#trying to get better about my work/life balance but also i don't want to screw over this new girl

[lettuce-gremlin]

Hrm.... they moved where I was working today so I technically don't have to come in until a half hour later... but also I think the only other person working today in the position I was moved from is the girl who's only been here for like a week... Debating coming in at 8 if only to give her a little bit of help for that first half hour...

[templeofvengeance]

15, 20, 32 and 35

42 character development questions!

15. What kind of inner life do they have — rich and imaginative? Calculating and practical? Full of doubts and fears? Does it find any sort of outlet in their lives?

Trying to imagine how a god thinks is impossible to answer. Of those, I guess I'd say he's calculating and practical. He spends basically all of his time watching humans and deciding how to act accordingly, what's worth his time, what gets him the most bang for his buck vengeance-wise, what might lead to bigger problems if he ignores them, etc. His Avatars end up being his outlet unfortunately, it's not like he has much else to fire off his feelings at. (Besides knocking over trash cans.)

I think Khonshu is overall pretty cynical, assuming the worst out of people, because... well, he's fixated on taking vengeance on the worst of humanity for basically-ever. (See: 'Don't give the body to Steven, he won't return it.') But he still defends their ability to make those choices, and also seems to be pretty overconfident in his own abilities. (Again, probably necessary for a God of Vengeance. People do wrong, but I, Khonshu, will set them straight. It just becomes funny when his overconfidence is about convincing the Ennead to help him, which he fucks up so badly that it leads to him getting sealed in stone later.)

20. What kind of individual relationships do they have with others, and how do they behave in them? How are they different between intimate relationships like friends, family, and lovers versus more impersonal relationships?

Oh god okay--

Khonshu's burned a lot of bridges by the end of the series, almost everyone he knows wants nothing to do with him now (Marc, Steven, Layla), or never wanted anything to do with him but might have to have some awkward talks with him now. (Ennead.) Khonshu has no lovers, and let's just say his family relations are extremely bad.

So let's talk about the one guy Khonshu has directly called his friend, sarcastically or not. (I've said I'm not confident in my Jake portrayal so y'know. I'm gonna keep on being vague with things a bit.)

Khonshu and Jake are in a balance of mutual gain and secrecy, one they both know is going to get ugly fast if the scales tip too far in either direction. Jake doesn't want his existence revealed to the others yet-- neither does Khonshu-- and revealing one inevitably reveals the other. Jake is Khonshu's last line connecting him to the other two, and that's leverage he can use-- he knows full-well Marc is the one Khonshu really wants. Khonshu has his own leverage (or rather, Jake has his reasons for being willing to work with him) but Jake's is stronger. That earns him a lot that Marc didn't have.

In other words, this is a less one-sided relationship. So shockingly, they manage to get along better, if a bit tense around the edges. Khonshu has grown to appreciate Jake's merits more over time, being forced to talk to/work with him exclusively rather than fixate on Favorite Child Marc. Jake, well... he's not under any illusions, he doesn't trust the bird as far as he can throw him, but as long as he doesn't feel like screwing them both over for nothing, this new status-quo isn't too bad.

32. Do they have any “props” that are a significant part of their life, identity, activities, or self-presentation somehow? What are they, how are they used, and why are they so significant? How would these props’ absence impact them, how would they compensate, and why?

His staff.

Calling it a 'prop' is accurate but a little weird, because this is a literal part of him in the same way the floating-skull-head is. All of how Khonshu appears is a mental projection, including the staff-- it's not like he just found it on the ground one day and started carrying it. It's a manifestation of his power and might, and he's pretty attached to holding it.

35. How and why do they internalize knowledge? What effect has that had on them?

Dunno if this is quite the question, but: Khonshu has a photographic memory. He can recall everything he's seen for as long as he's existed with perfect clarity. (See: 'I remember every night.') Being able to manage that for four billion years without going nuts is probably a God Thing, though I imagine he has some kind of system in place in his head to keep present-stuff at the forefront of his mind and not get bogged down in the past.

[creature-wizard]

Hi, literally just found your blog. I learned about LOA last year and, as someone already practicing a form of spirituality, took some of the good tip of the iceberg stuff and (mostly) forgot about it for about a year. I got back into it recently to revisit everything and see if there's anything that works for me that I can/want to add to my practice, so I decided to actually interact with the community for the first time. I did for about a week or two. After a few posts/comments I saw and engaged with, I thought, "Boy, this is starting to sound like a cult." As someone into spirituality who still has their head screwed on, I try to see the balance in things. Sometimes, I fuck up and I'm wrong about something. They don't feel the same way. I have seen an abundance of victim blaming, reality denial, and delusion. They basically all sit in this metaphorical circle and collectively gaslight each other. "Sure, you can bring family back from the dead, it's just that we have limiting beliefs around death, so it might not work. Sure, you can have this house tomorrow. Actually, if this didn't work- check your limiting beliefs (it's all your fault if this doesn't work. We're limitless). You can absolutely get access to the person who doesn't want to sleep with you. They want you, duh, it's done. Of course you can change this man's sexuality and have him want to be with you. He's your SP. Free will? Oh, don't worry about it. No one can manifest YOU without your consent (except when they do) because that's not YOUR reality." But also, "I mean, I can't give you proof, cause I'd witness it in my reality, but maybe you wouldn't in yours." Convenient. No matter what, they're right because they say so. I disagree? I don't get it, I should read NG's stuff to understand better. Hear me out, some of this can absolutely be helping people on a spiritual and psychological level, but in moderation. Something needs to be said about the toxic positivity, blind following, and comple gaslighting and delusion happening in this community. The way they respond to criticism feels so sinister to me. It's weird. I feel like it's easy for a lot of people who are desperate as a result of their circumstances or have trauma/poor self seem to get stuck there. It kind of reminds me of the whole "You were awful in a past life, so now this happened to you. There's no good or bad, just how you perceive it" in response to someone talking about their trauma. I believe in reincarnation, but this is an unhinged thing to say. LOA folks do the same, only you "manifested" it. Disagreeing with them and trying to have a discussion is just you going around in circles. It was a ridiculous experience.

Yup, it's victim-blaming and wild irrationality all the way down, and all for what? Belonging to a social circle full of the most toxic assholes you could possibly hope to meet on this site?

(Also it's not technically delusion, since that's an actual symptom of certain mental disorders. It's just regular cult irrationality.)

[poppyandzena]

Poppy: "Spawn is an adult you guys, you need to stop treating saying I'm doing child abuse because they were an adult." Also Poppy: "Anyways yes we had a schedule for Spawn. People with ADHD work best with schedules, this is proven!! Spawn just couldn't complete it cause they were dicking around." As someone with ADHD, while schedules can help, it's not the end all, be all. I would say most of all it requires some flexibility and understanding. Poppy insists that schedules are proven to help people with ADHD, therefore it's good that they forced a schedule onto Spawn, and yet even when they talk about it they talk about how the schedule didn't work for Spawn and... well, blame Spawn for it not working. Almost as if they have disabilities that make their life a bit harder to keep to a schedule or something 乁( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ㄏ When I was a child, my 'schedule' for the day was basically this: school, come home and do homework, do three chores (written down on the fridge for me to complete because I legit couldn't remember when I was verbally told what chores to do the night before), and after that I was able to do whatever I wanted. I don't think regimented schedules help someone with ADHD, I think having certain things scheduled (such as a few chores, homework since it was important for school, etc) while also allowing for downtime is the best way to go. Even as an adult, there are certain things I try to keep to a schedule (certain days dedicated for chores, all bill due dates are written on a calendar and checked off as the month goes on, specific errands like groceries) but I also understand that some days I'm gonna wake up, have a bad brain day where I can't really do everything I want to do (and sometimes I can only really do one big thing a day), and I give myself the grace and understanding while also keeping in mind what is most important to get done. It's a balancing act. It's delicate. It's hard work. Every time I see the way Poppy talks about Spawn I just hope more and more that they're doing so much better without her... and I hope Poppy never gets to be in contact with them ever again.

I have ADHD and anxiety. Flexibility is best. I forget to eat more than I eat in general. My mental health improves when I'm given more control of my surroundings and my choices. My work gives me enough framework without dominating my life like I'm a sim without autonomy.

Us ADHD people work in what I call loopholes or cheats. I hate brushing my teeth so I brush my teeth in the shower to get it all done in one place. Or if I can't shower before I go to work, I have little disposable toothbrushes and sugar free gum in my desk. I hate the act of eating or preparing food. So instead of screwing myself over by making something I won't finish, I drink V8 100s since they're cheaper than the Naked brand and contain vegetables and fruits I wouldn't bother preparing on their own. I don't even own a bin for my food waste since I know I will procrastinate taking out the trash and stink up my home, so food waste is sent to the trash chute. I keep non-perishable snacks in reach so my blood sugar doesn't completely bottom out when I forget to eat.

Spawn is doing fine living without Zena and Poppy--not because they were "never disabled." They are very disabled. You know what disables you further? Having to do endless lists of labor that last for hours, sometimes without a working AC and little food in your body as your parents shame you for not "doing it quick enough." Being made to skip meals because you "missed your time." Having YOUR sports drinks consumed when you need those to keep your sodium up. Being barred from going to the bathroom for hours at a time. Being shamed for staying in your room but being screamed at by Zena for existing within ten feet of them. Having the internet cut off on purpose and then having to grovel to turn it back on when you need it to look for a job, as your parents bitch at you for not having a job.

[ambersoon]

Why do fucking parents tend to disregard their kids or try to listen on their kids conversations with me. It really sucks because I'm sit there and I try the best I can to challenge my kids but also not make them feel like they're horrible people. One kid I work with is such Rosie colored glasses about the world everything's fine everything's great he's doing great he's doing fine and we have talked about this many many times but he chooses that view of the world and he never challenges that our checks in with himself to actually see if he's actually doing great. And when I find out from Mom that he's always doing horrible he's never doing anything correctly he does everything horribly like she has this black colored glasses view of himself and I have seen some of the pictures that he has done and his room and I'm just like well well what are you doing to help him rather than scream at him or yell at him or disparage him no kids going to want to do anything when all they hear is negative things about themselves no wonder he has a rose colored glasses a view about the world. And I tried to challenge him on his thinking but it's not my job to fix him or make him see what he's doing wrong he has to see what I'm giving him and take it and use it and then change I can't change him it's not my job as a therapist that's not my role as a therapist that is not who I am and what I do. If you're so worried about what I'm trying to say to your kid if you're so worried about what is going on with him why don't you talk to me more about it instead of like be so much asparaging to him yelling at him and telling he's a horrible person that he'll never make it I know he is not doing well at school I knew it because of the mom but I keep getting Rose Colored Glasses and that he's catching up and then he's doing this and he's getting better he's handling it more but that's this kid and she's saying he's lying to me but he's more lying to himself and he does it all the time and then when some little spat happens at the place he's staying and he can't handle it he does run home and which is what she wants she wants to take care of him she wants to be there for him and have him there and have him there for the rest of her life because she needs him just as much as he needs her it's like codependency relationship I have in another case that I have but people don't understand that. I think this kid also wanted his video games that's why he is comfy at home because his video games are his stuff is there he's not going to handle the situation of being on his own and I could see it but his mom didn't see it because she's the issue of it but she's more negative than positive like my other case. She's less supporting of him and more like he is a horrible person he can never do anything right. And I am trying my hardest to make this kid see the light of day but I can only do so much I can only get so much past the Rose Colored Glasses and when those glasses are tightly screwed into his eyeballs and Mom has those black colored smokey eye glasses and those are screwed into her eyeballs and that's all they see and she's not willing to work with me to take them off and try to work with him there's only so much I can do being a therapist is not very easy it's a balancing act it's allying with the client that's the child but now so not alienating them from their parent and it sucks cuz I really want this kid to do well but I also want Mom to see he has potential if she only just being more positive about him

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

i've had enough time to stew in it now that i can have thoughts that are more coherent than just pointing at a goat and going "SON... H-HIM SON......" so that being said, here are some of those More Coherent Thoughts in very excruciating and unnecessary detail

the first time i'd played chapter 1 (on the very day it came out), i'd been so focused on trying to figure out how it connected to undertale that i ended up not focusing much at all on the new story and characters, and since i never went back and replayed it at that time, all i remembered was that uncanny feeling of seeing all these characters you know, similar but slightly off... i do remember having enjoyed the game but it didn't stick out much in my memory.

THIS TIME THOUGH. this time i said "SCREW the undertale references, i am playing this as its OWN GAME and not thinking about undertale AT ALL smh" and i am so glad i did. what the hell. i can't say definitively that deltarune is better than undertale for me, since there are only two chapters so far so i'm withholding judgement, but it's got me in as least as much of a deathgrip if not more. undertale was the warm up, the foundation, and now deltarune is building on that and exploring new aspects and--

listen. i played through these the most pacifist i possibly could, and i was thinking "wow, how incredibly cutesy and fluffy this game is" and then i looked up the weird route and secret bosses and started thinking about certain moments of the game and oh my gOD. never mind about cutesy and fluffy, this game is terrifying (positive).

(no, i haven't done the snowgrave stuff myself, i'm not strong enough. it took me 6 years to work myself up to being able to play the genocide route in undertale so it's probably going to take me just as long here. i can't bring myself to hurt noelle like that.) (i did go back and fight jevil and spamton neo though lmao)

i'm loving the exploration of kris's lack of autonomy and the cost of taking back control. they're just some weirdo depressed teenager and i desperately want to give them their life back, but then again, the influence of the player controlling them has undeniably had a positive effect on them (dark world adventures, making new friends), and they were so freaked out when they saw what happened to spamton once he gained his "freedom" and cut his strings and what that cost him...

oh my god kris is a sentimonster-- *gets dragged offstage and microphone yanked out of my hand*

i hope we can balance it by the end of the game. you know how susie can't be controlled or manipulated, but chooses to listen to kris's advice in battles because she wants to help, and will disregard the advice if she thinks it's stupid? well, i hope the outcome with us and kris can end up similar -- not controlling them against their will, but providing support and suggestions as a more benevolent entity and not doing things that will hurt kris, and they can ultimately make the final decisions on how they want to act. eventually they can shed us entirely. it would be a nicer outcome than making us feel guilty for playing the game at all, when we didn't get a choice in becoming the soul that controls kris either, our own vessel was discarded at the beginning against our will and everything. i think it would be cool if we didn't necessarily have to be the villain!

(except in the weird route, i think we should be the villain there and kris has to break away from us, it would be sick as hell)

it's just so exciting finding out more about kris, because back in undertale we barely knew anything about frisk aside from their name, and sure we can speculate that without our influence frisk would have naturally done the pacifist route but we don't technically know that... instead now, with kris, we get not just the "this is the character you're controlling" of frisk but also the "they had their own life before you showed up and have their own personality" of chara! kris even seems to be quite a troubled kid, like chara! which of course doesn't make either of them evil, they're just screwed up and that's fine, i'm dying on that hill

okay enough comparing things to undertale

KRIS AND SUSIE'S FRIENDSHIP IS EVERYTHING TO ME. *lies down.* the Look susie gives kris when saying "let's go back there tomorrow, alright?" got to me, okay? it got to me. the sudden realisation of "get away. from my. friend." the parallels of the first chapter starting with susie putting her hand on kris's shoulder only to then lift them up and slam them into the locker and threaten to bite their face off, and then at the end of the chapter she puts her hand on their shoulder again but this time to give them the Look and say she wants to go on another adventure with them auuuughhh

susie's character development is fantastic honestly. she starts off a bully, because she already expects that people don't like her and want her to go away, she was always fine with noelle because noelle was pre-emptively kind to her by lending her a pencil, everyone else just found her scary and wanted to avoid her regardless of what she did...

and then lancer is impressed by her scariness and wants to learn from her! she has someone actually looking up to her and praising her for things that other people always found creepy and unpalatable! she becomes protective of him, she learns that ralsei is right in that violence isn't always the answer and sometimes makes things worse, and then kris protects her with their life, and susie happily repays the favour, calling kris her friend, and revealing her eyes for the first real time... *lies down harder*

okay no it's so good because KRIS did that. that was not us, the player, choosing to save susie, that was kris on their own. they love going on dark world adventures with her, they want to eat moss and chocolates with her, they hang out after school, they want to go to the festival with her, they love susie-flavoured tea, they want to hug her and wear her jacket, they have a sleepover together watching monster movies... kris genuinely cares deeply about susie completely outside of our influence. we can make whatever choices we want *cough cough i will never stop hugging ralsei* but kris wants susie in the end. and they will defy possession and control and fate and whatever else to show it to us as much as they can.

and it's perfect because they're both WEIRD. they're WEIRDOS. they're a creepy, weird, offputting duo who do weird stuff like eat moss together. they really get each other. i am so incapable of being normal about them. susie can't be controlled and always just does whatever she wants and that's so understandably appealing to someone who is suffering from being controlled like a puppet. kris doesn't judge susie and is always up for going on adventures with her and spending time with her, and that's something susie desperately needs from a lifetime of being feared and pushed away by people.

susie is also just badass as hell. i need to say that. she's just the coolest character. she has the best music. when her hair covers her eyes you just KNOW someone's about to get wrecked. like that scene when monster kid and snowy are dissing kris, and susie is having NONE OF IT and immediately switches back into her bully self to go scare them, except this time she's doing it to defend kris!!! my heart!!!

i love how she also starts being more physically affectionate with them as time goes on? putting her hands on their shoulders and giving them Soft Looks i'm weak, punching them in the arm, grabbing them and shaking them like a ragdoll (i'm sorry it's FUNNY okay), grabbing their arm and running off dragging them after her, maybe someday they'll hug... ugh they're too good. i need to shut up about them i'm sorry. let's move on.

NO WAIT ONE MORE QUICK THING HANG ON so i caught up on the spamton sweepstakes and looked at noelle's blog posts and the one about kris and susie is SO iconic i can't even put it into words. literally every single part of it is absolutely legendary while simultaneously being hysterically funny. the entire conversation and the thing about the apple and epic gamer reaction speed. like it is SUCH a power move that i take back what i said about susie being the coolest character because actually it's kris, kris is the coolest character.

seriously though you get the vibe that they were already so close to just going "screw it" and becoming best friends, that's how good the dynamic already was. susie trying sooooooo hard to bully kris (like that "bully makes sure to bully you with your correct pronouns" meme) but it never works bc kris just finds it funny and does stupid stuff like bite into the apple susie was threatening them with. listen the dark world adventures just accelerated the inevitable okay, they were absolutely going to become besties at some point regardless. platonic tension or whatever if that exists. it was going to happen. and it is hilarious.

what did kris even say that freaked susie out so much? probably something like "at least i have a mother", but also i like the shitpost suggestions like "cringe" or "i know u have a tail" or "sounds like you need some updog" or "you wanna kiss me so bad it makes you look stupid" or-- you know, something that dealt her 99999999 psychic damage

okay NOW i'm done, moving on

ralsei is a good and excellent and precious little bean and i do not think he is secretly evil or anything like that. and even if he was, i would just support him because he deserves it. i'm a flowey enjoyer, i can handle it.

listen, i know he's suspicious, i know he's hiding something, but... does that really make him evil? i genuinely think he has the best of intentions and is trying to do the right thing, even if it may have unforeseen and unintended negative consequences. that doesn't make him evil!!! he's just a little guy!!!! a sweet little peach who we love to see!!!!! he didn't have any friends before kris and susie showed up, in fact he was all alone for god knows how long, so even if he's awkward or reacts in an unusual way at certain times, how are we expecting him to have people skills when he's never been around, yknow, people?? he just wants to make everyone happy! he loves his friends!

and he's not asriel shut up shut up shut up he can be as lovey dovey with kris as he wants

i always feel the slightest bit bad whenever i pick the "hug ralsei" options, because kris might be weirded out by it... i don't think they necessarily dislike him, but they don't know him that well, and in any case he's a goat which might remind kris of their family?

but then again part of ralsei's arc (aside from learning that sometimes violence is needed) seems to be him gaining an identity of his own outside of his assigned purpose. darkners are supposed to make lightners happy, and ralsei has the prophecy stuff to take care of on top of that, and he's a people-pleaser and very much a doormat, but in the boat scene he confesses he doesn't really know who he himself is and maybe wants to figure that out. i think his time hanging out alone with susie in that chapter helped a lot actually -- he taught her a healing spell, she taught him sarcasm, and he came to realise that what he loves about susie is her personality, even though she's not friendly or kind like he is. so he's realising he doesn't need to just submit to everyone else's wishes in order to be a person, or for them to like him.

