#implications of cheating

[themarginalthinker]

Bittersweet

The months before the divorce were hard.

-

"-and if you think I'm going to take this-"

"-No, you're gonna run away, just like you always do!"

"At least then I won't have to sit here and watch and pretend that you're not doing exactly what you're doing with that woman-!"

The house never feels so small as when the screaming inside of it reaches its maximum volume. The sound of it echoes and bounces through the kitchen, up the stairs, and through the hallway. The hardwood floor makes for great acoustics, letting Sam know exactly the moment someone - he knows who - throws something glass on the floor. It's the only thing he can hear, the noise replaying for long seconds in his head.

At least, he tells himself, it's just a plate or a cup. Not someone's hand against their body.

Sam stares outside at the slowly sinking sun. He sits at his desk, the red-gold rays providing enough light he doesn't need to turn on his lamp yet. Under his hands, the pencil clutched limply in his fingers, his math homework sits, half-done.

If you have two parents, and one decides to get caught with someone else, how soon will all hell break loose.

It would be kinda funny, if it were happening in another house. To another person, another family. In a TV show or movie or book. Sam's hands shake as he lifts them from the desk, palms clammy. He tries to take a breath - and jolts when there's the deep, rattling slamming of a door, the garage door. An engine stars with the same kind of screaming as was happening with human voices, and soon, it's silent.

Sam doesn't know if he likes that any better.

Foot steps up the stairs, and Sam turns quickly to his door. It's closed, and he waits. But they move past, towards the end of the hall. The master bedroom.

That door slams too.

Through the wall by his own bed, Sam can hear his mother's voice gasp and heave. Sobs, muffled through layers of wood and drywall. Sam turns back around to his desk. The light was getting redder as the sun moved, imperceptibly, soon to be below the distant craggy mountains past the city limits. Sam kept his eyes on them as the noises quieted to nothing.

Then, a knock at his door.

Michael doesn't wait for Sam to answer. He sticks his head in.

"Hey."

Sam tries to keep his voice steady. "Hey," he answers.

Michael glances to the side, towards their parents room. Then back to Sam.

"You wanna take a ride? You've been working on that since you got home."

He nods to the papers on Sam's desk. Half done. Interrupted. Equations that read like number salad in his head, repeating the same instructions over and over, notes from class that sound like Charlie Brown adult gibberish when other words were so much more clear and ringing in his head.

Sam nods. "Okay."

He grabs his shoes, a colorful overshirt to slip over his plain tee. Michael's got his bike keys in hand, and with a scribbled note left on the counter, they're off.

The warm air of the coming summer whips wonderfully past them as they zip through the streets of the suburbs and into town. Whistling and light. The noise of Mike's motorbike filling the silence between the two of them until its not silence, and simply quiet company. It's roaring when Michael pushes it past what really is the legal speed limit, and when idling at a light, it purrs a constant hum of contented, but prepared energy. Sam likes the sound.

"Don't tell Mom," Michael says, pulling up to an open-air shop with a good crowd of people milling around, sitting at tables and on the curb. "She'd kill me for this."

Sam smiles. "Get a hot dog to go with it, then. That's a balanced dinner."

"Good thing we're young," Michael laughs.

-

Sam orders double-chocolate. Michael gets strawberry with cheesecake bits, and hot dogs for them both. They sit at a table, and watch the sun go down.

[catinfroghat]

I think the biggest grievance I have with severance season 2 was they still gave reghabi absolutely nothing and I think this goes along with the no black writers criticism quite well because you have this morally grey genius neurosurgeon who is also an older black woman so of course she literally just turns up to help the protagonist out of nowhere acts mysterious and then disappears again. We know nothing about why she turned against Lumon how she developed the reintegration technique how she managed to get in touch with Petey/convince him to reintegrate. It's a mystery show and we don't need all the answers straight away but even just some interiority for her would have been nice what are her beliefs is she feeling anything after the murder she committed how about after accidentally killing a patient does she have a family where has she been living all this time if she's on the run what's her history with Cobel just a crumb please

[blaithnne]

Remember this post where I talked about how funny Host!Vic’s gender neutrality is? Well now it’s even funnier because this episode seemingly confirmed something I have suspected to be true for a while now, which is that fictional Vic Michealis SOMEHOW DIDNT REALISE THEYRE BI?????

[coldblooded-angel]

Why do I not see people talking about how angry Patrick got when Tashi asked him to throw the game??? How insulted he was on behalf of Art, that Tashi no longer believed in his own ability to beat him??? How he saw nothing wrong with her fucking him but that he drew the line at cheating Art out of a fair win?? What about the difference in how he reacted when Art asked the same from him vs when Tashi asked ????

