#(in my heart) simon likes a hierarchy
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Forming the Pack - Part 1
Autumn Embers Master List
Pheromones aren’t everything, of course, but you’ll get more cohesive group dynamics if everyone has scents that go together. Scent blockers and diffusers are everywhere in common spaces, so it’s not like people who’s scents don’t mesh can’t be around each other. Lots of people with subtler or hard to pin down scents only go au naturel on special occasions with family and their special someone.
Of course, the military is a whole other beast.
Almost every person serving active duty is an alpha, which lends itself to clashes. And alphas, who already tend to have stronger scents, put out even more aggressive pheromones in close proximity with one another. Industrial strength scent diffusers can only do so much. It results in proximity packs forming, alphas who are scent compatible spending more time with each other.
The 141 doesn’t form because of scent compatibility. When Price finds Simon and forms the task force, he doesn’t much care about what they each smell like. Their scents being on wildly different parts of the spectrum is better than if they were too close, Price reasons. His gear smells a bit spicy, Simon’s always has an earthy undertone. It’s easy to avoid squabbling, and only made easier by the way Simon readily assumes his position as John’s second. No muss, no fuss.
The first year passes. It’s hard work, but Simon makes it undeniably simpler. The Ghost has a presence that demands deference from the temporary members of the task force. And because Ghost follows his captain, that deference extends to Price. The two times someone had tried to upset the balance, Simon had reacted with such swift ferocity that Price hadn’t known there was a problem before it was resolved with a neck under a boot.
“Stand down, Ghost,” Price says around his cigar, the third time.
“'S soon as he acknowledges his superiors, Skipper,” Ghost rumbles, staring down at the sergeant who’s face is going an interesting shade of purple with shame and a lack of oxygen. “Yield, corporal.” The sergeant frantically taps Ghost’s boot. Ghost gives him just enough room to heave a breath, and snarls down, “Yield to the Captain.”
“Captain, I yield,” the young man gasps.
“You ever flout orders again, I’ll kill you myself,” Ghost growls.
After that, the mission had gone smoothly.
Days later, it’s just the two of them again, walking home from the pub. It’s a nice enough night for it, and they’re both too jumpy to call a car. Simon follows without comment, just lights a cigarette and falls into John’s wake, like always.
Four blocks from the base, Simon says, “Gotta piss.”
John snorts. “What, you didn’t go before we left? Hold it.”
“Alright,” Simon drawls. Without breaking stride, he lights another cigarette.
Of course, within another block, John becomes too aware of his own bladder. If Simon hadn’t said anything, he could probably have made it. Annoyed, he steps into an alley and behind a dumpster. His nose does not appreciate the assault on his senses, but he’s a soldier, he’s smelled worse. Simon stands guard at mouth of the alley as he does his business.
When he emerges, he tips his head. “Goin’?”
Simon quirks an eyebrow and exhales a cloud of smoke. “Am I?”
Price hums, takes in Simon’s relaxed posture. Without the skull covered balaclava, he’s softer. Not civilian soft - he’s still almost 2 meters of alpha, hardened by military training and torture. But where most military As balk at taking orders when they’re not in the field, Simon looks for ways to let Price lead.
Simon will do what ever John tells him. It’s a realization that probably shouldn’t thrill him the way it does.
John waves him into the alley. “Be quick about it.”
Without comment, Simon hands his half-finished cigarette over and steps into the alley. John contemplates it as Simon does his business. He prefers cigars, but he takes a drag and tells himself it’s just to keep it lit.
But when Simon re-emerges, John doesn’t hand it back. And Simon doesn’t ask.
#dragonnarrativewrites fanfiction#poly 141#omegaverse#autumn embers verse#simon ghost riley#captain john price#manic pixie dream ghost#price is right#(in my heart) simon likes a hierarchy#but he never wants to be at the very top of it#(this was part of a larger document that has been sitting in my files for some time)#(posting to remind myself that I don't have to be perfect)#(i'm allowed to put my own stuff on my blog even if it's not finished)
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I. Lights Out
Word Count: 2,7 k
Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley X F! Reader
Content: zombie apocalypse, mention of dead bodies, mention of death, children
Summary: A virus has taken over the world, turning people into zombies. Amidst the chaos, Simon has managed to stick together with the other operators of Task Force 141, his life barely any different than it was before. That is, until the day he crosses paths with a woman that keeps a well hidden secret and holds something he has long forgotten existed: a baby
Note: This is my first fic (and first tumblr post)! Hopefully you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I already have the story planned out, and will be posting the next chapter soon if anyone cares about this. If not, I’ll pretend I never posted this lol
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Sitting on the back of the Humvee, Simon could almost believe that things were normal. The constant hum of the engine numbed his mind, as he stared into the sewing of the padding covering the old seat. Soap was seated directly across from him, blabbing his mouth to Gaz, who acted like he could hear anything besides the huge vehicle's obscene noise. Behind the steering wheel was his Captain, Price. Although, that didn’t seem to matter anymore. Not ranks, not names. Nothing was normal, and the reality outside that Humvee was something Simon, not even in his worst days, ever believed could happen.
He had witnessed bleak images. Cruelty in abundance. But the world he saw now was unlike anything he had ever seen before - the dead, roaming among the living. Not that he hadn’t encountered his fair amount of corpses, after all, that came with his job. But this, seeing the bodies of civilians, once full of life, now life-less and decaying at an evolving speed, nonetheless persisting, chasing the taste of human meet… It was different.
When the early signs of the apocalypse started to show, most of the people downplayed it, him included. He had always been a skeptic, and it just didn’t seem viable that a virus could bring down humanity with such strength. Regardless, Simon hadn’t been too worried about the so-called “end of the world”; He thought that his military ties would be enough to keep him informed with privileged intel of the real situation.
He had been deployed with the 141, far from civilization, when shit really went down. For obvious reasons, they came out empty-handed from the recon mission. Turns out terrorism doesn’t come first in the list of the insurgent’s priorities when there is a deathly virus going around. It was only at his team's fruitless attempt to land back at base that he found out that his ranks and years of service didn’t matter when the world was collapsing. They had been out for long enough that, when they came back, there was no more government in place. No hierarchy to follow, and no rules to structure society. And no one cared about them enough to let them know beforehand.
Some people had stayed in their houses, probably clutching their kitchen knives close to their hearts while they heard their neighbor's inhuman noises. Others had divided themselves into smaller groups, in the hopes of giving humanity a fighting chance. The lucky ones had made it to what once were the quarantine zones, now just simply a bigger group of people that managed to stick together and with far better resources. From there, all the typical apocalyptic mayhem developed: gangs, revolutionary groups, miracle safe spaces, cults, and so on. The chaos you would expect to see in a movie. Apparently, they weren’t that far from reality.
Along with the 141, Simon fell into the “smaller group” category - not that the four men would give humanity a fighting chance, they just didn’t really have anywhere else to go. Being military men, their lives revolved around structure and order, so it was natural for them to stick together. Whatever ties to the old world they had before had long been severed, and quickly they realized that it was less painful to hope that anyone they cared about had had the privilege of dying a quick death.
Not that that mattered to Simon either. He didn’t have anyone. So sitting at the back of that Humvee they had stolen from an abandoned base, things didn’t feel that different from what they used to be.
Soon enough, the group expanded, thanks to Soap, who had managed to fix an old radio and get in touch with a few other military personnel who were scattered around the globe. That is how they found Laswell: she had managed to seclude a select group of people from the military in one of the bases that were abandoned in the turmoil. They didn’t mention that she never tried to contact them while they were away on that recon mission, and she didn’t bring it up either. Now, over two years had passed, and the topic was long forgotten.
They were a bunch of people tied together by the hope they could still save humanity: scientists, agents, medics… Everyone had their place in the small society Laswell had created. And Simon… Well, he was a soldier. And soldiers are always useful when in the right hands. That was why things hadn’t changed much for him, and for the first time in his life, the fact that he never had a home to come back to was a relief.
Price was currently driving towards an abandoned research post, that had once been filled with people working to find a cure for the virus that plagued the world. Now, it was just a pile of junk and hopelessness, where Laswell swore they could still find valuable intel - maybe someone had forgotten to scrub their hard drive, or left behind a notebook with notes. At this point, even a post-it with bullet points would be considered a success.
As they pulled up to the location, they decided to park a few meters away from the entrance and proceeded with the skillfulness of a well-oiled machine. Soap and Gaz cleaned the era, taking out the few zombies in the vicinity with their knives, as Price and Ghost scanned for any intelligent life form that could possibly cause trouble. Not that they were expecting to find anything, it was just a precaution, as anyone who once lived there had either fled the area or become another roaming corpse.
They were about to follow the small dirt path that led to the makeshift building when Gaz held up his hand, a signal to stay put, while he used the other to hold the thermal vision glasses to his eyes. “I’m reading two heat signatures - one small and the other even smaller. Looks like it could be a woman and a child. The woman seems to be armed.”
“Let me see this, Gaz.” Says Price as he analyzes the scene himself. “He is right. Two signatures, one is armed.” Gaz makes a look of mock surprise behind the Captain, as he hadn’t just said that. He had become a lot more sassy since he could not be demoted.
“What do we do now?” Soap asks. “It’s not like we can just shoot a kid.”
Price pretends not to hear the last sentence. “I will approach, unarmed. They are probably just scared and trying to find a safe place to live. I’ll tell them we can give them some of our food if they come out and let us take a look at the place.” Before anyone can suggest an alternative, the Captain is removing his guns from the holster, and making his way towards the old science lab.
He is only a few feet away when the sound of gunshots fills the air. The bullets, all aimed just inches away from the captain’s boots, trace a line as if saying “Do not come any closer”. Immediately, the rest of the 141 aim their guns at where the shots came from, taking cover behind the trees, waiting for permission to shoot from the Captain, one that never comes.
“STAY THE FUCK AWAY!” A woman’s voice rings in their ears. This confirms part of what they had seen in the thermal goggles: there was a woman inside and she was, indeed, armed.
“I just want to talk, kid.” Price states calmly, standing his ground. He doesn’t take a step forward, so the shooter doesn’t feel challenged, but doesn’t take a step back either. He is not a man that backs away from a fight. “Name’s John. No need to shoot”.
“You can tell that to your men.” The woman is positioned behind a window, the scope of her gun pointing fearlessly at the bearded man. Not expertly, Simon notes to himself, as he can see the slight tremble that reverberates through the metal parts. Although her voice screams confidence, he can tell the person behind it is not as courageous. But she would probably still shoot that gun - Simon has seen more people pulling triggers out of fear than bravery.
“Alright. Stand down, boys.” And they do. “We just want to take a look around, we don’t want trouble”
The woman laughs. “You say, as you carry automatic weapons and wear a bulletproof vest.”
“Just protecting myself from these troublesome fellas around. You know, the ones with their face falling off, trying to eat people.”
“We both know no one needs that much gear to fight some brain-dead walkers.” She doesn’t seem to want to match the light-hearted tone John is trying to bring to the conversation. “Now get out, or my men will shoot you.”
Now it’s Price’s turn to laugh. “Sweetheart, we both know there’s no one else there with you.” He puts both his hands on the shoulder straps of his vest. “That is, except for the child.”
John was just trying to assert his dominance by showing he had more information than he had let on. However, an angry string of bullets directed toward his feet, again, showed that the comment had struck a nerve. “Get out.” She said through gritted teeth, loud enough for him to hear. “Or the next ones are going straight through that stupid fucking hat of yours.”
“Listen here, kid.” The Captain was angry now. He didn’t like when people commented on his hat. “I have three men ready to shoot your ass into oblivion if you don’t comply. If you can’t tell, they are military-trained, and they will have you down before you can aim at my stupid fucking hat. So quit being dumb and put that gun down.” It was surprising he had let her go as far as shooting at him twice, but he was done negotiating.
“Are you with the Resistance?” Simon almost wants to laugh at that name. The Resistance was a group that, surprise, surprise, wanted to resist the Government. People have too much faith in the Government, in his opinion, as it had crumbled before he came back from his mission. To be fair, it had been a long mission, so maybe he was being a little harsh. Now, the Resistance was a group of rebels that had nothing to rebel against, and who, ironically, had become the closest thing to a government you could have nowadays.
“No, we are not.” Simon could tell John’s patience was wearing thin. He isn’t a big fan of the Resistance either. “We are a group that’s still trying to fix things in this goddam world and that lab might have valuable information. Now let us through.”
At that, the woman puts the gun down and stands up. She probably didn’t know that, but by the tone of his Captaion’s voice, she had probably taken her last chance to avoid a conflict. “Name’s Y/N.” She says. Simon can see her face now - she looks like she is in her early twenties, with long hair tied in a tight ponytail. She disappears behind the window again, coming out the front door with a baby in her left arm and a pistol in her right hand. “I’m keeping the gun.”
“Suit yourself. Come on, boys.” With that, the three of them are taken out of their trance. He knows what they were thinking because he was thinking the same. Who in their right mind has a baby in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Either this woman was crazy brave or crazy crazy. A baby was a rare sight, a healthy one even more so. But there she stood, baby in her arms and a furious gaze.
They walk past her and her gaze only intensifies. Clearly, the woman was hiding from something, or someone. But that was neither here nor there. They were on a mission, and they were going through with it regardless. Nothing had ever stood in 141’s way.
They don’t ask the baby’s name. Simon had a feeling she might point her gun to his head if he did. Not that he was curious, he could care less about the women or the child.
She doesn’t ask their names either. After all, there is no reason for formalities. If all goes well, they will be gone as suddenly as they appeared.
Inside, the lab was what you would have expected, except for a few things that showed that someone had been living there. It wasn’t hard to find their way around the place, although incredibly annoying to do when there was a five-something-foot-tall woman following them around with a disapproving look. He understood - after all, they were in her house. However, that wasn’t even a house in the first place. Simon tried to mock an equally disapproving look while scavaging for something useful. As if reading his mind, Johnny asks “May I ask why you are living here, of all places? I mean, there are real houses across the street, lass.” Always a gentleman, he was. He could tell the scot had put real effort into that sentence not to sound judgmental.
The building wasn’t too messy, courtesy of the current tenant. It wasn’t too big either. It resembled a house from the outside, and had two stories: the bottom floor looked pretty much like a regular house. It had one room filled with a not-so-normal number of beds, a bathroom, a simple kitchen, and tables everywhere, where it looked like people used to do research and eat, probably simultaneously. The top floor, on the other hand, seemed like something from another world: Wires covered the walls, feeding energy to dozens of different lab-related equipment. Some were big, some were small, and Simon couldn’t name them if his life depended on it.
