#HOW IS PROMETHEUS IN THE WATER?????? FUCK OFF!!!!
Text
ANOTHER DEATH BY INMOLATION???? ENOUGH!!!!
#really happy about being wrong about oden. normally when you see something is badly written it is true but here oden being alive being bad#writing was a trally a gotcha moment.... well unlike with pell and laki and wiper..... and conis' dad....#ashura....... and kanjuro is still alive...... this man deserves an execution#is this orichi??? the beheaded one was a kanjuro drawing too???? jesus#orichis fruit is a dragon with a lot of heads.... maybe he can regrow them lmao....#omg double hakai.... goodbye my brave soldiers.... ZORO?? ENMA IS A GODSEND YOU OWN ALL YOUR LIVES TO HIYORI....#zoro got hurt and luffy is on the offensive again..... exactly..... YES RED ROCK!!! BUT DON'T MISS!!!#talking tag#watching one piece#episode 1025#oden and kin on a flower field..... okay......#luffy stopping the attack meant for zoro.... oof#kaido's face knowing this was gonna hurt....#kid and traffy catching luffy too..... everybody loves luffy.....#how can luffy just stop kaido's attack like that's insane....#the others attacking big mom... that was such a big brain move.... they made teams here... luffy and then the brains (everyone elseÑ#jesus. that was something else#luffys giggle and smile when kid and tragfy catch him... he is so happy when people are there for him..... he loves fighting with friends :)#episode 1026#OMG GOODBYE BIG MOM!!!! SHE IS IN THE SEA I CANT BELIEVE THIS!!!!!#TRAFFY RATHER LET THE MISSION FAIL THAN ONE OF THEM DIE??? OMG#HOW IS PROMETHEUS IN THE WATER?????? FUCK OFF!!!!#they are bullying zeus lmaooo INTERNAL FIGHTING!! INTERNAL FIGHTING!!!#luffy knocked out and atill looking at kaido again.... ooff#this is insane. luffy just saved zoro and told him he wont need to die and here he goes again. oh this time i migh fr die. take care goodbye#the bleeding... oof THE SCAR JUST AS THE ONE HE HAS.... goodbye zolo..... rip bozo... don't fall like that man..... ass up like sanji...#he got a 2x1 hit..... goodbye law too.... kaido's eye when he notices luffy is up again.... also haoshoku..... i dont wanna look it up.....#nvm is the conqueror's haki.... i do not remember the og names AT ALL#episode 1027
1 note
·
View note
Text
d’you ever write something and then go oh. what the fuck was that
my october 31 kinktober fic. i’m not really sure how to tag it. hate-sex with a weirdly happy ending? cnc? dubcon? corruption? just kinda rough smut with threats of murder? i’ve read it thirty-seven times and now i don’t know what the threshhold is for these things. the plot’s ehhhh but uh i’m gonna ride with it
day 31 was a free space && i decided to use it for a few of the prompts i missed
day 21: hate sex ♡ day 23: dirty talk, begging, cnc ♡ day 26: choking ♡ day 29: creampie
Wyndham; or, The Galactic Prometheus
a smutty ode to a classic ♡ mary shelley’s frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus. au rocket essentially lives the creature's life; visits the high evolutionary’s bride on her wedding night for murder-reasons per the novel. things go off the rails from there. no use of y/n & minimal editing.
excerpt behind the cut ♡♡♡
The wisps of hair at the nape of your neck suddenly shift with a chill flutter, and your head snaps up and you whirl, nearly falling off the edge of the bed.
“Who’s there?”
Maybe no-one, but if that’s the case, there’s also no-one to mock you for your fear. You hold your breath, and wait, but only the thunder answers.
And then you realize - it’s the window.
The window is open.
You’re sure it had been closed. You remember noticing how the water had pummeled the glass. Surely it wouldn’t have come open on its own - not with the force of the rain against it? But now it’s cracked, swinging lightly on its hinges.
“Who’s there?” you repeat, and your voice trembles.
Thunder again, rumbling - but this time, when it fades, another sound remains behind: a chuckle, dark and low – and very, very close.
Your head snaps toward the sound, and you catch the flash of something out of the corner of your eye – and then the graze of something between your shoulderblades, like a paintbrush on your skin. Your head whips the other way and you twist, eyes wide, lungs desperately trying to haul in air like stones up a mountainside.
Another flick of the terrifyingly-soft thing again, on the back of your hand this time.
Something is moving around you in the dark. Something is stalking you.
What to do? The door is locked. The window is so far above the ground – there’s no way to survive a fall. Stand, you think. Find a weapon. Get your back to a wall.
You knot your hand in the silk draping around you, gaze sifting through the shadows. Another flash of something your eyes can’t follow. You rise slowly to your feet, and reach for the candle, and hold it high.
For a moment, there’s nothing.
And then, in the dark shadows at the corner of the room, two perfect points of brilliant red gleam in the darkness: flat glowing coins, clouded with crimson. Twin blood-moons.
Eyes.
They gleam brighter, and blink, and then – they move toward you.
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thess vs the Sons of Prometheus
Had to leave off last night because the migraine was too bad to start in on the hyperfocus. Feeling somewhat better today, so I figured to just get a few side quests going.
Right. Runda's Rollerback salvage. And then maybe I'll go do Handa's stuff because it feels unfair. Granted, Runda really needed help whereas Handa's just ... erm ... Handa, but y'know. Fairness in all things? I guess?
Oh. Except if I'm really being fair, I should probably check on that rebel camp the delvers have been on about.
This is ... actually useful. Show myself juuuuuuuuuust enough to lead people out of camp, and then shoot them when they're out in the open. I am such an ambush predator.
Only problem is knowing exactly how much or how little is "showing myself juuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough" because now I'm in melee. Oh, fuck you, rebel shithead.
...I ... do not know how I did that thing where I rammed Aloy's knee into her attacker's face but I doubt I will be able to repeat it. No matter how much I want to. This is part of why fighting games will never be my thing. Well, that and the fibro.
And we're in the camp and ... where is everybody else? Oh. Right. I lured them all outside and killed them.
...Oooooooh, so this is how they're overriding machines. I mean, respect to them for figuring out that whole deal of pulling remote override cores out of Corrupters and then trapping machines with the intent of performing surgery on them, but still, yeesh. Also they can't be doing very well at this if there are this many machine corpses lying around.
Welp. No more of you. Stabby-stabby.
Okay. So. Where is everybody else?
Ah. There's like three of them behind this wall. How do I get in?
Oh. Okay. Gate.
And you ... and you ... aaaaaaaand you. Sorry, Son of Prometheus sniper; I am a waaaaaay better sniper than you. Now. Let's have a look.
Focus that I need to deal with back at base. Right. Okay. I had to go back there for a couple of bits and pieces of quest anyway. I guess this is important enough to drag me back there fairly soon.
Also ... can I just pretend in my head that the Oseram going along with this were just caught by the possibilities of the tech, and aren't blatantly evil? I usually like the Oseram.
...Well, there was Ulvund. Like I said; usually.
.........Maybe if I tell Erend about this, he can crack some Oseram heads and tell them to stop being shitheads. That'd be nice.
Anyway. Rollerback salvage. If I actually have to kill a Rollerback for this, I'm going to be pissed.
Oh. Okay. So it's just picking salvage out of a field and--
OFUCKSHELLSNAPPER DODGEROLLDODGEROLLDODGEROLL!
Right. So much for you, you subterranean pain in my ass. Now. ROLLERBACK. SALVAGE. Plus some extra Shellsnapper bits.
Oooh. Shiny close-range bow. This will be useful when I've upgraded it a little more. I should put together a shopping list.
(Honestly I'm really glad that whatever arbitrary time limit I've been given to get main quest shit done isn't really worth beans. I'd hate to think I doomed the world because I was trying to help an Oseram lady win an armour contest and upgrade my gear Because Reasons.)
Okay. I should head in a Handa-ward direction, but again I'm going for campfires and ... oh. Ruins. I should check those.
If there's a metal flower in there I am going to scream and punch things.
Nope. Just Firegleam. Now ... how am I doing this?
Huh. We're playing with water physics today, are we? Okay. A-swimming we will go.
Y'know, I didn't even look at what symbols this stupid holo-whatever was giving off. I have ceased to care. I am soggy and I would like out of the water hole, please.
(Why can't we go tell Drakka that, hey, if they want to go south a ways, there's a whole flooded ruin that might be a source of potable water while they wait for the Wound to fill up again? This feels like a waste.)
Right. More campfires and ... okay, that Thunderjaw looks upset. Oh, look, Oseram are baiting it again. Lemme see what I can do about this.
STOP. MOVING. NO. STOP. YOU ARE GETTING IN THE WAY OF MY SHOT-- uhoh.
SO glad I'm getting better at dodge-rolling. Smoke-bomb, dodge-roll, INTO the bush I go.
Okay. There. That's dealt with. Oseram, STOP BAITING THE THUNDERJAWS. YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR DEPTH.
What's all this now? Oh. Rebels. It's dark, I'm stealthy, and you're all doomed. Bye, rebels!
Ooh. Spikesnout. I can always use bits from them.
Okay. Just going to collect this shelter, because shelters are awesome and it's the best place to pause for the day. Though I should consider going back to Base later to drop shit off, and also to a settlement to dump some vendor trash.
Also I need to see if I can upgrade anything-- Huh. One upgrade on the shiny purple short-range bow. What do I need for upgrade 2? Ah. Greenshine cluster. I have fragments and slivers a-plenty, but no clusters. Lemme check my map.
Okay, new order of proceedings. Stop game, have food, see how much time I have before D&D, and then possibly go hunt up that greenshine cluster up in the mountains to the east.
I have more to-do lists for my video games than I do for my Being A Motherfucking Adult sometimes and it's weird. Ah well. At least it's more fun. And takes up fewer spoons.
On that note, food.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
"The Voyage of the Damned" thoughts
put this off forever bc i didn't want to see it. in the end it was fine even if i keep mixing the title up with "planet of the dead"
ten slaying in his tux-with-converse look that had the 2007 girlies in a chokehold. troy bolton wears the same thing in high school musical 3 btw. if you even care. he gets interested in the angel statues that to me look like craghas "crabfeeder" drahar from hit hbo drama "house of the dragon". do you think the doctor would support the greens or the blacks
we meet max capricorn who is the most "john waters from wish" looking person i've ever seen. and max capricorn as a name sounds like a discount drag name. i like that everyone is wearing 10s-20s era clothing, the mix of titanic-era set dressing with typical sci-fi machinery actually blends really nicely. the two "low class" contest winners are in cowboy clothing which i also like since a lot of the nouveau riche around the turn of the century were oil millionaires from out west (in america anyway). they seem extremely nice and i would love to hang out at a buffet with them
the doctor flirts with kylie minogue, who actually does a really good job in the role, she's very wide-eyed and charming and the character felt fully realized. doctor who is really good at one-offs. he offers a "brand new sky" and she takes it and off to london where we meet WILFRED MOTT, MY GRANDDAD!!!! i completely forgot he was in this one. i screamed "GRANDDAD" when he appeared and scared my bf
the captain is on a suicide mission and apologizes to alonso. i have never seen alonso's actor in anything but he looks so familiar. the actor is gay btw. i loved the captain's "they promised me old men" speech, he's dying and needed the bribe money to take care of his family once he's gone but he was trying to limit the collateral damage to his crew ASTEROID ATTACK
we learn that the doctor is 903 years old. i think this is the first time his age is stated? nine had the whole "900 years of time and space" but i'd assumed he was just rounding. does he celebrate his birthday? i love the idea that he has no idea how old he is and is just guessing. the second doctor was canonically ~450. anyway they're trying to navigate the ship and the cowboy couple try to repair a broken angel bc they were like mechanics back home. i think it's interesting that in sci-fi, robots are stuff for poor people
cyborgs were recently granted rights and "can even get married" which is nice for them. the doctor says "you should see me in the morning" and astrid says "okay" and he looks like he stuck a fork in a socket. they're both sooo down bad this ep. i'd like to have seen her as a companion for a few episodes, adam-style except adam sucked and astrid is cool
max capricorn is a head in a jar. i'm not kidding that this is the exact same twist as the movie "prometheus" did ridley scott steal that from this episode?? it's the same goddamn thing. that movie was awful. i rejoiced when astrid killed him with a forklift, barbara-style (running over bad guys is always barbara-coded for me). the doctor brings the tour guide professor to london cause he's a millionaire on earth and he just like. cries with joy cause he can have a HOUSE with a DOOR and a GARDEN and DISHES and wow he's just like me fr. he refuses to take him with him cause he "travels alone" tenth doctor voice what kind of time lord takes a companion you can't fuck
this episode was in memory of verity lambert who had recently died when it was released. i had no idea who she was last time i saw this episode so i never noticed that. always famous to me verity <3
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
@worldly-diversity asked: "I really appreciate everything you're doing for us. It means a lot." || Louis
the warm water of the hot spring enveloped cael’s tired muscles in a comforting silence. steam rose in the air, clouding the temporary sanctuary in a vague mirage of peace and tranquility. a complete opposite of the chaos ravaging the outside world, ever so thinly veiled with a fabricated serenity and a false sense of safety— it was, for the lack of a better word, beautiful. a beautiful, much needed lie. something that even a war monster like him indulged sometimes.
he was alone— had always been even though, quoted louis amamiya, he was ‘ an essential part of the operation now ’ and he ‘ is officially a part of the team ’ and that he ‘ is very welcome here ’. it was mostly a convenient one-sided assumption from louis because he knew he wasn’t the slightest interested in whatever the prometheus-coded revenant was preaching about— whether it was the team or the supposedly brighter future and whatnot (nothing he hadn’t heard before, mind you), and his actual reason wasn’t all that sunshine and goodness either, no, so he wouldn’t hold himself in such high regards. he joined purely out of self-interest, nothing more, nothing less. he intended to keep it that way until the confusion plaguing his mind was clarified.
thus solitude was welcome. he’d prefer this over anything.
basking in absolute pleasure, the revenant tried his best to shake off the exhaustion etched into every inch of his being after constantly battling and dispersing. shoulders slouched, bare back against the stone edge, he felt like he could breathe easier as if the burden of immortality was finally gone— no longer trapped in an eternal loop, surviving on blood, becoming beasts, and turning to ash. though temporary, such wistful thinking was laughable but he’d humour himself once in a while in this neverending dread. as he slowly eased himself into the water, the well-hidden upper half was for once fully exposed to naked eyes, revealing patterns of runic symbols sprawling across his marred skin, truly a tragic beauty in the chaos that was withering away with time. he was growing tired of this— of going nowhere and of existing. his mind was scattered with bits of memories here and there, but never enough to form a single coherent line of thought and that was fucking frustrating. because he was... lost. completely, utterly and pathetically lost. unable to move on, unable to go back. nowhere, no one to hold onto. nothing to protect.
that was all he was. nothing.
until louis amamiya came along, forcefully invited himself in and invaded every nook and cranny of his head in the strangest way possible. in a sense, louis was similar to him. despite lacking the ability to empathise with others, cael wasn’t as ignorant as he might have appealed to some. far from it, in fact. he very well understood the basics of the world’s mechanism, how it operated in the most primitive fashion considering he, too, was amongst the ones who are knee-deep in this hellhole. louis wanted something from him— that much was for certain, and he wanted something from louis as well, he wanted to know where the familiarity came from, why was he so adamant on finding that source. that honestly was the sole reason why he even bothered in the first place— why else would he?
he could, and would leave at any given time.
but the longer he stayed here, the further he strayed from his initial purpose. louis was warm and kind and so good, so determined, so attentive, something that he hadn’t seen for what felt like forever. killing, murdering, back-stabbing, betraying... every deplorable act once deemed immoral had become a common occurence within the wall of the red mists, and goodwill a rarity. so he didn’t know whether louis amamiya was bravely stupid or stupidly brave. didn’t matter whichever it was honestly, he was inexplainably drawn to louis amamiya. not just the familiarity anymore, it was something else— something more mysterious, more puzzling, more dangerous. an unexplored territory he still hadn’t had the courage to traverse.
he used to be alone— yet louis amamiya ruined that. this agitation did nothing but distracted him in the heat of the moment.
such as now. louis amamiya always ruined his peace.
louis amamiya emerged from the door with quiet footsteps. mismatched eyes remained casting downwards. then he heard an almost inaudible splash and felt the ripples of water against his skin, crashing into him with tiny waves. he didn’t need to look to become aware of the other revenant’s presence in the same, enclosed space. so close, too, right within his arm reach. he could even hear his soft, satisfied moan and felt the languid movement under the water— was that intentional? annoying. the hot spring used to be big, but it suddenly became small and unbearable now. the air was woven with an imaginary tension— funny he was even imagining things now. absolutely annoying. the queenslayer shifted from his position for a few more times before he decided that he could no longer control whatever that was rising inside his chaotic head. he needed to get out. still, mismatched eyes flashed a quick glimpse at his unwelcome guest out of habits, and he saw something akin to gratefulness that graced the young revenant’s features.
and he, like a pitiful fool, was sucked into the gentle smile.
