#because of your preconceived notions of who lives here

[thebookworm0001]

Hi hello queer southerner here:

The word y’all is already inclusive. if I see one of y’all using “y’xll” because you don’t want to associate with the south, I’m smacking you with my cast iron skillet.

You’re not better than us because you’re from a northern/blue state.

[delewlew]

can you watch my boyfriend for me: charles leclerc x black fem! reader °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

request: Can you do the “watch my bf for me” with Charles and he gets nervous and call for yn to come back pretty pretty please 🙏🏾

warnings: none

author's note: this one is a little short cuz i was running on no sleep and good vibes...but it's not too short i hope! please let me know how yall like this one. comments and reblogs are always appreciated <3

never in a million years did you see yourself dating someone like charles leclerc. it wasn't that you didn't believe someone like him could find you attractive because to be quite frank, you were stunning and you knew it. the thing was you didn't picture yourself in love with someone who had the social status charles held. you'd assumed that rather than being in love with you he'd be in love with himself, instead of feeding his family he'd be more fixated on feeding his ego. however, upon meeting him for the first time you realized that those were simply preconceived notions that couldn't be further from the truth. that gentle smile and welcoming gaze wasn't a facade to draw girls like you in to become a pawn in some twisted romance game. he was genuinely a sweet and loving man who had nothing but love to give.

you met charles a year ago in baku at the azerbaijan grand prix after you'd been invited to attend because you worked as an influencer. it was your first time attending a grand prix and you got the complete hook up. it was qualifying day and you'd showed up to the paddock ready to enjoy the day in the early morning when there was a problem with security. for whatever reason the security guards were refusing to let you enter the paddock despite having proper identification. then, like an answer to your prayers a young man with ice blue eyes and the most perfect dimples came to your rescue, informing the staff that you were with him. a year later and here you were, actually with him but as a girlfriend instead of a stranger looking for help.

the social media following on all of your pages grew massively but you remained the same person you'd been before any of this happened. sure, now you were sitting in the ferrari garage every weekend, getting invited to more exclusive events, and getting spoiled by your boyfriend to where he had to lift the spending limit on his credit card. but you were still the same girl as you'd always been, posting videos that made you happy and getting paid for it.

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼���𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

summer break had just begun for charles which meant that you had him all to yourself until he had to return back to work. this also meant you had to find a way to create content that would still garner enough attention when there weren't races for you to post about attending. you didn't like posting about your relationship in general because it felt unauthentic. your relationship wasn't the only defining thing about you and your career, it came after, so you preferred to keep work and personal life separate even if there is a little overlap between the two. but, the new tiktok trend you'd seen on your for you page was enough to convince you to break your personal rule, just this once.

you'd surprised charles with tickets to mauritius for break since he'd mentioned to you a few months ago that he'd love to go one day. so for the next week you and him were going to be spending time in paradise and you couldn't be happier. the two of you all had agreed on a 'no phones' policy, only agreeing to upload a photo dump at the end of the trip. until then you both were only going to take pictures and videos on your devices, or just 'live in the moment' and keep things exclusively to memory. however, before you both were going to turn off your access to social media, you wanted to hop on one last trend:

you were sitting on charles' lap as you gently braided the stems of small yellow flowers together. in front of you, your phone was propped your phone up against the small vase that sat at the center of the table. the video was already recording and you pretended that you were making a tutorial for how to make a flower crown. it was obvious charles was paying no attention to what you were doing by the way his head rested on shoulder with his face not visible to the camera. his hand rested at your hip with his thumb hooked through the belt loop of your jeans. he was busy looking at his phone in his free hand, going through random social media posts.

charles heard you murmur something but he wasn't paying too much attention so he assumed it was something about your flowers. he only looked up when you slipped from his hold. you simply said, "hold on- he'll show you how to do it." you handed charles the nearly finished flower chain and ran off before he could even object. your boyfriend froze awkwardly for a minute, his eyes darting from the camera to six other spots in the room as he clearly waited for you to come back. there was a soft hum he let out then he muttered, "i do not know where she went off to. but she told me to show you so...i guess i show you what to do."

silence fell over the room as charles was very focused and made attempts to demonstrate how you'd been weaving the flowers together. his cheeks flushed pink and his palms grew sweaty as he messed up three times in a row, that dimpled grin that you fell for long ago making an appearance. after the longest minute of his life he finally caved, "Ma chérie, reviens s'il te plaît, je ne peux pas faire ça." you let out a loud laugh and ran back into the room with a smile on your face as you sat back on charles' lap and he tucked his face into the back of your shoulder. [my darling come back please, i can't do this]

you examined the woven flowers and let out a soft giggle, "aw charlie you kinda made it worse." his arms wrapped around your torso holding you tighter to his lap as if he was worried you'd run off again leaving him alone. he let out a muffled reply, "then stay with me and show me how to fix it."

𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼𓋼𖤣𖥧𓋼𓍊

the end.

[mrsnancywheeler]

the lakes (5) // finnick odair x f. reader

summary: it's supposed to be over, you and Finnick are supposed to spend the rest of your lives helping each other heal. living as peacefully as possible, but the the third quarter quell throws a wrench in your domestic bliss.

previous chapter / next chapter

midnight rain

2.3k words

warnings: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcoholism bc haymitch is there, brief drinking, allusions to death and violence, rebellion planning, allusions of trafficking/sexual trauma, wanting children, mentions of birth control and class divide, terms of endearment, mental illness, manipulation of someone's feelings, self-hatred, mentions of nausea and allusions to puking, reader being utterly enamored by Finnick, unedited, no use of Y/N

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Harsh wind made your body shake and Finnick immediately wrapped his arms around you. How he always felt like a furnace was something you'd accepted you'd never have the answer to and you gratefully relaxed into him.

“Oh look, I just happened to run into you two on the roof, a happy couple just relaxing while they still can." Haymitch's voice pierced the air billowing around you.

“What a coincidence.” Finnick took a step closer to where Haymitch was approaching.

"Gives us a perfect chance to talk about allies though.” Your voice was loud enough that if anyone was listening they would be sure to hear your completely pure intentions with a mentor right before everyone's voices conveniently took the octave and pitch down.

“After this there's not opting out, so I need to know that you're 100% on board. You could be killed if this gets found out." Haymitch fiddled with his flask.

“We're already going to be killed, at least this way there's a chance we can stay together and end all of this." He stood close enough now that your soft voice could only be heard within the earshot. Finnick squeezed your hand softly.

Haymitch nodded, “Beetee is in on it too, so is Wiress, but who knows how much of a help she'll be. Plutarch can give us insight into small things before the Games start, but the main point will be finding away for enough chaos to happen that we can get Katniss out of there.”

“So our job is to get her to trust us, protect her and Peeta so she sticks to the plan that will get her out." Subconsciously Finnick began tapping his fingers on your waist and you rubbed your thumb in circles across his hand to try and soothe whatever it was his mind was running on about.

“Yes and we might need to find a way to force that because you weren't doing a great job on that, darling. I can't blame you though, she can be quite difficult.” Haymitch took a swig from the flask, you could only imagine how burning cold the metal must have been. Then he was pointing at you, "The princess here might actually have more luck since in an ever so contradictory way she's less gaudy.” Finnick scoffed. "She'll just have to get over preconceived notions first which isn't usually easy. Going over tributes though the problem would be you as a package deal, so we might have to find a way to force her to ally with everyone anyways.”

Slowly, Finnick nodded, “We should tell Johanna, she'll definitely be determined even if she doesn't get Katniss’ trust right away."

Haymitch laughed slightly, “Oh I think she's already left quite the impression." You could only imagine what Johanna had done and you smiled, her blunt attitude had immediately drawn you to her and it helped that her strategy was slightly similar to yours as far as the tears went.

“You go, it'll look like you're trying to figure out alliances and not be as suspicious, if they are watching." You kissed Finnick's cheek and reluctantly pushed away from his comforting arms.

"Okay, I'll be back soon. Don't miss me too bad.” He began stepping away so slowly as if he wanted to stay too, which you couldn't imagine why you had to have made his internal heater freeze with every touch.

“Oh I already do." He smirked and you walked over the cement bench, patting on it as Haymitch sat down by you. He held his arm out, offering the flask he was holding. You thought about it for a second, but accepted the offer. Earlier assumptions were correct, the metal was so cold it burned the lips right before the alcohol did. “What is that?" You scrunched your nose, handing it back to him.

Haymitch chuckled, shaking his head. “One of their wild, Capitol creations." He shrugged slightly, the idea of carrying a drink around that you couldn't even name just to numb the pain made your head ache for the victor. “So you tied the knot away from all the pomp and pageantry?"

"They can't have all of me.” Even if they have most of me, went unsaid into the crisp night air. Your body, your tears, what you could give, the raw, violent parts of you forever memorialized for eternity. Now parts of the private ceremony would be exploited, but the moment could never, only the parts you chose to reveal. It was yours.

“Good for you." He took another drink. “They can only take so much from us, they have to know this was bound to happen." You hummed a yes and reached your hand out which he filled with the cold flask, you took another drink that stung your throat before returning it.

“I don't know how people can have kids when the world is like this." You muttered, looking out at the city below. So badly you wanted a family, Finnick would be a great father, but it seemed impossible to fathom when at any second, for years on end they could be ripped away to be publicly executed for entertainment. If they even managed to survive, horrors lay beyond that, you would never wish for your children to live in a world where they went through what you did.

He shook his head, “Desperation, extra hands, not everyone has fancy Capitol provided ways to prevent pregnancy, Princess."

"Yeah.” You were all too familiar with that. Rich men rarely wanted the possibility of a kid running around with a second-class being even if she was a victor and you took every precaution possible as the fear ate you up inside. They could steal away your body, your intimacy, how you felt with yourself, but if you did escape all of this the only kids you would be having would be yours and Finnick. You wouldn't let them own you in that aspect too. “She's lucky she and Peeta came off as such a strong case of star crossed lovers, it's saved her in and out of the arena. Saved both of them.” Blankly staring at the stars, too beautiful to shine on such a cruel world.

“That she is. My so-called defiance lost me everything, everyone and she managed to be so popular that they couldn't do that. It's why we stand a chance, princess.”

You stood up, "I'd wish you a goodnight, but that rarely happens.” You smiled, sadness tainting your eyes.

Haymitch shook the flask, "If it works right, I won't remember a thing.” He said it so sardonically it weighed down your very being. This is what the Capitol did to its child winners, fractured them into being blackout drunk to dodge the nights full of horror.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

You sat on the hallway floor, it's carpet itching your skin as you sat there, head on Conway’s shoulder.

“The outfits were so ridiculous, dressing us like prize pigs." He seethed, “Not you I mean though, you didn't look like a pig, the blue looked nice on you-" Conway started rambling to make up for his initial words and you pressed a finger to his soft lips.

"I know what you mean.” You smiled, so softly it looked enamored with his stumbling. It was cute, but not like your Finnick's sureness in all he said. No, not your Finnick, not anymore he was just Finnick, the mentor, the guy from the past. Oh, how you craved his touch, the smell of his salty skin, the sound of his honey like voice. You scolded yourself, now wasn't the time, it couldn't be. You couldn't risk Conway being able to tell if you were thinking about the other man, as if he could somehow read your mind, nevertheless it was too risky.

“Thank you for always understanding me, you've always been so sweet since we were children, it's what made me want to be your friend in the first place and then-" He paused, then your lover is what he was holding back. You knew this, his sister had told you once back when you were with Finnick, how jealousy was eating Conway’s sweet soul alive. “Then made my family love you too."

It was like an arrow in your heart, you weren't sweet, it was more harrowing that he thought so. Your brain encouraged you to persist even though the echoes muttered back how much you should loathe yourself. “No, you're the sweet one. Always covering for me." You shook your head, keeping the smile glued on your face. His hand was suddenly on your chin, trying to guide you in. His fingers were slightly calloused but there were no sparks, like when Finnick even brushed his atoms into the same vicinity as yours. You leaned in slightly, eyes searching him as if you wanted to know if he really wanted this, of course you knew the answer though. His lips pressed themselves to yours, he tasted just as he sounded, like strawberries and you did like strawberries of course, but not as much as a raw honeycomb.

Just as quickly he pulled away, “I'm sorry." Conway’s voice spilled out, “I don't know what I was thinking, I know you still have him and all, I just I don't know." He shook his head, rubbing his face with his hands, combing them through his hair anxiously.

“He's a jerk." He was, but in the best and worst way. “I don't know what I saw in him." You shook your head, sadly staring at the carpet. Urging the tears to present themselves to help cover your lies because you knew exactly what you still saw in him, his humor, his protection, the warmth, and the absolute love and care he exuded with each look, each graze of his fingertips. “Especially when-" You acted like you were getting choked up on your confession, you disgusted yourself.

Conway’s fingertips were tilting your head back up to him once again, “Really?" His eyes were eager, so innocent. You had to stop your resilience from breaking, from halting the whole operation. “Do you really mean that because I have for so long and please be honest?"

You were nauseous. Trying not to start gagging on nothing as you nodded. "Of course I do, I just didn't see what's been right in front of me.” He kissed you again and it was overwhelming your senses. Not in the way Finnick did which made you buzz, in a way that made you want to run. When he finally pulled away you forced yourself to let out a sly smile as you began standing. "I'll see you in the morning, we should sleep before all the training tomorrow, making impressions with the other tributes.”

His smile was shy and his eyes were basically begging you to stay with him another night, to hold you. It would certainly help your plan, but you couldn't. It was already too much and you needed senses knocked back into you before you broke. "Goodnight, sleep well." Conway whispered, slowly letting his fingers part from yours as he turned down the hallway. You'd been just outside of your room so you walked to it and opened it right before closing it to make it sound like you'd gone in before making a beeline in the opposite direction for Finnick's. Vainly trying to hold back the dry heaving.

Ever so softly your fists knocked on the door and almost instantly it was open, like he was waiting, like he knew you would be coming. Before another second could pass you'd thrown yourself into the protection of his arms and were weeping.

“I'm a terrible person." You choked out as he carefully shut the door with his foot, wrapping his arms around you even tighter like a blanket.

