#this got real pretentious

[warlenys]

everybody dies is maybe the best tv ending ever the idea that there are people who watched it that say “oh yeah the house finale is like? fine? i guess?? it doesn’t really tie everything up though” hello?????? house is presented with every element of his life that the show has ever deemed important to him and asks “which of these, as an ending, could actually make him happy?” first is drugs. he tries heroin, doesn’t work. it’s facile. shallow. not the answer. his addiction wasn’t a choice and has only ever been destructive. it doesn’t define him. it isn’t at all what he’s living for. it can’t be his ending. second is medicine. a puzzle always gives him a buzz. but not forever. it’s superficial. inconsequential. pointless. he needs it to stave off misery, but it doesn’t fulfil him. third is love. “i know you believe in love.” but he’s fucked up every romantic relationship he’s ever had. it’s idiotic to think he could ever sustain one. it’s a fantasy. can’t be that either. fourth is suicide. an escape from all his pain and suffering. a simple resignation. but it’s empty and he’s scared of it. he doesn’t want to die, but he hasn’t found anything to live for, either. he thinks, there’s nothing, then. so he lies there, in the flames. he can’t find a solution and so resigns himself to none. he’ll let the fire choose to take him. until he realises that that’s cowardly. he has to choose his own ending. there has to be meaning to it. so maybe he’ll choose to just continue with his life, as it was, in misery. or maybe he can change. maybe if he chooses to live he can find some meaning, somewhere. maybe. so he decides to get up and leave the burning building, distantly hoping happiness is out there for him somewhere. then he sees wilson. number five. the answer is wilson. and it always has been. he’s the only thing house has been able to consistently love. the only thing that truly fulfils him. the only thing that completely defines who, at his heart, house is. and so he chooses to destroy everything else - every other reason he spent his life thinking he was living for - for wilson. it was all just transport, taking him here. to this happiness. to his happiness. to his ending. to wilson.

[metalhoops]

O how he loves you, darling boy. Oh how, like always, he invents the monsters underneath the bed to get you to sleep next to him, chest to chest or chest to back, the covers drawn around you in an act of faith against the night. - Richard Siken

“There’s something outside my window.” 

Eddie stood in the doorway, shoulders slump and slack from lack of sleep. Steve knew this routine. They’d fallen into it unexpectedly. After Eddie got out of the hospital, he’d come to stay with Steve until they could clear his name. 

They’d hunkered down in his childhood home, the wooden walls of which Steve knew inspired wild imaginings. The shadows cast from the trees on the pool mixed with the silver moonlight and danced like the hair of a dead girl on the surface of the water. They were Steve’s demons. Eddie had brought his own to the Harrington’s house of horrors. 

Steve knew paranoia. They were old partners. Paranoia crept into your bed in the dead of night, apologised for waking you, and kept you guessing with its cold feet and fitful tossing. 

“Let me take a look,” Steve uttered, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. They dangled inches from the floor but in the blackness, they might as well be hanging over the edge of a precipice. 

He strode barefoot into the hallway, feeling the chill of death in the early April air. In the daylight, the hallway was metres. In the dead of night, it was miles. Eddie trailed after him, acting as a wave in the wake of a boat. In the night, anything could look like the black water of Lover’s Lake. Eddie’s breath on the nape of his neck was all Steve needed to remind himself he wasn’t drowning. 

He surveyed Eddie’s room, switching on the lights, opening the windows, and pacing in strange circles as though mapping sigils in the floor. He checked the closet and behind the door, before he crawled under the bed and felt Eddie slide in beside him. The two were crushed together in the small space, staring at mattress slates. 

There was an intimacy in the confined darkness and a strange, childlike comfort in hiding away from some unknown yet likely imaginary force. Steve felt the rise and fall of Eddie’s shoulders, signalling the slowing of his breath. There was nothing in the darkness, not yet, not anymore. 

“Can you stay here tonight?” Eddie asked. 

It wasn’t the first time he or Steve had posed the question but usually, there was more beating around the bush. They’d both grown tired of formalities. Steve had known the second Eddie showed up at his door that they’d end the night in the same bed. He liked it, more than he cared to admit, more than he should. Like many things in his life, Steve tried not to overthink it. 

“Yeah, long as we’re sleeping on the bed, not under it.” 

