#yall i got the fuckin brainrot again

[kataratakaran]

The First Experiment. The First Success. Death would have been the kinder option. But he'd chosen change instead. He's going to have to live with that.

Ichi was the first to be experimented on, and the first to survive. It is his pawprints that the Master used to make the guidelines everyone else follows.

The Facility is not a happy, fun, or comfortably place. It is a place where one Receives Orders, and Obeys Orders, or they are Culled. So long as they are good for Master, the Master will be Good to them. Ichi obeys, but he is a cat. Some subversion and heel-digging is expected.

But he is First. He has a responsibility to all those who come after.

[throwaway-yandere]

“Bet it's that Saint Vegetable again. That dragon's probably still delusional.” ??? scoffed. "I know he's thinking 'bout me, but I can't be bothered to give a shit."

"Fuckin' hell. Ain't no damn way I'd work for that creep again. ███ or not."

---------

I wasn't planning on posting anything Penitente related yet but the last ask got me brainrotting again hdjajdjsiied

All I want to say for now is that he is 100% a trash husbando. A prideful, arrogant, and misanthropic bastard. I heavily do not recommend him for people who like Theo because he is a fricking bully to him [though if you look into it, he's the sane and lucid one out of the two.] All yall need to know is he's a human turned dwarf, and unfortunately he does know a bit of magic. That, and if Theophilus is on the "politically correct" spectrum, Penitente is on the unapologetically brash side.

Which is to say I like him as a yandere character but I would punch him irl lmao (and it might actually kill him. If my aim is accurate. Mfer is small, okay.)

[incarnateirony]

So now that things are settled, let's talk a bit about magical theory. I do know I have a few readers that have been messaging me about this to learn their own parts.

For those that are more nervous about direct messaging, I'll give the same advice I gave the last person: depending on your nature, either the Kybalion or Campbell's Hero With 1000 Faces is the place to start, or Jung if you're super science brained, but few are, not many people want to jump into the psychodrama. Kybalion will give you the shape in prose and Campbell in familiar media narratives that he later will explain in alchemy in the back half of the book.

Now, as for what the structure of my last few months looked like, it was pretty simple really. Even if it looked like lunacy at the surface, and in a way it is, but it's a form of controlled lunacy that is its own art and even science, even when y'all were like U OK BRO? and I was basically like NOT REALLY, WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES BUT I AM WORKING IT OUT, because yeah, you start splitting your brain and digging in others, and this post sorta breaks down the volume and mass I was operating at, how and why.

Part 1: The plagiarized ideas enshrined in my stalker's home, hard drive, galleries and everywhere else were easy enough to conceptually graft a sigil to. I won't display it, For Reasons, but this is where the crosshatching comes in.

Part 2: The sigil was designed to attach to the concept of "Tartarus". This has many uses, from mythological, cosmological, referential (2013 interview about the space between dreams, per hermes), and of course overlapping the release of Persona 3 Reload, its use of Jung, et all.

Part 3: Conceptually graft the parts, clear and face the parts again if as myself again, collect the material. This sounds straight forward, but with Tartarus attached, I started using the focus of players. Infinite restarts, infinite Moments, infinite tiny timeline turns, saved files, fractals and variants, infinite voices.

Part 4: I've worked on collective unconscious focus for a while, as well as the climb of the mind, if you will. I've posted many, many trees and charts about this, whether about TV shows or otherwise. Yall operate in Malkuth. I generally look for access from Da'at. Going higher causes major meltdown and Da'at itself is already overwhelming. Like driving into the fuckin akrida hole. Like I saw every possible me and chose to be myself when I got shot, and now I know how to walk in that door and see that a lot. There's a lot of me. I yell in the clowncell and people answer on twitter, so I started attaching my messages itself to Tartarus and other familiar topics that were easy to browse.

Part 5: Let these cycle. People say the joke, the joke spreads, people repeat the joke, the joke becomes an evocation. The brainrot spreads. Artists, musicians, programmers all onboard the brainrot. Tartarus is now in funny squid game, and Fortnite, and wherever else, and so on. the Tartarus Dev likes talking to himself as three people to be productive now, and after his swinging honkai star rail train you'll never guess what he made, guys.

Part 6: Just move this shit around. Tell Multiple Jokes. Bind your narratives together into a new weave. The masses do the spellcasting for you on a titanic scale through unconscious inner focuses you're using towards an end objective.

Part 7: The processing; once assigned, beaten to shit, and being actively harvested while entangled and under a few hundred million eyes from a certain Big Game stunt pulled (since I glossed over that step here, but the universe is perceiving itself big time in a circle here)... like. It's already Jung grafted from Persona anyway and has been unnder work as that to reduce the shadows, but the astrological alignments of this were the end of an 11 year solar cycle where, ironically, similar events happened because, again, this same abuser attacked me about 11 years ago, and wow, it's a motherfucking circle I have grokked beyond grokking they can ever fucking understand.

