crxxentum

[crxxentum]

ok listen nobody appreciates that skeleton key is a massive bundle of internal contradictions that messes up the rest of the main series timeline better than i do. like trust me i am also a continuity error hater. but unfortunately or not it is kind of the book about alex and family. not about john, or ian, or yassen, but specifically alex: he playacts in three different families (the pleasures, troy and turner, sarov) and none of them fit. he daydreams about his parents not as idols or shadows to live under but as familial structures that might have shaped him had they lived: he ‘might have been a softer person’, he thinks. he ‘probably would’ve had more friends’. it always gets glossed over but alex chose to go to wimbledon; it’s the first time he agrees to help MI6 without any kind of external pressure. it has nothing to do with john at all. 23 years on and sarov remains the only villain to explicitly kill himself because alex refused to step into the shoes of another dead teenager. you cannot play a son if you’ve never had a father. if you’ve never had a mother. you are fourteen years old and you cannot go home. you are fourteen years old and maybe home never existed at all.

[crxxentum]

True love is letting a freak Follow you

[crxxentum]

And here's a reminder that no matter how much you slut shame and death wish yuan, higuchi, lucy or any other female character your stupid ships will never become canon so go outside and eat some grass

[crxxentum]

oh okay this is just screaming Yassen Gregorovich

[crxxentum]

HE IS MY SON I AM HIS FATHER I AM HIS MOTHER I AM AARON MINYARD.

I will forever FOREVER defend Aaron idc.

I would break faces for my boy

[crxxentum]

I'm suitability convinced that Nora has a fetish for tragic siblings. I've never had a book that made me feel like someone pulled my lungs out through my spine. Nora somehow does it with every mention of siblings. Aaron and Andrew make me ache, Greyson and Lucas make me fume, and Jean and his baby sister? Don't even talk to me. I'm inconsolable. Leave my first-born middle child ass out of this dawg I can't take it. How am I supposed to pass med school while I'm keeled over in the middle of my laboratory???

[crxxentum]

So I'm still utterly terrible at posting - but I have THOUGHTS. Nora doesn't have her asks on so imagine me as a cat clawing at her door. Scene.

I have realised my favourite characters are, in order, Aaron, Jean, Kevin.

This will become relevant uhhh. soon

[crxxentum]

I literally forgot Nora's tumblr and icon and I genuinely thought she was an artist I followed 😭 literally took me ages to figure it out. Looking forward to her book

[crxxentum]

why is it so difficult to find good Hux fanfics, I want a morally grey spy GIVE ME MY SPY

[crxxentum]

[crxxentum]

Everyone shut up - I'm posting Feverwake content. I've been rereading The Eletric Heir and decided to post this piece on tumblr

Cw: Spoilers, mentions of abuse, self blame (and so on)

The air is stagnant.

Yet it doesn’t smell of dust, and the sour scent of litter that would pile up and spill out of trash cans.

It’s stagnant with the tart sting of silence. A hot summer's day, the air is heavy with heat and sweat. The fan swings in sluggish motions - like it’s limping through the air leaden with tension and heat. Noam can’t get comfortable in the chair, his thighs stick to the leather. It makes him feel itchy and his clothes feel slick. The air in this new house - this new beginning - is so different to Noam’s childhood. Summer in his childhood home was populated with elated screams of children, and a shirt so congealed with sweat it was see through. The heat there made everything sticky; like he had eaten an orange and couldn’t get the juices off his hands. There was an ice block he used to eat on those days, cheap and dense with artificial flavouring that made it almost sickly. He could make his own ice blocks now. Dara had consigned himself to letting Noam buy the plastic ice block mould at the start of summer. Noam would buy vats of juice and fill them up, sit outside and chew on them like the heathen he is.

The air is stagnant.

Yet it doesn’t smell of dust, and the sour scent of litter that would pile up and spill out of trash cans.

It’s stagnant with the tart sting of silence. A hot summer's day, the air is heavy with heat and sweat. The fan swings in sluggish motions - like it’s limping through the air leaden with tension and heat. Noam can’t get comfortable in the chair, his thighs stick to the leather. It makes him feel itchy and his clothes feel slick. The air in this new house - this new beginning - is so different to Noam’s childhood. Summer in his childhood home was populated with elated screams of children, and a shirt so congealed with sweat it was see through. The heat there made everything sticky; like he had eaten an orange and couldn’t get the juices off his hands. There was an ice block he used to eat on those days, cheap and dense with artificial flavouring that made it almost sickly. He could make his own ice blocks now. Dara had consigned himself to letting Noam buy the plastic ice block mould at the start of summer. Noam would buy vats of juice and fill them up, sit outside and chew on them like the heathen he is.

Noam once blended some bananas and cocoa powder up, and poured it into the moulds. He said he’d never go back to normal juice ice blocks. But some things require energy. Noam is so, so tired.

After Noam had stopped running - once Dara held his hand and they lay in the grass together. Dara pointing out the constellations with his hand intertwined with theirs, and they both fell asleep in the long grass. Safe. Once Noam had stopped running, he didn’t want to move again. It was utterly exhausting now, trying to get up and move. Dara was so busy now, always out of the house. Working day in and day out. Noam wanted them to be home more, to have someone to wrap his arms around. A childlike need, for someone that feels so old. Noam wants to have Dara fit into his arms, resting their head on his shoulder. Noam wants time to stop, the world to stop spinning for a while. Wouldn’t it be nice? If the world were to slow down, allow Noams weary head to catch up to just how fast the pace is.