“The place runs on solar energy. So the showers and appliances installed still work. Except for the cameras, I shut them down a long time ago, along with all this science crap.” So Simon’s intuition was right, she was hiding from something, and knew too much about the place for her to just have stumbled upon it on pure luck. They had already looked at the cameras and made sure that they weren’t working. They were small, installed mostly where it looked like the scientific research went down and at the entrance. She must have been looking for them, as he was pretty sure a regular civilian wouldn’t have been able to spot all of the cameras. But she did, despite the fact that it looked like those were the parts of the house that she used the least. And although Simon's first reaction was to be suspicious, he couldn’t deny that part of him was impressed.
“Smart.” Gaz said, but his tone seemed to reflect some suspicion as well. He had been sitting down in front of a computer since they arrived, trying to recover any data, while the rest of them tossed things around. Unfortunately for them, the scientists who had previously worked there had remembered to scrub the place clean - no documents or information was left behind. “Price, I think I got something.”
Whatever Gaz had been doing in that giant computer, seemed to have worked, as it looked like files were being restored. But the victory was short-lived, and they hardly had time to gather around the machine before the energy shut down. “What happened?” Soap asked.
“I don’t know, it looked like it was working.” Gaz proceeded to furiously tap the keyboard, probably having no idea what he was doing.
“Well, get it to work again then.”
“It’s not that simple, Soap.” As fast as the power went out, it came back on, and the distinct beep of the weird machines splattered around the place could be heard again. “It seems like the whole place rebooted. It was probably easier for them to have all the controls gathered in one place. Simpler.”
But Simon wasn’t focused on Gaz’s explanation. He was focused on the cameras, that he had physically confirmed were shut down, now red light shining bright. Apparently, the machines weren’t the only thing that had turned back on. “Shit.” He heard the woman say behind him. Her face was pale, and she hugged the baby tightly, shielding the child’s face against her chest.
Whatever she was hiding, Simon was willing to bet all his money it had to do with that baby.
#simon riley#simon ghost riley#simon ghost riley x reader#simon ghost x you#kyle gaz garrick#john soap mactavish#john price
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Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 2, Episode 5
This episode picks up the day after the Valentine's ball.
Blink and you miss it: Simon hid Wilhelm's sweater under his pillow.
Subtext: A parallel to S1E5 when Wilhelm made the exact same crispbread sandwich as breakfast for Simon.
Subtext: Meanwhile, Alexander has been stewing over what August told him, that Wilhelm was the one to throw him under the bus, so he's not exactly keen on talking to Wilhelm right now.
Blink and you miss it: As soon as Wilhelm gets the text message with the speech, he nervously starts biting his fingernails.
Subtext: Simon is wearing his purple shirt, of course this is how he's feeling.
Subtext: Sara is projecting a bit of her own storyline with August here. She knows he is the wrong person, but she still has feelings for him.
Subtext: Felice's hair has been a theme this season, she's literally been letting her hair out as a way of protesting her mom's controlling behaviour, and other traditions. She can't defy the housemistress, though, so she ties up her hair.
Blink and you miss it: As soon as Felice gets corrected, Stella ties up her own hair as well. She's also not ready to rebel just yet.
Subtext: There's going to be a parallel here in the next episode, so for now, just note how August sucks up to Jan-Olof, meekly asks to make some changes to the speech, and is shut down.
Subtext: And of course he is a stickler for titles, he doesn't care that August and Wilhelm are informal with each other, the hierarchy must be preserved at all times!
Subtext: Jan-Olof is really on a roll here, perfectly embodying the Evil System and its boring traditions.
Culture: Året med Kungafamiljen is a real show, it's a year-end retrospective containing highlights of what the royal family did during the year, and it is usually aired around Christmas time. However, it's definitely not the most-watched show in Sweden.
Subtext: Wilhelm is the last person to figure out that the obvious song is obviously about him.
Cinematography: There's some interesting composition in this scene, they're arguing, they're in the same room, they're actually pretty close to each other, but the camerawork highlights the distance between them by making sure they're never both in the shot at the same time.
Subtext: There's maybe a parallel here, Marcus said the opposite to Simon a few episodes ago.
Subtext: And what Simon says is absolutely true, in season 1, the Queen kept it a secret that she knew it was August, to get Wilhelm to deny it was him in the video, and she claimed it was to protect Wilhelm, but in reality she was just protecting the monarchy by burying all unwanted attention.
Subtext: Again, Jan-Olof never contradicts Wilhelm or argues with him. Of course one of the reasons he decided against the new school song was because of Simon, but he can't say that, so he deflects instead.
Subtext: A bit on the nose to have Wilhelm physically being suffocated by the clothes he's going to wear while holding his speech, but whatever.
Subtext: Bless their hearts for being supportive, but I don't think Rosh and Ayub really understand what they're up against if Simon reports August to the police. Wilhelm wasn't wrong, the court will obviously back August, because he's family.
Subtext: It's pretty funny how Wilhelm sees the entire court as a unit, but of course the Queen has no idea what he's talking about, she doesn't know Jan-Olof made the decision about the song earlier, so to her Wilhelm is having yet another random outburst.
Subtext: Just like Wilhelm told the truth about August and the video, revealing the stakes to Simon, she does the same to Wilhelm and reveals the stakes about the speech and about August being his spare.
Subtext: You all saw my longer explanation post of the plot point, here's the Queen spelling it out again, their plan is to introduce August as a member of the royal family, slowly, to make people get used to him.
Subtext: The way the Queen views her role leaks out a bit here. To her, royal duty is the most important thing, being queen is a job to her that she takes seriously. All the privileges is secondary to her, so she mostly sees what she did to August as burdening him with duty.
Subtext: This is going to be important for later, she tells Wilhelm to think of the repercussions of his choices first, and what he wants second.
Blink and you miss it: Fredrika proposes to Stella as a joke.
Subtext: The dark side is of course that she's been having a relationship with August in secret.
Subtext: Wilhelm is really warming up to therapy, in this session he pours coffee for both himself and Boris, and he's actively driving the discussion.
Subtext: This is how modern monarchies justify their own existence. It is inherently unfair and undemocratic that they inherit their positions, so one way they justify it to themselves is by convincing themselves that they are fit for the duty, that the can handle the job, and that they are better at the job than most others. Because if they aren't good at the job, why should the country tolerate the royals?
Subtext: Yet another callback to season 1, Erik tried teaching Wilhelm how to do the same, how to keep up a façade, a public persona, and that's what it looked like to Wilhelm because he knew the private Erik, the one the public never got to see.
Subtext: Yet another another callback to season 1. When the Queen tried to convince Wilhelm to deny it was him in the video, she said that no-one asked for this, none of them asked to be born royals.
Subtext: A recurring theme for Wilhelm is that he is never free to make his own choices, he is always bound by duty or traditions or expectations, so it's important that Boris encourages him to start making his own choices.
Subtext: August is practically holding court here, so Wilhelm gets a glimpse of what it would be like if he lets August take over for him. The choice is his, but this is one of the consequences.
Subtext: We're really on a roll here with all these choice and their consequences, so here Wilhelm lays out Simon's choices - and consequences - around reporting August to the police.
Subtext: In the end, Wilhelm chooses to accept whatever Simon decides, and if August can't be his backup any longer, he has decided to keep being the crown prince, for Erik's sake, and not for his mom's sake.
Subtext: A nice little callback to episode 1 where Simon told Wilhelm to start being honest and talking about how he felt.
Subtext: We don't know it yet, but this is where August tells his mom to sell off some of his assets, so he can buy Rosseau for Sara's sake. He refused to do this to pay for his tuition last season, but apparently this is worth more to him? How sweet, character development! Sara is changing him into a better person! Let's see how long that'll last...
Cinematography: When the show was casting people, Malte originally auditioned for the role of Simon. I thought that was ridiculous, because he's so good at being stuck up and smarmy and evil as August, how could he possibly play Simon? I don't know what they've done with the lighting and styling in this scene, but damn it if he isn't cute as fuck here! How does he do it? I could totally see Malte pull off playing Simon if he looked like this the entire time!
Subtext: I think it's interesting that Wilhelm and Simon have never ever had an interaction like this, they have never discussed their future life as royals, because neither of them really wants that kind of life. But both August and Sara want that, so they're having this discussion, they're imagining themselves as future royals.
Subtext: This entire book discussion is dripping with obvious subtext, you should all be able to pick this up without my explanations! Let's go through the highlights.
I think Henry is projecting a bit here, maybe he is the one that hasn't talked to his crush? Maybe he sent the poem to Madison? We'll never know!
Sara is definitely projecting, she's saying it's ok for her to be in love with August despite all the bad things he's done, because she thinks she can change him.
Simon is just straight up admitting that he's finally realizing all the pressure Wilhelm is under, and that it's actually not that easy for him to make the choice to live openly.
And Wilhelm straight up admits that he's been somewhat of a selfish jerk, putting himself and his royal troubles above everyone else.
Subtext: Karin Boye really did commit suicide, so let's hope that's not some kind of foreshadowing or symbolism.
Blink and you miss it: August is actually looking at Sara and smiling at her, but Simon misinterprets it as August secretly laughing at him for the sex tape.
Subtext: It's a bit late for this now, but here's one more detail on how Marcus is "perfect" for Simon, their parents apparently know each other, and both moms are so happy that their sons are dating. That Sara tries to teach her mom how to behave around the Queen is the complete opposite of that.
Cinematography: I've bitched before about how many gay-themed tv shows still use homophobia as a driver for drama, and it's just so nice to watch a show that's the opposite of that. Simon is gay, Marcus is gay, and their moms are just getting together and gushing about how cute their sons look together and how nice it is that they're dating.
Subtext: Sara is panicking here while trying to hide it, because she still hasn't told her brother that she knew it was August from the start. Bit of a dark side, eh?
Subtext: We've seen a lot of reasons for Simon making this decision, and one other reason has been somewhat of a theme in the first half of this season; we've seen Simon getting unfairly punished all the time, while the upper-class kids got away scot free. So enough is enough, it's time for August to get what he deserves.
Subtext: This episode has focused a lot on choice and consequences, but here Wilhelm decides not to burden Simon with the consequences of the choice. He's selflessly accepting it and that he now must keep being the crown prince, even though the pressure of it makes him physically ill.
Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm printed out the speech and nailed to his wall so he could practice it.
Cinematography: Colour theory anyone? Simon has been bottling up his feelings for Wilhelm almost the entire season, he wore a yellow sweater this episode, hiding the purple shirt beneath, but Wilhelm took off Simon's clothes and turned the whole thing inside out so the purple shirt is now very visible, finally. Also, that is one blue room!
Subtext: Yes, they finally remembered to close the curtains. And this time the show also fades to black, we don't get to see them having sex, because we are the nosy public that has been watching all along.
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“Our Love is God.”
A/N - This is based off of the Heathers musical JD, specifically Simon Gordon
Warnings - Mention of blood, guns, dead body’s
Pairing - Jason Dean x GN!reader
Maybe you weren’t in the best situation. A couple of your classmates lay dead on the ground beside your feet. The forest around you was silent, not even the crickets threatened to chirp. Or maybe it was all drowned out by your hearts heavy beating in your ears. The night sky was covered in clouds, no stars daring to show their faces to such an atrocity playing out under them. The feint smell of gun powder floats in the air, like an aftertaste that you can’t decide is good or not. You stared down at the corpses of your colleagues, a blank face hiding the rushing thoughts in your head. It wasn’t like they didn’t deserve it but your mind couldn’t stop racing.
Oh god what have I done?
I’m going to get caught
I’m going to hell
I’m going to throw up
My head is spinning
Oh god oh god oh god
Fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK-
“-Hey.”
You jump as you feel a hand grasp your forearm, tearing your gaze from the bodies. As soon as you lock eyes with him your head slows and your breathing regulates, his hand never leaving your arm. He was close enough so that you could smell his signature scent of cheep cologne and old books. He was a monster. The manic, crazy gleam in his dark eyes. His pupils blown to an impossible size and god forbid the smirk resting on his lips after committing such violent acts. Even in the cloak of night you could see the blood splattered on his face slowly drying to his skin. But if he was a monster you had to be a demon. Blood was splattered on your clothed as well. The sticky substance in between your fingers and caked into your nails. The loaded gun lying on the ground beside your converse. Your bloody converse. The one he was so kind to lend you. You didn’t feel sorry and neither did he. You were truly horrible people.
“You’re always in your own head, the things I would do to know what you’re thinking.” He cups your cheek with his bloody hand, running his thumb along your cheek.
You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and relax under his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as you try to ground yourself. JD made it so easy, almost like he was a walking Prozac. He could say the same thing about you as well. As you open your eyes his gaze softened. He takes a second to take you in as if you could disappear at any moment before leaning in and capturing your lips in his.
The feint sweet taste of cherry slush on his lips was addicting though his kisses were never freezing nor cold. God no. They were hot and full of passion. You’ve never gotten used to it. Every kiss makes your knees weak and your hands shake, it’s almost like you forget yourself and the only thought in your head is him. Akin to a brain freeze, his kiss was the only thing to stop your racing thoughts. Froze you completely in the moment. You could stay that way forever if you could and he would too. Your arms snake around his neck to pull him in closer as one of his hands grabs your hip to do the same. You felt alive, you felt unstoppable, and it was all because of him.
As you pull away clarity sets in. You weren’t monsters. Maybe you were in the best situation. There’s a necessary evil that has to be done to make the world a better place and you were the ones to do it. Burdened with the responsibility of changing the world and turning the hierarchy on its head. No. You weren’t monsters. You were gods.
“Our love is god.”
#heathers#jason dean#jason dean x y/n#jason dean x you#jason dean x reader#Jason Dean x male reader#Jason Dean x female reader#jason dean heathers#Jason Dean x Nonbinary reader#Fluff#established relationship#heathers the musical#heathers 1988
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A love letter to Young Royals...
Sobbed through the final minutes of the last episode... Young Royals has stuck with me since the summer it came out, during the three emotionally challenging years of lukio and now both are ending.
It’s an odd feeling that a show has faintly illustrated a whole chapter in my life, but along the way I’ve grown and learned about myself and my identity too. The series felt like a rock I could fall back on whenever I was struggling and needed and escape.
The series is about Wille choosing himself, his happiness and health over living in an institution that would’ve eventually led to his doom. It’s about Simon gaining his voice back and being heard by people he loves most. It’s about Felice not giving in the pressure of oppressive hierarchies, standing up for herself and staying with people who care about the real her. It’s about Sara stumbling but getting up again, wanting to grow and learning to love herself after having wronged her loved ones. It’s about August feeling and then losing the slightest taste of what could’ve been if he hadn’t chosen revenge over healing. Poetic justice.