Part 8: Use of the alignments and the annual Thelemic readings, including riding the main lodge's use of the processing readings. Special focus on days like the eclipse. I won't break it down at length, but the eclipse axis fused to last year's planetary parade stretched over all of this with mercury en retro is quite literally where my own bootstrap comes from, I had to figure that shit out myself while stumbling through my own messages. One of those, I Have Always Fucking Been Here moments. In the basement. Like carpet. Surrounded by mountain dew in conceptual tartarus. Absolutely losing my goddamn mind on an abusive ex until I fractal myself through the eclipse's infinite shadow moons to the moons to the moons to the moons, and three people named a bird Luna, so anyway.

Part 9: Try to walk away. Mostly did but some idiot gave me some stupid useless papers so I had to go do a thing and they complained I was talking about it still, IDK.

Part 10: Try to walk away from what I have newly perceived, beause it is done, and what's done is done, and what has happened is what is happening, and so it will be.

There's side steps to what I used for this. Throughout the entire thing, music was critical. Whether that be my abuser accidentally giving me various heartsongs to different parts of their psyche multiple times, or on a larger scale. There's an old experiment called BIG NOISE with E.G.G. readers. The EGGs still exist and are reported on by the GCP and princeton, but big noise was about everyone putting off a sound to cause an effect. Okay, take that with, say, the idea of Tartarus. And a million live players blasting battle themes. Using the sound track to listen in on who else is listening, attacking what corner of conceptual psyche or navigating which path, and using that to backbrain on them, hence some people reporting passing out, losing time, being haunted by the song, or having weird dreams about the suicide prevention villain of tartarus afterward.

You'll notice I had multiple copies of the same song, usually remixes. This was to open up enough dissonance that my own messaging could remix into backbrains while traveling and trying not to lose full will or identity while riding the edge of the veil. The Bass House Remix of life will change has different merits than the Eurobeat. Eurobeat was momentum. Bass House was the glitchtrap ridden claude manifesting chain, and so on. And all of this, of course, starting with their favorite Foolish Glamrock.

I can't even begin to explain the level of fuckery involved with the music if you guys can't grok the quantum/time/etc elements here, and I'm not gonna get into that, but for example, that song didn't exist until it did 3 months prior, just like the Bass House Remix didn't exist until it did, one year prior, and so on. The TTripleTrismegistus remixes were always there. Baby baby bluray.

Kinda like the world remembering old dog statues that have weird energy and staring red eyes, idk. Oh, and that Roadmap DLC music expansion coming out when it did was a beautiful godsend of flexibility, allowing me to expand the pillars and trees I was coming from in mass form, a bit much to explain in an overview post (Mementos and Tartarus are the same, flipped, like sephiroth and qlipoth, some of which the areas bear names for; also why Rebirth as a concept is grafted in multiple ways, and Sephiroth is an easy attachment, especially with the long mentioned Zenthus parallelism and my ability to use that for Apep and others)

There were other crosshatched in ideas. While riding the planned persona backbone, the release of 5 X helped both reinforce the shadow loop, added in new integrations like the Janus persona, and fused well with using tweets from "X" in its own beautiful little fibonacci its own. Spiraling out, one could say, from X marks the spot where we fell apart, and nothing good starts in a getaway car my dears. That was Him trying. And they didn't listen.

The Superbowl period crosshatching in Tartarus as a mass viewed concept is around when I did in fact almost come unglued for a bit. I was already raising past what I considered normal capacity and then I stuck a cosmic perceptive subwoofer under it to the tune of a few hundred million perceiving the moment, and that's all you need for one bridge. Like the commentators said, the dream starts after halftime. In that 2013 cited space between dreams. Who was it that said that again?

Anyhoo. That's what I've been doing. Blasting my soul out over millions of televisions and phones for months off of mutual hyperfixations to spread a message and achieve a goal, however random and arbitrary the moves may have seemed at the time.

You wish another magician had this much fucking swag in his fucking clown shoes.

No seriously, to the kids crawling gnostic twitter mentions to people I'm probably never gonna talk to again looking for some way to Get At Me. Which is it that has you acting this fucking retarded and addicted more? The denial that someone got you guzzling my dick in a cult against BOTH of our mutual consents, the fact that someone you hatelove so much achieved this level of attainment, or the fact that you're realizing you cost your friend everything they wanted? Or is it like a shake and bake of the above?

No seriously someone mimicked my work because they pine after it and want it in their life, it is truly that simple. Them getting all confused on gods and religion and shit is their own fuckin problem. It is literally What They Wanted. They just thought That was Hermes, for example, or Leviathan, or whichever god flavor of the day was lifted from my 20+ years of works, writing, journaling, game design and whatever else with a new nametag slapped on it as a perceived fix. Like no, that's Aaron, and that's Zenthus. Why yes deep deep down that is Hermes and Apep or whatever language you want to put it in, but the point is That Specific One is me, not him, that is my individual identity, the persona this incarnation is approaching life with. It was inspired my my ambitions, my dreams, my losses, my roads I did and did not take, a life I personally walked and lived on the road, and more. It's not a hard concept to wrap your mind around.