“No you're not an angel, it's survival of the fittest." He kissed the top of your forehead burying himself in it.

"Oh God, I'm gonna be sick.” He instantly led you to the bathroom where you were in fact. He didn't leave you though, he pulled out some medicine to soothe your stomach and head. Handing you a glass of water as he soothingly had his hand on the top of your head, stroking your hair. Once you've finished he was brushing your teeth for you.

It should be pathetic to have someone doing that for you, but not when it was him just trying to keep you secure. “Gotta open wider, angel." He was diligent and precise before helping pull you up from the edge of the tub to the sink. “Okay now spit. Let's get you into bed, sweet girl."

“Thank you, I'm sorry." You muttered out, voice raspy.

“Don't ever be." His warm hands tilted your chin up in a way that melted you into his touch like sugar in tea. “Look at me. You're doing what it takes to survive, which you deserve to do, I'm just doing what you deserve." Your Finnick could make you fall into tears every time, healing the patches of the broken heart you had from the way you were using Conway. “Let's get you to bed." He began to walk out of the bathroom and you softly put your hand on the one trailing away.

"Finnick.” Your voice was tender but the air was so stagnant it felt booming to your ears. He turned to look at you, worry evident. "Can I stay? Please?” Finnick smiled so sympathetically it made your head feel better, like it would float away instead.

"Of course, my love, you can always stay with me, I'll always stay with you.” As you crawled into the sheets that he'd of course emanated his soothing heat onto you knew it was true. Just as you knew you'd always stay with him.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

thank you so much for reading! literally y'all's comments make my heart so happy and my passion for continuing to write this skyrockets, you are all so incredibly kind and supportive 💕 as always if you enjoyed feedback, likes, reblogs, comments are all so appreciated and my asks are open bc I think about this series all the time. I love you guys and thank you again sm 💋

taglist: @imaegonstargaryenswife0 @avoxrising @artsyaquarium @jennaaaaaaaaaaaa @secretsicanthideanymore @darlingsoulbeautfulthoughts @thatonegayloser616 @kybermp3 @meri-soni-meri-tamanna @ravensinthedaylight @innercreationflower @uhnanix @aesthetic0cherryblossom @yourdailymemedelivery

[randomfoggytiger]

Gethsemane, Bill Scully Apologia, and Maggie the Emergency Contact

Dialogue and Play-By-Play Analysis:

Bill: "I picked up the phone when they called Mom. I thought you could use a change of clothes."

Scully: "Thank you... where's Mom?"

Believing her cancer is still a secret, Scully automatically places Bill's importance below her mother, wanting to talk freely with Maggie (without Bill.) Bill sees and understands this; and is hurt that she still won't open up to him despite being here, now, for her. As of yet, he doesn't act on that hurt.

Bill: "I didn't tell Mom what happened...."

Scully: "...But I'm okay. Luckily."

Bill: "You're not okay, Dana."

Scully: "I told Mom not to tell you."

Bill: "Why?"

Scully: "Because it's very personal. Because I don't want sympathy."

For all of the just criticism against Bill later in this arc, here he is holding back his anger (an expression of his hurt) and listening, really listening to his sister. He keeps quiet, giving Scully room to fully explain herself; and even sympathetically locks eyes, giving her his full attention.

Another thing of note: he is staring at Scully with the exact look of sympathy she wanted to avoid. Mulder and Maggie know her enough to acquiesce to her "I'm fine"s; but Bill is her life-long peer, and siblings can't hide truths from each other as effectively as they can their parents or partners.

"You think you can cure yourself."

Bill realizes that his sister never told her own family-- him-- about her cancer because she does, even now, believe she can cure herself. He's stunned, shocked, even appalled; and that leaks into his voice, coming across as judgmental.

Scully doesn't deny it, caught; and sighs, frustrated, that he divined and overly-simplified something she hadn't expressed to anyone and probably would not have been able to without a beautiful speech prepared ahead of time.

"Mom tells me that you've gotten worse. That your cancer's gone into your bloodstream."

This explains why Maggie told Bill in the first place: she cracked under the strain Dana's edict of secrecy put her under, watching her daughter slowly die without any apparent attempts to circumvent that death or even to bond over their shared tragedy. Bill became her only recourse... and Bill spilled the beans (as he does, again, in A Christmas Carol.)

Scully is shaken by his bluntness, unable to shy away from the truth spoken so baldly to her face.

"What are you doing at work getting knocked down? Beaten up? What are you trying to prove-- that you're going to go down fighting?"

Scully: "Now, c'mon Bill--"

Scully is deferring back to an old sibling dynamic: Bill misunderstanding, or only understanding enough to feel she's acting out of turn; and her attempting to draw him away from his preconceived notions. In this case, however, he's right; and she's avoiding the truth of that (subconsciously.)

Bill stops her by slapping down the clothes, getting her full attention.

"Y'know what Mom is going through? Why do you think I didn't tell her when they called?"

"What should be doing?"

Bill: "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives."

And he's absolutely correct here: Scully has been so focused on work and its promise of a cure that she's forgotten to give space to those suffering alongside her.

"Just, just because I haven't bared my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God, it doesn't mean I'm not responsible to those important to me."

Here Scully reveals she thought emotional distance and soldiering on was her way of protecting her loved ones from her burdens, providing them strength in the face of her worsening health. In reality, it worsened their fears and burdens; and furthered their isolation... except for, ironically, Mulder, who wasn't ready to face the implications of her impending death, anyway.

"To who? This guy Mulder? But where is he, Dana? Where is he through all this?"

Bill is less right here: from his perspective, Dana has (once again) wrapped herself up with a man whose authority and work ethic supersedes Bill's love and concern for his sister-- another in the pattern of their late father and Daniel Waterston and Jack Willis. Bill isn't stupid: his above reproach also reveals he knows Mulder knows about Scully's cancer; and the fact that her partner did and still left her alone to deal with it to "pursue his career" while Bill hasn't been able to be there to support her at all eats away at him, makes him hate the man. (And still he's civil when he meets Mulder, even talks with him in terms he believes a workaholic will understand-- "Let's keep the work away from here"-- only getting rough when he misinterprets Mulder's blank face in response-- "Let her die with dignity.")

Despite being wrong here, Bill still hits the mark; because Mulder did wander off on a quest. But Scully can't argue for Mulder without betraying her own reticence, her own need to keep Mulder in the dark for Mulder's sake-- because that would betray her feelings in a way that she doesn't want to discuss with Bill, especially after Mulder has consistently dodged that serious conversation for years now. So, she picks up her clothes and ends the conversation.

In-Depth Analysis

Maggie Was Scully's Emergency Contact

The hospital called Maggie when Scully was rushed in, unconscious; and while this doesn't outright disprove the theory Mulder might also be an emergency contact, it certainly fits in with the pattern of him being called to the hospital and let into Scully's room by Maggie and not the other way around (i.e. One Breath and Wetwired.) Furthermore, Mulder isn't alerted (that I know of) to a missed call from the hospital after his return to civilization, meaning the hospital didn't notify him at all.

Bill the Bully?

Is Bill a despicable figure? Most definitely... in a deleted Memento Mori scene-- which is why I think they cut it. Though his words are brusque, even cruel in their blunt honesty, Bill, apart from that scene, doesn't seem to willfully inflict or weaponize guilt against his sister, wielding it only as a reminder of how much her family is left out of her life, how much they want to be there for her and don't understand why she won't let them in. It's a fundamental difference in how they approach life; and both are forceful about their insistence on doing things their own way.

Scully is used to being everyone's source of strength (Maggie places her on a pedestal even above her brothers in Memento Mori), which hinders her from opening up or betraying her weakness. Being "the strong one" for so long turned into a fear of failing others; but this reticence has the opposite effect, ostracizing and distancing her family (and Mulder) in her struggles to keep them unaffected. Their divide grows as the years go on (though it seems an equilibrium of sorts has been reached after Emily, since she mentions them fondly in How the Ghosts Stole Christmas and indirectly in Millennium.)

Bill Is Right (in This Instance)

On its face, Bill's speech is unrelenting and out of left field... but is it, really?

Bill is told about his sister's cancer only when it has become irredeemably terminal. He arrives on land, either before or after Maggie's revelation, and finds the rest of the family ignorant and his mother having to shoulder that burden, alone, because his sister refused to let her tell anyone else the news-- meaning, Maggie has been suffering in silence the entire cancer arc, trying to abide by her daughter's terms for space and silence on the topic. However, Scully's definitive terminal diagnosis broke her; and Maggie, having no one to turn to support because Dana still refused to talk about it, finally confessed to her priest and reached out to her son for strength. Bill sees how hard this has been on her and tries to alleviate that burden by adopting his sister's methods: keeping Maggie in the dark as much as possible. It honors what he knows to be his sister's wishes and his mother's fears.

In this scene Bill is absolutely in the right. He and his sister, while not incredibly close, have no ill will between them; and he finds out that not only has she been slowly dying for months and sworn their mother to secrecy but she also still refused to tell him, even when he dropped everything to bail her and Maggie out with this act of kindness. This is wrong-- it is-- and his speech rebuking his sister is as deserved as Scully's are to Mulder whenever he acts only in stubborn self-interest.

Bill is hurt, Bill is grieved; and Bill drives that home, peeling back his sister's denial by exposing her true intent: "You think you can cure yourself." The ludicrous nature of her expectations-- cure incurable cancer and never tell a soul so she won't have to 'suffer' the shame or embarrassment of their sympathy or pity-- galls him; and he's right. It's Scully's struggle and her burden; but it's not just her struggle or burden: her family and loved ones are losing her, too, and that pain is just as powerfully frightening. Bill wants more from her than an immovable pillar of strength-- and that's a good thing. Maggie needed her to be "the strong one", and Mulder needed her to keep fighting; but Bill just wanted his sister to tell him the truth and let him in.

A last note: Bill grew up with Dana-- he knows her propensity to get lost in father figures and demanding authorities. He probably sees Mulder as another Daniel Waterston or Jack Willis, an extension of her undisguised adoration for their late father. He's naturally protective (as we see in Redux II, though grossly misplaced) and thinks Scully is losing that stability in herself the more engrossed she becomes in her work (ex. Gethsemane-Redux II and A Christmas Carol.) These fears and concerns are expressed in overbearing finger-wagging and anger rather than communication, a (sadly) common affliction in a family growing a more distant with time and lives necessarily apart.

Scully Believed She Could Cure Herself

Since Memento Mori, Scully's modus operandi has been to avoid, avoid, avoid the topic of her cancer (and the death of her father, her abduction, etc.) The following cases rarely touched on her illness unless she had a concerning diagnosis or needed further treatment, i.e. Zero Sum and Elegy. Radiation was likely ruled out as ineffective since the skirmish with Dr. Scanlon (and was a drain of her valuable energy and health without any chance of helping, regardless); so, Scully probably opted for more obscure treatments, buying time while she and Mulder chipped away at their work.

In the back of her mind, she believed, truly, that she wouldn't die: that her cancer could be tucked away from her family and cured before Bill or the others ever found out. As we know, Maggie bore the brunt of her daughter's edict of silence alone, finally caving when the cancer reached Scully's bloodstream. When Bill waits for an explanation-- staring at his sister's defiance and stubbornness and pure conviction that she's fine and that the family shouldn't be worried about her at all-- he figures out her blind expectation and avoidance-bordering-on-denial and says, appalled: "You think you can cure yourself." Scully dips her head, exposed and embarrassed.

The beginning of Gethsemane proves Scully was still denial: "my dying wish" she professes on the one hand only to reject the priest and shake her head at Bill with the other. No, Scully did not expect to die alone without her family there. When Bill demands, "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives", she parries, "Just because I don't bare my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God." Scully thought she was doing her duty by keeping her loved ones in her thoughts while carrying out her solitary battle. When Bill strips her of her further excuses-- "Who? To this guy Mulder?"-- it peels back her hyper-focused perspective, reminding Scully that it's not just her and Mulder fighting the world.

She did her family and Mulder and herself a disservice by pushing them all away to "protect them", as she realizes in Redux II: being "strong" stripped them of the ability to support each other and was damaging in the long run. In this, Bill is undeniably correct. However, where Bill is wrong is that he doesn't see that Scully believes in Mulder's ability to save her, that by following him she is doing what is best for herself.

Her partner's fervor and hope give her strength; and his inability to break under defeat keeps her fighting even in her darkest hours (and does end up saving her life.) Scully put such faith in Mulder and his abilities and his theories that she kept council only with herself (as much as possible) to keep him going, to keep the weight off his shoulders (and her mother's and her family's) so that they could move forward as a well-oiled machine, ready to snatch the cure whenever they got their hands on it. And Mulder did get his hands on it... and then it failed.

She's dying; but it's not until the cure fails that the dam breaks: everything Scully had been fearing comes rushing out of her. She gives in, crying to her mother about her crumbling lack of faith-- because the miracle cure didn't work, because her months of waiting and hoping in private were all for naught, because she's going to die and there's no possible way to escape. But it's also freeing: she can own her fear, hold onto her mother, clutch Mulder's hand, cry with the priest, finally lean into and start to heal from the weights she's been holding on her back, alone.

And she prays: death is near.

Scully Wanted to Please Bill, Too

As she told Ed Jerse in Never Again, "There are other fathers."

The ouroboros twirls on and on in her personal life, goading her to both make a stand for herself and to placate Bill's expected reactions. In this situation, she did deserve his anger; however, this dynamic continues to play out in Redux II and A Christmas Carol, separate circumstances that are outside Bill's scope of understanding or perspective. After each confrontation, her brother always backs off and begrudgingly acquiesces his sister's boundaries; but it's easy to see why he clings to his late father's behaviors-- viewing them as the only way his sister will confide in him-- and why Scully automatically responds to-- albeit with more guilt than openness-- and rejects his methods.

