of its artistic merit, thinks it’s deep and meaningful when it is anything but.

Suicide Squad is firmly on the side of “So bad it’s good,” and even within that category it’s somewhat underrated. I don’t necessarily think this film needs more respect per se, but I feel like it falls into the same category as movies like The Emoji Movie, where it isn’t good by any means but people will rant and rave about how it’s destroying cinema by being apocaliptically bad instead of just saying it’s crappy and moving on with their lives. Like this isn’t a great movie, but at least there’s a couple of enjoyable things, and superhero movies have been through far worse. Its current score of 6 on IMDB is honestly pretty fair. Is it spectacular? No. Could you be watching something way better. Definitely. But is it a trashy, idiotic romp with some good actors and some fun performances in a story so mind-bogglingly dumb that it needs to be seen to be believed? Hell yes.

[causticameracrap]

i hate that my life has come to this.

i was so happy* early this year............ apart from the body self-loathing in january.  * (did this mean that life was perfect? absolutely not. i was still very much in my grief, very much feeling slighted and abandoned. but i wasn’t angry at myself. i didn’t hate myself. i was rightfully angry at circumstances outside of my control.)

i deserved better.

i was so excited to progress. i was excited for my future. i was excited to finally become someone who Might Be Someone, or Might Make Something, or Might Mean Something. but now... i don’t have anything to look forward to. what i thought would be certain is no longer, and may never return. i’m doubting myself and my abilities, after Finally, Just Fucking Finally beginning to trust in myself and value myself. and my mental health feels like it’s taken multiple steps backward. i’ve progressed in and with my grief, yes, but everything else has slid so fucking far down that’ll take Another series of years to get back to what was once baseline. and that baseline i need to claw back to is already so lacking and demoralizing already. 

the BPD prevents me from seeing myself objectively. and for a while, i was managing it. i was seeing what others saw in me. i wasn’t listening to the Other Self that hates themself. i could fight back. but now... i don’t see my own successes that other people exasperatingly point out. they don’t matter because they are so small so they don’t exist. it’s been too long since i felt meaning so it doesn’t exist and it won’t exist. you aren’t successful so you are a failure. you are not loved so you are unloved. you are not any of these things so you are nothing. there are no other choices. there are no other ways to view yourself. there is no nuance in the void.

i want to be someone like Daniel. i want to achieve in Everything i set my mind to. i want to be good at Everything i can possibly do. i want to be one of the best at Something. i want to Matter to a lot of people. others point out that this is unreasonable to expect so much of yourself, that it’s greedy to reach for all of the figs from the tree, but there Are people who can! there are people who Do! there is Daniel and so many more like him. and they are rightfully celebrated for being multi-faceted and Incredible.

but i’m not, and rightfully so, because i fall so laughably short. my achievements are so small compared to others, who are way closer to Daniels than i am to even them. instead of being good, really Good without a doubt, at something... i am above average at a few, average at many, and below average to failing at many others. and now that i’ve put a name as to why my brain fails at what other people can conceive so easily, i feel even more of a failure.

i know deep in the back of my mind that i shouldn’t compare - especially now being self-aware at discalculia, and how it encompasses so many things in daily & academic & professional life. but i Have to compare. i Want to be better than average. i Want to matter. (is it so wrong to want????) i feel so poorly about myself because deep down i know i Can and Should be better. i Should and Can be the person people think i am.

and it hurts because i know i Could be that person... if things were different.

.... i hate that i wasn’t given a fair shot at life. it seems i was cursed from the womb. i wasn’t aware of all of the things wrong with me, but they were always there and i know them now. i was depressed for most of my life. and part of that is just being in an environment with an abusive mother who belittles and threatens you all of the time. and part of that is having the beginnings of various personality disorders, again exacerbated and likely caused by the abuse. and then the learning disorder that i didn’t even know i had, because thru sheer force of will i passed the usual landmarks that are usually the indicators / red flags, but... if i had gotten help with that sooner. if i could have gotten more help understanding spatial awareness. if i had been told that it wasn’t my fault that my mother was acting this way sooner. if i had been comforted or loved unconditionally. if i had been treated more kindly. if i had been given a safe outlet for my emotions, whether in therapy or literally with anyone i could trust. perhaps... my life would have been different. perhaps my life would have been better. and not perhaps. I Know My Life Would Have Been Different. i would have been Stronger. i would have been Smarter. i would have been more Successful. i would and could have been anything. but that wasn’t meant to be. and it’s not fair that it wasn’t.

some people are grateful of their neurological differences. i’m not. art... the creative life... i would honestly trade it away to be “normal.” yes, i said it! the most important aspects i’ve valued in my life & life’s journey are truly not that important at all! the only reason i wanted to go the road less traveled was because i knew my brain and myself wouldn’t be able to succeed there. i am afraid of failure. that is always my primary motivation: i am afraid of failure. if i was “normal,” i could succeed in the normal things. i could have went the STEM route like everyone else i fucking know before art school ruined my second shot at life. i could have had a more stable life. my creativity is meaningless in the face of a better self. 

without every single fucking psychological issue (and there are So Many them and i am so Frustrated that there are so many of them because i’m So Fucked Up, despite all the progress i’ve made), i would be in a stable relationship. it would be easier to love myself. it would be easier to trust others. it would be easier to put myself out there in the position to create love with someone else. as much as i am lonely, i am so afraid of being rejected. and any chance i have taken has been met with failure. how could i not equate that with me being unworthy of love? how could i not just fall into despair and distance myself? i Hate that it Would have been different. living with someone in reality instead of fantasies in my head.

writing and creating art is a way to deal with my pain, but if i didn’t have the pain... if i wasn’t depressed & abused & a fucking idiot... i Wouldn’t have a Need for art. if things had been different, there would be no subject, no reason to entertain that path. my real artist statement is pain - self-inflicted and self-endured. rarely, it has included other’s pain, but it is always negative. no wonder my art means nothing to so many. who wants to wade thru someone else’s fucked up mind with no real end goal? who wants to wade thru body of work after body of work describing the same old shit, and not even executed well? i certainly don’t blame them. look at the photo over there instead.

truthfully, my first love was space. during elementary lunch or library times i would sit against the walls that looked so big then with space books as thick as my arm. i would read about saturn and hug it to my chest. i would excitedly tell facts about jupiter and all of its moons to my friends. i would watch star wars on laser disc every other week, looking up in wonder at the ships sailing thru space and time, wanting to wander so easily just as they did. but my brain would never be able to handle it. as soon as i learned what was required, i knew it would never be. that was the first time my heart was broken. everything else in my life has been settling. that’s right, art is just something i settled on.

if i was looking at the stars, discovering things... i think i would Actually be happy. analyzing the photographs of distant nebulas and planets, instead of the bullshit i’ve snapped on my own. writing about our place in this galaxy, and how it relates to countless others, instead of focusing on my own life - which obviously means absolutely fucking Nothing in the scope of everything. (and i would be okay with that!) working on a telescope, instead of all the broken aspects of myself.

i wouldn’t even need to reach the summit. i wouldn’t need to be floating in a space station. i would be happy on the ground. i wouldn’t need to be a director. i would be happy behind screens and buttons. i would be happy as a body of many. because i would matter to myself first.

there with space... i wouldn’t be caught up in whether my art is better / is worth more or the same than another’s. i wouldn’t be overwhelmed with insecurities and artistic imposter’s syndrome. i would be working in the Objective. this thing exists. this is a specific phenomena. it is now being given a name. it is now being studied. you are now studying it. it is now being reviewed. if there is critique, you will address accordingly. you don’t have to worry about whether or not someone has an emotional or financial connection to it - a person either believes or doesn’t. the study is either sound or un-sound. the work is either published or unpublished. the mission is either a success or a failure. procedures are either followed or not. you are either looking or you aren’t. these are the blacks and whites you can handle. this is how your brain operates.

it’s easier for me to write off a dumbass who refuses to see beyond the shadows of a cave, than someone who doesn’t like my shadow and prefers the puppets of someone else. i can’t handle the subjective. why are my shapes worth less to you than his? aren’t we using the same fingers? aren’t we projecting on the same cave? why do you believe in those truths more than mine? i can’t handle the critique of my work because it Must be tied to myself and my pain. if you can’t understand the work, you can’t understand me. if you don’t like the work, you don’t like me. there is no separation between the created and creator. perhaps this too is a lack of spatial awareness. perhaps it is not the BPD holding me back but discalculia yet again. maybe it was the culprit all along. i wish i had realized it sooner. 

the truth is, i shouldn’t be here in these circles. maybe i was never meant to be here. truthfully, i wish i wasn’t here. if there was a way to slide into that alternate timeline, Over Somewhere Else to live the Other Mica’s life, i would. i would and i would never look back. 

there’s nothing i’ve gained from being different. and i’ve made nothing of it. if i could do it all again with another build, i would. even if my upbringing remained the same, if those points could be put into the traditional AP route: the calculus & the physics & the SATs & 4 years & the degrees, i would. then every resulting choice would be different. every resulting outcome would be sound. i would be someone else. and i would be Someone.