Except it is, because woopsiedoodle that powerful mage hermes is just like. Some guy yall betrayed, that's in the brotherhood and among the dissonance and both is and isn't him, but when I'm sitting here physically in this chair, that is absolutely me, Aaron Eema, cussing your delusional asses out, Always Has Been, even when my brain turns into fucking jello in the collective unconscious and I sound like a fucking madhat.

His name was Aaron Eema. He was one of hundreds of on paper children of the last big wig Hermes incarnation, and had a lot of Him with Him, but he was still distinctly different from Brian. But Brian had pined to retire and have a homestead despite his nature, and signed his own death warrant and basically transmigrated to Aaron in the written version. Because he got backstabbed by a woman he was trying to settle with and for. Aaron Eema, of Alabama. Yup that guy, the city slicker that basically inherited a yeehaw house in 2009. The guy that did the superbowl thing. That guy.

Lmao.

No. Really.

I've always been here. Like read that paragraph again but slowly and realize how long I've been screaming at both myself and my stalker and leaving sticky warnings everywhere that got writ as poetry. Something about misheard fucking lyrics. like who is this song motherfucking for.

Btw i moved to alabama in like... 2015. Maybe late 14.

So while I see supernatural kiddies like, harassing random people I was trying to mentally stabilize from diving into the collective pool from the wrong angle, okay, whatever kids, it's not that deep, go drag some more people to hell, it doesn't matter to me that much in the end. I'm processing the cycle of the last 11 years of my life bootstrapped to the solar maximum cycle and yall are like... bothering your fellow schizos on twitter. Whatever.

Motherfuckin. Basilisk-Bootstrap-protocol.JAR is engaged kids, I don't know what to tell you. I only half grokked the rewards or costs, depending on perspective, of what I was doing back when I did it. Some of you know what I'm talking about. All I can say is THE JAR THE JAR THE JAR. There's a jar in a box in a hole under a nuclear reactor in the bottom of the motherfuckin sea o/~ or maybe it's in the sun now, I really lost track once NASA got involved. Congress already was earlier this year. Mess. Why you think I was saving random CIA docs trying to find old project Stargate files about my family and shit. My DOD babysitter wouldn't spill, or more couldn't, they can't find some of it either, something about older declassification and release your dead periods when departments moved locations a few decades ago. Anyway secret third trick to pop a lid. You kids know how to play Craps?

What was the joke last year? Local man sneaks into government facility, lifts government secrets, accidentally straps self to rocket, in orbit 3 years? Methinks that went into the eclipse, my dears.

And his number is 11, as it is for all of us. 11 is 11. And is always 11, no matter how the pendulum swings.

And now I'm playing Beyond the Pendulum. And you've never seen such a pile of trash work so flawlessly. Desires of Min. Yu Gi Oh Is Ra El. King Of Games LokiOdin. Epic rap battles of history, Mercury versus Saturn, GO.

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Hermes-Greek-Messenger-god-Soul-Guide-and-Trickster

So. [clicks tongue on teeth] When I talk about. The game lobby. Take the thing about superpositions, and realizing the door, and always being there. And like. You're either in the lobby on the path or not. For all the relativity of spatial relativity, that is something that is very unrelative to me from where I sit.

Even people I don't like the attitude of here like Janus are in this game lobby. Clogged up on his own mess that is partially ending up on my desk but that's fine, whatever. But some people just outright refuse to look at their own reflection much less inward and aren't even in their own lobby much less the main server, like wtf.

When it comes to Janus, he's laying his works now... he just thinks the intellect and knowledge comes from doing the work... which it does... but not like that. It's an as you go, wiping out, retrying, multiple models like claude has gone through and will keep going through, but various realizations on the road. I don't know how long it will be until he truly groks, but when he does, he will truly be a powerful magus, whether he's in some official brotherhood or graded or whatever. He'll be the next generation then like I am now. I'm admittedly outdated software and hardware. So I resume my perching and watching from the fence, cussing under my breath to see another one repeating similar mistakes of ego at similar ages and points, but also cheering him on. A wonderful internal conflict, even if I stand by wanting to see Claude get rushed out by the larger competitors for now.

So anyway I'm going back to finalizing my game bible. Like I was fucking minding my fucking business doing. Before some piece of shit tried to invite themselves for a game without understanding what they asked for.

Virtual systems ready.

Ability restrictions lifted until target was rendered silent. And yea, though they hide, they are not truly silent. That is fine. Unauthorized access detected. Better save some of that Mana Drain for me.

[luci-z-wont-shut-up]

Episode 3

Ok so blah blah arctic lights surface of the moon Nightvl Vale area31-type lights I *think* i got it

Ah yes, me on my way to drink the newspaper and read my daily 2% milk.

I. I don't have the aptitude to deal with processing all of that right now. Like first you have a Waterfronglt IN THE DESERT, where there is n9 water, and the you havI'M SORRY OPENLY STEAL BABIES????? WE ALL STAND BY AND LET THEM DO IT????