(side note, the susie and ralsei duo are SO UNDERRATED. the bit when ralsei heals susie by hugging her and then she drags him off with her because she wants to learn it herself! you see them having fun and eating candyfloss together! the glasses scene!! the glasses scene!!! susie also ate some of the dummy's clothes!!! they love each other's tea flavours!!!!!! GOD they're good.)

i've seen people suggesting that since darkners are personfications of objects or digital things in the light world, ralsei could be the manifestation of kris's old horn headband and therefore the desire to fit in and be accepted by those around them. i like that theory a lot tbh, because first of all ralsei is a goat with a very goat-family name (probably why he always reminds people of asriel lmao), and kris is a lone human in a goat family and town full of monsters. ralsei also always tries his hardest to be kind and friendly and make people like him -- the desire to be accepted.

if this were true, kris's mixed feelings about him could make a lot of sense. ralsei would be the personification of something that kris failed to be, no matter how hard they tried. kris is a human, and a weirdo who people don't care much for, and they definitely can't fit in. seeing ralsei might be a painful reminder of an ideal they just couldn't live up to. on the other hand, i think it's sweet that ralsei adores kris so much, because it shows that even this idealised version of kris is not disappointed at seeing what the real kris turned out to be -- he still loves kris all the same! it's kind of like, uh, a weird screwy self-love thing if you look at it like that?

or maybe ralsei knows about the player... god, i don't even know. maybe he chases us away during the susie and noelle scenes so he can talk to kris without us there. maybe he feels guilty at getting all these cuddles and that (SHIPPY AS HELL HELLO???) boat ride tunnel of love scene, because he's aware it might not be what kris actually wants and might even weird them out... i have no clue what he's up to and we're not far enough into the story that i can even speculate without it being wild conjecture that i'm making up in my head based on literally nothing lmao i'm just gonna stop talking about ralsei now this has gone on for way too long

noelle is such a crunchy and interesting character and the fact that you can torture her into becoming your minion in the weird route is so horrifying, i'm actually kind of morbidly obsessed with it. i can't look at the word "proceed" the same way ever again. she also knows kris the best so you get so much insight into kris's character through noelle's interactions with them!

like the fact that the two are childhood friends, and have a level of comfort and familiarity with each other that shows their established bond. you can make kris prank noelle and she'll laugh and do it back, which is WILD when you consider how noelle is usually quite meek and shy. but she's completely comfortable with kris!! you have to throw copious amounts of mice at her even in the good route, and there's the whole cheese incident, but it never damages noelle's opinion of kris since she's already used to kris trolling her all the time! they may not have been close for some years now, but their interlinked pasts give them both a deep level of trust for each other! their conversations are so candid and fun and it's great to see how happy noelle is if you choose to have kris call her a friend!!!! i love them i love them

(i wonder what happened to dess... why am i reminded of a certain plot point in omori? i'm not spoiling omori unprompted here but all i'll say is if you know, you know.)

also this is not relevant to anything at all but i love that sweet capn cakes decide to play music for noelle and it's JINGLE BELLS. her christmas theme is on point. merry christmas to noelle holiday and her family only, by the way.

anyway, the weird route -- it's extra horrifying because noelle already was suffering (her dad's ill and dying, her sister is no longer around, her mum is very strict) and now you force her to kill and kill and push her to even kill her best friend, and the only thing that can keep her sane is telling herself it's just a dream, but then you shatter that for her too... when you face the final boss in later chapters, would having an OP snowgrave noelle as your minion in the final battle basically be a substitute for not having recruited npcs to help you? will noelle herself be the final boss? i'm really intrigued to see what will happen with her in future chapters on different routes.

oh and kris is just horrified??? they can't stop you, they're forced to torture their old friend like this and witness berdly's death, and also forced to push noelle into this extremely screwed up relationship, making her kill someone to steal a ring, and then later giving her another ring with thorns that cause her pain... oof. i mean it's one way of making noelle romanceable i guess? but at what cost... the [[Hyperlink Blocked]] was NOT worth it 😔...

more cheerful stuff now. noelle's blogposts in the spamton sweepstakes have been giving me life. bless her, she should just write a book. it's so adorable how she describes things, like creepy glitches she finds in video games, and her very sweet and obvious crush on susie, which makes a lot of sense when you find out that noelle likes things that scare her. (though i guess that makes the weird route even more twisted in a way...)

(also, does... does everyone have a crush on susie? just all of them? good for her i guess! i know i lean more towards krusie if it wasn't obvious but honestly i'm cool with like literally any combination of kris, susie, ralsei, noelle, heck berdly too. chapter 2 felt like a fricking dating sim at some points. the acid tunnel of love, the ferris wheel scene, the festival choice... ah, teenagers, lmao. i'd be cool if none of it was canon by the end either, i'm a friendship stan at heart.)

i wasn't intending to go on this long but now i can't shut up so a few other things i love about this game. first of all, BERDLY. i'm sorry but the haters are just Wrong, berdly is the best. like i'm sorry, we all (correctly) stan susie despite her threatening to bite people's faces off and beating people up all the time, yet people draw the line at the Mildly Annoying But Mostly In A Funny Way guy?? seriously, his annoyingness is just funny!! he's so over the top that it wraps round into comedy! i can't be the only person who thought so, right?

and then his backstory made him relatable... far too relatable... *cough cough* ahem, er, anyway. i also love how he genuinely values his friendship with noelle so much (and noelle cares about him too, so there). he does the polar opposite of Nice Guy behaviour -- he's not interested in noelle like that, but mistakenly thought that she was (HAROLD....), and was worried that it would mess up their friendship, since he DOES adore her and didn't want her to feel let down. he even apologises for it, bless him. and then he gets throttled lmao

and in the weird route he freaks out when he sees what "kris" is doing to noelle and tries to legit help her and then HE JUST FUCKING DIES. YOU HAVE TO MAKE NOELLE MURDER HIM. ARE YOU KIDDING. YOU HAVE TO FORCE HER INTO KILLING HER BEST FREAKING FRIEND AND THEN AT THE END OF THE GAME IN THE LIBRARY HE DOESN'T WAKE UP. NOELLE IS IN DENIAL AND THINKS HE'S ASLEEP BUT LATER YOU MAKE IT CLEAR TO HER THAT IT WASN'T A DREAM SO SHE'LL KNOW THAT SHE KILLED BERDLY. THAT'S SO MESSED UP WHAT THE FUCK

hmm what else... oh yeah, queen is fantastic and i love her. not only is she hilarious, it's also sweet that she really does care about noelle (sweetie honey gravy etc) even if she's somewhat misguided, and she comes round in the end. and the scene where she's drunk and leaning on kris overdramatically like "you GET me, kris, you don't do things like have opinions or scream when i capture you..." is peak comedy to me, i'm obsessed. i also love the punch out fight against her.

lancer is so cute, he is the baby brother of the group. i always name them the lancer fan club because that's the objectively best choice. if anything happens to him i will kill everyone in this game and then myself. the scene where susie is fighting him broke my heart, i immediately launched myself directly into the bullets because i couldn't bear it and then he SWERVED TO AVOID IT because he didn't want to hurt susie even with her threatening to kill him. heck, poor my poor baby boy is too good.

when asriel comes back from uni i'm going to lose my entire mind. he was my fav in undertale and i can't wait to see what he's like when he's not, um, yknow, an evil flower who's like 8 years old. kris seems to miss him a lot and i bet he misses them too, they seemed very close. i hope asriel forgives himself for throwing yoshi in the pit.

SANS DELTARUNE GET AWAY FROM MY MOTHER. I'LL DESTROY YOU. I KILLED YOU IN UNDERTALE AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN IN DELTARUNE, DO YOU HEAR ME? GET DUNKED ON BINCH 🔫

the music is, as always, top tier. every time i hear that little "don't forget, i'm with you in the dark" theme that's all over the soundtrack i feel like a genius for noticing it lmao, even though it's obvious. i still don't know if that line is supposed to be a comfort or a threat. maybe both?

*sigh* guess i have to talk about spamton, since he's the game's tumblr sexyman and, well, i am on tumblr. at first i didn't care about him much because i forgot to go back and visit his shop after the first encounter so i mostly forgot about him entirely. later i went back and redid the first chapter so i could beat jevil (who was really hard to beat and took forever), so i also redid chapter 2 to fight spamton neo (who was nowhere near as hard to beat) and hooooo boy

the music and atmosphere in his shop is just... terrifying? kris clearly thinks so, with the massive "ESCAPE" and "RUN AWAY" buttons, and yet you're forcing them to go there alone and accept shady deals from this shady guy. as a whole, the chapter gives me very childhood internet vibes, which is nice and rather nostalgic, but the spamton side also makes it creepy somehow, reminding you of the dark corners of 90s/00s internet.

in the basement i beat the teacups of doom on the first try and i will be flexing about this forever

the puppet thing... do i even need to say anything? spamton trying so hard to gain his freedom only to drop dead when his strings are cut. what does that say about kris, who is also being puppeteered? no wonder they freaked out afterwards... the whole experience must have been so unsettling for them and we really just made them do that against their will, when they didn't have to. i'm glad susie and ralsei rushed in to help and didn't let kris go through that alone. (except in the weird route, poor kris...)

i wonder what [[Hyperlink Blocked]] is or if we'll even find out. at first i was thinking it could be freedom, like kris wanting to take back control of their life, but the thing is, spamton does openly mention freedom at some points. i've seen people suggest that maybe it's love -- the double meaning of love, and LOVE as in "level of violence" from undertale? it could make sense, since kris is lonely now that their brother is gone and probably does want people around who care about them, and we know that spamton is lonely too. he even does that "alone on a friday night? god you're pathetic" thing skjgkslkjgekrkgesrn

it makes the weird route even more cursed of course... you push kris and noelle into their toxic relationship through lots and lots of murder, so they gained love, but also LOVE =) sorry sorry i'm still sometimes an evil aro who thrives off negative or toxic portrayals of love in media, to show that it's a neutral emotion and isn't inherently a force for good unless you actively choose to make it one and choose to make your love a good thing, it can just as easily go the other way and be bad, it isn't a magic fix-all

okay that's enough. that's not nearly everything i have to say, but i need to exercise some restraint because we're only on chapter TWO good grief how am i already this obsessed. toby why is this free, just let me pay for it man, you've more than earned it.

finally caught up on deltarune, several years too late. here are my thoughts

[letstalkabouttvshows]

RNM, 4x01

I loved this episode.

It was a solid season premiere, way more balanced than previous episodes and it's sad to know this is the last season when it feels like RNM finally found its way.

I didn't even dislike Maria in this episode 😲 Although it seems like she is gonna be a pain about losing her powers so she can live. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Let's wait and see how the writers gonna make her deal with all of that.

Maybe last season will be it to make Maria likable again?

But anyways, I'm sad for Kyle. The guy has been working nonstop as a way to avoid Iz, obviously. 💔

I still don't know how Isobel hasn't picked up on Kyle's feelings for her. I assume eventually she will and that might give us the funniest and sweetest scenes ever.

Her and Anatsa relationship it's not very convincing.

I think Anatsa would be a great addition to the show if they had time to develop her story arc. Which I'm assuming they won't. The I love you felt rushed and I'm sure soon enough the relationship will be over and forgotten.

Although it's seems she'll stick around until episode 4. 😳🤔

Max trying to propose was ... something. I never got the wedding feelings for Echo as their happy ending. Liz always wanted to see and do. For me, a better ending for them would be living their lives out of Roswell, together.

But, as Liz said, she'll say yes when the time is right. 💞

Speaking of timing, the introduction to the new characters was so well done.

The Tezca character (I think that's her name) didn't have to say a word for us to know she's gonna be trouble. 😳

Bonnie and Clyde seem to be motivated by misguided purpose but, my guess is they gonna turn up good, eventually.

The Alighting seems like an end of time sorta deal.

Very intrigued by what it actually is. Maybe our favorite aliens will need to head back to their home planet. Maybe they'll fight like hell to protect the true home they found on Earth and its humans. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Speaking of aliens and humans, Malex was a highlight in this episode. 🥰🥰🥰

It couldn't possibly be any other way. Domestic-angsty, who knew would be so good?

Michael's nerves getting the best of him just points out how much he loves Alex and doesn't want to screw it up. The guy is a genius who can build very difficult things and yet, his nerves (and his low self-esteem) didn't let him fix the gazebo model.

It's a nice callback to 3x13 bunker scene where Michael is terrified that something he'll do will break him and Alex up again.

The fear of losing everything for someone that always had nothing is so understandable.

Dallas and Max calling how it was just proved Michael never intended to back down from living together, but that didn't mean his insecurities would go away. He needed to let it out.

So he talked to Dallas, he talked to Max, and, to Dallas again. But what got through to him was coming back home and talking to Alex about it.

Alex was upset. A cute upset with the crossed arms, sitting on that couch just waiting for Michael☹️

Can you imagine being so happy about moving day (Alex was so pleased to be sharing everything he has with Michael) and then coming home and not seeing the love of your life but just a key on the table?

Alex handled the situation with the skill he has mastered over a decade: loving Michael Guerin.

There was just so much love in Alex's words to Michael, in a way that reassured Guerin but also allowed Alex to be vulnerable too. 🥺💜

The growth of both of these characters. They have been through so much since 1x01 but now they are finally there. In a place that's for forever.

Rating for 4x01: 9/10. It's not a 10/10 for me because Alex Manes should have been in more scenes and the birthday party should have been longer.

[shtern-and-art]

"Skeppy will probably cry" "Bad will probably cry". Bish, screw, that I am crying!!!

This whole thing was bloody gorgeous and I wasn't expecting that ending. I had no clue what ending to expect but that was definitely better than any I could have hoped for. Forest spirit to soulmate your honour!

I was terrified that you were gonna leave it at the point where he loses the spirit and becomes mortal again. If you had I would be actively sobbing!!!! And oh my god, the art!!! I still can't get over how wonderful your style is.

Imma ask fun things because if I don't I'll sit in a puddle of emotion all night:

What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it? Poor Skeppy trying to answer 101 questions about something he doesn't really use XD.

Is no one concerned that the odd couple from a town they never name has a pet wolf??

Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while. Find hidden creeks and befriend bears?

Does Bad still have a connection to nature and animals, like are creatures naturally more trusting of him?

Do they ever visit the og town again?

Does Skeppy still cause absolute chaos in other towns or has he learnt his lesson and only causes minor trouble now?

Does Bad ever try and study again? If he did what would he study and would Skeppy try to study as well?

Does Skeppy steal? I dunno, he just give off the vibe of a naughty lil trickster who'll pocket something if the owner refuses to sell it him.

Immediately after leaving the forest what the first 'argument' they have (not including the car one)?

Would they ever ride horse? If yes, how terrified would Skeppy be?

Skeppy falls outta tree. I don't know why but my mind keeps telling me that this man has great balance until he climbs trees. They are his mortal enemy and Bad finds this both hilarious and terrifying because he is going to hurt himself.

I had waaaaay more questions than I intended to have. My bad '^_^ but this story was way too much fun to read and you are entirely to blame for making it so engaging!

Make sure to take care of yourself and do stretches after and during drawing. You don't wanna hurt yourself <3

AaaaI’m so glad you liked it! :D And, dang, man, I cried while writing that part too :D

And I promised a nice ending for the main story, I did, and this one also makes the most sense narratively! For the story I wanted to tell, at least. Bad can’t really become human again, he’s changed to much. He can only move on, and do something with what he is, and has. And he did! :D That’s really nice and inspiring, this story will always have a place in my heart, heheh <3

Being a guardian spirit connected to a person and all, Bad may be not as strong as before, but he can’t die unless Skeppy dies first. And Skeppy can do that, but he’s pretty sturdy, and his lifespan operates on a whole other scale than human ones. And Bad knowing Skeppy’s real name balances it all out, makes them equal in the power and influence they have over each other.

So hellyeah, soulmates for the win :DDD

I’ll answer all questions under the cut, and this close up from one of the pages!

1) What's the first tech thing Bad will buy and how annoying will he be about it?

Probably a pager! Because it’s a more feasible thing to get than a wholeass computer Bad actually wanted :D An it means Skeppy will have to get one too, and that Bad will be having the time of his life texting him and everyone he can get a number from, even if they’re still in the room with him.

Poor Skeppy indeed, he can learn to appreciate the pagers, and later phones, too, and computers, but he really has 0 idea on how it all works and why Bad is so fascinated by it all.

2) Rat and regular people

Oh, she can shapeshift, just like Bad! If they’re out with people around, she takes form of a puppy, and Bad can pass her off as a weird mix breed rescue doggo.

3) Do they immediately go over to a different town or do they wander for a while?

Oh, since they have no end destination in mind, they can ride around for a bit, go visit some cool places and roadside attractions. Sadly, Skeppy is probably not spiritually or morally ready to full on befriend wild bears yet, and they do need money for gas and snacks. So, at some point they will have to stop somewhere and find work – at least for a bit, to save up. Life’s gonna be a bit complicated with all that, until Skeppy figures out his treasure-finding abilities :DD

4) Bad and nature and animals

He is definitely still in tune with all wildlife! Even more – Bad could become a proper guardian spirit for Skeppy in part because, in a way, Skeppy himself is part of the nature.

So yeah, Bad can understand animals (and plants) and communicate with them; they’re just more free to not take his shit, and Bad’s emotions do not “possess” them unless he makes an effort to do so.

He doesn’t like doing it, tho.

5) Do they ever visit the og town again?

Hm, I think they will completely forget about it for a while, until, like, 30+ years later they will be going somewhere, and find themselves around those parts. And they try to not appear too often in the areas they’ve spent a lot of time in already (they can be pretty recognizable, and also barely show signs of aging). But it’s been a long time, and the town’s really different now… So they make a stop, and spend a day there. They walk the unfamiliar streets between the new buildings, check out the popular hiking trail, the advertisements for hot springs and winter activities. The old cinema is still there, and is hosting an all-night marathon of classic horror movies of the last century.

Bad and Skeppy leave the town after sunset – the day was nice, but they have nothing more to do there. They ride through the forest on a well paved road, with radio playing something barely above the whisper. And in the dark of hot summer night, Bad can see the white stag running between the trees alongside their car. Shadows dance over the shimmering light of it’s fur.

Somewhere after the towns border, the stag disappears back in the forest. But the air in the car stays light and fresh, saving the smell of old pines and dry leaves all though the night.

6) Skeppy and chaos

Well, after the whole mess in the main story, Skeppy definitely learned some lessons, especially about not being a dick :D

But the thing is – he can’t really help the fact that things tend to stir up around him a lot. He naturally brings in chaos into everything, because he is, in part, a personification, or an outlet for it in the world. And so, to feel, well and good, and himself Skeppy gotta do stuff that disrupts balance, and creates some mayhem. And in gave him a lot of trouble in early life, but in the course of the main story he learned that he can chose were he lets that chaos to take hold, learned what can come of that chaos, apart from utter misery.

Like, where it can help dismantle something destructive, and where – bring in the more positive change, that was already brewing, possible, but is stagnant for some reason.

Soooo, I can’t say Skeppy causes only minor chaos in his life, but he sure learns even more about not being a dick :DDDD

7) The studying

I think Bad will want to get a higher education at some point, because he wanted to, and because it’s already new millennia and all that. Bet he’ll go for something very technical and/or literature. Maybe he’ll start by piking up some classes in small time colleges, when they stop in one place for a while, and later get into an online program, because why not.

Skeppy is not a college guy at all. He’ll listen to Bad talk about it, read textbooks if he wants to, can research stuff, buuut going to classes and doing homework is definitely not his thing.

8) Stealing

Well, you’re right, Skeppy can and will steal stuff out of spite! And will be scolded by Bad for it, and will not feel (that) sorry about it. But real stealer between them will be Bad himself :D

It’s just… he has the corvid tendencies, and a hoard (a box) of sentimental mementos from different people and events, and the thrill of stealing something small and harmless is very exciting. Bad is very proud of his little collection. Skeppy finds it very adorable, a bit hypocritical, and kinda creepy. Like, that pretty box he gifted Bad at some point is now full of stuff like:

- pressed flower from the clearing they had a picnic at on their anniversary

- the button the waitress lost that one day the storm caused a black out in the whole town

- some small animal bones

- couple pretty rocks Bad stole from Skeppy’s pockets

- penny that was once glued to the ground

- a handful of teeth people (and not people) lost in fights with Bad

- pen from some fancy hotel

- rainbow dash keychain that belonged to a child

- the list goes on

9) Argument

Oh, that same day they’ll fight over whether they should stay at the really crappy and suspicious looking motel, or go sleep in a perfectly fine forest near the road. Ironically, Bad wanted to try out the motel (because, yay, first time spending the night back in civilization), and Skeppy was the one insisting on sleeping in nature (because the motel looks like it could give you 10 diseases if you even stand near it, and sleeping in the forest is kind of nice, and means they can cuddle).