‘ I really appreciate everything you're doing for us. ’ louis said, ‘ It means a lot. ’
somehow, cael’s anger exploded, thrashing inside his veins.
he abruptly turned towards louis and was soon towering above him. quick and swift like a predator, he propped his hands to either side of louis’s body and leaned downwards, closing in the proximity between them until their breath and the fog of the sauna mingled into one. heterochromia hues intensified when their gaze met. callous fingers clasped the other’s chin and cael violently jerked louis’s face upwards. nothing was gentle about it. nothing ever was. right now, he just wanted that unconditional kindness to be gone before it was tainted by the ugliness that he himself was. it reminded him of kaius, of kaium, and of vague faces of the nurses and priestesses from his past, it reminded him of the fragments belonged to cruz silva before she frenzied— and they were all dead. turned into dust because of this so-called goodness and altruism. he didn’t understand what good would it do—
or maybe he was just scared that louis amamiya would suffer the same fate.
‘ what are you so grateful for? ’ he grunted— scoffed, ‘ what is there to even be thankful for. there is no ‘ for us ’ here, louis amamiya, so don’t go pushing that naive narrative on me. ’
#worldly-diversity#ic. / interaction#i. gaol of the red mist. / main verse#sooo cael is just rlly conflicted#like louis is so kind to him he got fking scared#nobody was kind to him#and everybody who was was dead#unconditional kindness made him paranoid#ndknlsndfsfn
1 note
·
View note
Note
11. “...did you just sniff me?” for percabeth pretty please 🙏🤍🤍🤍
Heya! I’m finally here to come back to this request 😄😄 It took me only a little bit in comparison to other requests, but I'm here!
Also since @percyheartsannabeth, @skaterannabeth and @not-optimistic-petrol-biscuit had asked about fluff. Here you go... Kinda? 😬 Anyway. Here's a monster sneak peek into may I introduce you to my beloved wife? 😋
It took me all day yesterday, but I managed to pump out 11k words. That's a record for a single session in one day (with like two breaks). And yes, that is still not the entire chapter. Here are roughly 9,2k for you to consume!
TW: alcohol, overbearing relatives not minding their own business, a tiny section talking about domestic abuse and Athena and Frederick Chase ain't shit but that's nothing new. Poseidon too, for once. Enjoy!
may I introduce you to my beloved wife?
(*absolutely not proof-read, my bad)
Annabeth sighed. You can do this. You can do this. You’ve already finished the week. Think about the money. Think about the move to California. Push through this day and next week, think about the money and the minute you’ll hand your termination in. She wanted to splash some water up her face, but the makeup that tinted her lips in a luscious rose and added some bronze to her high cheekbones was too expensive to be washed off and hastily reapplied.
It was pre-Dionysus Day, which meant it was merely the calm before the storm. The first sparkling sip of an impending disaster waiting to rollover the roomy Greek villa Percy forced her to stay in. Well not really forced. Forced and bribed her to stay in. That made it sound slightly better. Just think of the one-hundred seventy-five dollars he’s going to transfer into your bank account for your new start in California. I should renegotiate. California is also expensive. Make it two-hundred fifty thousand.
The tall blonde looked at her reflection in the mirror. A young woman full of life was the first thing she had seen in the morning but now she looked tired and annoyed, just how she felt. Something crashed in one of the dozens of rooms next to her and people laughed. Annabeth sighed again. It was the only thing she could do, otherwise she would scream like a banshee, making sure that at least Hermes and Prometheus would check her, if it wasn’t for Percy stuffing socks into her mouth to make her shut up before they got to her. The majority of his Greek relatives had been lovely if not terribly nosy and overbearing. It was the opposite of her family. His was warm and chaotic and for the most part welcoming. Hers? Cold, apathetic, disapproving of everything she did. She had no family in comparison, and neither would she want to compare this wholesome messy bunch to the cold-hearted Athena Pallas and the monster that was Friedrich Chase.
Annabeth respected Hera and Hestia, she definitely side-eyed Aphrodite who was cheating on her husband and she would definitely stay away from Zeus. Crossing paths with him occasionally in the New York office of Atlantic INC. was terrible, seeing him openly be flirty and loosen up during a forced trip was way worse.
This was a bad idea and I have a terrible feeling about this. The burgundy wrap dress that hugged her skin was soft and light but in the Thessalian heat it felt like a sticky cocoon caging her. She wasn’t a beautiful butterfly, ready to burst out and wow everyone. Neither was she a moth drawn to a flame. She was a bug that had been sprayed by Percy with a pesticide, wrapped in toxic chemicals which were slowly dissolving her body, piece by piece.
A knock shoved the horrendous image inside of her head aside. “Yes?” she asked with a firm voice. Too firm with a hint of annoyance, but she was not a professional actress and could not switch her emotions off as she pleased. She was a junior marketing manager for Christ’s sake. Not for much longer. Only two more months…
Percy opened the door. “Are you ready?“ he asked with his usual pleasant baritone reaching her ear.
He wore light linen pants that hugged his legs loosely and a light blue shirt with the first buttons opened up. She could see his defined chest and the swirls of black hair peeking through. The hair was styled into a disheveled curly mess which suited him way better than the gelled back corporate look and he forgot to trim his beard like the day before. Annabeth couldn’t deny what she saw – her tormentor was a very attractive man.
“Do you want to bail?” His sea-green eyes darkened a shade. Worry flashed through them.
Annabeth exhaled sharply for the last time. “I wish I could but then I’d leave you without a fiancé,” she smiled through the pain.
Her glance found her reflection again. The topknot was still intact, and a few strands carefully framed her heart-shaped face. She looked perfect on the outside and she wanted to commit manslaughter in the inside.
“Let’s get over with it,” Percy sighed and stretched his hand out. It seemed like Percy was the one that would rather bail.
Annabeth took it without any complaint. She was the happy girlfriend soon-to-be-wife and holding hands was way better than being forced into kissing him during Sports Day. The Theodoropoulos family truly had planned activity after activity during those two weeks in winter.
“Oh!” Sally peeked into the bathroom and saw her son holding Annabeth’s hand.
“There you are! Is everything okay, mija?” she asked with her sweet Dominican accent and looked at Annabeth.
Annabeth automatically smiled back. Sally was the mother she never had, and it broke her heart crumble by crumble by the sheer charade Percy and she were forced to display for the next six days. Sally Jackson deserved the best. She certainly didn’t deserve being deceived and lied to by her terrible son and his tag-a-long coworker.
“Yes, Percy was just making sure we’re arriving on time.” Annabeth got on her toes and placed a soft kiss on Percy’s stubbled cheek. It tickled but by now she had gotten used to it.
He rolled his eyes, smiled at his mother, nonetheless. Sally’s eyes sparkled and she clapped, clutching her hands tightly. “You don’t know how proud you’re making me, mijo,” she then said teary-eyed.
“You finally found a great girl and she is standing next to you.” Sally wiped a tear away and the awful feeling that sat on Annabeth’s chest and made everything heavier, amplified by a thousand times.
This was way worse than being referred to as the woman that would bear him three to five children presuming with the first one sired on this current vacation by Ares. Yes, Annabeth wanted two children at max, but not definitely now. She was twenty-eight and in the prime of her life! Note: Percy would certainly not be the father of said two children. Unruly blond waves and a mischievous grin blitzed through her head. Pale blue eyes came back from the deepest pit of her memory. Luke. Fuck no, that was even worse than Percy. His betrayal… Annabeth tried to shake the memory off and focused on the ongoing situation in front of her.
Sally truly hoped her son found love and not a quick fling. Oh shit, Annabeth thought and looked up to Percy whose face expressed similar thoughts. His conscience nibbled and guilt flooded his body.
“Mamá,” Percy began and released Annabeth’s hand in order to grasp the older woman’s shoulder.
Sally brushed his large hands off. “No, no! Off you go! You younglings should be downstairs celebrating your reunion with the entire side of Poseidon’s family.”
Annabeth appreciated the fact that Sally was invited and flown out each winter holiday by the Theodoropoulos’. Despite having been divorced from Poseidon for over twenty years, she was still a popular and welcomed guest, not just because of her son’s attachment to the Greek side and his tied division of the Greek family company.
Sally gave each of them a last smile before entering the women’s bathroom. Percy exhaled and pinched his nose. After ten seconds he released the nose and looked back at Annabeth. “Ready?” he asked a final time. Annabeth nodded.
The loud singing, yelling and talking that had been muffled by the bathroom hit her by a tenfold. The place had all the Mamma Mia vibes without the fun singing four days ago. Not anymore, as drunk relatives hit up the shore with loud music and talked loudly in their Pontic Greek dialect.
As the couple descended the stairs and walked through the parlor, a new wave of guests arrived at the same time. Three people that have just entered early adulthood looked up to them. Two men, one blond with a stoic face and bronzed skin, the other was shorter with spiky black hair and a beautiful grin on his lips. The woman next to him was the tallest out of the trio and possessed a high ponytail that would leave Ariana Grande dying out of envy. The dyed lilac hair swung around and nearly reached the middle of her thighs, meaning the hair was even longer without its tight prison on top.
“Thanatos, Zagreus, Megaera!” greeted Percy and gave each one of them a rib crushing bear hug. They looked pleasantly surprised at seeing Percy being accompanied by a pretty woman his age. It seems like the proposal didn’t reach all of the ends of the Greek world.
They fell into a short conversation in Greek and Annabeth smiled politely next to Percy as she fell entirely out of place. The evil Duolingo owl didn’t prepare her for this experience. Neither did her mother bother teaching her at least their Athenian dialect properly. She could introduce herself in Greek, order a beer, say goodbye and that was it. Thank you, Athena. For nothing again.
“Oh, you must be Annabeth,” Megaera eyed her carefully and Annabeth had the feeling that she could split her open with her hands. Weirdly enough, Annabeth was kind of into it. Megaera wasn’t only as tall as Percy but she was clearly the one with the toughest workout regimen as she displayed her muscular legs and defined arms with a short cocktail dress only a few shades darker than her hair.
“Yes,” Annabeth squeaked. She nearly added a ma’am towards the end. Megaera cocked her dark eyebrow. She had an aura that demanded respect.
“Interesting to see the woman who captured Perseus’ heart. It seems that he did develop a good taste after all. Calypso was as pretty as the crescent moon flower but sadly as dull as his corny jokes are.” Megaera’s deep smirk was a stamp of approval as her eyes roamed all over Annabeth.
“Hey!” Percy interrupted and placed a firm hand on Annabeth’s waist, as if he was trying to mark his territory.
“You have your own toys right to your right,” he then added with a playful tone.
Megaera actually laughed and waved dismissively. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more.” A clear offer which left Annabeth’s face turn into a fiery tomato red.
“Anyway, we have some catching up to do,” Thanatos proposed as Zagreus and he silently watched the conversation blossom. He sounded as reserved as he looked.
“Indeed,” Zagreus agreed, surprising Annabeth with a posh English accent. “Father will murder me if we miss out on his moussaka. It’s to die for you need to try it, Annabeth, at least before Hephaestus gets ahead of himself.”
Annabeth laughed. The Theodoropoulos did have their positives. “I will, Zagreus,” she nodded.
“Oh please, if aunt Sally gave her go for you to stay here, you’re as good as family. We’re Than, Zag and Meg for you,” Zagreus offered.
“Annabeth is already my nickname but thank you for the kind offer!”
The three new guests went on to join relatives and friends at the party which seemed to get more chaotic by each passing minute as the volume seemed to increase.
“My cousin Zagreus from my uncle Hades’ side,” Percy explained as the three went out of his sight.
“Are they friends? Or…”
“Pretty sure they’re polyamorous. You know, I don’t know, and I honestly don’t really care, I see Zag once every twelve months at max. Just don’t stick to Meg’s side for too long otherwise she’ll turn you into her fiancé.” Percy’s tone suggested that he was not joking.
“Oh.” Annabeth didn’t know what to think of it.
Percy closed his eyes as if he was making a silent prayer, before his sea-green met Annabeth’s light gray ones. She smelled like lemon with a hint of lavender, instead of roses like normally. Delicious. If it weren’t for the fact that it was Annabeth.
“So, listen. You know I’ve talked about Dionysus Day and how his birthday brings out the worst side of everyone.”
Annabeth nodded as Percy went on to explain.
“Pre-Dionysus Day is basically same with the only exception that my great-grandmother’s house is filled with the entire family. Yes, we’re expected to eat, drink, laugh, drink, dance, drink, reminisce on our past, drink, make fools out of ourselves in order for them to take blackmail pictures and drink some more, but no matter how much they want you to open up… try to control yourself. Everything you say can and will be used against you.”
Annabeth’s stomach started to churn, and her knees slightly gave in. “Look, I’m truly sorry for the mess that I’ve caused,” Percy looked directly into her eyes and tried to ignore the rosy streaks across her flushed cheeks. “And my relatives can be overbearing. But if we manage to stick through this night and the next one tomorrow, we’re as good as done with playing games.”
“Fine,” Annabeth gritted through her teeth. She had agreed to the terms and condition. She didn’t need a reminder of the stupid decision she made two months ago.
“Let’s go.”
She placed her hand on the doorknob that separated the parlor from the huge living room. Percy followed her as she opened the door. A wave of laughter, wine, ouzo, discovered secrets, cigarettes, sweat and fun hit them.
“Oh wow, someone should open a window.” Percy suggested as he coughed. Luckily cousin Metis had the same idea. No, aunt Metis. Or was it Thetis? Why did Percy need to have so many relatives with similar names again?
“Oh, Annabeth, look at you!” Aphrodite had snuck up behind them and surprised the fake couple by hugging each of them and nearly spilling the expensive Greek vintage in her hand on Percy’s shirt. The red alcoholic liquid carelessly swirled in her glass and more than often seemed to want to escape from her clutch.
“Aphrodite, be careful!” Percy reminded her as she dug her fingers into his arm. Her nails were as fake and bought as was the bond between Annabeth and Percy.
“Oh, please cousin, you should learn how to loosen up!” She laughed, but it sounded more like the shrill sound a bird made when it got nearly hit by a car. The high pitch made Annabeth slightly frown.
“Take your girl upstairs and show her all the Zorbas moves you got!” She wiggled her badly overdrawn eyebrows.
Aphrodite had always been the poster child of perfection. She knew how to dress her curvaceous body the right way, she knew how to apply the perfect touches of makeup on her face and she was the most graceful being Annabeth had ever met. Seeing her so disheveled left the blonde American content. It showed that Aphrodite wasn’t one of the gods, she was a mortal mess like they all were. That, and it was kind of funny seeing the abrupt transition from oozing perfection to looking like a rough mess after a couple of glasses of wine.
“If you know what I mean, you two know what I mean, right?”
“Yes,” Annabeth and Percy answered. Unfortunately, they did.
“That reminds me, this is such a pretty dress that you got!” Aphrodite’s eyes widened and she tugged at Annabeth’s sleeve that went slightly over her elbows. “Percy needs to bring me a couple of those the next time he visits. Oh wait! You’re about to marry, Annabeth can take me shopping. I want to visit New York next summer. When was your wedding again?”
Panic filled Annabeth she tried to stutter a lame excuse like they had done the entirety of the stay. Aphrodite’s brown eyes found something else to focus on in the meantime. Her hand went out to poke the tall blonde’s chest as she went on to pull on the thin fabric.
“You should show the men what you got! Free the girls!” Aphrodite yelled over the loud music, pushing Annabeth’s C cup to its limits. “Let Percy stand in the corner with that stupid frown, all jealous and depressed while you’re out on the hunt!”
Percy did not look amused especially since he tried to pull Annabeth away.
“Yeah, just like that!” Aphrodite’s glass pointed directly at his face as Annabeth tried to shove Aphrodite’s fickle fingers aside. “Oh, if I were just a little bit younger and not tied to your cousin…”
“You mean cousins,” Percy corrected and made a step backwards as Aphrodite’s dreamy and drunk dazed focus shifted from Annabeth to him.
“Aphrodite, leave Percy and his future wife alone,” Hera arrived to save the stressed couple and rolled her eyes. “Go harass Hephaestus and try to be a faithful wife for once in your life.”
She still looked like she had a massive stick shoved up her ass by the way she stood entirely straight next to them, but Annabeth appreciated the gesture. If Hera didn’t like Aphrodite much, Annabeth would rather join Team Hera than stand alone by the bleachers and under Aphrodite’s charmspeak. Aphrodite pouted and stomped with her feet twice as if she were a toddler and not a grown woman marching towards her forties. Then she stormed off and ran into the arms of her lover, nother husband to spite her mother-in-law and embarrass her even further.