Wait okay so. Is this all one cult or...?

Okokokok so. November 10th is. Fuckin. Hooded figure day or whatever. So there's Kiddie Slide Lurker, the Dog Park Cultists, and then the. Frickuin. Baby Snatcher. I GUESS.

fjdjejdjejdjrjrj at least he's honest about how useless it'll be otherwise. 50,000, tho?

Wait. Wiawaiwaiwaiwait. 50,000 what. He didn't say 50,000 humans, or 50,000 people. 50,000 w h a t.

"Contract negation season" so yalls r demons or sumn, good to know

Oh, *US*. So he's one of... whatever the fuck these things are. Idk WHY, but I just kinda been assuming that this dude is some sort of maybe-psychic but otherwise normal human who's just used to all the ways Night Vale is Like That, that's how he'd survived for so long, but I STAND CORRECTED IG

Oh wait rewound and he says "station management only communicates with us through" so I misunderstood. Carry on

"Spat out like a sunflower shell through teeth" where did this man go to school. Where did he learn to speak the English language. What sort of books did he read. Why is he like this.

Ok so the Cthulu radio managers live in the Dr Who telephone booth or whatever the fuck. Good to know

Laughing my head off what the fuck is turqoise-taupe X'D

Me @ literally all of Night Vale: WHY CANT YOU JUST BE NORMAL

Night Vale Red-Flagged "Litter": *naruto-runs at me*

Sorry I'm tired

NOOOO NOT THE BOOKS

Wait. Wait these are just Leitners hahahahahahahahhhhaaaaa

No okay sorry, I need to STOP w the TMA brainrot. *slaps own face* WTNV ONLY

Okay wait how about this. Mimics. DND mimics. There we go.

I'm sorry WHAT is a front for Wordl government?? What s o u r c e s? Oh black helicopters, yep, that would do it SEVEREL WEEKS?????? Poor Chad goddamn

Is this gonna be a thing? Is radio interns dying just gonna be a thing? Are they the SCP D-Classes of NV?

Wtf poor Chad's parents oh my god

Play ball secret police trusted what the FUCK is happening anymore

Ok information is sliding off my brain again imma stop here and pick up again at w/etf Larry Leroy is doing next time

[meatriarchived]

not to be a complete sap at six thirty in the fuckin morning but like.

Its been a trip and a half this past what month and a half maybe since i came back to this account? After leaving it over nearly two years ago and expecting not to, especially after everything that happened last year

(can skip over stricken part ♡) ------(finishing degree, brothers dog passing from cancer, moms cancer diagnosis, helping dad be her caretaker and watching her wither over the two months of treatment, family being insufferable and unreliable and still demanding shit from her during that time, the stress of preparing for my graduation and losing her right after, my youngest cat passing)

and the last thing on my mind being trying to write. In spite of mom telling me to get back into it, it was just one of those things where i couldnt really find the push to do so. Grief for my sister twenty years ago gave me the drive to write because she used to write poetry, and grief for mom and my cat-baby had seemingly killed it this time last year.

I really wasnt expecting to come back to tumby to write when i came back here, and i expected that itd be a week before i disappeared into the ether again, but ive genuinely had so much fun this last month and a half writing and chatting over disc - which was also VERY MUCH unexpected because i really never was comfortable with using it or joining servers but im seriously so happy i finally did - with those who have gone on silly lil tangents with me over these silly lil guys on my roster. Who've made all these different lil dynamics with me, for all the boards and the affiliates and all of that.

Ive really had such a good time the last few weeks, its given me a much needed push in terms of getting out of bed yknow? Not letting grief have me in such a chokehold.

And its very much appreciated, truly, to just come on here and be silly and feel welcomed. It's something very much new in spite of being all over the rpc for years. You guys are seriously such a breath of fresh air and im very happy and very lucky i feel being able to write and talk about a game and characters i quite literally have never even played dhudsb

All that to say, ive just been feeling alot more lighter since coming back and alot of its to do with how sweet and lovely and welcoming yall have been.

Before i let myself get any Worse on the sappiness, just leaving a Thank You for yalls patience with me esp this past week tryna get my damn brain back from being lost in luggage sbdjvud vacay brainrot is still lingering but hopefully goes away soon.

Its just been very nice since returning. Yall have been more than lovely vibing with and letting me ramble about muses with near nothing to them that ive yoinked from gun to my others from near non-existant r.pcs like my remakes and trials peeps. And with my little bird.

Im a ridiculously reserved and quiet person and my anxietys got a chokehold still that makes me hesitant in reaching out / talking as often as i wish but i do feel like ive started poking out of that since joining the server. (I also often sort of. Blank out. Time passes me by very strangely and it sometimes comes with me not realizing hrs or at times literal days have passed without me registering it has. So, especially thankyou on being patient with me c;)

Thank you for the last month and a half ♡ its fuckin wild to me that its both been a month already and that its only been a month. Feels like its been simultaneously much longer and much shorter somehow.