“I don’t know, man. You seen the view? That dust bunny? A must-see. That dead spider—.”

“The what?” Steve cursed, shifting closer to Eddie. He felt something crawl over his exposed ankles and kicked out against the blackness. 

“Cool it, karate kid, that was a joke,” Eddie cackled as Steve continued to mutter profanities under his breath as he crawled from under the bed. 

Eddie followed Steve’s awkward little army crawl, tugging at the boy’s ankle and dragging him backwards so he could take the lead. 

“Breaker, breaker this is Eddie the Banished calling for Top Gun King, do you read me,” Eddie breathed into the palm of his hand. Reenacting some unseen scenario Steve couldn’t quite follow. 

For a moment the boy wondered what his life would’ve been like, in another world where he and Eddie had grown up together, instead of himself and Tommy. He wondered if there would’ve been more years of strange yet striking whimsey, that Tommy and by default Steve, had grown out of at a startlingly young age. 

Eddie feigned a strange and static crackle as he clambered into bed and crawled beneath the covers. Steve followed, sliding in beside Eddie. The boy nudged his side as though waiting for something. 

“Rodger?” Steve attempted lamely. 

He wished he knew how Eddie mustered up the sudden lightness. He wanted to be a part of the world the boy escaped to in the dead of night when all Steve was left with were monsters and memories. 

“I’m sorry. I’m not good at this,” He apologised seeing Eddie’s wild eyes trained on him. 

Whenever they were together, Steve couldn’t help but feel like Eddie was asking something of him without saying it. Steve wanted nothing more than to give it to him. If only he could work out what it was. 

“It’s not hard once you’ve done it a few times. You’ve just gotta learn the magic of ‘yes, and.’ Let your hair down a little bit, boy wonder.” 

“I hate to break it to you, but my hair is as down as it gets... Since, you know...” Steve gestured vaguely at himself. 

Eddie’s eyes lingered on the hollow of his collarbones and the hint of chest hair, snaking like vines beneath his low-cut shirt. Steve noticed. He was good at noticing things. In the same way he knew Vicki liked women, he knew Eddie liked men. He was startlingly good at noticing that kind of thing. 

“Don’t wear Farrah Fawcett hairspray to bed? Colour me surprised,” Eddie spoke reaching out as though to touch Steve’s hair, before letting his hand fall in the space between them, thinking better of it.

That was the thing between them. They could sleep together but they couldn’t touch each other in the way they wanted. That would be admitting to something Steve wasn’t ready to commit to. It was his own personal secret, not from Eddie but from himself. Eddie was just a bystander bearing witness to the civil war of Steve’s heart and his better judgment. 

“Say your goodbyes to Henderson because next time I see him he’s dead,” Steve whispered. 

Eddie shifted, settling down for sleep as they’d done other nights. They never talked for long. If they talked it would be an admission that the two of them sleeping together was as much for pleasure as it was for necessity. Steve lay beside Eddie feeling as though his body were a room he was outside of. 

He tried to push the surge of emotions down, as he had all other nights. He felt as though he were holding his head underwater.

The past and the present tangled like fingers through unkempt hair. Unrelated guilts intertwined inextricably. Steve felt like he was drowning, laying beside the body of a boy he wanted to cling to like a life vest, while his eyes lay locked on the black shadow beyond the half-shut curtains. The swimming pool, where a girl had been dragged deep into the blackness. Steve was back at Lover’s Lake. He was in love and he was drowning. 

“Steve, are you okay?” Eddie was on his side, looking at Steve’s profile. 

His heart had circumnavigated his chest and worked its way up into his mouth, making it hard to breathe, hijacking his ears with the erratic beat. 

He tried to use Eddie’s voice to centre himself, to detangle the threads of history from histrionics, so all that would remain was himself and a boy in a bed with hair like history repeating. Steve had hands that wanted to undo time.

He remembered years before when Nancy had been the one that’d made his heartbeat throb like an infected wound. He knew logically, the emotions were the same. He’d sunk into Nancy’s body as one wades into deep water. He wondered what it’d be like to do the same to Eddie. Moreover, what it’d be like to be the water. To be a geyser by the ocean both filling and full. 

He couldn’t breathe. 

“I think I’m dying,” Steve whispered, finding his voice fractured by the thrum of his heart. Eddie’s face shifted to a look of understanding. 