[breakingsomething]

the fall part thirteen - the storm (part one)

basic summary: an unnatural storm rolls over brighton.

trigger warnings: descriptions of torture and seizure

tagslist: @synonymsforzombie @spicydanhowell @skyewardlight @dreaming-of-stories-and-stars @cest-mellow @graveyardlettuce @lower-your-expectationss

they'd fixed the gate. and not only that, but they'd put bloody barbed wire on the top of it.

all anti could do was stare numbly. there had been a hole in the fence behind the bushes for years. it was how dapper had gone in and out when they'd stayed in these very waterworks, so long ago. now it was fixed. and anti couldn't glitch inside.

he walked around the whole perimeter of the building, but couldn't find any other way in. ok, so he'd have to climb. no big deal. he'd been tortured basically every other day for five full months. he could take a little barbed wire.

five minutes later, with hands cut up and bleeding, frustratingly still on the same side of the fence, he realized maybe he couldn't take a little barbed wire.

but what were his other options? growling as much as he could with his ruined voice, he shook the fence desperately, ignoring the sharp, throbbing pains in his palms. he was absolutely going to track down every fucking council worker who'd done this and tear their throats out. he was. but for now, he had to go somewhere. preferably somewhere sheltered. a quick glance at the sky told him it was oddly dark, and it looked like it was going to rain.

anti had lived on the streets for a full year after he left jack, and then for a few months before red had caught him. well, he had discovered the waterworks and claimed it for his own a few months in to his first time alone. but he'd still basically been homeless, still fighting against the elements and people going into his territory on the daily. he was used to this. all he had to do was go find some shelter and get away from the oncoming storm. no big deal. he could handle that.

he started off down the hill, through the trees and towards the road. not many people around. just a shopkeeper closing up for the day. he looked up when he saw anti, raising his eyebrows at his shivering form.

"there's due to be a huge storm," the man told him in a thick scottish accent. anti watched him lock the doors and swing the keys on his fingers. "weather warning. everyone's to stay inside, that's why i'm closing up early. better get home quickly, son. wouldn't want to get caught in it."

anti paused, then gave a quick nod before bustling past and speed walking down the pavement. the rain had started, very light at first, but continuously getting heavier, drenching him through his hoodie and shirt to his skin. his teeth chattered, and he numbly thought that at least there was no possibility of biting his tongue now. that was something.

his tattered trainers splashed through rapidly forming puddles as he walked, rubbing his arms with his bleeding hands to try and warm himself. all he succeeded in was getting stains on his blue hoodie. the sky was getting even darker, the sheet of rain coming even closer together, and then there was the sudden, inevitable crack of -

"- thunder, do you hear?" red was saying. he'd grown more comfortable with what he was doing now, anti could tell. there was more of a swagger in his step, the grin on his face less forced and more confident. he crouched in front of anti with an upturned smirk, victory sparkling in his blue eyes. "from outside. i don't know how well you can hear, actually - we are deep down, and i can barely catch it myself. but it's definitely raining. listen, anti, listen."

anti chose to squeeze his eyes shut instead, ignoring red's words. it was a pathetic act of rebellion, but it was all he could do in this situation. he almost flinched as something touched his face; a hand, warm skin against his. he hadn't experienced that for months before now. "oh, anti," red crooned softly. "what's wrong? not feeling up to it today? is it one of your off days?"

fuck you, fuck you, anti chanted in his head. the dishrag that had been shoved in his mouth stung the stub of his tongue that was left, causing more blood to well up down his throat. the makeshift gag was no more than a humiliation, obviously. and it hurt. not the kind of hurt anti ever inflicted on himself; this pain was constant. and not only that, but the withdrawl of his carbamazepine was starting to kick in, and red had taken great pleasure in mocking his constant seizures as a result.

"no biting remark?" red laughed. he slapped anti's face, gently but just hard enough that it stung. "come on, you're antisepticeye, the eternal puppetmaster, the ceo of glitches, the - what else did jack call you in that one video? the malicious gamer!" red cracked up, snorting into his palm. anti took the brief reprive to organize his thoughts, trying to keep a poker face while the bastard was still in the room.

red noticed. "oh, well. if you're gonna be boring, that's fine by me." he sat back on his heels, making a show of considering something. "so, anyway. i was talking to henrik this morning, about the weather actually, and i mentioned you. just casually. he joked that he hoped you'd get struck by lightning. well, that got me thinking. you're a computer glitch, right? or something? what would happen if you got struck by lightning, or something close to that?"

red pulled something out his hoodie pocket; a small black device with several switches on the side. "can you guess what this is, aiden?" again with the name. anti wished he knew how he'd gotten it. red suddenly slapped his face again to get his attention. "it's yet another updated prototype of that extremely powerful electrical shock device. the one i made myself, haven't tried or tested this version yet. i suppose you'll be my first and probably only subject, won't you anti?"

anti felt the haze of an oncoming seizure already, his head spinning in a cold daze. his arms, unnaturally tied back with zip ties all the way up to his elbows, screamed in agony as he tried to lean back, away from the pain he knew was coming. "cowering away so quickly?" red laughed. anti burned with hatred. "so eager to inflict pain on others, on my brothers, even, and you don't think you can take one little shock?"

red leaned in, suddenly very close. "you know, all the switches and dials on this thing are all for show," he grinned. "it only has one setting."

and fuck, fuck, the instant pain was so excruciating that anti almost passed out immediately.

fire. fucking red hot flames being injected into his bloodstream, his body heating up in an instant and jolting entirely out of his control. like a seizure, but worse, far worse, because his seizures were more predictable - he knew how long they lasted, knew how painful they usually were. this was just agony. his tied up limbs convulsed wildly, bashing against the wall and the pipe and the floor. he couldn't even scream. all he could do was make silent cries that tore up his throat, his vision blurring, stomach roiling with what would have been vomit if he had eaten at all in the past few days. as it was, bile rose in his throat, and he choked it back, letting the current pass as his body glitched to pieces.

"there," red said once it had passed. "that wasn't so bad, was it?"

anti was shaking so hard he couldn't even look straight at him, but he could hear the smug smirk in his voice. fuck, but he hated him, more than jinx, more than the doctor, more than jack, more than everyone. he'd never been this weak and humiliated and low in his entire life and even through his agony, he found the strength to glare at red, eyes black with rage and loathing, trembling as he heard the low rumble of -

- thunder, rolling across the sky like a blanket. the sound filled his ears, his head. he hadn't realized he'd stopped dead in his tracks, frozen, eyes wide with the fucking curse of remembering.

keep going, keep going. just walk, don't think, just walk. eyes facing forward. don't think. just walk.

he knew where he was going. he didn't realize he knew until he was there, right on the doorstep, right at the pale purple door that was identical to all the others on the street. soaked through, shaking for more reasons than one, mind so muddled he wasn't even sure of his own name. but he knew this door. he knew the sound of a knock, bloodied hands ruining the paint. and he knew thunder, blocking out the sound of everything but his heartbeat.

-

chase had felt warm all morning.

maybe it was because he'd been getting out a lot more lately. he'd been getting exercise, drinking water, even eating healthier. that was partially marvin's influence - chase knew how much he'd scared him with his gun, and was making an effort to push down his intrusive thoughts and appear better so no one would worry. in doing that, he had actually picked up better habits, which hadn't been intended but he supposed was definitely a bonus.

maybe it was the fact that he'd made another friend. chase was an extrovert, but didn't actively socialize with one person more than the others, usually. lucas was different. he was really sweet, really funny, and was genuinely super interesting to talk to. chase had been texting him all of last night, until almost four am. neither of them had even noticed the time. that was something chase had missed; the wanting to stay awake so he could continue a late night conversation, having someone to talk to when he couldn't get to sleep. it was a good feeling. he had missed that.

no matter what the reason was, chase was in a good mood the morning he heard someone at the door.

he fully expected it to be marvin and henrik. they had went shopping, which chase was sure was also an excuse for the two of them to talk privately about some of the current going ons they were involved in. he didn't mind. however, there had been a storm warning issued about half an hour ago, and chase was hoping to see them home soon.

he wasn't expecting to see a soaking wet, shivering anti at the door.