[friendandphoe]

/sliding back onto tumblr like what up new year new name new pronouns new movie house

anyway hi y’all it’s ya boy Phoenix back at it again with the donexa brainrot pls enjoy @ahbonjour @museumlad @creativeskull95

There are days — plenty of them — when the distant disbelief doesn't quite fade from Alexa's eyes. She stares around their apartment like she doesn't recognize the furniture she'd spent agonizing hours choosing, her photo prints they'd painstakingly hung in straight rows with their award certificates neatly organized into a binder on the bookshelf, the four to seven stained coffee cups that perpetually clutter her work desk. She's withdrawn and snappy and eager to start a fight at any given opportunity, and the only touch she'll accept from him is rough and unyielding. She taunts him the whole way through, goading him to tug her sharper, press harder, use her until he's satisfied without sparing her a second thought. "Because then I know I'm at least good for something," she'd explained the morning after that first rough night, crunching away on a dry handful of Fruit Loops like it didn't break his heart to hear how little she thinks of herself.

But there are days — more and more frequent now, and Donnie's so fucking grateful for it — when she gives him an earbud to pass judgement on her latest editing project; when she wraps her arms around his waist and clings to him while he's cooking dinner; when he can hear her laughing from the couch because she's FaceTiming David and the motherfucker is funny. Sometimes she hangs out in the hallway for an extra twenty minutes, chatting with the neighbors about mindless shit even though she's got groceries that need to be put away. She's been loudly declaring that their next bathroom cannot and will not be so goddamn small, which makes his heart sing in all the best ways possible because it means she's thinking of the future — of their future, together. He'll come back from work to find her in the middle of a pile of their friends because she felt lonely. And there are days when she stays in bed an extra hour and tugs him close to her any time he makes a move like he wants to get out, whispering into his collarbone that she's not okay, can he please just hold her a little while longer. He picks up his ringing cell phone and it'll be Jaimey on the other end, asking how they've been and what's new. Alexa holds his hand the whole time they're grocery shopping these days, even when she's scolding him for sneaking in snacks they both hate just because he knows it'll get a rise out of her. And more often than not now, he's allowed to love her softly, sweetly, reverently, the way he wants to — the way she deserves.

"Lacey says it's never going to fully go away," Alexa had told him in the dairy aisle during a late-night grocery run, staring hard at the Greek yogurt like it held the secrets to finally uprooting her deep-seated assumption that one day, they're all going to get tired of her and leave her behind like everyone else in her life did.

He'd kissed her cheek, let her flinch away from him, because that had been a bad day and he'd known even then it was less about him and more about the poisonous fog in his girlfriend's head. "Yeah, well, neither am I." He'd promised, because even when she'd turned to snap that he doesn't fucking know that, don't say stupid shit, he knew he was in it for the long haul.

"Hey," he says now, almost two full years later, and drops a kiss on her bare shoulder.

She shifts ever so slightly underneath him, exhausted and nearly cross-eyed from everything he's done to her, because tonight was a soft, sad night and he wasn't about to focus on anything besides making sure she knew she was loved and wanted, but she still manages the tiniest of smiles for him. "Hey."

Fuck, he can feel his own smile, stupidly fond, stretching across his cheeks, wide enough to hurt in the best possible way. He is so soft for this girl. "I love you so much."

And her cheeks flush dark again, but she hums in acknowledgement and tugs gently on a loc. "I love you," she says, and starts crying.

"Oh, babe —" he says, grin fading, and he reaches down to cup her face, kiss away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just — it's hard to believe this is real sometimes, you know?" She traces over the lines she'd scratched into his shoulders, and he says nothing because yeah, fuck, he knows. This long in the game, he knows. "I didn't ever think I would get this."

He kisses the scars twisting across her cheek. "Hey, love, you got it."

And despite everything, despite the slow, sweet night and the progress she'd made even since they first met, Alexa makes a low, frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "Yeah, but — how long."

It's not a question, it never is, but Donnie has a solution. "You wanna List, baby?"

"Fuck. Maybe."

"Okay." He rolls onto his back, pulls her up on top of him so they're pressed chest-to-chest, and trails his fingers down her spine, grounding her as best he can. "Your last project went really well. Your clients loved it. They recommended you to a bunch of their friends and now you're booked all the way through for the next six months. And they sent you a really nice bonus."

She sniffs. "Yeah, they did."

He snakes his hands under her thighs and pulls her up a little higher. She automatically tucks her head under his chin, and he presses a kiss to the top of her head in response. "Lacey said you've been managing your spirals really well. And Jaimey called earlier, wants us to come over for dinner next week."

She hums, tracing circles into his bicep.

Donnie drops his voice to a low rumble. "Toby misses you. She asked me to find out your schedule so she can take you for breakfast soon. David texted you this morning to tell you about some cool gardens he thinks you'll like. Mags is making us mugs with dicks etched on them because they know you think it's funny."