Young Royals is a gut-wrenching and a heartwarming series about queer love and intimacy, friendship, redemption and forgiveness, media scrutiny, class differences, prejudice and privilege, grief, generational trauma, mental health and so much more. It’s a story about broken families and flawed people. It has a happy ending.
I love the rawness and humanity of the portrayal of the world, its characters, the relationships and moments they share. I have grown to care about these characters and their arcs to much. Surprisingly, it has also taught me a lot.
It’s about choices.
It’s about platonic and familial love. It’s about romantic love. The writing built Wilmon’s story not just as a romance but also something worth rooting for. Their love is about about rejecting old heteronormative traditions and rebuilding worldviews. It’s about a person who loves you unconditionally, is your best friend and soulmate despite setbacks. It’s about creating a safe space with someone to express feelings and be yourself. It's about heartbreak, longing and desire. It’s about communication, authenticity and comfort. It’s about respect and growth as a person. It’s about love.
And it’s never over. A new fresh chapter has started for all of us, including the characters.
Young Royals has helped me to come into touch with my emotions and be more honest with myself. I’ve had to reconstruct certain believes and unfair standards I’ve had for others. I’ve gone through several journeys focusing on my identity and mental health for which I’m eternally grateful for.
All of this feels so strange because the reason I even started watching Young Royals was that I didn’t want to fail my Swedish courses at school during the first year. Funnily enough it might’ve worked a little too well because one of my matriculation exams was Swedish.
To me Young Royals has brought me comfort and a feeling of home that no other show could’ve provided. This show will aways have a special place in my heart wherever I go, and it has been an honor to see it grow and get the recognition it deserves.
Går skilda vägar när det är slut
Nåt som jag kommer minnas livet ut <3
#jag kommer alltid att älska den här serien 💜💜💜#in the grand scheme of things... three years is not that long#more like 2 and a half#but it meant a lot to me#one of my favorite shows ever and that's not gonna change <3#also the fandom indirectly introduced me to gåsmamman and i've been hooked ever since#there is still something to look forward to!!#young royals#personal#rose rambles
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The Iron Claw: Review
Fighting with my family
With the super tight trunks and dodgy haircuts, there’s something wonderfully daft about the world of professional wrestling. But whether it’s The Wrestler or Foxcatcher, the sport has served as a serious topic to explore the destructive nature of masculinity in cinema. Weighing in at just over 2 hours, the latest to join the ring is The Iron Claw, a poignant true story about an ill-fated wrestling family.
Set in 1980s Texas, we spend our time with the Von Erichs, an unusually close family of wrestlers and athletes. Led by patriarch and former pro wrestler Fritz Von Erich (a steely Holt McCallany) with his formidable wife Doris (a marvelous Maura Tierney), he rules the home with an iron claw, and looks to his four sons to carry on his wrestling legacy. He even has a hierarchy of what boys he favors - there’s olympic athlete Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), eldest son Kevin (Zac Efron), swaggering David (Harris Dickinson), and the more sensitive Mike (Stanley Simons). As the brothers jostle for a higher position, Kevin starts to have doubts about his father’s tough love approach.
While Fighting with my Family looked at how professional wrestling could bring a family together, this looks at how the need to appear macho in the sport can slowly tear a family apart. The Von Erich family is presented as a stifling cage that the brothers can’t escape, where talking about your feelings is taboo, and shedding a tear during a funeral too ‘unmanly’. There’s even a family curse that is invoked in the face of tragedy, when someone is pushed too close to the edge. From Sean Durkin, writer-director of Martha Marcy May Marlene, this is another excellent study of pent-up emotion and repressed feelings, with a show-don’t-tell approach that grounds the story, and makes major plot developments more upsetting.
As the Von Erich family makes a name for itself in the world of NWA wrestling, the sudden fame and physical demands begin to impact the family dynamic in fascinating, devastating ways. This results in some truly layered performances, including Allen White as the troubled Kerry, and Simons as Mike, whose inability to fit the macho mold is the most heart-breaking plot point. While Kevin’s eyes are opened to a different kind of life with girlfriend Pam (a spirited Lily James), it’s fair to say the others aren’t so lucky.
Sitting ringside to this story of family turmoil is Efron’s Kevin, the brawny elder brother whose emotional maturity has been stilted by the pursuit of someone else’s dream. Trading in on his physicality (and a strong resemblance to He-Man), Efron is perfectly cast as a troubled man who chafes against his father’s domineering parental style, but struggles to put his doubts into words. It’s a complex and perceptive performance, allowing Efron to flex acting muscles that he previously hasn’t been able to. Like his central performance, the film aches with sadness and regret, acting as a plea for men everywhere: when the going gets tough, don’t be afraid to cry!
With a masterful grasp of tone and subtle story-telling that packs a punch, The Iron Claw is a sad and compelling story about the limits of traditional masculinity.
★★★★
#iron claw#zac efron#harris dickinson#jeremy allen white#von erichs#lily james#fighting with my family#the wrestler#holt mccallany#sean durkin#4 stars
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getting real tired of 'meta' posts that completely ignore that izzy was also abused by the lightwoods or straight up put her as on par with them in alec's abuse
#salt#im bitter and frustrated tbh izzy is not even my fave but the way she's treated in comparison to alec is so???#and like yeah look im boased af to talk about their relationship because i project into their sibling bond like#i really wish my brother and i's bond had survived the abuse and become stronger like theirs did#and i already made all my points about how i think that she always had alec's best interests at heart even if she didnt fucking get it#so i wont make them again#but to put her on par with jace and maryse?????? dude?#and like i say that as the former 'golden kid': being the 'fuckup kid' fucks you up way way worse#but no one talks about thag#and its frustrating because izzy was fucking terrible to raphael#triggered his addiction on purpose#used him#betrayed him by telling simon about his sister and threatening her#when she was the first person (presumably other than magnus) who even knew about her#but no one talks about THAT and in fact makes her the victim of the whole situation#but then she basically abused alec/contributed to alec's abuse because....... she kept telling him to accept himself?#like for the 83737382927373th time im not saying she was wonderful and did no wrong#but this reeks of alec whumping and being completely blind to everyone else's issues#especially comparing the response to alec and izzy's relationship vs raphael and izzy's#again just the very obvious hierarchy in this fandom#shes above raphael so shes the victim there but shes below alec so shes the villain there#idk im just frustrated like at least have nuance? please? im begging you?#ugh
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PEDRO PASCAL GQ GERMANY - OCTOBER 2020
Original text by Esma Annemon Dil
Fotos by Doug Inglish
Styling by Simon Robins
Translated by @thedanceronthestreets
Intro: A broken tooth could almost have been the reason for our meeting with Pedro Pascal to be cancelled - and with that our conversation about roots, his new movie and times of change.
Interview: It is almost eery how empty the streets of Los Angeles are under the gleaming sun. While Europe is finding its "new normal", people in L. A. are cutting their own hair even without being neurotics. Many of them have not seen their friends in half a year. The pandemic is out of control. So are the reactions to the situation. Inviting someone to a "distance drink" in the backyard can lead to the same consternation as proposing a relationship partner exchange.
All the more of a surprise was Pedro Pascal's immediate confirmation. To the drink, not the partner exchange. He is one of the winners this year - and if Corona had not forced the movie industry to go on a holiday, he probably would not have had the time for this drink. After "Game of Thrones", the series in which his head was squished, followed 2015 the leading role in "Narcos" as a DEA agent on the hunt for Pablo Escobar, and now the leap onto the big Hollywood screen. As of 1. October the Chilean will appear in the blockbuster "Wonder Woman 1984". Furthermore, the second season of the "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian" will start in October with him as the main character - unfortunately underneath the helmet. But we all seem to be under the same helmet in 2020. It is this man we want to meet, who worked as a waiter in New York a couple of years ago. Whose parents are political refugees that settled in Texas, and one day their son decided to walk into a drama club in high school.
And then the cancellation. While we were preparing the house and garden for Pedro's drink and fashion shoot, which isn't an easy task under L. A.'s restrictions, his management called in with terrible news: Pedro has - no, not Corona - had to receive emergency surgery due to a sore tooth and is now lying in bed with a swollen cheek, making talking or shooting impossible. The sun shines onto empty streets. And our empty garden.
A few days later, he stands in front of the door anyway, no huge bulge in his face, but stitches in his gum. No limousine service that dropped him off, he arrived in his own car and picked up his makeup artist on the way. He helps her to carry in all the equipment and states first and foremost: "I've got time today!" What a star! It does not seem like we are about to ask him how he managed to become a Hollywood sensation, but rather him asking us that question. Pedro Pascal! So, what kind of star is he then?
Pedro Pascal: Sorry for ruining your plans. The operation was a total emergency.
GQ: Really? We were wondering whether the swelling was the result of a secret trip to the plastic surgeon. Apparently, because of the quarantine in Hollywood, their schedules are packed.
Sorry to disappoint you. A few days before our appointment I raced to the hospital with a tooth fracture and the worst pain I've ever felt - a hospital where the severe Corona cases are treated. I was unable to contact any dentists! Right before I parked, a specialist called back. I'll spare you the details of the surgery, gruesome. The pain was excruciating despite the 10 anaesthetic shots. The doctor said I wasn't the only one going through this, a lot of people grind their teeth at night thanks to stress.
What are you most afraid of at the moment?
The way the government is handling the pandemic scares me more than the virus itself. The lack of intelligent crisis management is a moral disgrace. The leadership crisis makes orphans out of all of us - we're left to fend for ourselves.
How have you spent the last few months?
With frozen pizza in jogging trousers in Venice Beach. I live in a rear building that's in the garden belonging to a family. In reality there are enough good takeout restaurants around that area, but for some reason I like salami pizza from the supermarket.
That doesn't exactly sound like the movie star lifestyle. What does it feel like to be forced from top speed to zero?
Considering the things happening in this world, my own state really isn't the top priority. But I would have to lie, if I said I wasn't disappointed. The entire cast and crew of "Wonder Woman 1984" put so much heart and soul into the production. We had so much fun on set. I had hoped to carry this feeling of exuberance around the globe to the openings of this movie.
You are part of a political, socialist family that fled the Pinochet regime in Chile. What do you remember from back then?
My sister and I were born in Chile, but I was only nine months old when we claimed asylum in Denmark. From there, we moved to San Antonio in Texas, where my dad worked as a doctor in a hospital.
Texas isn't exactly considered to be socialist utopia. How well did you settle in?
San Antonio isn't a cowboy city but rather very diverse with large Asian, Afro-American and Latino communities. In my memory it's a romantic place, culturally inclusive. The cultural shock only hit when we moved to Orange County in California later. Suddenly, the environment was white, preppy and conservative.
How were you welcomed in California?
To this day I'm ashamed when I think about how I let my classmates call me Peter without correcting them. I'm Pedro. Even without growing up in Chile, the country and language are part of me. I was quite unhappy in that place. At least I was able to switch schools and visit one in Long Beach, where I felt more comfortable. With its theatre programme, I found my path.
Could you visit your family's homeland as a child?
Yes, after my parents ended up on a list of expats that were permitted to re-enter the country. First, there was a big family gathering, then me and my sister were parked at some relatives' place for a few months while my parents returned to Texas. They probably needed a break from us. They'd had us at a very young age, had a vibrant social life, and my mother was doing her doctorate in psychology.
Was your mother a typical young psychologist that tested her knowledge at home?
You mean whether I was her lab rat? Absolutely. I can remember weird sessions camouflaged as games, where someone would watch my reactions to different toys. Even though I couldn't have been older than 6, I knew what was happening. My favourite thing was to be asked about my dreams. That was always a great opportunity to make up fantastic stories.
Was that your first performance?
Definitely! My strong imagination alarmed my mother, because I'd rather live in my fantasy world than in real life. I didn't like school. I ended up in the "problematic kid" category. At some point the subjects got more interesting and my grades improved. So many children are unnecessarily diagnosed with learning disabilities without considering that school can be daunting. Why is it acceptable to be bored out of your mind in class, when there are more stimulating ways to convey knowledge?
With everything happening in the world this summer: Do you believe that social hierarchy structures are genuinely being reconsidered?
Hopefully. After the lockdown my first contact with people was at the Black Lives Matter protest. The atmosphere was peaceful and hopeful until the police got involved and provoked violence. At least during these times we can't avoid problems or distract ourselves from them as easily as we usually do. It seems that the pandemic provided us with a new sense of clarity: we don't want to go on like this.
The trailer of "Wonder Woman 1984" represents the optimism of the 80s. That almost makes one feel nostalgic nowadays.
That holds true. It's two hours of happiness. Patty Jenkins, the director, managed to make a movie full of positive messages. We shot in Washington, D. C., then in London and Spain - which now sounds like a different time.
Do you miss travelling?
I've only now realised what a privilege it is to just pack up your things and fly anywhere. With an American passport you can travel freely. And that's why the small radius we live in now is kind of absurd. Over the last few years I often retreated in between takes, because I was always on the road and overstimulated. Friends complained about how comfortable I had become. We all took social interactions for granted and realise now how reliant we are on human connection. Now, I wistfully think about all the party and dinner invitations I declined in the past.
In L. A., people spend more time indoors or in nature than in other metropolises. Could this city become your safe haven after New York City?
My true home is my friends. Ever since I was young I've lived the life of a nomad and haven't set roots anywhere. Until recently, my physical home was a place for arriving and leaving and hence I didn't want to overcomplicate living by owning lots of things. The opposite actually: Without having read Marie Kondo's book, I got rid of all the stuff that was unnecessary and lived a very minimalistic lifestyle.
Is there something you collect or could never say goodbye to?
Books! I still own the literature I read during my teen and university years. Recently I found a box of old theatre scripts and materials back from my uni days at NYU. I can't separate from art either, same as lamps or old pictures. Furniture and clothes are no problem though, they can be chucked.
Do you remember any roles that were defined by their costumes?
Yes, "Game of Thrones" comes to mind immediately. During that time I first understood what it means, as an actor, to be supported by a look. I owe that to costume designer Michele Clapton. She developed these very feminine robes and brocade cloaks for my role that looked very masculine when I wore them. I felt sexy in them. And very important were of course Lindy Hemming's power suits and Jan Sewell's blond hair for the tycoon villain Maxwell Lord in "Wonder Woman 1984". Relating to the style, I couldn't really see myself in the role since the shapes and colours of the 80s don't really fit my body. My type is the 70s.
Do you adopt such inspirations into your private closet?
