Fic game thing "Forced to Order but Nothing's on the Menu"

Doug has a rough day.

Ok I’m back with more thoughts…. I ended up writing way more than I thought I was going to haha also why is it every time I actually write some stuff for this blog is fae or fae adjacent ?? pfft

Tw: voyerism, dubcon ?? Like at the start ?? Idk just to be safe, vague mention of rejection by other humans, mentions of feeling isolated, yall get jiggy with a water elemental

Ok, but imagine living by yourself, out in the wilds, away from the village full of people you turned you away. Do you get lonely sometimes ? Sure, but it’s better than being around those who don’t want you.

Most often you’re fine with it. You enjoy your own company, and spend your days in a comfort of your own making. But sometimes that ache arises. The one that yearns so desperately for warmth. To be held by another. To no longer feel alone….. when this happens you take a trip to the hot springs.

Slipping into the warm water, you bask in the heat - letting it seep into your tense muscles and ease that aching in your chest. Faint ribbons of steam dance in the silver light as you relax fully. You’ve been coming here for many moons now, and each time you leave feeling content.

Hands creeping downward, you gently brush the skin of your chest, stomach, thighs….before dipping further. The water already feels so good, why not add to the satisfaction you feel before it’s time to leave ?

Eyes closed, you feel the the pleasure from your fingers, and the warmth of the water - the way it’s gentle volume seems to craddle you, move against your legs, gentle lap at your throat.

With a soft moan you lazily lift you eyelids, only to be startled by the form of a man waist deep at the other side of the pool. Well not really a man. Although it takes on a humanoid shape, the figure across from you is completely formed from the hot springs water. You’d heard of creatures like this. Ancient magic so strong it took on a life of its own; through water, air, earth or fire.

There world around the two of you totally stills, waiting for someone to break the silence. It’s the water elemental who speaks first. Well, he doesn’t really speak, the sound of a babbling stream emerges from him, though you understand as if he were speaking in your own tongue.

A garble of flustered apologies tumble out. He hadn’t meant to watch you… but he couldn’t really not, seeing as he was the hot springs. He should have revealed himself when you first came to the pool, but you were so beautiful, he felt unable to manifest as anything other than a puddle. And the way your tension eased as you lay within the water…the way you seemed so much happier when you left… he couldn’t stand to take that from you.

After hearing all his rambling, only one thing hummed in your mind.

“You’re the reason I don’t feel alone.”

Although the elemental had no need to breath, you swore you saw him gasp softly, eyes filled with yearning as the water around you gently swirled.

Standing, you made your way towards him; parting the spring slowly with your hips as you came to stand before the curious being. Lifting a hand, you gently pressed your fingers against him. Sliding them up his chest as the water tension kept you from sinking in. With only a moments hesitation, you tentatively pressed your lips to his, cradling the warmth of his cheek and raising to your toes to press closer. The crash of an ocean wave filled your ears, what could only be a groan from this watery creature, as he pulled you’re naked body further against him.

Soon sweet moans filled the night. The elemental held you close, his touch at times almost human - strong arms around you, his mouth pressed to you neck - but the sudden morphing of sensations, into the caress of water you had grown familiar with, reminded you what held you was much more than a man. A gentle current seemed to spread you legs wider as you were filled over and over. First by a tender caress, the tide against a river’s edge in the mauve hours of evening. Then, growing, swelling, till you felt like a rocky cliff meeting the crashing waves of a storm. Despite the rhythm of waves rushing forth, you still felt safe, the warm water holding you, soothing you as it always had - only now the whispers of steam carried with them sweet words of worship.

With a final cry you pleasure reached its peak. The waves around you lulled, encircling you in a soft embrace. The spring had always been something that helped ease your loneliness, now running your fingers over the water elementals tenderly smiling face, you felt a lightness in you chest like nothing you’d known before.

Whitney trying to cheer up a sad pc. He doesn’t know what to do at all, poor thing just wants to help.

He ends up taking them to his place and shows him the new plushies he got recently. He gushes about them, telling pc their names and stuff. Seeing him act so cute like that helps cheers them up.

Idk what I’m saying anymore

was craving to write whitney content and then i remembered i had this beautiful prompt waiting in my ask ty ty ty

With your eyes cast towards the ground and one hand clutching your backpack strap, you raced out of school, hoping no one would bother you and you could return to the orphanage in peace.

It was just one of those days. Often, your life had made you angry. Occasionally, it frustrated you. But today? Today, you were just goddamn sad about it all.

So, your plan was to rush home, take a long bath and lay in bed trying to imagine your life was good, or at least, somewhat better.

But a hand grabbing your wrist told you that wouldn't be happening.

"Leaving without saying goodbye, slut?" Ugh. Whitney. His behavior towards you had been confusing lately, to say the least, so he was precisely who you were trying to avoid.

"Yes," you said simply, tugging your arm out of his grasp. You didn't look at him for fear that the tears gathering in your eyes would begin to spill. You weren't even sure why you were about to start crying. It simply was how today was going for you.

Whitney dropped your arm and you spared a glance at his face. He was frowning, but he wasn't arguing with you. Instead, he gestured away from his friends and hesitantly, you followed.

"What is it?" He said, folding his arms across his chest. You were slightly taken aback.

"What do you mean?" You replied, knowing exactly what he meant.

"You know," he waved a hand vaguely in front of you. "You look all miserable and shit."

"Thanks for noticing," you choked out and quickly looked at the ground again. Fucking great. You were really about to cry in front him.

"Come on," Whitney said, taking your hand again, but much gentler this time. "You're coming with me."

"But I--" you hardly had time to react before he was pulling you along, not even bothering to say goodbye to his friends.

"I can't have my favorite slut looking all mopey," he said, but his tone betrayed his true feelings. He cared. "Then I look like a shit boyfriend."

You couldn't reply, so you just let him drag you along. Whitney looked to be deep in thought, and he kept looking back at you.

"What is it?" You finally asked.

"I don't like you being sad," he said, before quickly shaking his head. "Don't get the wrong idea, slut. It's not like that. It's just weird."

"...okay?" You replied, but he didn't say anything further.

Eventually, you ended up at Whitney's place, where he took you into his room. You sat on his bed hesitantly, not sure what was about to happen.

And as you quickly realized, Whitney didn't seem to have a plan himself. He stood there, looking at you uncomfortably, before he took a seat beside you. He put a hand on your shoulder and you couldn't hold back anymore. You started crying.

You cried into his shoulder and he awkwardly stroked your hair as you did. The entire time he didn't speak and neither did you. He just let you cry.

Eventually, you drew your head back, wiping at your eyes. "Thanks," you mumbled.

Whitney nodded and stood up, walking across the room to grab a small hedgehog plushie. "Here," he said, thrusting the toy towards you. "His name is Walter."

"Oh," you blinked away the lingering tears as you grabbed the stuffed animal. "Is he new?"

"Yeah," Whitney said, his cheeks tinged pink. "The toy store had a sale the other day, so..." he trailed off and shrugged.

The way he was acting brought a small smile to your face for the first time all day. "What else did you get?"

You thought you saw a small smile on his own face as Whitney turned away to show off his haul. He had gotten several new plushies, each a different animal with its own name and personality. You could feel your sadness evaporating as Whitney got more and more enthused.

"Thank you," you said suddenly, cutting Whitney's introduction of Gerald the otter off. Now, his face turned bright red, and he looked away from you.

"Whatever," he muttered. "Don't mention it, slut."

"I won't," you said with a grin, kissing him on his blushing cheek, which only made him blush harder.

"Fuck off. You owe me," Whitney said, but there was no malice in his voice as he rested his head atop yours.

You hummed happily at the feeling. "I know."

Found myself reading some old Inception fic and felt the urge to poke at an AU idea—I know ST fandom skews a little young, so I genuinely don’t know how many people will even get this. If there are Inception primers out there, I haven’t bothered to find them, so…you’re on your own, kids. 

“Absolutely not. I do my own forges.” Eddie sweeps the file off the table and directly into the trashcan; admittedly, it’s not the most mature thing he’s ever done, but Henderson’s getting on his last goddamned nerve. 

The little twerp has the fucking audacity to roll his eyes and groan, like Eddie’s the one being unreasonable. “I know this guy, don’t be a dick. He can do it. Don’t you wanna focus on your super special architect stuff?”

“What you and every other dumbass dilettante drowser don’t seem to grasp is that my architecture is alive, and I breathe life into it via my meticulously crafted characters. I create richly textured worlds, Henderson, and I populate them myself. That’s why I’m the best in the fucking business: because I understand that the people and the setting are one and the same, and I can handle both.”

“Eddie.” Henderson crouches to grab the file out of the trash, and smacks it back down on the table. “I’m running this team, and I’m saying I don’t want anything like what happened in Munich to ever happen again. Okay?”

“Low blow, kid,” snaps Eddie. “Munich wasn’t on me.” 

“I know, jeez. I just…” Henderson takes a second to tap the loose sheets in the file back into place, then stands there with his lips pressed together like he’s keeping something in. After a moment, he just says, “This isn’t going to be Munich. Because Steve’s going to be here.”

———

It’s not Munich. It’s not Munich at all. It is the furthest fucking thing from Munich possible. 

Eddie’s never had a job go that smoothly—and it’s not down to Henderson’s obsessive prep, because it should’ve been a slippery one. The kind of job that twisted partway through into something frustratingly unexpected, forcing them to improvise and take whatever half-win they could squeeze out of the mark’s subconscious while dodging completely unexpected security. 

Instead, it’s so incredibly not-Munich that the client gives them a fucking bonus, and when was the last time that happened? The bonus is generous enough that Eddie’s share can cover a whole new safehouse in Melbourne, which should have been great news, something to celebrate, except for the absolutely unholy amount of smugness now radiating from Henderson.

Eddie avoids the I-told-you-so conversation as long as he can, but he can’t run forever.

“I told you so,” says Henderson, flopping unceremoniously into the dark wooden chair next to Eddie.

“This is a library, dude. Keep your fuckin’ voice down,” says Eddie, without much hope. He’d heard Henderson was supposed to be meeting up with Sinclair in Lima this week; so much for that intel.