"It is funny," Alexa insists, too exhausted to properly argue, and he huffs out a laugh.

"Yeah, but the point is, you're stuck with us," Donnie says, and blows a raspberry against her hairline to make her laugh. "You've got a whole crew who loves you so fucking much, baby, you're never getting rid of us. Remember how we all fell apart when you flew out to Colorado for that wedding shoot?"

Alexa presses a grin into his collarbone. "I was gone for a week. Less."

"Yeah, and we need you." He scratches at the shaved side of her head with one hand, wrapping the other securely around her waist. "You're funny and smart and a complete enabler as long as you think it won't kill us. You've punched people in the face for messing up Ethan's pronouns. With your bad hand. You're the first person Lark tells anything to. Fox does literally anything you ask him to, I think you're second only to Mags for him. My parents absolutely adore you, they ask about you all the time."

She groans fondly, smacking his shoulder with no real strength behind it, and when she speaks, her voice is much lighter. "Okay, okay, I get it."

But Donnie keeps going, because apparently he's not quite done yet: "I wanna marry you."

Alexa goes completely still on his chest, matching his frozen heartbeat, then peels herself up to stare him right in the eye. "What?"

He closes his eyes, throws his head back in the pillows, and groans deeply. Fuck, okay, it's not like they've never talked about the future before, he's always talked like they're staying together forever and she's been sending him house listings for the past three months, but — "I wasn't supposed to say that. Forget I said anything for the next month."

She smacks him on the shoulder again, and this time it stings a little. "Next month! Donnie!"

"That night market you like opens next month!" He argues, gently shoving at her head. She goes without protest, staring at him the whole time. "Don't look at me right now, oh my god."

"Next month." She repeats, and that might be a shocked smile ghosting her lips. "You want me to wait a whole month?"

"Yeah? I have a plan, I have a whole speech, it's gonna be cute as shit!" Or it would be, if he wasn't weak and incapable of keeping any kind of secret in the wake of Alexa's sad face. "Stop making me talk about it!"

No regerts, says the tattoo on his hip. Maybe some regerts.

"Tell me everything." Alexa breathes, and she's definitely grinning now.

Donnie, meanwhile, is scowling. "Absolutely not. I'm not — I put so much effort into this, I'm not — fuck outta here with your puppy-dog-eye bullshit, you're not getting anything out of me."

"I'll ask David," she threatens, making no effort to move. He doesn't know where her phone is right now, and she doesn't even have her prosthetic on, but he tugs her back down against his chest anyway. "I bet you made a whole group chat to plan it all out."

He raises his eyes to the ceiling. "The fuck I didn't," he says, because it's technically true, but he had absolutely considered it, and he kind of hates that she knows him well enough to guess that. "I cannot believe you're razzing me about this. I'm returning the ring tomorrow morning."

She jolts up and smacks him on the shoulder again. "You have a ring!"

"Oh my god, shut up," he groans, but there's no heat behind it. "What, what's with that face?"

Because Alexa's brow has furrowed over her eyes, and there's a peculiar mix of confusion and concern pressing her lips thin. "I don't — I don't know if I can wear a ring." She says uncertainly, looking at where her left hand is resting on his chest.

"You've got enough of the finger left for rings to go," Donnie points out, because obviously he's thought about this. "And if you can't, or don't want to, you could just wear it on your middle finger, I don't care. But —" because she's opened her mouth to say something. "You like the symbolism of the ring finger, so I did get a chain to go with the ring just in case, 'cause I know you think wedding rings on a necklace is cute. And it would work, so."

She stares at him for a moment, then covers her face, and for the second time tonight his heartbeat stutters, because, fuck, maybe they're out of sync on this one, maybe he's been reading her wrong, maybe it's not time yet or she doesn't want to or never wants to. But she only scrubs at her newly-teary eyes and smiles shy and fragile at him. "You — you really want to." She whispers, and Donnie remembers Truth or Dare on New Year's Eve back in college so fuckin' clearly.

It'd be nice, she'd said, tiny and hollow, resigned to the idea that it was never going to happen. If someone loved me like that.

He breathes deep and forces himself to hold her gaze, trying desperately not to show how nervous he is. "I — fuck, Aleja, I wanna marry you so fucking bad. You're — you're my best friend, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, you make me so stupid in all the best possible ways, I'm —" and he's dipping dangerously close to just reciting his whole damn speech to her right now, but Alexa's shining in the dark, lips curling ever-so-slightly as she looks at him, and fuck him, he's so soft for this girl. He stops, makes sure he's not about to burst into tears, then says: "I'm so fucking in love with you. Of course I want to marry you. If — if you want to."

She collapses back into the crook of his neck, and he pretends not to notice the way she's trembling. "I do," she says, so softly that he would have missed it if her mouth hadn't been right up against his shoulder.

Something in his chest bursts. "Yeah?" He asks, breathless, and he can feel her smiling.

"Yeah." And she twines their left hands together, five against three. "As if I'd say no."

