vidavalor · 2 days ago
Note
I've had to disconnect from my dash because of all the negativity; I honestly do not get why people are acting like a semblance of justice+a movie is the worst thing in the world?
I'm mourning for the full six-episode season we lost because ng couldn't pass the utmost basic sub-zero bar for not acting like scum and of course I wish amazon had kicked him out and then sprung for it anyway (and honestly, as long as you're blaming the right person, I think it's fine to feel upset? We deserved better, the cast and crew deserved, Terry deserved better, and this one guy ruins it for everyone because the bar was buried six feet deep beneath the ground and he still managed to go lower, and that does suck, and it is miserable and unfair, so take a moment if you need it 🤷‍♀️) but let's face it, we got off lucky. Arguably, considering this was a standalone novel from the nineties, that then got made, in one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen, into a limited standalone tv miniseries (and, again, emphasising the standalone here, so even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, we'll still always have S1 and the book; people have been ignoring the Jurassic Park sequels for nearly three decades), and then got a surprise sequel, we were pretty lucky the whole way through.
And regarding the whole what if it's bad thing, I was always going to be worried: I was anxious long before this shit went down, and I was anxious before S2 and even S1, as well. It's not like we ever had any guarantee it was going to be good beforehand either, and at this point, knowing what we do now, I'm not at all sure I'd have trusted ng to write this anyways. So while, yeah sure, I'm maybe a little more anxious now, I trust Michael and David with these characters and I trust Rob and Rhianna with Terry's legacy and story and that they wouldn't have fought so hard for this ending unless they planned to keep fighting and thought they could pull it off. Isn't the problem with this kind of thing normally that what happnes is the creator who cares deeply about the work gets pulled in favour of someone out-of-touch who cares not a jot about the story and needs to leave their own grubby fingerprints all over it? More the other way around here, no?
Anyway, what I also wanted to say was that I really appreciated your 'think of it as the final two episodes of season two' (and all your takes on this situation so far, very level-headed and optimistic, thank you). I mean, you're right, and it's hardly wildly out-there for a series to finish on a feature-length special, and although the filler material in S2 and the compression of S3 maybe means it doesn't exactly resemble what the second book would have been, it was only ever meant to be two books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed S2 and was very glad to get it, even though I am a book/S1 fan and also had the most fun in that time fandom pre/post/around the time of the S1 release, but why does it exist? Ego? You can't tell me you couldn't have fit the important parts of S2 into one season with the S3 plotline.)
Basically, I'm grieving the could-have-beens (imagine if he'd been exposed way earlier and the TP estate had had control of this whole production from the very start!) and I'm a little worried that that hurt'll stick around no matter how good S3 is - which I need to fix, because that's more power over my favourite show and what it means to me that I want to give anyone, let alone someone like that - but at the end of day, I do think it definitely can be done with what we have, and I'm choosing to be hopeful it'll be done well, because, well, why wouldn't I?
(I will say this hasn't been great for my faith in humanity, because I really want to believe not all men are shit and some of them are making it very difficult right now, but that's an entirely different problem and so far believing most people are mostly good has always prevailed in the end so. y'know. we'll get there. might reread discworld, that's always good for that.)
Sorry for venting all this at you! I just kinda felt the need to write it all down once to get it off my chest... have a snack on me? I'm partial to cherry tomatoes, green melon and mandarines at the moment (I stop eating salads in winter, which means I default to eating even more fruit) but I can also offer homemade baked goodies fresh from this morning? 🥧
Hi there. 💕 You are welcome to vent away & thank you for the delicious-sounding snacks and kind words. I'm glad my posts on the movie boosted your spirits about it. I agree with and can relate to almost everything that you said here so assume that anything that I don't address just has a 'yes, absolutely' nod happening. 🙂‍↕️
The one thing I want to touch on here is S2 and this idea of it being "filler" that you mentioned that I think might not be quite accurate. I think you (and anyone else who reads this) might feel more enthused about the idea of a good ending in 90 minutes after reading this so hopefully this'll be another way that I can help?
On why S2 is really the whole story and actually had a lot more going on in every way than S1...
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Ok, I'm going to explain something that drives writers like myself bonkers 😂 and that is how some readers or viewers of fictional stories mix up plot and story.
Nothing grinds our gears than reading things like "filler" and "unnecessary subplots" because, while everyone is within their rights to have an opinion on written works, 95% of the time, the person who says phrases like this isn't talking about the quality of the work but of its very existence. They're saying "why did we have to read/watch this? it didn't connect to anything" and that's where they are very, very, very... argh, just tell them, Crowley...
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...thank you, dear. Right, so, why is it wrong?
Because what many people who don't write don't understand about subplots and more character-driven story arcs is that the writers sat down and decided to do that stuff for very, very specific story reasons. Readers and viewers mistake plot for story. Plot only exists in service of story and, so, all plots exist for a purpose in the story. They're all relevant. In fact, the stuff people usually label as "filler" in a story is really exactly where they should be looking to figure out what the story is saying. If you're big mad about all this time you spent with Maggie and Nina in S2, I'd say you might not still understand what S2 was about because you won't understand Aziraphale's story without understanding both Maggie and Nina's struggles in S2, for example.
A story is the whole, overall thing. It's the meanings, themes, and messages in the work. It's what's being said. It's the ideas being put forth by the piece. It's what it's about. It's different from plot, which is just the stuff the writers are making the characters do or not do in order to tell the story that they are looking to tell. Story is the art; plot is a tool used to make that art. Fiction writers can come at their story from almost anywhere to convey what it is that they are trying to say so there is meaning in the fact that they are choosing to tell their stories the way that they are telling them. They came up with these ideas for reasons.
When you dismiss stuff as filler, you're saying that it's lesser than more in-your-face and bigger plots (when, often, it's very much not), and you're telling a writer how they should have written their own story-- most of the time, without even fully seeing the ending of that story or giving any consideration to why it is that the writer wanted you to read or watch the stuff you're saying wasn't necessary. I'm not arguing that every story is perfect but you aren't getting anywhere near close to being able to evaluate a story if you're not willing to dive into what you were given and consider why it was that you were given those things and what they might mean.
Until the main question that you're asking about every single aspect of a story is "what is this saying?", you're not really fully engaging with a work. You won't get there by dismissing what the artists are telling you is important.
The secret sauce to interpreting fiction are subplots, actually. They exist to help highlight the themes of the main story, often in a slightly more direct way. If you want to understand Good Omens, starting with Ineffable Bureaucracy is actually one of the best ways to get at the core of the themes of the story. It's far from wasted time in the story.
There's actually a funny nod to the importance of subplots in 1941 when Aziraphale references Sophocles, the playwright who basically created the concept of the supporting character whose story mirrors and parallels the main character(s). The mention of Sophocles shows up in S2, the season that brings Gabriel more fully into his purpose as exactly that.
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The reason why S2's plot is centered around the honestly pretty easily solvable mystery as to what's happened to Gabriel is because Gabriel, from the get-go, has been the entire story distilled down.
If you follow nothing but Ineffable Bureaucracy in Good Omens, you're going to be closer to getting what it's about and where it's going and what its end game is than you are if you are dismissing it as wasted time when we only have few episodes left. If you haven't yet seen the secret wisdom in Jim-- not to mention understand that Jim and Gabriel are the same person-- then you're probably wigging out more about the movie.
You likely think that S2 was wasted on stuff like Gabriel, or Maggie and Nina's romance, when they should have been getting to Armageddon and The Second Coming already!
You haven't yet noticed that Armageddon has more than one meaning in the series.
It's not always the literal destruction of Earth but also a person's own life crisis. We are all worlds of our own and those worlds can be put at risk if we don't let others in and take care of ourselves and those around us.