Henderson waves a dismissive hand, gesturing vaguely at the domed skylight high overhead. “It’s not like a library library. It’s basically a museum.”

“The goddamn State Library of Victoria is absolutely one hundred percent a library library, genius. See all the books? But also, do you think people go around yelling in museums?”

“Maybe they should! What we should be focusing on now, though, is that I was right about Steve, and I think it’s important for our working relationship that you acknowledge I was right.”

“I don’t have to acknowledge shit,” says Eddie, slumping down and ignoring the glares they’re starting to get from everyone in the atrium. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an egomaniac, kid? I don’t even get why you’re so hot on the guy, anyway. He’s like—the least imaginative forger I’ve ever met.”

It comes out a little harsher than he’d meant it. It’s just that forgers, as a people, tend to be easily swept into flights of fancy.

Eddie’s always sort of thought it was a requirement of the profession: when he’s inhabiting a character, part of his mind is always working to generate the little details that make them feel like a whole person. Their secret fears and even more secret hopes. How they deal with boredom or anger, what their gut reactions are. The small gaps between how they see themselves and how others see them. That’s where Eddie thrives, and he thinks that if he were less hooked on the magic of spinning up entire worlds for marks to wander through, he might forge full-time, just for the thrill of riding that uncertainty. It’s how he was taught, but clearly, Steve learned something different.

What Steve does isn’t really classical forging—not in the way Eddie thinks about it, usually. Steve just…walks into a situation, says some stuff, maybe gives the mark a smile all warm and private like a whispered secret. And then the mark folds. It’s maddening how easy Steve makes it look. Oh, he’ll pull on the right costumes and tweak his physicality a little, but it’s always still just Steve underneath. 

Maybe that’s the trick. Eddie’s forges work because he crafts lavishly detailed lies; Steve’s forges work because there’s some kind of real, solid honesty at the core. 

“I’m going to ignore the hurtful thing you just said because I know you hate to admit it when I’m right and you’re wrong,” Henderson informs him. “You really gotta work on that. More importantly, I’ve got a lead on a new job, and Steve already said yes.”

It’s not like Eddie needs the money. Henderson’s a nightmare to work with. And there’s the, y’know. The Steve Harrington of it all. Eddie has a million reasons to say no.

“Yeah, whatever,” he says instead. “When do we start?”

a letter to spider-man.

peter parker x male reader.

summary: spider-man launched his own help line and you need his advice in talking to your crush: peter.

wc: 1.2k. genre: fluff, comfort!fic. warnings: holland!peter, social anxiety, mention of death, crushes, college!au. notes: i was re-reading perks of being a wallflower again, OOF. i kinda want to make this a series, so please tell me if you'd like to see it become one!

peter wasn’t sure what made him decide to do this: a spider-man help line. one day, he woke up and wanted to fulfill a sense of purpose more than he already has—to help out the public more, to build a community that peter has been wanting to fix since the death of his aunt.

so far, they’ve been pretty simple tasks: walking the dogs, helping a blind woman with grocery shopping, fixing a broken pipe with his webs—it was all out of the kindness of his own big heart. a heart that his aunt once nurtured.

it was hard at first. from being a ‘save the world’ hero to a ‘save the dog from burning up in a locked car’ hero, it was a downgrade one might find—peter did at first. 

but it’s been a while since he saw the relieved smiles on the public’s faces whenever he swung from the corner. true happiness that he was envious of at times, but nonetheless grateful for, and so that would become his motivation. 

maybe it can make the world a better place if people happen to be inspired by his actions. small stuff that regular civilians can achieve. a domino effect that peter hoped for.

—april 10th

dear spider-man, so, this is a thing now, huh? the future is so unpredictable, so i actually never thought i’d be writing to you. well, i guess the future would be me texting you like you advertised, but i like writing. it makes my hand cramp, and my handwriting is terrible (sorry, i hope you can still read this), but it feels good. like... shouting at the sky, i would imagine, so i prefer it. i’ve also been watching a lot of ‘80s and ‘90s movies, which could also be a major factor.  and i just realized i’m supposed to tell you about my problems! this is kinda hilarious because i think i’ve probably rewritten my letter six times already.  also, are you living your citizen life as a therapist or something? because why else would you be helping people this way? not that we don’t appreciate it, but it’s different. you’ve probably stopped reading by now, but in case you haven’t, i’ll keep the rest short. i guess my problem is… i like this guy. i know you’re not a relationship therapist (your secret is safe with me if you are though), but i figured a guy like you knew how to talk to people? you save people on a daily basis, so you probably aren’t scared anymore, right? that theory worked better in my head, to be honest, so scratch that! anyway, his name is peter. we’re both freshmen in college, so we’ve been seeing each other a lot, especially since we’re in the same classes. did i mention that i’m a guy as well? i don’t know him that well. i’m pretty quiet, i guess. invisible, maybe? it’s funny. sometimes, my professors would forget that i was even in their classes until i would speak up. but besides that point, he probably doesn’t even know that i exist either.  the perks of being invisible—i’m not even sure if there are any, because i’m noticeable enough on days where people want to say stuff. mean, terrible stuff. i wonder if he notices me, though. probably not, but a guy could only hope. i think we’d get along. again, hope! he’s smart and humble, always insecure of his own answers even though he knows—everyone knows—that it’s correct. kind, too. also awkward, like me. but the cute-awkward, not the me-awkward. i like him. i want to be friends with him. maybe even more? but i’m not greedy! i can settle with being friends.  i guess, how can i approach him?

thank you, (m/n)

it caught peter off guard at first—seeing his name in the same vicinity as spider-man became a jump-scare. even though, the sender kept everything pretty vague to keep the named crush relatively anonymous, there was a gut feeling telling peter that it was him—the culprit of (m/n)’s stolen heart.

nah, there are so many peters..! just a coincidence.

it took him longer than he thought to come up with a sufficient reply. usually, a task would’ve been done because all he had to do was use his body, his webs to do good—not his words. inexperienced yet excited, peter smiled while writing his letter.

peter wasn’t great at consoling people. hell, he couldn’t even make himself feel better. but he’ll try, like he always does. 

—april 23rd

hi (m/n)! sorry for taking so long to get back to you! life’s been crazy with everything going on. did you know that there’s been at least ten deli robberies that i managed to save this week alone? something about that chicken salad sandwich drives people nuts… like you, peter’s actually been pretty swamped with exams and graduation. i also want to congratulate you for being the only one that has written a letter to me instead of using the chat service! i’ve never written a letter before, so excuse my rustiness. my handwriting is way worse than yours. mine looks like if you gave a dog a pen and made it write. freshman year of college is a big year for you, for everyone. i remember the feeling of feeling so lost!  still know the feeling.  don’t get me wrong. yes, i’ve become braver since i started this spider-man stuff. but i still get scared, you know? life is so unpredictable and you never know when something might go wrong, and unexpectedly go so right.  like, just the other day, i got anxious when i was ordering from a drive-thru! they didn’t hear me, so i had to repeat my order. then again, because the mic sucked or whatever! even though it was only me, i felt so embarrassed, like my cheeks swelling and itchy skin type of nervous. but then it quickly went away because… okay, well i got my burger and fries pretty quick, so that helped. but you know what i mean? there’s this potentially negative outcome that we’re so afraid of. when in reality, it’s only ever so fleeting. you said he’s a nice guy, right? he could also be scared to talk to you, and you would never know because you’re too busy knocking yourself down! everyone is awkward. I’m awkward. so are some of my family members, my friends too. and that feeling won’t ever go away. sometimes, it’s meant to be shared. being invisible isn’t so bad sometimes. i definitely know the feeling, even wished for it at times. you can listen to music without being bothered, that’s a bonus! but from what i’ve noticed from feeling invisible, it would always come when i was being unkind to myself. i had the worst perception of myself in the eyes of my peers, and that made me withdraw. i purposely isolated myself because i was being unkind. the way you view yourself reflects onto others. not all the time, sometimes people are genuinely just assholes. but from what you’ve been telling me about this peter guy, he seems pretty special. if you’re awkward, be awkward and laugh it off. there’s nothing more charming than being genuine, and being kind to yourself is part of that progress. I’m rooting for you (and peter)!

from your friendly neighbor, spidey.

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. andif you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

Stuff that I think might happen in Fallout Season 2

The Brotherhood has no real reason to go to New Vegas to follow Hank, or, Lucy, and the Ghoul so either Maximus convinces them to or Maximus defects like immediately after becoming Knight

Another possibility for that (although probably unlikely) the Prydwen goes back to the East Coast now that the job is done and takes Maximus with them since he’s replacing Knight Titus. Usually the seasons for Amazon shows (at least with The Boys I’m pretty sure) take place awhile in-between each other so maybe Maximus will have been staying around in the East Coast for awhile and will just now be sent back to the West Coast

Pre-War Las Vegas flashback scenes for Cooper Howard seem very likely to me considering 1) he’s a rich celebrity and 2) maybe he starts spying more, specifically on House

Possibly Thaddeus going to Jacobstown after becoming a mutant

Most likely vague mentions of the Courier but could possibly not happen at all

An explanation as to what happened with the Hidden Valley Brotherhood or at least mentioned

Elvis songs because now they have that Amazon budget

At least one scene or episode where some Legion remnants show up (remnants because there’s no way they make Legion the canon one)

Elder Cleric Quintus backstory

VERY VEEEEERY UNLIKELY but IF Maximus does go to the East Coast, and he stays there long enough, imagine they go more in-depth about what happened with Sarah Lyons? But honestly if Bethesda does ever do that it’ll probably be in a game not the show. This was more of a wish than something I think will actually happen

Other Power Armor (hopefully T-51)

Appearances of other major settlements from the games (I’m hoping for New Reno, Arroyo, or Vault City)

The Outsiders social media headcanons except they’re still boomers

Since Pony is writer, he has multiple platforms but primarily uses twitter. Pre-Musk, he’s verified and is relatively active on it. He’s used the internet since the advent of it so he’s the most familiar with internet culture and lingo. He migrates to Bluesky after the Musk takeover

Pony’s fanbase skews young because of his heavily character-driven novels, so he has a hoard of teenagers that always bug him