It's an aspect of their relationship that fell to the wayside as the series barreled onward; but there are hints of resignation on his part after the events of Emily unfolded the way they did (silent support in the courthouse and true remorse in the church.) Scully, however, is locked in grief and unwilling to open back up, yet. We're never shown on-screen what happens next; but he seems to have caused her no further problems in spite of her professional and personal scares in the future (including almost being burned alive, an unexpected trip to Antarctica, job demotion, and getting gut shot all within the span of a few months.) Perhaps he gave her up for loss, perhaps he stayed close but distant, perhaps he withdrew from the drama all together. We'll never know; and, ultimately, it's up to individual interpretation.

Conclusion

This scene sets up the hinge upon which the cancer arc (and any future Scully family drama) twists and turns.

I don't believe Bill is bad, or even malevolent: he, like any other person in a family strained with distance and death, doesn't seem to blame Scully entirely or for long; and only wishes to get through to her somehow. We saw him bully her as a child but we also saw him gift and teach her how to use a bb gun. Scully, meanwhile, balks at and softens over Bill's bluster and overstepping, always effectively putting him in his place after courteously listening to his opinion. We saw her yell and shove him as a child but we also saw her gleefully play alongside he and Charlie.

In conclusion: like all sibling relationships, there are headbutts and there are fights; but it seems, at least by their conversation here and succeeding ones in the future, that any hitch or bump in the road is smoothed over, ironed out, or fixed before it becomes permanent. Bill makes excellent points that Scully takes into consideration, changing her future dealings with Maggie and Bill and even Mulder (namely, her willingness to open up in Detour); and Bill, having said his peace, supports his sister in her decisions the rest of this arc and later in S5.

That we know about.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[whoiwanttoday]

Last night, Joe Bob Briggs showed Cemetery Man, a movie I had seen many times before because it was one of those obscure cult classics here in the states, the kind that a certain type of nerd gravitates to and it means when I worked at a record store a guy there LOVED this movie. Like maybe his favorite movie. I think it's sorta fun but a mess and while it has the same issue as a lot of Italian genre work it somehow works better then a lot of them, so I like it but don't love it. I think I first saw this around 2000 and I had preconceived notions as someone who had seen many an Italian movie from the 70's. Which is they were painfully glamorous and about people who lived lives that felt strikingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan and were full of the most beautiful women in the world. They also didn't make sense, were frustrating in their lack of plot, and the acting wasn't great and the dubbing was ridiculous. All most all of those things are what most people think about these movies and for some people it's why they are great and for others, like me, it's why they are frustrating. A lot of it is the nature of the Italian film industry (RIP, it barely exists now whereas once upon a time it was one of the most important centers of film in the world). It made it's money by mastering dubbing and most Italian movies were shot where actors spoke in their native language because there was never going to be a non dubbed version. That means if you have say, a Finnish actress across from an English actor and an Italian actor playing a side character, in that scene the Finnish actress will speak Finnish, the English Actor will speak English, and the Italian actor will speak Italian, cause it's all going to get dubbed later so who cares. Not shockingly, this doesn't exactly lead to the best acting all the time. Over the top acting, sometimes really fun performances? Sure. Great acting? Not as often.

And why are they beautiful? Because Italian cinema is pretty misogynistic. This isn't a "Felini hates women" thing (but Christ, Felini hated women) it's the more that a woman's value was in her looks and good god did Italy just find the most beautiful women to put in their movies. Such as Anna Falchi, who I think Cemetery Man was her first lead role and you know what, she did a good job, so I am not going to slag on her acting or anything. But she was there because she is so fucking hot and looks even better naked than she does in clothing and that's a rare thing. For her career up until this movie she was largely a model and an actress who played, "The hot girl" in movies. Not as a lead but like if you are going to have a letter delivered to your stalwart police detective in a Giallo, why not have a hot girl in a short skirt and knee high boots deliver it? Those were what she played. This is all a long way of saying I have always been a genius because as a kid I figured out this is what they were doing AND from the first moment I saw Cemetery Man I said, "Jesus, she's hot". Guys, I was right then and I am right now. Today I want to fuck Anna Falchi.

[theunderestimator-2]

How a non-musician evolved into the 'Godfather of ambient music': teenage Brian Eno, here captured during his formative years while attending Roy Ascott’s influential and experimental ‘Groundcourse’ at Ipswich School Of Art back in 1968.

Today a highly acclaimed teacher, theorist and pioneer of new media, Ascott named his foundation studies program Groundcourse (learning from the ground up) and focused on the eradication of preconceived ideas through disorientation and various challenging and confusing practices designed to disrupt creative preconceptions and embrace this idea you are not a fixed thing, you can change things about yourself, you can see what it is like to be somebody else, through social experiments in class or personality exercises, so that students would express the process they had been through artistically.

thequietus.com/: "...Eno laughed as he explained how this next stage was the crux of the game. "We had to design exactly the opposite person and live that person for the next 10 weeks. So, in my case, I wasn’t allowed to talk unless spoken to because I was always a chatterbox. I wasn’t allowed to initiate anything; I just had to do what other people asked me to do, so I had to execute other people’s plans. I was very physically energetic, and I had to sit on a trolley so that if I wanted to go anywhere, I had to persuade someone to push me. So, for 10 weeks I was another person, and so was everybody else, and yet we were trying to do these new projects together. The meekest person had to be the leader of the group, the direct opposite." Ascott defined the ideas that developed, through disorientated projects, as being quite radical and challenging artistic preconceptions. "They had boards which they folded in different combinations that would result in going to the next level, or not, then if you didn’t win you wore some enormous thing over your head. There were two stories that came out of it: Eno had to go around with a paper bag over his head because he couldn’t see for a period and Townsend was in a trolley for a few days. Basically, they would build quite large things that you would go into with lights, all kinds of stuff, but on quite an environmental scale. We gave them about six weeks for that. You can imagine the scene within the art studios as the future destructive Who guitarist is pushed around by fellow students and the creator of Ambient music is quietened, redefining their natural impulses supported their development of cultural impactful work. Conceptual development through closely exploring personality interference into artistic creativity, supported a widening of some student’s minds, unpacking the creative processes of art forms." Eno pondered the impact, saying he was a non-musician who entered the field through an alternative direction to traditional music training: ”So, I didn’t come into music from that route; I came into music from the route of thinking how do I make music happen, given that I can’t do the things that people normally do to make music happen. I very much took that notion that Roy had given, of creating scores actually. Activity maps, as it were, ways of getting to something.”

(via & via)

[selencgraphy]

— 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆 ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑: man i hate this part of texas (three clicks and i'm home)

PAIRING: jake seresin x f!original character

TAGS: honestly it's just all fluff (i know, crazy, right?)

A/N: some of you might recognize some bits of this part bc they were in the original versions of the series... anyways, this part is solely dedicated to jake and jessie's history (i.e. a culmination of how they met and [some] important moments in their life). now for the 'bad' news... the next part will be the last one in the main series. i kept beating around the bush with them and now we're coming to a head! my inbox is always open for requests as well, so lmk if you ever want to see anything with them! anyways, i'll save the sappy shit for the fic and the next post's authors notes. oh, also there are some words/phrases in spanish. translations are included at the very end :) happy reading!

WORD COUNT: ~4.3k

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El Paso had been home for the last 6 years of her life. Every important milestone she could remember had been accomplished along the streets of that city. It’s where her parents decided to settle down once her father retired from the Navy. 6 years of peace. So when her parents had sat her down one random summer night to tell her that they were moving again, it had felt like her entire world was going to crumble. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been as big of a deal as she had made it. She grew up a Navy brat, moving cities was supposed to be easy. But that was ages ago for her. Her father’s retirement was supposed to mean no more moving around. Now she was going to start high school in a little over a month. That was daunting in and of itself and now her parents expected her to move to a city 9 hours from home? 

“You’ll be okay, mija. I promise,” her mother reassured. The new house was similar to her childhood home, allowing her to forget where she was sometimes. But then she would suggest to her father they visit her favorite bookstore and the fantasy she created in her head, even if it was for a minute, would crumble. Even after she had unpacked all the mass of cardboard boxes and placed everything to mimic her old room, the promised feeling never came. She missed the  corner of the bookstore she made hers. The street that she used to race her parents down. She missed home. Austin wasn’t home. Not yet at least.

Jessie made herself as small as possible as she made her way through the crowded halls of Westlake High School, hands gripping the paper that held her future for the next 6 months tightly. Find your class was the phrase she repeated in her head like a mantra. She had only just looked back down for a second to double check the class number. By the time she glanced back up, she had no time to react before walking straight into a backpack, accidentally shoving the owner forward. “Oh my- I am so sorry.”

While spewing apologies profusely, the person she ran into turned around to face her. A tall boy not much older than her with blonde hair that was borderline brunette and eyes her favorite shade of green. “Dios mío,” she thought, admiring his face before her eyes caught sight of his jacket. He had said something back to her, but she registered nothing, too caught up in panic at the revelation of what he was.

“Mierda, he’s a jock. Good going, Jess,” she cursed in her head. If her preconceived notion about jocks was right, which was based on films, this was the first step to living four years in absolute hell.

Her expression must’ve been extreme because now his eyebrows were furrowed. “Hey, it’s really no big deal. Are you- are you okay?”

Was he really asking if she was okay? “Am I okay? I was the one who ran into you!”

“The hallway always gets packed on the first day so it happens,” he shrugged. “Do you need help finding your class?”

She quickly shook her head profusely. “No it’s okay. Thank you though.” Just as she finished her sentence and started to walk off, the bell had rung. She was nowhere near where she needed to be. What a way to start off the first day of high school. She had taken probably two steps before her schedule was snatched out of her hands. “Hey! What’re you-”

She glared at the boy, silently begging that he gave it back as he studied it. She didn’t have time for this. After a few seconds, he started walking. Now a couple steps in front of her, he turned back around with a raised eyebrow and smirk on his face and asked, “Do you want to be late or…?”

As they walked, he returned her schedule and she asked, “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but why are you helping me?”

“Because,” was all he said in reply with that smirk still plastered across his face, shrugging his shoulders. 

Her face scrunched at his smugness. “Well, aren’t you going to be late now?” Right when she finished her question he just stopped walking. Quickly glancing at the class number and back to the paper, she sighed in relief. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem. Just try not to bump into any more people. Not everyone's as nice as me,” he jested.

“Noted,” she replied with a chuckle. As he walked into the class across the hall, he called over his shoulder, “Welcome to high school, Jessie!”

“Thank yo- Wait, I didn’t get your-” Before she could finish, he already vanished from sight and into the other room. “Name,” she mumbled to herself before walking into her own class.

The next seven and a half hours were boring as hell. Each teacher went through basically the same spiel about their class. It was the last period of the day now—English 10. It was a sophomore year class, but she had such good grades in middle school that they put her in English 9 in eighth grade. So yeah, a freshman in a sophomore year class. Having gotten there early, she took a seat in the middle of the row closest to the door, like she had the rest of the day. Nose glued to the book in front of her, she failed to notice the person who slipped into the seat right behind her. Tap tap tap.

Hesitantly, she turned to face them being met with a familiar face. “Hey stranger,” he said with the same smirk on his face.

“Hey,” she greeted back, confusion in her tone. “What’re you doing here?”

“Last I checked this is English 10 and you’re a freshman. So the real question is what are you doing here?” Leaning back into his chair as he asked—he wasn’t being entirely serious, but she didn’t need to know that. As she stammered and her face reddened, he did his best to hold in a laugh. “I’m just pulling your leg, Jessie. I looked at your schedule this morning, remember?”

Quickly, she released a breath she didn’t know she held. After taking a few seconds to recollect herself, she turned further in her chair to fully face him, extending her hand. “Jessie Rosales, but you already knew that.”

“I did,” he smiled at her gesture, shaking her hand. “Jake Seresin.”

“Jake,” she said, familiarizing herself with the name. “What sport do you play?"

“Huh?”

She quickly glanced down at his clothes. “Your letterman jacket.”

“Oh yeah, uh football.”

“Predictable,” she said with a shrug before turning back around. Realizing what she had said he lurched forward, his face now inches away from the back of her head. “Predictable? What d’you mean predictable?”

She turned her head just enough to talk to him again. “You’re a pretty white boy in Texas who plays football, Jake. It’s predictable.” Before he could say anymore, the bell rang and their teacher started to talk. One of the words she used to describe him didn’t go unnoticed though. 

“She thinks I’m pretty,” he thought to himself with a small smirk on his face. But it wasn’t his usual one that he wore from his ever-growing confidence. No, this one came from the new warmth in his chest that made his cheeks turn pink and start to burn.

Out of the years of high school, sophomore year was supposed to be the most boring of the four. Freshman were the new kids on the block. Juniors had the stress of taking their SATs and getting ready to figure out what they wanted to do. Seniors were celebrating the end of their high school careers with prom and graduation. Sophomore year was the weird gap between truly leaving childhood and heading into adulthood, no large milestones to be had. So Jake didn’t expect much out of the year aside from the football season. That is until a girl came barreling into him on August 18, 1997. Yes, he remembered the exact date. How could forget?

A few hours after she had gotten back home, she sat at her desk mindlessly drawing in her sketchbook. Each page had a recurring theme, the most recent being planes. She had placed her desk to be right in front of her window, giving her a view of the street and the houses right across. A faded red truck pulled into the driveway of the house directly across from hers. She wasn’t sure what had caused her to look up at the exact moment that she did. She watched as they parked the car and hopped out. It was late and practically pitch black outside but the street light was bright enough for her to see who it was. When he tapped the top of the truck before heading into his house, a small smile grew on her face before she looked back down to continue drawing. 

When she got to school the next day, her eyes searched the crowd in the hallway for a letterman—his letterman—but couldn’t find it. He probably wasn’t wearing it today. For the entire day, it was as if he didn’t even exist. Her only hope was sixth period and that was hours away. Still she waited. When she walked in, she immediately looked over to where they had sat the day before, finding him already there in the same seat, loudly talking to another boy behind him. Quickly, she slipped into her seat as quiet as possible, trying her best not to attract his attention away from his conversation. But of course, her plan was ruined by the squeak of her chair. “Look who decided to show up,” he remarked, looking down at his watch. “You know, freshman are usually the first one’s to show up? The fear of being late and all but you? Barely a minute to spare, Rosales.”