10) Horses

The guys will probably ride them at some point. Well, Bad will ride, and Skeppy will sit on his horse and hope it knows what to do and where to go, because trying to make this giant thing do something seems dangerous. If they’ll have to actually go somewhere fast, Skeppy will not survive that day, his butt (and legs) will be dead for days to come.

And riding with Bad on one horse may sound romantic and nice, but all romance dies when the gallop starts.

F.

11) Skeppy and climbing

Skeppy is more down to earth kind of guy, more of a “rocks and caves” kind of creature, real-life lizard person or something. Up on the trees and in the air – not really his element, yeah. But it doesn’t mean that Skeppy will accept this fact easy. The embarrassment of never managing to safely make it down a tree is too strong, he just has to do it all over again, and again. And again. Because, clearly, he was distracted this time. And the time before that Bad was teasing him, and it “disrupted his flow”. And, really, maybe these trees here just do not like Skeppy much, and make him slip a lot. Yeah.

So, more often than not, if Skeppy climbs a tree, he will not stop climbing it until he falls, or the tree ends. Bad had to take him off high branches couple times, forcefully, because, of course, Skeppy was sitting there for 2 hours just to properly enjoy the sunset. He can climb down at any point, he just Choses not to. The view is amazing. The bark is literally part of his skin now, not because he holds on tight, no, he’s just Than Much one with the nature )<

---

Don’t apologize for the questions! It’s always so fun to answer them, and it makes me think more about stuff I may have skipped, or didn’t think about before. It’s really nice :3c

Again, thank you for the ask, and for being here for this story! <3

(And I’ll try setting timers for rest breaks while I draw, mb that will help)

---

In The Dark - masterpost

[delaber]

Three-Point Perspective (Part 2)

Rafael Casal x Reader x Daveed Diggs

Note: Guys! When I wrote Three-Point Perspective, I wasn’t planning on adding a second part to it but the amount of support was so overwhelming that I just had to do a sequel ...And let me tell you; I am so glad you guys wanted it because this was so much fun! I have never been more challenged with a story-line, portraying emotions, changing perspectives, and just the plot in general. I have never never never changed a story-line as much as I did for this one, haha! Crazy amounts of shout-outs and thanks to my amazing mate @einfachniemand​ for listening to countless of ideas, for feedback on several snippets, for being supportive af, and for telling me “yeah, no, that doesn’t work. Back to the drawing board.” Thank you boo! You are amazing! A huge thanks to @theatrenerd86​ for starting off this sequel by providing the settings - and for just being the most supportive human being ever! Mwah! Also a huge thanks to the rest of you for your endless support! I love this community! (Oh, and anon; thanks for the (quite old, sorry) prompt but I didn’t do it for Rafa (sorry once again)). Let me know what you guys think!

Words: 13.8K

Warnings: Oh my goodness, I don’t even wanna get started... Blood, heartbreak, angst (my three tropes)

Rafael

Rafa almost tripped over his own two feet as he stumbled over to the bar and desperately ordered a large whiskey shooter. He was having a hard time keeping calm; his heart was beating fast in his chest, his throat closing in on itself, his hairline soaked in panic-sweat. He needed to put what had just happened in the very seat he was standing in front of at a distance. His hands were still itching to punch something! He needed the fucking drink!

The bartender had barely stopped pouring Maker's Mark into a small glass before Rafa quickly grabbed it and chugged its contents down his throat, desperately trying to block out what he had just witnessed.

Your tongue in his best friend's ear.

Diggs' hand sliding up your thigh.

The sensual smile you'd worn as Diggs had whispered promising words in your ear.

"Oh god," Rafa groaned as he recalled your excited smile as his best friend had escorted you out of the bar, his hand dipping uncomfortably low on your hips.

Desperately clutching the now empty whiskey glass, Rafa tried relentlessly to push away the image of what you and Diggs probably were in the midst of doing right now. Oh shit, oh no... His chest was stinging, his stomach aching horribly at the thought of you and Diggs fucking. Oh god. He tried to shift his focus to the burning sensation down his esophagus instead and quickly ordered another shooter.

It didn't take long before the bartender had placed another glass of golden-brown liquid in front of him that he quickly downed in one go, thinking about how stupid he was for not having acted on his feelings for you earlier. He had had eight fucking years to do so after all?! Why the fuck hadn't he just pulled himself together and called you up?! He wanted to punch something! He wanted to get fucked up! He wanted to call someone and get them to deliver a big fucking bag of blow - but he settled on a third shooter.

He gulped down the whiskey as the aggression subsided and was replaced by the same type of jealousy-induced heartburn that he had felt earlier that night. Fucking Daveed Diggs and the way he always seemed to be able to wrap women around his little finger! In eight minutes, he had managed to do to you what Rafa hadn't managed to do for eight years. Fuck him!

A fourth whiskey went down Rafa's throat as the jealousy was replaced by hurtful pangs in his chest; shit it hurt to think about you and Diggs together. Rafa knew that you had had a few men in your life since the summer in the taco truck, and even though it had stung to see pictures of your romances on Instagram, it didn't hurt half as much as seeing his best friend escort you out of the bar.

He ordered another whiskey. And another one after that. And then an entire bottle of Jameson just to recall the taste of your lips that night on top of the skate ramps all those years ago. Quickly, Rafa gulped down most of the bottle, his eyes watering from the sharp taste of alcohol on his tongue, but no matter how much he drank, he still wasn't able to get image of you and Diggs out of his head. It had etched itself on the back of his eyelids, somehow becoming clearer and clearer with every gulp of fiery liquid.

It didn't take long before he had reached the half-way mark on the bottle of Jameson, completely lost in constantly checking his phone to see if you had tried to contact him to tell him that Diggs by some miracle had blown his shot. You hadn't. And even though Rafa doubted that you would, he still couldn't put the phone away.

He was fumbling about on the screen as he accidentally found Diggs' name on the list of contacts. Completely lost in contemplating whether or not he should call him up and tell him to stay the fuck away from you, he jumped a little when he suddenly felt a soft hand on his shoulder. For about a mili-second, Rafa believed that the soft touch belonged to you, but as soon as he had whipped around in his seat, he felt the disappointment cloud his mind as he was met by his make-up artist Janelle instead. "Oh, hey," he spoke in an uninterested tone of voice, his words a little slurred from the amount of whiskey he'd been drinking.

"Rafa, honey, are you okay?" She looked at him with kind eyes, "you seem a little out of it."

"I'm great," he slurred into his whiskey glass before emptying it for what felt like the 100th time that night, "I'm fucking perfect! This night's just absolutely fucking perfect."

Janelle furrowed her brows and pushed the bottle of Jameson out of Rafa's reach, "is it because of Daveed and -"

"- DON'T say her name," Rafa warned, his voice turning to a low drunk growl afterwards, "I don't want to think about it."

Janelle sat down on the empty barstool next to him and sent him a slow nod, "yeah, I was afraid this might happen..." she sighed and sent him a pitiful look.

"That what might happen?" Rafa drunkenly mumbled, trying to avoid her gaze.

"Honey... I've seen the way you look at her," Janelle whispered and reassuringly put her hand on Rafa's arm as she searched his face for any kind of affirmation. Rafa groaned and met her eyes shortly before she softly added, "- and I've seen the way Daveed looks at her too."

Rafa gulped to keep the slowly forming lump in this throat at bay, "...so you don't think it's just a one-night thing?" He croaked in a small whisper, the pain in his chest suddenly twice as hurtful as before.

Janelle shook her head slowly, shooting Rafa a careful look.

"And - uhm," Rafa cleared his throat "- do you think that - uh - she's into him as well?" He added in a whisper, his face involuntarily screwed up as he was afraid to hear the answer.

"I don't know, honey," Janelle said diplomatically and pulled him in for a tight hug, inaudibly giving away that she definitely thought so. Rafa appreciated Janelle's attempt to salvage the situation and let her comfort him for a couple of seconds before she slowly let go of him again, sending him a heartfelt look in the process. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked.

"No..." Rafa mumbled and reached for the bottle that Janelle had pushed away moments before.

She grabbed his arm and forced it down in his lap instead, "why don't you leave the bottle and instead call it a night, boo? You've been drinking quite a lot already."

Rafa gulped a little and realised that she was right. Nothing good would come from sitting at the bar, drowning his sorrows in cheap whiskey. "Yeah," he groaned as he ran a hand through his damp hair, "yeah... You're right. Might be a good idea..."

"Go grab your jacket. I'll call you a cab, okay?"

"Thanks," Rafa mumbled before scrambling to his feet, swaying a little from side to side. He managed to balance himself and stagger over to the coat check where he retrieved his leather jacket and slowly pulled it on with great difficulty.

"I got you," Janelle was suddenly behind him, helping him pull the jacket up his arms.

"Thanks," Rafa mumbled as he pulled on the collar to rearrange the leather over his shoulders.

"You wanna say bye to the rest of the crew?" Janelle piped from behind him.

He shot a quick glance across the room and towards the table that his friends were occupying. "I better set an example," he mumbled even though he'd rather be sitting in a cab on his way home right now.

With his arm around Janelle, and her hand on his chest to steady him, Rafa walked over to his co-stars, putting up his best attempt at a cheerful smile, "I'm off guys. Have a lovely evening," he slurred drunkenly.

He thought to himself that he was doing a tremendous job of hiding away his hurt feelings until he noticed their stiff smiles. Suddenly, he realised by the sympathetic looks they were all shooting him from their seats, that they were well-aware of what was going on. Rafa quickly scanned their silent, pained faces one by one until Alessandro - one of the leads - finally spoke up, "see you Monday boss!"

Annoyed with their pitiful eyes, Rafa mumbled a, "see you Monday, bruh," and turned around, facing Janelle again as the others awkwardly looked away. It made him feel stupid.

"Cab's outside," Janelle tried to smile and pulled him in for a hug, "are you going to be okay, boo?"

"I don't know," Rafa croaked truthfully against her neck and let her pull him just a little closer.

"Call me tomorrow, okay?" She let go of him, "We'll do something fun."

"Okay," Rafa slurred, his eyes stinging as he turned away from her and towards the exit.

Slowly, he stumbled out of the bar and hopped into the yellow cab outside, closing his eyes desperately in the backseat, trying to block out any thought of you and Diggs but failing horribly. The ride home was the longest drive of Rafa's life, his thoughts sporadic and unorganised but all centred around the same thing: what would he come home to? Had you and Diggs gone to your place? Or to Diggs' place that he just happened to share with Rafa? Fuck, he almost couldn't bear the thought of coming home to meet Diggs balls deep in you on the couch. Rafa would never purposely punch Diggs, but if he came home to face that, he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold back his itching fist.

"He's your best friend," Rafa mumbled to himself as a reminder, hoping to calm himself down, "he's your best friend. He didn't know. He's innocent... - well apart from fucking your girl..."

Everything inside him was on fire.

"You alright back there, mate?" The cab driver shot Rafa a look in the rear-view mirror, apparently concerned about the whispered words, he'd heard coming from the backseat.

"Yeah," Rafa replied unenthusiastically, a little annoyed that everybody seemed to be so concerned with him - but he eventually stopped thinking out loud.

For the remainder of the trip, the driver kept his mouth shut too but annoyingly enough constantly checked in on Rafa in the rear-view mirror.

Rafa was relieved when the driver finally pulled over outside his home and paid him quickly, slamming the car door shut with much force, hoping to alleviate some of the all-consuming itch that he felt deep in his bones. Little did it help. He still wanted to punch something.

Rafa turned his attention towards the house and gave out a short sigh before he started swaying up the paved pathway in the small yard, briefly stopping before he reached the front door. He prayed that you had taken Diggs to your place and not the other way around. He couldn't handle being faced with his worst nightmare - and especially not after having had so much to drink. Right now, he couldn't account for how he'd react.

He stood with his key in hand for a while, scared of what might come, but eventually realised that he would have to go inside at some point. With a deep sigh, he slowly slid his key in the lock and turned it around, his palms sweating terribly. He felt his heart sinking down to the bottom of his stomach when the key didn't meet any kind of resistance, and he realised that the door was already unlocked.

Fuck... Diggs had taken you here.

With a burning sensation in his chest, Rafa quietly pushed open the front door and stepped inside the small hallway, closing the door behind him with a small thump. He closed his eyes and threw his head up against the wooden door, forcing himself to relax by taking three deep breaths - a technique he had learned from his mother when he had been nervous about doing spoken words for the first time at fifteen.

He focused on his breathing for a few seconds and after having exhaled a third time - already more relaxed than before - he opened his eyes and took in the room. He immediately saw that the floor of the narrow hallway was decorated with several pieces of discarded garments strewn randomly about on the stone floor.

Diggs' pants. Your dress. Your bra.

"No..." Rafa groaned quietly as he took in the pieces of clothes with a hard gulp, the tears stinging in his eyes when he realised what he was being confronted with. "No, no, no!" he buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath to get himself under control again. His entire chest was on fire, the taste of stomach acid thick on his tongue. Everything around him went quiet as he heaved in a big gulp of air, wishing that he had stayed sober tonight. This was all getting too much; he couldn't control it. He was too drunk.

He took another big gulp of air, and was just about to slowly exhale when a soft sound hit his ear canal... It was coming from the other room.

A moan.

A sweet, heartfelt, sensual moan.

From a woman - from you...

It was the result of a sincere reaction to something that had brought you immense pleasure. A moan that someone else had brought to your lips. A moan that Rafa's best friend had brought to your lips.

Fuck! The itch in his hands that he had felt for quite some time now suddenly became too much and he punched the wall hard, causing an old, framed picture of him and Diggs to fall down, the frame shattering in several pieces on the cold stone floor. He stared at the broken shards of glass for a few seconds, torturing himself by carefully listening for more of your sweet moans echoing throughout the house.

They didn't come, however. The entire house was suddenly completely silent. Thank god.

Slowly, Rafa squatted down to brush the glass-dust off your dress, the silky fabric soft between his fingertips as he pulled the dress to his chest, thinking about what it would feel like to be the one to pull it off you.

Without warning, however, the silence in the hallway was broken by another loud moan coming from Diggs' personal space and Rafa was quickly brought out of his trance. He had to get out of there! He would go to a hotel or something! Anything to get away from the sounds you were making for another man!

Slightly panicked, Rafa shuffled to get to his feet, but overbalanced and fell forwards, his left hand immediately softening the blow as a reflex. From the moment his palm hit the floor, Rafa felt a sharp pain in his hand, but didn't realise that he had cut himself before he rotated his elbow and saw the huge piece of broken glass that was prodding out of his palm. "You're kidding me," he groaned as he tried to focus on the glass shard before he grabbed it tightly and forcefully pulled it out of his skin, the warm blood immediately running down his hand as a terribly sharp pain started pulling at his fingers. "OH FUCK!" he exclaimed a little louder than he had intended to, unable to hold back in his inebriated state.

Pressing in on the wound to try and get it to stop bleeding, he hurried to the bathroom and quickly located an old towel that he wrapped tightly around his bloody hand. "Shit! Oh fuck that hurts!" He groaned loudly and slid down the wall, his ass hitting the cold floor with a small thump. He could hear hushed voices coming from Diggs' personal space next door, and he realised that he had no idea what hurt the most; the thought of you lying in there wearing nothing but your panties, or his throbbing hand that had already bled through the old towel.

"Shit," he mumbled to himself as he replaced the old piece of cloth with a clean one, "ah fuck it hurts!" He hissed and tried to push the wound shut to get it to stop bleeding. It helped for a few seconds before the gash opened back up, fresh blood spilling out again. Just looking at it made him dizzy, and he realised that he couldn't handle this on his own. He was too drunk. He needed help. Embarrassed by himself and the situation he had put himself in, he took a deep breath before calling out the name of the last person on earth he wanted to see right now, "DIGGS!"

The hushed voices from the other side of the wall died down completely. They'd heard him. Still, there was no response to his cry for help. Meanwhile, the second towel around his hand was soaked through as well. What if he was about to bleed out? What if he was spending his last moments, pathetically heartbroken on his own bathroom floor?

"DIGGS!" he tried again, this time a little more panic to his voice.

The entire house was quiet still, and Rafa listened intently for few seconds before he finally heard an angry voice calling from the other side of the wall. "WHAT?"

"Diggs, I need your help!" Rafa called back, embarrassment flooding his voice.

"I'm kind of busy in here, Rafa!" Diggs bellowed back. Rafa had never heard him sound so annoyed before.

"Come on, man... I'm serious," Rafa let out a loud groan as he took in the bloody rag that was wrapped around his hand.

He heard cursing and shuffling on the other side of the wall and a few seconds later, the door to the bathroom finally swung open, revealing a very annoyed Daveed Diggs who was trying to hide away his boxer-clad erection with the palm of his hand.

Upon seeing how Diggs was already hard and ready to fuck Rafa's girl, there was no doubt: The pain in Rafa's chest definitely exceeded the pain in his hand.

Daveed

Daveed could not believe how lucky he was! He had barely closed the front door behind him before you had pulled him in for a string of sensual kisses in the dark. His lips were moving fiercely against your warm skin, your head lolling backwards as you panted and let him press you up against the wall in the hallway. He loved the sensation of your fingers tangled in his long hair as he attacked your neck and jawline with rough, affectionate kisses. You let out a small impatient pant as he untied the bow at the side of your dress, giving himself easier access to your beautiful build underneath as the dress opened up completely.

"Fuck, you look absolutely amazing," he cupped your ass and pressed his pelvis closer to you with a groan.

Your small fingers desperately undid the buttons of his shirt and Daveed quickly shrugged it off, finally standing in front of you in nothing but his dark blue slacks. His lips quickly resumed their positions on your neck where he immediately started sucking and nibbling at the sensitive skin while running his hands all over your torso.

Your fingers desperately found the button of his slacks and Daveed felt the tight sensation of his pants against his crotch disappearing slightly as you brought down the zipper and slid the slacks over his hips. Your small hand was palming him through the cotton of his boxers, and he couldn't stop the groan that fought its way all the way from his stomach and up his throat. He heard you chuckling incredulously above him as you let your dress fall to the ground before you dropped down to your knees in front of him, determinedly pulling his boxers down over his thighs.

Daveed's mind went completely blank when he felt your hand cup his balls while your wet mouth found the tip of his straining erection. Your warm breath against him had him let out an involuntary groan, and when your plump lips kissed his engorged head, the sensation sent a shiver all the way up his spine. He pulled your hair away from your face and held it in a loose ponytail on the back of your head, your eyes interlocking with his in the process. Even though you had him between your teeth, the submissive look you sent him had him feeling incredibly in control! Without giving up eye contact, you kissed his head twice before placing a long, wet lick at the tip of his erection, immediately sending hard vibrations throughout his entire body. "Fuck," he groaned and caressed the side of your face when you wrapped your lips tightly around his head, sucking a bit at the tip.

"Mmmh, pull my hair!" you panted around him and he immediately tugged on the ponytail, buckling his hips closer to your face, desperate to feel the ecstasy of warm, wet, tightness around him again. To Daveed's relief you immediately obliged and slid your lips almost all the way down to his base and back up again, releasing him with a small pop.

"Oh fuck!" He let out a groan as he looked down into your huge, submissive eyes, slowly stroking your cheek. You repeated your motions, your tongue wet and soft against him as you bopped your mouth along his length, his hips meeting you half-way, "yeah, that's it, baby, just like that," he panted softly as you kept gazing up at him, upping the tempo and bringing him all the way down your throat with a slight gag, reminding him of how big he was.

Daveed had received many blowjobs over the years but never in his life had he felt more worshipped and desired! You were massaging his balls lovingly as you brought his length down your throat, hollowing your cheeks and making him feel completely taken care of as you focused solely on his pleasure and enjoyment.

He was just about to let go and cum down your tight throat before he reminded himself that he'd have to take it easy if he wanted to last long enough to fuck you. And holy shit, how he wanted to fuck you! He knew he was very good with his hips and hands and he wanted to bring you pleasures that you'd never even dared dreaming of before.