Darry makes a Twitter to follow Pony. Rarely updates and is the most dad twitter you can think of. Posting pictures of his grills and family, as well as occasional updates about his construction company. A chunk of Pony’s followers found him and jokingly hype up all his tweets, no matter how mundane. He doesn’t know how to feel about that

Two-Bit is on Facebook and follows all sorts of humor groups, and he is blissfully unaware that over half the content farm shit that shows up on his feed is AI. If you tried to tell him about AI, he’d just laugh it off because “I don’t get that stuff”

After Pony leaves twitter Darry vows to stop using socmed entirely because he doesn’t want to bother learning how to use another one, Twitter was bad enough. He fails miserably once Pony sends him a Bluesky invite because he’s still The Worrier and Needs to know what Pony’s up to

Steve has a Facebook and most of what he posts is either just reposts of articles he finds (being a retired drug counselor he’s always keeping tabs on drug-related research), simple life updates, or strong opinions about current day cars

Steve eventually mutes Two-Bit because the reposts of content farm slop became too incessant. He swears up and down that it’s nothing personal

Steve and Pony have a constant tension over politics. They both like and hate the same things but Steve is significantly more apolitical. As an example: Pony hates Musk for being a scumbag billionaire, Steve hates Musk because he hates Teslas. So whenever they talk IRL, afterwards they take to their respective platforms to throw vagues at each other. Thankfully they’re on separate platforms otherwise it’d be a nightmare

The Curtises are, eventually, pushed into making a Facebook so they can all keep up with each other. Pony’s page collects dust but Darry ends up using it more than he ever did Twitter because, well, his posting style was made for Facebook. He’s also able to properly promote his construction company on there

Pony had a tumblr that he had to stop using ~2017 because the asks got too aggressive. Why that happened is up to your imagination

Bonus resurrections:

Johnny is one of those older guys that somehow gets sucked into streaming video games. You know the ones. He’s decently popular despite not actually talking much

I’m a Dally Optimist so he’d be one of those guys that goes around on different platforms to spread awareness about the dangers of gang life and prison conditions

Soda may be in his late 60s/early 70s but that will NOT stop him from fucking it up on Instagram and TikTok!!! He’s handsome so that obviously makes the old man fuckers go crazy

Soda would catch wind of the “hyping up Darry’s boring tweets” and join in on it, so Soda’s crazy thirsty followers would find Darry. It is Darry’s personal hell but he secretly finds it hilarious. Get it grandpa!

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

That whole era of the Second Quarrel onwards is so obscure when it comes to the succession and the tensions surrounding it. No reactions. No massive events or much about dynamics. I want to know about Viserys's coronation. I want to know what he felt about his own succession before the GC. And before that, I want to know if Baelon ever tried to mend fences. If Jaehaerys ever mentioned it again, and how. How Rhaenys made her life, now all but an exile, on Driftmark. What motivated Aemma and Viserys's marriage. WHEN DID JOCELYN DIE?!

LITERALLY OMG. Number one frustrating thing about F&B is we get pages and pages of stuff no one in the world gives a shit about - Maiden's Day, that stupid story about Jaehaerys fucking the writer - and nothing on the subjects that actually got most people into the damn series like the POLITICS or the MAGIC. all of THAT is completly glossed over or Gyldane (and Yandel for that matter) just go "Well Barth did say this thing but that's nonsense" and then no elaboration. drives me up a WALL because yeah sure maybe the long, pages upon pages of battles and fighting are not my cup of tea but a) they're perfectly well written and b) THEY MAKE UP FOR IT BY GIVING ME SEVERAL CHAPTERS IN A ROW OF CERSEI AND SANSA JUST CHILLING AND POLITICKING IN DETAIL. He makes up for that in F&B by giving me MORE Jaehaerys as if that's what I want!!!

There's a few eras in F&B I think are likely to come up in the main series or in dunk and egg which is why I think F&B is so frustratingly vague (and if they were kept vague for no reason….george what. george WHY). And I do get he wanted to give us more of what he was writing without spoiling later books but good lord i would actually rather wait longer for material that isn't 60% george going "well i can't tell them ALL of that, let's just wink at the audience." The Second Quarrel is one of those times that might be relevant later imo largely because there's just. NOTHING. NO INFO. NO EVENTS. Like you said, there are NO major events in this time period. the ONLY thing happening is politics and court intrigue but F&B isn’t interested in court intrigue unless it involves grooming a 12 year old girl and unfortunately there is only poor Aemma being groomed at this time so F&B says “too many old people they’re not sexy” and just gives us sparse details about marriage dates, birth dates, and death dates. We don’t even see how rhaenys and viserys feel about THEE QUEEN ALYSANNE dying!!!!!!!! She just. Passes. oh so sad. george i’m in your walls!

Unlike every other Targaryen child (Aemma, Viserys, Daemon, herself, even Aerea and Rhaelle to an extent) who is allowed to grow up at court surrounded by other Valyrians and members of the royal family, Rhaenys kids are denied this. With this move, as you say, Jaehaerys all but tells Rhaenys "get you and your fuckin kids the hell out of my city." Can you imagine being Rhaenys, newly pregnant, having been told for years by your father and grandmother that you will be Queen one day just to be suddenly and unceremoniously exiled from court and kicked completely out of the line of succession? Can't even begin to get into how deranged it is to do this to your pregnant granddaughter when she's mourning the loss of her father

WHEN DOES JOCELYN BARATHEON DIE. HOW DOES SHE FEEL ABOUT HER DAUGHTER AND GRANDKIDS BEING PASSED OVER?????? She is only a year or two older than Aemon, she could easily have still been alive and making a fuss during Viserys' reign especially after he names Rhaenyra his heir SO HOW DID SHE FEEL ABOUT ALL OF THIS.

Baelon and Viserys' coronations/weddings/big We Are The Royal Line Now Shenangians during this era are crazyyy right, because THE QUEEN OF WESTEROS is refusing to talk to the iron throne, can’t ride her dragon anymore, is losing her hearing and memory, and goes everywhere with Gael to the point that no one even attempts to marry Gael bc they know Alysanne will never let her go. THATS INSANE. They are LIVING SEPARATELY like practically pseudo divorced the way Doran and Mellario are, so is Alysanne just purposefully snubbing these celebrations and using “i’m old” as an excuse or is she passive aggressively riding a carriage all the way back to KL just to show up wearing velaryon colors to viserys’ wedding and then left again without saying goodbye before the banquet even started???

AMD BAELON. part of why i’m so turned off by him is bc we have no indication he felt even a little had but to be fair it has been pointed out to me that we ALSO have no indication he didn’t feel bad; we have no indication of his feelings whatsoever!!! for all we know HE could have felt this was unfair & had been in the middle of either brokering a marriage between his grandkids and her kids, or figured “hey we had this exact same issue with Auntie Rhaena, maybe I should build House Targaryen a second and third seat or even given Dragonstone to The First Born Girl as tradition from now on” like he really could have been trying OR he could have been cackling and rubbing his hands together and encouraging viserys to bed 13 year old aemma soon and often to ensure their line, and calling rhaenys a stupid bitch at court, like we just don’t know!!!!!

We get several “they never agreed on the succession” comments but how does that translate to ACTION. stop telling me dates and tell me WHAT HAPPENED.

What's your favorite Soliatire quote? :)

“When it comes to the exams . . . I generally don’t write what they want me to write. I’m not very good at, er, sorting out all the stuff in my head. Like, I took biology A-level, and I completely understood what polypeptide synthesis was, but I couldn’t write it down. I’m not dyslexic or anything. I just don’t know what the examiners want to hear. I don’t know whether I just forget things, or maybe I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain it. I just don’t know. And it’s fucking horrible.”

in my opinion, that one is completely amazing and i don't think i need to explain why tbh.

★

“There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is a default. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”

another VERY neurodivergent coded quote said by Michael.

★

"Your eyes are different colors,” I say.

“Did I not tell you that I’m a magical anime girl?”

“Seriously, why, though?”

“My blue eye conceals the power of my past life, and I use it to summon my guardian angels to assist me in my plight against the forces of darkness.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I’m a poet.”

that whole conversation is just amazing

★

"It hits me, then. I haven’t ever known what I wanted out of life. Until now. I sort of want to be dead."

this one just hits too close to home

★

"Two girls walk past in gargantuan heels and dresses so tight that their skin is spilling out, and one of them says to the other, “Wait, who the fuck is Lewis Carroll?” and in my imagination I pull a gun out of my pocket, shoot them both, and then shoot myself."

this one is just because Tori is way too real

★

“There’s nothing romantic about death. I hate when people use Kurt Cobain’s suicide as an excuse to worship him for being such a tormented soul.”

again just Tori being way too real

★

"What surprises me the most is how suddenly it happens. Normally it takes forever. Normally when I’m trying to sleep I do all these silly things, like I roll over and imagine that I’m sleeping next to someone and I reach out and caress their hair. Or I clasp my hands together and after a little while I start thinking it’s somebody else’s hand I’m holding, not my own. I swear to God there’s something wrong with me. There really is. But this time I feel myself roll slightly over so I’m resting on his chest, under his arm. He smells vaguely of bonfires. At some point I think someone opens the door and sees us lying there half-asleep together. Whoever it is looks at us for a moment before quietly shutting the door again. The shouting downstairs begins to ease, even though the music is still pumping. I half listen for any demonic creatures outside the window, but it’s a silent night. Nothing traps me. It’s nice. I feel the air in the room, and it’s like there is none."

the way Tori just finds this amount of comfort on Michel says so much about their relationship it just makes me feel so many things

★

“A better person? Ha. I’ve done some shitty things to people. And now I’m admitting it. You know what, Evelyn? Maybe I want to be a special snowflake. Maybe, sometimes, I just want to express the emotions that I’m actually feeling instead of having to put on this happy smiley facade that I put on every day just to come across to bitches like you as not boring.”

Becky being real !!!!! (she's so mirrorball coded too)

Replies

Some replies! Starting with one about our Prison AU, but then going into a slightly more cursed territory…

No headcanons today, sorry.

Anonymous asked:

I know it's been awhile since prison au has been last talk. But have ever wondered what Vil and Ortho be like in that au? Both being guards while also Vil being a prisoner and Ortho as a guard.