“Still made it, didn’t I?” His smile widened at her response. The sudden burst of confidence shocking even herself. “I didn’t see you this morning, did you come late? You did get home pretty late last night.”

His eyebrows raised at that, confusion and intrigue mixed into his expression. Still he remained silent as she continued. “Didn’t a new family move into the house right across from you?”

“How did you…?” The realization hit him slowly, his signature smirk returning. “You’re my new neighbor.”

“Yup,” she said with a pop.

His eyes narrowed. “Why haven't I seen you until now? You moved in like a month ago.”

“I’ve been around. You just weren't looking, I guess.” That was a lie. She hasn’t been around. She had spent that month memorizing the four walls of her bedroom. But that wasn’t something he needed to know. She was quick to leave class—the first one out the door when the bell rang as a matter of fact. There was really no need for her to be in such a rush, it wasn’t like she drove, so the traffic was the least of her worries. No, she wanted to be in the quiet of her room where she could breathe.

“Jess, wait up!” Her pace faltered at the shout of her name, rushed footsteps growing louder. “Damn, you’re fast,” he exclaimed as soon as he came to be side by side with her. “Got somewhere to be?”

“Home,” she replied.

“I can drive you,” he quickly suggested before jogging forward to open the door, waiting for her answer as he held it open. She maintained her pace as she walked through the door, making him jog again for a couple steps to catch up.

“I’m good with walking. Thank you though.”

“Come on, Jess. We live right across from each other, and you can get home in five minutes instead of roasting in this heat for thirty.” 

She sighed at his persistence. “Don’t you have practice?” She didn't mean for her words to come out so harshly, instantly regretting them as soon as they flew out. “Sorry, I just have to get home.” Her voice wavered slightly causing his eyes to soften suddenly. It was so subtle that she barely even noticed but they did.

“Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile. Watching him as he turned to head towards his car, she looked over his shoulder to his truck. The old streetlight in front of their houses didn’t do it justice, but one thing caught her eye that she didn’t see the night before.

Rubbing her face in annoyance, she whispered to herself, “No dejes para mañana lo que puedes hacer hoy.” Don't leave for tomorrow what you can do today. 

Before she knew it, she jogged up to him like he had done minutes earlier and asked while pointing towards his rearview mirror, “You like planes, too?”

The shock on his face lasted mere milliseconds before his signature smirk returned. “I do. But that’s actually an-”

Before he could finish she cut him off as she opened the door to the passenger seat. “An F/A-18 Super Hornet, yeah I know. Just wanted to see if you knew.”

His eyes softened, a small grin forming on his face at the banter before turning on the ignition.

—

“Did you do the essay?”

She jumped around causing him to jolt back in his seat from leaning forward. “Essay? What essay?”

“The one for this class, stupid. Minimum 4 pages about the last book you read.”

Her face grew redder by the second. “Jake.”

“Jessie.” 

“You’re fucking with me.”

He shook his head. “I am not.”

She quickly turned to the person sitting next to her. “Hey, did we have an essay due today?” Their face scrunched in confusion. At their reaction, she slowly turned back to Jake who was now trying to hold in a laugh.

“Pinche pendejo,” she cursed, smacking his arm.

“Ahh hahah,” he whined through his laughter, rubbing the spot she hit him. “You’re just so gullible. I love seeing you get all red like that. It’s cute.”

“I hate you,” she murmured, rolling her eyes and turning back in her seat.

He chuckled at her. “No you don’t.” He tapped her shoulder to get her to turn back around but all he got in return was a huff. “Oh come on,” he whined. “Don’t be like that, Jess.”

–

"Jake's a good boy," her mother commented as she cleared up the dining table. Since becoming such close friends, she started to bring him around her house more. Her father was skeptical at first, him being overprotective and all, but after a while Jake Seresin became a part of their family. He'd come over for dinner every so often just like tonight where he was now in the kitchen helping her dad do dishes. "I know you keep insisting that you two are just friends but-"

She quickly interrupted her mother. "Mama," she whined.

"I'm just saying, sweetheart. You don't find good boys like him that easily these days. However that is, you keep that boy around."

As her mom spoke, her mind wandered back to the times when he dropped one of his teammates because he heard him talking shit about her. To when he bought her the book she had been gushing about for months. To when he dragged her out for burgers because he supposedly just felt like it. No matter if she needed or even wanted him around, he was always right there. Jake's voice pulled her from her thoughts. "Jess, you okay?"

She wasn't sure how long she had been standing and thinking for. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"You sure?" he pressed, a smidge of worry swimming in his eyes, and his hand placed on her bicep.

"Yeah," she sighed.

Just as he was about to say something Jessie's mom called from the kitchen. "Jake, honey, come here really quick!"

He gave her a reassuring squeeze before heading back from where he came. She followed him, catching her mother handing him their landline as she crossed the threshold between the dining room and kitchen. No one could hear what the voice on the other end was saying and he gave no indication of who it may be as he stood and listened. When he hung up, he looked towards his best friend and her parents, a blank expression on his face. "Is everything okay, míjo?"

"Yeah, that was the school's football coach. He said he called my house, but my mom said I was here," he trailed. "He decided the roster for the Varsity team."

Based on the look on his face, the Rosales' began to sigh, assuming that the coach had called to tell him he didn't make it. But then his face brightened once again. "I’m starting QB," he yelled, sending the family in front of him into a frenzy. Jessie threw her arms around him, spewing congratulations after congratulation.

"I knew they'd pick you, Jake," she whispered into his neck. "They'd be stupid if they didn't."

"Thank you for believing in me," he replied, loud enough that only she could hear him. "What kind of best friend would I be if I didn't?"

—

Game after game, Jessie Rosales stood in the same spot, no matter if it was a home or away game, holding a sign that had his name and jersey number on it as she cheered him on. Every time he heard her scream or saw him jumping in celebration, his heart swelled.

Jake had taken his team all the way to state championships and the stands were filled practically to the brim. Jessie showed up a few minutes before kick-off, taking a seat at the top-most row of the bleachers, a newly made poster in hand. Usually she was the loudest of them all but it being the championship game, her cheers for Jake were drowned out amidst everyone else's. Before she knew it, the last play finished as Jake threw the game winning pass, throwing everyone onto their feet. So many people were congratulating him and taking pictures she wasn’t sure she was gonna get the chance to get him alone. Fuck it. “Seresin!” she yelled from across the field. 

At the shout of his last name, he turned to search for her, the slight frown he had molded into a smile. It was as if he came fresh off of the bench the way he sprinted at her. “You made it,” he exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around her.

“Of course I came! When have I ever missed one of your games?”

His embrace tightened and her feet lifted off the ground. “Never,” he whispered.

“Exactly,” she replied and it was like he could hear her smile. As soon as her feet returned back to solid ground, his embrace loosened, but he didn't let her go. Instead, he grabbed her shoulders and lowered himself so that his eyes leveled with hers. Her smile morphed into a confused frown as he stared at her for a second. “What?”

He took a beat longer than usual before answering her. “Nothing, I’m just happy is all.”

“You better fucking be, Mr. MVP,” she exclaimed, pulling him into a hug once more. “You’re the fucking best.”

“I am the best,” he agreed, his body relaxing into her embrace. They stayed like that for a minute before she pulled away and smacked his arm. “Now let’s celebrate by stuffing our faces with burgers!”

—

"What if we just went together?"

"Us?"

Her reaction sent him into a spiral, the blood draining from his face. "Yeah, I mean we'd go just as friends— people go with their friends all the time."

Her face lightened in amusement at his nervous rambling. "I'm just fucking with you, Seresin. We can go together."

Then every year after that, they went as each other's "dates." To homecoming and prom. By Jake's senior year, everyone in their school swore up and down that they were actually a couple, despite their insistence that they weren't. Them showing up to prom together just fueled the fire. Jessie wasn't even a senior that year, but the yearbook staff made an exception labeling her and Jake, "Most Inseparable Friends." Every time someone opened up their copy of the yearbook, you could see drawn-in quotations people would add around the word Friends.

But regardless of everyone's speculations or pressure, they never really did get past being just friends. At his graduation, all three Rosales’ stood next to the Seresins cheering with balloons and a bouquet of flowers. Jessie noticed the side eye his father gave her as she cheered for him when the principal called his name but paid no mind to it. She supported their son more than he ever did.

—

“Jake!” He jumped at her sudden shout.

“What,” he groaned as he rubbed his eyes. Summer was exhausting, Jessie and Jake deciding to do almost everything they possibly could do in Austin, Texas. He was leaving for college at the end of the sunny season after all. He wasn’t going far, but he’d be busy with classes soon enough. Most days, just like today, they found themselves lounging in her room, listening to music and catching up on sleep. Well, until she woke him up. “You know how X-Men is coming out next week?”

“Yeah…?"

“The Alamo Drafthouse is playing it!”

“And?” She smacked his leg at his sarcasm. “Ow! Okay, I’m sorry!”

“We have to get tickets!”

“Do we have to?” Her eyebrows furrowed, sending him an angered glare. “Okay, okay!”

She quickly stood up off her bed, placing her hands out in front of him to help him up. “What?”

“Let’s go. How are we gonna see the movie when we don’t even have tickets yet!”

“Ugh, fine. But you’re driving,” he said, tossing her his keys. As they pulled into a parking space in front of the theater, she turned off the car with lightning speed and ran to the tiny box office at the entrance.

“Sorry hun, we ran out of tickets for it just yesterday…”

Her shoulders sagged and she whimpered back to the worker, “Oh okay. Thank you though.”

Watching her as she walked back to his car, the pep in her step gone, he couldn't help but feel bad. As she sat back down in the driver’s seat, he asked, “Well? Did you get the tickets?” She shook her head.

“That’s weird,” he started, pulling something out from his pockets. “Because when I went there yesterday, they had plenty.”

At that, he placed two small slips of paper in her lap. “Two tickets to see X-Men, tonight at 8 o’clock.” Her eyes widened as she picked up the papers and shot her head around to face him. He had expected a shriek followed by a warm embrace of excitement but instead, he was met with a firm slap to the shoulder. “What was that for?”

“You’re crazy and you’re stupid. That was so mean!” Each word was followed by a consecutive slap. “Okay but do you need to keep hitting me?”

“Yes! Because you’re mean! Letting me get all sad thinking I wasn’t gonna see the fricking movie.” After a dozen more hits, she leaned over the center console and gave him the hug he was expecting earlier. “Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “You’re the best.”

“Of course. One question though.”

“Hmm?”

“Who’s hotter: me or Hugh Jackman?”

“You’re an asshole, d’you know that?” He grinned as she turned the car back on. “Refusal to answer the question means the answer is me,” he quipped, singing the last word.

“In your dreams, dickhead. Obviously Hugh Jackman’s hotter.”

Jake gasped in feigned offense. “I can return those tickets.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jessie hissed, causing Jake to grin at her seriousness. 

—

As Jessie handed Jake an envelope, his eyes quickly scanned the text printed. University of California, Irvine. “Jess, what is this?”

“Open it,” she encouraged. Carefully, Jake pushed aside the flap, the envelope already opened as he pulled the paper inside, his expression filled with concern.

“Oh, read it out loud, too!” He let out a breathy laugh at her excitement.

“‘Dear Jessie Rosales, it is with great pleasure that I inform you that your application for admission to the University of California, Irvine has been approved.’ Jess, this is awesome!” He immediately jumped up and pulled her into a tight hug, the papers thrown across her bed as he threw his arms around her. 

A piece of him worried for what the newfound distance between them would strain their relationship, but when his phone rang every night like clockwork, her name flashing across the screen, his anxiety about losing her slowly faded into the background. 

Then they both got into the Naval Aviation program, Jake first with Jessie following suit a year later. Even when they were stationed in different places at a time and being sent off on long deployments, their relationship stayed strong. Long calls like no time had passed made his heart swell.

“What’s up with you?” Jessie asked, her voice distorted slightly by his phone’s speaker.

“I am packing,” he responds loudly for his phone’s mic to pick up as he moved to grab more clothes from his closet.” 

“New orders?”

“Yeah,” he trailed, his voice strained as he shoved stuff into his duffel. “M’not supposed to tell anyone, but I got called back to Top Gun.”

Jessie didn’t respond for a second. “Hey, you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” she answered quickly. “D’you know why they’re calling you back?”

“Nope, but you know the Navy. They tell us where to go but not why.”

Jessie hummed. “Well, I’ll let you go pack.”

“Alright, good night. Love you.”

“Love you too.”He sighed as his phone beeped when she hung up, falling onto his bed in exhaustion.

Both of them saw the other grow up to be the person their younger versions had always wanted to be and neither of them would have it any other way.

TRANSLATIONS:

Dios mio - My god

Mierda - shit / crap

Pinche pendejo - Fucking idiot

(disclaimer: i don't speak spanish fluently and referred to things i've heard my friends say and/or looked it up! lmk if anything isn't accurate)

A/N: i hope this part made up for the pain that was the last three parts... again, tysm for keeping up with this series whether you've been here since the original versions or are just tuning in. much love <3 (also, the whole x-men plot point was written long before the hype for that franchise came back [ogs remember] and i thought i'd be cool to keep it in)

if you want to be added to the taglist, click here!

the playlist || taglist: @dempy @bellaireland1981 @princessashley99 @whateverbagman @blairfox04 @blue-aconite @captainmoonknight (some ppl were tagged bc i remember ygs from the og posts & thought i'd update yall! lmk if you don't wanna be tagged anymore!)

[vestaclinicpod]

Audio Drama Sunday - 25th August ✨

I listened to so much good stuff this week. Highly recommend the lot! 🌈

🌲 @hellofromthehallowoods (164) Honestly, I think Nikignik just needs to meet *my* cat and he’d get over this silliness about felines. I listened to this episode on a night shift and just had to casually blink away tears a few times. I love my fave Yaretzi still having the goldest of hearts no matter what life has thrown at her and MY GOD Shelby Allen. What a woman!! I can’t believe how close they are to solving this case and I REALLY hope her brother isn’t hiding behind one of those masks! 