“Malàka,” Hera cursed and lost her cool for one second, before clearing her throat and focusing on the already tired fake engaged couple in front of her. Not even Hera seemed to be averse from drinking a glass of wine or two. “You two definitely need a drink.”
Annabeth agreed with her for once.
She pointed at the bar behind her, which was managed by Dionysus and his wife Ariadne. The number of relatives ganging up on them and demanding new drinks was frightening. Surprisingly Dionysus kept his cool and shoved drinks in people’s hands at an impressive speed.
“Yeah, let’s get over with it,” Percy sighed and took Annabeth’s hand again.
“Are you okay?” Annabeth asked him. She knew from Thalia that Percy rarely ever drank and that his family was to blame for most of it. Percy seemed stiffer and graver than usual as well. As much as she disliked his jokey nature and easy-going demeanor he displayed at work, she’d much rather have that Percy by her side right now. Dionysus Day and the day before seemed like it was hell on earth for him and walking through it each year must take a toll on him.
“Yeah, let’s just each grab a glass of wine. Let them be happy about me shoving this disgusting stuff down my throat.” He thanked Ariadne as she prepared two glasses of the same vintage Aphrodite seemed to have inhaled earlier.
“Thank you.” Annabeth took her glass and sniffed. The wine smelled sickly sweet with a hint of the bitterness that the fermentation process had left. The glass in her hand weighed surprisingly heavy, not because of the wine itself but because of the golden swirls decorating it. The glass transitioned from the crystal-clear transparency into a deep black. A lyre surrounded by a bigger laurel wreath decorated the middle section and a golden snake was wrapped around the stem. The golden rim gave it a nice finish.
“Into a fruitful night,” Percy darkly mumbled over the music. He was really not looking forward to it, which confused Annabeth immensely. She didn’t understand why he pushed himself through this if he really didn’t like the drinking activities. He surely had his reasons, hence her not starting a fight with him over it. It was his family and their tradition after all.
“Into a fruitful night,” Annabeth instead repeated.
Issuing a weird toast as well. Percy Jackson was clearly not a drinker. Their glasses clinked and each of them took a sip. Thankfully grandma Rhea made sure they were well-fed before the festivities began.
“Fuck,” Annabeth muttered. A fine vintage as well. Not as sweet as she thought, it left a hint of sweet cumin as the lingering aftertaste. Her lipstick left a mark on the glass, but she didn’t bother to care as she took another gulp. The wine was nearly finished. She slowly started to understand why ancient civilizations went crazy after this stuff.
As she looked at her so-called fiancé, she saw that his glass was already empty. A grimace rested on his face as well.
“Err, Percy?”
“What?” The dark brooding look on his face was no more.
“Shouldn’t you take it easy?” Annabeth carefully asked. His eyes narrowed.
“I am,” he stated and cocked his head towards his cousin who was still busy playing the barkeeper but kept an overall watchful glimpse on the guests that flooded the gates.
“Dionysus saw me drink. Most importantly he saw us have a drink. That should be enough for me, but if you want some more, be my guest.” He shrugged.
Annabeth felt that she should probably drag his mopey ass out of the party, but it was way too early to leave. “Fine,” she said and asked Ariadne for a refill. Annabeth went in for another long sip. She should definitely stock her wine cabinet once she was back at her shitty apartment. Before the glass reached her lips again, Hermes snatched it away and chugged the remaining wine.
“Hermes, what the hell?!” Ariadne grabbed the glass and pushed her husband’s cousin away. The bored postman was back with his shenanigans.
“My bad, dear wifey, but I’m on a mission here to abduct sweet Annabeth,” Hermes winked and placed his hands around Annabeth’s shoulders.
“What are you up to?” Out of all of the relatives she’s met so far, Annabeth was convinced that everything Zeus had ever sired was a mistake. Zeus himself was a mistake.
“Can you stop being German and boring for once?” he joked. Annabeth’s eyes narrowed. She did not like this one bit. She turned her head around and saw that Percy had been pulled into a conversation by Hypnos and Morpheus. He had completely forgotten about her. Great.
Hermes guided her through the crowd, towards the middle of the room. They had to dodge chairs, drunk relatives, a sofa, chatty relatives, the coffee table and dancing relatives before they made it.
“There she is!” greeted Achilles the confused marketing manager.
Paris, Helen, Patroclus, Hermes and Achilles stood in a circle around a table. Dozens of shots of all sorts of colors were displayed. Annabeth had a terrible feeling about this.
“What is this and why are you pulling me into this?” Annabeth asked and did not like the mischievous grin they all shared. She wanted to go back home and cuddle with Daedalus on her sofa and push his cat ass out of the way before the next steamy Outlander scene hit the screen. Yes, Annabeth was that much of a single that seeing some on-screen action was the best she could get. She hoped that the mangy cat didn’t bother Thalia all too much while she was staying in Greece. She owed her so much already.
“Well, I stayed in your country,” Paris started. “And they have a weird tradition with ouzo. They don’t drink it the way we do, watered down and slowly at lunch and what not…”
Annabeth was still American for the most part and had nothing to do with Germany. The last time she stayed there was nearly thirteen years ago. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Germany. Friedrich Chase lived in Germany. And she fucking hated Friedrich Chase. Therefore, she hated Germany. Things that would never change. Okay, Hamburg was a cool city and she was glad her father moved to Cologne. Should she feel the urge to travel back to Germany for a week or less, she’d go to Hamburg, take ten thousand pictures, and post them on Instagram the minute before she was boarding her flight back to New York. Helping her to enrage her stupid father was all Germany had to offer.
“Germans do ouzo shots,” Patroclus cut to the chase. “And since you’re the newest member of our family…”
“And German!” Paris and Hermes added simultaneously.
“We’ve decided to play this little game,” Achilles added.
“What’s the name of the game?” Annabeth asked. She was only slightly curious. Emphasis on slightly.
“Last man standing. Oh sorry, ladies. Last person standing,” Hermes corrected himself as he placed four shots in front of each person. That was way too much hard liquor to handle. But if she did Jägermeister bombs in her sophomore year of college without any issues, this should be fairly easy.
“What are the rules?” They all looked at her in silence. No rules. No prize. Just drink.
“Oh wow.” The urge to roll her eyes and walk off came back with a force.
“I think I’m going to pass,” Annabeth said and already turned to her right.
“Why?” Helen asked innocently. “Need your man to look after you? The one who’s having an amazing time back there with his third glass of wine?”
Foul game. Annabeth’s head shot to the right. Helen was right. Percy was laughing and looked like he was having a great time chatting with Oceanus and his wife Tethys. Tethys refilled his glass as her husband and Percy broke into laughter once again.
If that’s the case…
“Fuck it, I’m in,” Annabeth agreed. She swallowed the bait and she knew it. There was no reason why she should feel upset about Percy opening up all of a sudden. He desperately needed it. Why she wished to be a part of that, Annabeth did not know.
“Great!” Helen threw her brown mane over her shoulders and grabbed the first glass.
“Για μας!” they all yelled and chugged the liquor. Gia mas, the Greek toast, was repeated every time and it seemed to brighten the mood, despite resting heavily on Annabeth’s stomach. Her college days were over, but she was glad she resisted coughing repeatedly.
Patroclus clutched his stomach after the second shot, Helen ran out after the third, Paris and Achilles were laughing maniacally after the fourth and Hermes mysteriously disappeared after the first one. Annabeth was the last person standing. She placed the crystalized shot glass back on the table and examined the messes around her. The only thing that had happened to her, were that more golden locks escaped from her bun and her lipstick needed some reapplying as she left marks on each glass.
Annabeth tried to take a step away from the table and felt how the world slightly shifted around her. The fact that she would curse and hate herself for her behavior in just six hours, was something drunk Annabeth gladly put aside. The headaches that definitely would haunt her for the rest of the trip didn’t matter, she won and that was all she cared about.
“Hell yeah!” she yelled as all inhibition faded away, leaving pure and raw life force behind. Unbeknownst to her, Annabeth had moved right into the circle of dancers.
“Perseus, get your bride before she breaks her legs!” someone laughed. Was it Iapetus? Or was it Hyperion? Who even cared at that point?
The next two hours were a blurred mess. A blackout slowly crept through her mind, leaving foggy memories behind. Annabeth felt how she was dancing with people and how people were laughing. Were they laughing at her or with her? Did it really matter? Why was her hair repeatedly slapping her face, didn’t she tie it up?
She danced with different people, men and women. She really hoped that the guy that looked like a naked Danny DeVito with longer black hair was not Zeus who had lost his shirt and pants. Who was the guy with the sea-green eyes again? Why was he clapping and laughing whenever she was busting a move next to Hermes? Was he important? Why did he remind her of work? The shots might have been a short-sighted idea after one and a half glasses of wine. She probably overestimated the amount of food she had consumed at dinner prior. Wasn’t she supposed to try someone’s moussaka?
“There you are! Ares, stop dancing with her for once. We’re about to leave.”
Ugh. Ares. Not Zeus, but still yucky.
Sea-green eyes. Percy, of course. How could she have forgotten the asshole that brought her into this whole mess? He seemed fairly sober, didn’t he have a glass or three of wine? Annabeth was certain, she’d be able to drink him under the table. His height and his build might put him at an advantage, but if he wasn’t used to drinking, she might have a fair shot.
A rock song was the next song that appeared. Percy wanted to drag Annabeth off the dance floor.
“Oh no!” Aphrodite intervened with a shrill screech. “Give the two lovers some room to show each other affection!”
Hera actually raised her glass for once to show that she actually agreed with one of Aphrodite’s wild ideas. Someone fumbled with the playlist and a Greek slow jam roared through the old speakers.
“Are you guys fucking serious?” Percy muttered under his breath. But roughly eighty pairs of eyes were all but watching the soon-to-be betrothed and waited for a romantic dance which reminded Percy more of the horrors that the eight-grade dance was.
Annabeth drunkenly hiccupped and looked at him in surprise as she felt one of his hands around her waist and the other one taking her hand. They rocked as if it was the final dance at prom. Annabeth barely remembered prom. Oh right. Her mother had forbidden her from going. She never attended prom.
A casual glimpse through the crowd showed her that people were actually filming this nonsense and some women were actually cooing. Did… did they seriously think this back and forth with sweaty clothes on was romantic? Her eyes found Percy’s again.
“So…” he began.
“So…” she repeated.
“Careful!” he warned her before twirling her through the tight circle. People screamed and applauded. A camera flash blitzed through the darkness twice.
“Oof,” Annabeth groaned. Her stomach and equilibrium did not appreciate that sudden movement.
“I’m sorry, I won’t do that again,” Percy swore. The rocking motion made both of them sleepy. Annabeth suppressed a yawn, rested her head on his shoulder. Percy could make the perfect comfy bed, if he wanted to.
Percy, sensing that people were awaiting some action from either of them, placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face up. Annabeth’s eyes widened. Is he going to kiss me in front of them? Again? her panicked brain asked. She was turned into stone, not by Percy’s distant cousin Medusa who had eaten most of the truffles, but by the tenderness of his actions. He was one solid actor.
Percy placed a soft kiss on her forehead, before moving on to a temple. Annabeth blushed and buried her heated face in his chest as he released her. Intimate, soft and sweet. The screaming relatives disrupted their comfortable silence yet again. The slow song came to an end and the next upbeat one invited everyone back to the dance floor. Annabeth released herself from Percy’s tight embrace and just bolted. Damned be nausea. A wave of coldness hit her. She felt something she didn’t like the minute Percy had softly kissed and soberness woke her at a start. What was it? Anger? Disappointment? Longing? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to know.
“Annabeth!” Percy shouted, but the amount of people standing in his way made it more difficult for him to keep up with her. His hand brushed over his own lips.
Annabeth opened and closed doors left and right. The kitchen, the dining room, the smoking room. She hasted through the first floor until she found another lost soul in the fireplace room. Why the villa had a fireplace room in the first place, she did not know. It had been super-hot the entire time but what Annabeth understood as heat and what native Greeks deemed as hot temperatures didn’t have to correlate.
Great-grandmother Gaia’s humming faded away. The eldest of the Theodoropoulos looked up from the pair of socks she was knitting. When she came to find out the intruder was Annabeth, joy spread over her face.
“Come, come!” The broken English that she softly spoke reminded Annabeth of her own grandmother. She hadn’t seen Elsbeth Lilienthal-Chase since she had left Germany. And since her mother didn’t give her a chance to say goodbye, she didn’t have a phone number to reach her with. The only way would be through that asshole Friedrich Chase, and the only time she’d willingly let someone contact that man was if she had been six feet under and he would be forced to show up for one important family event for once.
“I was unable to sleep. Parties aren’t something for me. I’m too old and boring for my children and their children,” Gaia sighed as Annabeth took a seat on the green sofa next to the light blue armchair. All of the cushioning seemed to have been made by Gaia as the socks had the same pattern as the pillow that Annabeth leaned against. Balls of wool surrounded the older woman as if she sat on a field of fresh tulips.
“Drink, drink! You need water. I’m pretty sure you danced a lot.”
Annabeth kindly took the offer, grabbed the carafe and poured herself a little bit of water into a small glass. The water was surprisingly cold and refreshing.
“My children deem me crazy,” Gaia continued. “The war with the ottomans. Deportation. Fleeing and seeing death everywhere. Losing my father in the chaos. Then the big world war after that twenty years later. They don’t want to listen to the same stories. They only want to have fun. So, they sent me away.”
Annabeth felt terrible for the old lady. It looked like she had been through hell and back in her youth. She didn’t look like she needed much, only someone to listen to her.
“I won’t bore you much,” promised Gaia.
Gaia’s tanned leathery hands continued working on the little socks. “Don’t worry about tomorrow, dearie. We have plenty of acetaminophen and other hangover remedies. Tomorrow will be even worse, because Dionysus wants to celebrate his birthday with even more wine,” the old woman laughed, and her green eyes twinkled full of life.
“I also was young once…”
The two sat in comfortable silence, only interrupted by Gaia’s humming or Annabeth refilling her glass of water.
“So,” Gaia began.
“So?” repeated Annabeth.
“You are the woman that tamed my little Perseus,” the older woman grinned.
Oh no.
Annabeth had a lump in her throat and drinking water to solve it, didn’t work. She wasn’t just lying to Zeus and his wife. She was lying to an entire clan, from the youngest to the oldest members. What Percy and she were doing wasn’t right, neither was it fair. Sure, Percy’s shitty uncle didn’t help much by forcing him to marry the next person, but did the rest of the family deserve to be deceived as well? No, they didn’t, and that truth rested heavily on Annabeth’s narrow shoulders.
The fact that Gaia looked so much like her great-grandson was crazy. They possessed the exact same shade of sea-green. It was passed onto Rhea, Percy’s grandmother, and then Poseidon, Percy’s fucked up father. Always full of intelligence and calculation. Shifting easily from delighted and full of life to the crashing anger of a storm. Power and knowledge were key features of Gaia’s eyes.
“How did you meet my sweet Perseus again?” Gaia innocently asked but Annabeth knew that there was some sort of ulterior motive behind her question.
“At work,” she honestly answered, and Gaia smiled. The old lady was able to sense the truth.
“He’s not my direct boss, but we run into each other a lot. And we hated each other from the moment we saw each other.” Annabeth remembered how she accidentally spilled her hot coffee all over his shirt. She had been public enemy number one from then on.
“He’s an excellent boss, as much as I hate to admit it. He knows his ways around and is passionate about the ocean and its inhabitants. Definitely more passionate than me, I’m just there for the money. He actually wants to make a difference. And he’s extremely annoying, might I add.”
Gaia burst into laughter and needed a minute to calm down. Annabeth cracked a toothy grin. “Ah yes, I can see how you fell in love with him.”
Doom. Uneasiness. Discomfort. The lump in Annabeth’s throat grew bigger and bigger. Why was her vision so blurry all of a sudden? She looked down at her dress. Dark dots appeared. More sprinkled across her lap as Annabeth realized she was crying.
“I’m so sorry,” Annabeth sniffled. “I… Percy… I…”
Gaia put her knitting utensils aside and set herself upright in the armchair. “Oh no, what is going on, Annabeth?”
The calming hand on her back did not help the young professional at all. No, Gaia’s honesty and curiosity made it way worse.
“Percy and I… we’re not engaged. We did it because Zeus-” Annabeth tried to confess, but Gaia brushed her off.
“It’s okay, Annabeth. I know,” the old woman smiled.
The tears that smeared her foundation or rather what was left of it ceased to fall. “You what?!”
Shock widened Annabeth’s light gray eyes.
“I knew from the minute you stepped into my house. I’m pretty sure Rhea knows as well.”
Annabeth’s jaw fell open. “B-but how?!” she stuttered and felt like an utter and complete idiot. The first few days had been rough and difficult, but now she thought that Percy and she conveyed the illusion of being a happy couple.