It really has! I think about it from time to time though, revisiting this AU is always fun. I’m glad you like it, Anon!

Whether Vil is a guard or a prisoner, the dynamic between him and Ortho is going to stay relatively the same: Ortho is his little sunshine in this hellhole lol If both of them are guards, Vil probably uses Ortho’s robot functions more than any other guard (except for Idia, obviously). While some of the other guards are either neutral or even a bit distrustful towards Ortho (because he is a robot + because the Shrouds are very detached from the rest of the guards), Vil makes it a point to treat Ortho as an equal. Or at least as a promising protégé who deserves all the praise for his hard work. Whenever he actually works and not just hangs out with Idia at their booth, of course.

If Vil is a prisoner, he really enjoys the days when it’s Ortho’s turn to patrol. Because Ortho always says hi to everyone and stops to chat with Vil specifically for a minute or two. Maybe it’s the fact that Ortho’s views on morality are so weird and his emotional development is at a very awkward stage, but Vil is very drawn to him, so their little chats are highlights of his days. Ortho enjoys it a lot too – he learns a lot from Vil, especially considering the fact that Ortho is into movies and Vil is an actor with a very turbulent life. So yeah, Ortho is probably one of the few people who make Vil smile in this AU.

Anonymous asked:

This is such a cursed thought, but imagine Sebek and Greenhill having a screaming match, lol.

Oh god, they’ll break so many windows with their yelling, these loud blokes lol I wonder who’s louder…

Anonymous asked:

Women Azul pegs idia for sure

Even better, she tentacles Idia 🥰 even if it’s a f/m situation

Anonymous asked:

I’m probably gonna regret this but what cringey stuff does Lilia bully Idia into yelling?

It depends, Lilia is kind of a menace and sometimes demands his lovers to say things that make no sense and that aren’t even that sexy, just weird. Like animal noises and stuff, but fortunately he didn’t ask Idia to do something like that yet… well. Maybe he told him to meow once. Maybe twice.

Sometimes Lilia goes the classic route and demands his lover to beg to let him cum or forces him to pick between two equally embarrassing options, but it makes Idia so overwhelmed and nervous that he ends up getting hiccups and barely being able to make any coherent sound. It’s always a blur for both of them, because Lilia just says shit without thinking about it, and by the time this happens Idia’s brain is a complete mush oops. I’m so vague with this reply...

Anonymous asked:

You mentioned in a headcanons post for Lilia and Idia that Lilia will degrade but that he’s done much much worse? You can’t tease us like that and not spill the deets, yk.

Damn I was kinda hoping I’d get away with it (headscratch png)

Well, compared to what Lilia used to do when he was younger, some degradation is really kind of vanilla… he really mellowed down with age, that Lilia.

Some of the shit that Lilia used to do: physical and emotional torture that lasted for days, public humiliation, orchestrating gangbangs/orgies and participating in them, desecration of his wounded enemies’ bodies, brainwashing, insane and intense kinks, scaring the fuck out of his enemies and haunting them, etc etc etc. It didn’t happen every single time of course, but at his worst Lilia used to be quite scary. Debauchery was his middle name… Lilia Debauchery Vanrouge.

*jingles keys infront of your face*

Hi guys

Having a strange night again but I suddenly remembered Frank Sinatra exists and my brain went nuts for a second and I remembered one very specific song that reminds me of Angel Dust and also this brings me to my topic of how to write what Episode 4 was trying to do without being shit.

Song for your listening pleasure~

Alright *cracks knuckles* let me tell you how my brain is working.

Poison is meant to sound like a generic romance pop song about a bad relationship on the surface but the audience is supposed to know it’s about something much worse. Now lets flip that around real quick.

“My Way Of Life” is a romance song.

At least I think it is? I’m under the aromantic umbrella and I don’t pick up on this stuff good.

BUT try listening to the song while imagining the wording to be more hostile and literal.

A few standout ones are these in my opinion

—————

Gotta have you near all the time, with your dreams wrapped up in mine.

Gotta be a part of your soul and your heart all the time.

You are my way of life.

The only way I know.

I’ll never let you go.

Because “I love you so.”

You are my way of life.

The only way I know.

Make me your way of life.

Don’t ever go.

Nothing in the world that I do means a thing without you.

Im just half alive, in my struggle to survive without you.

Never let you out of my sight.

Be it day.

Be it night.

You belong to me.

That’s the way it has to be; wrong or right.

—————

Colour coding this by which characters I feel represents these best by the way. Angel-ish ones are pink and Valentino ones are red.

When you look at them in a tone like that with certain lines being possessive, and fake (ie. “I love you so”) and the others being despairing, self-loathing, you can hopefully see how I mistook this for a much more unhappy song when I first heard it.

If you look at a song like this thats so dramatic and intense and full of emotion, it’s going to be better than some generic pop song like 99% of the time. The music also make sense for the time period Angel died since Sinatra was popular in the 1940-1950’s which I personally think adds more.

How I imagine some kind of music video for this would play out, I’ll probably end up storyboarding it sometime, but bear with me till I do. would be a lot of Angel doing day to day things and tapping more into what ADDICT did with flashbacks and hallucinations and so on without shoving rape in our faces. I touched on this in my original Episode 4 rant so I’m going to vaguely recap on that. There are times where very simple things can trigger unpleasant memories, I think everyone knows that. But for some reason, Vivzie seems to think the only way to show SA actually happened is to deliberately show us since every other character thats been sexually assaulted or sexually abused has it played off as a joke. Yes I am fucking talking about Sir Pentious.

Angel having a flashback or hallucination doesn’t have to be of it happening. It can be something as simple as sitting next to Valentino. Someone pronouncing something the same way Valentino would. A specific piece of trash on the floor like a cup showing up somewhere else. Reminders can be tiny have a massive impact. Sometimes reminders for shit I’ve experienced is something as small as a hat, water, or a nickname. Even a day of the month can be nerve wracking.

Im about to start listing a bunch of ideas and stuff so this may end up being the entire song, brace yourself for reading all this.

0:00-0:32

I feel like this would start with Angel in his room staring at a wall, probably drinking after work.

“Gotta have you near all the time with your dreams wrapped in mine.”

Is less of a willing “gotta” and more of a “I can’t do anything else.” with the talk of dreams alluding more to the fact that Angel’s original wants from the contract are long gone and noting that Valentino is controlling his career, future, needs, wants, “privileges”.

“Gotta be a part of your soul and of your heart all the time.”

Is once again about the contract of Angel’s soul.

0:33-0:51

“Nothing in the world that I do means a thing without you.”

In the original song I assume this is meant to be like “Life is so dull without you” but for the way I hear this song, it sounds a lot more like “Nothing that I do holds any meaning without your name attached to it.” in a kind of corporate way. I imagine this part with Angel walking down the street and seeing posters of himself but all of them have credits to Valentino somewhere on them. Angel likes his job but obviously the job that he previously enjoyed has turned into a dangerous and traumatic one. Posters like this can both be seen as a reminder that Angel is no longer in control of his own life and as some kind of intrusive thought like “I’m only famous because of you. I gave up everything for this.” AKA Valentino manipulating his way of thinking about his situation.

“I’m just half alive in my struggle to survive without you.”

Once again calling back to Angel’s contract. This part to me is more of what I stated in another rant I did a while ago. Honestly if I ever did this it’d likely take place after or during season 2 under the assumption Valentino dies. This is more of what I said in the linked post, but it’s a lot of Angel processing everything that’s happened to him. Everything suddenly hitting him all at once. “Struggle to survive without you” doesn’t mean that Angel is struggling because Valentino is gone, health struggling because he was there in the first place. Angel is dealing with and processing severe trauma and judging by ADDICT, dealing with vivid flashbacks and hallucinations as well.

0:52-1:15

A lot of this section reminds me of how I processed my emotions when I first realised that I had control over my own life again and I feel like Angel would feel very similarly to how I did.

“You are my way of life. The only way I know.”

After so many years of sticking to this strict regime, enduring so much pain and stress, it’s so hard to just suddenly snap out of it. That was your reality for years and it’s over, but everything that happened is still clinging to you so harshly it feels like its still happening, but when you prepare for a previous habit you picked up from that time and it doesn’t happen it can be so jarring it’s terrifying that you’re still so used to it. My best example in this setting is going to hang up a call and saying “Hey I have to go do something” and you expect to have to lie about why you’re leaving or prepare for the other person to get mad and then they just. Don’t. And you can hang up normally. I know some people wont get this but that kinda stuff is such a specific feeling of realisation.

“You are my way of life. I’ll never let you go.”

Can be taken as either Angel talking to himself; saying he’ll never let the memories and trauma from Valentino go because it’s so engrained into his mind, or, as Angel remembering Valentino explicitly stating he will never let him go. Even if Valentino is dead by this time, it could still be done with a flashback or auditory hallucination like Angel had in Episode 2.

I don’t think I’ll be diving into this entire song, but it really hit something in my brain. I had to quickly sketch a possible frame for a video if I did ever make one:

It’s a bit basic, but hopefully you see what I’m going for. This was for the 0:52-1:15 section mostly, but I can see it being used in various other places.

I hope this was at least a little bit interesting for you all and if not at least maybe I could introduce you to a really good Frank Sinatra song! Usually my really long posts like this don’t get much traction, but I hope this one at least sees a glimpse of daylight because it really is an interesting idea to me. If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas for this please tell me I love when you guys ask me stuff. I am hopefully going to knock out now because it’s 2:44 AM at the time of writing this, so whenever I post this, please enjoy.

Hii, I’m not sure if your taking request 🥺 but I was wondering if you could do something with the reader who has a chronic illness and find themselves in the hospital due to it and Simon Riley slightly freaks out because he never understood how severe her illness was until now so now he’s learning about her illness so he knows how to help her more.

I suffer from thyroid cancer which is treated much differently than other cancers so I always try to imagine how Simon would react to the bad days that I have 🥺🥺 I love all your stuff, your so talented 🥰❤️

Hi! I'm so sorry it took this long. It's short, but I hope you'll like it. And I wish all the best for you health-wise! 🥰

••••••••

Simon rushed into the hospital the moment he got back from his latest mission, visibly nervous to see you in there. While he was on his way home, you filled him in, told him why exactly you ended up there, and also pointed out that there was no reason to worry. It happens, you've been in a hospital before, and you sure as hell gonna be in one again in the future.