It was hard to do, but eventually he managed to pull himself out of your wet mouth and you to your feet with a gruff, "come here!". He unclasped your bra and tossed it aside before he pushed you up against the wall, took your nipple in his mouth, and ran his fingers along your lace-covered folds. You let out a soft gasp and he repeated the motions of his fingers while attacking your neck and throat with toothy kisses. You were panting and moaning underneath him, your hand still stroking his erection lovingly.

"Okay, okay, okay, you gotta stop," he licked the shell of your ear with a low chuckle, "I still have so many things I want to do to you," he smacked your ass and you let out a small whimper when his palm came in to contact with your skin.

Slowly, you let go of him and carefully caressed his abs instead as he re-claimed your lips. The kiss was deep and soft, and it made the straining sensation in Daveed's erection even more unbearable, but he was patient enough to not touch himself.

After a few minutes of intense, passionate kissing, you pulled your face away from his and looked up at him with a dark look in your eyes, "well, are you going to do something about it? Or are you going to just leave it at talking?" You chuckled against his skin.

"Don't get cocky with me," Daveed smiled and hoisted you up in his arms. You let out a small yelp, but still threw your legs around his waist and let him carry you to his bedroom while licking his ear. He carefully positioned you with your back against the mattress of his bed and hovered above you as he put his lips to your collarbone, slowly kissing his way down between your breasts, over your stomach, and stopping when he reached the top of your panties. He sat himself down on his knees in front of you, sending you a hungry look as he ran his fingers over your body. You looked him square in the eye and raked a hand through his curls, pulling his head back slightly. The anticipating look you were sending him made his erection twitch between his legs, but he still didn't touch it. Instead, he licked his lips and kissed the laces between your legs. "I love this colour on you," he growled against the thin fabric. He could feel you shiver underneath him as he pulled the red laces down your well-shaped legs, caressing your inner thighs lovingly. "Mmh," he hummed as you spread your legs for him, your fingers still tangled in his hair. Your chest was heaving up and down in a slow, steady rhythm as he placed small kisses on your skin, his tongue just barely grazing you. He enjoyed the way you closed your eyes and dipped your head low as he repeated this motion a few times.

Slowly, he slipped his tongue inside your folds, your lips gently spreading for him as he tasted you. You gasped slightly when he reached your clit and gave it a small flick before he slowly ran his tongue over you again. You were panting above him, your fingers caressing his scalp as your face was screwed up in pleasure. Daveed couldn't look away even if he wanted to!

He caressed the back of your legs with his hands before he had his fingers join his tongue at your core. Slowly, he inserted a finger into your wet heat and was rewarded with a deep moan escaping your lips. Desperate to hear you again, he inserted yet another finger, letting his digits and tongue work in unison until you finally let out another deep moan.

He could tell you were close to letting go completely, and it was all working out so nicely, your chest heaving up and down faster and faster as you moaned loudly for him, your nails finding their way to his scalp, pulling his face closer to you - when clash!

Out of nowhere, a loud shatter was heard from somewhere in the house. It sounded like glass breaking, but Daveed was used to Rafa's clumsy ass, so he ignored what he assumed was his best friend returning home after his night out.

Daveed did, however, feel you freeze slightly underneath him, and you pulled back the moan that had been just about to escape your lips and replaced it with a, "what was that?!" a slight panic to your voice.

"Relax, it's probably just Rafa," Daveed whispered and resumed his movements.

"What's he doing here?" You panted slightly but not as sensually as before.

"He lives here," Daveed growled against your skin, annoyed by the fact that your attention was suddenly directed at his best friend instead of the very pleasurable things he knew he was doing. To make sure that you forgot about Rafa, Daveed brought out the big guns and put his lips around your clit, vibrating them while his fingers worked their way in and out of you. It worked expertly, and it didn't take him long before he'd earned himself another loud moan coming from you. You looked as if you were completely lost in the sensations, he was causing you - but not for long, because suddenly a loud "OH FUCK!" from Rafa rang throughout the house. It was followed by hurried footsteps as Rafa ran to the bathroom that was located next to Daveed's personal space.

Daveed felt you shuffle underneath him as you put your weight on your elbows and closed your legs slightly, craning your neck as you looked towards the wall that Daveed's personal space shared with the bathroom. You had a concerned look in your eyes that Daveed chose to ignore. Instead, he kept going with his fingers and tongue, but you weren't moaning anymore.

"Shit! Oh fuck that hurts!" Rafa exclaimed loudly from the other side of the wall.

"Don't you think you should go check on him?" You asked quietly, your eyes still glued to the wall.

"No," Daveed said curtly, and tried to get you to lie back down again so he could continue. You didn't budge, however. You were more interested in the loud groan that was escaping Rafa. You let out a nervous laugh as you once again heard him cuss and groan from the next room.

"Ignore him," Daveed panted as he spread your legs apart again, his tongue immediately finding your core, and he was rewarded with a gasp from you. He had just started moving his fingers inside you again when he heard Rafa call his name loudly from the other side of the wall.

"DIGGS!"

Daveed froze for about a mili-second before deciding to ignore Rafa and continue moving his fingers inside you instead.

"Go talk to him," you chuckled and raked a hand through his hair, suddenly totally unaffected by his movements,

"He can wait. I'm far too busy," Daveed let his tongue run over you again, once more losing himself in your wonderful wetness.

Rafa however, pulled him back to reality by yelling out his name a second time, "DIGGS!!" causing you to slightly close your legs one more time.

"You're kidding me..." Daveed muttered under his breath as his face was forced away from your wet centre. "WHAT?" he ended up bellowing back to his best friend on the other side of the wall.

"Diggs, I need your help!" Rafa kept calling.

"I'm kind of busy in here, Rafa!" Daveed bellowed while looking into your amused eyes.

You were chuckling slightly, "he needs you. Don't you think you better...?" You sent Daveed a charming grin while nodding towards the door, "he sounds quite drunk..."

Daveed shot you a pained look.

"Go," you chuckled, "I'll still be ready for you in here when you come back. Don't worry."

"Come on man... I'm serious," Rafa bellowed through the wall.

"I'm going to murder him for this!" Daveed groaned in an annoyed tone of voice and got up on his feet with a loud groan. He quickly located a pair of boxers and packed away his erection before storming out of the room, closing the door to his personal space shut behind him.

He found Rafa sitting up against the wall in the bathroom, his eyes swimming with alcohol. "What, bruh?!" Daveed demanded as he locked eyes with him, "what's so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"

"...Were you sleeping?" Rafa slurred while looking like a total fucking idiot as his drunk eyes scanned Daveed from head to toe.

"Of course I wasn't sleeping! I was in the middle of eating pussy when you ruined it!"

Rafa looked as if he was about to throw up, "...you're about to fuck her?" He slurred.

"Yes?! So make whatever you want to say quick, 'cause I got a soaking wet woman waiting for me on my bed!"

Rafa looked up at Daveed with a pained expression but kept his silence.

"I swear to god, if you don't speak up now and tell me what the hell made you call me out here, I'll kick your ass!"

Rafa sighed heavily, looking as if he was about to tell Daveed someone else's secret but eventually croaked, "I hurt myself," while holding up his left hand that was wrapped sloppily in a blood-soaked towel.

First then, did Daveed notice that there were several splodges of blood on the bathroom floor. It made him drop the attitude slightly, "Jesus fuck Rafa, what the hell did you do?" He groaned and crouched down next to him on the floor.

"I knocked down the frame in the hallway," Rafa slurred and let Daveed examine the deep cut in the palm of his hand, "cut myself on the glass."

"You did a thorough job," Daveed mumbled with a sigh as he lifted the towel to check out the gash that was still bleeding heavily, "come here, run some water on it. I'll find some bandages." Daveed turned on the faucet and helped Rafa find his balance as he quickly pulled him to his feet. He could tell that Rafa was struggling to stand still as he swayed back and forth while leaning in over the sink, playing a bit with the jet of water. Daveed sent him an annoyed glance; he did not have time for this! "How much did you have to drink after I left?" he asked, the irritation practically oozing out of him as he looked for the first-aid kit in one of the cabinets.

"I dunno," Rafa mumbled sleepily as he watched the water clean the blood away from his hand, "a lot?"

"Yeah, so I'd guessed," Daveed mumbled to himself as he located the first aid kit and quickly pulled out a couple of rolls of gauze. "Come over here," he urged Rafa to sit down on the edge of the tub next to him.

Rafa gave out a small grunt and turned off the water, before turning towards Daveed with lazy movements. Daveed had to bite his tongue to avoid telling Rafa to hurry the fuck up!

Rafa's ass had barely touched the white ceramic of the tub's edge before he lost his balance and vigorously swayed back and forth a few times, finally catching himself by throwing his hand up against the sink, leaving bloody handprints all over the bathroom in the process.

"Jesus Christ, Rafa!" Daveed groaned, he did not want to deal with Rafa's drunk ass right now, "look, I'll help you with your hand but I'm not cleaning up out here!" He said harshly.

"Then don't!" Rafa muttered as he slowly slid down to the floor with a loud groan, sending Daveed and irritated look in the process.

"Come on; give me your hand," Daveed demanded, determined to be done as fast as possible so he could get back to you.

Rafa held out his arm and Daveed rotated it to look for more injuries and noticed that Rafa had bruised his knuckles quite badly too, "...have you been in a fight?" He furrowed his brows.

"Just fix my hand, okay?!" Rafa shot Daveed an annoyed look, "Make it stop bleeding!" He slurred and gestured to the blood that was already dripping from his fingertips again.

Daveed gave out an irritated grunt as he started wrapping Rafa's bloody hand in gauze, "sit still!!"

"Oh fuck," Rafa groaned as Daveed slowly draped the gauze over the sensitive wound, "fuck it hurts."

"Quit your whining!"

There was a knock on the bathroom door and Daveed slowly looked up from Rafa's bloody hand and towards the door instead. You were poking in your head, looking curiously at what the two men were doing, your hair a big mess. "Is everything alright in here?" You asked carefully as you stepped inside, tugging on the oversized shirt you'd put on to cover up your naked body.

"Rafa cut himself - and apparently he's too drunk to handle it alone," Daveed rolled his eyes so Rafa couldn't see. He registered your amused smile just before he turned back to the hand in his lap, immediately noticing the small change in Rafa's flexibility as opposed to before you had stepped in. His fingers had somehow gone weirdly stiff, and by further inspection, Daveed realised that Rafa's entire body was suddenly tense, the muscles in his jaw continuously flexing and relaxing, flexing and relaxing. Still, Rafa didn't bat an eyelid, he didn't even emit a single sound. He was just silently staring at you, his eyes going up and down your front, his breathing hard and heavy. Daveed shot him a weird look out the corner of his eye. What the fuck was going on with him? He had definitely had too much to drink...

"'s that my shirt?" Rafa slurred to you as he took in your attire.

Daveed briefly looked up at you and realised that the oversized t-shirt you were wearing were indeed Rafa's favourite Raiders shirt that Daveed had borrowed the other day. Rafa had a weird look on his face, and it looked as if he was about the say something crude to you, so to diffuse the situation, Daveed spoke: "let it go, bruh," he said in an uninterested tone of voice before he quietly turned back to wrapping the bleeding hand. Why the fuck would Rafa care if you were wearing his t-shirt or not?? He didn't mind Daveed wearing it.

"Oh..." he heard you say softly from the doorframe, "Raiders... I'm sorry. I didn't realise."

"Yeah, no. Don't be," Rafa said softly and Daveed was just about to give his best friend a mental pad on the back for having enough sense to bring his attitude around so quickly, but then he added an "- it looks good on you!" in a flirty voice that vexed Daveed so much that he felt a slow anger bubble in his chest. He let go of the bleeding hand and straightened his back as he looked over at Rafa with a hard look. He could not believe that Rafa had the nerve - the audacity! - to act so disrespectfully! What the fuck had gotten into him?! He had been a huge cock-block to you and Daveed and now he found it suitable to be flirting with you???

Daveed had to take a deep breath to calm himself down, in the meantime reminding himself that Rafa was drunk as fuck and probably not even aware that his words could be misinterpreted as more than just friendly... Therefore, he purposely ignored his best friend's impudent behaviour and instead made sure to keep his eyes down low so he could concentrate fully on wrapping up the bleeding hand, determined get the fuck out of there as fast as possible so he could get back to slipping you his famous techniques.

The wound in the palm of Rafa's hand was still bleeding quite heavily, and it didn't take Daveed long to realise that he needed more gauze to make the blood stop dripping onto the floor. "Shit," he muttered under his breath and looked over at you, "baby, can you get me more gauze out of the cabinet?"

You whipped your gaze away from Rafa's face, your eyes immediately finding Daveed's. The look in your eyes instantly shifted from something that Daveed couldn't quite place to soft and cute, a small goofy smile slowly erupting on your lips as you scanned his face. You didn't say anything, just sent him a curt nod before you quietly turned to the cabinet, looking for the first-aid kit on the bottom shelf. As you bent over in front of him, your t-shirt rode up high and Daveed got a beautiful glimpse of the red laces under the hem of the t-shirt you were wearing. Your panties were hugging your ass nicely, and for a moment, he forgot about the bleeding limb in his hand - all he could think about was touching you again! He wanted to snap the useless piece of fabric between your legs in two and delve his tongue into your wet heat, bringing you untold pleasu- ...he suddenly felt Rafa's fingers do a small involuntary twitch in his lap and he realised that his best friend was checking you out too, his mouth hanging slightly open, his eyes glued to your ass.

What the fuck was the matter with him? Had the roles been reversed, Daveed would never have checked out Rafa's girl!

Angry with his best friend, Daveed gave Rafa's arm a small smack while sending him a threatening look, daring him to keep staring at your ass. When his and Rafa's eyes interlocked, Rafa's face curled up in a sour expression but he quickly fixated his gaze on the floor in front of him instead, probably realising that Daveed could knock him out easily.

Meanwhile, completely innocent and oblivious to what had just happened behind your back, you stood up straight and handed Daveed two extra rolls of gauze before resuming your position in the doorway.

Apparently, Rafa had learnt absolutely nothing from Daveed's silent threats and immediately went back to staring at you again. Daveed contemplated shooting Rafa a verbal threat as well but decided against it when he realised how absolutely pathetic his best friend looked. He was drunk as fuck, his eyes all foggy and glossy. Daveed would confront him about his disrespectful behaviour tomorrow.

Still, the fact that Rafa was staring intensely at you while you were only wearing the slightly oversized t-shirt and your beautiful, beautiful panties underneath, made Daveed uncomfortable as fuck, so he worked double speed on Rafa's hand to get you away from the bathroom faster.  Luckily, with the fresh supply of gauze from you, it only took him a few more minutes before he was done with the wrapping, a sigh of relief travelling through his body as he finally let go of Rafa's injured hand.

The tension in the bathroom could be cut with a knife and Daveed took a deep breath to calm himself down before breaking the silence by saying, "Look, I can bandage this to keep it from bleeding all over, but you need to go to the hospital for stitches or something."

"Mmh," Rafa grunted beside him, clearly not pleased with the situation. His eyes were glued to you, and he was wearing a certain hungry look on his face as he drank you in - and Daveed realised that Rafa definitely was aware of what signals he was sending.

What the hell was going on inside his pea-sized, idiot brain? Did he want Daveed to punch him? Daveed was just about to grab him by the collar when he heard you piping from the doorframe, "...I can take you."

...what? Daveed immediately turned his attention to you and saw the soft look you were sending Rafa as you continued, "I can drive. I almost didn't drink tonight."

What?! You liked Rafas stares?!

"You'd - you'd do that?" he heard Rafa whisper from beside him, a soft smile erupting on his best friend's lips.

Daveed didn't like it. He thought to himself that it looked as if the two of you had developed a secret language in the time it had taken him to wrap Rafa's hand. What the hell had he missed out on?

"Of course," you nodded slowly, your eyes still interlocking with Rafa's, "Let me just grab some pants, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Rafa whispered, a hopeful look on his face, "thanks."

What the fuck was going on between you two?

Daveed watched you send Rafa a small smile, your face flushed. The sexual tension was thick between the two of you, and Daveed felt the jealousy burn in his chest as neither of you were looking away from the other. How the fuck dare Rafa flirt with the girl that he had brought home?! How dare he send you those hungry looks?! It was itching in Daveed's hands to do something about the long, continuous gaze between you and in his frustration, he curled his fingers and accidentally pressed on Rafa's wound, making him hiss in pain as he shot back an angry look. Daveed was far too busy looking over at you, however. You finally had your attention directed at him - and not Rafa - your eyes huge and doe-like, looking as if you'd just woken up from a trance. He shot you a look as if to say 'what the fuck is going on?' and you gulped guiltily.

Suddenly realising that he finally had the full attention of both you and Rafa, Daveed spoke up in a voice that was much more strained than he had intended, "Nope! Not gonna happen! Uh-uh, absolutely no fucking way," he shot his best friend a hard look, "Rafa you can take a cab!" he turned his attention back to you, "Baby go back to bed, I'll be there in a second!"

He noticed your eyes skating between his own face and Rafa's and he sternly let out a "he'll take the cab, okay!" He didn't like the way you were looking at each other, and he still very much intended on fucking you tonight no matter how big of a cock-block Rafa was being!

He was trying to catch your eye, but you had your gaze firmly placed on Rafa again, seemingly unable to look away. Daveed noticed how you let out a small gulp as Rafa shot you a careful nod as if giving you permission to leave.

What the hell was going on????

He also noticed the long glance the two of you shared before you gently closed the door behind you as you exited the bathroom.

What! The! Fuck!

Daveed felt his chest bubbling over. He had never felt this way towards Rafa before, but his best friend had never looked more punchable! Automatically, his fingers once more pressed in hard on Rafa's wound.

"Ah! Dude what the fuck!" Rafa yelped loudly.

"What the fuck was that all about?" Daveed spat, "you're flirting with my girl!"

"She's not your girl just because you brought her home for one night, Diggs!" Rafa hissed angrily through gritted teeth.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Daveed felt as if his eyes were bulging out of his skull, "She's crazy about me! You should've seen the way she was begging for it at the bar!"

"Yeah, I saw everything," Rafa said slowly with anger in his eyes, a low growl to his voice as he drunkenly staggered to his feet, "I saw exactly how you swooped in and thought you could erase eight years of history between me and her!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Daveed hissed before his voice turned to frustrated yelling, "Rafa, you have no history with her!" he too stood up, so they were eye to eye, "you made out with her once eight years ago and now no one else is allowed to touch her?! If you wanted a shot with her, you should have done something ages ago!"

"I did do something ages ago! I kissed her!"

"Yeah! And then you had eight years of nothing! You didn't even talk to her! How the fuck was I supposed to know that you wanted to kiss her again???"

"You could have asked me!" Rafa yelled frustratedly.

"I could have asked you?! Come on, man!! You're thirty-three years old for fucks sake! If you wanted something to happen with her, you should've engaged yourself!"

"I was planning on doing so tonight!" Rafa hissed angrily, "and she would've said yes if it hadn't been for you!"

"No she wouldn't!" Daveed was minutes away from pulling out his own hair. How could Rafa be so thick?! "Don't you think that something would've happened by now if you both wanted it so badly?"

"Did you not see how she was eye-fucking me just now?" Rafa yelled angrily, sending Daveed a hard look.

Daveed let out a low growl, "yeah, meanwhile I was minutes away from actually fucking her! If she really wanted you, don't you think she would've given you more signals than a few pitiful looks because you're drunk and hurt? She doesn't want you, man!!"

"Fuck you!!!" Rafa spat angrily and shoved Daveed in the chest causing him to stagger backwards as he was pushed out of balance.

"What the fuck's the matter with you!" Daveed spat as he took a step closer to Rafa, balling up his fists and sending him a threatening look, "you really want me to beat you up?"

"Do whatever the fuck you want with me as long as you stay away from her!" Rafa yelled and gave Daveed another hard shove in the chest. His eyes were bloodshot and Daveed had never seen him this angry before.

"What the fuck's gone into you?" He yelled louder than before, "she clearly doesn't want you! Why can't you just let her go?!"

"Because I'm in love with her!" Rafa yelled loudly, spit flying everywhere. His eyes were huge and aggressive.

Daveed took a step backwards and stared at his panting best friend as his angry words sank in. Rafa's nostrils were flared, and it looked as if he was about to punch Daveed in the face.

...Rafa was in love with you? Daveed could punch himself! Why hadn't he seen it before? Of course Rafa was in love with you... He took a deep breath to calm himself down before he quietly spoke: "Yes - well I'm crazy about her too..."