When you realize this, you can start to see that S1 goes hard with a freight train of plot all over the place that is related to Armageddon in a more Biblical, apocalyptic sense while it establishes its universe for us but that, once we know how it all works, we can get something like S2... a time where we can step back and start using Armageddon in the more figurative way that the story is also presenting it.
We need to because the story isn't about Heaven or Hell-- it's about being a person. S2 is emphasizing the deeper aspects of the themes and rolling that out at a pace more in line with a person having a few days of inner crisis. When you see that Aziraphale's crisis is the point then you can see how S1 can be about The Four Horsepeople riding to the end of the world and S2 can show War (inner conflict), Pollution (mental health issues), and Famine (symptoms of the other two; lack of food and pleasure and connection; self-starvation and self-denial) as a mental health crisis.
The point is that if you're thinking these characters need to come together to overthrow Heaven and Hell and get to the South Downs Cottage and there's no time slajdflkfwjlkejlje!?!?, then you aren't realizing that not every revolution involves guns and bombs.
People all over the world can start a love train that's far more effective. You might think a subplot about The Hellhound and The Ginger Cat learning to play nice and that they have a fuckton in common and should maybe bury the hatchet and just become eternal bffs already is filler but Crowley and Gabriel aligning is set up for the end game. It's strength in numbers and finding peace and family. They can't overthrow Heaven/Hell without help and Gabriel is the Supreme Archangel. They literally will never have a South Downs Cottage ending without a plot that helped Crowley and Aziraphale see that Gabriel and Beez are on their side.
This is the revolution in Good Omens:
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It will take all the characters coming together to overthrow Heaven/Hell and set up something new for us to get a happy ending and we absolutely will. S2 is Gabriel-centric because Gabriel is the key to all of the characters getting a peaceful ending and because he's a split-directly-down-the-middle mirror of both Crowley and Aziraphale. In a season that is more about Aziraphale's inner Armageddon than about an external threat, Gabriel is vital to telling that story. The plot of S2 is every bit as important to the story as S1. I'd argue that it's even more important because takes the time to go at the themes in a slower, deeper way. It needs to because it's a story of a fall that sets up for a story in S3 of a recovery from one.
Good Omens is the absolute perfect combination of a show that is both very, very detail-oriented and full of depth while also being, secretly, an incredibly simple story. I do not mean simple in a negative way but in a chef's kiss sort of way. Simple in a tight and elegant sort of way. This is something that I think some people might not see when they're theorizing but it's something to keep in mind ahead of the movie. Not just because the movie is shorter-- this would have been relevant if we were having a longer S3, too.
Good Omens has a very engaged fan base that looks for the details, yes. *raises hand* I'm one of them lol. And there will be plenty to pour over in the movie, but... the big thing to keep in mind is that your theory needs to be something that is simple, that can be explained in under a handful of scenes, tops, and that is focused on where Aziraphale's story arc is going above anything and everything else.
If you're beginning with time loops and the birth of a new antichrist baby, I'm telling you from ages of experience reading and writing stories, you're going to be way off. If you are over here composing theories of the story that you are arguing are correct and this theory involves, idk... *makes something up* Crowley is really Elvis and Elvis is really The Bentley and when a rainbow hits Whickber Street at exactly 4 minutes into the new season, Satan will be revealed to really be Jesus, I think maybe you might be missing the point of the details that the show has given already. Like the plot, these details exist to reinforce the themes of the story. Story beats everything else-- it's what this is all about.
And what Good Omens is about? Is best summed up by Michael Sheen, in this single sentence that I really, really agree with and have paraphrased more than once in posts:
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Good Omens is about the business of living. It's about the human experience, which is the experience of being a person. Everything related to Heaven and Hell and good and evil and Armageddon and supernatural things is plot that only exists to highlight a story about the complexities of being a person.
The supernatural is human and the human is supernatural.
That is what Good Omens is about.
While Crowley and Aziraphale are built as two halves of a whole and are both main characters, Aziraphale is the main character from a technical, story perspective, because he is the character whose story arc is driving both the plot and story forward. He's heading for a happy ending with Crowley in the South Downs by the end of the film. If you're making theories, start with what kind of plot would truly get him there and still fit with all of the themes of the story.
This 'it's about being a person' business is why if you look at S2 as filler and not as a season that is exploring the continuing themes on a deeper level, you're still worried about things like there being no time in a movie to show the story of a new antichrist kid being born or how they're going to fit the whole Second Coming into the movie. You don't yet see that Aziraphale parallels Adam and that being an antichrist is basically just being a person and that Aziraphale is presently the antichrist in the story. There is no antichrist child yet to be born. They won't be cutting it because it's not the story.
Armageddon since S2 has been Aziraphale's own personal one and the story from the end of S2 on is now how, if all the other characters can't come together to help him, it could also trigger Armageddon of the S1, Earth-destroying kind. It's tying a more literal Armageddon into a more figurative one. Because this story is about being a person so Armageddon is just metaphorical for going through a mental health crisis and shutting people out.
This story's themes include that every person matters and we all have to let others in and look out for one another. That there's strength in numbers. That found family and adopted family is as much family as biological family-- often, even more so. That labelling and categorizing people is bullshit and you should always open the cover and read the first sentences of people and help people whose stories begin with the same letters find one another. That it might be surprising who has things in common. It's about all of Heaven and Hell versus all of humanity, in the sense that ideas of being a perfect angel or being seen as an evil demon are concepts felt by human beings that get in the way of peace and healthy, happy living, but that fighting them is a common, human struggle, regardless of from where you come.
If you are too focused on the religious plot being the center of the film, you haven't yet seen the meaning of why the end of S1 was an eleven year old kid saving the world by telling off the bio-dad that was never there for him. You might be one of the people who thought this a silly, anti-climatic ending to that story, and don't yet realize that this is the entire story in a nutshell.
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Adam can only reject Satan and keep the darkness at bay because he is surrounded-- here, literally-- by a family that supports him. He has good people for parents and was lucky enough to grow up with resources that all kids in this world should have. He has an absolutely terrific group of friends. He has this witch lady and her boyfriend and these two gay uncles that just showed up out of nowhere 😂 and his human incarnate self has what it needs to make it through this crisis, in this moment, even if he'll probably have others throughout his life, just like all of us. He's not evil incarnate and he doesn't have to be perfect-- he's just a person.
Aziraphale tells Adam this but struggles to see himself in the same way. That's what S2 is about.
S2 is about that other kid who, like Adam, breaks the season down into a single line of dialogue, David Tennant's apparent favorite from the season:
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Jemimah knows who she is and she is happy to claim ownership over her art and contributions to the world. She's living her life with excitement and enthusiasm in a way that gets more complicated as we become traumatized adults. Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this. They have been making a life together on Earth for thousands of years and each struggle, in their own ways, to truly accept that they are people who are allowed to have a life because they struggle to accept that they are people, just like everyone else.
Their story is about getting to a better place with that. That's really all Good Omens fundamentally is. That's why their ending is going to be to go live in a little cottage together that isn't a business that covers up an angelic embassy that covers up a secret love den. It's just their house-- theirs together for the life they're going to live openly together.
If you want some peace with the film, I'd advise throwing over your theories about The Second Coming and Armageddon needing to happen and antichrist kids and how Jesus fits into everything. Jesus in Good Omens is Crowley romancing Aziraphale at the crucifixion and Aziraphale using what Jesus said to Crowley to reject temptation as invitation to fuck him. I thought Jesus in a single scene or less was the most likely thing for S3 and the same holds for the movie. It's not the story. The only time The Second Coming is mentioned in S2 is by the villain and, to get there, Earth would have to first be destroyed. It won't be.