🧳 Travelling Light @monstrousproductions (32) MY HEART. OUGH. If only the Traveller could have heard the mental HOLLERING I was sending their way, they would never have let all that tension go unresolved. Oh, little Óli, I hope you look after yourself until your paths cross again. (Also there’s something quite romantic about thinking that their lives would entwine once again regardless of which ship the Traveller took… red string and all that 🧶❤️) 

🎙️WTNV (252) Deb!! What a fun episode! 

🖥️ The Magnus Protocol (27) What a fun way to be introduced to the big man himself. I actually think Alice needs to stay out of the Magnussing and keep herself safe!! 

🧋@hinaypod (16, 17) Ooh ep 16 actually had me a little spooked! Especially Laura and Murphy’s scenes (though maybe that’s because I know Mari can look after herself!). The bit with the handprint was such a classic horror vibe, I really enjoyed it. 

🦋 @remnantspod (6) Caught up with this show and there are just so many things I love about it. The stories’ backdrop of what I may be incorrectly assuming is WW2 is such an interesting time period for a show exploring mortality and mortality! And Sir . . . is . . . an angel?? Is that what’s going on here? The implication that this isn’t the first time that the Apprentice has seen Sir’s true form is very interesting indeed! 

🎩 @ethicstownpod Two new episodes this week and both intriguing! The actors did a great job and while I loved the tiny cast format of the first season, it’s also so fun to hear from other perspectives and get a glimpse of the wider Ethics community. 

🗺  @tales-from-the-low-city (10) Another fascinating instalment from the Low City. This episode about adjusting and thriving in a multi-cultural community hit a little hard after recent events in the UK. I think we could all do with a bit more of this quote: ‘if you understand your neighbour, if you know who they are on the inside and not just through your preconceived notions of their kind, you may well be less likely to raise a hand against them’.

Have a lovely week, everybody!!

[marjoch]

MAY YOUR DEATH BE SWIFT

slowburn ellabs fic set four years after santa barbara

early updates on ao3 @ josmarch

chapter 4

summary: abby taking care of sick ellie, domestic lev & abby life, just cute simple things

The weather outside looked like rain, but Abby knew Lev needed some time out of the house. These days he seemed restless, like sitting around would cause him harm. She thought it was a result of a lot of things: being outcast from the only society he had known, losing his sister, and working as a slave until Abby managed to get both of them exiled and sentenced to a sure death. He still didn’t know Ellie was the reason they were alive today. It had been four years, but she knew the past weighed on him as it did her. They were working through that together.

The pair of them started out from the house on foot. They had walked back from the gas station where they’d found Ellie last night, and they were used to walking most places. Abby and Lev made their way towards the main town, which was around a half mile from where they lived. Even in the shade, the late May weather was warm. Abby took off her windbreaker halfway through the short journey, revealing an array of healed but obvious scars made by a switchblade adorning her arms. She’d gained back some of the weight she’d lost in California, but she was a bit more lean as she hadn’t been working out as regularly. She was still in peak physical condition, and an asset to the town.

Both Abby and Lev were comfortable in each other’s presence, some relationship between maternal and sibling. They could sit for hours without saying a word, and be content. They’d been walking in silence for sometime before Lev finally spoke. “Why are you being so nice to her?”

Abby had given it some thought. Lev wasn’t aware of her research into Ellie, and she didn’t want to disclose all of it now. After Santa Barbara, Abby needed to know who Ellie was. The dialogue they’d had in the theatre in Seattle had become a blur, but she recalled it then. It was easy to piece it together once she had some semblance of an idea. Before Abby had deconstructed her preconceived notions of loyalty sometime around meeting Lev, she likely would’ve taken this grudge to the grave. Something in her had shifted. Lev cleared his throat, and Abby said, “I don’t know.”

“Didn’t she kill your friends?”

“I killed her father,” responded Abby, shaking her head. “I used to think everything was so black and white. This or that. I don’t know anymore.”

Lev looked curious. “Regardless of knowing, I think she has an effect on you.” They walked on, and he clarified, “Good or bad, I’m not sure.”

Abby wasn’t sure either. She also thought that she was thinking about it a little too much considering she was usually one for routine. Nothing in Santa Fe had been interesting since she’d settled here with Lev two years ago. At least, nothing disrupted her morning breakfast and falling asleep on the couch reading and her mind. She was beginning to wonder if she regretted going out for late night hunting that resulted in saving someone she’d tried to forget.

“She seems sick. I don’t want to be the one to shoot her if she turns out like everyone else.” Lev sounded serious.

“If you’re really worried, you can stay with your friends for a few nights. It would do you some good to get out of the house.”

Lev shrugged. “I’lll talk to Carmen once we get to town. I’d rather stay with them than get infected by your friend.”

“We aren’t friends,” Abby rolled her eyes.

“Same difference,” Lev replied. “Still weird that you’re helping her.”

They made it to town, then, so Abby dropped the conversation. It wasn’t something she wanted everyone else to hear. These people didn’t need to worry about the decisions she made. She hoped that Lev wouldn’t share anything about the situation, but she knew she didn’t have to hope, because they trusted each other enough.

The two of them went their separate ways once they were down the main street: Lev to his friends, and Abby to the armory. An old gym on the west side of the small town was home to the defense operations, and it’s where she reported her patrols. Overseeing the armory was Grace, a skilled sniper in her mid-thirties. She was a widow, having lost her husband in Dallas just two years prior. On her way into the gym, Abby held the door for a woman her age, and the woman thanked her by name.

“Just the person I was looking for,” said Grace as Abby entered. Grace was standing at the front desk, interrupting the conversation she’d been having with the man behind it.

“Glad we found each other,” Abby said. “I’ve got news for you, too.”

“You first. Walk and talk, I’ve got to meet with the new recruits in a few minutes.”

Abby joined Grace in walking towards the outside training grounds, through the back of the gym. “I think there’s a horde headed our direction. That old gas station had a bunch of infected, but Lev and I just checked it last week.There’s indications more are on the way.”

“Maybe we should start checking more often,” said Grace. “But you’re probably right about the horde. I’ll make sure everyone’s on the lookout.”

“Thanks,” Abby said. “Your turn.”

“I’ve got a new assignment for you, if you want it. The Johnsons had a small house fire last night. Nothing major, but it’s going to take some time to repair, and they’re both elderly. We’re planning to move them closer to the outskirts, but didn’t want to leave them out there alone.” They were approaching the training grounds now. “Would you do a routine patrol around the area daily? Just to make sure it’s clear. We don’t need infected in this town.”

Abby nodded. “Yeah, of course. Just get me the address.” They reached the training grounds, where five young men were standing and talking amongst themselves.

“You got it. See you soon.” With ease, Grace transitioned from saying goodbye to teaching a class. She put on a blank expression and studied each of the boys, who fell silent under her gaze. Abby left, then, determined to find Lev and get an update on where he would be staying.

Her efforts fell short and the sky grew darker in the distance. Abby knew the window of time to get home before the storm was closing, so she made the executive decision to head back home. Lev was with his friends, he was eighteen years old, and he was capable of both walking back later and defending himself if necessary. She was still getting used to him going off and doing his own thing.

Abby made it back right before the downpour began. She closed the door behind her, and immediately stopped in her tracks, noticing an absence in the living room. Ellie’s bag was on the floor beside the couch, but there was no sign of the woman. She wasn’t in the kitchen, either. Abby always had her gun on her, and she was prepared to use it if this really did go badly.

She decided to check the bathroom first, which felt like the most rational place. She knocked on the closed door. When she got no response, she called, “Ellie?” Nothing. She opened the door, and sighed. There was Ellie, sitting on the floor, head back against the wall, looking quite feverish. Abby put her gun away. She went to Ellie and knelt down, studying her. She raised her hand to Ellie’s temple with the intent of gauging her temperature, but Ellie swatted her hand away.

“Jesus, Ellie,” Abby rolled her eyes, trying again. She succeeded, and then sighed deeply. “You’re really burning up. Come on, I’ll get you some water.”

Abby stood up and held her hands out in case Ellie wanted some help. Ellie sat there until she noticed Abby was offering, and she stood up on her own out of defiance. Abby left the bathroom, waiting for Ellie to follow behind. After a minute passed, Abby went back in. Ellie was still standing there, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Abby imagined she was talking to herself, convincing herself to get to the couch without assistance. She’d done the same once.

Abby went to Ellie’s side, and silently offered to guide her. Ellie shook her head. Abby sighed, fed up with the Miss Independent routine. “Just let me help you,” she said. Ellie finally gave in.

Once in the living room, Abby led Ellie to the couch. She helped Ellie lay down, and covered her with a blanket. She went into the kitchen and brought a glass of water out, and put it on the ground by the couch. “Water,” she said. “You should drink some when you’re able.” Abby stood up. The sound of heavy rain droned on in the background. “The storm will probably last all day.”

Ellie said nothing, so Abby turned and went into the kitchen to make herself something to eat. When Abby came back through the room, Ellie was asleep.

The rain lasted the rest of the day as expected, so Abby spent it inside. She had been wanting to reorganize some things in her room, and she took the time to do it now. When the rain lightened up a little, she got a radio call that gave her the address to the home where the Johnsons were temporarily residing. She left right before dark, walking the short distance. She did a sweep of the area, and saw no infected. She made her way back home as night fell.

This simple routine had become her life now, and it felt good. She had grown up in these societies, and this one felt the most stable out of the three she’d been a part of. This one had no wars, no loss like she’d known before. Abby had been up against a few rogue individuals, but none strong enough to threaten the town. Everyone in Texline was happy and healthy, as much as they could be. Even Lev seemed comfortable, and they’d had problems with finding a settlement in the years prior.

Back home, Abby made her final meal of the day and checked on Ellie. Abby had to admit she almost looked peaceful while sleeping. Her features softened when she wasn’t endlessly lost in thought or stubbornly standing her ground over something minor. And, when she wasn’t trying to kill Abby, she was admittedly beautiful.

Loyalties had meant everything to Abby once. There was no wrong that could not be set right, no nuance between the black and white. As she’d gotten older, she’d become more aware of her biases. Something in her past was enraged at the idea of Ellie in her home, but something in her future dismissed the anger, so Abby went back down the hall to her room, resolved to carry on in her efforts.

[antisemitism-eu]

Hey there. I followed you some years ago as i found your posts helpful while i was writing about antisemitism in the media and academic spaces.

That is no longer the case. As a Jew, i am asking you to look more critically at what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people. To civilians. It is not antisemitic to say that Israel is wrong; that the military is committing genocide; any criticism.

It's painful to watch Jews defend the actions of Israel because of a feeling of obligation. I imagine that's what is driving you? It seems to be what drives my father's hatred of Palestinians and his belief that Israelis can do no wrong.

I am named after one of the founders of Israel. A terrorist by definition and action. He bombed facilities and killed civilians to make Israel what it is today; that was evil then and it is evil now.

I turned my back on my faith a long time ago; and it hurts to feel i need to turn my back on my culture as well, but it is becoming a culture of hatred and victimhood. We are a people like any other, we are not infallible, we are only chosen in that we received the torah; nothing more.

I'm sorry to hear that you care about antisemitism only when it fits your preconceived notions

I have always written about all types of antisemitism.  If you care about antisemitism only when it's from the opposite side of the  political aisle, then you don't really care about antisemitism.

You can be critical of Israeli policies and actions.  Almost all Israelis are.

But when you accuse Israel of genocide that is antisemitic.  It's not simply “criticism” but rather believing the claims of the antisemites who murdered and raped Jews.

In the US White supremacists claim that Jews are committing genocide.

Do you:

Demand that American Jews stop the genocide 

Call this antisemitic drivel for what it is

I suppose you'll go for B.

And yet, you believe Hamas.  Every word they say.

If White Supremacists in the US would declare war on Jews, invade a Jewish neighborhood and for hours murder, rape and torture.  Then pull back with hundreds of enslaved Jews in tow.

What would you demand from the US forces?  

Would you really protest against genocide?

Do you remember the genocide of Waco?  How could you stand by and watch it again?  28 children were murdered.

And here we're talking about hundreds of murderers, living in a white supremacist community of thousands of supporters.  Hospitals, churches, schools!

Do you know how many innocent lives will be lost if the US moves against them?  How many women and children will die?

Can you imagine the protests across US campuses if that happens?

I suppose that you would demand that the White Supremacists should continue living their lives as usual, though they threaten to do it again ( and probably will)

Surveys show that 40% of young Americans support Hamas.

Not Palestinians.  Not peace.  

They support the murder, rape and torture of Jews.

That's not “criticism of Israel”.  That's antisemitism.

If you wonder what's driving me, its numbers like these, and the fear that in a decade or two this would be the face of America 

You believe anything Hamas says unreservedly.

You blame Israelis when Gazan rockets hit Palestinians instead of Israelis, because you believe Hamas.  And you don't care when the rockets hit Israelis, because your criticism is aimed only at Israel.

You don't care when Hamas turns hospitals, mosques, schools, and refugee centers into military bases.   You don't even care when Hamas uses hospitals to torture Gazans (see Amnesty report on the topic)

You don't care when they use those places to fire rockets at Israelis

If Hamas says Israel killed innocent doctors or journalists - you trust them. You don't care about pictures of those same innocent Gazans armed in military uniform. 

You don't care when Hamas murders Gazans who try to leave when the Israeli army warns them to do so.

You don't care when Hamas take over human aid and kill Gazans who want food.

You didn't even care a few days ago when they attacked Gazan children who used an Israeli border crossing to leave Gaza and get medical help.

You might think that it's pro-Palestinian, but it's really antisemitism.  

I don't hate Palestinians.  I'm sad for them.  

Because of people like you that encouraged them to develop a toxic antisemitic society - at least two generations have been brainwashed with the aim of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews.

I am very pessimistic about this changing, because people like you prefer to blame Israel and give the Palestinians hope for Israel's future destruction, instead of encouraging real peace.