But what took you by surprise was how well informed he was about your illness. He talked to your doctor, asking him about possible treatments, bringing up experimental ones even you hadn't heard of. You couldn't help but watch him with a warm smile, your heart warm from the knowledge that he cared about you this much.

"How did you know all this stuff?" you asked him when you were left alone.

Pulling over a chair to sit down next to your bed, Simon thought about what to say. "I did my research," he replied vaguely.

Tilting your head to the side, you waited for a better explanation, a verbal confirmation that he did care about you enough to spend hours of his limited free time educating himself about your condition. But he remained silent, instead of talking he just reached out to take your hand, raising it to his lips to place a soft kiss on it.

"Seriously, Simon, how much time did you spend with this research?"

He let out a groan. "Don't worry about it."

"Why did you do this?" you pressed on.

"Because I was worried sick about you after finding out you were in here," he finally told you, admitting something that was clearly hard for him to talk about. "I was thousands of miles away, having no idea when I'd be back, and I didn't know it was this serious. Sure, you're taking meds, but being in the hospital? That's bad."

"It's not–"

"It is," he interrupted you sternly, not giving you the chance to make it seem like it was nothing. "From now on I need you to be honest with me, okay? If you feel sick, tell me, even when I'm away. I can't promise to answer right away, and I sure as hell can't promise to run back home immediately–because I can't–but I want to know."

Taking a deep breath, you thought about what he just said. He loved you, you knew that, but there was a part of you that didn't want to put him through this. He already had a lot to worry about at work, worrying about you as well would have been too much to ask for.

Suddenly he raised just enough to kiss your forehead. "I know what you're thinking about, but stop. You don't need to protect me by pushing me away. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere," he said with a smile.

turn back the clock - rafe cameron

summary: your boyfriend breaks up with you days before your best friend's wedding. you're dreading having to face it alone, but when some behind-the-scenes tampering by the bride brings you back into contact with your high school crush, more comes to light than you could've ever imagined.

a/n: thank you to ri for helping me decide which current wip to finish and this post i saw on ig for inspiring it in the first place. i love second chance romance so much and the obx3 trailer made me wanna start writing for rafe again so here we are lmao.

this has been in google drive hell since august and i finished the rest of it all in one go at midnight when i was supposed to be doing homework. so i hope you enjoy

wc: 4.2k

warning(s): small bit of angst at the beginning but basically all fluff, like toothrotting. also reader was a college track athlete but nothing else about her is described

(no i will not stop using this gif of him in the blue suit<333)

You didn’t really wanna have to make this call. Instead, you just wanted to stew in your own misery, watch some sappy rom-coms that make you feel even worse about what happened, and maybe go out and buy a couple pints of ice cream. 

But the day wasn’t supposed to be about you. And you owed it to Elizabeth to at least explain why you might be in a vaguely shitty mood at her wedding.

Honestly, though—you should have expected this. 

“He what?” 

“Liz—” you started, but you knew once she got going there was no bringing her down until she was done. 

“He broke up with you?” 

“Yes,” you said, and you clenched your free hand in a fist to keep from choking up. He didn’t deserve any of your time, you knew that, but that didn’t mean you weren’t hurting. It didn’t mean tears didn’t well up every time you thought about him. “He just sprung it on me out of nowhere last night. I thought we were doing pretty well, but,” you let out a watery laugh, “I guess not.” 

“I can’t believe him,” she seethed. “I told you not to trust guys with J names, and Jason is like, the biggest offender! I told you the moment we met him at that frat party he was bad news—” 

“You don’t need to go on a rant!” you interrupted with a laugh. “I already know how much of a jerk he is— well, I might’ve just had my eyes opened to it, but I know. I just wanted to tell you that I’m… going through some stuff, I guess, in case I seem off during all the planning. But that’s all—you have to promise me that none of the focus is gonna be on me, because this is your day.” 

“...Okay,” she said after some hesitation, “but you can still rant to me whenever you want. Just because you’re one of my bridesmaids doesn’t mean all you have to talk about is the wedding.” 

“How can I not talk about the wedding all the time?” you exclaimed. “Lizzie, I’ve been involved in so much of the process with you that it’s basically all I can think about. This is the most excited I’ve been for anything ever.” 

“Didn’t your brother get married last year?” she said. 

“You know what I mean,” you chuckled. “I just can’t believe you’re getting married, and to Nate, too. It feels like it was just yesterday that you were telling me about the cute boy in your trig class, and six years later and you’re marrying him in a week.” 

You could hear the smile in your words. “It really does feel like yesterday, huh? I remember going on and on about how much I liked him after that group project we got stuck together for—y’know, your encouragement was the only reason I ended up asking him out.” 

“Then I’m glad I kept bothering you,” you said with a smile of your own. “You guys are so great together.” 

“I just wish you would’ve taken my—” Liz suddenly stopped talking on the other end, and you frowned a bit. 

“What?” 

“...Nothing,” she said very suspiciously after a pause. “I, uh— I just remembered there’s something I need to do. Wedding related. I’ll talk to you later?” 

“Yeah—” you said, but she had already hung up. You chuckled and shook your head as you set your phone down. 

You didn’t really know what that was about, but you were looking forward to the wedding—it didn’t matter that you were suddenly single. 

You and Liz had been best friends since you were put next to each other in the seating chart in sixth grade science—and even though she went to NC A&T and you were all the way at San Diego State, you talked basically every day for all four years of college. Sometimes you even made the flights to see each other, and it was worth every single dollar. 

It made you feel a lot better, knowing she had your back (and knowing that she had likely already blacklisted Jason from the guestlist made you feel pretty good too). 

What you didn’t know, though, was that what she was doing at that moment would make the wedding night a whole lot more interesting for you. 

And it all had to do with one Rafe Cameron from high school. 

-

The air was thick with a thousand different perfumes and the stiffness of hairspray along with a whole lot of anxiety as a result of the eight bridesmaids who inhabited the room trying to make sure they looked their best before the procession started in T-10 minutes. 

You were, of course, stressed as well. It was like everything that was fine for the months leading up to the wedding had suddenly decided to go wrong just to spite you. You’d forgotten to take a tag off of your dress and it was digging into a very particular spot of your back, your hair was not cooperating—Ariel and India and Natasha might have said that you looked beautiful, but it was just not working with you—and you were about to run out of your favorite mascara. All small things, but they were beginning to add up. 

And to add to your stress, your phone started to go off. When you opened it, you saw it was a text from Lizzie. 

girl I am so sorry to ask you this I know we’re so close to the start 

but Ayana just told me that she left my bouquet on the table in the sideroom of room 139, she forgot to take them out of the vase! 

sisters aren’t even on top of things when they’re your maid of honor apparently 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 

you’re the closest to the room and the only other person I can trust rn because Im going slightly wedding crazy, can you please get it??? I will love you more than my future husband and you will have my eternal gratitude 

using my track past against me i see 

you are pushing it babe 

I know 

help me obi-wan kenobi you’re my only hope 

lol 

dw I got this 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

You are my savior and all your drinks are on me next time we go out 

You sighed and shook your head, slipping your heels off in favor of the flats you came here in. The last thing you needed was to break an ankle before the procession. 

“I’ll be back!” you announced to the rest of the bridesmaids—though you weren’t sure any of them heard you in the havoc—before you ran out of the room. You were thankful this dress had a slit. 

It took a minute for you to get there, makeup and hair still intact, but when you did you didn’t see a vase. You huffed a sigh and got to work going through everything. The actual last thing you needed was for Liz to not have her bouquet as she walked down the aisle. 

“Oh— I’m so sorry, I didn’t even know there was another person in here.” 

You turned around from your crouched spot on the floor at the voice, and you nearly toppled over when you saw who it was. 

“Rafe?” you marveled. Though it was posed as a question, there was no doubt about it. You’d only thought about him basically every day for all of high school. 

He said your name with the same surprise, his eyes widening slightly at the same time as he stared at you for a moment too long. You swore his eyes went up and down, a slight pink tinge on his cheeks, when he blinked and shook his head. A wide smile spread across his lips in its place, and it did the same sort of thing to you that it did in high school. You weren’t immune to a Rafe Cameron grin as a freshman, and apparently you weren’t as a college graduate either. “What are you doing here?” 

“Trying to find Lizzie’s bouquet ten minutes before the wedding,” you said with a slight laugh. “What are you doing here?” 

“Uh, Topper left his pocket square in here, apparently,” he said. “We drove here together, and he’s the best man so he’s scrambling all over the place, and—” Rafe paused and he breathed a laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners in the same way they did in high school. “You get the idea.” 

“Oh, yeah,” you nodded, and a smile pulled at the corners of your lips. “I had no idea you were gonna be at the wedding. I—” you chuckled and shook your head. “I guess I forgot that you and Nate went to UNC together.” 

“Yeah.” Rafe laughed again, though it was a bit nervous as he ran a hand through his hair, stuffing his other hand in his pocket. “It’s uh— it’s been forever since I’ve seen you, though. What, the last time we actually had a conversation was—” 

“That one party at UNC,” you supplied, and you stood up, leaning against the countertop. “The one that Liz dragged me to when I came to visit her for spring break sophomore year. We saw each other there.” 

“...Yeah,” Rafe repeated, and his smile softened. “Yeah, it was then. I didn’t know you remembered that.” 

“‘Course I did,” you said. “I mean, the last time before that was the huge party you, Kelce, and Topper all threw in the last week of summer. Before we all went our separate ways.” 

“Oh, that was…” he laughed as he bowed his head a bit. “That was something. Uh, it should be a rule pre-college boys should not be allowed to be around that much alcohol without supervision. I’m surprised no one died that night.” 

You grinned as the memory of it all came back. It was hard to believe that it was one of the last times you saw Rafe. That it was the last time you saw Rafe for two whole years, and the next time you got even the slightest glimpse of him was a minute long conversation with your very drunk self before you were dragged out by your one sober friend. 

Seeing Rafe was the only thing you remembered from that night.