If the story is about being a messy human walking the Earth and we're in the end game now, then the story is about Aziraphale and only Aziraphale. Everything-- everything-- will be in service of Aziraphale's story arc. We already had just a few episodes with S3 and we now have even less time but the way this is going is still the same. The story is Aziraphale's fall and the other characters coming together to challenge Heaven to keep Aziraphale from eternity in Hell. That's how Armageddon is stopped this time around-- overthrowing Heaven with Aziraphale's fate as the motivation to take on The Metatron. It's nothing to do with Jesus. It's everything to do with Aziraphale.
When you see that, you can see how feasible that is in 90 minutes, with plenty of time for things like 1941, Part 3 and other flashbacks.
I think, when all is said and done, you might wind up appreciating S2 more after the film but you can get there already if you start looking at it less as meaningless fluff and start asking why it is that we were shown this story, in this way, and what that can tell us about the story we're watching.
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apparitionism · 2 days ago
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Bonus 4
First, a PSA: If you are eligible to vote in next week’s US election, please VOTE FOR HARRIS as well as every other Democratic candidate on the ballot, and do what you can to persuade as many other people as you can to do the same. I assume anyone who bothers to read my writing is smart enough to understand why that’s necessary—and why engaging in any sort of protest-vote or sit-this-one-out charade is counter to the interests of most living breathing people at this point in history.
Anyway. Here I offer the final part of last year’s Christmas story... again and as usual, where were we? I recommend the intro to part 1 for where we are, canon-wise (S4, essentially, but diverging); beyond that, Myka has just returned to the Warehouse after a holiday retrieval in Cleveland (Pete, in town visiting his family, was tangentially involved), where Helena, whom Myka hadn’t seen since the Warehouse didn’t explode, served as her backup—a situation facilitated by Claudia as something of a Christmas bonus. Post-retrieval, Helena and Myka shared a meal at a restaurant; this was a new experience that went quite well until, alas, Helena was instructed (by powers higher than Claudia) to leave. Thus Myka returned home, both buoyed and bereft... and here the tale resumes. I mentioned part 1, but for the full scraping of Myka’s soul, see part 2 and part 3 as well.
Bonus 4
Late on Christmas Day, Myka is heading to the kitchen for a warm and, preferably, spiked beverage, intending to curl up with that and a book—well, maybe a book; a restless scanning of her shelves had left her drained and decisionless, hence the need for a resetting, and settling, beverage—and to convince herself to appreciate the peace of these waning Christmas hours. She peeks into the living room, just to assess the wider situation, and regards a sofa-draped Pete. He returned from Ohio barely an hour ago, which Myka knows because she had heard Claudia exclaim over his arrival. Then things had gone quiet.
Now, he appears to be napping.
Myka tries to slink away.
“Claud mentioned about your backup,” he says as soon as her back is turned, startling her and proving she’s a terrible slinker. Small favors, though: at least she hadn’t already had her beverage in hand and so isn’t wearing it now. “That had to be weird,” he goes on, sitting up.
She’s been wondering whether the topic would come up, whenever they happened to get beyond how-was-your-trip pleasantries... she entertains herself for a moment with the idea of referring to Helena, specifically with Pete, as “the topic.” So she tries it: “‘Weird’ does not begin to describe the topic.” It is entertaining, as a little secret-layers-of-meaning sneak. But there’s yet more entertainment in the offing, with its own secret layers: “Incidentally, speaking of weird—which I’m sure was also mentioned—I met your cousin. Thanks for giving her an artifact. Very Christmas of you.”
He rounds his spine into the sofa like he’s trying to back his way through the upholstery and escape. “Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was an artifact.”
Myka is tempted to keep him guessing about her feelings, but she doesn’t really have the energy; she gives up on entertainment and tells the truth: “I’m not mad. I’m serious: thank you.”
“I think you’re trying to trick me,” he skeptics. “Soften me up for something. But if that’s for real, then you should thank my mom more than me.”
Pete’s mother. The extent of Jane Lattimer’s role in Myka’s life is... surprising. Then again the extent of her role in Pete’s life has turned out to be surprising too, and that’s probably a bigger deal, all things considered.
Pete goes on, “Because I was gonna blame her, but should I give her props instead? It was her idea to give the little feather guy to Nancy, because of how after I got it I saw that it’d probably PTSD you.”
“I appreciate the seeing, but... wait. After you got it. How’d you get it in the first place?”
“I was in this antique store,” Pete says.
As if that explains everything—when in fact it explains nothing. In further fact, it unexplains. “Why were you in an antique store? According to you, you hated those even before the Warehouse turned them into artifact arcades.”
“Mom was picking something up there, and this guy showed it to me.”
“Your mom, this guy...” Myka is now beyond suspicious. “What did this guy look like?” A pointless question. As if knowing that could help her... as if anything could really help her. This is madness. “Fine. It doesn’t matter what he looked like, because I’m stopping here. I can’t keep doing this. For my sanity, I can’t.”
“Keep doing what?”
“Tracing it back. You win. You all win.”
“Do we? Doesn’t feel like it. And that doesn’t seem like a reason you’d be thanking me.”
“No. That isn’t. But as of now I’m trying to keep myself from focusing on... let’s call it the causal chain.”
“I’d rather focus on the popcorn chain.” He points to the strands that loop the Christmas tree.
They are the tree’s only adornment. Every prior holiday season of Myka’s Warehouse association, Leena has decorated the B&B unto a traditional-Christmas Platonic ideal; this year, in her absence, Myka, Steve, and Claudia, trying to replicate that, had purchased a tree. And transported it home. And situated it near to plumb in the tree stand, which was an exhausting exercise in what they earnestly assured each other was complicated physics but was really just physical incompetence.
They had then settled in to do the actual decorating, starting with popcorn strings... but once they’d finished those, they were indeed finished, pathetically drained of holiday effort. And they’d succeeded in that initial (and sadly final) project only because, as they’d all agreed once they’d strung the popcorn, Pete hadn’t been there to shovel the bulk of their also-pathetic popping efforts into his mouth.
“Take them down, slurp them up like spaghetti if you want,” Myka says now. “Christmas is pretty much over.” The statement—its truth—makes her stew. At Pete? But the situation isn’t ultimately his fault, no matter what part he played. And why is she so set on assigning, or marinating in, this vague blame anyway? She got something she wanted: time with Helena. It didn’t work out as perfectly as she’d wished it would, but she got it.
She tries to resettle: her heart to remembrance, her brain to appreciation.
The doorbell rings, its old-fashioned rounded bing-bong resounding from foyer to living room and beyond, bouncing heavily against every surface. Myka lets the vibrations push her toward the kitchen; she’s had enough of interaction for now. Her beverage and book, whichever one will provide some right refuge, await. As do remembrance and appreciation.
She hears Pete sigh and the sofa creak; he must have shoved himself from it in order to lurch to the foyer. A minute later, he yells, “Guess what! Christmas might not be over!”
Still kitchen-focused, Myka yells back, “If that’s not Santa himself, you’re wrong!”
“Never heard of that being one of her things!” Pete shouts, even louder.
“Quit shouting!” Myka bellows, so loud that she drowns out her own initial registering of what he’s said, which then starts to resonate in her head, a stimulating hum that resolves into meaning... her things? Her things... Myka’s torso initiates a turn; her body knows what’s happening, even if her brain—
“Hey, H.G.,” Pete says, and now every part of Myka knows.
Except her eyes, but once she moves to the foyer to stand behind Pete, they know too: There Helena is. Her body. Embodied. The illumination of her, in the foyer semi-dark... her bright eyes catching Myka’s, warming to the catch... oh, this.
Seeing the sight—greeting, once again, her perfect match—she is struck dumb.
There’s movement behind her, though, and she turns to see Steve and Claudia poking their heads into the space like meerkats—well, no, in South Dakota she should think prairie dogs... but they’re both built more like meerkats than prairie dogs, so she should probably keep thinking meerkats out of... respect? Whatever: they’re animal-alert, heads aswivel, faces alight. It surely signifies something.