Rafa was still panting heavily, his nostrils still flared as he shot Daveed a hard look - but he didn't say anything.

They had feelings for the same girl... Daveed frustratedly pinched the bridge of his nose as the realisation sank in; a girl had come between them. How high school... "Shit," he said quietly, "what do we do now?"

Rafa shot him a dark look and answered immediately: "you back down!" he said harshly but not as aggressively as before.

"I'm not going to back down, Rafa," Daveed answered him quietly. He full-on intended on making you his no matter what Rafa's feelings were.

"I've been in love with her for eight years!" Rafa spat angrily but he had stopped yelling, "You have for eight minutes! Don't you think it's more fair that you let me have a shot?!"

Daveed was getting more and more frustrated by the second but was happy that Rafa had chosen to use those exact words: "Exactly Rafa! You had eight years! You sat on your hands for eight years and you expect her to come running to you now? You expect me to let you have a shot? You've had millions of opportunities to do something!"

Rafa's face was still wild but his tone of voice was quiet and determined: "you saw the look she just sent me!" he said darkly.

Daveed had to give it to him; the way you'd been staring at Rafa had confused him too: "Listen, I don't know what the fuck that was, but if she had any feelings for you at all, why would she go home with me?" He said quietly, "why would she take off her clothes for me and not you?"

Rafa shook his head back and forth as if refusing to believe the argument, "No..." he croaked, "please don't say it like that, man..."

"Bruh..." Daveed sighed, "I'm sorry it is this way, but I don't know what else to tell you." He felt bad for Rafa but he wasn't going to back down. No chance.

"Please don't fuck her," Rafa pleaded quietly. His heart obviously broken.

"You know I'm not going to guarantee you that..."

"Just... Let me talk to her first."

"What do you expect to gain from that?"

"She wants to talk to me too..."

"Maybe - but it won't go your way. She's lying naked in my bed right now! She made her decision, bruh."

Rafa looked pained. He was clutching his chest with his eyes screwed shut, a small tear rolling down his cheek, "fuck!" he quietly worded before he fell to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up.

You

"I'm going to murder him for this!" Daveed pulled himself away from you and on to his feet, desperately looking around the room for something to wear. He finally pulled out a pair of clean boxers from his closet, pulled them on, and hurried out of the bedroom to see what was going on with Rafa. He had sounded very drunk and even though you had been slightly amused by his constant swearing throughout the house, the sound of glass smashing combined with his drunk cries for help, had also left you a bit nervous that something serious might've happened to him. What if he had cut himself badly and Daveed couldn't handle it alone? Rafa was your friend too after all. You had to make sure everything was all right with him.

Quickly, you jumped from Daveed's bed, pulled on your panties, and looked around the room for something to wear that could cover your body as your own dress had been discarded during the make-out session in the hallway. You quickly located a black t-shirt that was casually thrown over a chair in the corner of the room and pulled it over your head, grateful that it covered you all the way down to the top of your thighs. Ready to leave Daveed's bedroom, and with your hand already on the doorknob, you took a brief look at yourself in the mirror to make sure you were decent. You tried padding down your messy sex-hair but the sound of Rafa hissing in pain from the other room had you abandon any thought of trying to fix your looks - Rafa's injuries seemed much more urgent. Forcing your eyes away from your own reflection, you opened the door to the hallway instead and listened for their voices.

"Just fix my hand, okay?! Make it stop bleeding!" you heard Rafa slur from the room next door. He was clearly very drunk.

"Sit still!!" Daveed growled.

It sounded as if they had the situation under control and you were just about to go back to Daveed's bed and wait for him there when you heard Rafa exclaim, "Oh fuck! Fuck it hurts!"

It made you do a U-turn on your heel and you decided to check in on the two men to see if they were in need of any extra help. Softly, you knocked on the door but didn't listen for an answer as you immediately poked in your head and took in the scene in the small bathroom: the two men were sitting next to each other; Daveed on the edge of the bathtub with Rafa's bloody hand in his lap while Rafa was splayed on the floor looking very drunk. Both of them were looking directly up at you with equally soft expressions on their faces. Daveed's eyes were loving as he silently apologised for having to help his best friend clean up. Rafa, on the other hand, was staring up at you with a sorrowful look on his pale face, his eyes huge and red-rimmed, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down in his throat as he gulped hard.

The tension between them was thick, the air cold. Both of them clearly equally annoyed with the other.

"Is everything alright in here?" You asked quietly as you pushed open the door and stepped inside, tugging on your t-shirt to prevent it from riding up.

"Rafa cut himself..." Daveed rolled his eyes so only you could see before he continued, "- and apparently he's too drunk to handle it alone," he shot Rafa an annoyed sideway-glance before he turned his attention to the gauze and Rafa's blood-covered hand in his lap.

You watched Rafa send Daveed an equally irritated glance, looking as if he was biting his tongue to keep himself from retorting something nasty. He had probably already realised that he needed Daveed's help to get the wound to stop bleeding and that he wouldn't get it by being crass. So instead, Rafa silently let Daveed wrap his hand as his eyes slowly found yours, his expression immediately changing from annoyed to soft.

You sent him a small reassuring smile and a goofy expression emerged on his drunk face when he happily reciprocated it. You let out a small laugh at his expression and he blinked a few times, looking as if he was saving the sound on his mental hard drive. His foggy eyes were softly gazing up at you with a soulful look, and he looked drunk but cute as he took you in, a weird undertone in his gaze that you couldn't quite place. It was a look that you recognised from somewhere, but not from him - from someone else. You scanned his face one more time, raking your brain to find out from where you knew the gaze, he was sending you, but it wasn't immediately clear. Suddenly however, you realised that it was the same look that Daveed had sent you several times over the last couple of weeks. It was a look of longing.

Softly, you cocked your head at him, and he sent you a small, sad smile in return, his green eyes kindly taking in your face before they travelled down your body, ultimately landing on your chest. You immediately folded your arms, and he looked back up into your eyes, your eyebrows now arched in an unimpressed manner, silently tell him that he'd been caught staring red-handed. His face screwed up in a painful expression and he paled a bit before he quietly slurred, "'s that my shirt?".

Unaware of what he was talking about, you looked towards the mirror above the sink on the opposite side of the bathroom wall, and when you caught your own reflection, you realised that he hadn't been staring at your chest. He'd been staring at the logo on the t-shirt. The Raiders logo - his football team. You weren't wearing Daveed's shirt. You were wearing Rafa's.

You'd seen him in it multiple times - hell, he'd even worn it the night you'd kissed on top of the skate ramps. You remembered because every so often your mind wandered back to that night. Played it on repeat. Rafa's hand on your thigh as Stevie Nicks' voice rang in the background. Your tongues intertwining. The stubble on his chin soft between your fingertips. The scent of his warm cologne. The thought of your passionate kiss that summer night eight years ago was enough to make a warm feeling appear in your stomach.

Still looking at yourself in the mirror, you let your arms drop to the side and took in your own reflection. The t-shirt was a few sizes too big for you and it covered you like a short dress, just barely reaching below the red panties you were wearing underneath. The Raiders logo took up most of the front of the shirt and the logo curved nicely along your breasts and waistline, making the oversized men's shirt actually look as if it'd been tailored to you. You liked this look. You actually looked good in Rafa's t-shirt.

From far away you heard Daveed's voice, "let it go, bruh," and it pulled you back to reality.

"Oh... Raiders..." you said quietly, unable to pry your eyes away from the way the t-shirt was hugging your curves. No wonder Rafa was staring at you. You had gone home with his roomie, yet you'd put on his shirt - and you even looked good in it. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise," you croaked.

Rafa was looking as if he was thinking about the same thing as you, and for a second you were afraid that he might get angry about the fact that Daveed's flirt was wearing his beloved Raiders t-shirt, but he just softly said, "yeah, no. Don't be. It looks good on you..."

You didn't react to his words but merely stared at yourself in the mirror as the memories of your Tacos Locos summer once more flooded your mind - and you slowly felt a dull ache in your chest when you looked back at Rafa's pained expression and realised that maybe there was a reason for his look of longing, his quiet, pained reaction to seeing you half-naked in his shirt when you'd gone home with his best friend. He probably wasn't as cool with you and Daveed as Daveed had let on. Maybe your suspicion about why Rafa had invited you to join his production was right after all...

Oh no.

The thought of kissing Rafa again had grazed your mind several times in the period of time between his phone call offering you the job, and your first day on set where you'd been introduced to his best friend for the first time. Daveed, however, had immediately pushed every sensual thought of Rafa out of your head and had instead replaced them with unholy thoughts about himself. The sexual attraction that you had felt towards Daveed for the past month was insane and you were definitely crazy about him! ...Still, you wondered if he was the type of man, you'd still fantasise about eight years after having shared a passionate kiss in the dark. The same way you so often had found yourself fantasising about Rafa.

...had you just made a huge mistake?

Rafa's cheeks paled considerably as his gaze constantly shifted between your face and the Raiders logo. He was clearly affected by the fact that you were wearing his shirt and nothing else, and it looked as if he was having a hard time sitting still. The tender yet hurtful look he sent you made you feel horrible about yourself and all the decisions that had led to this exact moment. What if things had been different back in the taco truck eight years ago? What if he had actually taken you home after one of your late nights out? And what if Daveed hadn't been so persistent in hooking up with you over the last couple of weeks? If he hadn't been so smooth and charming, would he still have been able to swoop in right before Rafa? Or would you eventually have gone home with Rafa instead?

Would it feel more right to be sleeping in Rafa's bed tonight?

Oh no...

"Shit!" Daveed's voice brought you back from your panicky train of thought. You looked over at him, his face sweet and innocent as he was helping his best friend recover, and you realised: no, it wouldn't feel more right to be sleeping in Rafa's bed tonight. But it would feel just as right as sleeping in Daveed's.

"Baby, can you get me more gauze out of the cabinet?" he continued.

Baby. It had slipped out of him. He hadn't even realised it... The caring, handsome man in front of you had called you baby and you couldn't help but send him a small smile as it had made you soft. You were baby to him.

Rafa had a reaction to the pet name too: he looked as if he was about to murder Daveed.

Desperately trying to untangle yourself from the situation you had put yourself in, you turned over to the cabinets and pulled out more gauze, promptly handing it over to Daveed before resuming your position in the doorframe.

Immediately, you and Rafa went back to staring at each other again, both unable to look away. The looks he was sending you were deep and longing, his eyes pained as he grew more and more tense with each passing second. He looked as if he wanted to touch you, to kiss you, to hold you tight. Shit.

Your eyes were flickering fast between the two men: both of them sweet and handsome. Both of them crazy about you. You couldn't decide whether or not you had made a mistake by choosing to go home with Daveed tonight.

Daveed broke the tension in the small bathroom when he in an irritated tone of voice said, "Look, I can bandage this to keep it from bleeding all over, but you need to go to the hospital for stitches or something."

Rafa let out a small grunt without looking away from you. It looked as if he wanted to tell you something but was unable to with Daveed being present. It was heart-breaking.

You liked Daveed very much but realised that you had to talk to Rafa as well. You had to hear what he had to say, "...I can take you," you piped up in a voice that was weirdly nervous, "I can drive. I almost didn't drink tonight."

"You'd - you'd do that?" Rafa said in a whisper and sent you a warm look.

"Of course," you nodded slowly, suddenly desperate to talk to him, to hear his thoughts, "Let me just grab some pants, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Thanks," Rafa said quietly, his pained expression now completely replaced by a hopeful one.

Daveed had definitely noticed that something was going on with you because the annoyance was practically seeping out of him though he was trying his best to keep calm. He did something to Rafa's hand that had Rafa hissing in pain and shooting Daveed an angry look with his lips pressed together in a thin, white line.

Your eyes whipped over to Daveed as well. He was sending you a hurt look that said 'what the fuck are you doing?' and you gulped guiltily. Had he realised that you were unsure about what to do with the two men in front of you?

"Nope!" Daveed said loudly, shaking his head vigorously, "Not gonna happen. Uh-uh, absolutely no fucking way. Rafa you can take a cab!" he shot Rafa a hard look before he turned back to you, his eyes soft, but his voice full of irritation, "Baby, go back to bed, I'll be there in a second!"

There it was again. Baby. You looked into Daveed's soft brown eyes that were looking pleadingly back at you, your knees immediately weak. Slowly, you let your gaze wander a bit to the left and met Rafa's huge green eyes too. They also made you feel incredibly soft.

Daveed noticed your gaze drifting over to Rafa and harshly interjected, "he'll take a cab, okay!"

Rafa sent you a slight nod as if to say that it was alright for you to leave, and that he could handle Daveed and his bleeding hand on his own. Meanwhile Daveed was staring at his best friend with a murderous look in his eyes. You realised that they had to resolve some stuff too, so even though it hurt in your chest, you slowly turned away from the two men, and walked back to Daveed's bedroom. Just before the door to the bathroom closed behind you, you heard the beginning of an argument between the two friends: "Ah! Dude what the fuck!" Rafa yelped loudly.

To which Daveed angrily responded with a "What the fuck was that all about? You're flirting with my girl!" It was more a statement than a question.

You sat awkwardly on Daveed's bed, unsure of what to do now. Daveed had noticed the long looks between you and Rafa. Shit. Even though you hadn't intended it, you had still managed to turn them against each other.

You could hear their angry voices from the other side of the wall, but you didn't want to listen in on their private conversation, so you put your fingers in your ears. Their shouted words were not meant for you. It was a desperate conversation between two best friends, and even though you could've easily followed their screaming match, it didn't seem right to do so. Desperately, you pressed in on your ear canal and started humming softly to tune out most of their angry words. Still, snippets of their loud conversation penetrated your ears.

"Rafa, you have no history with her!" Daveed was yelling before Rafa's voice was heard a few seconds later: "Did you not see how she was eye-fucking me just now?" followed a little while later by a loud "Fuck you!" from Rafa and an angry "you really want me to beat you up?" from Daveed. They kept yelling loudly at each other, but you tried not to decipher their angry words as you found them private. There was a reason why they had sent you out of the bathroom after all.

After a few minutes, their angry yells finally died down completely and were instead replaced by muffled words in normal voices that you couldn't make out even if you tried. You slowly removed your fingers from your ears, instead burying your face in your hands, angry with yourself for having let it come to this.

Their muffled voices could be heard for a few seconds before the sound was disrupted by someone retching.

One of them was throwing up, the other completely silent. You listened intently for a few seconds to see if you could make out who was throwing up, hoping that the other would say some words of comfort, but neither of them spoke, and after about a minute of silence, you heard footsteps approaching the room you were lying in. The doorknob twisted and Daveed entered the room slowly, his eyes full of pain as he took you in. He sat down on the bed next to you, panting hard, obviously very upset about the entire situation. It hurt seeing him like this. And it hurt thinking about Rafa lying alone in the bathroom. You dried an annoying tear away from your cheek and just barely managed to reset your face before Daveed looked up at you with a sad smile. You did your best to look casual as if you hadn't got the faintest idea of what their screaming match had been about. You acted as if wearing Rafa's shirt meant nothing. Seeing his pained expression had done nothing. Hearing him sob in the bathroom made you feel no ways.

"Everything okay?" You asked Daveed carefully.

"Yeah," he grunted.

"How about Rafa?" you said quietly. Even the sound of his name hurt in your chest.

"He's..." Daveed's words died in his throat as he frustratedly buried his face in his hands with a deep sigh.

You gulped, "is he okay alone out there?"

"Can we please not talk about Rafa right now?" he said slowly.

"Yeah..." you nodded quietly, "come here," you folded your arms around his chest, hugging him tight. He pulled you on top of him and hugged you back, his strong arms squeezing you, bringing you comfort as if he knew what you were going through as well. You sat like this for a few seconds, your arms wrapped tightly around each other comforting the broken feeling you both felt in your chests until his lips slowly found their way to your neck, leaving sweet, sensual kisses to the side of your throat.

"Look," you said quietly, pulling yourself away from him and looking into his chocolate brown eyes, "it's not that I don't enjoy this, but I just think it's for the best if I go home."

"What? No?" Daveed looked up at you with a pained expression, "come on, we can't let Rafa ruin our night," he groaned and moved closer to you but suddenly paused, "unless you don't want to of course. I don't want to force you into anything," he looked carefully at you and you understood why. He wanted to make sure that you were comfortable with the decision you were making. Comfortable with him.

It made you realise that the fact that you were lying in Daveed's bedroom half-naked, meant that you had made your choice long ago. You needed to stick with it.

"Yeah, okay," you said and moved your lips close to his, kissing him softly.

"You have no idea how happy that makes me," he groaned against your lips and you felt him breathe a sigh of relief as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He quickly pulled Rafa's t-shirt over your head, and harshly threw it onto the ground next to the bed. You couldn't help but think of the symbolics in his heated gesture.

His warm hands immediately found your breasts and he started running his fingers over your nipples with a low growl. You enjoyed the confident, hungry look he sent you as you were once again bare-chested in front of him. He moved his face closer to yours, "I still fully intent on making you feel good and make you let loose a little," he repeated his words from earlier that evening with a smile and carefully pushed you down on the bed, a warm shiver travelling up your spine with his words and movements. He hovered above you before his lips started pressing small, peppered kisses to the side of your throat, his one hand running down your stomach and dipping down between your legs, making you gasp softly. His lips moved over your collarbone and down between the valley of your breasts, taking one of your nipples in his mouth, and making you arch your back against him, as you felt his erection pressed up between your legs. He groaned as he pushed his boxer-clad erection closer to you, looking down at you with an erotic spark in his eye. Your fingers found his soft hair and you raked a hand through his curls and reciprocated the look he was sending you; dark and sensual.

You were both getting lost in the sensations you were causing each other when you were interrupted by the sound of Rafa retching and his heart-breaking sobs from the next room. It made your stomach ache horribly and you interrupted the kiss with Daveed, looking towards the wall to the bathroom instead. "I'm sorry, I can't just leave him alone with that..."

"What? You're not serious?" He looked at you with a disappointed look on his face.

"Listen to him," you said softly, as Rafa let out another heartbroken sob.

"He'll be fine," Daveed responded harshly before he resumed kissing your throat.

You pulled your face away from him, raking a hand through his hair one more time, "he's your best friend. Do you really want him to be alone right now? He sounds so heartbroken."

"Trust me - you do not want to deal with him right now."

Rafa retched loudly.

"I'm sorry," you kissed Daveed briefly, "but I have to make sure he's okay. I'll be back in a second."

Daveed let out an irritated grunt but eventually let go of you so you could crawl down from his lap. You quickly found the Raiders t-shirt on the floor and pulled it over your head, exiting the bedroom in a swift motion.

You knocked quietly on the door to the bathroom and found Rafa lying on the floor next to the toilet sobbing quietly. "Rafa, honey, are you okay?" you said softly as you sat down next to him and carefully put your hand on his chest.

He took a deep breath and looked up at you with wet eyes. The gaze he sent you was bloodshot, but he wasn't as pale as before. Throwing up some of the alcohol had definitely done him some good. "Hey," he whispered in a raspy voice as he put his good hand on top of yours, closing his eyes again taking three deep breaths. You noticed that he didn't answer your question.

As you pulled your hand away from his chest to fix him a glass of water, he groaned at the lack of touch and sat up straight, sleepily resting his head on the edge of the tub, looking at you with tired, sad eyes.

"Are you done throwing up?" you asked him as you handed him the glass.

He took a big gulp and nodded "I think so... Listen, can we talk?"

You sent him a small smile, "tomorrow, okay?" you didn't want to cause him anymore heartbreak tonight, "let's get you to bed," you held out your hand.

"Yeah, okay..." he took your hand and let you pull him to his feet. He was still very drunk, so you had to help him with his balance, your arm tightly wrapped around his waist, "come here," you chuckled and walked him to his room with his arm draped over your shoulder. As soon as you entered his personal space, he threw himself down on the bed with a loud groan.

"You're not going to disrobe?" you chuckled at him.

"Yeah, no... I don't care right now," he said and closed his eyes, "I just want to sleep... Let this absolute shit night be over."

You guiltily shook your head and forcefully pulled off his Chelsea boots and socks.

"Are you trying to get me naked?" He joked sleepily from the bed; his eyes closed.

"I'm trying to get you comfortable," you chuckled, "you have to take off your shirt and pants yourself."

Rafa groaned but sat up straight before he pulled his shirt over his head. His eyes were still closed, and his long hair was falling in unruly strands around his face. He looked exhausted as he undid the button on his pants and slid them off himself, plumping down on the bed afterwards.