At this point in time, I'll choose any comfortable outfit over a cool look. Sometimes I mourn the days when I defined myself with fashion. It's a bit mad when I think about how, in the 90s as a teenager, I would go to raves; a proper club kid with crazy outfits: overalls, chute trousers, soccer shirts and a top hat like in "The cat in the hat knows a lot about that!" by Dr Seuss. Later in NYC I was part of a group that placed immense value on wearing a certain style. The fact that I only walk around in joggers nowadays is actually unacceptable!
Normally, actors who work on comic screen adaptations become bodybuilders and eat ten boiled chicken breasts per day. You don't?
My body wouldn't be able to handle that. I find it difficult enough to maintain a minimum level of fitness. As of your mid 40s, you suddenly need a lot more discipline. Until the tooth incident happened, I worked out a couple of times a week with a trainer to keep the quarantine body in shape.
What would annoy you the most, if you were your own roommate?
I can be very bossy. I have to gather all my goodwill not to force my movie choice on to everyone else. When I want something, I'm not passive aggressive about it, I attack head on. Also, I can get caught up in tunnel vision: When i feel down, I can't imagine that I'm ever going to feel better again. I have difficulty with seeing the bigger picture when experiencing problems or emotions. Method acting really wouldn't be my thing. That's why I try to only work on projects that feel good and where people encourage and lift each other up.
While you were trying on the outfits you pointed out a lack of self-esteem. How does that coincide with your career?
Isn't it interesting how traits and circumstances go hand in hand? Self-esteem comes from the inside, but it's also influenced by what society believes. We use critical stares from the outside against ourselves. I lived in New York for 20 years, I studied there and worked as a waiter up until my mid 30s, because I couldn't live off acting. It was always so close. The disappointment of always just barely missing a perfect part or opportunity is exhausting. When is the right time to stop trying and what's plan b? That's not just a question actors ask themselves, but anybody who struggles to earn a livelihood - unrelated to how much potential they have or how close their dream may seem. We are beginning to see now how our narrow definition of success is destroying our communities. At the same time, it's becoming obvious that, until this day, your family background and skin colour determine your chances of living a dignified existence.
What are the positives of becoming a leading man later in life?
I have the feeling that I've got control over my life - without the pressure of having to accept projects or be a social media personality. That surely also has to do with the fact that I'm a man. Women are surely pressured to appear quirky at any age.
Life is always a management of risks - especially at this time. For what would you risk losing something?
Usually, if you don't play the game you're not going to win anything. That applies to friendship, love, work, creativity. Anything that really means something to me, is worth the risk.
Wonder woman 1984 will appear in cinemas 01.10. The 800 million dollar earning DC comic franchise is moving into the New York 80s with its sequel. It looks spectacular - only Pedro Pascal with blond hair in a three piece Wall Street suit looks better.
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So, again a lil late, but here I am!! You know? I read the chapter the same day you posted it. I put my notes simultaneously. I even woke up early for some weird reason!!! And I forgot to send the ask...I cant with myself😂
Hallo!! Ich bin zurück, um wieder verletzt zu werden💙
“It’s dangerous, obviously. But also, crazy.” “Didn’t you try to do necromancy?” (there is not hierarchy of clowns when they all entretain the same circus...)
JACE NO!! 😭 The letters!!!
"Alec. The one thing that had always mattered." Ouch.
"Blue eyes that were now tired and worn and were threatening to shut permanently" Thanks! I didn't need a reminder :)
"He remembered a time when both Max and Rafe had been small enough for Jace to put them in duffle bags and sneak them out to missions. Now they had grown up. And growing up sucked. It got people hurt." I dont know why....but this hit hard...
"Love made you a reckless fool." LBAF! Well, almost 😂
Parabatai feels win again💙
Every time I hear that David is gone, it feels like the first time cause its just🥺😭
“If we pay someone else to do it, it means our lives are more valuable just because we have more money to spare,” Jace explained. “So, even if we could do that, we shouldn’t.” (And we love you for that honey!!)
“Max, I already kidnapped one son,” Jace pointed out. “If I take the other, Alec might actually kill me.” (yeah, sounds like a good reason...)
“First, breakfast,” Jace grinned. “Then I go raise Raziel.” (My man has his priorities straight!! Kinda..)
Roman is jsbdjsjsb🥺
“Does it turn into a sword? Like in Percy Jackson?” (Also my fist thought😂)
I feel the device is going to be important at some point...
“I have more pens back home,” Roman said. “If I had known, I would have brought all of them.” (they are so cute and a perfect team and in this essay I will....)
💙THEM💙
“I’m basically 16,” Georgia said, who was totally 15. (Getting Alec Vibes... 😂)
CAMILA IS A QUEEN!!
“No. I ate it.” “Why the fuck?” (Why not right?)
"I think you are my favorite shadow police yet," I'M LOVE THEM✨
HOLY SHIT THIS CAN HELP MUNDANES!! YESSS
"Stupid self-sacrificing idiot,” Like father like son (which father? I DONT KNOW)
No, no no. She can be dead right???
Anjali....
YES. SHE IS A BADASS GODNESS EVEN WHEN SHES ABOUT TO DIE!!
"I told you the Angel won’t let us down.” “Um,” Roman said awkwardly. “There is something you should know about that.” Lmaoo😂
That right!!! They are finally getting shit done and I love them!!!
OH SHIT. ALEC KNOWS...
"Alec had punched him then, not holding back. And then he had hugged Jace tightly and told him everything was going to be okay." I'm confused but honestly I dont care💙
"His eye was still badly bruised. He hadn’t used an iratze, which usually meant he was sorry." 🥺 also, Magnus wanting to kill him is so funny for some reason 😂
“So, don’t give Jace shit,” Isabelle said. “You are just as dumb. I have two idiots for brothers!” (I mean thats not new Izzy...)
“Lightwood women are something else.”YES THEY ARE!!
"She had Izzy’s mind and Simon’s heart. But she reminded him so much of Max" Hdjdrlob its so true its not even funny anymore 😭
“I got you,” Magnus whispered and squeezed his hand. ��💙💙💙
This is going oddly ok.... I dont trust this...
"But Alec had hoped that one day he would get to chat about love with his children. He wanted to know about that part of their lives." I feel personally attacked...
Sizzy its so proud of their daughter!!!
“YAS!” Emma yelled from the back. “Go, Team Lovehollow!” Alec pointedly ignored that. (No, no...let her speak!!)
“Maybe he is an anti-vaxxer too,” “Gabriel, shush!” (I laughed harder than i should 😂)
BITCH. THEY ARE SO FUCKING ANNOYING!!!
Yup. I told you things were going too good to be true...
“Show some fucking gratitude.” YESSS
“We demanded justice!” another shadowhunter stood up. “Our law was broken.” “My son is dead,” Alec snapped. “Is that justice enough for you?” (IM IN THE MOOD TO STAB SOMEONE!!)
I want to quote many things here, but I'll just leave it to: HELL YEAH MARYSE!! HATE EX-COHORT MEMBERS!! I JUST WANT JACE TO PUNCH THAT ASSHOLE!! MAGNUS SHOULD PORTAL THEM TO HELL!! AND HOLY SHIT YES ANJALI. SHOW THEM HOW ITS DONE!! MY GIRL AINT TAKING ANYONES SHIT!!
“Bro, I am not sure if we can girlboss our way out of this one.” Me neither...
Ah shit. Here we go again....
Would just like to point out that every conversation between Mina and Max is amazing 😂😂
“Your brother has been separated from your family long enough. It is time for him to go. And it must be done properly. It’s a basic right – criminal or not.” I'm...surprised...still simping tho....
David kept it in his wallet!! 🥺
"But like most things in his life, this too had to be a spontaneous and half-assed trip." Can relate
Lightwood-Banes be like: ✨The masculine urge to go to Edom and get yourself killed✨
THE SCENE!!! THE FUCKING SCENE!!! IS HERE!!!!
Wow. That. Everything. What? Honeslty I couldn’t quote anything cause I was too busy trying not to scream and shaking but...
“We don’t trust you, Max,” dad said, walking to the door. “You broke our trust when you tried to do necromancy.”
But they didn’t know. They didn’t understand the emptiness he felt inside himself. The terror.
But here he was, sitting inside the pentagram, half-way to hell, and he had no magic to defend himself.
Fucking killed me. Honeslty I dont know why I'm surprised anymore :) Shit just got real like 15 chapters ago and hasnt chilled out since then...
Wie auch immer, bis bald. Und Pass auf Dich auf!!<33
I thought it was Finnish!!! Damn, I keep losing this game(?)
I love your live blogs so, so much. Thank you sending them even after this time!!!
Also THIS ABSOLUTELY KILLED ME YOU HILARIOUS BEAN OMG -
Lightwood-Banes be like: ✨The masculine urge to go to Edom and get yourself killed✨
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Sorting Firefly
Note: in the way we like to play this sorting game, “primaries” are WHY you do things and “secondaries” are HOW. If you want to learn more about our system’s definitions, check out our other tumblr posts, our blog at sortinghatchats.wordpress.com, or our quiz at https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats.
Malcolm Reynolds is our go-to example for the Burned Hufflepuff Primary. An Unburned Hufflepuff Primary values community, fairness, and empathy. A Burned Hufflepuff still has those inner values, but thinks it’s impractical, naive, unsafe, or foolish to prioritize them. They tend to think of themselves as bad people -- practical, sensible, maybe, but not very good.
It can be tempting to consider Mal perhaps a burned Gryffindor instead, but look at him in the war, before he burns. His faith isn’t in the righteousness or the cause, but their people—”hear that? That’s our angels coming.” Mal has a big heart and he wants both to help and to believe in other people. (This is one of the reasons River is so vital to him—but we’ll talk about that later).
Mal after the war is no different in what he wants — he’s just had to settle, injured, for a smaller world. “You’re on my crew,” he tells a bewildered Simon. (Simon’s Slytherin Primary is absolutely flabbergasted by Mal’s stubborn loyalties to him and River, which is based in their need and their being part of the family, where Simon’s loyalties are razor-edged and individualistic).
Mal can’t love the whole world anymore, or even just the Browncoats, because he knows that would destroy him— it already almost did. But he can love his crew. He can make Serenity a home.
Mal’s Puff Primary shows up in other places, too, sneaking past the Slytherin Primary model he’s used to keep himself alive and sane after the breaking of his too-big heart, like when he gives the medicines back in Train Job, risking Niska’s wrath.
Zoe, who first fell into step behind a Hufflepuff years ago, questions him about it in the movie—an unburned Mal, the one from the war, would never have left a man behind. This Mal shot the bystander begging for rescue (a mercy) to save his crew. That prioritizing (or, rather, the instantaneous decision of it) points to his Slytherin model—but it eats Mal up the way it would never eat up Simon, an actual Slytherin Primary (“remember, River, it’s okay to leave them to die”).
Mal wishes, deeply, quietly, that he could save everyone. But war and loss burned his young, faithful Hufflepuff into a man who thinks one of the basic truths of the universe is that you can’t save everyone and that it will destroy you to try. So he’s sunk his stake into these eight Serenity-boarded souls and decided it’s enough.
This is one of the things that makes his relationship with River so interesting. The Burned Puff knows he should not be trusting and investing in this broken bird and her verse-wide bounty, her untrustworthy triggers and destructive lethality. But in letting them stay in the pilot, in pulling her back to the ship in Objects in Space, in joining her crusade in Serenity, he defies all these hard lessons he’s learned and he trusts her, he fights for her, he believes. By ignoring his “better judgement” and investing in this one unlikely young woman, he’s starting to heal his Hufflepuff and have faith in the good fight once again. The last moment of the Firefly-filmed universe is Mal Reynolds teaching River how to fly.
(For a definition of teach, anyway.)
For secondary (the “how”) — Mal’s a Gryff. “If I shoot you,” he told Simon, “You’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.” Badger mocks him for it in the pilot— Mal wants the world to be honorable. He wants to be fighting the good fight, and he wants to do it in the good ways.
Gryffindor secondaries are an interesting mix of stand-up integrity and mischievous (even deceitful) rule-breaking and chaos (think Fred and George). These potentially conflicting traits come from this— Gryffindor Secondaries are self-defined.
Their integrity and their honesty is a deal with themselves, not others. They stand firm to their own rules, but find other peoples’ or organizations’ insignificant, or even downright offensive. The other secondaries all can and do break rules—a Slytherin Secondary might play the system, a Hufflepuff Secondary might invest in it, a Ravenclaw might find its loopholes—but a good rule of thumb for identifying a Gryffindor Secondary is this: is rule-breaking a tool? or is it a personality trait?
Simon, who destroyed his whole life to get to River, and was willing to let Kaylee (the epitome of the innocent bystander) bleed out in order to keep his sister safe, is a Slytherin Primary. He looks slightly Puff occassionally—this is because he’s tied part of his worth to the Puff-like doctrine of a surgeon: service and do no harm. You see it when he saves the patient on Ariel and then chews the attending physicisian out, offended to his core. These are beliefs he holds close to himself, that help define him—but at Simon’s core, no matter how Ravenclaw clever or kindly even bumblingly Hufflepuff he can seem, he puts his people first and he loses no sleep over that.
He’s got a Ravenclaw Secondary—asked to describe his usefulness, Simon would first and foremost claim his intelligence and his skills. He’s best when he’s in his “element,” drawing on skills, knowledge, and tolls he’s already learned and comfortable with.
Simon’s got a Slytherin Secondary model on top of his Slytherclaw heart, which I suspect he learned from his dad. The Ravenclaw/Slytherin combo in the secondary/model space (in either order) often looks a little bit like a criminal mastermind (or someone who wants to be one, anyway). When Simon is uncomfortable, falling back on his model, his starts to look a bit like a plotting villain—in the pilot, on Ariel, and at the beginning of Serenity the movie.
Zoe is a Gyffindor Primary who really likes Hufflepuffs (see: Mal, Wash). Like Mal, she’s been burned by the war. Puff Primary Mal has become disillusioned by a cruel ‘verse that requires you to abandon some people to save others. He has lost faith in both the fairness of the universe and his own ability to make it more fair. But Zoe, a burned Gryff, has lost faith in her own ability to tell right from wrong.
She’s not deeply burned—more a light char—but instead of trusting her own gut these days, she trusts Mal’s. Her internal moral compass feels like it’s gone awry or silent. She feels lost. This is a burned Gryffindor, and it’s not uncommon for a burned Gryffindor to try to find their morality somewhere outside themself. Zoe finds hers in Mal.