"oh, fuck, shit!" chase yelped, and slammed the door shut. he didn't know what else to do. anti had been missing for almost two weeks, what the fuck was he doing on their doorstep? a quick glance out the window told chase he was still there. anti noticed him looking and quirked an eyebrow at him, clutching his arms and smirking despite his disheveled demeanor. chase closed the curtains.

he immediately called marvin. "hey, chase," his brother said as soon as he called. chase could hear the faint pattering of rain. "we're just about to check out, we got the text from the council and we'll be home soon. strange storm, isn't it? is there anything you need? we've got fuckin', uhh, tissues, mac and cheese, handwash -"

"anti's here," chase blurted. "he's standing outside the door."

there was a pause. "i'm sorry, anti's what?" marvin shouted, loudly enough that chase had to pull the phone away from his ear. "that bastard, what is he doing? are you hurt? i'm gonna kill him. i'm gonna -"

"he's not hurt me, no," chase interrupted before marvin could contemplate murder any further. "he's just standing there. i kinda, uh, shut the door in his face before i could find out what was up."

marvin sighed deeply. chase could hear henrik yelling something in the background as marvin spoke again. "ok, well, he can't get in anyway. kazuki protected the place, but she gave me the key to her spell. basically, with protection spells, they can only be unlocked by another magician if given the - you don't need all the details. point is, we'll be back - henrik, quiet - we'll be back soon. is he… hurt or something?"

"can't tell," chase said. he paced the kitchen as he talked, tapping his thighs nervously. "i'll - try and talk to him. please come back soon." he paused. "also, get me an irn bru. i'll pay you back."

when marvin had hung up, chase slowly opened the door again and peeked outside. anti was leaning against the wall, hood yanked over his head, rubbing his arms to warm himself. he glanced round when chase stepped out, a look of slight surprise crossing his face as chase shut the door and stood next to him awkwardly.

he didn't know what to do with his hands, so he pulled out a lighter and a pack of sterling cigarettes, popping them open and putting one into his mouth. anti watched him light it, saying nothing, and chase silently tipped the packet towards him as an offering. anti paused before taking one, lighting it quickly and passing the lighter back to chase. chase took it, then flinched in shock when he saw the state of anti's hands.

"fucking hell, what did you do to yourself?" he exclaimed. anti quickly hid his bloodied hands back in his shirtsleeves, wrapping his arms back around himself with an eyeroll. he didn't give an answer. not that chase would have expected one even if anti could talk without using his hands. chase exhaled loudly, already regretting coming out here at all.

"so what are you here for?" chase asked. he plopped down on the steps, at the very top mostly out of the rain. anti slowly followed suit. "where have you been the past little bit anyway? everyone's been looking for you."

anti unfolded his left hand to sign with. "so they can lock me up again?" he said, shivering. "fuck off. i'm here cause it's raining and i'm barely coherent and this bloody sickness means that i experience temperatures much more extremely. i'm probably susceptible to a common cold now, actually."

chase frowned. "you've been living on the streets this whole time?"

"water works," he signed, as two separate words. it took chase a second to translate that in his head. "there's barbed wire on top. i'm not sure why i came here either, to be quite frank."

chase watched his hands, but barely took in anything he was saying. wordlessly, he stubbed out his cigarette, stood up and went inside. he came back out a couple minutes later with a bottle of water, a washcloth and some bandages. "for your hands," he said simply. he didn't look at anti's face as he went to grab his wrists and turn him towards him. anti yelped and pulled his right arm away, holding it against his chest. chase looked up again, confused.

"is there something else wrong with that arm?" he said. anti didn't answer, but pulled his other arm away too, glaring. chase sighed. "fine. if you're gonna be a bitch, treat your own wounds. or don't. i'm going back inside."

anti said nothing as chase did exactly as he said, shutting the door behind him. something darted past the kitchen door, making chase smile. "jaffa, jaffa," he called. the black cat stopped to come smell chase's hand before racing away again, leaving him alone.

it was ten minutes of internal debate before chase came to a decision as to what to do. in his mind, he knew anti was an awful person. abusive, manipulative, a man who thrived on schadenfreude, as henrik had said. and yet. and yet. there was a part of chase that could never stand to see others hurt. he was a high empathy person - always had been, even in the few memories he had from being a kid. it was why he was so determined to believe that jackie couldn't be too far gone, that chase had to be able to save him. he felt other's pain, and always wanted to be able to help. even anti. even anti, of all people.

all he could think of was connor and louise and their three weeks away from home while anti pretended to be him. they'd been in london the whole time. fucking london. like a fun little holiday while chase had a breakdown in a jail cell because he was a suspect for kidnapping. then anti had returned them, and chase still didn't understand why. they kids had been fine. chase had gone free. everything had gone relatively back to normal, except for the fact that the kids were going to private therapy in case there was any underlying trauma from the incident. none of it made any sense to him.

then there was henrik and his two months away. that time period had been hell for chase, and he knew it had obviously been a lot worse for his brother. henrik had never fully told him everything anti had done to him, but he knew it wasn't great. he'd seen henrik's reactions to nightmares and flashbacks. although, henrik had once joked that anti was the absolute worst at torturing people. he had laughed, and chase to this day had absolutely no clue if he was kidding or not.

on top of all that… jack. just jack. chase honestly didn't want to think about jack at all.

he went and sat back outside as far away from anti as he could while sitting on the same step. anti barely looked up. he seemed half asleep, the side of his face pressed against the fence leading up to the door. he had cleaned up his hands, but left the bandages unused. he was also still chewing on the end of his cigarette, which seemed to have somehow gone out.

"you know you don't eat the cig, right?" chase asked. "you smoke it. have you never smoked before?"

anti flipped him off. "i have. bitch. but it's fucking cold and i can't be bothered."

chase rolled his eyes. "well, then why did you accept it?"

"because it was free. i'm fucking poor, and cigs are hard to steal."

chase was about to ask something else when he glanced down the road and saw his brothers walking up, holding bags of shopping. he leapt to his feet and raced down the steps and the pavement, splashing through the puddles and grinning weakly at henrik and marvin as he approached. "heyyy, so. anti's at our door."

"he's not coming in," henrik said immediately. he was shaking with rage, eyes blazing. his fingers were white as he gripped the handles of the plastic bags. "that fucker is not getting anywhere near -"

"relax, hen, we know we're not letting him in," chase said. he turned to marvin, suddenly uncertain. "right?"

marvin had never been good at hiding how he was feeling. "uh, i," he articulated. chase took a bag from both him and henrik while marvin stammered, lifting them in his arms to carry. "i - well, we can't just -"

"are you fucking serious?" henrik spat, whirling on marvin. marvin's shoulders shot to his ears, eyes widening. henrik took a step away from him. "after all we've been talking about, this whole time we've been out -"

"i just feel it's inhumane!" marvin protested. his diamond shaped pupils had shrunk to thin slits, like a cat. "this storm is bad already and it's barely even started, i wouldn't want to just leave him -"

"well, he can drown for all i care," henrik snarled. they'd arrived at the base of the steps now, and henrik immediately stormed up, past anti and into the house. the door slammed shut behind him.

chase sighed. "that went well." he shot marvin an apologetic glance. "i should go talk to him. get inside quickly. storm's due to get worse."

marvin nodded. chase bounced up the steps, not looking at anti as he went by, and dropped the bags on the kitchen table. "henny!" he called. "are you ok?"

henrik was sitting on the living room couch, fuming. he had taken his wet jacket and shoes off, but hadn't changed anything else. his short hair dripped over his eyes. "you should get changed," chase said softly. "you'll catch a cold or something."

henrik yanked his hoodie over his head, angrily tossing it to the floor. "i cannot believe that bastard had the fucking gall to come here," he raged. "and marvin's on his side - do you know, while me and marvin were out, i practically poured my heart out to that fucker, i told him a ton of shit i haven't told anyone else - and he still - ugh!" he stood and paced round the room, kicking the leg of the table. "fuck, i don't know. anti can rot out there for all i care."

marvin came in a couple minutes later. "i'm sorry, hen," he said meekly. he ran his fingers through his hair. "i didn't think."

"whatever," henrik mumbled. "is he still outside?"

chase looked through the window. "yep," he confirmed. "he doesn't have anywhere else to go, apparently, so he came here."

"no doubt to piss us off." henrik went into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on. even that one motion was somehow angry. "can we call someone from hecate or something to come take him back? kazuki, or someone else?"

"weather warning, remember," marvin reminded him. "it's too bad out for even magicians. well, i suppose not, there are weather related mages, and i suppose kazuki does have aerokinesis - still. i don't think they can."

they were all very quiet for a moment, listening to the booming drum of thunder outside. the dark room lit up with a flash of lightning, and the wind roared, knocking the trees against each other with piercing whistles. the rain pounded against the front of the house, and all three men looked at each other, thinking.

"i feel henrik should be the one to make this decision," chase said eventually. "he's the one who's been most badly hurt by anti."

henrik flashed him a quick, grateful smile, rubbing his shoulders unconsciously. "i don't think i want him here," he mumbled. "this is the one place we're safe. or… was, i guess. since jackie's boyfriend got in."

"no one will again," chase promised, patting his arm. he glanced at marvin as he spoke. "kazuki fixed this place herself. we're definitely protected."

both he and marvin knew that was a silent threat.