“You were scared of everything including him the minute you arrived,” Gaia warmly smiled. The infectious warm smile of a grandma looking out for her little chicks. Was Annabeth now one of them?
“I knew something was off with that sudden engagement of yours with the way you two behaved. Either you were pregnant, or it was a ruse. Since you are heavily drinking and paper thin, it was clear that there was no pregnancy. You young people truly don’t eat enough anymore,” Gaia shrugged, patted Annabeth’s knee and went back to knitting the sock.
“But now… it all makes sense. You do feel something for each other. Even if you are blind to it for now.” She continued to hum. “I just hope that my dear Perseus will be the young and carefree boy he was all those years ago one day again. And I do believe that you are the key in finding him hidden underneath all those layers and walls he had put up due to his father.”
Annabeth didn’t even close her mouth during the elder’s monologue. Did Gaia seriously connote that she… that Annabeth Chase… might feel something for her soon-to-be boss? Madness. Absolute madness. She took everything she had thought of the friendly old woman in front of her back. Maybe her relatives did have a point, when they decided to brush Gaia off due to her old age.
Annabeth? And feeling something for Percy? If that something was hatred and the utmost rage, absolutely yes. But… anything else? She would receive a hefty sum on her bank account and would put in her two weeks the minute she found a better job in California.
“You know… there is a tale I’d like to tell about men.”
And Annabeth would prefer to place the glass back on the table, throw the heels away, storm out and run to the next airport.
“They are stupid vapid creatures,” Gaia carried on.
Annabeth snorted behind her glass. “That is certainly true,” she agreed and earned an honest grin from Gaia.
“My dear husband Ouranos with whom I had all of my dear children decided one day that one woman was not enough. And that twelve children were not enough.”
Twelve children?! Annabeth's womb just twisted and turned in protest. The shocked expression on Annabeth’s face made Gaia chortle loudly.
“Oh yes, back in my day we were all very fruitful,” Gaia affirmed.
“That sounds horrible,” Annabeth interjected.
“Oh, only the birth part and the eighteen years after it,” the older woman dismissed her which made Annabeth in turn laugh again.
“My father was a farmer and he had one piece of advice: never let someone toy with you. You are not a doll; you are a person with morals and dignity, a person with feelings and dignity. Let no one, especially not a man, treat you like a commodity or something to kick around. Well… when dear Ouranos left me and sought our neighbor with bigger breasts… I taught him that lesson. And I did so with my father’s trusted knife that I hung on the wall afterwards.”
There was no knife displayed on the wall. It was a fucking scythe. Large, frightening, brutal. A golden great long sickle with jagged teeth rested on the wall as if it were ready to cut you up into one thousand pieces. Was there really dried blood stuck on the teeth or was Annabeth’s drunken mind making things up?
“The minute our youngest turned eighteen he took off and was never seen again. And now, should a person, in that case my Perseus, not know how to treat you properly, you know what to do,” Gaia advised and took a sip out of her own glass.
“Uh… you mean threaten to cut his genitals off with a large and sharp family heirloom?” Annabeth’s eyes widened again.
“No, dearie…” Gaia gave it some thought. “Well maybe so, dearie,” she then went on. That made Annabeth chuckle again.
“But demand absolute respect from him. Don’t ask him for it. Demand it. I don’t know how but he has dragged you into our family and expects you to play the perfect fiancé. This will eventually blow up in his face and he will drag you along with him. Teach him a lesson, however.”
“You know what? I will!” With Gaia’s official blessing, Annabeth was all smiles and scheming new plots. If the head of the family gave her the approval of kicking Percy’s ass, she definitely would.
Steps echoed in the fireplace room and Annabeth and Gaia’s heads turned to greet the intruder. They didn’t even realize the door opened and closed again.
Gaia’s younger twin who still had some black streaks in the braids marched into the hall, curious about what the two women in front of her were previously talking about. Gaia’s youngest daughter Rhea had joined them. The large blue floral dress made her seem like she never left the late 1960s and the two long braids only added to that sentiment.
“Mamá, what is going on? By the way Percy is looking for you, Annabeth,” Rhea informed her grandson’s alleged fiancé before taking a seat in front of her and grabbing one of the many balls of yarn in front of her mother. Rhea then went on to play with it as if she was a six-year old.
“Oh no, Rhea, Annabeth and I were just chatting about love and life,” Gaia batted her eyelashes.
“You see, I gave Rhea the same advice about her disgraceful husband when he went out to seek another woman.”
Rhea rolled her eyes behind the large pentagonally glasses. “You and your stories about the scythe, mother,” she sighed.
“I have to make sure the younger generation knows!” Gaia huffed. “I won’t be here for much longer and then-”
“We'll regret all the things we’ve said and done to you, I know mamá, you have been telling me this since I was four years old and spilled my apple juice,” Rhea completed her mother’s sentence.
Rhea’s attention shifted to the smiling blonde in front of her. She grew to like Percy’s fiancé. She had a fire within herself and a backbone, all great things to handle a Theodoropoulos man.
“But my mother is right when she says that the scythe is a trusted tool. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades did scare Kronos with it after he tried some foul things with their sisters. Treated them worse. Did overall horrible things. He never wanted daughters, only sons. Didn’t seem to accept the fact that it was out of my hand.” Rhea squished the ball of light blue yarn in her hand.
“My children were always looking out for me and I will be forever grateful for them. I do hope that you will have the same feelings and love for your children.” It was clear who their father was supposed to be.
“Yes, I hope so as well,” Annabeth squeaked. Did it get hotter in here all of a sudden?
The door opened, and a worried Percy stepped into the fireplace room. “Oh, there you are,” he sighed as he immediately sighted Annabeth’s blonde unruly curls. He had been running from the basement all the way to the roof searching for her. Relief washed over his face like some shower gel from a cheap commercial. Only then did he realize that Annabeth had been cornered by both his nosy grandmother and his even nosier great-grandmother.
“Whatever they’ve been telling you, it’s a lie, it’s wrong and it never happened!” he warned her as he took a seat right next to her.
“Oh please, relax,” Rhea rolled her eyes and threw the wool at her grandson. “We have been talking about mamá’s scythe.”
“Hey!” both Percy and Gaia complained. At least they hadn’t dished out embarrassing stories of him taking off in diapers at night.
“This is expensive! You young people show no respect towards others' belongings,” Gaia cursed.
Annabeth took the blue yarn and placed it back on top of the pyramid of other colors.
“Thank you!” Gaia smiled before she focused on finishing the sock.
“You’ve found your fiancé, Perseus. Now go off back to celebrate and let us old people reminisce about the past and talk.” Rhea lazily waved at them whilst Gaia didn’t even look up from her craft.
“We will,” Percy said while getting up and casually dragging Annabeth along. He kissed both Gaia and Rhea on the cheek, Annabeth threw a hasty “See you in the morning!” over her shoulder before the couple left.
“Are you okay?” Percy asked as he pulled Annabeth aside for a small breather.
She nodded. “It’s just a bit overwhelming with the amount of people that either want to take pictures of us, hope I remember when their youngest kid’s birthday is, or they tell me they hope we have our first baby preferably in less than a year.”
Percy blushed. He didn’t think it was that bad, but then again, men are mostly left out of the baby talk until their mother’s saw that their best friend’s children had their first grandbaby. He truly didn’t have any intention of having a child before the age of forty. He had to save a business from his damned uncle, run and manage said business and preferably find a woman he tolerated enough to marry before he could even think of children.
Percy apologized again. “One week,” he promised her.
“One week,” Annabeth repeated and nodded.
“We’re going in, you’ve missed the high of the party with your talk with my yai yai, but that’s perfectly fine. The first have already left, let’s just mingle for ten minutes or so before we can-”
The door flung open. “There they are!” yelled Hermes who was followed by Zephyrus and Hercules.
None of them had any intention of letting the party stop before five in the morning. It was merely two. The minute Hermes had his sights on Annabeth, he knew that he had found his best drinking buddy aside from Dionysus himself. Oh no, Annabeth thought and rightfully so.
The minutes of calmness and rest next to Gaia did their wonders because Percy and she were thrust back into the party at full force. She didn’t exactly remember when the blackout happened, but it was roughly thirty minutes later. She was drinking, she was dancing, she was completely making a fool out of herself. The hair? A mess. Annabeth herself? Don’t even think about it. She had been dancing with Hermes and Patroclus, Aphrodite accidentally stepped on her foot one time when Ares approached her.
Percy broke his own promise and accepted a fourth glass of wine from Dionysus who insisted on it. That glass was his doom. The last droplet touched his tongue and his world turned into a flashy mist, his consciousness was broken into pieces, fragmented and sprinkled across the floor. Where he was, when he was and who he was were things he couldn’t remember. The only thing that popped up in his mind were waves of solid gold. Was it hair? Could hair truly move like that and possess that texture? And a whiff of lemon with a hint of lavender crawled up his nose. It was an odd combination, but it felt safe and like home. He liked this smell. Where did he smell this before?
Percy didn’t care, he had other matters to attend to. The first thing on the docket was finding the bathroom, he had drunk way too much. The house had weird rules in regard to bathrooms. Was it the left side or the right side that the young men could use? Why did his uncle Hades have to break two sinks in a span of a week when he was sixteen again? Why were women and others allowed to do whatever they wanted? His great-grandma and her weird plans were always set to make him fail somehow. Things that she had thought of decades ago still bore fruit today.
Percy stumbled upstairs and turned right and prayed the doors he was opening were empty bathrooms and not relatives making out. That was just what he needed. The first door he opened was of his great-uncle Oceanus and Tethys who had a face mask on her face and pink curlers up her hair. At least the old people still knew how to behave. He hoped his mother had left the party hours ago. He apologized and closed the door. The next one was an empty bedroom, his even maybe. No, his bedroom was on an entirely different floor. Or was it?
The next bedroom was closed off thank god, but from the sounds on the inside it seemed like cousin Eos and her newest catch Orion had some fun. Disgusting, Percy thought before he moved on. The next door was what he was looking for. A bathroom. Lit up, clean and empty. Empty if it wasn’t for this one woman who was clutching the brims of the polished sink. She was tall, the golden hair equaled a rat nest and her red dress seemed to have witnessed a lot.
“Ugh,” she muttered and looked into the mirror. Her eyes found his immediately.
“Percy?” she turned around.
Oh right. He was Percy Jackson, thirty-one, single, hopefully the new CEO of Atlantic INC., he had a fantastic apartment in the Upper East Side with an amazing view and he was in Greece to impress his family with his fake fiancé in order to secure his father’s legacy. His fake fiancé being Annabeth Chase, a woman he loathed, had to pay a little hush money and hoped would leave the company fairly soon after.
“You’re in the men’s restroom,” Percy then stated.
Annabeth looked around. No, it was not the same bathroom she used in the morning. Oh yeah, Gaia’s weird bathroom rules.
“Honestly who cares?” the junior marketing manager complained. “A toilet’s a toilet, no matter who uses it.”
Percy shrugged. Annabeth had a point but it wasn’t their house so they couldn’t dictate the rules.
“I wanted to retouch my makeup, but I didn’t find my makeup bag.” She walked steadily to Percy, but it was clear to both of them that she had her fair amount of shots in her system.
“Yeah, it’s probably in the other bathroom. Wait, let me use the bathroom for a second and then we can head back to our room and you can look for your makeup.”
Annabeth nodded and waited on the outside while Percy was tending his business. After drying his hands, he opened the door and found Annabeth yawning in front of one of his yai yai’s paintings. It showed the scythe from the fireplace.
“In all honesty, your great-grandmother is an amazing woman. I admire her. Showing kindness and strength each day. How old is she?”
“Turning 106 next October,” Percy smiled at her. “She always said she wanted to live long enough to see her favorite descendants find their own happiness, whatever it may be.”
The softness in his voice made Annabeth’s heart ache. She turned her head back to the painting. She was a nobody. She had no family, no traditions she could upkeep. She didn’t even have a steady relationship in the past five years. Fucking Luke Castellan. He also had to take that from her as well. Make her suffer. That’s what Athena, Friedrich and Luke all thought at the same time. And they all had nearly reached their wicked goal if it hadn’t been for her stubbornness and will to eventually blossom into something else. The first step towards that something else resided within her move to California. She wanted to leave everything and everyone behind and start a new life, somewhere where no one knew her.
A thumb brushed over her cheek. Annabeth looked up to Percy. She hadn’t even realized she was sobbing again.
“Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay,” Percy assured her. His hands found her sides, pulling her into a soft hug.
A true fiancé level hug. Annabeth had never felt that comfortable within a man’s reach. Percy might have been an awful and annoying coworker, but he truly cared about his fellow people. The way they slowly rocked and kept hugging each other reminded her of the school dance work they had put on the floor earlier. But this time it was real. This time there was no one taking pictures or yelling into their ears, or the demand to see a kiss.
Annabeth rested her face in his chest and Percy leaned his head on hers. It was like they had been made for each other. A welcoming scent greeted Percy. Lemon and lavender. The person stuck in Percy’s crumbled mind had been Annabeth. She was his anchor in the havoc his relatives had created in such a short time. He took a deeper breath. It felt reassuring.
“Did you just sniff me?” Annabeth laughed as she pulled away from him.
“You do smell good!” he defended himself with a stupid grin on his mouth.
“Oh, wait you’re super drunk,” she giggled again as she saw his widened pupils that had pushed the darkened sea-green iris away.
“Well, look at you,” he retorted.
They looked at each other. Aside from the bumping music and the noises people made downstairs it had been completely silent. He missed her warmth; she missed his comfort. Neither would have guessed that a simple embrace could offer so much. Neither would have thought they would take it to the next step within a split second.
One last look. A last time sea-green and light-gray met before each set of eyes closed and their lips met with a brutal force in the middle. Their teeth clacked but it didn’t matter to them. What mattered now, was the moment. Forgotten was the alcohol, forgotten were the troubles of past, present and future. Forgotten were the friends and relatives in the building and back in New York.
So... what do you think? 😄 Like I said, this is not the entire chapter 🤷🏾♀️ I honestly feel bad for cutting the chapter off because it's really getting more interesting from that point on 💁🏾♀️ I'll probably continue working on this once I've published the next act of The Fool 🥳
Also Greek people, if something seems off with this (aside from random English at times lol) hit me up, I definitely have to do more research!
#mel answers#pjo#percy jackson#Annabeth chase#percabeth#percabeth fanfic#may I introduce you to my beloved wife#mel writes#hoo#heroes of olympus#percy and annabeth#pjo fanfic#percy jackson and the olympians#mel spoils
166 notes
·
View notes
Note
Moss creature here to say, let's focus on some positives. What are your fav things of bioshock 1 & 2? :)
just a few things off the top of my head cause if i sit down and think about it i will be writing a full on analysis lol
the worldbuilding in general is the main reason i like the first 2 games, i got obsessed with them super young before i was analysing games as games so just the setting and art direction and all these weird scary but believable concepts were something i loved a lot, i remember seeing the trailer for the first game on tv before we had the internet at my house so i had no way to look it up to watch it again so the memory of it was just mutating in my head as this scary underwater thing with a robot i was obsessed with wanting to see for ages, then when i saw the bio2 tv trailer i freaked the fuck out and spent like 3 days rewatching it on the internet channel on the wii bc i didnt have my own laptop lmao
how creative they got with making the science behind everything grounded, like the ghosts being hallucinations of memories stored in adam and the way plasmids arent just unexplainable superpowers
i love morbid scifi and transhumanism and body horror so the big daddies n little sisters were always one of my fav things just from anything, especially appreciate the big daddy process never being explicitly shown and we just get passive details like people being grafted into the suit/the voice modifier jack uses being this scary blender claw and all the stuff in point prometheus scattered about so ur imagination fills in the blanks
eleanor n delta as characters bc i love chars forced into rly tragic bittersweet situations… them especially in good playthroughs bc they both clearly love each other despite them initially being brought together through such horrible circumstances... charles and mark too
also tenenbaum my love my muse my everything i love that they let her be weird and gross and creepy and mean, eleanor too actually i was a weird annoying little girl eating crayons playing it and i was like wow she is literally me................
honestly… i kno people criticise the way they slotted lamb into things in bio2 but i think there was no better way to add anything as big as sofia. its the kindest and most respectful to the lore bio1 lays out as it could be and even tho it cut off a lot directions they could have gone with bio2 i love that they did as much with the concept of ryan trying to erase someone from raptures history as they could and played off that idea to give other characters interesting stories
the level design usually being a nice halfway point between a realistic layout for the locations that you can picture being lived/worked/walked around in as normal and a decent layout for gameplay in general
some of my fav ui design aesthetically, appreciate a game taking the effort to keep ui consistent with theme and art direction and i love the little instructional videos lol, same with some fallout stuff i love really obviously dangerous stuff being presented as a product with little mascots and logos and i love robb waters' artstyle for them and the achievements
theres a lot of instances of it through both games but stuff where mechanics and unavoidable gameplay necessities are woven into the plot, biggest example being the fact that bio1 essentially built its plot around the trope (? probably a better word for it but i cant think of it rn) of having a guide tell you to do things and you have to do them or you cant progress and that turning out to be a manchurian candidate deal where you were doing it because you were conditioned to follow orders, and that in itself being a huge plot point and it being written so tightly into the lore where it doesnt feel out of place because of the whole theme of genetic experimentation
theres obvs way more i could say but i dont wanna clog things with like 18 pages of stuff lol, ty for this ask though i do love writing about games i luv 💚
4 notes
·
View notes
Note
How much would it cost for me to buy you a gun and mail it to you?