Turning back to Helena, trying to get a voice in her mouth, she coughs out, “You’re back? Now? I mean, already? How did you—”
“To quote myself: ‘when I can, I will,’” Helena says, as matter-of-factly as anyone could possibly speak while maintaining intense eye contact with one person, and Myka thanks all gods and firefighters above that she is herself that person. “Now, not forty-eight hours later, I could. Thus I did. I should note that I’m unsure as to why I could, but perhaps it’s a gift horse?” Her focus on Myka does not waver. Pete and the meerkats might as well not exist, and Myka in turn is mesmerized.
“Maybe that’s the horse you rode in on,” Claudia says. Is she trying to break the spell? Myka wishes she wouldn’t... she ideates shushing her, even as Claudia goes on, “But better late than never, Christmas-wise, right?”
“Did you enjoy your additional portion of squash?” Helena asks Myka, ignoring Claudia’s interjection. Her tone is formal, presenting public, but her question is for Myka alone.
“It was very good for my heart,” Myka says. She doesn’t add, though she could, And so was that question.
Helena smiles like she heard both good-fors—like she’s grateful for both—and Myka thinks, for the first time out loud in her head, She feels the same way I do.
It’s... new. Different. Perfect? Not yet, the out-loud-in-her-head voice instructs.
But she can make a move in that direction. “Please put your suitcase in my room,” she says. Out loud, outside her head. Realing it.
“I will,” Helena says. She takes up her case and moves toward the stairs, presumably to real that too.
It renders Myka once again enraptured. She is taking her suitcase to my room. My room. She is.
The first stair-creaks that Helena’s ascent occasions sound, to Myka’s eagerly interpretive ears, approving.
Claudia and Steve don’t even blink. Pete does—well, more the opposite; he widens his eyes in the cartoony way.
But then he turns on his heel, Marine-brusque and not at all cartoony, and exits the space. Myka doesn’t know what to make of that. She’ll most likely have to address the topic—in fact, “the topic”—with him later. Fortunately, later isn’t now.
She does know, however, what to make of Steve and Claudia’s aspect: “I’m sensing some ‘aren’t we clever’ preening,” she accuses.
“We are clever,” Claudia says, dusting off her shoulder. “More Fred. Don’t sweat it.”
Exasperating. “Don’t sweat it? As I understood the situation, Fred was a retrieval and an insanely expensive dinner. Are we doing that again, or is she back for good?”
“She’s back for nice,” Claudia says.
Steve jumps in with, “To answer your question: we’re not a hundred percent sure.”
“See, we made a deal,” Claudia says.
“With whom?” Myka asks.
“Santa?” Claudia says, but without commitment. Myka’s response of an oh-come-on face causes her to huff, “Fine. Pete’s mom and company. And Mrs. F. And even Artie, in absentia.”
“What kind of deal?” Myka asks, because while she can’t dispute the indisputably positive fact that Helena is here, she mistrusts any deal involving Regents. Pete’s mom aside. Or Pete’s mom included: She can’t stop her brain from stirring, stirring once again to life those causal-chain questions: What’s being put in motion this time?
“A kind of deal about which things they’re willing to let us—well, technically Steve—say are nice,” Claudia pronounces, as if that explains everything.
Myka is very tired of proffered explanations that actually unexplain.
Steve says, “Claudia finally found the file on the pen. Seems that Santa’s list, once made, is kind of ridiculously powerful. And it turns out you can put a situation on the list.”
“For example,” Claudia supplies, “H.G. and you. Getting to be in each other’s... proximity.”
Steve adds, “And yours isn’t the only one I put there. That was part of the deal.”
“So you’re letting the pen reward nice situations with... existing,” Myka says. “And are you storing it on some new ‘Don’t Neutralize’ shelf? So nobody accidentally bags the existence out of them?”
Claudia says, “Kinda. At least for a while.”
This all seems deceptively, not to mention dangerously, easy. “But: personal gain, not for,” Myka points out.
“Right,” Steve says. “So here’s a question: what does ‘personal gain’ actually mean? The manual doesn’t have a glossary. So we’re trying to work it out. Let’s say Claud uses an artifact and then makes this utterance: ‘My use of this artifact was not for personal gain.’ And let’s say I assess that utterance as not a lie. The question remains, are the Warehouse and Claud and I agreeing on the definition of ‘personal gain’?”
“The question remains,” Myka echoes, fretting. “And the answer?”
“We’ll see,” Steve says.
It’s destabilizing, but that’s the Warehouse’s fault, not Steve’s. “I just hope the artifact won’t downside you for any disagreement. Because you’re remarkably nonjudgmental, and—”
“With a Liam exception,” Steve notes. “Or several. Ideally, though, the Warehouse and I can work through these things like adults. Unlike me and Liam.”
Myka respects his honesty. And yet: “I’m having a seriously hard time ideating the Warehouse as an adult.”
“We’re working through that too,” Steve concedes.
“You clearly have the patience of a saint.”
Steve chuckles. “Pete’s your partner, right? And in another sense, H.G. might be too?” Myka waves her hands, no-no-too-soon, because suitcases notwithstanding, she has certainly in the past thought she was making a safe all-in bet, only to lose every last copper-coated-zinc penny of her metaphorical money. “No matter what we call anybody,” he continues, “I think you get a lot more patience practice than I do. I’m just dealing with one little Warehouse and its feelings.”
“Aren’t its feelings... unassimilable?” she asks. “Or at least, shouldn’t they be?” It’s a building. Whatever its feelings, they should be talking about it like it’s an alien, not somebody who’s in therapy. Or somebody who should be in therapy.
“Maybe,” Steve says. “Or maybe not. That was part of the deal too, that I would test out how it feels. About personal gain specifically here, eventually maybe more. But if it has a meltdown...”
“Ah. We cancel the test, neutralize the pen, and face the consequences.”
Steve nods. “But ideally, if that happens, we will have leapfrogged whatever the looming Artie-and-Leena crises are. The two of them coming back here safely are the other situations we niced, as part of the deal.”
Claudia adds, “My big fingers-crossed leapfrog is over their stupid administrative ‘keep H.G. away from Myka and everybody else who loves her’ dealy-thingy. We’re hoping they’ll just forget about whatever their dumbass reasons for that were when they see how great it is for her to be back.”
“Dealy-thingy? Have you been talking to Pete?” Myka asks, trying for silly, for light—so as to deflect that “love her” arrow.
“Not about that. But wait, are you saying he loves her too? I mean I figured he was okay with her after the whole Mom-still-alive thing, but his Houdini out of here just now makes me think he’s not quite all the way to—”
“Never mind,” Myka says, as a command.
Claudia squints like she wants to pursue it. Myka crosses her arms against any such idea, in response to which Claudia says, “Fine. Here’s some funsies you’ll like better. Making that list, you’ve gotta have balance. Naughty against the nice.”
“And you think I’ll like that because?”
“I talked to Pete’s cousin, a little pretty-sure-we-don’t-have-to-tesla-you-but-let’s-make-super-sure exit interview. Heard some things about a guy. Bob? Seemed like a good candidate.”
Well. Pete had been right on several levels about Christmas not being over yet. “That’s the best news I’ve had in the past... I don’t know. Five minutes?” Other than the Pete-vs.-“the topic” question, it’s been an absurdly good-news-y several minutes.
Claudia goes on, “Personal gain, what is it? There’s also a warden from that place I don’t like to remember being committed to who’s about to have a Boxing Day that’ll haunt him longer than he’s been haunting me.”
That definitely raises questions—flags, even—about “personal gain” in a definitional sense, but letting all that lie seems the better part of valor, so Myka asks Steve, “Any Liam on there?”
“Too personal to let the Warehouse anywhere near,” he says, but with a smile.
Myka smiles too. “Would that I could say the same about my situation.”