Eddie’s hand was on his cheek, turning Steve to face him. 

“Look at me. You’re not dying,’ Eddie’s voice was stern and self-assured. 

Steve wanted to believe him. He couldn’t. Eddie’s fingers drew circles in his flesh. 

“Can I show you something?” Eddie asked. 

Steve’s throat was clogged shut, still holding his haemorrhaging heart. He nodded. 

“You’ve got something behind your ear,” Eddie muttered, pulling his hand back from Steve’s face to reveal his guitar pick, held on a necklace string. A magic trick.

It shook something loose, deep inside him. He doubled over, buried his face in Eddie’s shoulder and laughed. He took gasping inhales of Eddie’s skin, breathing in cigarette ash and musky cologne.

“That was so lame,” Steve gasped when he found his voice. 

“You loved it,” Eddie argued. 

“I loved it and it was lame,” he confirmed shaking his head. 

A hush fell over the boys. Not the quiet of sleep, but the stillness of contemplation. 

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Eddie spoke, leaving it for Steve to pick up or push away. 

What was he supposed to say? ‘I want to kiss you and it scares me shitless.’ 

“I thought I saw something,” he replied lamely. 

Eddie’s brows furrowed. They both knew nothing was out there but when you’d been through what they had, some days logic wasn’t enough. It was a lie almost big enough to cover the scope of the truth. 

Eddie shifted, tucking his knee between Steve’s legs, pulling them together so the two were chest to chest, breath mingling.

“We’re fine,” Eddie said with conviction as though speaking the words could somehow make them true. 

They were back to the same old routine.  

The two boys lay crushed close together, leaving space in the sheets for all the things unspoken between them, all the vampiric night horrors that’d burn up come daylight. 

What would remain of the feelings come morning, Steve didn’t know but with his eyelids heavy and Eddie’s hand feather-light on his hip he stopped struggling against the tide of weary want and worry. He closed his eyes, leaned into Eddie’s body and let the feelings crash over his head, a wilful sort of drowning. 

[office-worker-91]

A Better Life

Imagine Gothi taking baby Sips and raising him in order to ensure that her closest friend has a good life this time.

Imagine the stumbling lost princess trying to balance foreclaimer stuff and trying to be a "normal" parent for Sips, which is both something that Sips doesn't necessarily need and something she's incapable of supplying.

Imagine Sneeze going from being the little brother to the big brother overnight, and trying to "toughen up" to keep his friend safe and happy.

Imagine the other party members coming over to visit baby Sips. Erina is a loving aunt-like figure. Gorthan is a goofy uncle. Julian just makes sure Sips doesn't get himself into trouble and die. Jack avoids him because Sips keeps biting him.

Imagine Gothi meets Vicky and has to "introduce" her to Sips, and she doesn't quite get it because she's so young and the monkey she knew before had a crocodile hand and had much more of an edge and he didn't shrink THAT much, did he? But she still loves him regardless.

Imagine Gothi missing her old friend while he sits RIGHT THERE in front of her, a helpless toddler, different and yet the same.

Imagine Sips starts to catch on that he's different, and not just because he's a monkey. His family talk about him like they know more than they reasonably should, and they also say things about him that he KNOWS aren't true. He catches them telling stories about him that he definitely doesn't remember, sighing wistfully. He has nightmares filled with scales and hands and hearts and crystals that he doesn't fully understand but that feel so REAL.

Imagine how lost Sips would feel when Gothi and the others finally tell him that this isn't the first time he's lived this life, nor is it the first time they've lived a life together. How confusing it would be to see the others talk about him like an old friend and a young child at the same time. How hurt he may feel that almost nobody important to him actually came to love him in this life, the life he can remember, the life he identifies himself by.

Imagine Sips slowly gains his memories of his old life back. They're fuzzy and lack detail, but he remembers. He remembers the love and time he shared with his fam- his friends. And he remembers the hardships. The beheadings. The loss of control. He remembers bantering with someone he views as his mother like they were- well, not parent and child. He remembers the pain he felt, and the pain he caused. He remembers, and the trauma starts to affect his life again because oh god HE REMEMBERS. But he's not on the run anymore. He's not cursed. And his frien- his family can look out for him.