Palestinian society today:

Overwhelmingly supports the October 7th massacre and think it's the greatest day of Palestinian history

Overwhelmingly supports Hamas (In case you wondered why the Palestinian Authority hasn't held elections for the past 18 years)

Overwhelmingly supports the destruction of Israel and its Jews (In case you wondered why no Palestinian leader in his right mind would ever accept a peace agreement with Israel that would end hostilities)

Names almost every mosque, school, hospital and square after heroic Jew murderers 

Celebrates and honors the murder of Jews

Teaches children to murder Jews

Gives sermons every Friday about murdering Jews

Broadcasts shows encouraging people to murder Jews

Pays people to attack and murder jews 

This is toxic antisemitism.

You worry that Israel is commiting genocide, but you don't care about the plans to carry out another October 7th.

In the areas of Jenin and Tulkarm especially.  In the past few months - Palestinians shot at Israeli villages, Palestinians set off explosives next to Israeli villages, Palestinians flew a drone into Israel, Palestinians invaded Israel.  And Israeli residents along the border say they can hear digging of tunnels at night.

It's really just a matter of time.

People like you think that if you force Israel to stop attacking Hamas, and if you give Palestinians a state of their own - that in itself would ensure that the toxically antisemitic Palestinian society would magically become a peaceful neighbor of Israel

That is not “criticism”.  That is way past being naive.   

You are risking the lives of millions of Jews.

What would you say when the inevitable happens?  “Sorry”?  

Or that Jews should have  gone to Poland? (I really wish I was making this up.  Since you only care about the right kind of antisemitism, you might not realize or care how many people believe that)

Israel was quite happy to delude itself until now, but got its wake-up call on October 7th.

I hope you will at some point.  Maybe you will, most probably you won't.

In any case, Israel will not wait for you.  My life and that of the millions of other Jews (and non-Jews) in Israel is too important.

And if/when American Jews are attacked, you can be sure your brothers in Israel will defend you.  No matter what the antisemites say, or what “criticism of Israel” they come up with.

(That's actually already the case.) 

[bestworstcase]

Oscar/Ozpin telling Jaune to rewrite the story of the Rusted Knight in his mind and to focus on the good times to remind himself what his whole ordeal was for...

Someone's very pushing their own bad habit of rewriting things in their mind to try to make sense of things onto Jaune, even if it's intended to be helpful in this case.

/pensive flat eyed look.

tbh i think it’s less oz saying “rewrite the past in your mind” than it is oz recognizing that the existence of ‘the girl who fell through the world’ as this beloved children’s story Everyone Knows is part of what’s fucking with jaune’s head now—because jaune fell into the ever after with a preconceived notion of who ‘the rusted knight’ is and what’s supposed to happen, and as soon as he recognized Himself as the rusted knight that familiarity turned into essentially a belief in predetermination, that he had to make sure things happened like they did in the story. which of course they didn’t, because the story was never real to begin with.

(there are some very direct parallels to be drawn here with the divine mandate; the corruptive force in ozma’s story is not his love of stories but his belief that what the god of light foretold is inevitable, that there are no other choices but the binary annihilation-or-subjugation. and with ‘fairytales of remnant’ being the way it is, i do think his fairytales are as much about preserving the truth for himself as they are a propagandistic tool—like there’s a reason he wrote the girl in the tower and a reason he put that story back-to-back with the gift of the moon at the end of his anthology, yknow?)

so at this point the story as jaune would tell it is—what he told ruby and weiss in the ever after, castigating himself for not even being able to live up to a make believe hero, fucking up the story so badly that alyx poisoned him. finding out that lewis made it home and wrote the story as he wished it could have happened and having that moment with the memory of alyx in the tree eased the burden a little, but that is still fundamentally how jaune remembers his time in the ever after, as his failure to live up to a make-believe standard.

and i think ozma’s point is that jaune should try to stop focusing on His Failures (measured by the distance between himself and the character of the rusted knight) by thinking about what really happened, how and why these kids became so important to him, before everything went wrong. what was it all for? jaune didn’t care so much because the rusted knight was supposed to be kind and helpful; he cared because he’s a caring person and he tried his hardest to help them get home safely.

’cause if jaune can shift his perspective on the beginning, then freeing himself from the burden of the Idea of the rusted knight, the Idea that ‘the girl who fell through the world’ was how things were Meant to go (and he messed it up) becomes not just easier but possible at all.

i think it’s telling that one of the things he remembers is lewis promising to write the story to help jaune—he’d long forgotten that by the time the girls found him, but imagine how remembering it now will change his perspective on ‘the girl who fell through the world’. the discrepancies aren’t because jaune failed; lewis isn’t in the story because lewis made it home, and wrote the book in the hope of guiding alyx and jaune home too. the rusted knight is characterized the way he is in the book because that is who jaune really was to lewis; jaune spent decades beating himself up for not living up to someone else’s perception of him. and now he can revisit the story through the lens of this being How Lewis Saw Him, not real but true.

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

Game Night: Cassette Beasts

Pokémon fans threatening to find a new monster taming series is like Americans threatening to move to Canada: we’ve all said it at some point, and for completely valid reasons, but the reality is that it just isn’t that easy to pick up and go.  For me at least, it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is about Pokémon that’s central to my interest in it, so I’m not quite sure what to look for in other monster tamers.  At the very least, when something like Palworld rolls around I can easily tell that it’s not that.  The last several Pokémon games have been some of my favorites, but I’ve remained curious about the genre at large; unfortunately these games are innately a rather large commitment, which doesn’t pair well with my indecisive uncertainty.  All this to say, while I was definitely intrigued by Cassette Beasts when I first heard about it years ago, that intrigue never actually went anywhere…until now.

I believe I recently heard someone toss it out as a recommendation on a stream I was watching, which is why it stuck out when I was browsing the Games Done Quick channel on YouTube.  Out of curiosity, I wound up watching the speedrun.  I then poked around the official wiki a bit and came to realize this game could be very appealing to me specifically.  And BOY was I right about that!

Before we get into it, spoiler-free tl;dr: Cassette Beasts both wears its inspiration proudly on its sleeve and iterates upon it in many truly fascinating ways, with an atmosphere that switches effortlessly between delightfully cozy and creepy cool.  I have some gripes, but I have been thoroughly entertained and downright mesmerized playing this game.  If you have any interest in monster tamers, pixel art indie RPGs, and/or cosmic horror, I highly recommend checking Cassette Beasts out.

>PLAY

The game first asks you to customize your character, sans outfit—that comes later so you’re not entirely overwhelmed right away.  There’s also an option for pronouns, including he/him, she/her, and they/them, which is lovely to see.  You are then dropped onto the shore of a mysterious island, and are found by a girl who tells you that you’ve landed in a different dimension.  So, yes, technically an isekai.  But this is a limbo-esque world that only has humans because they keep falling into it from time to time—every single character is either from another world, or was born to parents who are stuck here.  That, combined with making your character’s explicit goal “find a way home”, excellently avoids the most common pitfalls of the genre and lets you assess it without preconceived notions.  What’s really interesting about this is that people are pulled from many different worlds, and from various points in the timeline: you have characters talking about the Mars landing of 1969 and the 20th century peace treaty with the elves, and also famous Greek philosophers and Karl Marx.  I love how eclectic it is, and it’s frequently used in really funny ways. (You all remember Diogenes, right?  Guess what traits are shared by all the monsters he uses.) The people brought here have all banded together in a mutually supportive community, with everyone contributing what they can and materials like wood and metal being traded for goods as opposed to using money.  Why do we want to go home again?  This sounds like a nice place to live!

But anyway, we’re here for the monsters.  And in-game they are just called “monsters”, never “Cassette Beasts”.  Which strikes me as odd.  But the monsters have been in this world way longer than the cassette tapes, which are actually a relatively recent arrival courtesy of an isekai’d shopping mall.  Rather than catching a monster, you record them on a blank tape, meaning that even if you are successful you’ll still need to defeat the monster or flee to end the battle.  You then use your tape and cassette player to take on the form and powers of the recorded monster, and fight your battles first-hand!  Pokémon briefly flirted with this idea in a spin-off manga (Pokémon ReBURST), but here it’s fully embraced; this sort of approach can be seen in other aspects too, as we’ll see later.  After learning the basics, you’re given a few major questlines and then set free into the open world of New Wirral, tackling whatever catches your attention as you romp around.  There is some level-scaling, though I’m not sure of the specifics.  Regardless, both it and enemy AI can be adjusted via Settings, and you can also turn off the glitch effects that show up if those are impacting your experience.  In battle you control both your avatar and one of several recruitable partners, and can carry up to six tapes at a time—essentially Doubles format, with all the complexity and chaos that entails.  One very interesting wrinkle in the formula is that in addition to the tapes/monsters having health bars, the humans also have their own health bar, hidden under that of their tape as if the tape’s HP was a shield meter.  If attacks overkill your tape, the excess damage is dealt to your own HP, and if you lose all of your HP then you’re done regardless of how many tapes you have left.  It’s an important extra resource to keep in mind, and the same is true for (most) NPC cassette-users: if you deal enough damage to their own health bar you can defeat them without having to get through all of their tapes.  Until the late/post-game, that is, where your human foes are invulnerable beneath their tapes while you very much are not, and that feels very unfair.  I also find it strange that there’s no item for restoring your human HP—campfires to rest at are fairly plentiful, but it’s still somewhat odd.

Each monster has one type, and rather than limited uses for each of its moves, both characters generate AP every turn they can then spend on certain attacks.  Moves also each have a type, but while there is a same type attack bonus (STAB), it’s not as significant as it is in Pokémon.  Naturally, each type has advantages and disadvantages over other types, but!  Weakness and resistance is also toned way down, and is not your primary goal when using type advantage. Type interaction is far, far more nuanced in this game, involving the entire spectrum of ailments and buffs and debuffs, and even changing the target’s type.  For example: Water extinguishes Fire, temporarily reducing its attack power.  Using Fire on Water creates steam, which heals Water over the next few turns.  Fire also melts Ice, changing it to a Water type for a few turns.  And this is all just barely scratching the surface!  A chart showing these interactions is given to you in-game, which is nice; more than that, whenever you discover a new interaction for the first time, a tutorial box pops up and elaborates on the effects, as well as providing an explanation of why (extinguish, steam, melt, etc) that goes a long way in keeping track of them all.  While a fantastic feature, it can get repetitive at times: the mystical Astral type has identical interactions with all four classical elements, and despite all 4 being mentioned the first time, you’ll still get that same text box explaining that interaction 4 times.  Types range from the usual suspects (Fire, Water, Air) to some very…surprising choices (Glass, Plastic, Glitter), plus Typeless moves that take on the type of the monster using them.  Moves are treated as stickers applied to your tapes, and can be peeled and moved at your discretion; you obtain them either from leveling up a tape, or from shops and chests and drops.  Leveling up monsters (from 0 to 5 stars) also increases their max AP and how many move slots they have, and I think slightly increases their stats?  Your human characters, though, have their own stats which increase as you level them up from 1 to…well I’m not sure exactly but it exceeds 100 at least.  I couldn’t tell you the exact mathematical way the two sets of stats interact, but it’s a neat idea, strengthening yourself as well as the tapes you collect.  Your partners gain experience even if they’re not with you, and thank God they do, otherwise it’d be a pain to spend proper time with each and every one of them.

There’s one other major battle mechanic unlocked at the end of the tutorial segment: Fusion.  After filling up a meter, your avatar and partner can fuse their monster forms together to unleash hell upon your enemies.  Monster sprites were made modular so that the game could automatically generate fusions on its own, meaning that there are in fact over 16000 different fusions you can make, and your bestiary will keep a list of them all. (Thank God there are absolutely no incentives for filling that list!) Fusing will also cause whatever music track is playing to gain vocals, which is a fun way to up the presentation factor.  Your relationship with your partner is key to Fusion: its measured from 0 to 5 hearts, and you need at least 1 to be able to perform Fusion at all.  At 2 hearts, you gain a super move.  Every level gained increases the stats of your fusion as well.  It’s a fun mechanic to mess around with, even if a lot of the fusions can look a bit derpy—small price for the sheer flexibility of the system.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that Pokémon fans have been enamored with fusion since at least B2W2; I doubt it’s coincidence that Cassette Beasts chose to implement it as a Mega Evolution-esque gimmick.  Once you get to the late/post-game, the NPC fights also gain access to Fusion, giving you a chance to figure out ways to play around the feature from the other side.

Like I said before, this game greatly expands upon a number of fan-favorite concepts from Pokémon, and I’m pleased to say that extends all the way to Shinies.  Every monster has a small chance to be a “bootleg”, with not only a different color scheme, but a different type.  There are a total of 14 types in the game.  Do you see where this is going?  Every single monster has 14 variants with different types and color palettes (even their original type, weirdly enough?).  And every single one has a page in their bestiary dedicated solely to tracking how many of these variants you’ve found.  Probably nightmarish for a completionist, but holy shit is that insanely cool!  Multiple palettes to choose from instead of being stuck with just one that might suck!  And they have mechanical differences to incentivize recording them beyond simply collector’s value!  Fantastic!  There are also various ways to increase your odds, all the way up to 20% in specific cases, which I imagine will entice quite a few players into the hobby of bootleg hunting.

Let’s see, what other mechanical topics can I cover before moving onto more story-related stuff?  Field moves are a thing—you obtain them by recording a specific monster, and in the case of some like the glide you’ll partially transform when it’s activated.  I think it strikes a nice balance: it’s dependent on what you yourself have actually recorded, but doesn’t ask you to dedicate move or party slots to it.  Their approach to evolution feels simplified: when you rest after getting a tape to 5 stars, you’ll be prompted to “remaster” it if applicable, rather than having to guess which level you should be aiming for.  There are a few wrinkles when it comes to branching evolutions, but only a few, and mostly come down to either having a certain move on the monster to change its remaster, or, after choosing to remaster, being given two options right there.  Those options can be a bit vague, though; I looked into it ahead of time, and if I had gone with the option my gut opted for when remastering my starter, I would have gotten the less cool-looking monster.  I also want to mention the loading screens; you know how The Sims lists random stuff on its loading screens?  They do something similar here, except they’re all related to one of the monsters: “Directing Traffikrab”, “Tuning Kittelly”, “Sharpening Ripterra’s knifeclaws”.  It’s a little thing but I find it charming, and perhaps a bit devious in making players curious to track down these various monsters being teased.  Oh, and selecting the Flee option will tell you your percent chance to flee, and even if you fail you can still choose to blackout if you really just want to get out of there.  There’s also a Mystery Gift analogue that’s been used to distribute various bootlegs, and things I haven’t even tried like the “Gym Pass” to customize your player character's stats.  Beating the game also unlocks customization options for future playthroughs like randomizers and permadeath.  There’s a LOT.  It’s a very packed game.