“I can’t believe it’s been so long,” you said, your voice a bit softer. “College really did something to us, huh?” 

“Yeah,” he said, and his smile faded the slightest bit. “Being on separate coasts’ll do that to you.” 

Your expression softened, and you were about to say something when your phone buzzed in your hand. Panic jolted through you for just a moment before you read what the texts said. 

just kidding lol. It turns out that Alicia got the flowers when she was picking up the drinks from there for the reception

crisis averted!! 

I’ll still cover your drinks though since I prob gave you a mini heart attack and Im very sorry about that 

“Huh,” you said, and you glanced back up at Rafe. “Looks like I was sent on a mission for flowers that weren’t even here.” 

“Elizabeth’s probably all over the place,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been kinda stressed out and I’m not even part of the wedding party. Bridal nerves have gotta be a lot worse.” But then Rafe paused and took his phone out of his pocket, and his brow creased. 

“What’s got you lookin’ like that?” you asked. 

“Huh,” he said. “Topper actually just had his pocket square in his… other pocket. So I guess I was here for nothing then, too.” 

A laugh bubbled out at that. “We’ve got some very organized friends today, huh?” 

“Seems so,” he agreed with a smile. “But I’m glad he misplaced it.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Rafe nodded, and he shrugged. “I got to see you.” 

You felt the heat rush to your cheeks at an astronomical rate, and you had never been more thankful for your phone to buzz. 

But seriously you gotta finish getting ready we have like five minutes left before the organ starts playing 

liz if this was not your day i would be so mad at you

please. you can never be mad at me 

“I gotta go before I single handedly ruin this whole procession,” you joked, and you went past the entrance and Rafe. But just as you got a few steps away, you turned around and smiled. “I’m also glad that Liz sent me here.” 

Rafe chuckled, smiling inwardly as you hurried away. You didn’t know it, but his eyes didn’t leave you for a second. 

-

The wedding ceremony went fabulously. 

You got back in time and finished getting ready—for some reason, you felt a lot more confident in your appearance—and walked down the aisle arm in arm with a very lovely groomsman before taking your place at the front of the bridesmaid line. 

You cried. A lot. 

When you saw Liz walking down the aisle, when you looked up at Nate and saw the way he gazed at her with all the stars in his eyes, when her father gave her away, when they said their vows, when they kissed, when they walked off—you were a mess basically the entire time. Thank god for waterproof mascara. 

And then when you sat with the bridesmaids for the Liz and Nate's first dance and the parent dances, you cried again. And when Ayana gave her Maid of Honor speech and Topper gave his Best Man speech���you were like a waterfall. A complete mess, but a very happy one at that. 

But you managed to stop by the bathroom and fix yourself up in record time before you all went off to your normal seating charts, and god, you had never been more glad to have done so when you walked in and saw who was at your table. 

Liz either knew everything or nothing, because this... this was really something. 

“So we meet again,” Rafe said, another easy smile appearing as he turned to look at you. “Looks like this wedding is trying to make up for all the years we missed.” 

You chuckled and took your seat next to him. “Guess so. It’s not an easy feat, though.” 

“Six years was a long time,” he said. 

“Didn’t really help that my parents sold our house in the OBX after I graduated,” you said dryly. “I missed all those Rafe Cameron summers during college.” 

“‘Rafe Cameron summer’?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t realize there was a word for it.” 

“What can I say?” you shrugged. “I graduated with an English minor. It allows me to make up phrases whenever I want.” 

“Ah,” he said, nodding sagely. “I guess my… finance concentration means I control the stock market?” 

You laughed and shook your head. “You’re ridiculous. It obviously means you’re the head of the treasury. Keep up, Rafe.” 

“My bad.” He held up his hands with mock austerity. “Our time apart is the reason for such a ridiculous mistake.” 

You smiled, but it sobered a bit and you bit your lip. “On a serious note,” you said, “I’m… I’m really sorry.” 

Rafe frowned. “For what?” 

“For that time apart,” you said. “I came back to North Carolina more than a few times to visit Liz and some other friends, but I never came to see you. We were— we were good friends, Rafe, and I shouldn’t have just disappeared on you like that all because I was at a different college.” 

Somehow, his brow furrowed even deeper. “What? You can’t possibly be blaming yourself for this—people grow apart in distance. That… that just happened to us. I mean, you were in California and I was in Chapel Hill. That’s crazy distance.” 

“I still came back, though,” you said. “Just… never for you.” 

“...I didn’t expect you to,” Rafe said, looking right in your eyes. “No matter how much…” 

“What?” you asked after he trailed off. 

Rafe sighed, then shook his head, trying to clear his mind before he looked back at you. “Do you wanna dance?” 

“What?” you repeated, mostly because you couldn’t believe it. 

“Dance with me.” He stood up and offered a hand, passing a glance at the dance floor. All of the official dances had been done already so it was open to anybody, including you and your high school crush. 

“Okay,” you said with an almost breathless laugh, and you really felt like your freshman self again the way butterflies fluttered in your chest as you took his hand and walked over to an open spot. 

You and Rafe fell into an easy rhythm, like you’d been doing this all your lives, and it didn’t take too long for your conversation to follow. 

“So what did you get up to in all those years at SD State?” he asked. “All I really know about your college career is what I’ve gotten from Instagram and your parents’ Facebooks.” 

You laughed a bit. “Regular college stuff, I guess. I did track all four years and I won some awards, which was pretty cool. Went to a lot of parties, got drunk a lot, swore off drinking a lot, studied until I thought my eyes were going to fall out, then graduated with a chemistry degree. I’ve been working as a technician in a lab for the company I interned with for the past two years.” 

Rafe whistled. “‘Regular college stuff’, she says, as she describes an insane balancing act between student athlete life, partying, and schoolwork, and still being able to graduate with a STEM degree.” 

“You’re such a flatterer,” you admonished, but there was no real bite in your words. “That’s one thing that’s never changed.” 

“It’s easy to flatter a woman like you,” he said. “I mean, you’re out there changing the world. I feel like I’m not even worthy to stand in your presence.” 

You chuckled as Rafe spun you, and as your hands joined once again you offered a coy smile. 

“You know,” you said, feeling a surge of confidence with his words, “I had the biggest crush on you in high school.” 

Rafe’s eyes widened slightly, but he covered it up with a well placed smile of his own. “Really?” he marveled, and he said your first and last name, “you had a crush on me?” 

“Yep,” you nodded. “And she had it bad. If freshman year me could see this, she would be losing her mind.” 

Rafe laughed, and it spurned butterflies in your chest yet again—they were the same kind you’d felt whenever you talked to him back then, trying to catch whatever moments you could between your busy schedule and his own responsibilities. You were too scared to admit your feelings, but you enjoyed spending time with him nonetheless. 

If there was one thing this was proving, though, it was that your feelings definitely weren’t as settled as you thought. 

“Well, you know,” he said thoughtfully, echoing your previous words as he brought you back to the present, “I had a pretty big crush on you in high school too.” 

That completely threw you off your rhythm. So much so that you stumbled, totally missing your next steps—if it weren’t for Rafe catching you, you would’ve face planted. 

“Are you good?” Rafe asked, concerned. 

“You had a crush on me?” you asked instead. 

He laughed again and ran a hand through his hair before you fell back into your rhythm together—he had let it grow out some, you realized, and it looked infinitely better all ruffled and mussed up than styled. 

“Yeah,” he said. His smile wasn’t as confident as it always was, a boyish charm mingling with unusual shyness. “It, uh— it kinda snuck up on me. I didn’t really know how big of a crush it was until I was at your signing ceremony. Like, right after you signed the contract was when I realized I had it bad.” 

“My signing ceremony?” you marveled, and you shook your head in disbelief. “You really have great timing, Rafe. Couldn’t have realized a couple years earlier when we were still in the same place?” 

Rafe laughed softly. “Yeah. I really do. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make it harder for you. I mean, I was staying in the OBX for Chapel Hill, and you were taking the opportunity of a lifetime to run track in San Diego. I wasn’t gonna take your mind off of that because some hometown guy had a crush on you.”

“Some hometown guy,” you repeated, and it was your turn to laugh. “You thought that little of yourself?” 

“It’s true,” he shrugged. “I was just a friend that fell for you. I mean,” he gave you a crooked smile, “not that it was hard to fall for you. Pretty sure I was one of ten guys who wanted to ask you to prom senior year.” 

“Okay, that is not true at all,” you said, but you were stumbling over yourself just as quickly. He wanted to ask you to prom senior year? When the one thing that you thought about whenever you looked at him that spring was dancing with him at prom? “Grant Millwood was the only one that asked me.”

Rafe nodded with a laugh. “That was because he threatened everyone that he knew had a crush on you to make sure he would get to go with you.”

“And then he ditched me halfway through the night because he got too drunk to function off the alcohol he smuggled in himself,” you said dryly. “Yeah, he was a great date.”

“High school was the best,” Rafe said with mock austerity, “wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” you nodded. “I miss the kook academy every single day.”

“I still can’t believe you wanted to ask me to prom senior year,” you said, shaking your head. “Rafe, how did I not even know? Why didn’t you do it?” 

“And let you miss your chance with Grant Millwood?” Rafe over exaggerated his scoff. “Please.” 

A laugh spilled out as a smile shone through. “You would’ve saved high school me a lot of angst if you told her you had a crush on her, y’know. Then I wouldn’t have had to spend four years pining in high school.” And four more in college, and two more postgrad. 

(God, you wish he had told you sooner. You would’ve blown all of your money on tickets to North Carolina if you had even the slightest inkling your eternal feelings weren’t eternally hopeless.) 

“Goes both ways,” he said, tacking on your last name. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad you had it?” 

“Because I thought that there was no chance in Hell that Rafe Cameron would ever share my feelings?” you said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Come on, Rafe—you know who you are, who you were. You say a couple guys wanted to ask me to prom—every girl wanted to date you. I didn’t stand a chance.” 

“And yet you did,” Rafe said with a slight chuckle. He shook his head. “Y’know, if I could turn back the clock, I would’ve done so many things differently.” Rafe smiled boyishly. “I would’ve mustered the nerve to ask you to prom before Grant even got the chance. And I definitely would’ve asked you out instead of liking you in private.” 