That really depends on the kind of gun you want to send me Annony!
I mean if you really want to bring back my childhood you could get me some of these:
Just a dollar right? But if we take shipping into effect and considering how insane that can be I’d really just say you could send me that $5 or so depending on your post office and what shipping medium you use.
Alternatively:
This fucking delight, I mean look at this. A FLAMINGO GUN m’DUDE! WHO HAS A FLAMINGO GUN? For 6.99 not including shipping and handling THIS GIRL DOES.
If WE REALLY want to go for something out there why not a FUCKING HYDRO SOAKER WITH A FRIGGEN STAND
IT
HAS
A
STAND.
THIS THING IS SO MASSIVE IT HAS TOO MUCH WATER POWER FOR IT TO EVEN BE HELD ON IT OWN. CAN YOU IMAGINE WALKING INTO A WATER BALLOON FIGHT AND WHIPPING THIS BAD BOY OUT? YOU’D DEMOLISH THE COMPETITION NO ONE WOULD QUESTION YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY PROWESS NOR WOULD THEY DOUBT YOUR POWER.
THIS IS THE FACE OF A BOY GOING PLACES which is…. is…:
Oh my god they pasted his head-on.
That isn’t even his head.
That’s someone else’s body-
Wh-
apparently the water power was too much he literally lost his head.
WHoda thunk.
OH I HAVE BEEN A FOOL
NERF BLASTERS
DUDE FOR A SMALL PRICE OF 84.93 NOT INCLUDING SHIPPING AND HANDLING YOU COULD SEND ME THIS BAD BOY. THOSE FUCKING RACCOONS WOULD NEVER MESS WITH MY TRASHCAN AGAIN.
Then again I couldn’t aim worth shit with this kind of thing, smallest little breeze and WHOOPSIE there it goes off into the atmosphere goodbye.
PROMETHEUS
THE PROMETHEUS WOULD BE PERFECT. MUILTIFUNCTIONAL. I CAN SLAM THIS AGAINST THE HEADS OF MY ENEMIES AND PELT THEM WITH TINY FOAM BALLS OF TERROR
WAIT
FOR THE SMALL SUM OF $1795 YOU CAN SEND ME THE HK ARMY MARKER- LUXE X A51 DUST RED/SILVER COLOR BECAUSE OTHER COLORS ARE INADEQUATE.
NOT ONLY CAN I MARK THEM WITH THE WEAPONIZATION WITH AN ART FORM I CAN ALSO LEAVE WELTS. MY VICTIMS WILL FALL BENEATH MY COLORFUL WRATH LEAVING BOTH RAINBOWS AND TEARS IN ITS WAKE.
WAIT FOR THE SMALL SUM OF 13900 DOLLARS USD YOU CAN SEND ME A
MOTHER FUCKING CANON.
That or for the small sum of $0 with $0 shipping and handling you can go fuck off with this thinly veiled threat and reconsider the kind of content you send to strangers under the protection of internet anonymity.
#I don't usually tell people to fuck off but come on#how much would it cost to send me a gun?#even if this is a joke its a very poor one#and really considering its on an anon#I don't know who you are#and otherwise#it seems much more like a 'go kill yourself' or a threat.#Don't be a dick guys <3#spud speaks#shitposting#Anonymous
1K notes
·
View notes
Photo
Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks
This movie has a real all-star cast as far as us MSTies are concerned. There’s Rossano Brazzi, who was Phineas Prune in The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t; Edmund Purdom, whom we know as Griba from Ator, the Fighting Eagle; and Salvatore Baccaro, the leader of the cavemen in Starcrash. The film itself is absolute, irredeemable trash and I love it like my own garbage child.
We begin out of nowhere with a bunch of peasants beating a caveman to death. What? Where are we? When are we? Who are these people? Why is one of them a cavemen wearing a fur loincloth and the rest are just normal people in pants? Why are they beating him? Did he do something that pissed them off, or do they just hate him because they’re, like, anti-Neanderthal racists? What the fuck is going on? We will never really find out. We just cut straight to Dr. Frankenstein hauling the troglocorpse into his lab.
That’s how this movie rolls. Don’t bother asking questions, just try to keep up.
Count Frankenstein’s daughter Maria has returned to her childhood home, bringing along her fiancé Eric and her friend Krista, who has an unhealthy relationship with polka-dots. Krista is immediately fascinated by the Count and his work, and he with her in turn. It doesn’t take long for Krista to find out that Frankenstein is carrying on reanimation experiments in his basement, but that’s actually the least of the bullshit going on around here. There are more cavemen out there, but there’re also rivalries and love triangles among the inevitable gaggle of deformed assistants, and the local villagers are angry about a spate of grave robbing and determined to run the Frankensteins out of town. The ‘monster’ (I’m not sure it quite counts) is kind of an afterthought.
See, Hans the Butler hates Genz the Dwarf (even though it’s actually Kregan the hunchback who is fucking Hans’ wife) so he gets him fired, and Genz swears revenge on the whole Frankenstein household. Wandering in the woods, Genz meets and befriends a second caveman, naming him ‘Ook’ and teaching him how to rape women in the hopes that he will do violence to Maria Frankenstein. Ook, however, kidnaps Krista instead. At about the same time, Genz sneaks back into Castle Frankenstein to free the first caveman, Goliath, whom the Count has been keeping strapped to a table after bringing him back to life, and who has also fallen in love with Krista as the latter assists the Count with his work. Goliath goes on a murderous rampage, then follows Genz back to the cave where Ook is keeping Krista. Sure enough, this leads to a caveman-vs-caveman battle for the girl!
Man, I would love to see earlier drafts of this script, mostly because I’m dying to know whether some prior incarnation of it actually had anything to do with Mary Shelley’s book or even with previous Frankenstein movies. I mean, it starts with the servants digging up a corpse, and ends with a torch-and-pitchfork mob destroying the Count’s creation… the beginning and end of a Frankenstein movie are present. In between those, however, it wanders off on this bizarre tangent about the local cryptids. As it reached the screen, the only thing Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks seems to have in common with its source material is the threat to the Count’s girlfriend, which was issued by the Creature in the original story. Technically, even the grave robbing and re-animating have nothing to do with Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus – the book never actually says how the Creature’s body was created. The idea of piecing it together from corpses originates with the Boris Karloff movie.
Let me describe some more of the stuff that goes on here, in order to give you the flavour of the experience. For starters, Salvatore Baccaro, playing Ook the caveman, is credited as ‘Boris Lugosi’ in the opening credits. The first time I saw this movie I snorted water up my nose when that popped on screen.
Later in the movie there’s a flashback to that first peasants-vs-caveman scene, and it answers none of the questions I listed above. Why are there cavemen in these woods? I dunno, there just are. What did the cavemen do to piss off the locals? I don’t know that, either… they may have been stealing livestock, I guess, but they don’t seem to have been a threat to the people until Genz taught them about rape. Kind of makes one wonder what happened to the cavewomen, since we never meet one and these guys don’t seem to know what women are, as illustrated by Ook initially thinking their nubile young captive is going to be dinner. Also, although there are two cavemen, they don’t know each other. Genz has to introduce them!
There’s a bit where Genz is hiding behind a clock to watch Maria and Eric have sex. The butler comes along and chews him out for it, sends him to his room, and then he stands there and watches them for a while.
In another scene, Maria and Krista go skinny-dipping in a mineral spring, and the longer it goes on the more the dialogue sounds like it’s going to break into lesbian porn. I am particularly fond of the exchange where Maria says, “don’t worry, this dress is designed to be easy to get out of,” and Krista, impressed, replies, “I’ll say it is!”
The subplot in which the butler’s wife is having an affair with the hunchback has no effect on the plot whatsoever. The butler never even finds out about it. There’s a scene in which they run off to the barn to slap each other and smooch, and then the movie forgets about it. Astonishingly, the same is true of the corpse the servants dig up early on. They exhume the body of a recently dead woman, Genz cops a feel and leaves some footprints at the scene so that the villagers can figure out who was responsible, and… that’s it. She doesn’t even hang around as a gratuitous zombie like the grave-robbed girl in The Atomic Brain.
According to Wikipedia, nobody will admit to directing this movie. Like many Italian films, the director used a pseudonym, and the cast apparently disagree on even such basics as his nationality. Some of them think he was Spanish, but Simonetta Vitelli, who played Maria Frankenstein, insists he was an American.
At the end of the movie, Ook is the first of the cavemen to be killed, and we get to see Genz weeping over his friend’s dead body. Then he and Krista hold each other as the mob closes in on Goliath. This is supposed to be a tender moment but it looks a lot like Genz (who is, you must remember, around four feet tall) is enjoying his faceful of boobs. Since all alternative love interests for Krista are now dead, maybe we’re supposed to think she ended up marrying Genz.
Finally, as Goliath’s body burns, Edmund Perdom intones, “there’s a bit of the monster in all of us, especially where there’s fear.” I’ll drink to that, my dude. ‘Twas beauty killed the beast. He tampered in God’s domain.
That probably is supposed to be the movie’s point. The villagers are depicted as suspicious, fearful, and quick to violence, while the cavemen seem to have been relatively peaceful types until Genz taught them how to rape. It’s very much the Homo sapiens who are the monsters there. Frankenstein’s servants are all assorted shades of horrible, from Genz the necrophile to the nasty cackling butler to the adulterous hunchback and cook. Count Frankenstein himself isn’t quite so overtly evil but it’s clear that he’s not very interested in the moral dimension of his work.
Even if that’s an intentional theme rather than just a pithy closing line, I don’t think anybody thought about it very hard. The rest of Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is too much of a mess. There’s no real plot, no identifiable protagonist, it’s sleazy and incoherent and at times it’s horrifyingly abelist… and yet, for reasons I cannot explain, it’s weirdly entertaining.
Maybe it’s just that everything in the film is so damn ridiculous. So much of what happens comes out of nothing and goes right back into it… a series of mind-boggling what the fuck moments that surprise the viewer over and over. The impression is that the writers are throwing horror concepts at the screen to see what sticks, but nothing does.
Maybe it’s that this is another villain-centric piece. You know I like those. I guess maybe Krista is the heroine? She seems to do the fewest horrible things over the course of the story, but she’s not a good person, either. She’s totally into the Count’s creepy reanimation experiments, and makes only a token protest about the idea of informed consent. Edmund Perdom’s Inspector character is one you’d expect to try and do something about these goings on, but he never does. Maria and Eric are only in the movie so it can have a sex scene.
Whatever the reason, the result is inexplicably charming. Between the easily distracted plot, the gratuitous breasts, the bad dubbing, the complete failure to either frighten or titillate, and the fact that it tries to tie itself to a lucrative franchise it really has nothing to do with, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is almost the perfect example of a bad Italian horror flick from the 70’s.
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
May 6, 2021: The Martian (2015) (Recap: Part One)
We’re leaving lo-fi sci-fi, people. Kind of.
I mentioned before that films like Her are what I define as “lo-fi sci-fi”, which is a category that I’ve kind of made up. Basically, it’s the science fiction version of low fantasy, meaning it contains science fiction themes contained within an otherwise contemporary setting. In the case of Her, Joaquin Phoenix’s character, along with many others, live in a world and setting basically like ours, but with technology advanced enough to generate AIs (like Siri) that are intelligent enough to actually ascend our reality. Because we live in a society.
You give me Joaquin Phoenix, I’m gonna make a Joker reference; it’s in the contract of my existence. Anyway, that is admittedly kind of broad, right? I mean, that has the capability of crossing over with a BUNCH of sci-fi genres and themes. And, considering that we’ve already seen magic, speculative technology, time travel, monsters, and artificial intelligence, we’ve already touched on quite a bit.
And with science fiction, the sky’s the limit. Literally. So, I think it behooves us to re-examine lo-fi sci-fi a little bit. Specifically, we should note that it can also be defined as an extension of currently existing technologies and possibilities. Writers would call this “speculative sci-fi”, assuming in this case that it’s set within the present or a near and attainable future. Her definitely fits in this category, as does Westworld. But, let’s crossover to another genre by speculating upon another possibility. And it begins with this man. Probably.
Hey, Elon, what’s up? Now, Mr. Musk here is a...controversial figure, for COMPLETELY understandable reasons. Instead of touch upon the man himself, I feel like touching upon one of his recent focuses: space travel. With SpaceX and the various upcoming space trips and journeys that they’re planning, Musk has made it clear that he plans to shoot to the Moon. Again, literally.
In fact, this full plan is to go even further than that, and to fuel potential commercial space flights in the future, which is admittedly very cool. And of course, if you’re going to shoot for the Moon...
Guys...guys, that’s Mars. THAT’S FUCKING MARS
Is that not amazing? We have sound and pictures from FUCKING MARS! THAT’S A DIFFERENT PLANET, GODDAMN IT! It’s cooler than I have the ability to properly express, but it IS goddamn cool. And this means that, easily within my lifetime, we could (and likely will) land on Mars. Which is amazing. God, I really want to see that happen.
And so, landing on Mars is BARELY science fiction, but since we haven’t yet done so...yeah, it’s fictional at the moment. And so, any film about landing on Mars falls within this category. Well...to an extent.
2000′s Mission to Mars, for example, was a Disney-funded film (to my IMMENSE surprise; and it’s based off of an old Disney World ride, WHAT), and a movie that I saw a LOT when I was a kid. I also barely remember it, to be honest. But that film is straight-up science fiction because of, well...aliens. The idea of Martians is, as far as we know it, fictional. And most fiction involving Mars includes these aliens somehow. Whether it’s DC Comics’ entire civilization of Martians, as seen in Justice League, Supergirl, or Young Justice...
...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s heavily mythologized civilization, as seen in the Barsoom series of novels (and another Disney film)...
...Or one of the best Looney Tunes characters.
Mmm. Yes. Isn’t that lovely?
But, yeah, Mars and aliens go hand-in-hand in our media. So, to properly look at lo-fi science and speculative science fiction in relation to the Red Planet, we’ll need a movie that goes to the planet, and doesn’t touch upon the concept of aliens AT ALL.
Enter...Ridley Scott?
Yeah, the director of Legend, Alien, Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner, Gladiator. Also the director of Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and...ugh, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. I’ve talked about his mixed record before, in my Recap of Legend right here.
In 2014, he was brought on to adapt a book by Andy Weir called The Martian, which is a great book! I’ve listened to the audio book, and I whole-heartedly recommend doing that. And because of that, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to watching this film, especially seeing as it’s often called one of the best science fiction films made during that year, and was critically acclaimed then and now. It got seven Oscar nominations (although it won none of them), amongst other awards. So, enough navel-gazing, huh? The Martian!
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Recap (1/2)
On Acidalia Plantitia, at the landing site of the Ares III mission, a group of scientists are gathering samples. These scientists are commander and geologist Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), systems operator Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), surgeon Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), German chemist Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie), and overly talkative botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon).
The group seems to have a good dynamic, but that dynamic is interrupted by a massive dust storm, which is large enough to cause the entire crew to evacuate. However, in the chaos of the dust storm, Mark is hit by debris and lost in the shuffle. Although Lewis goes back to find him, she can’t get to him before they need to leave, and Mark is believed dead. This is reported (pretty callously) by NASA Director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) to the press soon afterwards.
But of course, that wouldn’t be much of a movie, now would it? Mark’s alive! And Mark’s alone. With his suit damaged, and low on oxygen, he trudges back to headquarters, which is intact and still contains breathable oxygen. He gets inside, and realizes that he’s been stabbed in the abdomen by some debris. He removes it, and stitches up his own wound. Which is...god, it’s fucking BRUTAL just to think about, nevertheless watch.
Once he’s finished, he records a log for the future, if he doesn’t make it. It’s day 19 of the 31-day mission at this point, and Mark’s basically screwed. He needs lasting oxygen, water, and food, and he might need that for 4 years, when the next manned mission can come to the red planet. Additionally, he has absolutely no way to contact NASA, leaving him completely stranded. Another dust storm rolls in that night, and Mark looks over the belongings of his colleagues, packing them up for their eventual return. It’s somber, to say the least. However, Mark affirms that he’s determined not to die on the planet.