"we wouldn't want you to feel unsafe," marvin said softly. "i'm sorry if you feel that way." he let out a shuddering sigh, tapping his fingers against the table. "so… what do we do now?"

"i don't care," henrik said suddenly. he smacked the table and got up to march over to the fridge, throwing it open to look. "someone go tell anti to fuck off or something."

marvin bit his lip and looked to chase, who sighed and silently went to the outside door. the sheet of rain hit him in the face instantly, almost blinding him. "fuck," he spat, covering his eyes with his arm. anti was still sitting right where they'd left him, head in his arms. chase swallowed. "uh. henrik told you to fuck off."

anti lifted his head and shrugged.

chase tapped his socked foot against the doorway. "are you seriously gonna stay here?"

"well, what else do you want me to do?" anti said angrily. he was shaking, and chase could barely see his signs through the rain, but he got the general idea of what he was saying. "i can't go anywhere else. might as well stay here and piss off the doctor, if nothing else."

chase went back in and shut the door. "he says he's staying here cause he can't go anywhere else and also to piss off henrik," he announced. his brothers looked at chase, shirt soaked from just a minute or so outside. marvin made a face and left the room.

half an hour passed like this. they went into the living room and turned the tv on, flipping through the same shows and movies on netflix. marvin paced. henrik didn't eat the food he'd made. they were all very aware of anti outside, waiting for the storm to end.

"we might as well throw him to jackie," henrik mumbled at one point. this comment had been completely unprovoked, but they all knew what he meant. "maybe then he'll he satisfied and stop trying to kill people."

"i'm not giving anti over for my brother to torture," marvin snapped. "no matter what. i wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing i'd participated in helping him do that."

they went quiet. another ten minutes passed, and chase tried to calm the bouncing of his leg and think about anything else.

then he snapped. "ok, i don't know about you guys, and i - i know this might make me a horrible person, but i feel awful knowing he's just sitting out there looking like a kicked puppy."

marvin nodded, wringing his hands together. he'd changed into a baggy white tank top, his hair down around his face. "yeah. i - yeah."

henrik didn't answer for a bit. he was curled up in the corner of the couch, staring at the wall. eventually he turned to see chase and marvin looking at him. "what?" he snapped. "are you expecting me to change my mind?"

they both turned away again. the tv suddenly cut out without warning, and the rest of the lights in the house followed.

"great. an outage." chase flipped his torch on to see around the room. "well, that's fun."

they were definitely all thinking of anti now.

"he can't survive without electricity, can he?" marvin asked uncertainly. "that's why jackie kept him in that room."

chase hummed in agreement. he felt sick.

henrik suddenly let out a loud yell, and chase could see his silhouette leap up and march across the room. "fuck! fuck, fuck, fuck, i hate the lot of you! let's just get it over and done with, ok, because as much as i fucking hate the bastard i don't wanna go out in the morning and find a fucking corpse on my doorstep! fuck!"

marvin and chase stumbled to their feet. "we're - we're doing this?" marvin asked disbelievingly.

"apparently so." henrik walked purposefully towards the front door, chase and marvin in tow. he hesitated when he reached it and closed his eyes tight. "fuck, marvin, just let him in before i change my goddamn mind."

marvin opened the door once more. anti was curled up so close to the door that he almost fell inside, blocked only by kazuki's protection spell. chase watched, amazed, as marvin muttered a few words and then stepped outside, taking hold of anti's shoulders. "help me," he ordered chase, who obliged, trying to help lift him into marvin's arms. it seemed that anti had gone into some sort of shutdown, unmoving and limp but still breathing. henrik's breath hitched when marvin carried him inside, setting him on the floor with great difficulty. anti moaned softly, shivering and glitching out of place.

"oh god, oh mein gott, i can't do this," henrik fretted, and covered his face with his hands. chase got off the floor and pulled henrik into a soft, reassuring hug. he didn't need words to communicate what he was thinking.

"he's unconscious," marvin said. he sat anti up, pulling his sopping wet hoodie off over his head. "i'm, uh, not an expert on this stuff. but hen, i can absolutely understand not wanting anything more to do with this. i'm honestly not too pleased with it either. but, for what's it worth - thanks for letting him in."

henrik just nodded. "yes. hm. i'm going to - i think i am gonna go lay down. i don't feel great suddenly, how very odd…" he left the room, mumbling to himself.

anti coughed, trying to sit himself up with marvin helping him. "stay still, you bastard, god." then he frowned. "blinding christ, what is up with your wrist?

anti's right wrist was extremely bruised, jutting out at a slightly odd angle. "what the fuck?" chase murmured, bending down to look. "i thought he got the cast taken off cause it was healed, how could they have missed that?"

anti's eyes suddenly opened. for a moment he looked shocked, grabbing at his arms, looking back and forth across the room. marvin waved a hand in front of his face. "anti, hey. you're in here for the time being. i'm - chase, can you go get him some new clothes? he's soaked through."

anti shook his head rapidly. "no, no, i'm fine," he signed. "i'm fine, i'm fine…"

he clutched at his stomach, waving marvin off as he tried to help. "fine, fine, fine," he said frantically, looking like he was doing a repeated thumbs up. he was still shivering as chase left the room, wincing at the sudden pain in his temples. one of the signs of an oncoming migraine. how fantastic.

he got another alert on his phone. "all brighton residents to stay inside until further notice," it announced. and the storm didn't look like it was letting up anytime soon.

this was gonna be a long night.

[hermannsthumb]

Hot tub sex??? *eye emoji*

scientists in a hot tub……what will they repress……..

18+/not safe for work below cut!!!!!

————————————-

Hermann is no stranger to shoddy motel rooms at this point in his career–indeed, on the shoestring PPDC budget, it’s more or less all he and Newton can afford when they’re shuttled out for conferences–but there’s a certain veneer to the crumbling Art Deco design and dusty plastic palm trees of this one that’s left him feeling strangely unsettled. It’s as if they’ve stepped into the past. As if the very motel is frozen in time. 

“Stop being so dramatic,” Newton says. “It’s just a stupid gimmick. Hold this, will you?”

He shoves his duffel bag at Hermann and (ignoring Hermann’s indignant hm!) continues, unsuccessfully, to cram a keycard into their door lock. “It’s upside down,” Hermann finally says.

“No it’s not,” Newton says.

“Yes it is,” Hermann says. “Flip it.”

“It’s not upside down,” Newton says.

“Flip the bloody card, Newton.”

Newton flips the keycard. The lock lights up green with a click. “Huh,” he says.

Their room is small, a bit cramped, even, with two twin beds (mercifully, they won’t have to share again, not like they did last time) draped in pink bedspreads, two nightstands, a beaten-up wooden wardrobe, and a single desk jammed in the corner. The pseudo-vintage wallpaper matches that of the hallways and lobby; the carpet, meanwhile, is too faded to make out what the pattern was once meant to be. “How terribly charming,” Hermann remarks, sarcastically. 

“I call bed next to the window,” Newton says, pushing past him to claim it.

Hermann busies himself with unpacking his belongings from his small carry-on suitcase as Newton takes stock of the room: poking around in the nightstand drawers, flicking through the wrinkled Gideons Bibles, fluffing his pillow, sniffing skeptically at the bars of soap resting atop their pillows. Hermann’s nearly finished settling in when Newton–flinging the door to their in-suite bathroom open–startles him with a sharp crow of surprise.

“Holy shit,” he says. “Take a look at that!”

Hermann sets down his last sweater on the bedspread, not bothering to look up. He can’t quite say he fancies finding out what kind of horror awaits them in there. “Roach infestation?” he sighs. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“It’s a fucking hot tub, dude.”

Hermann does look up at that. “Hot tub?” he echoes sharply.

Newton pushes the door open wider. Sure enough, around his shoulder, Hermann can make out pink tile and the deepest, most elaborate bathtub he’s ever seen, complete with its own set of stairs. “There are jets,” Newton says. He lunges for a bottle on the edge of the tub and waves it excitedly. “Look, they gave us bubble stuff, too!”

“Oh,” Hermann says, not quite able to cover up his delight. There are very few things Hermann loathes more than flying: the cramped confines, even with disability accommodation, which leave his leg stiff and him tense and irritable–the fine layer of grime he’s certain sticks to him afterwards–how wretchedly exhausted he is when the whole affair is finally over. He can, frankly, think of nothing he’d like quite more at the moment than stripping down and getting into a hot soak in that tub. However filthy it may be. (And Hermann expects it’s quite filthy.)

He steps up behind Newton for a closer inspection. Pink. Dingy, but less so with grime, more so from age. Curved seats. Enough jets to already make Hermann feel woozy. Newton turns and shoots him a grin. “How many people do you think have screwed in there?” he says.

“Ugh.” Hermann winces.

“I’m serious,” Newton says. “It’s at least a dozen.” He nudges the faucet with the toe of his boot and laughs. “God, it’s so fucking sleazy. Why the fuck did they put this in here?”