"You don't think I'll bleed to death, do you?" he groaned and lifted his bandaged hand a little.

"I'm absolutely positive you won't," you chuckled at him, "if it's still bleeding tomorrow, I'll take you to the hospital, okay?"

"Okay, can't wait," he smiled sleepily and gave out a quiet snore as if he'd briefly fallen asleep. He was lying flat on his back which gave you time to study the tattoos he had on his chest and forearms. Some of them you didn't like, others were beautiful. He had one on his pec that you'd never seen before.

"If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see," you read out loud, looking at his chest.

Even though Rafa had his eyes closed and looked as if he was just about to fall asleep again, he knew what you were talking about and softly tapped the tattoo he had on his pec, "that's right," he slurred with a small smile. For the first time since he'd cut himself, he looked as if he was peaceful, and you tugged one of his long strands of blonde hair away from his eyes and behind his ear instead. Your fingers lingered on his cheek for a second and he kissed your palm with a small hum, "that means that I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see," he whispered before he drifted off completely.

"Alright Rafa," you chuckled quietly as you ran your fingers through his soft hair. He had started breathing heavily, already fast asleep, "thanks for explaining the words of your tattoo with the exact same words!" You got up from the bed and quietly closed the door behind you as you walked out into the hallway.

You'd only walked a few steps towards Daveed's room when the meaning behind Rafa's sentence hit you and you froze in place. Inside your head, the written words of the tattoo and Rafa's whispered words played on repeat. He hadn't explained the tattoo to you. He had told you that he loved you.

He loved you. Rafa was in love with you.

And you were walking towards the bedroom of his best friend. You turned your head slightly, looking towards Rafa's room. Should you go back to him? Or continue to Daveed? You were completely frozen in time, desperately looking between the two bedroom doors on either side of the bathroom in the hallway, realising that even though you might have been lying naked in Daveed's arms only minutes before, Rafa's words hurt so much in your chest that your decision-making was far from over.

Rafa's room was to the left. He had just confessed his feelings for you. Or, he didn't just have feelings for you; he was in love with you. Probably had been since your summer together in the taco truck. You wouldn't say that you were in love with him, but there was definitely raw, heated attraction towards him on your part as well, or you wouldn't still be thinking about your drunk kiss in the dark eight years ago, the way he was always able to make you laugh, his soft, green eyes. It hurt in your chest to think about how you'd potentially wasted eight years without him by your side. If you went to him, you'd either finally be able to stop thinking of him as 'the one who got away' and actually engage in something romantic with him - or you'd see that eight years of absence might have grown the heart so fond that you had put him on a pedestal that he couldn't live up to.

Daveed's room was to the right. He was waiting for you in there, probably ready to fuck you so good that you wouldn't be able to remember your own name. The preview he'd given you earlier tonight had definitely shown you that he was able to bring all your sexual fantasies to life! And you had craved his touch for so long, to feel his strong hands on your body as he slid into you while whispering sweet words in your ear. You and him definitely had some insane potential - not to mention the fact that he was already calling you baby! He was so crazy about you that you were baby to him! - but did you feel the same emotional attraction to him? Or was the warm feeling in your stomach whenever you looked at him all due to sexual attraction? Could you and he ever become more than raw passion?

No matter what, you'd have to choose between them. You couldn't have both. With whomever you chose, you'd never be able to have the other.

Carefully, you weighed both your options; left or right? Rafa or Daveed?

You started at both of their doors, unsure about where to go, but eventually made a decision. With a deep breath, you stepped closer to the wooden door, grabbed door handle and stepped inside, softly closing the door behind you as you took in the handsome man on the bed.

Tagging: @exrthangel @theatrenerd86 @lonelydance @ohsoverykeri @summerofsnowflakes @ramp-it-up @alexander-hamilhoe @honeysucklechocolatedrippin @riiyy @mysearchforgratification @janthony-stan @sillyteecup @biafbunny @einfachniemand @cashskid @namelesslosers @simpinforu​ @diggsbeatriz​ (Imma keep tagging you unless you say something lol).

....No spoilers in the comments please :-) 

[the-one-who-lambs]

Okay, it's going on tumblr, better late than never.

It's a beautiful morning. I'm up at 8:15 in the morning preparing dinner, because I am an Extremely Busy Graduate Student who should probably know better than to write fanfiction instead of my master's thesis while at work. Basically every moment of my life for the next six months is either blocked off or precious recovery time, so I absolutely ADORE my crockpot for three reasons: I am busy, I need to eat well-balanced meals, and I love trying new recipes. I can do 10-15 minutes of prep time in the morning and come back to a slammin dinner after letting it simmer all day. It's an absolute treat.

Except my morning dinner prep turns out to be more of a trick, appropriately, because it's Halloween and I'm already decked out in my costume. I'm going as the Lamb from Cult of the Lamb, and I'm preparing a delicious feast for my flock. I start to chop my vegetables for the most delicious-looking lemon chicken orzo soup I've ever seen. The carrots are fine. The celery is fine. Cutting onion is the continued bane of my existence. While I'm handling the knife, it slips, and I slice right through the top couple millimeters of my fingernail at a pretty shallow angle. This probably wouldn't have been too concerning if I didn't also take the top bit of my fingertip with it. It's not a concerning amount of fingertip, but it's definitely a removed little bit, and I've cut through four layers of skin, probably. Hopefully.

I get annoyed because in two seconds my onion is bloody. I wash my hands, put on a bandaid, and wash and chop the rest of the cleaned onion. The bandaid is no longer sticking after like a minute. I put on another. It lasts two minutes so I put on another and it lasts two minutes as well. I use a washcloth to stop the bleeding mostly, and after about fifteen minutes I get a bandaid to finally stick and hold well. But I'm still bleeding kind of a lot and I don't know where my small chunk of fingertip went. I don't want to call my mom to ask how much fingertip is acceptable to have cut off but I wonder if I might have to go to the emergency room for stitches or something. in my lamb cosplay with a wooly tail and everything.

Problem for later. Soup is now. I put in the herbs and chicken stock and NO white wine into my crockpot because I forgot to buy it. I open the garlic and the container burps when I screw off the lid that my roommate didn't close properly last night and it smells a little different. I wonder if it's poisoned but then I look online and it's just a little fermented which apparently "unlocks the natural benefits" of garlic. As long as it tastes good I don't care. I take the chicken out of the freezer and change my bandage for what I think is the last time. I'm still bleeding a lot. Oh, wait. Fuck, i forgot to defrost the chicken last night. I take it out of the package in one big chunk and run it under water for a few minutes to defrost it just enough that I can remove the chicken diaper (you know, the absorbent pad with gel in the bottom of the package) without it sticking.

Spoiler alert: the chicken diaper tears as I'm trying to peel it off and it explodes its gelly substance all over the place. I pick off the white plastic coating that's frozen onto the chicken, which takes like 5-10 minutes, and run it under water again just to make sure there's no clear gel stuff stuck to it. I put it in the Agony Soup. I'm still a little worried that the gel touching my chicken somehow contaminated it or something, so I look up what it is and it's non-toxic so at least I have that going for me. I realize I probably shouldn't have touched raw chicken breasts with an open wound even if it's under a bandage. So I clean my hands REALLY well and go to disinfect the wound with hand sanitizer and prepare for the sting.

I'm pleasantly surprised that it doesn't sting, but five seconds after I realize that's NOT supposed to be a good thing, it hurts like hell. The One Who Waits is going to kick my ass for how I've been providing for my flock and I'm worried my soup is going to suck complete donkey dick.

It's been about 40 minutes at this point. The recipe as prepared on the stovetop takes 50 minutes, so I've actually saved no time because I have to make the orzo separately since the rest of the soup is going to be simmering all day. I have class in 20 minutes, I live a 25 minute walk away, and I still haven't had breakfast which I need to take with my medicine that I almost forgot to take. I don't want to bike because finger still goes ow. Instead of going to the emergency room I decide to pack 8 more bandaids and suck it up. I call a lyft, make a steaming hot bowl of oatmeal at my work desk, go to class in full costume, and eat my hot breakfast right in front of my professor. He is not at all fazed by any of what I'm doing.

You'd think this would've set me up for a terrible day but I had a BLAST and was not going to let that ruin my Halloween. At least the soup was good, and I remembered to bring my little recruitment pamphlets to the university to go with my costume! But, in retrospect, I probably should have just gone to the emergency room or at least student health services. I'm fine now, but there's a definite change of slope on the tip of my left pinky finger where it should be curved.

Did I tell y'all about the time I almost went to the emergency room in my lamb cosplay

[handonhaven]

I've been wondering if they're planning on subverting the trope "don't get consumed by your relationship and have a life and friends outside of it", and instead turning it into "Handon relationship > fake friends", + Hope becoming more selective about her friends after everything. Because that's the only thing I can think of as to why they had a whole season of Hopes "friends" being terrible to her, 4x01 especially(I don't even want to get start it on why they had Hope say you'll always have your friends to Cleo no less). Even though I really want that to be the case, i doubt it. Because the writers have been making some really weird writing decisions. That it some times feels like us true fans can write a better story when it comes to these "friendships" (no offense to the writers or anything. I know they're just doing their jobs and working with what they got). But also a part of me is hoping there really will be a fall out between Hope and super squad. And that throughout the whole of season 4(4x05 onwards) will be the super squad redeeming themselves(and you know showing what good healthy friendships actually look like). But if I'm being honest I don't think there's anything they can ever do to redeem themselves in my eyes. Not even if they do manage to save both Cleo and Landon, simply because they only planned on saving Cleo in the first place. But once again I doubt that's what's gonna happen. I pretty much lost all faith in the writers after I saw 4x01. I mean if they really want all these amazing friendships with a good balance of friendships and relationships than show it with actions. Don't just throw in some bullshit lines like "no matter how much you screw up you're friends will always be there" when they spent all of s3 showing that her friends weren't there for her or Landon. Or even them throwing in lines like "you're always choosing Landon" to make it seem like Hopes been the bad friend all along and she's the one who has to change. I'm sorry but WHAT?! This is a joke right? It just has to be.

But anyways let's see how much this season will frustrate me.

I would seriously love it if they did that and it would definitely make sense with what they’ve been doing since s3, but I also doubt that that will happen. For sure, they’ve been making really bizarre writing decisions and I don’t know what it is they’re trying to achieve. To me, it almost seems as if they’re trying to tell two different narratives that contradict each other. There’s the one that actually makes sense and fits with the story and the characters, with Handon being portrayed in a positive light, with the importance of their relationship being emphasized, and the fact that Landon makes Hope happy. And having Hope fight for her happiness and for Landon, as she should. Which I thought was supposed to be one of the main points of s3. But she’s also still been there for her friends throughout, even though she did make the one risky decision in 3x08. But even with that, at the end of that episode with the dock scene, Hope’s choice to save Landon is not portrayed in a negative way. She acknowledges that she may have pissed people off, but her actions are phrased as “risking everything for the people you love.” Which is what Hope did, and she had the right to do that for Landon for once when he needed to be saved. But besides that time, we have seen that she has put her friends first and has chosen to save them time and time again.

But then they’ll flip to this other narrative that they’ve been pushing, where Hope is supposedly always choosing Landon and putting everyone in danger because of it and needs to learn to prioritize her friends more, which we know is a complete lie. But it does seem like they’re trying to fit that trope, like you said, of “don’t get consumed by your relationship and have a life and friends outside of it.” Even though that’s doesn’t even apply to Handon because Hope is not consumed or obsessed just because she’s been trying to save the person she loves most when he’s been in danger for a whole season. And when Hope and Landon have always had a life and “friends” outside of their relationship. They’ve always been there for their “friends,” have never been too wrapped up in their relationship to help, because they’ve literally sacrificed their happiness together how many times in order to help others.

But I’m honestly wondering if the writers are doing this because of all the Handon hate. Because if they’re gonna still have Handon going forward, maybe they’re trying to “correct” what people are complaining about to make people chill. And antis love to say that Handon is toxic and Hope is too involved with him, etc. So it’s like the writers are validating what the antis are saying, even though there’s nothing to back it up, so that they can “fix” it. So that they can make Hope have more of a “balance” between her friendships and her relationship with Landon. (When this has literally never been an issue. If anything, her “friendships” have prevented her from being with Landon.) They’ll tell this false narrative where Hope is prioritizing Landon too much, and show how it supposedly affects her friendships, so that Hope can learn a “lesson” and have a “realization” about the importance of her friendships. And them doing this as a way to sort of appease the antis is the only explanation I can come up with for this kind of writing, if it’s not to distance Hope from her friends or something like that. But who knows. Maybe they really do think they’re writing good friendships? (If so, yikes.)

And I totally agree, real fans would be able to write better, rather than have both Hope and Landon being treated horribly and acting as if those are healthy friendships. And I don’t want to offend or be rude to the writers either, but it’s not okay to write supposed friendships the way that they are and act as if they’re great when they’re actually very toxic at this point. And they’re the ones who create what they’ve got to work with, they don’t have to write the characters like this.

I’m also hoping for a fallout between Hope and the super squad, and Landon and the super squad when he comes back. I think it would be great for there to be some distance between them throughout season 4, and I think we will see some of that with Hope, at least. I just don’t wanna see Landon around them, I don’t know if I can endure seeing him interacting with any of them. I agree, I don’t know if they can redeem themselves at this point either, too much damage has been done. The way they’ve treated Hope after all she’s done for them is inexcusable. And if they didn’t care about Landon all this time, with all he’s been through, when he was a friend to all of them, there’s nothing that could make them care. Seeing how uncaring they’ve been towards a good person, who was kind to all of them, when he’s been suffering so much and at his most desperate, is sickening. And I don’t know how they’d ever be able to fix it.

But yeah, I’m sure the writers will continue to ignore the way the squad treats Hope and Landon, and they’ll continue to have Hope and Landon say nothing about it and keep seeing them as their friends. I don’t really have faith in the writers either, especially when it comes to friendships on the show. You’re right, they throw in lines that don’t match up with the characters’ actions at all, just a bunch of telling and no showing. The amount of lies in 4x01 was infuriating. And I’ve not even watched 4x02 yet, though I did watch the one clip of Hope and the squad, which made me even more mad. So I’m not looking forward to some more frustration. It really does feel like a joke. And I’m worried it’s just gonna continue, and possibly get worse.

[hawksugarbaby]

Denki x Gn reader- sk8 boi

Fluff + Bnha / Sk8 the infinity crossover

You sighed following your friends to the skatepark to supervise as usual. You might as well have been babysitting the boys as your only purpose when going to the skatepark was to make sure neither of them died or got run over by the ignorant bikers who seemed to own the park.

"Hey (y/n) do you wanna try today?" Denki asked with a smile and held his board out in front of your face spinning the wheels for added effect. "Yeah wouldn't it be cool if you got on the board just once?" Reki added with his hands pushed together in a plea. "Guys I would 100% break my face and you know it. Just go have fun!" you shoo them away and jump up on the wall to sit and watch. "And i'll be here. As always" you muttered drumming your hands on your thighs and watched the other wheeled transportations slip past you and into the blur of others trying out impressive tricks you could never hope to achieve.

Of course Denki and Reki refused to let the third member of the warm coloured gang, named so because of kaminari's yellow hair, Reiki's red hair, and your orange backpack that always hung off one shoulder, refused to accept that you wouldn't let them teach you. They knew you, you were a quick learner and determined once you picked something up but you were also afraid of failing something, so of course you were hesitant to start skating with them.

On the plus side your running was incredible because of your constant need to keep up with the cheerful boys so you had the energy, the stamina, the strength and the balamce it took to sit on that thin wall all day and not fall off was a clear indicatoryou could balance for hours. You just didn't have the mindset.

"What if we taped their feet to the board?" Reki offered, digging through his bag for a roll of duct tape. "Nah, I think (y/n) would be more scared if they weren't able to get off the board. Langa was used to it so it wasn't a problem with him" Denki rolled his board back and forth under his feet and perked up at the sound of your music blasting through the mini speaker you brought. It was your way of being found if they needed you for a drink or a break or for snacks. "Maybe they just need some encouragement?" the red head smiled waving at you from across the park and you waved back slightly showing them you were paying attention and waiting for them to do something interesting.

Reki had the same mission as Denki, to get you on a board, but he also had to help you with your mission, one that might not be any easier than Denki's

"God he's so stupid and cute" you sighed watching Denki fall for a fourth time trying to do a pop shuvit. With your headphone's firmly lodged in your ears you hadn't noticed Reki standing beside you for the last 2 minutes. He yanked the headphone's out of your ears and you whipped your head around. "HEY!" you shouted trying to swipe them back but he held them out of your reach.

"Did you call Denki cute?" he asked with a gleeful tone and a glimmer of excitement in his amber eyes. "N-no I called him stupid" you stuttered feeling your face flush and you look back at him telling off his board as if it was a person and smile. Out of the corner of your eye you see Reki rearing up to say something and your mouth sets into a hard line once again. "You so called him cute! Do you have a crush on Denki, that's adorable!" he jumped up on the wall to sit with you and he handed you your white headphone's again.

"When did you start to like him?" he asked, nudging your arm and your sigh got stuck in your throat feeling like a useless attempt to get out of the conversation and you shook your head. "I don't have an exact date" you mutter but he looks at you expectantly anyway. "I guess when I started babysitting you guys-" "heeey, you do not babysit us" he interrupted but your facial expression was enough to make him sigh and agree. "Are you gonna tell him?" "fuck no" you laughed.

"Reki what if we-" "I have an idea!" he shouted and dropped his board skating to the music waving for Denki to follow. "What is it!" he shouted weaving through the other skaters and 2 boys on scooters zooming past them screaming. You were chatting politely with another person on the wall who was also babysitting their friends on the scooters. "guys I found another Enby parental figure!" you cheered hi-fiving the person sitting above you who politely waved at your friends then shouted at the boys on scooters for getting in others way's. (lol not an author self insert...)

"(Y/n) we really want you to try skating!" Reki begged, laying his scraped board on your lap and you face palmed. "I know you do. And look if i'm being truthful I would LOVE to learn to skate, but i'm just not built for it!" you argue and Reki grinned jumping onto the wall in a squat and whispered "you get to hold Denki's hands." he sat back and you gulped looking at the oblivious blonde sparking excitedly about the idea of you skating beside him- no, skating just the idea of you skating.

"I don't have the right shoes..." you mumble and Denki crouches to look at the size on the bottom of your chunky heels. "Hey we have the same shoe size!" he shouts enthusiastically and slips off his vans without untying the laces propping them on the wall. "Hold on. You're going to wear my heels just so I can skate?" you hesitantly unbuckle the heels and he nods giving you a spare pair of socks from his bag that he wasn't sure why he kept around. "It just means we're both experiencing challenges right?" Reki sat on the side with your highlighter orange bag excited to watch the bonding experience and your progress.

"Okay but promise me I wont die" you lift yourself off of the wall and nervously follow Denki who was stumbling slightly in your heels, to a quiter, flatter part of the park. "I promise you won't die" he held out his pinky and you wrapped yours around it sealing the promise. "Dude i'm scared to even get on the board nevermind like actually move on it!" you shout jumping up and down shaking your hands nervously. He stood next to you and his arm grazed your making your heart race and your temperature shot up. "It's okay, look I'll hold your hand" he said gently wrapping his hand around yours.

You sucked in a breath and all the air was robbed from your lungs at the same time. His hands were hot and sweaty, constantly pumping out electricity that sparked your hands and made your fingers twitch. "You're shocking me" you admit and he tut's at himself "I know, sorry I can't help it" he gripes and you nod not willing to give him grief for somethinghe couldn’t control.

You lift a foot hovering it over the board and then put it back down on the concrete. "I'm NERVOUSSS!" you shout, unable to detract from the feeling of his hands on yours and you look back at Reki who was watching with giant, hope filled eye's. "I know, everyone is nervous when they first start though" he says and you can almost see the smile he has on his face. Was it supposed to be this hard to get on? You weren't a huge part of Denki's life when he started to skate but you remember Reki taking months and months just to work through the basics, he was constantly disappointed and annoyed until he achieved the trick he was going for, and being quirkless it wasn't like anyone wanted to help him.

"Where am i supposed to put my feet" you ask quietly, feeling embarrassed about something so simple but Denki never thought anything you said was stupid or silly. "Put your left foot at the front on the 4 screws. And your back foot on the back screws" he said, patting the gritty board and held your hands while you nervously lifted your foot. "Okay okay okay" you hyped yourself up internally and squeezed his hands closing your eyes tightly while you put the ball of your front foot on the board.