After doing the math, Mark should have enough food to last him for about 300 days, especially if he rations it. Until then, he’ll need to figure out how to grow his own food, on a planet where nothing grows. Which is, of course, going to be a difficult feat to accomplish. But Mark Watney’s a botanist with botany powers, and he’s gonna do it.
It’s day 31, and Mark’s brought in dirt from the outside, and uses the bio-waste from the crew’s stay there for a form of compost. After 5 days, mostly full of him watching Happy Days on TV and trying to farm, he realizes that he needs water, both for himself and for the soil. To do that, he goes chemical and decides to use hydrogen-laden rocket fuel, wood from Martinez’s belongings, and good old-fashioned fire to make water! And since hydrogen + oxygen = water, it should work. With a minor side-effect.
So, yeah, he blew himself up. As as he records a video log, the sound mixing makes itself impressively known by subtly and realistically generating a tinnitus sound. It’s VERY well-done, holy shit. Anyway, he makes a stable fire, and the place is soon covered in condensation, moistening the room and the soil successfully.
We get to day 54, and Mark’s planted leftover potatoes from the crew in order to grow them. And while he’s being mourned at a funeral on Earth, and in NASA, he’s seeing the fruits (or shoots) of his efforts.
Back on Earth, Mars Mission Director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is trying to convince Director Teddy to let him lobby for another Ares mission, despite the risk of bad press for the callousness of the proximity to Watney’s death. Meanwhile, satellite technician Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis) looks down at the Ares III site, and realizes that the site has changed visually, meaning that Mark may actually be alive.
Shocked by this, she tells Kapoor, Teddy, and media director Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) about this, and they realize the absolute clusterfuck that this whole thing is. They can’t tell the other members of the Ares III crew about it, because it’d devastate them for the 10 months they have to get back to Earth, at the VERY least. They can’t tell the WORLD about this, because they just had a funeral for the guy, and they’d reveal that they left him stranded on Mars accidentally, destroying faith in the Mars Missions Program. And they can’t save Mark, who they’re sure will starve eventually. It’s a mess. And Kapoor also wonders what’s happening to Mark psychologically through all of this.
And yet, they reveal this to the world regardless, causing the clusterfuck reaction that they think it’s going to cause. But Mark’s busy on Mars, figuring out how to get to the site of the next Ares IV mission in 4 years, at the Schiaparelli crater about 50 days travel away. This is a struggle, as his Rover has only so much power and fuel, and he can only get more power by cutting out the heater is risking death by freezing. So, problems. However, he figures out a potential solution: radioactive isotopes! In a move that is, let’s face it, COMPLETELY INSANE, he digs up a radioactive generator from the ship in order to heat the ship.
On Earth, they try to figure out Mark’s moves, as well as how to resupply Ares IV sooner for Mark’s benefit. This is with the director of JPL, Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), and the flight director of the ship Hermes, Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), who insists that they tell the Ares II crew. They continue to monitor Mark, and note that he’s been travelling for 17 days in his Rover towards something. Kapoor figures it out, and flies to California.
See, Mark needs a way to contact NASA, and he believes that the way to do so is through Pathfinder, the first probe ever sent to Mars in 1997, lasting for 9 months since landing until they lost contact. Mark digs it up, and the people at JPL in California start their own efforts for contact. And despite communication being extremely rudimentary, initially limited to yes/no questions that use a still-frame camera, it fucking WORKS! WHOO!
To boost this communication hurdle, the two camps figure out a hexadecimal system for communication, allowing them to communicate using a circular table of numbers that represent an alphabet. That allows them to teach Mark to hack into the Rover, allowing it to piggyback off of its broadcast signal and send them messages via keyboard. Nice! Now that communication is reasonably possible, Mark’s able to ask how the crew is handling his death. But upon learning that they haven’t told him. He’s understandably a little goddamn enraged. And so, they FINALLY tell the Ares III crew about this.
The news breaks the crew, even though Mark continues to stress that he’s all right, and that it wasn’t their fault. Meanwhile, Mark’s able to survive for 912 days with his potato plants, and things improve with the help of technicians on Earth. They plan to launch a supply rocket to him in the next year, and things are looking fine! Unless, of course...something goes horribly HORRIBLY wrong.
Well...fuck. Good place to pause for Part Two, then?
#the martian#ridley scott#matt damon#jessica chastain#kristen wiig#jeff daniels#sean bean#michael pena#chiwetel ejiofor#benedict wong#science fiction may#sci-fi may#user365#365 movie challenge#365 movies 365 days#365 Days 365 Movies#365 movies a year#bookstofilm#whatelsecanwedonow
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Frayed Wires (Nathan Bateman x Reader)
FRAYED WIRES (Nathan Bateman x Reader)
(so i decided i may turn the drunk texts thing into a series? i decided at least to do one with Nathan because...well...it’s Nathan. the poem he quotes is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was incidentally married to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein (or: The Modern Prometheus) which is also kind of appropriate for Nathan and anyway i sat down today and this happened.)
Word Count: 2122(ish)
Summary: All you want to do is sleep. All Nathan wants to do is talk.
Warnings: Language, naturally.
(Nathan’s texts are in bold. Your texts are in bold and italic.)
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
You reached blindly for your phone as it rattled on the bedside table. You had no idea what time it was but you did know it was the middle of the night, your phone should not be going off, and you had gotten entirely too little sleep. Like, maybe two hours worth. You were so tired and groggy that you made the mistake of checking your messages before you actually even thought about what you were doing.
Do you ever think about the meaning of life?
I mean like really think about it.
Why we’re here, why the sky is green and the grass is blue?
No wait that’s not right.
You sighed and buried your face in the pillow. It was 3:27 in the morning and Nathan was texting you. Which was just odd anyway, since he knew where your room was and it was much more his style to just walk in and start a random conversation with you in person.
He was probably drunk.
And now he could see that you had read the messages, so you were going to have to reply, or he really would show up at your door. Technically it was his door, it was his house, you just worked for him and stayed there, but the point was you were not in the mood to deal with him at all right now, and most decidedly not in the flesh.
You rolled your eyes before sending him a reply. You really should just ignore it, but...you were annoyed. Nathan was annoying. And it was now 3:30 in the morning and you were going to push a few buttons. Figuratively AND literally! your sleep-deprived brain cheered.
And things like why is water wet and air is invisible?
YES exactly see that’s why I want you.
I’m sorry?
Your brain. I want to pick you up. Your brain I mean. Pick your brain.
You just want me for my brain, huh?
You have a very nice brain.
Yep, Nathan was definitely drunk.
Not that him being drunk was anything out of the ordinary. But a few hours ago, when you were both in the lab testing some of his most recent ideas about the AI code, he had seemed...normal? Well, normal for Nathan anyway. He wasn’t irritated, he wasn’t condescending, he was actually (you honestly could not believe you were even thinking this) pleasant to be around.
You had been working for Nathan as his personal assistant for a few months. It was a promotion for sure over being a code slinger in a cubicle, but sometimes you honestly wondered what made you say yes to this bizarre existence. It was a beautiful house, beautiful scenery, interesting and highly intellectual conversations...when Nathan was sober.
There was also something you could never quite put your finger on. Something that was shifting as the weeks went on and you spent more time working alongside Nathan in the lab. As you spent evenings eating sushi and steaks and whatever else you were in the mood for that night (most nights, he actually let you choose the menu, you realized.) As you took afternoon walks around the estate, just taking in the scenery. As you debated various philosophies and ideas and theories and tried your damndest to prove Nathan wasn’t always right about everything. He almost seemed like he appreciated it all, but he would never say anything.
And you weren’t about to open that can of worms. Especially when he wasn’t sober.
How drunk are you right now?
On a scale of shitfaced to really fucking blitzed I would say I’m feeling no pain.
Jesus Christ. Well that was obvious. It was obvious just from the fact that he was texting you. Nathan was so uptight about security and data leaks and wiretapping and signals being hijacked (he’d admitted to doing it himself, so he did have a point) but had decided, after much insistence from you, that rigging the cell phones to only work inside the compound was an acceptable idea. It was so vast, you’d said, and what if something happened and one of you was all the way across the house or down in the lab, how were you supposed to let the other person know? It made sense at the time.
Now you were vaguely regretting it.
You could count on one hand the number of times you’d actually considered your boss to be pleasant to be around, and you still had your thumb left over just in case you needed to add to that tally.
At least personality wise. He was definitely pleasant to look at. Very pleasant.
You coughed and cleared your throat. That was not a line of thought to travel right now. The proper course of action was to get him to stop texting you.
A few minutes passed in glorious silence. Maybe a new, shiny thought had occurred to him and he was madly writing it down on a Post-It note. Maybe he just got bored and went to get a new drink. Maybe he’d finally just passed out and---
What are you thinking about?
Dammit. How to make you shut up, your brain snapped back. How to get you to let me sleep. How good your arms and shoulders look in that tank top after you’ve been hitting that punching back and you’re flushed and sweaty and…. Oh no. No no no. Stop it right now, brain.
Nathan hated to beat around the bush. Straightforward was the best policy with him, right?
How to get you to shut up and let me sleep.
Wonderful, glorious silence for exactly forty-six seconds.
Bro...that’s...so not cool.
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Why were you participating in this? Why was he? You narrowed your eyes and looked toward a corner of your room. You hoped he could see you glaring into the camera that you knew was there and that he was watching while he was texting you. If not, you were sure he would watch it in the actual morning and you hoped the look was withering enough to make him think twice. Probably not. Because this was Nathan Bateman.
Your incredibly narcissistic, incredibly intelligent, incredibly attractive...stop it brain.
But he was pushing your buttons right back. Neither of you could ever really back away from an exchange like this..
I’m not your “bro”, Nathan. Please knock this shit off.
Dude, it’s a figure of speech.
I’m not your dude, either. Please just stop talking.
What’s wrong with dude. Dude is a gender neutral term, anyone can be a dude. Guys are dudes, chicks are dudes, dudes are dudes
Yeah, well, you’re kind of being an asshole, dude.
Dude. Chill.
Turning my phone off now.
No, wait, don’t. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.
Now that was...unexpected. Nathan Bateman just apologized to you? For being a drunk asshole in the middle of the night? Your eyes narrowed again. Suspicious.
You’ll stop texting me so I can go back to sleep?
No not that. I’ll stop calling you dude.
Oh for the love of...you closed your eyes and briefly considered the merits of hurling your phone at the surveillance camera.
Nathan, seriously, can we please just leave this until the morning?
A whole minute of wonderful, glorious, blessed silence this time. You couldn’t believe he might be considering this.
You were right.
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away
If a brain cramp was an actual thing, yours would most certainly be doing it now. You could barely even process it. He was drunk as hell and he was quoting poetry to you? You supposed you probably shouldn’t be entirely surprised, he’d quoted Oppenheimer once in a worse stupor (which you could only quantify because he had actually passed out that time.)
Are you fucking serious right now.
What.
Are you fucking quoting Ozymandias to me right now?
I am.
You couldn’t get the color of the sky right earlier, and now you’re just flawlessly quoting philosophical Romantic poetry at me?
I am.
You are not a normal person, Nathan Bateman.
What is normal anyway, besides really fucking boring? Who wants to be normal?
I would like to be somewhat normal, at least between the hours of midnight and 8am.
See, I knew there was a reason I liked you.
That was the second time he said that, you noted. You found it hard to believe. Nathan liked his work, his routine, his own brain. He liked talking about his work and how smart he was. Other than telling you that you were doing a great job, he barely handed out a single compliment, and if he somehow accidentally did, it was so backhanded you weren’t sure you could actually define it as one.
You mean you like my brain.
Well, yeah, your brain is fucking amazing. It has to be if you work with me.
I work for you, Nathan, not with you. But thanks?
No, no, see, that’s where you’re wrong. You work with me. We’re like partners. None of that employer employee bullshit.
Oooookay now I am one thousand percent sure you are completely piss drunk.
I am but that doesn’t make it any less true.
You could almost hear him saying those words in your head. You could see the way his eyebrows went up, the intensity in his eyes, the way he held his finger up to make the point.
The thought made your brain go slightly fuzzy, and not from exhaustion. Because now you were wide awake. Damn him.
Okay, Nathan, I’ll bite. What do I have to do to get you to stop doing this right now?
There was a pause before he answered, and you swore you’d heard a phone alert that wasn’t your own. It sounded like it was coming from...oh no, he wasn’t…
Getting tired of typing. Can I come talk to you for a while?
Are you outside my door right now?!
You heard the phone chime very clearly this time. He was, definitely.
I am.
You sighed, deeply. So deeply.
Is that really a good idea?
I think it’s a great idea.
Nathan, being serious here.
You could have sworn you heard him sigh from the other side of the door. He could have just come inside. It was his house, his keycard worked on all the doors.
But the door didn’t open.
So am I. Please can I come in? My mind just won’t shut off and I really am fucking drunk but talking to you is helping but tired of typing shit out, I’d rather say it to you.
I wanna see you. And tell you how sexy your brain is.
And that I like you for more than your brain.
And you knew in that instant there really was only one way to get him to shut up. And it was to just let him talk. It made sense, in an oddly Nathan kind of way. What’s the worst that could happen, really? He’d come in, you’d talk, he’d eventually pass out, maybe you could get a couple more hours of sleep, and then in the morning you’d either talk about it on a very deep cerebral level or you’d just pretend it had never happened at all.
A press to the door release button on the side of the table and the latch let go. The door opened, revealing Nathan standing on the other side. Still wearing what he’d been wearing in the lab earlier that night, black lounge pants and that tight white henley he seemed to love so much. The corner of his mouth turned up in the most miniscule of smiles, but it was there.
You were about to toss your phone back onto the bedside table, when the text alert went off again. You shot an exasperated look in his direction, but gamely checked the message.
Did you mean what you said before? About biting?
You glanced up at Nathan and saw that the sliver of a smile had taken over most of his face and his eyebrows had raised to emphasize his question.
You didn’t say anything. You didn’t text him back. You just nodded your head to the empty spot next to you in your bed.
You had a feeling you weren’t going to get any sleep tonight after all.
~end~
taglist: @anetteaneta @rosemarysbaby13 @darksideofclarke @girlwiththemostcake
(taglist is open, let me know if you’d like to be tagged for future fics)
#oscar isaac#oscar isaac characters#nathan bateman#nathan bateman x reader#nathan bateman x you#ex machina#ex machina fic#writing#fanfic#drunk text fic
118 notes
·
View notes
Text
One Piece Chapter 1009 - Initial Thoughts
And we are back, happy Good Friday
though every day’s a Good Friday when One Piece is out
1009 is in, and it happens to be my 200th post (admittedly kinda kept that way since I skipped doing a Godzilla vs Kong review)
So let’s get to it
Spoilers for Chapter 1009, Please Also Support the Official Release
Starting with a Color Spread. It was cute, sweet baby Tama in Ringo with the crew, I was curious abut the coat of arms on Franky’s jacket, plus there’s another ‘Zoro consumes something with a blue dragon on it’ - his scabbard isn’t Enma though, it’s Black - and I later realised that Tama is wearing an outfit that isn’t patched up which made me feel warm
But the statues discern me, Five praying statues, four with the Akazaya hats. If this Oda hinting at the deaths? Four Akazaya dying? Tama’s bringing a straw hat to the other so are we death flagging a potential Straw Hat too? Or is it just a non-Akazaya? The first could be Ashura considering that Nami is tying a scarf on it, their fate ‘sealed’, or maybe I’m just looking way too into it
The chapter title isn’t foreboding as well
Of course we were all in the group of ‘Why is Orochi burning Onigashima, is he dumb?’ group, and motive wise he still is, but I did come to a realisation on why this is a problem. Onigashima is in the air, there can’t be much water around to douse the fire
Orochi and the Akazaya finally cross paths for the first time since Oden’s death
Interesting note by MegaForehead, maybe that’s strategic?
I don’t see a missing head from his transformation, though he only used six heads and Orochi has at least 8
Kin’emon is in No Mood
*Insert GTA Wasted scene here*
Kiku far side with one arm just with the most disappointed look ever
And Raizo is next to stay behind to fight with his old rival
I don’t think Orochi is done though; either he still has one more head or they grow back. The Yamata no Orochi couldn’t regenerate heads so it’s the most likely, but we can’t rule out hydra rules
Back to the dome roof though and we learn something new from Law, a strong enough Haki can fight his Shambles, it’s a decent limitation from the OP OP Fruit
A combo attack from two Yonko though is something you need to be scouting for very early guys
Ocean Sovereignty is definitely no joke...though it didn’t slice off the other horn
Roronoa ‘Let me block a Yonko combo attack’ FUCKING ZORO
Okay I take back the horn comment it’s a different direction
What is this dome’s structural integrity anyway?