Claudia snickers. “Your situation is Warehouse-dependent. Warehouse-designed. Warehouse-destined.”
“All the more reason said Warehouse shouldn’t object to easing the pressure,” Steve says.
“Are you kidding?” Claudia says. “Its birth certificate reads ‘Ware Stress-Test House.’”
Myka appreciates their positions—Steve’s in particular, even as she internally allows that Claudia’s is probably more accurate—but she would appreciate even more their ceasing to talk about her situation like they’re the ones whose philosophy will determine how, and whether, it succeeds. Or even proceeds.
And she would most appreciate their ceasing to talk about her situation entirely. So that she can go upstairs and be in her situation, because Helena hasn’t come back downstairs, a fact for which Myka’s rapidly overheating libido has provided a similarly overheated reason: she is waiting, up there in the bedroom, for Myka.
Which thought is of course followed by Helena’s preemption of same: she descends the stairs and presents herself in the foyer.
Damn it, Myka’s disappointed libido fumes.
Sacrilege! an overriding executive self chastises, and it isn’t wrong, for again, here Helena is. To fail to appreciate that—ever—is an error of, indeed, biblical, or anti-biblical, proportions.
In any case, now four people are just standing here, awkwardness personified.
Helena flicks her eyes briefly toward Myka—it seems a little offer of “hold on”—then turns to Steve and Claudia. “I didn’t greet either of you directly when I arrived. I apologize. Claudia darling, it warms my heart to see you... and this is of course the famous Steve, whose acquaintance I’m delighted to make at last.”
Striking to witness: Helena has essentially absorbed the awkward into her very body and transmogrified it into formality.
Myka loves her.
“Famous?” Steve echoes, like she’s said “Martian.”
“I’ve heard much of you,” Helena says, with an emphasizing finger-point on “much.”
Steve smiles his I’m-astonished-you’re-not-lying smile, through which he articulates, “Likewise? I mean, likewise, but with more. Obviously.”
Yes, Myka loves her: for her charming self alone, but also for how that charm extends; her sweet attention to Steve has him immediately smitten. Myka’s the one to catch Helena’s gaze now, intending merely to convey gratitude, but to her gratification it stops Helena, causing her to abandon her engagement with Steve.
Maybe she and Myka can stand here and gaze at each other forever. It wouldn’t be everything, but it would be something. Second on second, it is something. It is something.
Claudia interrupts it all, saying to Helena, “Can I hug you?”
Myka doesn’t begrudge the breaking of this spell, particularly not with that; she had been selfish, before, greedy to keep Helena and her eyes all to herself. She also doesn’t begrudge the ease of the hug in which Claudia and Helena engage; getting a hug right is simpler when its purpose is clear. And clearly joyful.
Over Claudia’s shoulder, Myka’s and Helena’s gazes lock yet again, and it’s spectacular.
However: it also seems to introduce a foreign element into the hug, some friction that Claudia must sense, for she disengages and says, “So. I have to go. I just remembered I have an appointment to not be here.”
Steve says, “I feel like I was supposed to remember to meet you there, wasn’t I,” Steve says, and Myka has never been able to predict when he’ll be able to play along instead of blurting “lie” (even if he does often follow such blurts with some version of an apologetic “but I see the social purpose”).
“I don’t think you were,” Claudia says, “because I’m revising the gag; it makes more sense if I just now made an appointment to not be here. So you couldn’t be remembering some nonexistent-before-now appointment.”
“But I still think the appointment ought to be with me, gag-wise and otherwise,” Steve says, doggedly, still playing. “In the first and second place.”
“Is this the first place?” Claudia muses, faux-serious, now rewarding his doggedness. “Is the appointment in the second place?”
They could who’s-in-the-first-place this for days, so Myka intervenes, “In the first place, if this is a gag, it desperately needs workshopping. But in the second place: Scram!”
“You mean to the second place,” Claudia sasses.
Myka scowls, wishing she could growl proficiently.
 Claudia’s eyes widen. “Scramming. Best scrammer,” she says, sans sass, proving the actual growl unnecessary. Interesting.
“Except that’s about to be me with the gold-medal scram,” Steve objects and concurs.
Myka pronounces, “I’ll be the judge of who’s what. Once you actually do it.”
“You’ll award the medals later though, right?” asks Claudia. Her words are jokey, yet her tone is weirdly sincere, as if Myka might forget they had scrammed on her behalf, and that such amnesia would be hurtful.
“Participation trophies,” Myka semi-affirms, “in the form of a healthy breakfast.” She adds, internally, Take the damn hint.
After much winking and nudging, the comedians at last absent themselves, and Myka and Helena are alone.
Unfortunately that doesn’t immediately yield the perfected situation Myka seeks, first and foremost because she doesn’t know what comes next. Take your own damn hint, she tells herself, but... how? They need privacy, and the only reasonable place for that is where Helena’s suitcase rests: upstairs. Myka can’t magic them there, so what incremental movement will be recognizable as an appropriate beginning?
She casts a wish for Helena to ease it all, as she had with Claudia and Steve, but Helena is stock-still, offering no increment. For both of them, upstairs seems to have become a different place... the promised land?
Nothing is promised, she reminds herself. Some things are newly possible, but nothing is promised. Certainly not when the Warehouse is involved.
So maybe the point, probably the point, is that it’s incumbent on Myka and Helena to realize the possibility.
Nevertheless, here they stick.
After a time—most likely shorter than Myka feels it to be—Helena announces, “Pete and I have had a chat.” Her articulation of “chat” shapes it into a synonym for “fight.” “Who won?” Myka asks.
“I believe it was a draw. He opened by saying he ‘didn’t get how far along this thing had got.’” Hearing Pete’s diction in Helena’s mouth is disorienting. “He then said he wants to protect you.”
That’s so Pete. “I don’t need protecting.”
Eyebrow. “I noted that I want to protect you too.”
That thrills Myka. At the same time, she wants to object to it nearly as much as to Pete’s assertion... internal contradictions, what are they? She lands weakly on, “I hope that persuaded him.”
“Pete finds deeds more persuasive than words,” Helena says. “Thus I’m ‘on probation where Myka’s concerned,’ until he determines I won’t damage you.”
That’s so Pete too. But. “That is my determination.”
“I expressed a similar sentiment. He responded, ‘And how’d that go last time?’” Helena’s wince after she says this is awful, and Myka dares to assuage it, stepping toward Helena with open arms, drawing her into an embrace.
This time, their hug—simpler because its purpose is clear—works, bodies soft-querying at the start, then firm, intentional. Not quite catching fire, but this is a palpable first cut into whatever membrane of uncertainty is obstructing their movement.
Slow, slow, they move apart. Yet they stay close, the embrace’s softness lingering as Helena says, “Selfishly, I didn’t concede his point, which is in any case indeed down to your determination. But I did note that circumstances have changed since then. And to be fair I must report that he allowed they have.”
“You’re both right,” Myka says. But: “Was this Cleveland mission contrived to... further change the circumstances?”
“I didn’t contrive it,” Helena says, fast. “I would have, if I could, but I didn’t.”
“I’m not saying you did. I’m saying I always wonder, because I can’t help it, how much, or how little, of what happens just happens.”
“And the rest—or if I’m understanding your implication, the bulk—would be...?”
“Some sort of social engineering.”
“On whose part?” Helena asks.
That’s disingenuous. “Your engineers of choice. Regents. Mrs. Frederic. Mr. Kosan. Ententes thereof.”
Helena runs a hand through her hair—frustration at the thought of those entities? Or just showing off? Then she shrugs, as if to dismiss both possibilities. “I favor any engineering that places me in private proximity to you.”
The words are beyond welcome. And yet. “I’m not objecting to it. I’m just...”
“Objecting to it.”
“No. Questioning its provenance.”