[officially-bug-art]

dweebs

[cursed-angelic-art]

Louis and Lestat making an immortal child as a symbol of their relationship lasting an eternity ("I'll never leave you") vs. Louis and Armand leaving Daniel to live to old age as a symbol of their relationship, which has a clear, ever-approaching expiration date with the onset of Daniel's illness. Daniel being the thing that drives Loumand apart. Claudia being the thing that brings Loustat back together. Armand's last ditch fuck you to Louis in turning Daniel, saying you thought, you thought this thing was over, but now this man on the verge of death, this testament to our doomed relationship, is gonna live forever. The writing in this show is insane.

[lunar-years]

It's interesting that when Keeley is telling Ted about the implications of that photo of him and her leaking to The Sun, she says "Jamie is going to go mental" but it's not followed up with "he's going to think i cheated on him" or "he's going to break up with me" or "it's going to ruin our relationship" it's instead followed up by, "there's going to be photographers all over us!" And later when she's talking to Rebecca it's, "My god, Jamie would've been so pissed off with reporters poking around in our love life." There's something to be said for like, she never once expresses doubt that Jamie won't hear her out on the truth or believe what she tells him. The major focus of her concern is just keeping their business out of the press. Their relationship in season one is far from perfect but there's a lot of implicit trust between them.

[specialagentartemis]

"Odysseus never once cheated on his wife!" wrong "Odysseus spent 10 years slutting it up around the Mediterranean sleeping around with every women he met" also wrong. can we move on now

[total-drama-brainrot]

Island Assistant Noah AU, Noah stays Chris' Assistant all throughout Island + Action + World Tour... How would this version of Assistant Noah react to Alejandro's flirting?... Would Alejandro be amused, when he later learns that Noah got himself eliminated ON PURPOSE in Season 1, and Noah became 'Chris Mclean's Assistant' as a punishment? 😎

Well, honestly I imagine most versions of Noah would react to flirting with the same level of scepticism and mistrust- he's not exactly a catch, and he's aware of the fact. Having someone as conventionally attractive and evidently conniving as Alejandro display interest in someone as not those things as Noah is would be a major warning flag for anyone with any semblance of sense.

Of course, Alejandro's interest was initially a ploy to try and weasel out information from Chris' personal assistant- someone who's high enough in the pecking order of internship to at least have some rudimentary knowledge on the oncoming challenges, but unimportant enough to fly under the radar when it comes to helping the competitors- but after Noah's initial refusal, Alejandro finds himself genuinely interested in him, at least in the same curious way a scientist regards an outlying factor in their studies. Mostly because Alejandro's very much so not used to being spurned, so Noah's blatant dislike of him is enough to fuel his curiosity (similarly to how Heather's hostility to him piqued Alejandro's interest in canon).

So he goes out of his way to bother Noah at any given opportunity. Not that it's hard; due to Noah's job he's practically always somewhere on the jet, since it'd be pretty hard to, you know, personally assist someone without being in their vicinity. Noah's disgruntlement with the constant flirting isn't quite enough to warrant him putting in the effort to avoid Alejandro, however, so the two of them consequently end up spending a lot of time together. Most of which is Alejandro trying and failing to fluster Noah, or otherwise pry competition-valuable information from him. Or, as their conversations become more frequent, he tries to get Noah to disclose something about himself that isn't already apparent- to very little success. Alejandro does find out that Noah's oddly touchy about his position as Chris' PA, though, and stores away that little tid bit of information to exploit later.

Alejandro inevitably finds himself almost enamoured by Noah's caginess and his dry wit. He's surprised to find that he actually enjoys Noah's company, even when it doesn't offer him any of the advantages he initially sought out the assistant for, which is such a novel concept for him. So of course he resolves to spend more time around Noah, to try and figure out what this feeling is, and if it'll affect his stance in the competition- not at all because he wants to spend more time around the cynic, obviously.

And he inevitably becomes more and more comfortable around Noah's stoic bluntness, so much so that he starts showing hints of his true colours around Noah. To the point where the bookworm's initial distaste for Alejandro begins to thaw under the warmth of his actual personality, instead of the coldness of his "perfect Burromuerto" mask. (This is the part where mutual feelings begin to blossom, if you couldn't tell.)