Law of course pulls Zoro out of the line of fire because he can’t hold it off forever, Kid with the backhanded compliment though
You hurt one of Luffy’s nakama though, so that always leads to Luffy charging in
Luffy’s got a point, why dodge if it’s not affecting you? That’s how Luffy knows he’s doing something
Kaido did not like that insinuation though, he can still shoot dragon fire in Hybrid form and that’s a big ouch for Ragnarok
So now Zoro is pissed off because you hurt his captain, but he’s gotta stick to the plan
Zeus always getting yoinked, this time put in a box
Then Zoro out here cutting up Prometheus while Killer picks on Napoleon
Could be a telling thing that BM doesn’t even consider saving her homies, just that she finds it a poor strategy
Big ouch for Kid though, right in the smush
But part of the plan, putting all the metal on her to magnet her away, then Law with the boulder
BM’s about to be dumped into the water, now she’s scared
But I would worry about Zoro coughing blood...
I don’t think BM is done right now, I think there’s 5 options that’ll save her right now: Prometheus - reforming because Zoro’s body gave in a little, Kaido - since nobody’s paying attention to him after flattening Luffy, her crew down by the water that have been following the island, she Homifies some of Kaido’s fire clouds or she falls but not in the ocean - instead she crashes on land and it causes her amnesia again.
There were only really 2 parts of this chapter: Orochi vs Akazaya and the Yonko vs Supernova. Neither of which I feel are going as well as it looks. Orochi will probably survive once more which can cause trouble for the lagging behind Raizo. The Supernovas are still struggling with the attrition problem, to cause minor problems for the Yonko they have to wear themselves down hard, to the point where it’s almost pyrrhic. Oda has however done a good job in making sure any doubts about Kaido’s hybrid form have been kept at bay, he is still as vicious and agile as before.
I don’t think Luffy nor Zoro are quite done yet, Luffy is resilient and he’s got his Haki back, he just is mulling over the situation: his attacks hurt Kaido which is why he dodges, so how will he use that to his advantage? As for Zoro, he’s taken a heavy hit yes, if BM is delayed Law might be able to doctor him a little but I don’t fear too much for Zoro because injury seems to bring out the best in him. And blocking Ocean Sovereignty even for a short while is a hugely impressive feat.
No break next week means we might get a quick resolve, or we might just see more Akazaya having to fall behind, King and Queen still don’t have fights and we don’t know where Sanji is right now, Perospero and CP0 have been quiet and if Onigashima does indeed have ocean below it then they’ve not made landfall in Wano’s main island yet (contrary to the mountain we saw in an earlier chapter)
it’s still worth reminding though, we are probably due a tragedy at the end of this act...until Act 4 it’s best not to expect a climax
#one piece#one piece spoilers#op spoilers#wano#wano country#wano country arc#one piece wano#onigashima#onigashima raid#akazaya nine#raizo of the mist#raizo#kin'emon#foxfire kin'emon#kikunojo#okiku#kikunojo of the lingering snow#cat viper#nekomamushi#kawamatsu#kawamatsu the kappa#denjiro#kurozumi clan#kurozumi orochi#fukurokuju#big mom pirates#big mom#Charlotte Linlin#beasts pirates#hundred beast kaido
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thess vs Water Issues
Today was a lot of hyperfocusing past a migraine. Because my brain is weird. But also Aloy Helping Folks.
Okay. Now, with the restart, has this made Jekkata's pathing work properly?
YES! ...Oh, hi, lady.
Wait. So ... there's no water at all now? And you're lying to everyone about it, lady? Really? Well, show me your well.
Oh, hey, pipes.
SHUT UP, LADY; I AM A SEEKER. Got the face paint and everything. Now let's go see where this pipe goes.
Oop. Machines. Let's sneak past those so we don't get too far waylaid.
Hey, look! Water! YES, I can tell that from damp sand; shut up, Yarra.
Oh, good. We have actual proof that I know what the fuck I'm doing.
Ah. Can't sneak past these machines. Soooo ... weak spots. Weak spots. Weeeeeeeak ... spots.
"A quiet kill. Good." Thanks for the validation, Yarra, but you're still annoying as fuck.
Why are you so pissed off at Drakka just because one of his men died trying to find more water? Are you that invested in being the sole source of water for your tribe? What the fuck, lady?
"He SABOTAGED--" Yarra. Shut up. He obviously didn't know what he was doing. You didn't even know this was here or what it was, and the only reason you know it's connected to your Wound now is because I told you so! Could you stop being paranoid for five minutes?
Right. Have to do this in order and speedily. Ugh.
Nope.
Noooooope.
Third tiiiiiiiiiiime ... IS the charm. Okay, you guys should be more or less back to normal soon--
Waitwut. Yarra, what the fuck is your malfunction?!?
Okay, back to Shattered Spear to make sure this all worked. ...Grab a few campfires first because why not?
And we're back and-- Oh. Hi, Drakka.
So ... you're going to basically divide the tribe in two and fight to the death and that's going to mean the whole bunch of desert Tenakth has a civil war?!? While you have rebels picking you off? Yeah, okay, fine, I will try to talk sense into people.
...I will kill some Spinesnouts first, though, because why not? I'm getting way, way better at hitting them at the weak spot right at the top of their backs near the head. The blast radius when you hit that spot is impressive.
Okay, back to attempts at diplomacy. You're at least listening to me. Can I try to talk some sense into both of you? Drakka ... you have a point, but this might not be the way. Yarra ... you ... are a paranoid freak and I cannot in good conscience side with you. So if I have to choose...
And that's Yarra done. And yeah, kind of wish we hadn't had to kill her, but I figure given Regalla, that's a thing.
Gathering more campfires aaaaaaand-- Ooh. Rebel camp.
Wow. This is some surgical-precision shit I'm pulling off.
FUCK my aim was off melee melee MELEE--
Wait. Did I just actually use one of my melee moves? Really?!? Okay, how did I do that and can I do it again? Y'know what? Don't care. POONK.
Oh, it's these Prometheus thing again. So ... well, they have a lot fewer weapons, a lot fewer people, and are down one prisoner. Not bad for a day's work.
Now, let's go find Runda's stuff-- Wait, I have to ride the Bristleback? Oh well. Let's hope I don't alert anything.
WHY CAN I NOT OVERRIDE THIS ONE? Oh. Because it's Apex. That's why.
THIS one looks promising-- Theeeeeeeere we go.
Site one - machines killed, supplies dug up. Mounting again and ... next!
Site two - second verse, same as the first. And onward tooooo...
Oh. Great. Rebels. LEAVE MY BRISTLEBACK ALONE, REBELS! ANYONE SHOOTS IT, IT'S GOING TO BE ME!
Repair repair repair ... dig dig dig... Okay. Bye, Bristleback!
Firegleam! WOO! Aaaaand more vendor trash. Oh, and a data entry. I can live with that.
What's this question mark? Drone. Climbing climbing climbing... And done. I can drop this off when I go after that third triangulation point later. For now, a couple of campfires and--
Oh. I ... seem to have tripped over main quest stuff. I ... am not ready for that today, but--
OMG THEY HAVE A VARRIC. Also I love these people.
"The most beautiful woman, enticing us towards lobster feasts and beeves and--" OMG YOU'RE WETTING YOURSELF OVER A SURF-N-TURF AD!
"And jack-pots! I ... don't know what those are, but it must be something good--" Laughing so hard right now and I know I shouldn't but gods, this is what they make of holo-ads OMG.
Hey. Abadund. Shush, you. I can help, and I promise I won't let Morlund drown himself. So yes, I will get you the bits you need, and those embers and stuff. But first, drop off Runda's supplies.
Okay, now they won't starve. Good. Now look for the last of Runda's lost stuff. But first, black box-- And it's blocked off by a metal flower. SHIT.
So there's a couple of shelters near the spot I need, but I think if I fast-travel to that rebel outpost I cleared out instead, I can get that last campfire I missed--
I CLEARED THIS PLACE OUT WHY ARE THERE REBELS?!? FUCK OFF, RAVAGERS!
Right. Got the elusive campfire. Aaaaaand ... yeah, need to find what took their shit.
Skywing took their shit. I get to bait it with dead machine again! Hee!
Baiting done. Stealthily following but I honestly know where it's going so not sure why I'm bothering.
Okay. We're at the nest. Bye, Skywings!
Here you go, Runda. At least you're not all going to die out here. Oh, and you want your Rollerback salvage? I'll see what I can do. I hate those uppity AI-driven pillbugs anyway.
Y'know, I honestly don't entirely remember where I left off, partly because the migraine reasserted itself as soon as I stopped playing (or at least that was when I noticed the ow properly), but that covers the salient bits. Saved a bunch of Oseram delvers from starvation and exposure, got the water turned back on, got Paranoid-Lady out of the command seat of the Desert Tenakth, and picked off another major rebel settlement. Also unlocked a lot of campfires, so I can hop around a bit easier. Not bad for someone made of migraine.
Not sure if trying to switch it back on to hyperfocus awhile longer is a good idea. I may find something lower impact for that - at least until the mallet meds kick in a bit more.
Did I mention how much I hate having chronic health issues? Because I hate it.
1 note
·
View note
Text
my favorite threats/insults
I will equant you with my favorite pair of rusty scissors
You look the way cheese smells
You’re not even worthy of being the skin rug that I would use to wipe off my Doc Martins
You’re not even worthy of even being turned into dog food
I will pistol whip your grandpa
I will churn your spinal fluid to butter
I will turn your teeth into wind chimes
I will fold you like a fucking lawn chair
You smell like Reddit
You look like the type of person to wipe with a sock when you run out of toilet paper
Your nipples are the size of dinner plates
If this guy has a threesome I hope his girl moans louder when the other guy is fucking her
You pre-sucked candy Cain from last Christmas
You look like the type of person to knock on an elevator door and expect someone to open it
I don’t listen to people who look like their taste in music would be played at a department store
You look like someone who would cheat on their s/o
You look like a twice divorced mom with a liberal arts degree who’s trying to get their oldest child to call them once a month
I wish I could go to your funeral knowing that I could have changed that outcome
I hope you reach out to me so I can ignore you
Your neck is so long that if you drank milk it would expire before it hit your stomach
I’m sure you smell like hotdog water
You’re about as attractive as a sea sick dog
You look like you eat kitty litter
Sorry I don’t talk to people with eczema, see you later alligator
Please tell me you and your s/o use condoms
God I wish your parents used a condom
You’re as useful as a Walmart greeter
Were your parents siblings or just cousins?
Im heading up to the store to buy you some critical thinking skills
Please put your Dick down the sink and turn on the garbage disposal
You’re the outlier pulling down the Average IQ statistics
You’re contributing to the reasons as to why God has left us
You look like you eat mayonnaise straight out of the jar
I will cunt punt you to the moon
Please tell me you don’t plan on having kids
I will cough in your mouth
I hope you find your parents on the front page of PornHub and so you can’t look them in the eyes, and you can’t tell them why you’re uncomfortable being around them
I hope your only OnlyFans subscriber is your uncle
Douche-canoe
You have the personality of the color beige
If you were a spice you’d be flour
I hope whatever you’re going through sucks
You have an IQ of room temperature
Okay caterpillar fingers
I don’t even want to call whatever sad sack of flesh you are a human being
I hope you never find true happiness out of whatever you choose for your future career
I pray for your downfall
I hope Mother Nature gets her way with you
I want to bash your head into a wall so hard that I break both the wall and your skull
You look like you’d think that seasoning salt is spicy
I will bite your fingers off like baby carrots
Your blood will be my lotion
I hope you have to see your children getting lowered in their graves
Dust for brains
Salt rock licking moron
I hope you get brain damage and that you have to eat out of a tube for the rest of your life
Dick cheese
You look like you’d smell like raw ground beef
I wish I get the liberty to dunk your head into a Wendy’s fryer
Whorelette
Whoreling
Bitchlet
I hope tonight you get into a super comfy position, and right as you start to relish in how comfortable you are, you have to pee
You’re the cum shot your mom should have swallowed
The only thing that wants to suck your dick is your vacuum cleaner
You ignorant slut
Fruit fucker
Please go stare into the sun
i will crucify you
you half shaven pube
prometheus did not get his liver eaten out for all of eternity in hell just for you to say some dumb ass shit like that
i will turn your penis into a penwas
better start calling you a calendar bc your days are numbered
why is seconds hand embarrassment from what someone said so much worse than first hand embarrassment?
don’t you have a virginity to lose?
the amount of money i would pay to see you get hit by a bus right now
i’m not saying that i hate you, i’m just saying that i’d like to hit you with a car
i bet you were only ever bottle fed
God modeled your brain after a dried up piece of chewed gum
i hope your dog gets into your chocolate and throws up on your rug
feel free to add on to this list! <3
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Secret Garden || intro
summary: for years and years, your mother whispered to you stories of the mythical secret garden, and for years, you thought they were just that: stories. but what happens when one day you stumble upon a place beyond your wildest imagination and not a clue how you got there?
come in and discover the legends of the Secret Garden.
pairing: ___ x reader, BTS x reader
genre: fluff, romance, fantasy, alternate universe! au, smut (possibly?? *eyebrow wiggle*)
words: 1.7K
a/n: this is my first series and i’m super excited! this series will have a story in the garden for each member. please read the intro before delving into the stories!!! the intro sets up the stories, so its important to read, cuties. choose one to read or choose them all. either way, can’t wait to see you in the Garden! (send an ask to be added to the taglist!!)
“Do you ever think there could be other worlds besides ours?” your friend, Aila, asks while shoving a fistful of buttery popcorn in her mouth.
It was Movie Night in your shared apartment, and your friend and roommate, Aila’s, brilliant suggestion of Prometheus was gracing your T.V. screen. She loved movies about otherworldly creatures coming to Earth and especially loved when an invasion was involved. You often questioned her movie taste, and she would explain that she likes the idea of Earth “not being the only planet with viable and intelligent beings.” It sounded insane, but in some ways it made sense, you rationalized.
You shifted on the comfy couch to look towards her. While you didn’t necessarily refute the point, you couldn’t be sure that you could answer such a question or even know where to begin with an explanation.
“When I was younger,” you started, “my mom used to always tell me stories of this other world that had a garden.”
“Sounds fucking boring,” she retorted. You hit her shoulder and she winced in fake pain.
“Shut up. Like I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted, she would tell me stories of this place. The way she talked about the garden… it made it seem like it was real,” you smiled remembering. “She said that every flower in existence bloomed there, and that as soon as you entered, a wave of calmness immediately washed over your body. ‘A pure form of serenity,’ she said.”
“No offense but it sounds like that time I got high at the Botanical Gardens with Nico last summer,” she laughed and you shortly followed suit.
“Yeah, but she also talked about these beings that lived there. I think she said there were seven of them. She said that they looked like humans, but on a closer look, their beauty was too ethereal to be so,” you babbled.
Aila’s face contorted into confusion and wonder as you recalled the stories your mother told you at bedtime each night. The movie long forgotten, Aila inquired more and more about your beloved stories until the music signaling the end credits began to play. Aila stood up and began clearing the popcorn strays from the couch while you walked over to turn on the lights in the living room.
Your roommate let out a yawn paired with a sound that could easily be compared to a banshee, and let you know that she would be heading to sleep as she had work early in the morning. You nodded your head in acknowledgement and let her know that you would be staying a while in the living to catch up on a show you had been binge-watching that week. Her door to her room closed and you landed on your couch with a fwump!
“Finally I get to watch this damn show!” you exclaimed, reaching for the bucket of popcorn Aila left out for you. The intro to Elite started rolling, and you snuggled deeper into the worn-in couch. You let out a sigh of relaxation, allowing yourself to get immersed in the show.
Two episodes and about 3 hours later (you used one of the hours to mindlessly scroll through your social media), you decided, albeit belatedly, that you should head to bed due to work being in seven hours. Working in research wasn’t as taxing as you thought, but it still required you to be awake and not slobbering on a keyboard for eight hours, as great as it sounded.
You started to head toward your own room when you heard a thump against one of the doors in the small hallway where the doors leading to the bedrooms existed. You decided that you were more tired than you felt and thought the result was auditory hallucinations; however, as you got closer to the middle door between you and Aila’s bedroom, you heard it once again and this time louder.
“Aila, what the hell are you doing in there?” you called out but there was no response.
When you and Aila first toured the apartment, the middle door did not go unnoticed. When asked about the door and why it was locked, the landlord simply said that he bought it that way and never received a key. Many jokes were made in terms of what lie beyond the door; moreso by Aila and her extraterrestrial fantasies than you, but they induced plenty of laughs nonetheless.
The thumping occurred from the middle door again, and fear slowly crept into your veins making your body feel a rush of coolness in the process. You knew not to try to open the door, not that it was even possible, but you also knew that you wouldn’t be able to sleep with that incessant noise. You started banging on Aila’s door.
“Aila, girl, I KNOW you hear that noise. Hurry up and come out! I’m scared,” you whined, but she still didn’t reply. You knew Aila was a heavy sleeper, but damn was she sleeping deep if she couldn’t hear you.