You smiled and shrugged. He liked you then when you thought there was no chance—why not now, when you also thought there was no chance? 

“Who says you have to turn back the clock?” 

Rafe’s own grin grew immediately, and he pulled you off to the side of the dance floor. He held your hands in his own, the cool metal of his signet ring at odds with the rough calluses on his palms brushing against your skin. 

He said your name with such earnesty you felt like you could melt, and when you gazed into his eyes, you nearly did. “I think you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in every single way. I can’t believe that it took me meeting you by chance at a wedding for me to do this, but I’d like to fix a mistake I made five years ago by never doing this. Can I take you on a date?” 

“Rafe Cameron,” you said, and it was a physical effort to contain the joy nearly bursting out of you, “I would love that more than anything.” 

He grinned. “Great.” 

And then he cupped your face in his hands and pulled you in for the best kiss of your life, one that you immediately fell into with all the vigor of six years spent longing. 

When he pulled away, leaving you completely breathless with widened eyes and bruised lips, his sultry whisper nearly took you out. 

“I’ve been wanting to do that for years.” 

You only had eyes for Rafe as you pulled him back into a heated kiss, pulling him by the cuffs of his baby blue suit. The only thing that got you away from him was the need for air.

"Me too," you murmured.

(And in the background, you were far too dazed to hear Liz’s victorious cheer.)

-

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77 @simonsbluee @kwyloz @masteroperator @louderfortheback 

obx tags: @milkiane @lilgoddesshines @sexytholland

rafe tags: @lurkymurker

Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw Imagine: Drunk Sailors

Warnings: agegap(around 11 years, I’m making Bradley a little younger than he would be in TG:M), anxiety, depression, non-sexual nudity

“Hey, barkeep!” I hear someone shout from the other end of the bar. “Where’s my drink?” I just ignore him because I am currently helping someone else, and he never actually ordered anything. Just walked into the bar already drunk. “I asked where my drink was!” he yelled again, and I turn towards him, grabbing a random bottle of beer. “Here you go sir,” I say, handing it to him. “This isn’t what I wanted!” “I’m sorry. What can I get for you?” “Nothing you bitch. I’ll drink this until the next waitress gets here. She’ll know what I want. She’ll actually know how to do her job,” he says, angrily, and then stalks off. I look around the bar, see no one there, and then sink down to the floor behind the bar, wrapping my arms around myself and quietly crying. I notice my co-worker come around the back of the bar and look down at me. “Y/N, what happened?” he asks, squatting down to eye level. “Um nothing new. Just another drunk guy yelling at me. That guy out there called me a bitch and said I don’t know how to do my job because he was yelling at me without actually telling me his order, so I just gave him a random beer,” I tell him, and hear him scoff, before he gives me a pat on my shoulder and stands up, quickly walking in the direction I assume the drunk guy is. “Hey! You!” I hear him shout, but I don’t move. “Get out! You don’t walk in drunk and then treat the bartender like that! Get out!” he shouts again, his voice getting smaller as they shoo the guy out of the bar. “Hey, Pen,” he shouts when they get close again, “can you come out here?” I hear my mom vaguely reply, before he walks away and it gets a little quiet again. Before long I hear my mom’s voice. “Y/N, where are you?” my mom, Penny Benjamin, asks as she walks behind the bar, only to find me sitting on the floor with my arms wrapped around my knees, tears in my eyes. “Why don’t you head on home? You opened today, and Tara will be here for her shift soon. You go on home, go see Bradley.” “He’s not back with Dad yet. They went out this morning for training and haven’t come back yet. Besides, I’m fine,” I say, and then sigh heavily and lift myself off the ground. “I just need a second and I’ll be ready to face another customer.” “Honey,” my mom quietly says before pulling me into a hug. “It’s okay. You leaving early doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means there have been at least three drunk old men who yelled at you today, plus however many from yesterday, the day before, and so on and so forth. You haven’t had a day off in two weeks. Go home.” “Are you sure? I can at least wait until Tara gets he-” I abruptly stop because my mom slapped her hand over my mouth. “Go. Home. To your apartment. Out with Bradley. Anywhere but here, or my house. I don’t care. Just go. Take a few days. I’ve got it here. You need a break,” she finishes, before kissing me on the forehead and shoving me out from behind the bar. “Thanks, Mom,” I say, before turning to go to the office to grab my stuff. When I enter the office I take a second to sink down in the chair and open the drawer that mom hides the scotch in, and pull the bottle out. I take a swig, and then set the bottle down. “Ew. I don’t even like scotch,” I say to no one but myself,  and then pull out my phone to check and see if Bradley has texted me since he got to work this morning. Brads🥰🐔 Hey hun, I’m on my way to the Hard Deck with your dad, he asked me to drop him off. See you there. Sent 20 minutes ago I read the message again and then look at the time, before grabbing my bag and running out of the office, turning the corner and running smack dab into someone. “Sweetheart, move a little slower,” I hear my dad say as he catches me. “Sorry Dad. Did Brads leave?” I say as I give him a quick hug before pulling away, and frantically looking around. “No, he’s talking to your mom. I came to find you because your mom told me about what happened. Your mom is sending you home early because some customer yelled at you?” he says, looking at me as though he is willing to hurt anyone who dared yell at me. “I’m fine, Dad,” I reply, already over this conversation. “I’m used to it. Drunk dudes, especially sailors, tend to be mean whenever they have to wait for something. They have just been especially mean the last week, and I hit my limit today. Mom found me crying on the floor behind the bar,” I say, quickly, and with a slight shrug of my shoulders as I tuck my hair behind my ear.  “I’m gonna go find Bradley, see if he’ll take me home. Love you pops.” “I love you too, kid,” he replies before leaning down and kissing the top of my head, and turning towards the office. “What are you going to the office for?” I ask with a small chuckle. “Oh, I told your mom I would finish filing the paperwork she left out.” I just nod in response and turn back towards the bar area, focusing back on finding Bradley. I feel my phone buzz in my pocket as I step into the main area, but before I can pull it out, I hear him call my name. “Y/N! There you are,” Bradley says as he walks over to me. “Yeah, sorry I was hiding in the office. Did you talk to mom?” I ask him, looking up and tucking my hair behind my ear again. “Yeah. Let’s get out of here before some other drunk dude says something and I have to punch him,” he says, leans down and kisses me on the forehead, wraps his arm around me, pulling me into his side, leading me towards the front door. “Bye honey!” I hear my mom shout from somewhere behind me. Bradley lifts his hand in a wave as I shout back, not even bothering to try to turn and see where she is. When we get outside Bradley opens the door to the Bronco for me and helps me in, before shutting the door and walking over to his side. He climbs in and starts the car, and then leaning over me to grab my seatbelt. I make no motion to help, because he does this every time we get in any car, and it just makes me feel incredibly safe and loved, so I stopped fighting it after our third date. Before he leans back into his own seat, he grabs my chin and pulls me in for a kiss. I laugh and we both smile into the kiss, and then he pulls back and puts his own seatbelt on. He turns out of the parking lot and places his hand on my thigh, and I zone out tracing the veins on his hand as he drives. “... you want to go?” he asks me, and I snap back to reality. “Um, well I thought we were just going home. Are we not doing that?” “Baby, I just asked you if you wanted to get some food before we head back to your apartment. Are you okay?” “Um. No. But yeah, let's get some food. Can we go get Chipotle?” “Yeah of course. Here, take my phone and order it ahead so we can get home quicker,” he says, and hands me his phone. I unlock it and open the Chipotle app, putting both of our orders in and closing out of the app. “Hey, can I send a snap in the Dagger Squad group chat?” I say with a small smile on my face. “Yeah of course. Nat was just telling me she missed you. Do you wanna hang out with them tonight?” he asks right as I take a selfie and send it to the squad. “Um. No, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. I just want it to be us tonight. Is that okay?” I ask, and curl up into my seat, handing him his phone back. “Sweetheart, of course that’s okay. It’ll be nice to have a night with just the two of us.” I mumble a response, and lean against the window looking out of it. When we arrive at Chipotle, Bradley leaves the car running and runs inside to get our food. When he comes back he puts it down in the backseat, hands me my drink, and then grabs his phone. I pay no attention to what he is doing, until suddenly a song I know that he never listens to, and I only listen to when I turn on my anxiety playlist,  is playing through the car. I look up at him as he places his phone down and then reaches his hand over, grabs my hand, and then rests our intertwined hands on my thigh. I lean away from the window, and reach my available hand to grab his phone. “Is this my anxiety playlist?” I ask him as I grab it, quickly unlocking it to see what playlist is playing. He chuckles and nods as I look at his phone, and see that it is. I scroll through the list to find another song I would like to listen to, and he laughs as it starts to play, and we both sing along. When we pull up to our apartment, Bradley turns the car off and then gets out, grabbing the bag of food and coming around to my side of the car, just as I open my door. He holds his hand out to help me down, because the Bronco is just a bit too tall for me to casually get out of it, and the process typically ends with me falling over. We walk inside and Bradley takes the food to the kitchen while I head to the bedroom to change out of what I had worn to work. I stand in front of the closet for a second, and then ultimately decide on a pair of biker shorts and one of Bradley’s t-shirts. When I walk back into the main area of the house, Bradley has pulled a movie up on the tv, and is sitting on the couch with a beer in front of him. “I wasn’t sure if you would want one of your drinks, but I have your soda over here,” he says, turning to me as I walk in. “Okay, thanks,” I reply, walking over and joining him on the couch. “What movie did you pull up?” “Your favorite. Now, let’s eat and watch this movie,” he says, and hands me a fork, and we both sit and watch the movie and eat our dinner.