Alejandro ends up spending more time with the off-screen assistant than he does with the entirety of his actual team, which grates on the producer's nerves since they don't have a lot of non-challenge footage of their main antagonist (outside of his frequent use of the confessional, that is). So, he's asked to spend less time around Know-it-all Noah and more time around his actual team, so they have some footage to work with, as Noah's PA contract prevents them from using "unnecessary footage" of him on the show; since he doesn't interact with anyone during challenges or plot-relevant moments, the editors are practically forbidden from using any of the footage Noah is in. Alejandro reluctantly complies.

And it's during this enforced bonding time with his team that the topic of Noah comes up. Owen's the one who initially comments about Alejandro spending a lot of him with his "little buddy", which absolutely doesn't (does) spark an ember of possessive jealousy within Alejandro, prompting him to ask how Owen's so familiar with Noah if he's not even supposed to interact with the contestants. Owen reveals that Noah was a contestant, at least for a little bit, before he was eliminated early in Island.

Alejandro's interest in Noah and the mysteries around him skyrockets. As a former contestant and, apparently, someone who's familiar with pretty much all of his competitors, Noah has even more potential to supply him with valuable information that would assist him in winning the million. He later chases down the cynic and confronts him about his extremely limited time on the Island, to which Noah is initially evasive about, before he- in a ticked off outburst, since Alejandro just won't drop the subject- admits that he got himself eliminated on purpose and working as Chris' PA is pretty much just his punishment for doing so.

And Alejandro's curiosity turns into confusion. Why would Noah intentionally have himself eliminated from the competition when a million dollars is on the line? Noah quickly corrects him that, in the first season, the prize money was a measly 100k, and then proceeds to explain exactly why and how he got himself booted from Camp Wawanakwa- Alejandro watches the annoyance on Noah's face gradually soften out into a smug sort of pride as he recalls his past endeavours. Then that pride is quickly wiped away by a bitter sourness as Noah recounts how his stunt essentially trapped him under the employment of Total Drama, namely Chris McLean.

But Alejandro's still caught up in the glimpse he got of Noah's scheming potential. The glee he saw in the other's eyes as he explained how easy it was to rile up his former teammates enough to vote him from the island, how just a few carefully worded comments were all it took to grant Noah an extended vacation at a five star resort.

Dots are connected; Alejandro suddenly understands why Noah's so resistant to his manipulative efforts, why Noah always seemed to clock exactly what he was attempting to do and shut it down with cold indifference or a snarky comment. The pessimist before him was his equal, at least in terms of strategy. Though how he applied his trickster mindset was a little unconventional. The archvillain is more than intrigued by now, he's utterly smitten... with the idea of having Noah as his "right hand man". Nothing more.

Alejandro's left to wonder just how much more he could accomplish within the confines of the jet if he had Noah's brilliant mind assisting him in his schemes.

[nothingheregonowplz]

She's doing ALL OF THIS, including MURDERING HER FRIEND, BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT IT WAS UNFAIR THAT HER BACKSTORY WASNT TRAGIC?!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!

Yes, Rage god, sure, infected towards anger, BUT FROM THE BEGINING THOUGH?!

"Yeah, so because your dad died and the whole of you life has been bad, school should reflect that by making your life harder."

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

THIS IS THE HILL YOU DECIDED TO DIE ON?!

[tinyfantasminha]

high pitched whimper

[perexcri]

actually i hope byler cheats so bad next season that stranger things becomes the southern drama it was always meant to be the likes of which could only ever be found in the wet dreams of tennessee williams and it ends with one person dead on the pavement bleeding out and another on their knees screaming in the rain while tearing their clothes and dumping ashes on their head and another forced to leave hawkins under a false name and then it all gets buried until the year of our lord 2018 when an up-and-coming true crime podcast that loves to use people's personal stories of tragedy for storytelling and a quick buck unearths the whole sordid affair and uses it as fodder for their 45 minute production that's 37% comprised of hello fresh and better help sponsorships

[muninnhuginn]

yasaka (miss psychological warfare) being entirely bamboozled by mitsumi working at face value is pretty amusing ngl

[splanana-bitz]

*scrolling through tumblr and sees immaculate, mouth-watering art*

"Wow!"

*it's of a toxic couple back when they were together/them being bitter exes in present time*

"Oh, these two aren't healthy in any way, shape, or form"

...

*likes it anyway*

(Read tags)

[largemandrill]

Ok I’m like a little under halfway into Wicked now and like. Turtle Heart was their third right? This doesn’t read as “husband, wife, and wife’s affair partner” this just looks like a poly couple. Frex named his son after this guy, he must of liked him a lot. This isn’t even a joke this is a genuine question.

[demadogs]

theres some people who think shauna and melissa are gonna be a fluffy cute sapphic ship……. im gonna hold you at knife point when i say this….