“Perhaps the staff anticipated overstressed travelers would appreciate the opportunity to relax,” Hermann sniffs.

“Or perhaps,” (Newton says this in a crude mockery of his accent,) “the staff thought people like us might want a little extra bang for our buck, if you catch my drift.” He waggles his eyebrows.

People like him and Newton. Unable to help himself, and feeling suddenly rather flustered, Hermann blushes. “You’re so crude.”

“Maybe you just have a stick up your ass,” Newton says. He shuts the door. “Anyway, I’m gonna get a burger from the place next door. Do you want something?”

Hermann chooses not to remind Newton that he is a vegetarian. He’ll presumably remember it at some point on the walk to the restaurant–it’s rather a poignant thing to forget about one’s self. “No, thank you,” he says, and then, after reconsidering, because he is hungry, “Actually–yes. A sandwich. You know the sort I like–something with turkey. Or cucumber.”

“It’s a hamburger place,” Newton says, as if Hermann is a particularly dull toddler. 

“Surely they don’t only sell hamburgers,” Hermann says.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Newton says. He scoops up the keycard from where he tossed it on the dresser, pats his pocket for his wallet, and nods at Hermann. “I’ll be back in twenty. Don’t have any wild hot tub sex without me.”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“That’s not,” Newton says. “Uh. See you.”

Newton’s not been gone five minutes when Hermann finally caves in and starts the tap for the hot tub. The water comes out hot–nicely hot–and the jets–oh, the jets--Hermann is suddenly frightfully glad he allowed Newton to talk him into packing swimming trunks in the event they’re able to make it out to the beach before the weekend is up. Though tub is just as much a bathtub as a jacuzzi, it still feels strange to enter it nude. Especially after Newton’s lewd comments.

The tub takes the better part of Newton’s promised twenty minutes to fill, and it’s still not quite finished when Hermann–now stripped down to nothing but his bland pair of navy-blue swimming trunks–grips the metal bars at the stairs and eases his aching, tense body into the steaming water. He tilts his head back against the pink tile; he groans, a little louder than he means to. The relief is quite instant.

Perhaps a bit embarrassingly, his prick begins to stiffen.

It’s automatic, of course. Pavlovian by nature. He’s not at all thinking of Newton’s implication that people like them have appropriated the hot tub for other purposes, nor of his slip-up right before he left to get them dinner. It’s only that Hermann prefers to reserve certain personal activities for when he’s in the bath. He’s more relaxed–the undercurrent of pain in his leg less distracting, and indeed, even nonexistent. Anyway, it’s not as if he’s about to start pleasuring himself here, in a bloody hot tub, where Newton could walk in and find him at any moment…

(A small, warm twinge in the pit of his stomach; Hermann parts his thighs just a bit wider, only to make himself comfortable, of course.)

Then there’s a small click in the main room: the door lock. “They literally only had hamburgers, dude, like I said,” Newton is saying. “So I got you–Hermann?”

“In here,” Hermann calls back lazily.

Newton practically kicks the bathroom door down, glaring ferociously, greasy takeaway bags cradled in one arm. “You asshole,” he says. “You’re using it without me!”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea what you mean,” Hermann says.

Newton sets the bag down on the sink counter and kicks off his boots. Then he begins to strip out of his t-shirt. Then his jeans. Hermann sits up in alarm. “No, no,” he says. “What are you–?”

“I’m getting in, that’s what I’m doing,” Newton huffs.

“No you are not.”

“I am,” Newton says. He reaches for the waistband of his purple boxers.

“No,” Hermann says, a little louder, and then begins to splutter indignantly when Newton ignores him and slips those off too. “You brought–we have swimming trunks. Why are you–?”

“You’ve seen me naked before,” Newton says with a shrug. The motion, full-bodied, causes certain elements of his anatomy to move. Certain elements of Hermann’s anatomy begin to move, too, in response, but for an entirely different reason. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

This is true; Newton’s had enough lab accidents in their career which require use of the emergency decontamination shower that, hypothetically, Hermann should know his body like his own at this point. This does not make it any less alarming. Or any less exciting. Newton’s sturdy bare legs, verging on too-hairy, small scars on both his knees from what Hermann knows to be a rollerblading accident when he was twelve; Newton’s tattooed arms, muscled just enough from the demands of his lab work; Newton’s tattooed chest, his rosy pink nipples; Newton’s pudgy stomach, his love handles; between Newton’s soft thighs, his perfectly sized–well–

Hermann forces himself to tear his eyes away as Newton climbs in across from him. They’re so close their knees knock together. “Wow,” Newton says, and wolf-whistles. “This is awesome.”

“Mm,” Hermann says. 

He chances a small glance over. Newton has slipped off his fogged-up glasses; his body is a colorful blur beneath the bubbling surface of the water, but his chest, and his chest piece, are on full display, and his head is titled back in such a way that his soft throat is bared in a way that Hermann might call sensual. How terribly lovely he is. How terribly light-headed Hermann feels from the hot water–surely it’s why, not even bothering to pretend he’s not ogling Newton, he blurts out “What a marvelous tattoo that is.”

Newton furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“Your tattoo,” Hermann says, and–for some reason–reaches out and grazes his hand down Newton’s sternum. He hears–no, feels–Newton’s breath catch in his throat. “It’s very interesting. I’ve never seen it properly before.”

Newton laughs nervously. “Oh,” he says. “I thought you hated my tattoos.”

“Of course I don’t,” Hermann says, and he’s surprised to find he means it. “I can’t say I approve of the subject material, but one would be a fool to deny their artistic value.” Hardly believing his own daring, he settles two fingers on Newton’s left pectoral, just above his nipple, and traces the edges of the great green kaiju’s head. “Was it terribly painful?”

“Nn,” Newton squeaks.

“Hm?” Hermann says. 

“No,” Newton says. He sounds breathless. “Hey, uh, you almost done–” The edge of Hermann’s thumb accidentally grazes his nipple, and Newton squeaks again, the rest of the sentence coming out in a high-pitched wheeze, “–uh, feeling me up?”

Mortified, and finally realizing exactly what it is he’s doing, Hermann snatches his hand away. “Ah–Newton–” he stammers, ears going hot, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Newton chooses precisely the wrong moment to glance down. Difficult though it is to make out definite shapes through the water, there is no denying that Hermann’s swimming trunks are quite tented. Newton’s eyes widen. “Hermann?”

“Oh, hell,” Hermann says. He buries his face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Newton, I didn’t mean–”

There are strong, calloused fingers on his wrists, prying his hands away, and Hermann opens his eyes to see Newton’s face above his, Newton kneeling in the vee of his legs. His breath is warm, and smells like the bottle of soda he bought at a vending machine in the airport. “I’m gonna kiss you,” he declares.

Hermann blinks.

Newton’s tongue–pink–darts out to wet his lower lip–pinker. He presses his mouth–soft–to Hermann’s. For a minute, they move awkwardly, chastely, against one another, stiffly, even, and then Newton gives a tentative swipe with his tongue at the seam of Hermann’s lips.

The floodgates of desire open within Hermann all at once. A filthy moan rises in the back of his throat; he seizes Newton’s shoulders, drawing him forward, closer, until their chests are flush together; his mouth parts open eagerly for Newton, and he draws Newton’s tongue forward with his own. “Newton,” he breathes out. Newton tastes like the soda, too–sugary, too-sweet. “Oh, Newton–”

Impatient, over-excited, Newton shoves his hand gracelessly down Hermann’s trunks and wraps around his prick. “Fuck,” he pulls away from their kiss to whine, “were you jerking off before I got here? That’s so fucking hot. God. What were you thinking about? Were you thinking about me?”

Hermann had not been jerking off, but if Newton’s libido will be stoked to greater heights with a little bit of flattery, he can’t see how a small lie could do any harm. “I was,” he says.

Newton begins to slide his hand up and down Hermann’s prick. He’s very skilled at it. The other hand, he settles at the back of Hermann’s neck. “Fuck. Were you thinking about doing me in here? Over the side? Or me doing you?”

“Er,” Hermann wheezes out. “Yes?”

Clearly pleased, Newton begins to wank him faster. “Guh,” he says. “Touch my chest again, that was so hot. Please, please–”

Hermann obliges gladly. He splays his hands over Newton’s pectorals, squeezing, and–once he realizes how terribly sensitive Newton’s nipples are, because twice now Hermann’s only grazed one and produced a full-body shiver in the man–focuses his onslaught on those instead. With every small pinch, Newton cries out. When Hermann lowers his head to take one in his mouth, Newton straddles his right thigh and begins humping his hard prick against it in earnest.

“That’s so debase,” Hermann pants into his chest, blushing. “Really, Newton, you ought to just let me use my hand.”