Right then, story.  There are two BIG big questlines, one of which being a setup similar to collecting Gym Badges: there are 12 special NPCs all over the map who give you a stamp when you defeat them, but rather than specializing in a certain type, they tend to have a favorite tactic they employ in battle.  One of the easiest to find specializes in moves that create defensive walls; one particularly annoying one prioritizes controlling accuracy and evasion; there’s even one who specializes in just one particular monster with an elaborate signature move.  It’s perhaps not an enormous difference, but again, it’s nuanced.  There is also a “Champion” fight at the end, but I won’t get into that.  More importantly, the questline that the game is largely centered around and leads to the end credits, is the hunt for hidden subway stations that house powerful, eldritch boss monsters known as Archangels.  Apparently, when humans first wound up in New Wirral, they didn’t know what to make of the monsters and tended to refer to them as angels or demons.  That fell out of fashion as the community came to understand monsters better.  The Archangels, however, cannot be understood by human minds.  Each one is drawn/animated in its own style that clashes with the world around them—your partners all say that it hurts just to look at them, and just being in the stations makes them feel uneasy.  A personal favorite is the claymation skeleton with a vertical mouth, to give you some idea of what to expect.  These fights have their own unique mechanics, and the Archangels tend to hit very, very hard; if you do survive, some floating guy in a red coat with a 3D rendered reflective triangle for a head shows up and absorbs the boss (concerning), and you’re given part of a riddle that will eventually lead you to the final dungeon.  The vibes are incredibly at odds with the typical overworld gameplay, and I mean that in THE best possible way.  The Archangels were a real highlight for me.

In addition to those, every partner you can recruit has their own questline, which can range from a single fight all the way to finding 6 hidden locations around the map with their own substantial battles to win.  The girl who finds you at the start of the game, Kayleigh, is your first partner, first having a quest that’s essentially “finish the tutorial” before switching to a more personal quest that involves dealing with an actual cult.  You’re also very early on pushed in the direction of Eugene, who has that long, long quest finding hidden locations all over the map.  Slow-going as it is, though, it’s about fighting off a horde of capitalist vampires who are trying to establish a housing market, so.  That’s fucking hilarious.  But it has stiff competition in Felix’s quest, where you follow his middle school OC brought to life as she journeys to four sacred altars to slay their guardians.  That’s right, Felix’s edgy anime OC, an angel demon catgirl ninja named Kuneko, is also up and about in New Wirral and he is mortified by this discovery.  Excellent questline, no notes.  Another partner you’ll run into fairly early is Meredith; her quest involves navigating a dungeon you probably won’t get to for a good while, though it’s a solid dungeon when you do get to it.  There’s also Viola, the character from Twelfth Night by William fucking Shakespeare, whose search for her brother takes her into a haunted shipwreck to face a villain from a different Shakespeare story.  New Wirral is very eclectic.  But perhaps least expected of all is Barkley the dog.  One of your playable partners is a dog.  His quest is the shortest and an utterly fucking brutal punch to the emotional gut.  Anyway I like all these folks, they’ve got personality and endearing character development that touches on some personally relevant topics.  Aside from Barkley, you can romance any partner after maxing out your relationship level, and that was a tough choice to make.  The Gym Leader analogues are sufficiently quirky for their role, and you meet a handful of other perfectly fine recurring characters—including a few who are only encountered in post-game quests.  If I’m really being strict here, I don’t think I’d say any of this game’s characters have jumped the ranks to new blorbo status, but take that as you will.

The post-game has an interesting structure to it.  You don’t unlock any new areas, not really, but after engaging with the newly-unlocked sidequest board for a bit, you gain access to a few longer questlines.  There are two that eventually come together which each feature their own new characters, one following the direct consequences of actions you took earlier in the story, and one that’s about someone new being dropped onto New Wirral, showing that the world keeps turning even if your particular story is over.  There’s also another questline which delves even deeper into the background lore of the game, and that’s something I’ll never get enough of.  The repeating sidequests are brief and rewarding enough to from a satisfying gameplay loop to disguise the grind, and I’m only just now considering an extended break after nearly 70 hours total gameplay (which I would guess is around half post-game).

Oh, I should also talk more about the bestiary and completing it!  Each monster has the standard flavor text and habitat listing, plus that page that tracks bootlegs, and a list of how many you’ve encountered/defeated.  However, when you raise a tape to 5 star level, you also unlock an additional page of flavor text, usually something related to the inspiration for the monster’s design.  While heavily scaled back, having this sort of progression in the bestiary reminds me of doing research in Pokémon Legends Arceus, and I very much appreciate that.  Going that far is optional, of course—really, doing anything involving the bestiary is optional.  But the game does nudge you in that direction and reward you several times along the way.  When you first encounter the “professor” character, he gives you a series of quests that just ask you to record one of the monsters found in the central region of the map.  Easy!  From there, he gives you a handful of resources and tapes every time you hit a new milestone of 10 monsters recorded.  In the post-game you can also randomly get quests asking you to get a certain monster to 5 star, or perform a specific fusion, or use a specific monster to fight the professor’s assistant, all slowly, slowly nudging you in the direction of completion.  But what’s really interesting is that you don’t necessarily have to fully complete the bestiary to get the grand prize (this game’s equivalent to the Master Ball).  Cassette Beasts originally had 120 monsters.  A later update raised that to 128, and some time after that, they released a DLC that added a handful of unnumbered monsters.  You get the Master Tape by recording 128 monster species.  So, if you record a bunch of the DLC monsters, you can “complete” the bestiary without tracking down every last monster in the base game.  If you do go beyond that, the completion percentage will actually go over 100%, which is so weird to see, but in a cool way.  It seems the intention was specifically to not make completion increasingly difficult as new updates are added, which is honestly pretty rad!  And, again, though I appreciate the bestiary remembering all of your fusions, I’m so glad there’s nothing incentivizing you to from every last one of them.  Same goes for bootlegs.  So, does this mean future updates/DLC with even more monsters are on the way?  No clue.  But they are working on a multiplayer update expected to release soon! (I don’t have Switch Online so I won’t be able to do much with that lol.)

I did purchase the DLC right away; I was confident I would enjoy the game enough I would want it eventually, and buying them both together was slightly cheaper than buying them separately. (The bundle also comes with a cosmetics pack but it’s nothing that interests me personally.) After progressing through the main quest enough that you become able to access the final dungeon, a small boat washes ashore, and you’re able to ride it to a dock in the middle of the ocean housing some sort of carnival.  The ringmistress asks you to explore the three major attractions and beat their power sources, the “Infernal Engines”, into submission.  Despite being a small area it’s still just as open-ended as New Wirral, an effort I appreciate.  You can tackle the attractions in any order you want, even leave in the middle of one to go do another if you prefer.  The place is also populated by several new monsters to record, including one of my personal favorites, a ghostly book monster named Hauntome.  It’s a few mini-dungeons, some solid bosses capping them off, and then one last boss, with a loose story in the background that has some connections to the main story but isn’t anything essential.  I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call it a must-buy, but it is fun, and inexpensive, and more Cassette Beasts.  Up to you.

There are two major themes I picked up on during my playthrough: community and art.  The people who’ve ended up in New Wirral, in spite of coming from countless different dimensions, have all banded together to support each other and however many newcomers show up; they don’t even ask for anything in return, they just value life and want to be sure people are cared for.  The theme that plays in Harbourtown is transparent about this: “we’re all in the same ship […] but at least we’re together […] I don’t know you but we’ll make the most of / wherever we are now”.  Fusion is about literally joining with someone to create something stronger than either of you could do on your own.  There are even some genuinely scary twisted manifestations of this idea, like the Mournington cult and the truth behind the Landkeepers—people crave community, and there are some who will use that to their own advantage.  It’s baked into the motivations of all your partners, and, switching gears, most of them are heavily connected to art too!  Felix is an artist learning he doesn’t need to be ashamed of his past, less “polished” work.  Kayleigh, after addressing her regrets with Mournington, reconnects with her old hobby of playing guitar.  Meredith actually takes things in a different direction: she used to spend all of her time consuming vast quantities of art to the point that it cut her off from her community, showing that you still need to exercise moderation when it comes to art.  Viola is a character from another, pre-existing work of art!  The Archangels play into this as well: one of the biggest things setting them apart is the way they clash with the rest of the game’s art style, and their nature as incarnations of humankind’s ideas is a delightfully malevolent spin on the whole thing.

Taking these two themes together, Cassette Beasts presents a thesis on our responsibility to our fellow people and how we can all find our own way to fulfill it, with a particular focus on art and how it broadly conveys our ideas and inspires change.  The final boss fight punctuates this beautifully when, after Aleph destroys your cassette player, Morgante awakens and tells you that you don’t truly need the cassettes.  “THE ABILITY TO MANIFEST YOUR WILL TO ALTER REALITY…TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD, AND YOURSELVES...THAT LIES WITHIN YOU.”  Then she and ALL of your partners fuse with your avatar, and through your combined might, you strike down the malevolent forces in your way, secure a path home, and bring a huge, fundamental change to New Wirral as its inhabitants now have the option to decide if they should stay or go.  It’s an extremely satisfying ending, even if it does see you and your partners going their separate ways.  But, who knows?  Given a few tidbits from the post-game, it sounds like we just might get to meet them again someday.

Again, I had a really, really great time with Cassette Beasts and highly recommend it.  It’s charming, its fun, and it’s only $20!  Maybe don’t get it on Switch, though, not if you can’t stand frequent load times.

And, just to brag about my bootlegs a little:

-The random free bootleg from Harbourtown was a Glass-type Dandylion for me

-The freebie Ritual Candle netted me a Water-type Glaistain!

-The post-game bootleg starter, I got a Poison-type Candevil

-Was able to use the mailbox to get a Fire-type Undyin

-And obviously there’s Barkley’s Ice-type Pombomb

-The first one I encountered purely by chance was an Astral-type Jellyton

-Air-type Jellyton

-Ice-type Carniviper

-Astral-type Carniviper

-Fire-type Traffikrab

-Plant-type Squirey

-Ice-type Boltam

-Lightning-type Snoopin

-Poison-type Kirikuri

-Glass-type Scubalrus

-Glass-type Spooki-onna

-Lightning-type Dominoth

-A Fire-type Piksie

-A Glitter-type Picksie

[azraeldoesnotdispute]

crusades era joenicky recs

dana asked me to make a crusades era joenicky fic rec list when I mentioned how much I loved them so that no one would rec me what I had already read, so here you go (apologies, I can’t get the read more to work)

The Stiff Heart

I ALWAYS love dana’s fics and it was just by chance that hers was the first one that popped up in my search. This has them having already established a truce and working together to find ‘the dream women’, but it has such a lovely build up to when they get together, sprinkled with plenty of UST and world building as they learn more about each other and dashes of them coming together to a truce.

The Favored Son(s)

Crusade era Yusuf and Nicolo are transported to current time and the boys, Joe in particular, have a hard time reconciling who they were with the love they now share. It’s like having a slow burn, but your OTP is already there and happy together at the same time. Lots of Joe doting, which is always a bonus, and the other two learning about each other and overcoming their past.

The Land of Turquoise

The immortals dream of each other when the universe has decreed that they are not close enough to one another. Joe and Nicky start dreaming of each other a month and a half into their truce, when they are sleeping side-by-side every night in the desert. How much closer can they be?

Honestly, I can’t sum it up better than the actual summary. So much UST and trust building!!!

Ardeo In Te

Omegaverse and soulmates? My fucking JAM

Djinn’s Eyes

Man, this fucking fic. It’s so good, has so much build up and world building, learning to overcome preconceived notions and find love. I can’t even find the words, it’s such a wonderful fic.

 Lessons Exquisitely Crafted

Yusuf goes home, leaving Nicolo behind, but he can’t shake him off because these are dumbasses who are meant to be together. It takes time for them to come back together, but they do, because they’re destiny.

The Weight of Fear

mpreg fic, where they have a night of passion and then Yusuf runs away, only to learn that Nicolo is pregnant once the girls find him to kick his ass. I love the story, how Nicky’s anxieties are written, how much Joe is stressed once he finds out that he accidentally knocked him up.

Heavy with the Weight of Who We Are

Yusuf can’t shake Nicolo, no matter how hard he tries, so they’re stuck together, learning each others languages and trying to figure out how to work together despite their differences.

Beginnings, Middles, Ends

Wind_Ryder did an amazing job with this series! It showcases how PTSD can affect a person, what having someone who cares about you can do to help you heal, and wraps it up by showing that somethings don’t just magically disappear over time.

Pistachios and Rosewater

The food alone makes reading this fic worth it, all of it looks delicious and it’s worked into the story so well, showing the progress of time and how cooking can mean love.

Holiest Among The Living

 This actually has very little joenicky, but I had to include it because it shows Nicolo’s journey to understanding everything he thought was true, isn’t, and that even people you thought were good can disregard others just because they’re a different color/religion/etc

O Jerusalem

Has selective mute Nicky in it, because PTSD is a serious thing, and soft Yusuf caring enough about the man who killed him to not leave him abandoned in Jerusalem. This is definitely a story about kindness and healing.

Death is Just a Beginning

Plenty of hate and anger, and not all at each other. Includes Nicolo being found out for having revived and Yusuf saving him, but the road is paved with plenty of fighting before they find their footing and destiny.