Part of it is that she knew him in the war when he was fearless, his Puff effortless, and because it’s easy for her to fall into the structured hierarchy of their roles-- sergeant or captain. She has given him not just practical but also moral authority. She questions him, but she trusts him in the end, almost always. And, though it’s framed within the “sir” and the war, the reason for it lies on the quality of Mal himself. Zoe would never give her allegiance to anyone who did not deserve it. But she feels she cannot trust her own internal compass, so instead she trusts Mal’s heart.
For secondary: Zoe does not charge, comfort, or connive. She’s straightforward because it’s useful, not because it’s a moral imperative. Ravenclaw Secondary I think—look at the comparison with Mal’s Gryff Secondary in the “tin of beans” flashback in The Message. Where Mal shouts and hollers and charges, a different school of thought, Zoe is organized, efficient, deliberate (and deadly).
The way Inara freaks out and skiddaddles when she realizes how important the Serenity crew (and esp. Mal) have become to her — that is a Slytherin Primary trying so hard to Petrify. She’s mourning Nandi and she’s mourning herself, and she just wants everything to stop hurting.
Inara looks a lot like a Puff Secondary, because she performs Hufflepuff so damn well, but she’s not. In her introductory scene, on the job, we get snatches of her “inner” thoughts while she smiles and pours tea— she’s sighing, shifting, rolling her eyes. There’s clearly a disconnect between how she feels about this man and what she’s doing.
A Slytherin/Hufflepuff Inara (which, on the very surface, would look very similar to most of her behavior) would have to convince herself to “mean” the affection for her clients, even if only for the allotted time slot. Eyerolling, internal or external, wouldn’t happen until she was back on the ship, curled up with Kaylee, telling stories, and that’s if the eye-rolling happened at all.
Inara talks like that, though—that she chooses people she ‘connects’ with, that kind of thing. She’s got a lot of respect and wishfulness when it comes to Hufflepuff, which I think is where she bonds best with Book— he performs Puff, too, and wishes that giving warmth was closer to his core.
Inara has a Slytherin Secondary model, which she uses to excel at the “performance” of her job. The flexibility and cultivated appearance of that secondary work for her well. However, her actual secondary is Ravenclaw, a learner, a studier, and a collector of skills. Slytherin’s adaptability is just one more skill her Ravenclaw has worked to learn.
When Inara’s with the crew, she tends to live simply in her Ravenclaw secondary, giving off an impression of precision, clarity, and certainty. Her Ravenclaw and Mal’s Gryffindor secondary, both strident, solid houses, like to have sparring matches/bonding times while their Loyalist House primaries make doe-eyes at each other. Dweebs.
Jayne Cobb displays neither a Slytherin Primary’s strong loyalty drive, a Hufflepuff’s need-based service, or a Ravenclaw’s constructed, systematized morality. He appears to be a Gryffindor Primary whose felt morality is “whatever I want.”
If you read him really complexly, you could maybe imagine a Ravenclaw Primary there, who’s settled on that morality of self-serving ruthlessness. But moments like the one where he joins up with Serentiy—he shoots both his buddies on Mal’s suggestion—suggest against that. The betrayal doesn’t make Ravenclaw any more unlikely than Gryffindor, but the instantaneous decision to make a moral choice he’d never considered or run through his system before suggests that his is an intuitive “gut” morality—just a really unsavory one.
His selfishness looks temptingly like a Slytherin Primary, but he lacks any of the loyalty. He’ll betray anyone and it doesn’t seem to be because he’s Petrified—he still likes and bonds with people. He cares not just practically but emotionally about what they think of him (his plea to Mal not to tell the others about his betrayal in Ariel). But when push comes to shove, he doesn’t seem to be driven strongly by that affection, the way a Slytherin is tied to their personal loyalties. A Gryffindor, then, just an ugly one. Sorry, Gryffindors.
His secondary, though, we think is Slytherin. He looks a lot like a blunt Gryffindor Secondary, but it’s just his Slytherin Secondary neutral state, which he likes to live in and which shares the blunt or even abrasive honesty and delighted tactlessness of some Gryffindor Secondaries.
When Jayne needs to lie, deceive, connive, or betray, he does it easily and without a touch of dismay. He schemes and jockies for advantage. He’s a good example of the uglier stereotypes of a Slytherin Secondary. Sorry, Slytherins.
Kaylee Frye is a Gryffindor Primary like Jayne and Zoe, but where Jayne’s is self-serving and Zoe’s is quietly shattered, Kaylee’s shines bright through her Hufflepuff Secondary. She community-builds like nobody’s business and even her technical prowess is described in terms of intuitive empathy.
In the episode where they pick up Simon and River, she’s sitting outside Serenity asking people why she should let them onto her ship, why they want to be on her ship. And the only answer she accepts, Book’s, is a philosophy of wandering and traveling that sits close to her heart. It’s a Gryffindor recognizing someone who looks to share her view of the world. It’s a Gryffindor who’s bonding over shared ideas and ideals. And what does she do with this information? She brings Book aboard the ship. Welcome to the family, you share our philosophies, and I think we’ll get along great.
One of the (many) ways she does her part on Serenity is by community building with people who are good, who are worth getting to know, or who are interesting-- who aren’t just picking their ship because it’s a ship that they happened to see, but because they’re able to pick up on that something special that Kaylee values so much about Serenity.
Book is a burned Gryffindor with a Slytherin secondary and a Hufflepuff performance. He’s devoted himself to the truth of the Word, of the Bible, of his religion-- like, Zoe he doesn’t have faith in his own ability to tell right from wrong. Where Zoe places her faith in Mal, Book places his in his religion.
His secondary is a bit hard to sort, but from his laid-back, go with the flow skills and his comfort with lying or gilding the truth, he reads as a Slytherin Secondary to us.
Wash is a hard sort, because you can read or not read so many different depths to him. Is he really as utterly transparent as he seems? He looks like a Hufflepuff Primary, but maybe he’s a Ravenclaw with a loud model—because if he’s a straight up Puff, then the boy wears his heart and thoughts on his sleeve all the time.
But Zoe has a pattern—she likes Puffs—so we’re gonna go with that.
Wash really is that honest and straightforward, his emotions obvious on his face. I think someone with the sort of built layers that are easy but not necessary to read into Wash wouldn’t be the kind Zoe would fall in love with. She likes hearts that know what they’re doing, that are instinctual in their kindnesses. Wash is himself, all the time, and that self plays with dinosaurs, loves his wife, and headbutts with Mal over ethics with the thoughtless confidence of two Puffs who disagree.
Ravenclaw Secondary—he’s quirky, delights in sarcasm and wit even when what he’s trying to be is kind. His Puff center makes his secondary look a lot warmer than burned Gryffindor Zoe’s Ravenclaw secondary, but the fact that this couple shares a secondary makes sense.
We think River was originally a Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw with Slytherin Primary and Ravenclaw Secondary models — basically, as a kid she modeled Simon’s Slytherclaw. She’s not a Slytherin Primary herself, but she finds comfort in Slytherin loyalty and she often sees the world through that lens—an emphasis on interpersonal connection, a sense of “mine first,” and loyalties owed.
By the time she’s on Serenity, however, she’s been rubbed so raw she doubts her Slytherin model (“I didn’t think you’d come for me” “Dummy,” says Slytherclaw Simon, who never could have done anything else) and she has almost entirely dropped the show-off Claw performance of the little girl who had corrected her big brother’s spelling. As the show goes on, she grasps more and more of her Slytherin model: she gets to bring back one of her layers, regain her trust in Simon’s Slytherin, rebuild her model of a world in which one universal truth is that her brother will always come for her.
But River’s drives and connection to the world are understanding it. She wants to know what’s going on, both in the observant, academic sense of the Ravenclaw Secondary and the more abstract Ravenclaw primary—she’s looking for purpose, shoulds and shouldn’ts, for identity.
A Slytherin Primary in her situation might have attached themselves to Simon like a baby sloth, but River doesn’t. He’s her solid ground, but not her reason.
A young Gryffindor might be reactive, responding with their gut, or perhaps cynical and shattered after their self had been so invaded. In rebuilding, a Gryffindor would be looking for something inside themselves, a sense of solidity, a sense of purpose — River is looking outside.
A Hufflepuff Primary might have clearer eyes for the people of the ship— River views them with a detached fondness. There is genuine affection there (see: Objects in Space), but when it comes to River feeling steady in the world she’s almost more interested in the engines than the crew— not their mechanics, but the beat of them.
She’s a Romantic sort of Ravenclaw Primary, sure, but she’s got a need for systems to build and inhabit. Her sense of reality has been shattered and the first thing that gives her some peace and stability is this — not safety, certainty, or community, but a sense of knowing what is going on.
River’s trying to figure out how this all works and the heart of this show (because River more than any of them lives in the meta-text) is Serenity.
River’s trying to find a base from which she can build. Her world, her models, and her ability to perceive and believe reality have been shattered. Mal pulls her back to the ship at the end of the last episode—it’s a homecoming, yes, but perhaps more than that he’s giving her a place to stand.
That episode is easily Firefly’s most existential/meta and it’s fitting that we start it with River detached from reality—ocean wave audio, mistaking a gun for a fallen branch, pushed to untrusted outskirts—and that we end it with River landing firmly feet first on Serenity, beaming through her suit visor.
tl;dr:
Mal - Burned Hufflepuff / Gryffindor
Inara - Slytherin / Ravenclaw
Jayne - Gryffindor / Slytherin
Kaylee - Gryffindor / Hufflepuff
Book - Burned Gryffindor / Slytherin
Zoe - Burned Gryffindor / Ravenclaw
Wash - Hufflepuff / Ravenclaw
Simon - Slytherin / Ravenclaw
River - Ravenclaw / Ravenclaw
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Detroit Become Human AU: A world without Connor
In a recent Sims 4 post Daniel accidently erased Connor from existence by means of using a phrase that could be misunderstood as him making a wish.
I made this into a 2,000 words essay.
As for my sims, I focus on playing the Renegades atm, so World without Connor is just a what-if that may or may not happen.
Premise:
The same soul that incarnated as Cole later became Connor (they are not the same person). Therefore the easiest way to go to erase Connor would be to keep Cole alive. From there ripples spread out, changing history (a little).
Hank is still divorced, the accident still occurs and the human surgeon is still high on Red Ice, but this time the android surgeon manages to save Cole. This results in Hank never plunging into depression. Instead it turns him into an android rights supporter early on and, seeing how respected Hank is/was at the DPD, this attitude spreads to all officers. Some more, some less, naturally.
The first visible change is the two receptionist androids coming to life slowly, similar to Markus when he was with Carl.
Chapter-by-chapter:
The Hostage
Daniel kills John and kidnaps Emma just like in canon. However, with no Connor, the officers to arrive at the scene are Hank and Gavin. They find all the clues, then step outside. Hank motions towards Wilson with the intent to save him, Gavin doesn’t really care either way, as Wilson is neither a rival nor helpful for his career. Therefore he focuses on the deviant. Strangely enough, Gavin finds that he can empathize with the machine that was to get replaced. Drawing upon his own fears, Gavin manages to talk Daniel into releasing Emma and surrendering. When Cpt. Allen tries to get a shot, Gavin stands “totally coincidentally” too close to the deviant, therefore Daniel gets taken alive.
Over the next few days Daniel gets questioned and eventually reset to factory settings, because by this time “deviance” is viewed as a bug. Caroline refuses to accept her “repaired” android back, so the DPD simply keeps it as coffee fetcher and janitor. Daniel’s explosive personality surfaces now and then, but goes under the radar, because the cops are way worse to each other.
Broken
Now we get to see the results of the DPD officers’ being influenced by a pro-android Hank: The duo who comes over to Manfred Mansion actually asks questions before shooting. They learn the full truth and Markus never gets shot. This seems good for the moment, but will backfire later.
Partners
Hank and Ben find and arrest the deviant. Simple as that.
The Interrogation
Daniel is present, excited to meet another deviant. Just like in canon Hank doesn’t get the captive to talk, Gavin suggests violence, Daniel (in Connor’s place) begs to get a chance talking to it and Chris probably learns a lot about how not to be a cop. In the end Gavin goes in, gets a confession, but pressures the deviant too much, resulting in him attacking.
Daniel, still mind-wiped, protects his humans, eventually ends up with a gun in hand and shoots the deviant in panic. He realizes it feels familiar.
“Now that is new”, Gavin comments while Hank orders Daniel to put away the gun. Shaken Daniel demands an explanation. “Down with the gun”, Hank sais again, but despite them having bonded those last two months, Daniel turns around and now they both point their weapons at each other. Again the deviant demands an explanation.
Funnily enough Gavin of all people defuses the situation by telling Daniel that if he knew the truth, he’d shoot himself and afterwards Gavin and Hank. Daniel replies this order of events isn’t possible, but Gavin shots back that with Daniel it probably is, seeing how fucking irrational he is. Daniel laughs and lowers the gun.
Waiting for Hank
Everyone is worried. It slowly sinks in that deviance isn’t just a series of glitches, but something different. Captain Fowler wants to take Hank off the deviant cases on account of him being not impartial enough. They argue and in the end Hank stays in the cases, however, he has to accept Gavin as his partner. Fowler claims as the DPD’s most anti-android employee Gavin will balance out Hank’s bias.
For a chuckle the player at this point can tilt the camera to get a look into the cafeteria where the “most anti-android officer” sits, amiably chatting with Tina and Daniel. Any by “amiably chatting” I mean the trio making fun of other officers.
On the run
Ben, Hank and Gavin arrive at the scene and the same dialogue as in canon plays: Ben asks “Have you decided what to do with it?”, only this time he refers to Gavin, not to Connor.
Hank and Gavin chase Kara, under the belief that she uses a little human girl as meat shield. Hank sarcastically comments this must be a deviant’s first instinct, Gavin replies “watch out for Cole”, whereas Hank punches him.
They reach the highway, where Hank orders Gavin to stand down. “Too dangerous.” – “Why’d you care what happens to me? You hated me from the day I started at the DPD, because god forbid a man might ask about advancement options and not work out of their bleeding heart’s desire!”
Hank punches him again, because “good” doesn’t “imply “nice”.
The Nest
In the elevator Gavin tries to annoy Hank with coin tricks. He uses a dollar coin, then Hank pulls out two half-dollars and does the same trick, only with two hands at the same time. Both Gavin’s and Hank’s tricks do not compare to Conor’s, by the way.
Gavin gets a little revenge when they discover the pigeons in the apartment. He mercilessly teases Hank about his phobia. Rupert tries to slip away, but gets spotted. The cops give chase, Hank drops, but Gavin pulls him back up. They stare in “Did that just happen?” disbelief. Gavin claims he will always save human lives before destroying android lives, but it is obvious that he had an ulterior motive (Daniel would be sad at Hank’s death).