By the end of the movie I’m laying in between Bradley’s legs with my head on his chest. I stare at the television as the credits roll, just zoning out. Before I know it, I’m thinking about what happened today again, and I sit up really quickly with tears in my eyes, and walk to the bedroom before Bradley can notice. I shut the door and cross over to the bed, sliding down on the side of it until I’m sitting on the floor. I just sit there, crying, not paying attention to how long it’s been or anything else that is happening. Eventually, Bradley knocks on the door, before slowly opening it. “Honey?” he says, leaning his head in the room. He looks down and sees me on the floor, and crosses over the threshold quickly, and picks me up, sitting down on the bed with me in his lap. I start crying even more at his kindness, and I bury my face in his neck, with him rubbing my back as I cry. Slowly I stop to cry, and as I begin to move Bradley speaks up. “Honey, do you want to take a bath? I can run one for you if you want.” “Yeah, I think that would be good,” I respond with a sniff, standing up from his lap. “Okay. I’ll go run the bath, you find a nice pair of pajamas you want to sleep in,” he responds, and stands up, kissing me on the forehead as he heads out of the room to the restroom. I cross to the dresser that holds our pajamas, and grab my favorite pair, before heading out of the room towards the bathroom. When I walk in Bradley is finishing pouring bath salts and bubble bath in the tub, and stands up as I walk in. “Okay, bath is ready to go. Do you need anything?” “Um, no. Wait!” I say as he turns to leave. “What are you going to do while I’m in the bath?” “I’m going to change our sheets, because we’ve needed to for a while and what better time than when one of us is having a bad day. And then I’m going to dig your old “magic” nap blanket from whatever cabinet we have it shoved in. Then, I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Sit in here with you, wait out there until you’re done. Whatever you need,” he says, and then walks closer and pulls me into him. “Now, you enjoy your bath, and I will leave you to it. I love you,” he says, and then kisses me before pulling away and heading towards the door. “I love you,” I respond, and then sigh as he closes the door behind him. I strip down and climb into the bath, just laying there in silence, feeling the stress of the day work its way out of my body. I sink lower and lower into the bath, just relaxing.

I lose track of how much time I’ve spent in the bath when I hear a knock at the door. I mumble a “come in” and as I do so Bradley steps into the bathroom. “Hey kid. How’s it going?” he asks, squatting down by the edge of the tub, and dipping his hand below the water to rest on my knee. “It’s going well. I feel a lot better,” I say, and sit up a little in the tub. “I think I’m almost ready to get out. I don’t see any reason to keep marinating in dirty water,” I say with a little chuckle. “Okay darling. What do you want to do when you get out?” “I think I want to shower. Then watch a movie in bed,” I tell him, and grab his hand to move it so I can stand up. I carefully stand up and step out onto the bathmat. “Do you want to shower with me?” I ask him while I walk from the tub to the shower. “Do you want me to?” “Yes, I would love you to,” I tell him, and then slip into the shower and turn the water on. Before too long I hear his belt hit the floor, and the shower door opens to let him in. He reaches around me to grab the shampoo, and then pauses. “Here, turn around, I’ll wash your hair,” he tells me, and I oblige, turning so my back is to him. I hear the shampoo come out of the bottle and go into his hand, hear the lid click shut, and then feel him begin to rub the shampoo into my scalp. After he rinses the shampoo out, I turn around and wrap my arms around his waist, and bury my head in his chest, and he reciprocates the motion. “I’m really tired of having shitty days,” I mumble into his chest, and he squeezes my waist tighter. “I know. But, your mom just essentially gave you the rest of the week off, and if you take longer she won’t care.” “I know,” I mumble again, before pulling away. “Wanna go to the beach tomorrow?” I ask him with a sly smile on my face. “Of course I do. Why that look though?” “I,” I start, as I turn around to turn off the water, “may or may not have bought a new swimsuit the other day. And a new picnic basket. And maybe some stuff to make a picnic,” I finish as I wrap myself up in a towel and cross into our room to start digging around in our pajama drawer for a pair of comfortable pajamas. “A beach picnic tomorrow? Sounds good to me,” he says as he pulls on a pair of boxers and climbs into our bed. “Thank you for everything,” I quietly say as I cuddle into him after climbing into bed. “You deserve nothing less,” he says, as he wraps his arm around me and keeps me close to his side after pulling the covers up. “I should be able to handle one person yelling at me,” I whisper, beginning to let the thoughts I've been having all day come out of my mind. “Really. A normal person wouldn’t cry because one drunk guy yelled at them.” “Okay, let's entertain that thought,” he says, sitting up in the bed, not allowing me to go to bed still thinking that it was my fault. “How many days in a row this week did a drunk guy yell at you?” “Um. Maybe four. Or three. I’m not sure. They all started to blend together,” I respond, looking up at him. “And on average, how many days in a row do you think normal people are yelled at by drunks?” “Well. It depends on if they work in a bar or not. Why?” “Because, kid, it doesn’t matter that you have anxiety. That is not what caused you to cry today. What caused you to cry today, was an asshole that decided it was okay to yell at someone for no good reason. I remember exactly how many days in a row a drunk guy yelled at you, because I was there for all of them except this one, and it was five,” he says, and then pauses to pull me into him, leaving not an inch of space between the two of us. “You deserve a break. You handled yourself fine. And I am so proud of you, and shocked that you were able to make it through four days of people yelling at you. I am so proud of you, I know I already said it, but I’ll keep saying it until you believe it.” “Bradley,” I say with tears in my eyes, and then realize that I don’t have any words to say, so I just say “I love you,” and then wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a kiss.

CW: Serious but vague talk about the complex feelings associated with the loss of a loved one and mourning - both in Kirby and in real life. Some personal stuff and once more for good measure mentions of death and mourning.

-

I know I don't owe anyone an excuse for my brief absence, but I was completely caught off guard this year when I realized the anniversary of Planet Robobot fell just days before the passing of my own father last year. No surprise I didn't make the connection last year, but it hit me this year and it hit hard.

I know that they're not the fandom's most popular characters ("most hated" may be more like it?) but I feel almost painfully close to the story of Susanna Patrya Haltmann and Max Profitt Haltmann. For I was also a child who was torn between being really mad at my father for his flaws and mistakes while also pining for this idealized parent-child relationship we didn't have, to the point of often spurning the bond we did have because it wasn't going the way I imagined it. I also had to watch close up as he wasted away, his senses going one by one, till he looked more and more like a fading shell of a person.

...You know, I didn't even finish playing PR until last year or maybe the year before? Of course I knew the story spoilers. But I couldn't make myself play it. I finally did because I felt I had to. And I'm glad, even if finishing it left me with a weird sense of sadness. A sense of sadness that finally came full circle a few months later...

I thought I would draw something for the anniversary this year. Something sad, bittersweet, poignant, meaningful. Something akin to a tribute. But my pen just wouldn't move. I don't think I have the words or the visuals to fully express what I felt about it right now. It's why, even though I really do like these two characters, I hardly ever draw them.

It's this closeness that renders them blurry in my vision.

...I suppose I might as well talk about this while I'm here, but I have this ask in my inbox about the Merry Magoland Branch AU. About Joronia and Max and what happens to them after their souls are freed.

'Do they come back to life?'

...God, I've written one thousand answers to that post in my head.

Part of my brain says the "right" answer to give - here on my Kirby blog where every story has a happy ending or at least a chance at salvation no matter how grim - is "of course they come back to life!" The Merry Magoland Branch AU is a sad but cutesy fractured fairy tale of a story where everyone ends up better than they started! Besides, they’re already souls. What else would happen to them? Just quietly go off to rest? That wouldn’t be satisfying!

...

But another part of me looks at "Kirby," a series that has characters who have "died" and come back to life and characters who have died and stayed dead and I feel like, as painful as it is to those such as the Sectaranza shippers and the other fans of of the implied dead cast members...

...they're not coming back. They can't come back. They shouldn't come back. Even in a completely fictional setting, even in a silly AU, it is hard for me, personally, to make myself change what has happened. What has been done. 

Don't get me wrong, I've even scribbled out a few "everyone lives!" scenarios but I've never been able to draw a single one... I tell myself that if a miracle happens and one day I'm scouted to make a Kirby comic or animated series or movie, something where I get to retell the world from the beginning, I would not have it so the "dead" characters die, if only because they are unique enough that I would want them around to use for future stories. Like Moretsu Pupupu Hour, with its funny Sectonia who is literally allergic to peace. Or that one manga I haven't read where Susie and her father run some kind of puzzle store??

But again, that would be a Kirby I had control of from the beginning.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm proud of Kirby the series for not being so grimdark “realism” that Marx, upon blowing up, turns into meat pasta and instead comes back with a smile and laugh to kick exploding jester balls at people all because you waved a magic heart-shaped wand. 

And I'm absolutely content with letting spunky wizard Magolor mercilessly fight his way back through some sort of purgatory dimension and start life over as a medieval salesperson, building up good karma one microtransaction at a time. I think that stuff is important. (Well, not so much the microstransactions.) But I'm also proud of it for letting some characters... not come back. 

Dark Matter Blade is both a badass and strangely attractive (...just me?) for an eyeball made of dark matter but despite the fact that maybe all he wanted was friends, despite the fact that it's implied he rescued Gooey from Dark Matter and hid him on Popstar to protect him from Zero, despite the fact that he should have become a good guy and was instead used heartlessly by Zero like ammunition, losing the few marks of individuality he'd been able to keep thus far (his hair and armor and cape) he's just gone. He'll never join the others on Popstar. Never enjoy the warmth of a spring day or get to be a sibling to Gooey. He'll never even get to explain things to poor Gooey that they ought to know, and he was probably the only one who could.

It's tragic. It's upsetting. It's unfair.

And it's...important, much as I hate to say it.

Dess secret... but I actually get a little mad when people want Taranza to "...hurry up and find a new girlfriend and stop being in mourning all the time" because... I think it's okay for Kirby to have "a character who is in mourning." I suppose there's no real reason he can't be "character who was in mourning who was able to find love again" but I also kind of like that he's THERE as a character for anyone who has lost a loved one and is still sad about it. For those who haven't begun rebuilding their life just yet.

Gooey is the one who lost someone without every really knowing what he had/could have had. Susie is the one who lost someone and also has to get back to work because that's a real thing too.

I didn't really mean to talk about death and mourning in Kirby (for a second time) but I think part of me had to as well. At least if I was ever going to go back to regular posting. I don't even really feel as if I even captured everything there was to say. Like I said, I don't really have the words. 

But, yeah, anyway, if you've ever seen me politely push back when someone brings up Susie or Max discourse of the negative variety on my blog, hopefully you have a slightly better understanding as to why I respond the way I do.