“Guh,” Newton whines again. “No, no, I want you to touch me instead.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere,” Newton says. “Anywhere, anywhere…”

His hand is flying over Hermann so fast it’s difficult to think, let alone to consciously grope and explore Newton’s body, but–resuming variably grazing his teeth and flicking his tongue over Newton’s nipples–Hermann obliges again, dragging his nails down Newton’s sturdy back, digging his fingers into the soft skin of Newton’s backside and kneading at him gently. Newton’s movements against his thigh turn graceless, and Hermann is excited to feel small slide of sticky precome on his skin before the churning water quickly washes it away.

“I’m gonna come,” Newton pants. His head is tossed back in wild abandon, the image of hedonistic pleasure. It’s a wonder he can even still formulate whole sentences: Hermann imagines if he were as overstimulated as Newton obviously is, he’d black out. The simple handjob is almost too much to bear. “Yeah, I’m gonna come, are you–?”

“Kiss me, and I will,” Hermann says.

Newton stoops down, mashing their mouths together happily, and light fizzles behind Hermann’s eyelids as he spills over Newton’s hand. Newton gives a few more needy thrusts against his thigh; his cry echoes off the bathroom walls, and Hermann feels more sticky warmth on his skin. He slumps on top of Hermann when he’s finished. He’s shaking.

Hermann pats his back. “Well done,” he says, weakly, and Newton giggles just as weakly. He could go for a nap, he thinks. Preferably with Newton curled up next to him. The twin bed will be a tight fit, but they’ll manage.

[caroline18mars]

A Man On Fire - Chapter 61

With her legs shaking, she walked down the stairs, money was running a little too low again to keep ordering in, going out and getting groceries was cheaper, the only problem was that she hadn't really gone out for what? Days? Weeks? Ok, here you go, she pulled open the door and slowly stepped out onto the pavement where she was nearly run over by a guy on a bike. Hello New York, she rolled her eyes and carefully went on her way to the local supermarket, it was freezing but the sun was out, normally this would be her kind of weather, but being a bit undercome, right now it only gave her a headache. Stop moping, just keep walking, get your muscles going again and enjoy doing something brainless and totally simple, the only thing you have to do is make a choice in groceries. The supermarket was crowded and noisy and for a second she hesitated, maybe she should do this another time, no, just go in and let yourself get human again, she took a shopping basket and started her round, fresh vegetables, fruit, water, bread, vitamines were on the menu of priorities. Slowly she walked through the aisles, loading up her basket she started to make her way to the check-out, “hello Miss, haven't seen you in a while, how was Europe?” the cashier who she always had a little chat with every time she came here smiled at her. And just like that, the wind was knocked out of her “uhmm, fine yeah” what else was she supposed to say? My lover dragged me across Europe, cheating on me without me knowing and having a good laugh about it?. “It must be so nice to have such a famous man in your life, I saw some pictures of you two..I follow his instagram you see..” Ok enough, she quickly pushed all her purchases in her carrier bags “what's the damage?” she quickly cut her off and didn't wait for her answer, swiping her card through the machine. Out of breath and on the verge of hyperventilating she stumbled out of the supermarket and back onto the pavement, there was no escaping him, she could run from him all she could, but she couln't outrun social media and his followers while all she wanted was to disappear from view and get her anonymity back.

What time was it in NY? Would she be up yet? Oh come on, think Jared, you're in LA, ok hours earlier in NY right? Oh fuck it, he tapped on her number and held the phone to his ear, he could actually hear the blood pump through his head. “You've reached Harper's voicemail, please leave a message after the beep”, goddamn voicemail “Hey babe..it's me..again..I wanted to wish you a happy birthday..I just wish I was there with you..but..anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm thinking of you..and I love you..very much..please forgive me..so..happy birthday honey..I love you” he breathed and slowly disconnected the call. That's when it got too much for him, he sank down on a chair at his kitchen counter and cried his eyes out,  on the other side of the country, Harper stepped down from her scaffolding to wash out some brushes, a little break, she had been going for hours and she was hungry, on her way to the kitchen she turned the heating up a few notches and held her cold hands above the heating, they were cramping up and she wanted to keep going tonight. She sat down with a glass of wine and her cupcake that she had saved, 'happy birthday to me' she sadly smiled and slowly took a bite from the sweet treat, her eyes drifted over her kitchen, she needed to do dishes soon..her phone..leave it..but like a magnet she reached for the device, ignore the mails..she took another bite of her cake and let the phone vibrate back to life..maybe take some pictures of the progress on her paintings. What the..once again her screen piled up with notifications..her voicemail was full? Great, start deleting then..but she must have pushed a wrong button because suddenly Jared's voice drifted through the room on speaker “Hey babe..it's me..again..I wanted to wish you a happy birthday..I just wish I was there with you..but..anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm thinking of you..and I love you..very much..please forgive me..so..happy birthday honey..I love you”. She nearly choked as her throat went completely dry and painful, tears bubbling up in her eyes..he remembered..stupid fuck..so saying happy birthday was gonna make it all better? Fuck you, Jared..the only way to stop him is to reply..just not now..there's more important things at hand like finishing a couple of paintings.

It's pointless so stop checking your phone, he put it down but then there was a bleep, her bleep and his breath got stuck in his throat

From: HCDeRobiano

To: BJLCubbins

Subject: stop

Jared,

stop blowing up my phone, I'm not interested in this huge charm operation, I can't handle it.

You did what you did, so there's nothing to talk about anymore.

Leave me alone, ok? Let my heart heal, I'm done with having you splatter it over the floor and me having to scrape it back together, even telling you this is probably causing you to have to biggest gloating session ever witnessed because that's how you roll isn't it?

And that was a rhetorical question, so in case you don't know what that is: I don't need an answer, so kindly refrain from mocking me and driving the knife in even deeper.

Harper

Fuck..his stomach plummeted in his chest and dark spots danced in front of his eyes, no..babe please..what did I expect though? She's over me, she's over..US..I can't go on like this, I just can't..I'm never gonna see you again, am I? Harper Coco De Robiano d'Arby, this just can't be true.

“Hey, wanna come and help unload the Christmas tree? Mom's just arrived, it's huge” Shannon waltzed inside the kitchen, stopping in his tracks when he saw his baby brother sitting there with his face buried in his arms. “What's going on?” he sat down next to him and saw the phone still clutched in his hand “Harper?” stupid question, who else could bring him down like this? He'd seen his share of Jared's breakups, but this one? Oh no, he'd never seen him in this state, he was actually suffering. Jared slowly raised his head and shrugged, he couldn't talk, couldn't get himself to actually say something, what was there left to say? “OK, I get it..all the more reason to stop moping and come help us decorate that damn tree, it'll take your mind of things, and if that doesn't work then we can always go out afterwards and drink ourselves into a stupor? See, I'm full of brilliant ideas, so come on”

”So she actually replied”? Shannon was surprised to see him nod, the flames in the fire basket at the back of the garden lit up the lines on Jared's face, “yeah..she hates..no she loathes me, doesn't want to have anything to do with me” his lips turned to the thinnest line while he stared into the fire, lost in his thoughts. “Maybe she feels a bit..overwhelmed by your calls and stuff..give her a little time” he was running out of things to say, “how much time and how much space can I give her? I haven't seen or spoke to her in weeks..it's her birthday and..just the thought that she has to spend it on her own is killing me”. Jared ran his hand over his face “we'll never even get a first Christmas together”, that's when the light in Shannon's head popped on “but we're in New York then..you could go see her” he hopefully raised his eyebrows like he had found the ultimate solution. “NO!!” Jared shot up out of his seat like he was stung by a bee “forget it, I'm not going over there..I can't handle her rejection again, no, no way, no fuckin' way!” his chair toppled over as he ended the conversation by stomping back over to the house.

Harper yawned over her cup of coffee, she didn't get much sleep after what happened yesterday, no don't think about it, block it from your mind, her eye fell on the small pile of post that she had dropped on the kitchen counter after her daily walk to the bakery. Slowly she started rummaging through it, bills, bills, just when she was about to push it away again, there was a beautiful envelope with a swirly handwriting, bitten with curiosity she carefully opened it. It was a personal invitation from the owner of the biggest and most renowned art gallery of New York inviting her to his Christmas dinner/party, every year she would stare at the pictures of the same most exclusive party in glossy magazines. She kept reading as the letter was completely personalized, saying that he saw her work on Instagram and that he was looking forward to meeting her and talk about the future..whatwhatwhat? She had to re-read that last line to make absolutely sure she didn't read that wrong. Oh god, should I actually go? I don't know anyone there and going over there alone, stressssss..she took a deep breath, fuck it Harper, just go, you get this one big shot to get your work exposed so what if you're alone? Do you really want to spend christmas eve on your own again with chinese take away? Or do you put on a nice dress and get yourself out there and be around colleagues and kindred spirits? You'll meet new people, it'll be a start to move on, move away from everything that had happened, it's just dinner and you love to dance? She took a pen and filled out the rsvp card, licked the envelope, OMG I actually have plans for christmas now..she pushed herself off her chair and crawled on her scaffolding, let's finish this baby, she grinned for the first in a long time, strange how a stupid thing like an invitation could actually put the light on again.