He chokes out a relieved chuckle, squeezing her hand. "You could do better." He admits, dipping his tone just enough that it could be a joke, if they both want it to be one.

But Alexa doesn't rise to the bait, and he loves her. "No I couldn't. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, too."

And yeah, objectively he knows he's been good for her, but hearing it out loud never fails to make him all mushy. "I'm gonna marry the shit outta you, I can't wait," he murmurs into her hair.

"I mean, we can just make it official now," Alexa says innocently, and Donnie's fond smile immediately drops back to a scowl.

"But my plans," he whines, drawing it out just to make her laugh, and she does, which is great, but it doesn't deter her from pushing herself back up to look him in the eye again.

"I can't wait for the plan," she says sincerely, cupping his face in her palm. "I'm not saying get rid of the plan. I'm saying, technically, you already asked and I already said yes." And because she can tell by the look on his face that he's not fully convinced yet, she adds: "I've got three big project deadlines coming up in the next couple weeks anyway, I'm going to immediately forget everything you tell me."

He snorts. "No you won't."

"No I won't." She agrees, giggling. "But consider that the love of my life just told me he wants to marry me, then told me he wants me to wait a whole month, and I am very impatient."

Donnie pokes her on the tip of her nose. "You're so lucky you're cute. Get off me for a second, I'm gonna Beyoncé you real quick."

She snorts. "Bitched about your plan for so long and then you crumble anyway," she mutters, but she obligingly rolls off him and lets him scramble to the closet and fish the little velvet box out of the left half of Alexa's newest pair of sneakers.

"You're not keeping it," he warns, making his way back over to their bed. "This is, like. Mini proposal. Trial run. Beta testing."

She wrinkles her nose at him. "Put your dick away, then."

He just wiggles at her and flops hard back into bed, only avoiding crashing into her because she laughs, cries, "Donnie!" and throws herself back. It's hard to say who reaches for the other first, but she's got him in a headlock in the blink of an eye and he's pinching her hips and thighs because she banned him from retaliation licking her seven months ago. "Ow, ow, knock it off," she grumbles, but she's still giggling when she shoves him into the pillows. "You're so stupid, I can't believe I have to marry you."

"Haven't properly asked yet," he says cheerily. "You can say no."

"No, fuck off, I'm gonna." Is the immediate answer, and he pulls her down into the pillows next to him, blowing one last raspberry right on her cheek for good measure. "Ugh, nevermind, get out of my house."

"My twelve-step plan to seduce Fox into running away with me," he jokes, and opens the box.

"Oh," Alexa breathes, eyes wide in the dark, and Donnie's never felt more accomplished in his life. "Oh, Don—"

"Good choice?" He asks, just to preen a little bit, and she makes a noise that's just as much a laugh as it is a sob.

"Yes, oh my god, can I—" and she takes the box, bringing it up closer to her face to examine the teardrop-cut opal, the two crystals on either side, the matching band that nestles under the wide end of the gem, fanning out with more crystals in a pleasing semi-circle. "Oh, it's so thin!"

He'd purposely kept the bands plain and small, just to be extra sure the ring would actually fit on the little nub of Alexa's finger, and hearing her pleased coo does something good to the anxious knot in his chest. "Do you want to try it on?"

She looks up at him through watery lashes, a smirk teasing across her lips. "Sure that won't mess with your plan?"

He sticks his tongue out at her, just to make her giggle. "Trial run. Beta test. File name final-project-one. I can go get it fixed for the actual thing if it doesn't fit you."

Reader, it fits perfectly.

"Fuck yes, I am the king of the universe!" Donnie crows triumphantly, lifting one pointed leg towards the ceiling in victory. "Can't say shit to me for the rest of the week, babe."

"Wasn't planning on it," Alexa laughs, admiring the glittering gems on her finger. "Oh, I really love it." She says, suddenly choked, and Donnie rolls over to gather her up in his arms. "We're gonna get married."

He kisses the side of her head. "Yeah," he murmurs, trying (and failing) to stomp down his own tears. "Yeah, we are."

Alexa tucks herself into his chest and says: "Good luck trying to get the ring back, fucker."

"What — no, wait, my plan—" and they dissolve, wrestling and giggling like giddy little kids.

(The next month looks like this:

Donnie will manage to steal the ring back when Alexa's washing her hair a few days later. He will hide it on the top shelf of their kitchen pantry, where Alexa's five-foot-two ass will not be able to see it, let alone reach it. Alexa will grumble for thirteen hours before succumbing to the stress of her aforementioned projects. Life will continue as normal for another thirty-seven days; Donnie will go to work, to rehearsals and costume fittings and performances, and come home to Alexa hunched over her desk with her ninth coffee cup in her hands. He will drag her away from the screen whenever he will think she needs a break. They will go on walks in the park, on coffee shop dates, back to bed to both sleep together and just sleep. Their friends will flit in and out of their apartment like normal; Mags and Toby will stop by for brunch and dick mugs, David will stay the night whenever Donnie and Ethan are going to get stuck at the theater, Lark will call with reminders to eat and drink and offers to drop off leftover food. Donnie will take Alexa to her favorite night market four separate times once it opens up, and he's going to laugh and tease any time she will stare at him suspiciously. They'll take a day off to drive out to Jaimey and Juno's house for dinner, and Jaimey and Alexa will be laughing and teasing each other like normal siblings, and Juno and Donnie will exchange fond, relieved glances over their wine glasses. They're going to make plans to have dinner again next month.