It wobbled slightly and you gasped but Denki assured you it was fine and you quickly pulled your other foot on the board. "Am I on?" you asked, feeling taller than you were 2 minutes ago. "Look for yourself" Denki said cheerily and you fluttered your eyes open "oh my GOD I'M ON THE BOARD" you cried happily and he grinned from ear to ear admiring the happiness etched on your face. "Do you want me to let go" "NO"

After a good 15 minutes you felt you had a good basis of getting on and off the board, pushing, and turning your foot but you weren't great at stopping yet so you had a few tumbles but of course, Denki, your noght in shining armour was there to help you up on your feet again. "Thank you Denki" you sighed, rubbing your sore shoulder from falling on your side. "Hey you're getting a lot better!" he said happily and you decided to take a break together sitting on the opposite sides of Reki.

"Sooooo... feel any closer?" he asked, nudging your sides and he nodded "yeah their doing a lot better already" Denki smiled and you nodded getting at what Reki meant. "Yeah a lot closer" you smiled lightly and Reki grabbed his own board, dropping it and jumping on. "Well I'm gonna skate for a bit you two just enjoy your company!" he said dropping down a ramp and disappearing in the bowl.

"Thank you for teaching me to skate" you grin, your arms are pushed together and you don't move wanting to be close to him. "Reki's so good at skating" you sigh dropping your head. "Hey you'll get there. It takes time" he assures you and wraps an arm around your shoulders smoothly. "And I would like to help you, um if you're okay with it, obviously, like i'd like to help you along the way" he stammered and you chuckled. "Yeah i'd like that" you smiled leaning against his chest.

Bonus content

From on top of a ramp Reki cheered excitedly, missing his board and falling down the curve scraping his face. "FUCK YEAH!" he shouted into the metal and he felt the clatter of his skateboard drop onto his back. "Fuuuck. (Y/n)!" he shouted. And you, with your keen senses, heard him from the ramp and came running. "I'M COMING!"

[mc-critical]

I love to boring you but what do you think of Murad IV in MC:Kosem ? I really like him but he seriously need of a therapy with a psy *a great one !* and i don't think he treated Ayse (or Farya !) correctly ! He is trash (more trash than any others characters i think) but i also like her complexity. How do you find him ? Do you think he deserve more recognization like Selim or not at all ?

I don't like him one bit as a person. He's problematic, hypocritical and abusive and his actions go beyond every sort of justification, no matter how much he tries to justify them himself. However, he is interesting and complex as a character and you can still see where he comes from and how do his beliefs unfold. He clearly has a detailed arc; and that arc causes him to be way more paranoid, way more selfish, way more overindulgent, which was to his detriment.

Let's face it: the show portrayed him as a very bad ruler (I spoke about why here) and from what I've read, historically, he isn't any better, either. I don't know what does he deserve to be recognized for, aside from the conquering of Baghdad, which did nothing to absolve his crimes in the show, aside from how well-written he is. Any possible redeeming quality of his is destroyed by all his problematic actions piling in and all we've left is a nuanced exploration of his problematic traits. With MC Selim we have a much more understandable circumstance, the child neglect which explained his drinking and lay low tendencies and why it looked like he didn't care for what the other brothers did. Thing is, Selim arguably wasn't all that problematic at first (the provocations between him and Bayezid were more mutual than anything else) and what really pushed him to "villainy" was the death of Mustafa and Cihangir, the complete destruction of the concept of brotherly love in his head. His redeeming qualities were as balanced as his "villainy" and you see within how human he is and how everyone around him who wasn't Nurbanu did somewhat screw him over from the start. The nuance is on his entire persona, not on his problematic deeds. I do believe that MC Selim's writing should be way more respected, because of all the nuance. I don't think he's fit for a padişah in the show, but he isn't some cardboard cutout who only drinks and schemes. He has actual issues, desires, sensitivity, vulnerability and compassion. Murat is a different kind of a character. He's both a bad ruler and a horrible person, he doesn't really have a transitional point to begin his problematic deeds, since he's like this in the beggining. He has his reasons in his backstory, but they recontextualize his paranoia, not what comes out of this paranoia. His transitional point was more him getting even surer of his beliefs than beggining a path of ruthlessness. Worse, it strips him from any possible scruple he had deep inside and what we would see from this point on is his further moral descent and nothing else. He has two areas of justification: a fragment of his past and the "Shadow of God" mentality that only ring more shallow the further we go. (it's fascinating writing-wise, but that's about it.) With Selim at least we have his motives becoming stronger the more we go and watch him succeed. They're different thematic explorations altogether and one of them isn't much on the sympathetic or deserving of recognition spectrum by design.

What I like the most about Murat's writing is that no matter how strong and dangerous it is, his paranoia comes from a real place. While with Süleiman we only had hints of said paranoia in a few flashbacks, with Murat we had an actually devastating, shown on-screen event that had the harder job of making such sudden by the show change more believable. Murat, for whatever he is, is shown a tiny bit of understanding by the script when there actually are people actively working behind his back. Süleiman assumes he's been betrayed, but since the events that open his paranoia are mostly events molded or completely taken out of context and no one actively works behind his back until much after said paranoia was allowed to occur (even Mustafa's organization worked primarily against Hürrem, not SS, one attempt to kill SS aside, which the object of his paranoia saved him from!!!!) - we, as audience, have no reason to buy it whatsoever, which brought the understanding for SS soo down for me. But Murat's paranoia made him go way out of proportion to the point he went even further than SS by willing to end the whole state so he could be there and rule. And just like SS, his paranoia quickly became all selfish in nature to the point of alienating everyone around him who wants to give him decent advice and thinking himself as right all the time. He wanted to be a lone wolf, driven by toxic masculinity from the start. And him feeling overshadowed by Kösem... no matter how understandable it has the chance to be because of the time period, made him blind and instead of gaining experience in order to rule unscathed and firm, he decided to fixate himself on the past and on his role and possible deep-seated resentment of his mother, he made all the wrong decisions in every aspect of his life.

His anger issues are especially illuminating, since he tends to lash out on the slightest thing gone wrong, to the point of exercising physical violence. His anger probably stemmed from how he could only watch during Osman's death and the subconscious blaming of Kösem because of it, along with Musa's death and them not giving him time to shine, something he thought belonged to him and was his right, but by ruminating on all this, he, once again, focuses on his own feelings and own world, he, once again, reaches devastating extremes. Anyone who ever tries to defy him suffers from this. Anyone who tries to defy him is evaluated by how much he's fitting for his mold, for his world, something far beyond a wish for loyalty.

He didn't love any of his women, IMO. His physical violence and abuse was highlighted by his dynamics with them the most and he always decided on the harshest punishments when it came to them. One might argue that his relationship with Farya played its part in somewhat humanizing Murat and disguising this overally questionable at its impossibly best love story for ratings and stuff, but the more we went, the more abusive it got and Farya could never get over his unpredictable and turbulent nature that strived to strictly control every single thing that was close to him to toxic levels. I won't even begin with how he treated Ayşe, because that was such a trainwreck and she deserved much better than to constantly fear for her life, because this guy could go immediately crazy and kill her and her kids. With Sanavber it was only slight infatuation and that's all for me, because in that point, I doubt this guy was capable of love. One Murat went and there came the other before Sanavber arrived and Murat was on the path to become his cruelest self.

All in all, I don't mind anyone going out there and trying to explore him ( in fact, I would actually love such discussions!), but he's hot trash, he should die in fire along with Süleiman and I'm struggling everyday to declare which one is worse in my book, because they suck the same for me, but in different ways. I appreciate their narrative roles, but otherwise... screw them both.

[lackeyhenchman]

I keep struggling with how to balance relevant/brief/useful on this one, god. So many factors played into it, but a lot of it is so personal and not very relatable!

I’m sure that turning 30 during whatever Covid did to us hasn’t hurt. Everyone is freaking out, pivoting, re-evaluating, and I have very little ambiguity left about who I am or my place in the world or how I'm perceived. Also: my skin is clearer so I feel sexy and like I can do anything. The social crutches I was using became unstable, so now I HAVE to try new things. The vibe is “if I ever want to do this, I better learn it now”.

Other thoughts:

I got tired of the weird, superficial, heartbreaking relationships I kept getting into by avoiding connection. I realized I was waiting for something deeper to happen, with no plan on how to get it started. I hit the point where I'd rather go down swinging than keep waiting.

Lots of safe opportunities to practice that have easy exit scripts. Internet presence. Every 50+ woman in my life follows me around the room when I visit. My friend who makes wild life choices got me behind the scenes at a furry convention, which as we know is full of the nicest people on the planet. As long as I keep tabs on when my smile starts turning into a threat display, I know when to gracefully retreat.

Being an adult with an adult life ("adulting") opened up a gajillion new mundane things to talk about. VITAMINS. GUTTERS. PAYING BILLS ELECTRONICALLY

Being naturally curious/nosy makes it easy to use questions to keep the conversation up in the air like a hackey-sack. If someone says they do something I barely know anything about? EVEN BETTER. There's a thrill to uncovering what makes someone special and getting to say "oh my godddddddd that's awesomeeeeeuhhh"

It makes people feel good. Sometimes I'm surprised by how easy it is to make someone feel heard. Lots of people are grappling for security right now, and it doesn't seem to take much as I thought it would to provide them some relief. They're more scared of you than you are of them, etc. Plus it's fun to fucking WILD OUT over their good news!

Unfortunately I also really like screwing with people. And unfortunately it really hits the best when you drop something weird 2/3rds into a normal conversation.

(this one is obnoxious, but) I decided to start believing people when they say nice things about me. OF COURSE you're more eager to socialize when you think your presence is contributing something. People also seem to like me more the less I pre-emptively act like they wouldn't like me. Weird how that works.

Thinking WWxD?-- My husband is great at sharing his interests and caring about yours. My family is super non-reactive and easy to get along with. I've met a few people who can get you to admit to murder just by projecting a lack of judgment. (I'm dubious on the last one's ethics/long-term viability, but worth mentioning.)

One of my crutches was the knowledge that I scare people. My rationalization for never learning how to initiate was that I didn't want to "corner" people. But this is also lazy and avoidant, and it leads to very few rewarding interactions. When you stop fooling yourself into thinking you're "just really really patient", you suddenly begin having way more interesting experiences.

People can treat you really badly when they're scared of you. Their anxiety about you also eats them alive when left in isolation. Want to avoid this.

It's fun to build a muscle! Failures are good and normal. It's okay to suck, and it's okay to make mistakes with people who love me OR who I'll never see again, and frankly I don't suck as much as I thought I did, and when I'm finally good at it I'll get all the chicks etc.

Most importantly, failure is still insulating me from a lot of the hard work. Turns out normal people don't instantly hire you as their therapist the second you show interest in them! I ain't that special! Also I still suck at this! Oh my god it's so good to suck

It would not be cool to go through your WHOLE life with an inherent need to socialize. But it would be very useful.

I spent way too long thinking that socialization was a thing you did to make other people happy, but for me it was usually tiring and got in the way of doing cool stuff by myself that nobody else cared about. Now that I’ve figured out how to enjoy it I’m in deep trouble, haha… my understanding is that people get addicted to this sort of indulgence

[overlyimmersed]

Nightmares and Daydreams

A Gravity Falls AU.

Hi @verysorrytobother​ Stanticore anon, revealing my true identity to share this with you! I wasn’t sure how a post this long would go over as an ask, so I decided to do it this way. I hope this is ok.

I’ve been working on this for a while and I hope it goes over well enough. The artwork took me the most time.

As a car crash victim is slowly dying, her mental self panics in the mindscape. She's offered a deal to save her life. Let the game begin.

(Content warnings: Blood. Descriptions of serious injuries.)

"What..." she whispered to herself, staring at the other in disbelief.

"Yep!" he confirms, in a high-pitched, grating, inappropriately upbeat tone, "Dead as a doornail, kid!- Well technically you still have a few more seconds till you brain totally ceases to function. Better make up your mind while you still have one!"

She's still staring dumbly at him. How can he be this nonchalant about it?! A half second ago she was sitting in the front seat of the family truck, a totally routine trip to the store- she never liked trucks but her dad's a carpenter so they need the hauling space. At least it's a pretty shade of blue- and the next she's here, laying face down in a black void with this prick this- this...All Seeing Eye? He's like the Illuminati symbol, but with arms and legs and a top hat. Caution sign yellow and talking to her- or at her. Bill. Freaking. Cipher. Every time he 'speaks' he flashes with light- no mouth so does it really count as speaking? More like his voice is being projected right into her mind- ... And he's telling her that she freakin died! Can't he see how messed up this is?! Can't he sympathize at all!? Then again, it's Bill. She ought to know better.

She ought to know better. She's seen this show a hundred times, she knows nothing good comes from dealing with Cipher. But she doesn't have time to be careful, she doesn't have the luxury of weighing options.

"Tick-tock, Car Wreck!" The obnoxious voice insists again, forcing her out of her stupor, his outstretched hand now alight with blue fire.

Her face scrunches up in a loud cringe, eyes screwed shut and teeth bared, and she swings her hand till it lands solidly in his. Crazed cackling resounds as the deal is struck, but it falls to simple soundtrack as her senses try to sort out what's going on.

She'd expected the blue fire to burn, or at least feel like something, but it didn't. Instead her entire being is flung into a...whirl? Free fall? Something that makes her stomach jump into her throat, and gives her vertigo.

The sensation stops suddenly, only to be replaced by a cacophony of new perceptions. She isn't sure which strikes her first, the sounds or the smell. Shrieks of agony and terror make up the next track of this bizarre playlist, punctuated by the reek of burnt hair. When her eyes fly open to try and make sense of it all, they have no luck. The sight that meets her is a sky of surreal, swirling, bastardized ribbons of every hue, like being inside a filthy bubble. Floating strewn about the space are pockmarked asteroids, and little else.

"So what'd ya think?" The grating voice rejoins the discord, drawing her shell-shocked gaze. "Home-sweet-home, huh? Well don't worry, you won't be here for very long. A deal's a deal, Car Wreck." With that que, and a snap of his fingers, she's falling again. This time untethered and unaccompanied. It takes her a moment to realize the scream ripping though the void is coming from her own throat. Once it hits her, so does something else, and the world goes black.

She wakes some time later, maybe moments maybe days. She has no way of knowing. She pushes herself onto her hands and knees, groggy and disoriented. It takes her a moment to notice the texture under her hands and focus her vision on it. It's grass. She sits up and looks around. "oh..." she says to herself, taking in the scenery. It's lovely, a grassy, sun soaked field. The sky made of churning colors like the last place she'd been, but they're pastel and much prettier. A warm breeze brushes past her face and she takes a deep breath of it, it smells sweet and warm, heavy with the scent of growing things, and for the first time since this started she finds some peace. Peace which is quickly shattered by a familiar, grating voice.

She jumps and whirls around so quick she falls onto her butt. There, floating just inches from where her head had been, is Bill. Laughing at her of course.

"Whoops! Didn't mean to scare you there, Car Wreck!" he claims, moving through the air to look around, then turning back around to look at her. "So how do you like the new digs?"

There's a beat of silence where she just stares at him again, but quickly she shakes off the shock and tries to respond. "Uh...It's nice." She lets her eyes roam around for a second, before returning to Bill, "Where are we?"

"This is the Realm of Daydreams! Your new HQ!" he answers, floating around behind her and making a grand gesture with his arms.

She turns her head to follow him, "Daydreams? HQ?"

"Yep! This is where you'll hang out when you're not puppeting your little pawns." He turns around to look at the scenery more himself. "Kinda dull if you ask me. Maybe you can do something about that!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh you know, some pillars of anguish, an alter of unholy fire, maybe a blood fountain or a couple of-" he gestures with each suggestion, like a landscaper creating a vision, until she cuts him off.

"No I mean," she finally pushes herself to a stand, teetering a little till she finds her balance. "Pawns?"

He turns back to her, "Oh yeah, which ones do you want anyway?" he waits a beat for an answer, but she just stares back at him, clearly not following. "Ugh, our deal?"

He hadn't really told her what the deal was, just mentioned a game and a second chance. "Uhh, I don't think you-"

"Oh right, you flesh bags need everything explained to you." he groans, rolling his eye, "Alright, here's the deal. We're gonna play a little game," he holds out his hand and a little hologram like projection appears showing an aerial view of a town. "and the people of this hick town are gonna be the pieces." ten little blue stick figures appear in the center of town, each with a little symbol above it's head. "If you win, you rejoin the land of the living!" a little magenta stick figure pops into existence next to the others and they all do a little happy dance. "If I win..." suddenly the whole projection goes up in flames, and she jerks her head back instinctively, "You burn with rest of those worthless mortals!" He bursts into a fit of maniacal laughter, which actually gives her some times to recover.

After a second of shocked staring, she blinks a few times then puts on as neutral an expression as she can. "Ok. So what are the rules?"

"Simple!" he answers, cutting off his laughter "We can't directly manipulate each other's pawns, and we can't interfere with the other's powers."

"That's it?"

"Yep. Everything else is fair game"

"Ok...What are my powers?"

"Same as mine! Except you don't have to wait till someone falls asleep to get in their head."

"I see..." her eyes wander to the ground as she contemplates the information, and her hand reaches for the longest of her three necklaces to idly play with the spiked pendant. "So you can talk to them in dreams, and I can talk to them in daydreams."

"Bingo!"

She scrunches her nose a little, thinking of a few ways that could end up being annoying. "Alright, anything else I need to know?"

"Hmm, nope! That just about covers it. All that's left is to pick our pawns, I'll even let you go first!" And with that ten, glowing, blue symbols appear between them. She looks them over carefully, she knows who each symbol corresponds to- supposing the cartoon from her world is accurate. She considers the six-fingered hand, if she takes him out of Bill's control from the start that derails his whole plan as she knows it. But, then she'll have no clue what's up to at all, at least by letting Bill have the pawns she's familiar with she has a chance at guessing his moves. She reaches forward and touches the shooting star, it turns magenta and floats to hover closer to her.

"Interesting." Bill comments, though his tone doesn't sound very interested, as he makes a simple motion with his eye and the six-fingered hand settles beside him. She chooses the fish looking symbol next, and Bill's second choice in the pine tree. They go back and forth till they have five symbols each, Bill having the the six-fingered hand, the pine tree, the llama, the stitched heart, and the pentagram. While she has the shooting star, the fish, the bag of ice, the spectacles, and the question mark.

"Welp, that settles that. Nice picks you made there, lets hope they work out for ya, Car Wreck"

"Could you not call me that?" though it hardly sounds like a request.

"And what else should I call you?" Bill asks, collecting his symbols into one hand and placing the other on his...hip?

"How about my name? It's Maranwe."

"But Car Wreck fits you so much better! Just take a look!" he quips, snapping a full-length mirror into existence. Maranwe turns to look and gasps in horror. Bill breaks out into more cackling, "Well my work here is done! I'll let you get cleaned up, see ya around Car Wreck!" And with that he fades from existence.

Maranwe just stares, even as Bill disappears from 'her' realm, she can only stare at her destroyed refection. Her hair is messy- and she almost laughs that that's what her brain zeros in on first-, It's also dirty, some of the mess is actual dirt but several spots are matted with half-dry blood. Her face is in a similar condition, smeared with dirt and blood but she can see the wounds there. Scrapes and still oozing cuts, bruises forming on one cheek bone and under her eyes. Her nose isn't quite right...broken probably. Her vision skims over her whole body for a second, making note of similar injuries where tears in her clothes reveal them. It's not as bad as she would expect a car crash victim to look- "except for that" Her mind screams suddenly while all her mouth can do is gasp, as her attention lands dizzyingly on her neck. It's...purple, but also red? There's no spilled blood but it still looks ugly, and the worst part is the...bump. It's not hard to figure out that it's a misaligned bone. Without the pain to tell her she never would have noticed, her neck is broken. Very broken. How is she holding her head up right... Probably because this isn't actually a physical body. She wonders if this is what killed her, or if there's something inside, something she can't see, that did the trick.