“Why?”
That brings Myka up short. “What?”
“If it produces an outcome you desire, what does the provenance matter? In this case, at the very least.”
It’s a reasonable question, and Myka’s most-honest answer would have something to do with the ethical acceptability of poisonous-tree fruits. For now, though, she goes with, “Because I don’t like being manipulated.”
“Don’t you?” That’s flirty, a near-whisper, compelling Myka to lean even closer. Helena knows—she’s always known—the power she has over Myka. And she’s always known how—and when—to wield that power.
“The manipulator matters,” Myka says, responding to the flirt, accepting the push away from ethics.
“Then would that I could in truth say I contrived that relatively banal retrieval. And sabotaged the elevator, so as to draw our attention to... that to which it was drawn.”
“I can’t say I was displeased with the drawing,” Myka allows. “So if you had...”
Helena moves her lips, a sly hint of curve, and says, “Oh, but perhaps I’ve manipulated you into that sentiment.” Again, an ostentatious flirt.
Myka’s knowing that flirt-show for what it is? That’s Helena-specific. In the past Myka has always had to be told when she was being flirted with: “He was interested in you,” an exasperated friend would explain of an interaction Myka found incomprehensible, and she would cringe internally at her inability to recognize such an apparently basic, obvious display. But with Helena she’s never needed a flirt translator. From the first lock of gaze, unto this night’s myriad connections; from that first brush of finger, unto the way Helena has just allowed their hug to linger; from the first just-for-you conspiratorial grin, unto this very moment’s slip of smile—all the advances, heavy and light, have been legible to Myka.
And based on what she is now reading, she has no ground left. “Fine. I like being manipulated if it means.” She clears her throat. “If it means I get closer to you. You win.”
“Do I?” Here’s the disingenuity again, but now Myka understands its intentional irony. Helena follows up with, “This establishment has no elevator,” Helena says, like it’s nothing more than a structural observation that checks a box on a form, a minor note in an overall architectural assessment.
“No,” Myka agrees.
“How fortunate,” Helena says.
Myka waits for the conclusion, the help... but it’s not forthcoming, probably in a that’s-down-to-your-determination-as-well sense. The next cut is clearly Myka’s responsibility too. So: “It has stairs though,” she offers. “That go. Up. Well, both down and up. Of course. As stairs do.” Stop talking, she tells herself, but her nerves don’t heed the advice. “As they have to? I don’t know; do they? Escher?”
“Ess-sherr,” Helena echoes, clearly uncomprehending. That she lets Myka hear her knowledge gap is a gift. For Christmas?
“He’s an artist. I promise I’ll explain later. Eventually. Anyway the stairs. I think you just used them? Without incident?”
Myka expects a comeback. She gets none, which leaves her in some non-place, absent as it is of Helena-attitude... but what form had she expected such attitude to take? Aggression? Naughtiness? Or “naughtiness”... does the lack of all that mean Helena is offering a self more authentic than the one who charms and flirts? But that doesn’t seem quite right, for the charms and the flirts have always seemed clearly intrinsic Helena-talents. Deployed, yes, but not inauthentic. So if this Helena is deploying fewer such talents, maybe it’s that she’s... less?
Ironically—of course ironically, because all of this is so, so layered like that—a reduced Helena is an even greater bonus.
All of this, which Myka had better figure out, fast, how to appreciate and accommodate. “Of course that’s no guarantee that travel will go well,” she begins. “So we should try not to trip on the stairs... wait, no, that would make it our problem, which I don’t think this ever was. Maybe better: we shouldn’t let the stairs trip us.” She considers. “But no again: what I really mean is, we shouldn’t give the stairs a reason to trip us. Right?”
Helena looks at her and blinks, charmingly blank. “I have no idea. Are you through?”
“I have no idea either,” Myka admits, still directionless without Helena’s attitudinal lead. Is this, like the semi-botched hug of two days ago, a seemingly terrible sign?
“Merely delay.” A little head-shake follows. Signifying disappointment? Making light of Myka’s inability to get through? Then Helena says, “And yet I don’t know how much more delay I can withstand.”
Those raw words are mediated by nothing more than molecules—the nitrogen-oxygen-argon-et-cetera invisibilities conveying waves to Myka’s ossicles—and for the second time, Myka ideates, in full awe, She feels the same way I do.
“Me either,” she says, literally heartfelt, sending the words back, a final push through everything, molecules and otherwise, that has stood between them.
Testing, she offers Helena her hand. Helena takes it.
These hands together: not a first. Not even a second. In the present circumstance, that translates to something very like “comfortingly familiar.”
Under the aegis of that comfort, they ascend the stairs, Myka leading the way, marveling that she can. Against her pulling hand, Helena offers what seems a single erg of resistance, a display, an I-am-letting-you affirmation.
They cross the threshold of Myka’s room, and then. Then, after Myka makes one turn and twist, a closed non-elevator door stands, for once and at last, between them and the rest of the world.
Closed, the door is, but not locked. In the door-closing instant, turning the lock—adding its presumptive click—had struck Myka’s hand as overly brazen: that’s a frustrating flinch her hand will have to work out with whatever part of her brain-body complex was certain enough to start this, start it by saying what she did about the suitcase... the same part that keeps telling her that Helena’s feelings match hers.
As Myka turns her back on the now-closed door, she sees her bed. She sees her bed. Disconcerting, in this new now, how large a percentage of the room’s space this one piece of furniture seems to be occupying...
But she’s self-aware enough to know that she’s overlaying the bed’s current brain space, the desires it signifies, on the physical. Whatever’s going to happen—or not—will happen, she tries to force into that space in her brain, pushing it down... for desire, sometimes indistinguishable from expectation, has devastated her before. But she tries too hard: missing the mark, she slips and falls into some past-obsessed cerebral fold, once again lost, quietly but deeply, in that devastation.
“Here we are,” Helena remarks into the silence. “Or, harking back to engineering: Here we are? I continue to be unsure as to why. I can accept unclear provenance, but I’d prefer more explication regarding my allowable movements.”
That’s help. That’s rescue. But oh: movements. The word nearly derails Myka in a different direction, but she gathers herself, resetting to reply, “It’s explicable, but I honestly don’t have the energy to explicate even my minimal knowledge of the mechanism. The most basic base is, Claudia and Steve worked out a deal to use that pen, and there’s a list that you and I are on. As a ‘nice’ situation. Anyway if you want real details, you probably should sit down with Steve.”
A mind’s-eye image comes to her, of Helena and Steve leaning toward each other, bringing complementary concentration to bear on some topic large or small... and then an incipient sound strikes her: the chime of their voices together, both seriously and lightheartedly, ringing notes she hadn’t before this new instant thought to anticipate. “Actually I think you and Steve sitting down would be really pleasant. Even productive. Given that you’ll be sticking around. I mean, if you’re willing, and if, or at least until, some definitional issues get worked out. As I understand it.” As I devoutly hope, she doesn’t quite utter.
“That addresses... some issues, I suppose. Yet a question remains.”
This is a bonus of a day: Helena turning into the queen of understatement? It’s freeing; Myka laughs and says, “Tons of questions remain. Which one’s on your mind?”
Head-tilt. “You said you didn’t have the energy... to explain the mechanism,” Helena says.
More delay, Myka knee-jerks... but she knows the reflex immediately as wrongheaded, for this is conversation, the value of which she should have learned by now not to discount. “Right. Sorry, I’ll try: so the pen, and honestly speaking of questions and provenance, I still have some questions about provenance, which I’m trying to ignore, but anyway, Claudia found the file, and—”
“That is not the issue I had in mind.”
“Sorry. I’m not getting anything right, am I?” Because of course she isn’t getting anything right.
“We’ll see,” Helena says.
“So what did I jump the gun on?”
“You don’t have the energy to explain.”