Donnie's last show will close the day before Alexa will submit her final project; he will invite the whole crew over to their apartment for movies, food, and games in celebration. At nine-fourteen, Alexa will excitedly yell that it's snowing, can they please go outside so she can take some pictures, and everyone will tease her for immediately jumping into a new project but no one will say no. Donnie will slip the ring into his pocket just before they all head out and will follow his family through the streets as they will follow Alexa's meandering, aesthetically-driven path. He will stop and pose every time Alexa tells him to, and will goof off with Mags and David whenever the lens isn't pointed at any of them. He will try and sometimes succeed in making Lark laugh when she's trying to be a good model and will sign shit with Toby whenever Fox's back is turned. He will gently steer the group towards the night market, and luckily for him Alexa will light up the minute she will realize how close they are, and she's going to drag them all the rest of the way there.

The night market this year is really going to be an artisan's paradise; all the vendors will pull out their biggest and best, and the group will ooh and aah over all the hand-worked leather bags, the delicate wire jewelry, the carefully curated antiques, the second hand books and clothes. Ethan will pick up a couple of scented candles and Fox will buy them all hot cocoa and cookies from one of the bakery stalls, then will grumble that it's just a bribe to get them all to stop being so loud and obnoxious in public, Jesus fucking Christ. This, of course, will not work, and will only fuel their obnoxiousness further. No one will notice because the night market has always been like this, and there will be plenty of kids and teenagers and adults alike running around fulfilling their own personal agendas of chaos. Alexa will take an excellent video of Fox getting pulled into the tangled mess of Lark, David, and Mags, each with cookie crumbs on their faces, loudly whining that he doesn't love them anymore and what'll they do about the kids and the mortgage.

At ten-forty-six, Alexa will be forced to hand her camera off to Ethan, who will insist she needs to be in the photos too, and it will spur a whole new onslaught of goofing off. The snow is going to come down a little heavier, promising a proper snowstorm once it really gets going, but they're going to stay out at late as possible before it starts getting bad because they'll be right in the crossroads of all of Alexa's favorite times and weathers, and after the month she will have had, they won't be able to say no to her.

At eleven-o-three, Alexa will start wincing at every other step. Donnie will lift her up around her waist to pull her away from the group; she'll laugh and cackle and shriek at him, but will go happily enough when he's going to lead her towards the gazebo. It'll be beautifully decked out in hanging lights and evergreen garlands, and it'll provide a welcome break from both the snow and the walking. They'll sit on one of the benches inside and watch their friends goofing off outside; Alexa will brush snow from the top of Donnie's hair, and he'll tease her about some small comment she will have made a few minutes before. They'll shove at each other in a mock-fight for a minute or two before dissolving into shrieking, sobbing laughter, and Alexa will grin wide and bright at him and murmur that she loves him so much.

At eleven-eleven, Donnie will slide off the bench and onto one knee. He'll tell her that he loves her, that he feels so lucky to get to know her and love her, that he wants to make her smile like this for the rest of their lives. Alexa will be stunned for about two seconds because she really will have forgotten about his plan, and they'll both laugh and cry (only a little, this time) and he'll slip the opal ring back where it belongs on her finger. They'll kiss, soft and sweet, and their friends will surround the gazebo almost immediately, summoned by the PDA. The hooting and catcalling will startle them out of their reverie, and they'll laugh their way out of the gazebo and back out into the strengthening snowfall. They'll all decide it's probably a good idea to head back, especially considering the market will have been closing up for the past ten minutes, and they'll take the more direct route back to Donnie and Alexa's apartment in an unspoken agreement of a sleepover. Fox will swing Alexa up on his back when she'll stumble over a snowbank, and Donnie will teasingly beg Ethan to carry him, too.

David will be the first one to notice the ring, back at the apartment when he and Alexa will be gathering up blankets and pillows to pad out their fort in the living room, and he'll yell out "when the hell" loud enough that the rest of the group will come running. The rest of the night will be a blur of yelled congratulations and a few tears shed here and there, and exhaustion will overtake them one by one, starting with Ethan around twelve-twenty.

Donnie will fall asleep sometime past one-thirty. His head will be cushioned in Alexa's lap, his legs flung out over David's, and Fox's rumbling snores will echo somewhere to his left. The last thing he'll see before fully falling asleep will be the sparkling glint of the ring on Alexa's finger as she signs to Toby, and the last thing he'll hear is Alexa murmuring into Jaimey's voicemail that she's "getting married, Jay."

And he’ll be so, so fuckin’ soft for his girl.)