You twisted the knob to her door and ran in expecting to see a lump on plump blankets in a human silhouette. Instead, you found her bed completely made, no human in sight. There was no way that Aila could have gone out the window, you guys were on the tenth floor. Things weren’t adding up, and you were on the verge of tears.
A morbid curiosity suffused throughout your being as you slowly began walking towards the middle door. The thumping got louder with each step you took, and at some point, you couldn’t distinguish between the pounding of your heart in your eardrums and the perpetual beat against the mahogany entrance. You reached the door, and your hand encased the golden knob. You noted that it felt warm for a door that had supposedly not been used for a lengthy amount of time. With a twist of the knob, you were shocked to hear a click indicated the outdated door had been unlocked. You stood there for what seemed like forever, an array of questions racing through your mind. You finally gathered what little courage you had left and swung the door open.
It was a bittersweet feeling when you listened to your mom. All those times when you wished you were spirited away from your life only to continue the mundane quickly taught you that stories were just stories. Myths were myths. Lies were lies. And gardens of every flower didn’t exist but in fairytales.
So why, beyond a mysterious door in a crappy apartment, are the most beautiful meadows of flowers swaying in the wind, dancing a dance of entrancement, almost as if they were personally inviting you inside? Your eyes glassed over as you tried to process the view. It was as if your eyes were stuck in their place.
You were frozen.
It wasn’t until you heard the door shut behind you that realized you had moved inside. Your eyes whipped back, but you found yourself staring at acres and acres of flowers, not a door in sight.
“Is there a reason you’re standing there like an idiot?” you heard a voice say.
When you turned around, your eyes met your best friend and roommate. She donned a sheer ivory dress with golden acacias adorning her bodice and train. The silk threads shone in the sun almost as if the dress had been sewn by the heavens themselves. Her skin was as smooth as glass and possessed a beautiful brown pigment with a hint of olive. Champagne glitter bedecked the areas around her eyes, and her hair was tied up in a braid full of a different selection of flowers. Her eyebrow was raised and her arms were across her chest. You could hear her foot tapping against the ground in irritation.
“Aila?” you whispered.
“Who?” she practically yelled, “That is not my name, nor has it ever been.”
You blushed, “then who are you?”
“Who am I?” she scoffed, “More like who are you? You’re the one who stood in the middle of the meadow as if you were waiting for someone to check you into a hotel.”
Her tone was pissing you off, and if you had felt more comfortable in this situation, you would have told her exactly where she could have put it. Instead, you were too busy trying to figure out whether or not Aila put something in her popcorn.
“I’m Y/N, and I don’t even know where I am or how I even got here,” you choked.
The girl gave you a look then closed her eyes and sighed. She turned on her heel and began walking in the opposite direction without saying another word. Your eyebrows furrowed and your temper threatened to lose itself, but when she found that your footsteps were nowhere to be heard, she stopped in her tracks.
“Are you coming or what?” she bleated. You nodded slightly and began walking quickly to catch up with her.
You walked beside her for what seemed like forever, not sharing one word between each other, so you decided to take in your surroundings.
You could see the flowers, yes, but you also saw little creatures you had never seen before participating in different tasks. Some were watering sections of plants, some were flitting and flying, sprinkling an unknown substance from the air that shone like diamonds, and some were simply laying down and napping in the sun. You walked further and found little manmade living spaces made from materials like twigs and leaves, and silently thought how adorable it all was. Just when you were counting your hundredth house, the girl suddenly stopped.
“We’re here,” she stated.
In front of you, seven paths diverged and outstretched throughout the pasture. Each one looked uniform at first glance, but the longer you looked, the more you could see the slight differences. With your lips slightly parted, you turned back towards the girl, however, the space she occupied was now taken up by a lanky, ginger, cat-like entity licking its paw.
“What?” it spoke with the girl’s voice.
You jumped back slightly but a calm hushed your body. You took a deep breath.
“What am I supposed to do now?” you asked.
“What do you normally do when you see multiple paths?” she snickered, continuing to lick her paw. You stayed silent and looked towards her. She stopped licking and instead arched her back gracefully.
“Choose.”
#kim namjoon#kim seokjin#min yoongi#jung hoseok#park jimin#kim taehyung#jeon jungkook#bts scenarios#namjoon smut#seokjin smut#yoongi smut#jhope smut#jimin smut#taehyung smut#jungkook smut#seokjin x reader#yoongi x reader#hoseok x reader#jimin x reader#taehyung x reader#jungkook x reader#namjoon x reader
34 notes
·
View notes
Text
i’ll be your eyes (you be my face)
‘cause darling i get scared for you, and i’m not busy anyway.
It’s unspoken, but Luke is pretty sure they’re trading off on who gets to have a breakdown every week. (Or, Luke and Ashton help each other. Heal each other. Same thing.)
TWs: depression, suicide ideation, general angst. you guys asked for it. title from the song anyway by noah kahan.
read it on ao3 here
~
It’s unspoken, but Luke is pretty sure they’re trading off on who gets to have a breakdown every week.
Last week it had been Ashton, and Luke thinks he did a decent job talking him down from it. He has some practice. Ashton’s always been — well, they’ve all been fragile, from the very start, but Ashton has always been the most obvious about it. Michael lashes out. Calum pulls himself inward. Luke keeps it quiet. But Ashton bleeds. Ashton leaves himself open and vulnerable, cries tear stains into the carpets and tour bus floors and hotel pillows. This is just the way things are. Ashton bleeds. He’s the only one who does.
This week, though, it’s Luke. Luke knows that because it’s a terrible day, and they’re sitting at dinner and Luke is staring at his plate, and Ashton’s just cracked a joke about something, and now Luke’s heart — his chest — everything’s wrong, and he wants to cry where he didn’t just a moment ago. He’s not hungry. Has he ever been hungry?
“Luke,” Ashton repeats, but Luke buries his face in his hands instead, elbows digging into the table. This is how it is. They do this over and over. It’s his turn to fucking lose it, isn’t it? He’s earned the right. “Luke. Are you — what can I do?”
Luke shakes his head. “Not hungry,” he says, and then without ceremony pushes his seat back and retreats to his room, shutting the door behind him.
He feels desperate and stretched thin and achy, feels like he’s been in panic mode for weeks and it’s starting to wear him out. Ashton let him move in to help, but Luke hasn’t really gotten better, has he? Still the same piece of shit he was before, rock-bottom with a pickaxe. He flops face-first into his pillow and hugs it tight. Maybe he’ll be able to hold his breath longer this time than the last. Maybe he’ll be able to hold his breath until he passes out. Maybe —
“Can I come in?”
Luke grunts, which means yes, in Luke-and-Ashton-living-together-speak. The door creaks.
“Can I sit?”
Another grunt. Luke hasn’t taken his face out of his pillow. He’s just beginning to feel lightheaded from it. Maybe this is the time it kills him.
It’s not what he wants, though. It’s not. Sometimes Luke thinks he’s just faking it until he makes it — over and over, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die. One day it will be true again. A hand settles delicately over the dip of his spine.
“Pick your head up, Luke.”
Luke doesn’t. His heart is beating faster now; he still hasn’t caught his breath, and now his chest is starting to squeeze, and maybe this really will be it.
“Luke. Stop it.” The hand moves to his shoulder, grips him tightly, forces Luke to turn onto his side, and Luke glares as he exhales.
“We said no more of that shit,” Ashton tells him. “Come on. Tell me what’s going on.”
“You already know what’s going on,” Luke mutters. “My brain is fucked up. That’s what.”
“How do you feel?” Ashton presses. “Did something happen that made you react like this?”
Of course nothing happened. That’s a stupid question. Ashton should know better. “Oh,” Luke says, “you mean other than the fact that there’s something wrong with my fucking brain? No, nothing.”
Ashton doesn’t say, there’s something wrong with mine, too. He doesn’t say, that’s why I’m here. Or even that’s why you’re here. He doesn’t remind Luke that the whole reason they moved in together was to help each other out. That wouldn’t really be true anyway, even though Ashton likes to say it is; the truth is that Luke is imposing on Ashton, and if Ashton weren’t so fucking lonely and broken, if Ashton weren’t just as bad as Luke if not worse, then he’d have never let Luke in. Because Luke is fucked up. There’s no doubt about it. And now Ashton is signed up to deal with it.
“Are you mad at me?” Ashton asks him. Luke stares.
“Of course I’m not fucking mad at you,” he says.
“Then stop taking it out on me,” Ashton says. “Talk to me. Tell me how you’re feeling. We can get through this, you know. We have, and we’ll keep doing it. I know you can. Do you trust me?”
And Luke wants to tell him of course I trust you but that’s not the point, say trusting you isn’t going to fix me, say it’s not about trust. But Ashton’s expression is open, earnest, so deadly sincere.
“I trust you,” Luke says, like he’s said a hundred times before. “I feel like shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“Yeah,” Ashton says. “But it’s okay. I know you don’t mean it.” Luke wonders if Ashton really believes that, or if he’s just saying it. And if he means it, what would it take to convince him that Luke hates him? Maybe Ashton trusts Luke too much. Maybe he should say something about that, do something about it.
He remembers a soothing hand to Ashton’s face, a gentle kiss to his forehead while he’d cried about missing his siblings, stroking his hair until he’d fallen limp in Luke’s arms, mumbled words like it’s going to be okay and you’ll see them soon and I’m here, I’ve got you.
It’s symbiotic in a dangerous way, this precipice they’re balancing on. Just two batteries killing themselves to charge each other. But as long as they stay in this bubble, alone together, they’re effectively immortal. Like Prometheus, cursed to heal every morning only to be torn apart again every night. And around and around they go.
~
By all rights, it’s a good day. A fun day, actually. Luke teaches Ashton to play “She’s Kinda Hot,” and then Ashton goes and does the shopping and Luke cleans the kitchen before he comes back, because he’s just that nice. Ashton makes dinner. They eat. It’s fine. It’s good.
Ashton goes to bed earlier than Luke, always. He’s got a better grasp on what he needs to feel better. Physical health is the first step towards mental health. Ashton has it down to a science, literally, almost. He tries to push Luke, but Luke’s got far too many thoughts to shut up before one in the morning at the earliest, so he’s still awake at midnight after Ashton’s supposedly gone to bed.
He’s still up when he hears footsteps, and that means Ashton’s awake, possibly getting water or something. It’s not a concern. It shouldn’t be.
Then, “Yeah. I miss you, too.” And Luke feels a secondhand pang of hurt, this melancholy that surrounds Ashton whenever anyone mentions his family. It’s a sensitive topic for him more than most; to go from practically raising your siblings to never seeing them must feel like losing a limb, not that Luke would know. He stalls, listening for the sound of Ashton crying or even choking up. He knows his cues. “No, we’re fine,” Ashton carries on, the sound growing distant as Ashton moves further towards the kitchen. “It’s just weird, you know?”
Luke creeps towards his door, listening. “Mike, don’t,” Ashton finally says; Luke does a double-take. Michael? Clifford? Their bandmate and best friend? Okay. That makes sense. It can make sense. If Ashton’s going to be on the phone with anyone at midnight, anyway, it’ll be Michael. “Seriously, it’s so far away.” Pause. “Obviously I — Michael, it’s not worth it. You should spend time with your family. Plus you’d be leaving Cal all by himself and you know he doesn’t do well.” He laughs. “Look, I should sleep. Talk to you later, okay? No, we’ll talk about it later. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Love you. Bye.”
Luke counts under his breath. When he reaches ten he pushes the door open and slowly pads into the kitchen, where Ashton is nowhere to be found.
“Ash?”
“Yeah,” comes Ashton’s voice. Luke comes around the island, and Ashton has his back pressed against it, feet propped up and digging into the bottom drawer across from him. His elbows are resting on his knees, head hung low, fingers tightly woven into his hair. The picture of distress, of silent suffering.
“All right?” Luke asks, even though he’s obviously not. Then, in the interest of transparency, he adds, “I heard you talking to Mikey.”
“He wants to come visit,” Ashton says quietly.
“That sounds nice.”
“I know. It does. I want him to."
"But?"
Ashton blows out a puff of air, like he's smoking but without the cigarette. "I don’t know. I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“I don’t think he’ll care,” Luke says candidly. “He’s seen us both at our worst.”
“I know,” Ashton says despairingly. He’s still talking into his thighs, and hasn’t looked up to see Luke. “It’s just, I don’t know. I’ll be apathetic. I’ll be an asshole, and I’m trying so hard not to be. I don’t want him to think I don’t still like him. Just because I don’t know how to, like, work properly.”
“Ash, Mike’s known us for, like. Six years? Give or take?”
“And I love him, and I don’t want to be like this,” Ashton says frustratedly. “I hate — I don’t want to see anyone. Don’t you feel like this? Ever? That if you have to talk to another person you’ll just —” He tugs at his own hair. “It’s not fair to him. I told him not to come.”
Luke gets it, but he’s surprised to hear it from Ashton. Sometimes it feels like the fame is a forced half of Luke’s social life, contractually obliged to talk to everyone all the time about everything, and in response he has to shut himself away whenever he can or else he’ll commit murder. But Ashton’s friendly, personable; Ashton seems to enjoy creating conversation out of thin air.
“It’s just Michael,” Luke says gently. “He’s been like that more times than any of us can count. Hell, he probably invented the feeling. It doesn’t matter if you want time to yourself when he’s here. It’ll be nice to have him anyway.”
“I miss him,” Ashton says, and picks his head up to look at Luke. “Isn’t that fucked up, that I miss him? I miss Calum. I miss you.”
“I’m right here.”
“I know that. I know. I feel like I'm missing something and I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s not fucked up to miss your best friends,” Luke says. “And it’s also not fucked up not to.”
“We spend every fucking second together and it drives me crazy,” Ashton says weakly, “and then we’re separated and I miss everyone so much it hurts. Luke, if you hadn’t moved in I think I would have, like. I don’t know.”
Luke knows, but neither of them are going to say it.
“Hey,” he says. “I’m the one who’s lucky to have you, not the other way around.”
Ashton shuts his eyes and holds out an arm, which is an invitation, and Luke accepts, sitting down next to Ashton and leaning heavily against his side. Ashton drops his hand to Luke’s shoulder and his fingers brush up against Luke’s bicep, curling under the sleeve of his t-shirt, stalling there.
“Every second you’re not here, I miss you,” Ashton murmurs. Their heads are tipped together; Ashton’s staring straight ahead, and Luke’s looking sort of sideways at the fraying threads at the hem of Ashton’s t-shirt. “Maybe that’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” Luke says quickly. He exhales. “I’m not, like...going anywhere, you know? I need you too.”
“Not as much as I need you,” Ashton says. He’s just like this sometimes. Blunt to a degree that makes you wonder if he’s being genuine. But Ashton’s always genuine. There’s not a truly dishonest bone in his body.
Luke doesn’t answer that. There’s no way to know whether or not it’s true.
“Wanna sleep with me tonight?” he asks.
Ashton nods. “I love you, you know?” he says, and Luke does know, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it.
“I love you too.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same,” Ashton says, shaking his head. “Never mind.”
“Of course it’s the same,” Luke argues. “How can it not be the same? What, you think I wouldn’t drown without you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Not now,” Ashton says, sighing. “It’s — sorry. I know I brought it up but not tonight, Luke. I’m tired.”
Luke rests a hand on Ashton’s knee and rubs circles against the fabric of his joggers. “Okay. That’s okay. Bedtime, then?”
“Think so,” Ashton mumbles.
They stand, brush themselves off, return to Luke’s room with arms loosely linked. Ashton crawls under the covers and Luke is close behind. This is a practiced enough routine that Luke knows his choreography. He drapes his arm over Ashton’s waist and the other under his head, and Ashton sinks back into Luke’s chest until it’s hard to tell if they’re still autonomous individuals or just one big super-person. One mega band member full of sadness and pain and despair and a lot of broken music. Minor key people.
“I swear we don’t have to talk about it,” Luke whispers, “but I love you, too. However you meant it, that’s how I mean it.”
“You can���t say that if you don’t know,” Ashton whispers back.
“Well, I love you,” Luke responds. “Full stop, no qualifiers. Even if you didn’t love me I still would.”
Ashton sighs. “Can we talk about this in the morning?”
“Sure, or whenever. Or never, if that’s what you want. I’m just telling you.” He flattens his palm against Ashton’s heart. Ashton covers it with his own hand.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Luke falls asleep to Ashton's steady breathing, and he thinks, terrifyingly, that he could get used to this.
#luke hemmings#ashton irwin#lashton#lashton fic#5sos#5sos fic#fic#my fic#i WARNED you it's emo as fuck#stuff#emo lashton
22 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
la-voz-de-una-estrella
𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑟
gi-l-tran
Pain
hnyflwrr
-It'z Theo!-
jmhomeimprovements
J & M Home Improvements
awakeanytime
AND THESE WORDS CHANGING NOTHING