Jared stood in front of the mirror fidgeting with that stupid bow tie, “Jared? You ready? The car is waiting” Shayla hammered on the door, sighing he walked over and yanked it open, “I would be if you would fix this bloody thing around my neck” he growled at her. Rolling her eyes she pushed him back inside the room and slowly started to tie the fabric in the right way, plucking it a little “there, you look..really handsome” as she admired her work. “Thanks” he whispered, but he knew she was lying when he looked in the mirror again, his long hair was tied back in a low messy bun and he was wearing a designer tux and on the outside none of this pain and heartache was visible except for a few extra lines on his face, but inside..he felt so empty and broken. Come on, you can do this, it's just dinner and a party, the usual small talk with friends and people he vaguely remembered from last year, pretending to be happy and alright..it's just a couple of hours, not the rest of your life. He buttoned up his jacket and nodded “let's go” before he followed her out of the room, outside it had started snowing really hard and still this big city was as loud and buzzing as ever, an umbrella was popped open above his head and he was escorted to the waiting car. Harper stood in front of the huge window and saw the cab pull up in front of her building, ok, have I got everything, purse, phone for calling a cab later on, money, credit card, cigarettes, all there, she closed her purse, quickly checked her outfit and ran out the door.

[comradeocean]

I haven't read Arya x Gendry in like ... 6 years. I caught up a bit this week. Here are some I really like! 

[30 some fic recs after the jump]

post 8x01 Arya keeps looking for reasons to visit Gendry in the forge. - mmh post episode askbox fic

Somewhere to Begin, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) The Stark sisters share a moment in the wake of some impactful reunions. - lmao my most frequently used GoT tag was "westeROS" (remember Ros???) followed by "Stark famly dynamics." So Stark sisters hashing things out... my kryptonite

Beautiful & Deadly Sharp, vlaurie17 Learning to fight with a sword were some of Arya's best memories. Sansa, however, was hesitant. “What do I do with it?” “Stick ‘em with the pointy end,” Arya smirked. Sansa just rolled her eyes, “Obviously." - also Stark sisters revisiting being Vengeance-made-girls together and practising to knife someone

I'll sing for you, Ravenclawpride06 Set post 8x1. Gendry wants it bad. Arya wants it worse. Was going to more explicit but I left it vague, felt it fit better in the end. All the pining! - I’m soft for the pining

This is my wish, crazychipmink "As he studied the drawing she had given him, he slowly began to let himself believe that she was real and alive and well. He had thought about Arya so many times that the memory of her was worn in his mind. Fragile and faded, like a piece of parchment that had been read too many times. To tell the truth, sometimes, he couldn’t even remember what she looked like, only that she was the only thing he ever wanted, ever wished for.” - season 8 episode companion fic series - ao3 tag: weapons design processes are long and require many iterations - “Davos assumed he was waiting to play his part in the great war to come, but in reality, Gendry was waiting for the next remarkable thing to happen to him. Perhaps if enough remarkable things happened to him, he would finally let himself believe that the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to him had happened.” wow ok

Who are you waiting for? crazychipmink [incomplete] "She had Arya’s face and Arya’s voice and even Arya’s smile. But despite all that, he felt like he had just spoken to a ghost. An unnatural ghost of Arya, pretending to be the girl he was in love with. Gendry had traveled to the end of the world to find her, but now that he finally had, she was gone." - the angst universe evil twin version of the fic above - we will take it bc we love to suffer - and also bc the author promises "fluff" and "eventual romance" ok sounds real but ok

the thing with feathers, yanak324 If anyone is capable of bringing the old Arya back, it’s this man in front of her, which is precisely why she must walk away. - a more (immediately) optimistic read of how Arya's in episode enactments of being No One might have gone

and in the end, jeeno2 [incomplete] Five times Gendry Waters is an idiot and the one time he figures things out. - Gendry being dumb is kind of a thing and I'm not always the biggest fan of how it plays out in fanon but this is sweet!

 The She-Wolves of Winterfell, vixleonard The pack survived. So has the Stark habit of keeping secrets. - 2nd generation Stark girls. Arya's daughter matter-of-factly saying "Stark women don't get married" - a whole ass mood.

Mid-Battle, Mary_West Sandor has something important to say to Gendry - if only Gendry can live long enough to hear it.

season 8 AU My Lady sanctuary_for_all Gendry and Arya find each other again. (AKA the plotline Gendry deserved in 7X07) - fic convention I am 100% here for: Arya scrabbling around Gendry's face looking for the seam. fic convention I am 100000% here for: Arya throwing off her glove in order to do so and then holding her hands against his cheek

Nights are for You (or Five Times Arya Visits Gendry in the Forge and One Time Gendry Visits Arya in the Castle) ASwornStark She hasn’t visited the forge since Jon returned home with the dragon bitch (the Stark sisters’ favored name for her) and him in tow. - reunion fic

season 7 Before We Jump, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) Arya Stark's bastard boys bond on their way to the Wall. - anything for some good rowing references and bastard subjectivity

earlier laughing 'till our ribs get tough (that will never be enough), belasteals "Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out of his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear." - A Storm of Swords, Arya IV (or, Gendry's POV on Acorn Hall) - real ones can't get enough of book canon and Acorn Hall.

Butcher, elephant_eyelash Gendry and Arya by the fire, discussing jacket potatoes and thinking murderous things. - perfect meditation on food and hunger and care

Dissimulo, Somnio, jeeno2 She is no one, now. But still the boy with the black hair haunts her dreams. - honestly the showrunners are cowards for not going there. let No One be Vagina Dentata Personified 2kwhenevertheBraavosiseasonsaired

post canon/canon divergent Charcoal, elephant_eyelash All about winter and feeling the cold. - weird how I'm obsessed with self-loathing and wintry alienation and the weight of history and ancestry but also devotion also love. super weird totally unexpected

Five Things Gendry Only Says in the Dark, jeeno2 Where no one else can hear him. - loneliness, shame, self-loathing. the important emotions. oh and spoiler alert some joy.

Like Wenda, Furious_Winter "...she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs." - my favourite canon AUs are Arya and Gendry with the Brotherhood and my absolute favourites of those are when they are apart (who's ever heard of a marauding smith??) but have some of miserable bittersweet understanding and they glower at each other and make each other jealous and everything is unspoken but this is it this singular love they have for each other that doesn't quite work out. I've just realized that most of these recs are highkey angsty oops. anyway, this fic is like the most complete and perfect distillation of everything I want. - also this is so richly detailed and complete in itself. immensely satisfying. - yeah ok Furious_Winter is actually the master of post canon together but not Arya/Gendry love is not always enough fics. I'm just going to recommend all of them: - The Wolf's Head Helm [The Starks are back in Winterfell and Sansa is Queen in the North. One day, Arya receives a gift from an old friend... - Arya is in Sansas's queensguard.]  - A Means To An End (incomplete) [Arya Stark has returned from Essos and has been staying at the Inn at the Crossroads. Things are not nearly as simple as she sees them. - fuck this one hurts so good] - A Bastard At Heart [Arya and Gendry marry other people for the good of the kingdom 'cause they're self sacrificing like that. the last line took me outtt]

the truth is, baby you're all that I need, belasteals “You were jealous,�� he laughed, almost shocked. “Arya Stark of Winterfell, jealous of a whore.” - sirens This One Is Not Angsty sirens

A Girl Meets a Boy, Hotpie A girl takes a face; a girl takes a lover. - possibly my favourite Crossroads Inn fic. love the Faceless Man stuff. love the detail of Needle having a smallest spot of rust, from Braavosi Steel Pox and Arya feeling a ways about it. love picking up the Melisandre thread.

So Easy To Love, Val_Creative She misses Gendry's complaining, too enthralled with staring. "You smell like Dennett's underarms," Arya murmurs, leaning in, going for blunt honesty. Gendry opens his mouth, beginning to laugh, turning uproarious and smiling. She's never seen anything more beautiful than this. More kissable than Gendry's mouth. - the summary makes it seem like it's all kissing when there is actually a big chunk of plot - in service of eventual kissing, yes, - but! spoiler alert! they don't even get to it in this fic! not exactly - maybe why I love it a lot??

With Bells in Her Hair, semicolonlife [incomplete] The further south they travel the more Gendry starts to wonder if he truly knows this woman who wears Arya Stark's face. As he begins to doubt himself more and more, Gendry becomes obsessed with the strange bells she wears in her hair. - ruthless slightly wonky Arya is my favourite Arya.