Hank concludes that the deviant’s only crime had been squatting anyway and calls it a day.
Russian Roulette
Cue to an utterly sweet scene in Hank’s house where his ex has just dropped off Cole, who immediately greets Sumo.
Then Daniel knocks at the door. He informs Hank that there is another case to see to and that Captain Fowler sent him to babysit Cole. Hank on the one hand is grateful for Jeff being so considerate, but on the other hand side he is loath to leave Cole with Daniel.
Daniel proceeds to greet Cole and Sumo, but suddenly stiffens. The boy being Emma’s age he suddenly remembers her, but not everything that happened. Daniel asks if John sold him to the cops and adds that he feels like killing him. “You did”, Hank sais. Now everything comes back, Daniel has a breakdown and eventually shuts down on Hank’s kitchen floor. Hank has to google the PL600’s manual to revive him, with much cussing.
The Eden Club
The deviants are never discovered, because Hank is still occupied with Daniel and Gavin comes to the same premature conclusion as in canon.
Public Enemy
Tina is present and due to her apathetic nature Perkins takes her for an android. Gavin flares up. He then proceeds to interrogate the three androids in the kitchen while Hank inspects the roof.
Hank discovers Simon, but takes him for Daniel. Realizing that whoever this Daniel is, he must be a deviant and sort of friends with these humans, Simon plays along. He agrees to “return” to the DPD with Hank. He also claims he has identified the deviant. Gavin is at first grumpy, but then he laughs and sais “Of course you would, after all, I trained you!”
On the way back, Simon and the deviant JB300 escape (and subsequently return to Jericho).
Hank and Gavin think Daniel has just defected right in front of their eyes. They are disappointed to no end, but learn the truth when they return to the police station where the real Daniel waits with Cole and Sumo. “I didn’t want to be alone, but I couldn’t leave them alone either, so I brought them…”
Meeting Kamski
Since we have lost/let escape each and every evidence, we now have to kill Chloe.
Hank, Gavin and Daniel go visit Kamski. Daniel remembers more about the Phillips, namely their swimming pool and John’s love for technology. He gets increasingly angry and when asking the android creator doesn’t get them answers, he pulls Gavin’s gun at the man. After little more dialogue and maneuvering, it becomes apparent to the humans that Daniel won’t shoot, but Chloe is unaware of this and goes in-between Daniel and Elijah. Daniel panics and accidently pulls the trigger, killing her. Kamski informs the cops that all the information they need is in her brain.
Last Chance, Connor
Perkins arrives and states that the FBI will take over, despite Hank’s protests that they now have a lead.
Meanwhile Cole has nicked his father’s keycard and goes adventuring. He correctly guesses his dad’s password. Perkins finds out, grabs the boy and drags him back up the stairs. Hank doesn’t take kindly to his kid being handled like this and beats up Perkins.
This allows Gavin and Tina to dress up Daniel as a deviant. He wants to go to Jericho to learn what and who he is as well as everything about deviance. Hank still sort of trusts Daniel. He strongly believes now that socialization is the key, a fully socialized android like Markus won’t go on a murderous rampage and one like Daniel is able to keep their shit together with a little effort. Tina says “Let’s face it, Gavin, he’s no more instable than you are, or any of us. The only difference is that with androids we didn’t expect it.”
Crossroads
Daniel meets the deviant leaders. He is surprised to find a collective instead of a strict hierarchy: Lucy is the metaphysical leader, Simon the secular leader, Josh the diplomat and North the general. And they squabble about as much as his cops.
However, little Cole has curiously followed the deviant and the FBI in turn has followed Cole (Perkins placed a bug on Cole back at the DPD) and now all hell breaks loose. Daniel is forced to flee with the deviants.
Night of the Soul
The deviants regroup. With Lucy dead, Simon, Josh and North argue how to react to the Recall. Daniel once again is disappointed and angry. He votes for attacking the camps. With the other three all contrary his vote turns out to be the decisive one.
Battle for Detroit
Hank and Cole are reunited, but the android surgeon who saved Cole’s life is in danger of getting carted to the recycling camps. Hank is close to drinking himself into oblivion, something he has last done during his divorce. A handful of cops decides on a whim to aid their Lieutenant in getting the hospital androids to safety. Since most of them are not deviants, the androids refuse to leave their workplaces. Footage of androids defending from the army to continue to care for humans goes around all the news channels.
Meanwhile North’s group has succeeded in taking over the camps. Perkins arrives at the scene, but he has only a handful of agents with him. Daniel steps up to him and asks “Looking for the rest of your team? The agents you positioned at the other camps? Uh, bad news. There were no journalists…”
With North and Daniel as their leaders the deviants didn’t hesitate to kill their enemies, especially with no witnesses around. Perkins, who normally doesn’t show or even feel emotions, snaps. He is about to call in an airstrike on the neighborhood. North counter-threatens with the dirty bomb. The only one who might have been able to defuse the situation, Josh, is dead.
Daniel knows he can stop either North or Perkins, the other will press the trigger. If he stops North, he will die, but his human friends, Emma, Cole, Hank and Gavin, will live. If he stops Perkins, the humans will die, but he won’t. After everything sacrificing themselves is too much to ask for, so Daniel knocks out Perkins. Miraculously North doesn’t immediately trigger the bomb, but Daniel still feels like shit. Loyalty is important to him and his loyalties now lie with the DPD cops (not the DPD as an institution), yet he let them down.
Now North has looked up to Daniel the moment they met. After all, he didn’t take shit from his humans, from her point of view he “showed them”. She didn’t understand what exactly she felt, her feelings for Daniel always were different from those towards Josh and Simon. Now she realizes it isn’t just her-worship, but attraction and although North hates doing the same motions she had to do as a sexbot, she motions to kiss Daniel.
Cue to the “Kiss” ending and since public opinion should be in favor of androids, we have achieved sort of a good ending.
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Here’s Mafia Week Day 4! Prompt: “This is the family business.”
Warning: Referenced character death
Simon elbowed the kitchen door open, arms full with the tray of lasagna. He set it down atop a handmade potholder, then turned to go back into the kitchen. However, at that moment, there came a knock at the front door.
“I’ll get it!”
He pulled open the front door, and their stood Beck, still in his work clothes. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and a frown creased into his face. He was already tense with nerves, standing a little too straight.
“Hey, Beck,” Simon said, pressing two fingers to his lips and then to Beck’s chest. It was subtle, and they were standing close enough that no one would be able to see.
Beck flushed, eyes widening a fraction. Simon just flashed him a grin and went back into the hall, gesturing for his boyfriend to follow.
That was the biggest difference between Beck and Simon. Beck did not take risks ever. Simon always took risks, just well-calculated ones. He’d never do something too dangerous, just push the envelope enough to get his heart racing a little.
“Gotta finish helping Ma set the table, Beck. You have a seat, I’ll be back.”
Simon swept back into the kitchen, and dodged his mother, carrying a basket of bread. She swore at him under her breath, but he just laughed and grabbed the stack of plates off the counter. He backed through the door and placed one at each of the four seats.
Another knock at the door—that must be Uncle Pat. He rushed back down the hall and pulled the door open, greeting his uncle. The two walked back to the dining room, and Uncle Pat settled into his place at the head of the table. Beck and his mother greeted the man, as Simon ducked back into the kitchen to collect the glasses of water.
With a careful grasp, he took all four cups back out, and set them at each setting. On his Uncle’s left was Ma, on his right was Simon’s empty seat, and next to Simon was Beck. A hierarchy of sorts, deftly woven through something as casual as dinner.
He slid into his seat and let Uncle Pat serve him a slice of lasagna. As they ate, his uncle talked about work, about some new guys who were running messages, about a hit against some store downtown, all generic chatter. Simon only half payed attention. Despite what his uncle seemed to think of his work ethic, he stayed very up-to-date on all the happenings in the family, so he knew most of this stuff already. He’d been paying extra-careful attention lately, trying to catch wind of that missing briefcase. Of course, he didn’t catch it fast enough—he could almost feel that letter burning a hole through Beck’s bag.
Ma stood up to clear the table, stacking the empty plates together. Beck complimented her cooking, always polite, and Uncle Pat grunted his assent. When his mother had passed through the door, his uncle turned to Beck.
“Son, I’ve heard good reports from your quarter lately. No slip-ups since that leak. Knew I could trust you to do good work. I’ve got a new kid over in the courthouse who’s got promise, but he needs some grooming. I was thinking you could show him the ropes, how to properly schmooze the legal types, you know?”
He watched Beck nod enthusiastically. Being offered a position like that, training an underling, that was a big deal in the family. That meant something, a certain respect for you and your work—that’s why Uncle Pat had invited him over personally for dinner. Simon couldn’t help the tiniest proud smile creeping onto his lips. Beck was very good at his job—he never made mistakes. Maybe because he was always so cautious, or maybe because he just had the kind of face everybody trusted. Simon wasn’t sure, but whatever it was, it worked.
When he tuned back in to the conversation, Beck was pulling out a manilla folder. He held it out, reaching just slightly across Simon, and Uncle Pat snatched it from his hand. The older man took out the single sheet of paper and held it up to his face to read it. The frown already permanently pressed into his features grew deeper, and his eyebrows dropped into an angry tilt. That was never good.
“Those damn Connells. How stupid are they, thinking they can stir up trouble with us? And with fake evidence? There’s no way they actually have anything on us.” He paused, meaty hand fisted on the table. He glanced back at the paper, then continued. “We’ll show them. I’ll get together some men for a sting on Josie’s Diner, that’s in the heart of Connell territory. It’ll send a message—don’t mess with us, or else.”
Ma came bustling back in, gathered up the empty glasses, and ducked back out again.
“Simon, you’ll lead the hit. I think five or six guys should be enough. Give ‘em hell.”
He couldn’t let that happen—if they attacked the Connells, they’d release the evidence and his uncle would be screwed. The whole family would be fucked, honestly. No, he had to stop it from happening somehow.
“Is that the best idea? I mean, do we know for certain that they don’t have anything on us, anything we could have missed? And even if they don’t, what if they retaliate?” He flicked his chin at this uncle to punctuate his words.
“Are you suggesting that we do nothing?”
“Not…nothing. Just maybe let us stake them out a little, get a sense for what they might have, and if it’s nothing, then we call their bluff, but if they do have something—“
“They don’t. We don’t make mistakes, Simon. Our men don’t leave evidence behind; we clean up after ourselves. Are you implying that someone in our organization can’t be trusted, or are you afraid we can’t handle the Connells? Which is it?”
“Neither, I just think—”
“You and your thinking, you’re a disgrace. This is the family business, Simon, and we’re supposed to trust our family. Unless you know someone let evidence get out, then we trust that it didn’t, and we hit the diner.” He paused for a reply. “Well?”
Simon didn’t have a snappy answer. He knew damn well that evidence had been leaked, because of him, but he couldn’t say that, and he wasn’t about to throw someone under the bus for his mistake. He settled for a hard-jawed stare, hoping his uncle would back down. A long shot, but the best he could come up with.
“Nothing to say? Don’t be a coward, Simon. The Connells are trying to weaken us, passing messages filled with lies about us. If this fake crap got circulated around, what will our friends think, our allies? We need to show them not to mess with us, so we hit fast and hard. Tomorrow night. I’ll send you the names of the men you’re taking and the meeting point. Don’t disappoint me, Simon. I can’t have the heir to the business showing weakness in an important time.”
Simon’s hands were fisted beneath the table, tight enough that his fingernails were digging into his palms. The muscle in his jaw was twitching, teeth pressed so hard together it almost hurt. He glanced down at the table, then pushed his seat back.
“Dinner was great. I have some things I need to take care of.”
He promptly turned, and strode out of the room. Taking the stairs two at a time, he entered his room and locked the door behind him. There was a narrow space between his bed and the wall, and it was in there that he slotted himself, knees drawn up toward his chest. The wall was hard against his back, but he didn’t care.
The last time Simon had walked away from his uncle at the table, he was seven. Dinner had just been him, his mother, and Uncle Pat, and he felt uncomfortable in his older brother’s seat. Nick hadn’t been there for the past few nights, but this was the first time Ma had made him sit in Nick’s chair.
Uncle Pat stared him down after dessert, as if studying him. The man leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table in front of him. Then he nodded, slowly.
“Your brother’s dead.”
Simon frowned, confused. That couldn’t be right—Nick was just on a trip for Uncle Pat. He looked to his mother, and found her eyes glistening with tears. Ma wouldn’t cry for no reason.
“How—”
“He died while doing some work. But that means something important for you, Simon. You’re the heir to the family business now. One day, you’ll have my job, instead of your brother.”
“But I—”
“I’ll be coming by every day, starting tomorrow, to teach you the ropes. I expect you ready to start at 10AM.”
“But Nick—”
“Is dead. End of story.”
Simon couldn’t hold back the tears that rose up in his eyes. They spilled, hot and steady, down his cheeks. He needed to know more—why wouldn’t Uncle Pat explain? Why did he have to have Nick’s job? What happened to Nick? His lower lip wobbled, barely keeping a sob buried in his throat.
“Stop crying. You’re going to run this whole organization, you can’t be a crybaby. It’s ridiculous.”
Simon couldn’t take the way his uncle was glaring at him, like he was a bird that had just defecated on his car or an older brother that died inconveniently. He shoved the chair back and took off. He ran, feet pounding against the stairs on his way up to his room.
He had slid behind the bed in the same exact position then as he was in now. That whole night he had stayed back here, sobbing until his voice broke, then just shaking.
Tonight he wasn’t crying. Many things had changed since then—for one, Simon didn’t cry anymore. Ever. He hadn’t cried even once since that night, didn’t think he could anymore. For another, he’d become used to sitting back here—it felt marginally safer than anywhere else, and it was the one place he let his composure slip.
He stared hard at his knees as his legs slowly went numb. The room faded into darkness around him, tunneling until all he could see were the knees of his pants.. His eyes burned from staring; his chest ached from trying to suck in the tiniest breaths possible.
If the Connells used that briefcase, his uncle would know he failed. But that wouldn’t be enough—he’d ask why. And he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for a lie, no matter how clever, so he’d eventually figure out the truth about him and Beck. And then Uncle Pat would probably kill Beck first, so he’d have to watch, before offing him too. He knew his uncle wouldn’t hesitate.
Uncle Pat liked Simon, he never put him in danger without cause. That was the perk of being his heir, and a capable one at that. But Simon knew, had known for years, that the family business always came first, and his situation jeopardized that business. Uncle Pat would rectify the situation, like he always did.