Imagine Sips grows up. Some of his friends grow older with him, some don't. Gothi doesn't, and eventually they reach a similar "age." Gothi is thrilled because this is what she WANTED. She wanted her friend back, the one who she danced and fought and bickered and bantered with. She wanted her friend to have a better life, and he HAS one. But everything's not the same, because Sips is just as much a baby monkey she raised as he is her old friend. And they both get confused by this, and for a while they stumble through their dynamic. But eventually they reach stability. Something unfamiliar, but not different.

Imagine that everything isn't perfect and nothing's the same, but Sips gets a chance to live his life, without curses or gods screwing it up for him, with the people he loves so much.

[13eyond13]

actually stunned by how gay The Beatles has been all this time and I just never knew

[crayonurchin]

Whoops I just realised Cammie would be the punkest kid ever

He doesn't yell, he doesn't hit, he doesn't like to hurt, but he's also going to deface every expensive and visually important thing he can in the name of justice and activism.

He's still my little vagabond painter baby but also yeah he's 10000% punk as hell and turns all his indignation of suffering into something those in charge can't ignore

[thewitchqueen281]

I know a lot of people liked the show but also a lot of people liked fallout 4 so idk if any of you mfs can be trusted

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Human pet guy showed up on my dash again (via puppy play sick skateboard tricks post) and I decided to look at what he was up to these days, and

what do you mean he was born in 1995?

[fideidefenswhore]

have you watched succession hbo?

of course. the tudors (showtime) ran so that succession (hbo) could walk

[robotsafari]

was trying to see if i could outclass a triple-a unreal engine game in the whimsy department (i think i did.)

[quicktimeeventfull]

Animal Games A Lawlight Gone Girl AU (Part Two) Part One 7.4k words Read on AO3 L has moved his lovely, vile, and entirely batshit husband out of their beautiful Brooklyn brownstone into a Missouri suburb, then left him to his own devices. He is under the impression that this is going to end well. In this part: Light gets to say his piece. Content notes: Deals substantially with concerning age dynamics, as well as racism and homophobia; a few slurs are present. Light is as vile as ever. Past childhood abuse is discussed. Suicide is repeatedly invoked, albeit in a way that parallels Gone Girl. There's some arguably disordered eating. Thank you so much to @lightyaoigami for doing so much research and holding hands in worldbuilding and character creation! Everything about New York comes from Monica, and so do all the designer clothes, L's midlife crisis car, and a great deal of the characterization. Monica did so much that it's honestly kind of hard to describe all of it; imo all the best parts of this fic come from her.

I gave him a chance to save himself. You understand this.

I know he's going to make himself out to be the fucking victim in all of this because he always has to be the victim. Oh, poor me, I grew up in foster care and I never got the stable, white-picket-fence life that no one else has in the first place -- come the fuck on. What does that have to do with anything?

I had a perfectly nice life in Brooklyn. I had friends. Friends don't come easily to me, I'll admit that, but I made them anyway. I had a beautiful little apartment in Cobble Hill with real brick walls and portes-fenêtres that opened onto a wrought-iron Juliette balcony and a coffee shop a three minute walk away where I could drink real espresso and eat honey-lemon cornmeal cake and do the work he thinks is so pathetically beneath me which by the way, it isn't. I liked it. It was my job. He worked for a fucking fashion magazine, for god's sake. He wrote about pants and peplums. It wasn't exactly hard-hitting news.

It isn't as if I didn't earn any of what I had because I grew up in a two-story.

Why should I have to throw all of that out because he thought it might be nice to have a lawn when he was seven years old? [continue]

[imflyingfish]

Its weird because i dont actually have much of a desire to move to france or use french reguarly in my life but at this point ive deadicated over a year to learning it so i might as well keep going and finish

[spoondrifts]

this'll be the summer i remember that i'm a person in the world i just know it

[spokelseskladden]

I've read more books this month than I've done in three years i think

[capaldiera]

someone needs to hire me to write and direct a james bond tv show so i can make a hannibal-level artistic sex scene dream sequence between madeleine and vesper. no i don't have any experience in the film/tv industry

[cryptojuice]

take this with a grain of extremely drunk but at this point I'm my journey? now? I'm like literally the idealest person in the world and I think everyone else has something wrong with them

[alister312]

wah