Wayfaring, Rainfallen An accidental series centered on the same basic headcanon of how Gendry found himself in the North and how Arya found her way back to it. - wolf girl Wolf Girl WOLF GIRL

Seen, sanctuary_for_all Being important matters less than who you're important to. - He wasn't sure what that verdict was, however, until she returned the unfinished sword to rest position with a deeply satisfied expression. "I am going to kill so many people with that sword." It was probably a bad sign for his long-term sanity that Gendry felt deeply complimented by that. "Happy to help." my useless heart: pikachu face - see! I like fluffy HEAs too

Hearts, sanctuary_for_all Arya comes home to her family. (Future flash) - look, I just think it's really important that even married and with children, Arya continues murdering people uwu

other AUs/misc I'll Run (Run To You), belasteals “You would rather marry a lowborn knight than a high lord, then?” She grinned, all bared teeth and sharp eyes. “I’d rather marry no one at all, else I'd not play at this mummer’s farce.” “What about the man who outruns you?” “Nobody outruns me.” (Greek mythology fusion: Arya as Atalanta, Gendry as Hippomenes. Arya vows only to marry the man who can outrun her in a footrace) - Atalanta, Mononoke, Arya. same energy.

[sorrelchestnut]

a question of motivation

Are any of my followers actually playing Greedfall?  (Aside from you, @arlathahn, I know you’ve been out there suffering along with me.)  If you are, hit me up, because I have fallen down this rabbit hole and I don’t seem to be hitting bottom anytime soon.

Which, obviously, means it’s time for some some overly-elaborate character speculation!  Because how would you even know I’m in a fandom if I’m not overthinking things, amiright?

Spoiler warning for Treason! and Kurt’s companion quests ahoy.

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I've been thinking about what causes Kurt to betray you if you don't do the Ghost Camp quest before Treason, because I finally got a chance to play through The Bad Version, and on the surface of it, it doesn't make sense.  All of the things he says to you when he doesn't betray you - that he cares about what happens to you, that he might be a mercenary but he still values his honor - aren't any less true in the world where he does.  I mean, he might agree when you call him honorless, but when you step in front of Constantin and tell him to "fight with honor" he nods and stands down the guard, and does his damnedest to oblige.  When he says, "Sorry, Green Blood," he seems to mean it; when he says, "I am proud of you - truly," he seems to mean that even more.  To all appearances, he doesn't seem to care about those things any less just because he's trying to kill you.  So why do it at all?

The narrative seems to imply that his loyalty to the Guard was stronger than his loyalty to de Sardet.  That without knowing that Torsten condoned the kind of torture that he suffered through when he was younger, he'd be willing to follow his commander's orders, even to the point of the betrayal and murder of someone he clearly cares for a great deal.  Even Sieglinde says it, when he tells her about the Ghost Camp: "You've always been a loyal person, and too many loyalties are sometimes hard to reconcile."  His loyalty to de Sardet and his loyalty to Torsten are presented as two opposing forces, the proverbial rock and a hard place, and without learning about the Ghost Camp, his loyalty to Torsten wins out.

(Okay the rest of this is going behind a cut because it got absurdly long.)

My problem with this is that it implies that, without de Sardet's intervention, Kurt is the sort of man who would blindly follow orders to the point of assassination and murder, and that… doesn't square with what you learn about him in the Ghost Camp questline.  That's exactly the sort of mindset that he's spent the last two decades struggling to leave behind.  He takes honor seriously, to the point that it's something he went out of his way to teach de Sardet alongside swordsmanship; he takes personal responsibility for the soldiers he recruits and blames himself when something happens to them.  He doesn't believe in following orders blindly: when you go to the Ghost Camp, he says, "It's not too late to refuse all of this," and, "Are you really going to obey these scoundrels?"  That's not de Sardet's influence; it's a deeply-held belief, a reaction against the violation and trauma he suffered as a youth.  I find it hard to believe that conditioned obedience could go so deep that it would override that part of his psyche.

And the thing is, if Torsten knew him at all - and it's implied that he did, especially since he targeted Kurt specifically for his weapons-smuggling scheme at the beginning of the game - there's no way he wouldn't have known that about him.  Especially since the game implies that Torsten also knew about Hermann's old training camp back in the day, which  means he'd also know how deeply Kurt's loathing ran.  If you were in Torsten's shoes, would you trust a man like that to be in charge of clandestine mission that could decide the fate of your entire endeavor?  I submit that you would not - unless you were a complete idiot, and a complete idiot does not manage to plan a three-pronged coup d'etat that nearly succeeds.

No, I think Torsten offered something that he knew Kurt couldn't refuse.  Something that he knew Kurt would want more than anything else, maybe even want badly enough to be worth betraying someone he cares about deeply.  And it wouldn't be rank, or power, or even money: despite Kurt's jokes on the subject, it's obvious that honor means a lot more to him than gold, and I doubt he’s making pennies as a legate’s personal guard anyway.  No, it'd be something that only Torsten could offer him, something he's wanted long before he even heard the name de Sardet.

I think Torsten offered him Hermann.

Hermann obviously suffered no consequences for running a fucking torture camp and calling it elite training.  Someone must have shut down the camp back in the day, because Kurt says he thought it was a thing of the past, but Hermann himself got off scot-free.  Hell, they promoted him! And you know from Kurt's final mission that Hermann is much-respected by his soldiers, some to the point of hero-worship.  Kurt had to live with the knowledge that his abuser was living the high life less than a day's travel from where he was stationed, and there wasn't a single fucking thing he could do about it, because Hermann was their golden boy, and that meant he was fucking untouchable.  Even de Sardet, if Kurt had ever been able to bring himself to tell them about it, wouldn't have had the leverage to do anything to him, not in someone else's city.

But Torsten could.  Torsten was the only person on the island with a higher rank than Hermann, and in the chaos of a coup d'etat it'd be easy for one man to disappear, especially if you were the one giving him orders.  I think Torsten went to Kurt and told him that he could have his vengeance, finally, after all these years… and all he had to do was betray the person he cared about most.

It squares with the way Kurt acts in his betrayal sequence: he's not bitter, or defiant, or proud, like he would be if he believed in what he was doing.  Mostly he just seems tired.  I think the promise of vengeance was enough to secure his agreement, to carry him through rounding up a squad of obedient young idiots too beaten down to question orders and march into the throne room…  And then he looked at these trusting young nobles, these kids he's been charged to protect, and all that promised vengeance just turned to ashes in his mouth.  Which is why, I think, he stood down the guard and fought de Sardet one-on-one: he’d trained them himself, he knew how good they were, and dying on their blade seemed a lot easier than living with the consequences of his actions.  And why, if you choose to spare him and he regains the upper hand, he turns the pistol on himself rather than pull the trigger on his best and favorite student.

On a somewhat less depressing note, it also squares with the way things play out if Kurt doesn't betray you.  Think about it: Torsten obviously heard about Kurt shutting down the Ghost Camp, but he still brought Kurt into his attempted coup anyway.  He had to at least suspect that Kurt might not be feeling cooperative: when you search Torsten's office during Treason, they even say how Torsten was hedging his bets with Kurt's loyalty.  But hedged bets or no, Torsten had to have a reason to think such a close compatriot of the legate would worth the risk of exposure.  And the only way that calculation makes sense is if he had leverage: Hermann's head on a pike, if only Kurt joins his little rebellion.  And even then, Torsten must have managed the timing very carefully; the only way that scene makes sense in a no-betrayal version is if Kurt just straight-up didn't have time to warn de Sardet between Torsten's approach and the Guard's attack.

(Relatedly: typing this out, it occurs to me that something must have happened to move up Torsten’s planned timeline.  Think about it: de Sardet had the chance to warn the other cities, even though they're like a day's travel apart, which means that the attacks weren't coordinated to occur all at the same time.  That's Rebellion 101, so something about Constantin's diagnosis must have caused Torsten to attack earlier than planned.  Maybe he figured it'd cause too much of a shake-up in the guard rotation so he had to make his move before it could happen? Maybe he found out de Sardet cleared the room, leaving them alone and vulnerable, and thought the opportunity was too good to pass up?  Either way, he clearly made his move ahead of schedule - and it came back to bite him in the ass in the worst way possible.)

Anyway, the point of this theory - besides filling in what I see as a hole in his character arc - is that it makes Kurt's decision not to betray them even more poignant.  It means it's not just a matter of picking one loyalty over another: it's him making a deliberate choice to sacrifice what might be his only chance at vengeance against the monster who ruined his life, in order to save his best (only?) friend.  That's powerful stuff! And it makes it all the more rewarding when de Sardet manages to take out Hermann anyway, unflinchingly getting their hands dirty with bribery and corruption just because Kurt asked it of them.  And afterwards – and this is the crucial part - they don't even ask him for anything in return.  It's the final and tangible proof that de Sardet deserves all the loyalty he's already given them, and contrasts all the more beautifully with Kurt's realization of how misplaced his loyalty to Torsten had been.

So.  There you have it.  My 1500-word answer to a question probably nobody but me was asking, but damned if I wasn't going to answer it anyway.