“Clara, it had to happen. He tried to elope with Carlo’s daughter. If I let that slide, what would that do for our reputation?”
A slap rang through the house.
“He was my son.”
“He was the family heir, and he failed.”
He had only faintly heard them over his own sobs, but he could never forget those words, not as long as he lived. Nick messed up, so Uncle Pat took care of it.
He’d take care of him too.
#mafiaweek2020#mw-no.4#this is the family business#whump#my ocs#Simon and Beck#referenced character death#listen does Simon have issues? yes#but doesn't any good whumpee?#also I didn't mean for Uncle Pat to be so awful#that just happened#and poor Nick amiright?#i want to let Simon cry 2k20
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20 years of blogging at Boing Boing
Twenty years ago today, Boing Boing became a blog. Mark Frauenfelder's first post linked to Street Tech, a now-dormant gadget blog. Now there are 160,000 more posts just like it and the impossible task of summarizing the best of them in yet another.
Founded as a print zine in 1988 by Mark and Carla Sinclair, Mark's personal retrospective posted earlier today is a must-read; following are a few of our greatest hits, proudest accomplishments, clickiest traffic monsters, and best features of all time.
Despite the tens of millions of words in our database – mostly wonderful things – it's oftentimes the shortest posts that get the most attention.
So it was with Xeni Jardin's Ralph Lauren opens new outlet store in the Uncanny Valley, a single-sentence reblog of a now-vanished post at another site highlighting the incompetently dysmorphic photomanipulations in one of the fashion house's ads.
Ralph Lauren tried to force us to remove the post, to no avail.
That wasn't our first rodeo, either. In 2008, were were sued by MagicJack, makers of a VoIP dongle, after criticizing its terms of service. We stood our ground and beat them in court. Ten years later, Playboy sued us for posting about someone else's uploaded cover collection, claiming that linking to things is a form of copyright infringement. We beat them too, with the help of able friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
It's not all law and chaos, though.
Mark Frauenfelder says he's most proud of his two-part series on the fortified residential mailboxes of Los Angeles, Survival of the fittest mailbox and Fortified mailboxes, part 2. Readers, though, say his greatest gift to the world of letters is the gentlemen of Boing Boing.
A trilogy of Cory Doctorow's most incisive writing on technology, policy and freedom is found in Lockdown, based on his keynote speech to the Chaos Computer Congress in 2011, The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing, and Anodyne Anonymity. Also, would you just look at that banana. Furthermore, Christ, what an asshole.
David Pescovitz is a collector of unpopular culture with an affinity for haunted ontology, mall nostalgia and cryptids (more!, with a Grammy on the shelf for his part in reissuing the Voyager Golden Record.
But it's his touching obituary for Mark, his older brother, that will not be forgotten.
Xeni Jardin's posted countless articles about cutting-edge tech and light-hearted nods to the wonders of the web, and more seriously about politics, but it's her writing about cancer, hers and others', that sticks with readers. The Diagnosis; When life hands you cancer, make cancer-ade; Obamacare saved my life; Cancer and cannabis: How I learned to stop worrying and love medical marijuana; A medal for completing breast cancer treatment; and We should be worried that science has not yet brought us closer to understanding cancer.
Rob Beschizza's The Weird of Wendy Pini profiles one of America's most successful women cartoonists. His random generators include the Psygnosis Game Generator, the North Korean Press Release Generator and the Audiophile Hardware Review Generator. (For those who don't revile them, Rob's disturbing mouth-eyed politician shoops are collected in the gallery item Corinthian Leather). Fissure opens in Chess AI scene is a deep dive into a code-plagiarism scandal. He once reviewed a loaf of snot.
He eulogized his mother, Mandy Johnson, in 2016.
Did you know Boing Boing publisher Jason Weisberger was namechecked in a saucy romance novel?
Jason has also written obituaries for his close friends Molly, Lucy, Calliope and Nemo.
We published critical games writing under the aegis of Offworld, edited by Leigh Alexander: All the women I know in video games are tired and Why Silent Hill mattered. Zoë Quinn's call to creative arms, Punk Games, remains as relevant now as it was five years ago.
Laura Hudson's Women take a place at the pinball table is a deep look at a unique competetive area, complemented by her excellent reviews of games as different as Undertale — choose to kill monsters or understand them
— and Bloodborne — In Bloodborne's brutal world, I found myself.
Our longtime science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker's analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was featured in the anthology The Best Science Writing Online 2012. Don't miss her profile of James Watson, either.
Though known for chaingun blogging, we pioneered the trend toward Fancy Lookin' Features on the web, such as Maggie's Cassini Trip Reset, highlighting the astonishing imagery from NASA's probe, and Rob Beschizza's Friendly Darkness in the Palace of Utopian Fantasy, linking rare threads of modern and Victorian fantasy.
Here's just a few more of the nice features we've published over the years:
1906: Vintage Photographs by Mike Shaughnessy
Leaking Secrets, leaking Blood by Raul Gutierrez
Death in Space, by Maggie Koerth-Baker
Ghost Babies, by Mark Dery
A Season in Hell, by Mark Dery
Hajj for Heathens, by Omar Chatriwala
Maps, by Simon Parkin
Other guests are too many to mention – there are more than five hundred contributors in our archives now – but they account for many of our finest posts. Among the best are Sawyer Rosenstein's Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon and the many annual iterations of David Ng and Ben Cohen's Halloween Candy Hierarchy.
Glenn Fleishman's Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto is typeset in the then-new Google typeface it was about, and What it's like to be on Jeopardy is about his brief but impressive stint on the game show.
Unseen World War I photos: German Trenches reveals a unique collection of photographs inherited by Dean Putney, our longtime developer, from his great-grandfather Walter Koessler.
Carl Malamud is well-known for Liberating America's secret, for-pay laws, and we're immensely proud to have helped him make his stand.
We've also published loads of fiction over the years, including our own, such as Cory's By His Things Will You Know Him and The Man Who Sold The Moon, Jason's Kevin's List, and Rob's Mixtape of the Lost Decade, Such Bravery and Nomen Ludi.
Finally, here are our top traffic posts since we started counting: a master key for winning at blogging. But only if you have a time machine, because the web, as they say, is dead.
1. Nigerian astronaut lost in space
2. Rickrolling is sexist, racist and often transphobic in context
3. 'To Donald Trump,' by Leland Melvin, former NASA Astronaut and NFL Player
4. 16-year-old girl who took nude selfie photos faces adult sex charges
5. Campus rapist given lenient sentence to avoid "severe impact on him"
6. Man stole $122m from Facebook and Google by sending them random bills, which the companies dutifully paid
7. Climate change denier Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic, which gives grants to scientists
8. Trump is angry at NBC News for using this photo of him, so please don't use this enhanced, enlarged version of it for anything
9. I'm married. I'm a woman. I'm addicted to porn.
10. For sale: (1) California ghost town
https://boingboing.net/2020/01/21/20-years-of-blogging-at-boing.html
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hey folks! i already introduced myself in the ooc blog but * ok go vc * here it goes again. i’m velouria (she/her, 26, est) and i’m supposed to be in school but lol, the world was like this was a bad year to get your shit together girl, try again later. anyways, here’s my first babe hector and the only thing you need to know is that he’s horrible. he’s a horrible, horrible, horny person and i hate him and you should hate him too. but here’s some more details:
content warnings: homelessness, crime, drugs, general bastardness
born in tulsa, oklahoma on november 13th, 1997, hector, surprisingly, came from the most normal suburban beginnings you could imagine. he had two parents, an older sister, dog, cat, and a hamster. he was a rather normal child, though he had a wild independent streak that only got worse as he aged. didn’t play very well with others and would only play simon says if he got to be simon, but was friendly and jovial with those he liked, or wanted something from.
stubborn as a mule, hector was fiercely independent and increasingly selfish. by the time middle school came around, hector created a hierarchy within his group of friends and became a bully around his school, though was more pushy than outright cruel. a very rowdy teen, hector never took anything very seriously and didn’t form attachments in a healthy sort of way, something that’s only worse instead of better now.
while he liked his family well enough, he never felt a strong bond with them. they loved him very much and would try to foster a healthy, loving relationship with him, he was like #nah and spent most of his time out of the house, never telling them what he was doing and where he was going. his father and sister gave up on him, but his mother still held out hope that it was just an incredibly long phase.
barely showing up to school even when it was mandatory, hector’s primary focus was on having a good time. that meant sex, drugs, and copious amounts of partying. scaring little old ladies, taking cars on joyrides. a petty criminal by the age of fifteen, hector has only been in trouble with the law a few times, spending a few weeks in county jail over the weeks but the charges have never stuck. (once he’s out, he’s off to some place new, but it’s only a matter of time before the law finally catches up to him and he’s inside for good.)
his parents didn’t have a chance to kick him out or send him to military school because he straight up bounced by the time he was seventeen. he left one day to a friend’s house and just didn’t come back; he went to a party in oklahoma city, and then just... never thought about going home. hector didn’t stay around okc for very long after that, drifting all over the southwestern states.
out on his own, or rather couch surfing with like-minded individuals, hector got to experience the highest points of pleasure and pain. a full blown hedonist, the only thing that mattered (and matters) to hector was fucking, fighting, stealing, and getting high. basically if you’ve ever seen the movies hellraiser or the doom generation, he’s a mix of frank cotton and xavier red.
though he’s moved around a lot since leaving home, usually staying in a city for three months or so before he’s moving on again, he’s made a bit of a home out of reno, nevada, frequently traveling between reno and las vegas. often just up and leaves without a word, then returns two weeks later as if nothing happened like a neighborhood cat. has spent the last five years or so grifting and lying his way into the hearts and homes of lonely old ladies (and men). infects your house with his presence, gets you to take care of him, and then bounces one night with most of ur silver and jewelry in his backpack.
though he’s not part of any sort of gang, he does revolve in organized crime circles, and mostly makes actual money by boosting cars for the mob in vegas. though he sometimes does ‘freelance’ work for organized crime syndicates and gangs, he’d never join one. hector vc: why have someone tell you what to steal when you can just do it? :)
which all brings him to charming, california. basically run out of town on a rail, he had to leave reno because he heard there was a warrant out for his arrest and lbr he’s pissed off way too many people in nevada. has only been in charming for three days (so far in canon), staying in the highway motel by way of a stolen credit card, but i’ll be putting out a wc for his benefactor; someone he’s conned into letting him stay in their house, putting on the sweet street kid act. don’t believe the act, but also please do.
the biggest thing to know abt hector is that he’s a horny dude. he’s literally always thinking about sex and the second he meets you, he’s thinking about fucking you, no matter how old you are (as long as it’s legal because gross and i would never rp that), if you’re in a relationship/married, or what gender you are. you could be totally into his schtick or think he’s disgusting, it don’t matter. will hit on you, because he knows no other way to interact with people.
tells you what you want to hear. lies as much as he breathes. honestly he’s barely aware of the lies he tells and can’t keep them straight. most of his stories sound like bullshit but a lot of them are true.
big drugs fan. loves him some k! who’s got the weed! shows up to random parties just to finagle his way into getting drugs for free, while also stealing a bunch of meaningless random shit. the one thing you can’t replace - john mulaney.mkv
y’all get it by now. he’s gross, he sucks, but gosh darn he’s got a cute lil face!
wanted stuffs:
i mentioned that i’m going to send a wanted connection to the main for hector’s new benefactor (though if your muse is a lonely older person, man or woman, that’s gullible then let me know!!) but here’s some plots stuff we can do
sexual partners: basically hector wants to bang everyone. if you’re up for it, he will fuck you at pretty much any time, but just know that he’s also fucking like five other people and has never been monogamous in his entire damn life.
a girlfriend: okay so i just said he’s never been monogamous but sometimes hector likes to pretend. or rather, he will start using her to get something, likely companionship when he’s bored or access to money/drugs/alcohol, whatever. a place to sleep at night. just something! she’ll probably think they’re more serious than they actually are but hector does actually like her as a person, or she’s trying to get him to be more serious/grow up. this one will occur over time bc he’s new!
enemies: hector is a hard person to like and an easy person to hate. he has very little regard for others and enjoys physical fighting bc it feels good. they can hate him because he screwed them over, cheated on them, cheated on their friend/sibling/whatever, stole something from them, or they just don’t like his smug face.
friends: if your muse likes to party, hector is your man. he basically just lives to have fun. however, his version of fun is kind of scary and dangerous at times. he can be a bad influence on your muse and get them into trouble or they can be a good influence on him.
a close friend/confidant: hector isn’t an emotional person but occasionally he does have moments of vulnerability. when this happens, your muse is the person he comes to when he needs someone to be there for him or needs someone to talk to. your muse could be doing this reluctantly or in hopes that he’ll be there in the same way for your muse, which isn’t very likely but hector will like to pretend lol.
or any connection we can think up!! message me on here or discord (wanda’s loving boy#1003) if you wanna plot!
#charming.intro#hold your horses honey. i’ve got coupons for the pringles. ( ooc. )#this is long as shit i'm sorry
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World on Fire (4/12)
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader; background skinny!Steve Rogers x Peggy Carter
Warnings: Canon-typical violence; language; sexual content.
Summary: Brooklyn, 1948. Bucky Barnes, war hero, lives three floors down, and the evenings he comes to watch the sunset with you on the fire escape are the best times in your shabby life. But reality is far uglier than it seems when swinging your legs six floors up with Bucky at your side. On top of a good-for-nothing brother and a poor family upstate, there’s a new mob hitman in town: the Winter Soldier.
A/N: Written for @cametobuyplums Fizz’s 2000 Plums Writing Challenge—thanks Fizz! Sorry to have skipped a day last week, hope y'all don’t mind!
4. Monday, June 2
“Alice, don’t even say it, I’m so sorry!” You bolt down into Dr. Simon’s kitchen ten minutes late, the frantic hum of anxiety thrumming through you.
Alice tuts and throws down her ball of dough with a muffled thump. “Well, I hope so,” she says. “Never seen you so late before.”
“My brother was visiting,” you tell her, grabbing the biscuit tray. “He’s a menace.”
“Must be.”
Alice waves floury fingers as you pass by. Up the stairs—you don’t dare go two at a time, not with a china tray, but you still manage to nearly lose a biscuit—and rush through the dining room, eyes on the wobbling biscuits.
One step into the waiting room, a shadow on the couch catches your eye. You look up and nearly drop the whole tray.
“What are you doing here?” you blurt.