This muddles Myka; it will probably require another reset. “I did say that, but I can try to—”
“Myka,” Helena says, and her name in that mouth will never cease to be a singular wonder. “What do you have the energy for?”
Here again is the difference between the attitude that Myka, in her more cynical moments, might have thought Helena would maintain, and the reality she is instead offering: the question is suggestive, but guilelessly, graciously so; its import is genuine, not manipulative. “How do you do that?” Myka asks.
“Do what?” This question, too, is guileless, gracious.
“Stop me.” It’s the best definition Myka can produce of what Helena has in fact done, what she seems consistently able to do.
Helena breathes several breaths, like she’s waiting for the right words to arrive... no, more like they’ve already arrived, but she’s preparing herself, gearing up to deliver them. “I don’t want to stop you,” she eventually says, and Myka should have used that windup to prepare herself: for the admission this is, for how this don’t-want utterance nevertheless is want.
They are the most vulnerable words Myka has ever heard.
New, new, new... the fact is that historically, people have tended to twist and shy from revealing weakness to Myka. Fallout from her tendency to judge, no doubt, but it means that this, too, is new: here is Helena, and maybe in some other world someone else might have made such a mattering move but here in this best one it’s Helena, Helena ignoring that character defect, Helena blowing past it for a chance to change everything.
Everything. “It’s Christmas,” Myka says, because it is. And because now it is.
“So give me this gift,” Helena rejoins.
“You too,” Myka says.
For the space of one breath, they both wait—bracing for whatever fate intends to use to stop them this time.
But this time nothing stops them, for in the ensuing instant, they both give that gift, blowing fast past everything that, slow, might stop them, grasping at this chance to change.
The jolt of their contact reminds Myka of—no: the shock of it strikes her as—artifact activation, that calling of vested power into being, that enabling of such longed-for release. Before the Warehouse taught her to recognize this transubstantiating, she would not have understood this moment’s raw unleashing, its summoning and compelling of stored potential to manifest as what it has lain in wait, in desperate wish, to become.
But also: all the blood in her body knows she has never felt such power released nonartifactually before now, before this.
Before this world-encompassing, world-creating first kiss.
“You’re thinking,” Helena murmurs into the space of a pause for breath. “I can taste it.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Myka scrambles, kicking herself for not staying in the unprecedented moment, for letting thought intrude, as she always does, and it’s always bad, and Helena is now rightfully offended and disenchanted and—
“It’s delicious,” Helena says, punctuating—proving—by meeting Myka’s lips again, again again again, as if determined to never stop.
Myka would be perfectly happy, oh so perfectly happy, with that forever-continuation, but something in her brain has begun gesturing wildly, demanding her attention... something about her hand... brazen... she rips her lips away and yelps, “Wait! I have to lock the door!”
“The thinking continues,” Helena says, stepping back, freeing Myka, and spreading her arms in a ta-da endorsement. “You’re brilliant.”
A memory: “Bunny, you think too much.” No I don’t, she can now answer. Not for her. In time, given time, she’ll tell Helena how much this matters, but now is not that time. Not when Helena is saying, “However, as we’re behind a locked door, I’ll wager I can make you stop thinking... for at least one consequential moment...”
To Myka’s extremely consequential—and utterly, blissfully unthinking—delight, Helena wins that bet.
****
Later. Lazily, later: “I genuinely cannot believe we were stuck in an elevator,” Myka says. A thing to say, said. “As the prelude to all this.” Which is what she really means.
Against Myka’s neck, newly and blessedly intimate, Helena says, “Your limited capacity for belief is noted. Are you equally incapable of believing that we had the apparently obligatory, if not preordained, chat?”
“Obligatory... preordained...” Myka is still so lazy, she’s practically drawling, and the out-of-character surprise of it pricks at the edge of her ability to stay in such a state. Stay, stay, stay... “Honestly... just clichéd.”
“And yet I was able to add a reference to my Myka-index. Entry: Mirrors, your artifact-related discomfort with.”
Myka’s heart seizes: Helena has a Myka-index. That, plus their proximity now, surely requires her to do better than the little falsehood she’d rested on with regard to the mirror-discomfort. Pushing laziness aside, with something too much like relief, she acknowledges, “I misled you. There was an artifact, but that isn’t what bothers me. The real thing is that mirrors make me observe myself too closely. Too much. Which I do all the time anyway.”
“I wish you’d delegate that observational task to me.” Sweet. Helena sounds so sweet. And not just sounds: Myka can tell (hopes she can tell) Helena means it. Which is even sweeter.
And which in turn entails a need for Myka to think seriously about being observed. Being protected. Being willing—but more important, able—to delegate in the correct spirit, even minimally. “I can try.”
“I can accept that,” Helena says, and the approval is better than sweet: it’s buy-all-the-books-you-want indulgent. “But I must ask: do you honestly think any part of the Cleveland interregnum was the elevator’s doing?”
The true answer references Myka’s entire Warehouse experience, from day one: “Yes and no.”
Helena nods, her hair sliding mink-soft on Myka. “I can accept that as well.”
“And whoever’s at fault, our chat was interrupted,” Myka says.
“As it was poised to progress beyond ‘chat’... but in truth I would rather this happened here than in an elevator. Better environs for still further progress. Don’t you agree?” Helena moves her unclad limbs against Myka’s, in transcendent emphasis.
Of course Myka agrees. Which leads her to a painful realization: “So maybe the elevator wasn’t as judgmental as I... judged it to be.”
Helena bestows a kiss to Myka’s shoulder—small, intimate—bringing Myka’s mind back, sharp, to what those bestowing lips have so recently accomplished, which threatens to render her again overcome. She shudders, which reduces her to embarrassment instead, but Helena is kind enough to feign obliviousness as she says, “You did note your own judgmental nature.”
Myka’s soul twinges in genuine regret, collapsing her lip-recall. She regrets that too. “Do you think I need to go back and apologize? I feel all guilty now.”
“The elevator has most likely moved on,” Helena says, quite dry.
“You’re saying it doesn’t have my memory.”
“I’m saying that even if it does—an open question, though the lack of elevator memoirs argues in the negative—it’s unlikely to care as much as you do about what it does remember.”
“Story of my life,” Myka sighs out. Now she’s really saying it, because memory, and caring too much about it, is that story.
“For the best, I suspect. Your life story and an elevator’s shouldn’t be entirely congruent, should they?” Helena questions, and that makes Myka laugh and want to read an entire library shelf’s worth of elevators’ memoirs. Feigning seriousness, Helena continues, “Although we might revisit so as to investigate whether its conveyance of Bob proceeded properly after our visit. That could be revealing.”
“Speaking of Bob, I feel bad for Nancy. Because of course he’ll blame her.”
“For elevator mischief?”
Ah. Helena doesn’t know. “For naughty.”
“Naughty what?”
“The list. He’s back on it, thanks to Steve and Claudia.”
“Is he.” Her satisfaction is evident, and for a moment she and Myka are one in their schadenfreude. That, too, is delicious. “Better they punish him than we do,” Helena then says.
This sends Myka back to guilt. “It feels like cheating. We didn’t use the artifact, but we get the personal gain.”
Myka’s shoulder now receives an indignant exhale. In its wake, Myka is dwelling on how she would have preferred another kiss, but Helena says, “I was speaking of soul-consequences, not this personal-gain fetish you all seem to embrace. Or perhaps it’s an anti-fetish, but in any case was no hard-and-fast dictum in my day.”
“I’ll reiterate that you should sit down with Steve,” Myka tells her, and Helena accedes with a nestle that erases the exhale.
Are words about such things—ambiguously motivated elevators, deserved punishments, fetishes of undetermined valence—a waste of time? No... for again, they are conversation... the value of which, Myka has lately learned, is even greater when the words it comprises land as soft breath on skin.