Noam would want Dara to come home more. But things haven’t been quite right lately. Dinner is a campaign of hostilities between the two of them. One cannot comment something without it escalating into a diatribe on the other. They rub against each other like sandpaper on sandpaper, like nails on a chalkboard, like metal on china. Rubbing shoulders isn’t cat-like affection anymore. It’s incitement to an argument, a stepping over of boundaries. The air is thick with the heat of summer and the tension that Noam can feel in his shoulders and see in Dara’s. It’s a struggle between the two of them. There's so much they leave unsaid, out of fear or something else. Noam’s a coward and it feels so utterly stupid that he could think everything would be alright after this.

Solving things is somehow so much more difficult than just letting it fester like an open wound. Every word of vitriol that Dara spits, it bites and tears. Latching its teeth into Noam and tugging. Begging for a reaction, or an explosion. To give a reason and explanation for why Dara feels the way he feels. To rationalise something irrational. What fools they are.

Rumination isn’t quite a habit, but rumination on one thing for weeks on end might be. Noam drags himself off the leather chair. The feeling of sweat against leather is nauseating and Noam wants out. The room is impossibly large for someone who wants to lay on the floor and never get up. Dragging his bare feet across the floor, pulling his sweat sodden shirt off his chest where it stuck. Noam shoulders the door open, standing in the pitiful excuse of a breeze. It rustles a few leaves but does nothing to dislodge the thick sluggishness of the air. Dara is knelt by the garden, hat covering his curls. How Dara can stand having gardening gloves on in this heat is beyond him. Noam’s feet remain planted in front of the door, eyes following Dara as he pulls weeds out of the soil. Gripping the plants down low and yanking at them.

Noam sniffs, turning around and striding back into the house. Picking a glass out of the cupboard and holding it until the sink. Watching the water pool in the glass and slosh around the sides. He leaves it on the bench, opening the freezer and cracking the ice cube mould backwards and forth. Prying out four ice cubes with his thumb and forefinger and dropping them in the water. He brings it out the house, walking until he’s standing over Dara with the cool water in hand.

“What?” Dara asks, turning to look up at him. Squinting his eyes against the sun.

“I got you some water,” Noam offered, holding the water out to Dara like a peace offering.

For one moment, it seems like everything is okay. Like Noam and Dara can have one day without lashing at each other's throats like wild animals. Noam feels like a shaken up bottle of soda, standing there in the sun and waiting for Dara to take the glass out of his hand.

“Thanks love,” Dara acknowledges, giving Noam amnesty from their heat fueled irritation. Noam smiles, nodding his head to them and giving a mild ‘you’re welcome’. He doesn’t push his luck, turning around to leave Dara to his gardening. Noam feels victory against the battle that is trying to not provoke Dara. Everything he does seems to, lately. The midday sun is brutal, beating down on Noam as if to tell him to begone. Leave outside for Dara - you’ve already taken so much. You took his father from him, you made your bed now lie in it. Lay in the bed of lies alongside a man with eyes of something not quite evil but not quite goodness. Noam’s words are tar that drip out of his mouth, they sit heavy on his tongue. Noam is far too aware of the stains Lehrer left on him - and Dara - how he lingers in their lives despite being gone. Maybe Noam and Lehrer really are all too similar, maybe that is why Dara can scarcely look at him. If Noam was better, if Noam wasn’t so useless, he could have helped Dara. Could have helped Lehrer too.

Foolish wishes for a foolish boy. Noam is painfully aware of how foolish these thoughts are. But the mind doesn’t care for logic, it is animalistic. Soothed by raw words and so so into licking the lacerations they gave themself. Dara is an animal now. Licking his wounds and lashing out at those who come near. Of course he would rebel against Noam’s image. When Noam is the weapon used to deal so many of those wounds. What can one do, in this situation? But wait - anxiously, painfully, most of all - impatiently. A watched pot never boils they say.

Staring at Dara’s sunwashed form, Noam could feel at home. The air is sluggish and oh so dense. If Dara could forgive Noam, maybe he could forgive himself. Forgiveness is such a fickle thing, like the weather. There’s a rain cloud on the horizon, heavy and bloated with droplets of rain. Waiting to burst and thunder onto the ground. Noam will have to call Dara into the house before then. Hopefully Dara won’t take it as his attempt at asserting control, and definitely stay outside only to get the flu.

Noam opens the door gently, looking back at Dara. Grasp, hold, pull, throw. Dara’s just repeating the movements over again. He pads through the doorway, picking up his book from the table and settling into the velvet chair opposite the black leather chair. Leaning into the plush back and grimacing at the feeling of his wet shirt pressing into his back. He flips his book open, smoothing the crease of the dog eared page.

Noam has already gotten something that so many don’t get. Lehrer can’t hurt Dara anymore, so Noam will grin and bear the pain of knowing Dara hasn’t forgiven him for his sins.

[crxxentum]

the art of book covers

[crxxentum]

All for the Game where everything is the same but Andrews arm bands are the miku cosplay armbands

[crxxentum]

Fuck deadly class. I hate that stupid, badly written, weird fucking show. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. WHY DID THEY KILL THE BEST PERSON IN THE SHOW JESUS CHRIST Lex was the only decent person in that show. I HATE THIS SHOW

[crxxentum]

Broke: Aaron is homophobic

Woke: This random dude joined your sports team, insults you, brings the wrath of god (read: the literal mafia) down on your head. Shoves his way between you and your brother, forces you to confront things you don't want to, throws shit at you. Forces you to go to therapy, causes so much shit to go wrong in your life. Then starts FUCKING YOUR BROTHER???

TLDR; Aaron isn't homophobic, he just hates Neils guts

[crxxentum]

Why do we let Dazai get away with wearing the colour scheme that he wears. The earth tones?? The tan trousers?? the brown vest?? Gay. Gay. Gay. Disgusting