Whatever it is, she can't be seen like this. And she really really doesn't want to look like this for her own sake. Bill said she could 'clean herself up'? How exactly... She thinks about how Bill's powers tend to work and tries to concentrate on a cleaner, less beat up mental image of herself. She lifts her hand to her cheek and grazes her finger tips across it, a trail of sparkles follow the touch and the skin underneath returns to normal. She relaxes a little, watching the disaster wipe off her face like cheap make-up. She keeps the image in her mind and closes her eyes, cupping her hands in front of herself and imagining the sparkles pooling in them. Then she splashes the sparkles over he face, like a girl in a face wash commercial, and imagines the glittering dust washing over her entire body, cleaning away the mess and injuries. And when she opens her eyes, that's exactly what's happened. Her reflection shows her whole and unwounded, even her clothes are fixed.

The next thing she does is smooth her hair down, mostly an instinct since it's still messy, and the sparkles trail after her hands, tidying the strands as if she'd just brushed them. She watches her reflection's mouth quirk up a little in a small smirk. So she can just change what she looks like by imagining it? That figures, this is a place of daydreams that's kind of how they work. She knows exactly what to do with this, she's known since she was a kid what she's change if she could. She places the backs of her hands next to her ears and flicks up, sparkles spray up with the motion and her normal human ears, turn to wolf ears the fur the same chocolate brown as her hair. Her smirk blooms into a full blown smile, and she tilts her head to get a better look at them, watching them move as she tests them. It's like they're real! Next is the tail of course, it's mostly brown, with some silver down the top and a black tip. Then she looks down, and taps the toe of each of her shoes against the ground in turn, as she does they become the compressed paws of her own design.

"That's insane..." she laughs to herself. She's actually turning herself into something else, her own made up alien species. And she just can! With the big changes out of the way she works out the details; pupil shape, fang length, and straightens out a few asymmetries and insecurities she's always had about her body- after all why not? When she's done, she can't help admiring herself a little, turning this way and that in front of the mirror, her perfect image of herself. Well- almost perfect. She snaps her fingers and in the same dusting of glitter, her shirt changes. What was before a loose grey t-shirt with the word "nope" written across it in cursive, as been replaced by a cropped sweater, banded in 3 colors; white at the top, then light blue, then dark blue. She lifts it to look at the crop top under neither, it's just plain white. She decides she doesn't like it that way, so it changes to a cropped version of the t-shirt she'd had before. With that taken care of she lifts her arm so the over-sized sleeve falls down and she can see her forearm, which is covered by a light blue arm warmer with white lace around the edges. Perfect. At least for now. She can change later if she decides she doesn't like the arm warmers.

She giggles to herself, invigorated by the makeover and the sense of control she has now. She turns from the mirror and skips a few feet across the grass, the symbols she'd chosen follow her, floating loosely like beads suspended in gel. She laughs a little as she watches them, and idly reaches for her necklace again, but this time her hand just meets the soft knit of her sweater. She'd forgotten to add them into this new look, so she just wills them into place; three different necklaces of three different lengths. Her hand finds the middle length first, the pendant is designed to spin so she plays with it while her mind starts to wander. She starts thinking of plans for winning this game, what she might say to each other 'pawns' and who to use where and how, even letter her thoughts wonder about the new life she'll have. Cipher's hologram suggested she'll stay in Gravity Falls, which would be cool but what about-

The sound of screeching tires and twisting metal cuts her thoughts off clean and she whips around to find the source of the noise, but her fear turns to confusion when she sees...nothing. She stands stock still, her mind running over only vague impressions of thoughts relating to what she just heard, until another loud sound whips her back around. This time she actually sees something, like a huge firework in the pastel oil-slick sky, accompanied by Bill's obnoxious voice echoing through the space.

"Let the game begin!"

[cattles-bians]

damie vibecca exes au part 8

post directory

obsetress: now i just want fanart of damvibecca at the gym

em: well. pitch it to me comrade ghostfucker

obsetress: idk that's about as far as i got i just reread that bit about vibecca in their matching gym outfits and my brain got stuck

em: hypothetically do u have a colour palette in mind bc i associate gym outfits w like. bright loud colours and

em: idk if it works w our earth sign queens

[em note: emily is a liar and did NOT draw fanart of damvibecca at the gym]

[em note 2: we have the gym art now [x] [x]]

obsetress: i was imagining like charcoals tbh, or jewel tones

obsetress: i could see them in like jewel tone purples or that jewel tone blue green color

obsetress: yeah viola jewel tones or blacks n charcoals

obsetress: becs pastels and camels but jewel tones at the gym

em: it’s about Matching

em: And Destroying Ur Ex (platonically)

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: viola's feeling particularly smug about it but then

obsetress: dani's in an old school tshirt and shorts and jamie's in............ one of dani's old school tshirts and shorts

em: YES

obsetress: not intentionally, she just grabbed whatever was there

obsetress: dani chirps "oh you two look so cute! baby look, they have a matched set"

obsetress: viola arches an eyebrow "and so do you, it seems" and dani laughs "not on purpose, jamie just grabbed whatever was on top in the drawer"

viola: you two... share... a wardrobe?

dani: yeah?

em: god cute

obsetress: cute n dumb

em: they can share nearly everything except pants

em: well. pants as a treat

em: haha pants

em: trousers

obsetress: also rly nice rly clean smooth funny juxtaposition in my brain of vibecca being the ones who intentionally match and damie the ones for whom it just accidentally happens

obsetress: hahahah pants

obsetress: they can share pants but................ should they

em: idk miss chapter 12 danis thighs jamies pyjamas

em: should they

obsetress: PLEASE

obsetress: that's exactly what i was referring to THANKS

obsetress: anyway

obsetress: rebecca just laughs

obsetress: viola huffs and bex is like "sorry, babe, but it is kind of funny"

em: dani jamie wearing like

obsetress: YEAH

obsetress: MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY

em: poor viola

obsetress: thinking about dani's ass in those

em: yeah....

em: violas huffing until jamies exercise flush lasts a little Too Long

obsetress: big blush jamie taylor

em: she’s still like ‘oi dani close ur mouth’ but then she

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: just ogling each other

obsetress: (they briefly pause to ogle vi and rebecca passing a medicine ball back and forth as they do squats and have to acknowledge that, yeah, they've all done alright by themselves)

em: funny montage of the gang doing exercise while surreptitiously taking Peaks

obsetress: omg all i want

obsetress:sometimes having friends as a lesbian means they're all your exes except one, who's your gf, and you're all checking each other out always anyway

em

And That’s Beautiful

obsetress

obsetress: dani: checking out viola's biceps, rebecca's abs

viola: checking out dani's thighs n ass

rebecca: minding her business

jamie: scowling n scrawny

obsetress:(n also checking out dani's thighs n ass, viola's biceps, and begrudgingly peeking at rebecca's abs)

obsetress: every other woman at the gym: checking out jamie, trying to figure out the entire dynamic here

are they a polycule? what

em: jamie probably like

em: maybe she gets really into running bc she just checks out and listens to her audiobooks but like

em: slow twitch vs fast twitch fibers so stays scrawny

obsetress: i can see that

obsetress: just gets on the treadmill and zones tf out

em: jamie ‘why don’t i have biceps’ taylor vs jamie ‘no u gotta lift w ur hips’ taylor

obsetress: she hates it but her psych told her it'll be good for her routine so you know she was like yes ma'am every day ma'am

em: cant believe safe lifting procedures screwed her over

em: ‘yes ma’am every day ma’am’ ur just Going for it arent ya anshdjdh

obsetress: sorry but don't tell me you can't hear it

obsetress: jamie's the person who takes notes in therapy

obsetress: jamie, in the locker room after their workout: do my biceps look bigger?

dani, patiently, already knowing where this is going: bigger than what, baby?

jamie: than yesterday

dani: mm, rome wasn't built in a day, you know

jamie: do they look bigger at all?

dani: well

em: i mean not to perceive her too much but mattresses scene indicates AE/jamie like. at least some muscle in the leg area

em: poor jamie

em: not playing to her strengths

obsetress: yeah she does

obsetress: i mean ae has toned af arms

obsetress: she's just wiry

em: how could i forget the benchpressing dog gif

obsetress: dani's like "jamie, baby, come do squats with me and vi" "m'good" "baby, c'mon, you'll like it" "don't wanna do squats" "it could be good for you" "don't wanna do squats with you two"

em: dani: you gotta like. eat more

jamie: i eat plenty

dani: no u graze all day and then u don’t eat dinner

obsetress: dani: five biscuits spread out across a day doesn't count as eating more

em: dani: protein jamie it’s abt protein

obsetress: dani: you need more protein, which is why i think some lentils would really––

em: jamie thinks protein shakes are Nasty

obsetress: jamie does think protein shakes are nasty but dani will make her a smoothie and sneak it in like she's a child

obsetress: viola and rebecca, with their matching monogrammed blender bottles, just staring

obsetress: becca's like "jamie, just drink it, really, it's fine"

obsetress: viola just does this haughty sniff at her and that's what finally gets jamie to start

em: jamie can deal w being a brat but the idea of viola having Anything over her drives her Insane

em: Drives Her Fuckign Nuts

obsetress: she hates it

obsetress: just the absolute fuckin worst

em: do u think dani ever like

em: like they REALLY need to clear out storage but it’s a boiling frog situation where it’s increased so gradually that

em: like jamie thinks it’s Fine storage is Clear Enough

em: it’s Not

em: danis like. should we invite rebecca and vi over

em: just be Idea of A Snide Viola Comment fills jamie w a burning rage

obsetress: oh my god

obsetress: i'm obsessed with this

obsetress: i would read a whole oneshot about this

em: eventually dani comes clean abt it n jamie thinks it’s v funny bc yknow; open and honest communication is a v important part of their dynamic

em: jamie: next time just tell me my storage looks like shite dani or i will be grumbling abt viola for a Week

obsetress: inevitably

obsetress: when they do have to come over to clean

obsetress: dani offers them takeout and wine ("step up from pizza and beer at least," jamie grumbles) and viola's like "jesus, dani, let's just go out to dinner. my treat"

obsetress: at dinner, viola's like "if you want more storage, i have some wonderful properties––"

obsetress: rebecca's mouthing "sorry" from next to her across the table

em: every time they go out rebecca takes vi aside n is like ok sweetheart so you promise you’re not gonna try convince them to sell the apartment again

em: and violas like (mock horror) of course i won’t. ye of little faith

em: and every time

em: every time she does

em: she’s tryna HELP

obsetress: she would too she'd be like

obsetress: "i'm just trying to HELP"

obsetress: "they're our FRIENDS"

em: i’m on a mission to figure out like

em: this is way way down the line

em: but i wanna believe eventually viola and jamie start to, at the v least, Tolerate each other

em: jamie might even be fond of the crazy bird but she’ll NEVER admit it

obsetress: god like vi's on business or some shit in like

obsetress: the UAE

obsetress: negotiating some Deal

obsetress: and so dani and jamie get dinner with just bex and they're driving home after and having a perfectly mundane conversation and then jamie's just blurting like

obsetress: "i think i miss vi"

em: she’s HORRIFIED

em: she tries to play it off as like um

em: she’s Too Comfortable

em: things are Too Boring

em: which is weird knowing everything we know abt jamie

em: but actually she just... maybe misses viola

em: danis like god i wish i was recording this

obsetress: jamie's passed out next to her at home later (it's ten pm) and dani's chattering happily away on the phone with vi (drinking a martini in her dubai hotel room at one am since, y'know, no bars) in bed right next to her

obsetress: "jamie, uh, said she misses you. i know. no, i KNOW. don't tell her i told you. yeah, yeah, you win, vi, we know. uh-huh. uh-huh. i'm gonna pretend you didn't just ask me that"

em: CUTE

em: u can’t lord it over her vi it’s a little secret

em: vi's like when have i EVER

em: she does

obsetress: once they're good again, dani and vi absolutely just. lose time (there's a metaphor in there) talking to each other still

em: this is wholesome tbh

em: i really like the damie stories where like

em: look it’s nice when damie have each other but it’s also nice when they have their own friends and stuff

em: dunno how to articulate that well

em: it’s a balance! it’s a balance

obsetress: yeah! exactly

obsetress: because that's part of the love n possession thing too yk

obsetress: not to say either of them would ever be like "no friends for you" but

obsetress: wanting to have a life outside of your partner yk

obsetress: they're meeting vi and rebecca for dinner after vi gets back and vi's just grinning and sweeping jamie into a hug "i heard you missed me"

em: she gets jamie a souvenir t-shirt

em: it’s too big

em: OR

em: child’s t-shirt

obsetress: (jamie sleeps in it that night)

obsetress: oh childs might be better

obsetress: she's like "you're a little scrawny, so..."

em: jamie sleeps in it.... soft bitch

em: she feels too much

obsetress: jamie taylor softest bitch

obsetress: dani watches her pull it on and raises an eyebrow and jamie's just like "wot"

em: jamies like (grumbles) i knew she was comin back i’m just

em: shouldn’t you be HAPPY about this development dani

em: ‘s’a gift... s’rude not t’....’

obsetress: YEAH

obsetress: dani just grins "mmhm"

em: it accidentally makes its way into jamies workout clothes pile

obsetress: oh my GOD oh my god

obsetress: viola's shit eating GRIN when jamie shows up at the gym in it

em: jamies like fok

em: mental maths tryna figure if she wants to just. work out in a sports bra

em: she Doesn’t

obsetress: she Doesn't!

obsetress: (she's shy)

em: god it’s one of those shirts that’s like

em: someone who loves me went to UAE and got me this t-shirt or something

obsetress: dani corners her in their empty row in the locker room "you could've just taken it off, you know" "dunno, not everyone needs to... see that, you know?" "i'd certainly like to see it" jamie rolls her eyes but she's grinning "you can see that any time" "well maybe i wanted to see it during my workout" "dani......."

em: jamies embarrassed bc of her gnarly farmers tan means her tummy is at least five shades lighter than the rest of her

em: crisp tan lines

obsetress: god jamie's farmers tan

em: once again i am bringing my tan lines jamie agenda

obsetress: dani loves jamies dumb farmers tan so much

obsetress: she giggles

obsetress: but it's the most loving giggle possible

em: and then when she gets into running...

em: god when i was rowing there were a couple ppl w like what i called a neapolitan icecream tan which is

em: gimme a second

obsetress: jamie gets all huffy when dani giggles at her tan but then dani's like "baby, no, i think it's cute" and jamie gives her a look and dani grins mischievously and ducks her head

obsetress: and then she's licking and kissing and nipping her way along jamie's dumb tan lines

em: there it is

obsetress: it was inevitable

em: so caught up in the joy of jamies dumb farmer tans i forgot abt her gnarly scar she keeps under wraps

em: baby

em: the most baby

obsetress: baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

em: jamie decides the only way to claim the stupid t-shirt as hers is to cut off the sleeves

em: it’s abt the ritual of the thing

obsetress: she shows up at the gym wearing it and

obsetress: that's viola's "oh no she's hot" moment

em: YEAH BABY

obsetress: literally just like

obsetress: world stops

obsetress: viola stares

em: jamie finally gets to do an exercise that shows off her sinewy manual labor grip forearms

em: viola’s probably just as horrified to find jamie hot as every time jamies like oh no

em: violas hot

em: and once again jamie CANNOT know she’s hot bc she will be insufferable

em: she will be the Worst

obsetress: viola's tugging rebecca aside "why didn't you tell me jamie was hot" "what?" viola waves a hand and rebecca just furrows her brow a little and is like "that's just... what she looks like, vi"

obsetress: viola corners dani next "why didn't you tell me jamie was hot" "i did" "oh. right" viola pauses, then "why didn't you make sure i was listening?" dani just gives her a look and walks away

obsetress: dflksdjfldaj god the way jamie and viola are. the same

obsetress: kind of incredibly, in the same ways dani and rebecca are the same

em: “hey baby, did viola seem different today? seemed off”

em: jamies like. is she mad at me. did i break another social taboo.

em: rebecca ‘jamie looks like jamie’ jessel vs dani ‘my gf is so hot i can’t stand it’ clayton

obsetress: "i tell you how hot she is at least three times a week, vi"

em: danis tryna goad her into making the damn shirt a crop top

em: jamies like yeah but isn’t that a step too far. i feel like i am destroying this shirt too much

em: she does it anyway

em: so jamies workout clothes are danis endless grey baggy school t-shirts and this one ugly souvenir shirt that like

em: psychological warfare and she doesn’t even know it

obsetress: i would........ like to see it

obsetress: also crop top jamie is one of my favorite jamies

obsetress: she is severely underrated

em: crop top jamie is

obsetress: and we do not talk about her enough

em: jamie wear More crop tops

obsetress: viola and rebecca in bed, in matching facemasks, after going to the gym post-epiphany that Jamie Is Hot

obsetress: viola: are dani and jamie hotter than us?

rebecca: what?

obsetress: and like

obsetress: viola is NOT insecure

obsetress: she is constantly confident that she's the most attractive woman in the room at any given moment, but

obsetress: she's just so staggered by this realization

em: some neutral third party (ms grose and mr sharma probably) are like well. u guys definitely have a little more of a scary thing going on

em: i’m imagining rebecca and viola at brunch w hannah and owen v seriously discussing this

em: viola brings it up and rebecca GROANS but then she gets invested in the convo

obsetress: GOD yeah

obsetress: she's leaning forward and gesturing with her fork "when you say 'scary'..........."

em: owens like scary is a compliment

em: hannah grose sips her tea knowingly

obsetress: rebecca just narrows her eyes at hannah grose and hannah raises her eyebrows and shrugs

em: after a week or so viola bursts into a room w stupid big sunglasses and a tray of take out coffees and she’s like Don’t You Worry Jamie I Have Concluded You’re Hot But I’m Not Threatened By It

em: jamies like sorry WHAT

em: you’ve been thinking about WHAT

em: viola leaves without ever following it up

obsetress: dani is entirely unfazed

obsetress: doesn't even blink

em: danis like neat she remembered the oat milk

em: everyone in this au is insane

obsetress: any lesbian in 2021 is insane

obsetress: par for the course

em: was gonna protest but

em: Yeah

obsetress: this lesbian meme account i follow on insta is doing “stop asking who’s the top and who’s the bottom. start asking...” posts

obsetress: and one of them is “start asking who’s baby and who’s fuck around and find out” and it just makes me chuckle

obsetress: jamie taylor baby

obsetress: viola lloyd also baby

em: dani is baby passing and jamie is fuck around faking

obsetress: oh my god that’s why that’s why i think we cracked it

obsetress: dani (fuck around) dated jamie (baby) and vi (baby)

obsetress: rebecca (fuck around) dated jamie (baby) and vi (baby)

obsetress: the reason they could never cross further even tho per the transitive property dani (so similar to vi) should be able to date beccs and jamie (so similar to beccs) should be able to date vi is because

obsetress: you can’t have two babies and two fuck arounds in a relationship together

em: oh of course. i see. i see

em: however in the rare rare crack ship of the ‘jamie viola hatefuck’ a similar phenomenon to ‘social anxiety mum friend ordering food’ instinct takes over and someone fucks around and finds out

em: this is just my unhinged jamie viola hatefuck bulkshit which is. it’s ironic ok it’s ironic it’s ironic it’s

em: ok one last thought bc i know it’s super late for u but

obsetress: omg i also have a last thought let’s trade

em: what if mikey is about isabels age n jamie ends up looking after him for one reason or another for a bit

em: and viola absolutely Dotes on him

obsetress: omg

obsetress: that’s what does it. jamie seeing viola w mikey

em: grumble grumble i guess she’s not that bad

em: except then she’s like god what if mikey likes her MORE than me

obsetress: “dani what if mikey gets one of those weird first crushes on vi”

obsetress: dani doesn’t even look up from the laundry “who hasn’t had a crush on vi”

obsetress: jamie’s like “mE” and dani just gives her the most withering look

em: danis like It’s Par For The Course Jamie

em: danis a teacher she’s like it happens don’t sweat it

em: anyway

em: what was. what was ur last little thought

obsetress: i was just thinking more about viola also baby and how also she’s been so privileged her whole life that sometimes there are just some things she can’t do for herself because she just doesn’t know how

obsetress: like she’s never had to learn

em: rebecca gets um

em: freeze dried coffee

em: nescafé

obsetress: but like

obsetress: rebecca genuinely loves taking care of vi for whatever reason (it’s because she loves her) when she really needs it but

obsetress: rebecca also takes no shit and is like “i’m not making the nescafé for you. you’re 36 years old, vi, you need to learn to do it for yourself”

obsetress: and she’ll stand there and watch her do it and then she makes vi do it at least three more times for posterity

obsetress: “i’ll make a plebeian of you yet, viola lloyd”

obsetress: (god only the two of them would think a line like that is funny)