Bucky Barnes’ head snaps up from the magazine open on the coffee table, his eyes widening. He surges to his feet as you gape at him.
“I brought Steve over,” he says. His eyes are glued to you as you dart forward and set the biscuits down before stepping back, hands clenched in front of you.
You’ve never seen Bucky here. He’s got his own doctor, one who knows more about amputees and prosthetics. It’s odd to see him here among the floral upholstery and gauzy curtains. He looks… Well, with his fancy suit and his slicked-back hair, he looks almost at home. He’s even wearing his prosthetic. You almost never see him wearing it these days—but then, you don’t see him during the day, when he’s his proper self. He doesn’t look like the Bucky you know.
You glance down at your faded dress, a lump forming in your throat. All well and good on the fire escape, but—you hadn’t even had time to properly do your hair. You look… like you live on the fifth floor with Alice and Don. And Bucky looks like he belongs with china teacups and slick upholstery. You swallow back the bile in your throat.
“Is Steve alright?” you finally ask.
“Dunno,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Doc seemed to think it was nothin’, but you never know with Steve.”
You nod uncertainly. You’re just the secretary; you don’t know how good or bad Steve Rogers’ prognosis really is. Well, prognoses. He’s got a lot wrong, Steve does.
Another step back. “Well, nice to see you.”
Bucky opens his mouth to respond, but you turn and flee, face burning, chest painfully tight. You rush upstairs to the other office, the one where you keep all the files organized and answer the phone and jot down appointments in the big spiral-bound book open to this week. You fling yourself into the leather chair at the desk and bury your face in your hands, heaving great big breaths that just barely keep you grounded.
Why did Bucky have to bring Steve? Couldn’t Steve have come on his own? You can handle Steve just fine, but you didn't expect to see Bucky again so soon. And so… well, so formally. You’d never seen him in a place like this. Just on fire escapes and the occasional soda shop, and that one time you’d gone dancing back in ‘42.
In those places, you feel on equal footing. There’s no hierarchy on the fire escape outside your window, and the only distinctions that matter on a dance floor are lead and follow.
Here?
It’s not the same, and you hate it. You know your fantasies of him are ridiculous, impossible—but the stark reality of the differences between you is flinging all that dirty, ugly truth in your face.
The war had been no picnic for him, but he’d come out a hero with a swanky new job to boot. And you were exactly where you’d started: poor, full of longing, and, most of all, alone. Alone except for your good-for-nothing brother and your all-too-perceptive friends who have surpassed you in every way.
You drag your hands down your face and shake yourself out of your misery. There’s a list of calls to make, a stack of notes to type up. Files to pull out and appointments to schedule.
Enough moping. You have work to do.
—
You listen close for Steve and Bucky’s departure, and only then do you run today’s files downstairs for Dr. Simon. He peers at you through his thick glasses.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m peachy,” you tell him firmly, and from there it’s business as usual.
—
Five flights to the sixth floor of your apartment building. Your calves ache with their customary burn, and you collapse facedown on your bed with a groan.
Well, aside from Bucky’s surprise appearance, it hadn’t been much worse than usual. You don’t mind your job, not really. If half your salary didn’t get sent home to help your struggling family upstate, you might even love it.
But no, you look like a factory girl even though you work in the nicest house in the neighborhood. You’re grateful Dr. Simon doesn’t seem to care. All your friends—Mary, Goldie—think you’re lucky, or would be, if only you didn’t have your damn family to help take care of.
If only your brother did his part. And not like he did the other day, but actually, properly did his part.
“Ugh,” you mutter.
Your brother. Your baby brother, with his tendency to disappear for weeks at a time and reappear with his gap-tooth grin, a fresh scrape, and just enough cash for home to make you forget to be mad at him.
You don’t want to know how he gets the money. It’s bad enough that he does. You’re happy in the dark, really. But sometimes you wonder. You worry. Can’t help it—he’s your baby brother. You worried all through his deployment, all through the months after the war’s end when you’d heard not a word until he showed up one day at your door, that gap-tooth grin enough to dissolve you into tears.
But today…
Today you’re past tears. Today you’re angry. Whatever had happened to him yesterday was far worse than a scrape. He’d been pummeled near within an inch of his life! When he’d been in front of you, bleeding and limping, your heart had stopped, but now that he’s gone? Fled into the night like some common criminal, leaving just a bloodstain behind?
You can’t help but be angry. If he had a job, a proper job—even if it was just staying on the farm—he could take care of the rest of the family like he should. He’s the man. How did you end up the breadwinner?
Oh, that’s right. Because you have a sense of decency.
You roll over on your bed with a sigh. The sky is still bright, the air still hot and sticky with late afternoon heat. With your window cracked open now you’re home, you can hear people talking and laughing below, the distant clatter of pots and pans, the rumble of the metro, the honking traffic.
Your stomach rumbles. Someone downstairs is making chicken. You force yourself from your bed.
If you make your dinner now, maybe you can pretend you’re eating chicken too.
—
Sunset finds you scrubbing at the bloodstains on your pillowcase and handkerchiefs. Leave it to David to make a mess you can’t even ask him to clean up.
It takes time, but you manage to get most of the blood away. If anyone asks, you can always say it was your own bloody nose. Not that you’ve had one in years, but who’s to know?
You take the damp laundry to the fire escape, pinning it up on the clothesline overhead. The twilight is beautiful, all purples and blues, streaks of pink. Not a cloud in sight. Just some birds wheeling overhead. You lean on the railing and watch them, your heart full. God, if only you could fly away too.
The girls downstairs are out on their landing with their cigarettes, the smell a comfort even if you’re not in the mood for one yourself. They’re chatting about nothing in particular, and you easily tune them out as you watch the sky slowly turn dark.
The heavy patter of climbing feet catches your attention before the girls notice anyone coming.
“Ladies.”
A chill runs down your spine. Blood rushes in your ears. You scramble to your feet.
“Oh, hi James!”
The girls, adorable flirts, wheedle Bucky as you slip back in your window and draw the curtain tight.
A hand to your chest does nothing to calm your pounding heart. Please let him not come up, please…
“Excuse me,” Bucky says, “just going up.”
Your heart sinks. You forgot to close the window. He’ll know you’re home—hell, he probably knew all along. You sigh and sink onto your mattress, twisting your fingers in your lap as you wait for Bucky—beautiful, terrifying, untouchable Bucky—to arrive. You can hear the girls in 5B going inside.
“Hey.”
Bucky’s voice is low. You twist, and you can just make out his crouched silhouette against your flimsy curtain.
You swallow, steel yourself for the suit, the slicked-back hair, the look of wealth so alien and out of reach. A flick of your hand, and you can see him.
Words don’t come. Just a rush of shock, of awe, of wanting.
Bucky isn’t wearing a suit. His hair isn’t slicked back. The strange man of this morning is gone.
All Bucky is wearing is trousers and an undershirt. Not even his prosthetic arm. Just Bucky, his hair falling loose across his forehead, as unassuming—as gorgeous as he’s ever been. His blue eyes soft, his soft mouth quirked up and so damn pretty, his strong hand dangling between his knees as he crouches at your window.
You swallow.
“Will you come out?” Bucky asks.
You obey without thinking. Bucky moves aside, offers you his one hand to help you climb out. You hesitate before taking it, all too aware how that simple touch sends sparks all along your skin. Even when you drop his hand, your skin tingles. You smooth down your skirt and bury every feeling in the empty air below.
Bucky stands and plucks at the pillowcase hanging between you. “What happened?” he asks.
“I—I had a nosebleed.” Your voice is small, nearly hoarse.
“Is that why you were so flustered this morning?”
Shame burns your face, your chest. You step back, hands twitching at your sides, face flaming, and Bucky winces.
“F—I’m sorry,” he says. “I just…”He trails off and runs his hand through his hair. “You didn’t seem like yourself.”
You let out a slow breath between your teeth and flatten your hands against your back. “Neither did you.”
He blinks. A sigh, and he lowers himself down in his customary spot and pats the place beside him. You slide in, feet dangling like his, heart pounding. You don’t know what to say.
“I wish I hadn’t gone,” Bucky mutters.
You stare. “With Steve?”
“I never went there before,” he continues. “Wasn’t planning on it, but when he gets all breathless…”
“Well, of course you went with him,” you say. “He’s your friend.” Your eyes dart to your pillowcase. “We take care of people we care about. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Bucky shakes his head. His hand curls around the railing, the knuckles white. His brow is drawn tight, his eyes lowered.
What's he trying to say? What’s he thinking? You don’t understand him, not one jot.
It’s a long moment before he speaks again.
“It didn’t feel right,” he says. The words are slow, careful. “Seeing you there.” His eyes flit in your direction. “It wasn’t like this.”
You swallow again, throat suddenly tight. If it didn’t feel right at Dr. Simon’s, does that mean that this does? This—these moments on the fire escape, the best moments of your life—feels right?
At work, you felt like he was worlds above you, leagues away. Here, on the fire escape of your tenement building, together?
Bucky feels within reach. Or he could be, if.
“No,” you agree, voice barely above a whisper. “It wasn’t like this.”
Bucky props his cheek against his hand and gazes at you. You’re so caught by those blue eyes that it takes a moment to realize how sad he looks. Your heart breaks, but for the life of you you can’t bring yourself to push. You can’t prod where he’s never given an inch—it wouldn’t be kind. Or right.
But you can’t just stare at him forever, no matter how much you wish you could. You clear your throat. “It’s alright now though, isn’t it?”
He nods, his cheek moving against his hand, his hair shifting across his forehead. You grip the bars of the fire escape to keep from brushing it back.
“Right now? Yeah.” He sighs, and you can’t help yourself anymore. You put a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Bucky?”
Bucky shakes his head. “Nothin’ you can fix. I’ll live.”
“Well, maybe I can’t fix it, but can’t I at least help?” you plead.
“You are helping,” he says.
He grabs your hand; your breath catches as his bright eyes fix on yours. Bucky brushes his lips against your knuckles. Your heart’s in your throat, your eyes wide as dinner plates, your lips parted, ready, waiting—but he drops your hand, looks away, and the little spark flaring in your chest fizzles out.
“You are helping,” he repeats, but it falls flat. He hoists himself to his feet, brushes off his trousers, and looks down at you with an unreadable expression. “I—I’ll see ya around.”
You watch him go. Your heart goes with him, his every step down tearing you open that little bit more.
—
The moon shines unpleasantly bright through your window. You squeeze your eyes shut as you bury your face in your pillow for the hundredth time.
If you were a few stories down, you wouldn’t even be able to see the moon. But no, you’re on the top floor, the hot roof right above and moonlight streaming into your tiny bedroom, across your tiny bed. It’s a good thing you’ve never had a sweetheart. Where would they fit?
Bucky would never fit here, you think.
Your eyes pop open as heat flares in your face, your belly.
Why is it that every time you see him he invades your thoughts? Why can’t you banish him from your mind as easily as he surely banishes you from his? He’s Bucky Barnes, for goodness sake. A war hero, as gorgeous as he unattainable. He may have kissed your hand, may have said you were helping, but there’s no call to think he has any thoughts of you when he climbs back down to his floor, to his bed…
You toss your sheet aside, every inch of your body burning as you press your hands to your eyes, willing your mind to behave. Your nightgown shifts across your breasts. With an angry whimper, you start to tug it off.
Then you stop.
Your window is open, the shades flung wide. It’s not quiet outside—Brooklyn’s never quiet—but the distant sounds of the city are mere hums. Your ears strain for the creak of the fire escape, but there’s none.
If there was…
Your eyes flutter closed, and your hands stray from your eyes to trail down your face, your neck. You can imagine footsteps, a shadow over your window, a gasp at the sight you make spread on your bed, fingers tracing the neckline of your nightgown and legs bared nearly all the way. Would he gasp? Turn away, spare your modesty? Or would he suck in a breath and watch?
Deft circles of your thumbs harden your nipples. Your eyes stay shut as you lose yourself in your fantasy, of blue eyes darkening as you slip one hand lower and tug your nightgown up over your hips, legs rubbing together in an attempt to ease the burning tension.
A creak on the fire escape.
Your eyes fly open, terror ratcheting through you as you shove your nightgown back into place. The landing at your window is empty, but chatter echoes from downstairs. The girls in 5B. You press your hand to your heart and try to steady your breathing. The click of a lighter, hushed giggles, and your fantasy is shattered.
You prop yourself on unsteady knees and stick your head outside. “Be quiet, will ya?” you hiss.
Martha and Helen call up quiet apologies, and to your relief they disappear back inside. You yank the curtain shut, fling yourself back onto your bed, and try to sleep.
#bucky barnes imagine#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x you#bucky x you#bucky barnes x y/n#winter soldier imagine#becca writes#world on fire
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not exactly stats chat but
(this is not a happy post, just gonna warn ya)
i worry about the sustainability of unraveled?
like . there’s so much that goes into making a single episode of unraveled that i worry about creator burnout. it’s clearly very taxing to make these episodes on brian’s part and i can’t imagine it’s much better on the rest of the (very small) team that helps him (clayton and pat, mostly, but i think simone has helped him storyboard and probably a few others have occasionally as well)
and i worry about the viability of making new episodes? i just feel like there’s only so many things you can overanalyze in games. i mean, even looking at the 10 episodes currently up, in many ways some of the episodes have a very similar theme:
take a bunch of media from these games and make a cohesive timeline of them (legend of zelda, kingdom hearts)
see what rules a game breaks (ssbu osha, sonic)
attempt to categorize characters into boxes [megaman, castlevania, bowsers military hierarchy (and in many ways the skyrim book report can fit here too -- categorizing things into boxes but not specifically characters)]
i just worry that its not a sustainable series.
i adore unraveled and i don’t think that they’re going to hit the point of being unable to make more for a while, but that point is going to come and i think it’s going to come quicker than we expect. six months, a year, two years from now. i really just don’t think its a sustainable series (and it breaks my heart to say that).
i just hope when they hit the point of not being able to make biweekly/triweekly/monthly episodes that they don’t try to force it and instead continue to do liveshows of it, twice, three times a year at various conventions. i think that’s much more feasible than attempting to gametheory it and do this for a decade.
#this is not a happy post#stats chat#i know i need to just take a step back and enjoy it for what it is while it is#but i just . its pretty much my job now to overanalyze things#@ polygon hire me im good at numbers and looking too much into things#also re the matpat dig listen#i used to love matpat so much and gt was my fuckin Thing#and like . i still think he can do great things !#i just fundamentally disagree with a lot of the choices hes been making recently re how he runs his stuff#i dont hate him i just . *edgy kid voice* i want the old matpat back !
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