[imagine-a-life-like-this]

Always Him : Chapter 39

Word Count : 1.3k

Warnings : swearing, brief sex scene, arguing, angsty

            So many memories flooded her brain as she walked to the house she used to live in. The house where she met Hongjoong and later fell in love with him. The house Kayla and Seonghwa fell in love with each other in. Where the group would gather for game nights and pre drinking before clubbing. This path was one she walked with Hongjoong many times. When he would pick her up from class or after dates he claimed weren’t dates. Holding hands with their arms swinging back and forth. To anyone else they would have looked like any other couple, but they weren’t. They never were.

            Now she walked the path alone, his words echoing in her mind. I’m fucking in love with you. You’re the one. The ONLY one. But memories of him denying her, saying she was just a friend, flashed in her brain. She paused as she noticed the house coming into view, wondering if she was making the right decision. Why now? She continued to ask herself. Why after she finally let go and started dating someone else did he say the words she so desperately wanted to hear?

            She knew in her heart that going to see him was a mistake, but she needed to see him. She needed to hear him say those words, see his face when he said them. Because she couldn’t believe him otherwise. She needed closure, she deserved closure after everything he put her through. So she walks the path alone, holding back her tears, and takes a deep breath before climbing the stairs towards the door.

            Hongjoong opened the door before she could ring the doorbell, pulling her into his arms immediately. But her arms stayed by her side. She didn’t bury her face in his chest like she used to. Or wrap her arms around him tighter than his around her. She stood there motionless. “I missed you, Y/n.” He whispered, pressing a soft kiss into her hair. But she didn’t say anything. She stayed silent, letting Hongjoong get his fill.

            “Let go. Please.” She begged, feeling her resolve fading with each second. He pulled away from her and looked at her, seeing her unamused face, seeing the tears she wanted so badly to blink back. And he came to the realization that she didn’t come to work things out with him. She wasn’t here to get back together with him; she was here for closure and he wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t ready to let go.

            “Baby girl.” She shook her head before he could continue.

            “Don’t call me that. You don’t have the right to call me that anymore.”

            “Why the fuck did you come here if not to get back together?” He was steadily raising his voice. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, tears brimming. This was not the closure she wanted. She didn’t want a fight.

            “Hongjoong.” He flinched at the sound of his name coming from her lips. The way it sounded like a curse broke his heart. “I’m dating Yeosang and I’m not going to break up with him just because you had this preconceived notion that I would wait around until you were ready to admit your feelings.”

            “You love me.” He countered, unable to think of anything else to say.

            “I loved you. I don’t anymore.” She lied. The love she had for him isn’t a love that would just disappear just because he’s hurt her over and over. She was used to the pain he put her through, used to the heartbreak, and the sneaking around. Used to him whispering words of love into her ear just to scream to the world she was just a friend. She was used to it all and loved him anyway.

            But she deserves more. More than someone who pulls her in just to push her away seconds later. More than someone who could only love her in secret. She deserves Yeosang. Someone who treats her completely different than Hongjoong did. He pulls her in and holds her tightly. He isn’t afraid to tell the world she’s his. So why does she still want Hongjoong?

            “I’m fixing myself for you! I’m doing everything to be better for you!”

            “Well you should have thought of that before!” The more he raised his voice the more she raised hers to match. It was becoming clearer to him now that she was not the same girl he first met. He hurt her over and over to the point that she built walls around her. Unbreakable walls. Walls even he couldn’t penetrate. “I waited for you but you were never ready. I was willing to wait years for you because I loved you that much. You ended things with me, remember that.”

            “Because I wanted to fix myself before coming back to you! I wanted to work through the hurt I had before you.” His voice got quieter as he thought about his ex. “I dated someone before you and she made me not want to fall in love ever again. But then you came along and I fell for you before I could stop myself.”

            “What a fucking cop out.” She scoffed.

            “It’s not. It’s the truth. Should we ask Seonghwa?” He pointed upstairs, cocking his head to the side.

            “Fine.” She followed Hongjoong to Seonghwa’s room. “Still a cop out answer.” She mumbled under her breath as they walked up the stairs. She too had been hurt before meeting Hongjoong. But he took the hurt and made it better. She was afraid at first. Afraid that he would turn out exactly like Jeongin.

            “Seonghwa I need you to tell Y/n about my ex – OH MY GOD!!!” Hongjoong immediately turned away after entering the room. Seonghwa was fucking Kayla from behind, hand wrapped around her throat, forcing her to look in the mirror to watch what he was doing to her.

            “Damn. Get it mommy.” Y/n giggled. Seonghwa was still thrusting into her.

            “I’m trying.” Kayla replied.

            “Get the fuck out.” Seonghwa said before pressing his lips to her shoulder, sucking her skin to leave a mark. Y/n nodded and told them to have fun before closing the door. “Never knew she was so kinky.” Y/n joked as her and Hongjoong went back downstairs.

            “Can we please go back to talking about us and not what your best friend is into in the bedroom?”

            “Hongjoong there is no us. I told you that already.”

            “So you’d rather talk about what Kayla is into than fix us? What kind of fucking bullshit is that? You came all this way for what? Some stupid ass closure. Do you think you’re in a movie or something? Life doesn’t work like that Y/n.”

            “Why are you being an asshole right now?” Silence fell over them as Hongjoong stared at her, unsure of what to say. He didn’t have an answer. “I wish I could go back to the day we met.” He stepped closer to her, reaching out to cup her face, wipe away the tears that were beginning to fall.

            “Me too. I would do everything right if I had a second chance. I would never hurt you. I would love you properly from day one.” She pulled away from him, shaking her head with a look of disgust in her eyes.

            “I wish I could go back to the day we met so I could turn around and never meet you.” She turned away from him and left, promising herself she would never go back to Hongjoong. Walking down the same path filled with memories that once made her happy. Memories that now made her angry. Why was she so in love with him? She doesn’t remember him being like this before. Too blinded by love. The rose coloured glasses have fallen and she can see him for who he really is. The one that causes her pain.

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[onippep]

After

And I was just thinking, like, I actually don't know that much about you. And I admit I haven't been very open or, like, talkative to you about your interests or anything like that, because you're...

(Because I'm like you?)

Yeah, it's like, a preconceived notion that because you're some sorta replica of me, we're gonna have the same interests or whatever, and that's your whole thing. And it's not. It's not fair of me to think of you like that.

(I don't blame you for that, though. Honestly. My existence isn't exactly a one-sentence deal.)

No one's is.

Croak! (Not my point. B-but...) [chuckles]

Lost your point, didn't ya. It's not that big of a deal, anyway.

(Give yourself some credit, Peppino, I think you've done a very good job at caring about me and what I do. Just in different ways than you may be used to.)

Well-- yeah. It's the least that I owe you.

(Your care is not owed. There's no cycle to feed; my affection already has its unconditional catalyst.)

Stop gettin' philosophical with me, demon! Sheesh. I'm trying to be sweet here.

...

...Er.

Hmm!~

WHAT!

(If you want to be sweet, try actually flirting.)

Is that a challenge? Alright. I can flirt. And no, it's not croaking, I've already learned my lesson from that.

RrRRRrrrrrHRHRHHRRHHHRRR!~ (Sorry!)

[Sighing] OKAY. So. "Cutie". Uh. You come here often? Nice suit. You look nice. Handsome even. Yep. Uh huh. Wow, tall too. Double whammy. You know, everyone's taller than me, and that's fine. I like havin' a tall nasty frog to care for me all the time. Oh and the WAAAY you SNUGGLE on up to me at night; fantastic. A+. Like a weird oversized housecat. And you know just what food I like and the shows I like and how I prepare my coffee in the morning when I don't have enough time to do that before opening the store and you carry me when I'm too exhausted and you cook for me and listen to me when I gotta just yell about shit and--

[Has dissolved onto the floor]

--Ah- Oni! [laughs] Hey! Come on! [reaching into the goop] Come ooon. Is that all it takes?? That was nothing! Get back up here, you coward!

(Your face is red.)

It's-- always red! And I'm sorta tipsy! [wheezes]

(I DUNNO HOW TO TAKE THIS RIGHT NOW. ARE YOU STILL PLAYING ALONG OR NOT.)

[stops] Hhah, wh-- playing along? [flabberghasted] Nah nah nah, hey...! I agreed to come out here because I wanted to-- like... humour it! Try it! Not just because I was feelin' bad, you know?

[slowly reforming] MMmmn?... (You're. Serious?)

Y-yeah! I think...! Hah..!

RRRRBBRBBVBVVBWW. VBRVVB... S-- SO DO. UM. (DO YOU--)

Do I whaaat! [grabbing at him] Speak to meee! [chuckling]

(YOU'RE. THIS. IS. THIS IS ACTUALLY A DATE.)

Yes! YES IT IS! IT'S A DATE! I'm on a date with you!

[ugly frog shrieking]

AAHHAHAHA...!! Jeez! What was THAT?!

(Wh-what's with the change of heart?? A-and there was the whole hiding it from your family thing--)

BECAUSE I DUNNO WHAT I FEEL YET! AND-- AND BEING HERE, WITH YOU AND GUSTAVO N' BRICK, and just having so much fun, I feel like I can finally-- think! And not have some fuckin' weirdos watching me from that askbox! Or my family breathing at me! It's-- it's wild! I'M FREAKING OUT! I'M FREAKIN' OUT ONI HOLD ME--

A--BBBUHH?? [gripping him]

IT'S-- IT'S NOT. ANYTHING SERIOUS OR DECISION-MAKING TONIGHT. I JUST. WANNA DO THINGS WITHOUT-- FEELING SHAME. So just. Hold me. Alright?

O-OKAY. RRRRRR.

Everything's gonna go back to routine tomorrow, and who knows what's gonna happen. [chuckles] I don't even wanna go. I just wanna stand here.

Rrrrr... (Can you... explain a little more why you're a little... hesitant about me?)

Ah... jeez, lemme... see if I can word it right. I... have a real hard time letting people in. You see how I live. I haven't even seen Gustavo since before our window got broken. I never have people over. I don't even like talking to customers that much.

(You've gotten better at it. I wouldn't say you have gone back in such a thing, just hitting a wave where it is more difficult than usual.)

Maybe you know me more than I thought. Either way, I... I've never really been a fan of dating. Just in general. All that romance-y garbage hasn't ever worked out for me. It's like a storybook moreso than a reality. Doesn't work the way I do. It's too... strict. Closed. Weird. Ruins friendships. I've lost some good men and women to dumb shit that either I've done or they've done. It crumbles too fast and doesn't feel worth it.

(Is... forging a bond like I have in mind considered... dating?)

I dunno. Is it?

(What you're describing sounds... torturous. Nothing like what I have in mind.)

Is that so. Mind tellin' me what you have in mind, then?

Croak-- MMf-- It-- RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT RIBBIT--

Aye, aye! Hey! [squishing his cheeks] Easy! One word at a time. Let's hear it.

RIBBIT. RIBBIT. RIBBIT. RI-- RIb--ribbit... (It's... it's... almost the same as what... we have now. Just... returned?)

That's it?

???

You're telling me this "bond" thing you've been wanting is just, what we kinda do already, but with me "returning" it? Like-- like how?

(LIKE. L-LIKE. IF. LIKE.) [sticks his tongue out]

I already "do the deed" with you.

NO NO-- [leans in, gently licks his cheek] TH-- (I DON'T KNOW THE WORD FOR IT.)

Kissing. You're thinking of kissing--

(YEAH KISSING.)

... [ponders]

HHHNNNN. HHHHHHHHH. HHHHHHN..?

... [gum click] Wow. That, uh, changes some things, actually. And here I was thinking you wanted some sort of enchanted frog prince and princess fantasy bullshit. That's what the askbox tries to make it out as, anyway.

(I'll be honest, I'm not 100% acquainted with the more mortal and human structures of that whole concept. I don't enjoy what you've told me so far.)

[more nodding]... Huh.

...

Well, uh, I got some things to think about now. [chuckles] Lotta. Things.

(Please don't let this ruin anything.)

I won't! I won't. Just forgive me if it takes a while. Heh. We gotta go into work tomorrow, and focus on that, yadda yadda... I'm gonna be a little private about it.

(Shy about it.)

Yeah. [rolls his eyes, smirking]

...

You look so nervous. Hey.

It's okay. Remember what we've gone over.

(R-REMIND ME...)

We'll see what this is. Together. Got it?

(Y-YEAH... yeah... you'resocloserightnowI'mreally--I--)

[smirks]

...

Sorry. Even with some drinks in me I still can't seem to kiss you. [chuckles]

(You tease.)

Just kidding.

[public-trans-it-deactivated20240]

I know most people who watched Inside latched onto Welcome to the Internet and That Funny Feeling, and i get it those songs are good, but Jesus Christ I feel like no one appreciates White Woman's Instagram to the degree that I do. There are only a few songs that make me deeply emotional, and FUCK that is one of them.

Like people listen and go "Haha song making fun of silly white women! So true!" And then tune it out and move on without even trying to consider why that song would even be part of the movie.

Like... fuck, I'm gonna be inflamatory here for a moment (lmao what else is new) and say that actually, if you don't understand the point of White Woman's Instagram, then you don't understand anything about the movie as a whole or ANY of the songs. The themes of White Woman's Instagram ARE the themes of Inside as a whole, but Bo Burnham presents them through the lense of someone else who isn't an internet celebrity and suddenly people find the ideas incomprehensible.

White Womans Instagram is about parasocial relationships, and how they arent always about "This person online who doesnt even know me is my friend!" but also about how "I've seen a very small lense of this person's life fit into a stereotype, so I have decided this stereotype is all they are as a person."

Its a song about how the systems you live in shape your perception of others and turn them into targets that you will feel no remorse for because they are stripped of their humanity in your eyes.

Its a song about a woman losing her parents and struggling with depression for the next ten years as she tries to cling onto and remember the nice little things in her life. About trying to live up to her parents expectations even after their deaths. About trying to find love in other places and finally succeeding in that.

Its a song about a very genuinely real struggle that MOST people will go through in their lives actually! About how deeply human that is, and just how easy it is to strip that humanity away from someone because of your preconceived notions.

There is a REASON that song was included in the movie while so many others were cut.