In fact Myka has learned a great many things in this locked-door recent while. There is, for one, the gratifying fact that she and Helena are physically compatible, at least as evidenced by this first performance, in terms both of wants and of abilities to satisfy them. But nearly as important, particularly in its physical component but not only that, is her new understanding that while her life has offered her several circumstances with which she’s been reasonably satisfied—that she hasn’t minded—this right-now is orders of magnitude above such contentment. She must have in some soul-stratum known this would prove true, or she would not have been panting in its pursuit so seemingly hopelessly, with such dogged desperation.
She says, with gratitude, “This is what I wanted.”
Getting what she wants: that, too, is new. And very. very nice.
“I would hope so,” Helena says. As if she had some genuine doubt about Myka’s motivation? “No, that’s rhetorical; rather, I did hope so. You’ve realized that hope, and... well. I should be clear: this is more than I dared to want.”
Myka, endeavoring to bring everything together, says, “So what you’re saying, want-wise, is that it’s a bonus. A nice one.”
“I’m saying, want-wise, that my wildest hopes have been exceeded. Surpassed. Transcended.”
It’s something, that reply. Also more than a little over the top, rhetorically, which Helena obviously knows. “Pleonast,” Myka accuses.
Helena laughs. “Not inaccurate. I suppose your ‘nice bonus’ translation is technically correct, if a bit... with apologies, pedestrian?”
“It’s less pedestrian than ‘Fred,’” Myka says. A “hm?” from Helena reminds Myka that she hasn’t yet made that translation evident. “I guess ‘Fred’ counts as esoteric instead, so never mind. You’re right, ‘bonus’ is pedestrian. So is ‘nice.’ But maybe it’s a good idea to call our whatever-it-is something pedestrian. I don’t want to scare it away.”
“And what precisely do you think would ‘scare it away’?”
“Bigness,” Myka offers, weakly. It’s what she means, but—
“‘Bigness?’” Helena says, quotes evident. “From the woman who so recently deployed ‘pleonast’? Should I fear that you’ll regularly revert without warning to Pete-reminiscent locutions?”
Myka chuckles. “Spend enough time with him, it’ll probably happen to you too.” The laziness is back. Earned back?
After a time—or perhaps Myka only after a time processes the sound—Helena says, “God forbid.”
A further lag ensues before Myka manages to respond, with a drowsy “I agree.”
Sleep follows. That is certainly earned.
****
Consciousness resumes for Myka with a banging on her door and a shout from Pete: “It’ s really not Christmas anymore, because Artie’s back!”
“Being Artie about it!” Claudia shouts in addition. “He says get to work!”
“I’m awake,” Myka says as she becomes more fully so. This is a Warehouse morning, and Warehouse alarms ring as they do.
Then: I’m not awake; I’m dreaming, because the back of Helena’s head and her naked shoulders greet Myka’s opening eyes. That’s a bracingly new alarm.
Helena’s voice comes next. “He says get to work,” she quotes, playfully, and Myka would be willing to wake to such an alarm with joy for the rest of her life.
But assuredly, if the content of that alarm is the dictate, then no one is dreaming. There’s really nothing for Myka to say except, “Sorry, but one more time: Story of my life.”
“Now? Our life,” Helena corrects.
That is a literally life-story-altering assertion, and a self-deprecating impulse tempts Myka to scoff it away. Behind that impulse, however, lies a clear-eyed recognition that she must meet what Helena has said. How, how, how...
...and then her mind starts fully working. She begins to formulate a plan. One that will, if possible, manifest her gratitude, but also, display her difference from the Myka she used to be, that one from so few hours ago, who had not yet known the dream-surprise of this awakening’s sight.
“I’m going to tell them I can’t get the door unlocked,” she says. Steve isn’t there. She can get away with it. She sits up, ready to head for the door and tell that story.
Helena touches Myka’s shoulder. “Would it lend credibility for me to suggest out loud that I genuinely can’t believe we’re stuck in your bedroom?” More play, but the touch is becoming a don’t-leave-this-bed grasp.
Myka leans to kiss the restraining hand. “I think that would make them think you planned it. And were being nefarious about it. Shocked incredulity isn’t really your strong suit.”
“It’s true that my capacity for belief outstrips yours.” She pulls down on the sheet, exposing both her body and Myka’s.
Talk about overdetermined. Or is it, in this as-yet-unmapped terrain, underdetermined? To be determined later, if at all... Myka somehow marshals sufficient will to rise from the bed, while telling herself that she is not, conceptually at least, actually leaving it. At the door, she fiddles with the lock, expressing frustration to support her claim, after which Pete and Claudia make noises about toolboxes and battering rams, respectively, and then mercifully depart.
“They’re going to try to get us out,” Myka reports as she returns to bed. “Maybe violently?”
“Let them,” Helena murmurs. “That elevator and its manifestation of mischief... comparatively amateur. You’ve bested it handily.”
That jolts Myka out of a back-of-mind consideration of whether she might be able to jam the bedroom door’s lock with something easily to hand, or perhaps whether her dresser might be pushed across the room to block the door entirely. She then considers, front of mind, the possibility that Helena—her physical presence, her physical provocation—is a bad influence... or at the very least a naughty one... for these thoughts are so, so out of character.
“That, on the other hand, is not the story of my life,” Myka says, and the fact of it does make her more than a little nervous.
“A new chapter,” Helena counters, reading Myka’s mind and setting it right—in three words. Such economy.
****
Myka and Helena are engaged in adding to that new chapter (or at the very least, drafting a steamy interlude of same, even if it isn’t essential to the plot) when a banging on the door interrupts them yet again. As does shouting: “We’re back!” yells Pete, unnecessarily.
“Hey, Myka, what’s going on?” That’s Steve. Far more quiet.
“I brought Steve,” Pete says, also unnecessarily.
“I gathered that from his voice,” Myka notes.
“But!” Pete says, in aha-I-got-you mode, “what if it turns out all I brought was his voice?”
“Then I guess he’d still be here in some sense?” she says; she’s thinking on the Helena-hologram, on what a lack of visual might have meant, on how a more ontologically disembodied voice would have made her believe Helena was there, there but standing on the other side of a door. How she would have wanted to take her own battering ram to that door. The hologram’s present non-presence had stranded her, stranded them, in a strange shared space, offering no barrier Myka could use her body to break violently through.
“But!” Claudia exclaims, jokey, fighting with Myka’s ache of reminiscence, “what if it’s just me, doing my Steve impression?”
“That’d be a different thing,” Myka concedes.
“You do a me impression?” Steve asks Claudia.
Who exhales so dramatically, Myka’s surprised the door doesn’t just blow open. “You have stood next to me while I did it.”
“I have?” Puzzled-Steve is honestly Myka’s favorite Steve.
“Are we not a team?” Claudia demands. “Myka does a Pete. Pete does a Myka. Naturally they both suck, but the point is, why don’t you do a me?”
“Because you’d kill me?”
“Guys,” Pete says, “this isn’t getting Myka and H.G. out of the bedroom.”
Claudia says, “But let me just. Myka, H.G., you guys do impressions of each other, right?”
Helena raises her arms, a gesture of observe-this!—or maybe it’s at-last!—and exclaims, “I feel compelled to express disbelief about this circumstance!”
It takes Myka a second to get it, but once she does, she shouts, “I love blooming onions!”
For quite some time, there’s silence from the other side of the door.
Then Steve says, “Am I the only one who’s extremely confused?”
“Usually, yes,” Claudia says. “Except now, no. I’m with you. Pete?”
“Myka loves blooming onions,” Pete says, slow; he’s the one having trouble now with belief. Myka can picture his gobsmacked face. “There’s my endless wonder for the day. Also, I gotta rethink a whole lot of stuff she said about what she was willing to eat.”
Myka presses an apologetic kiss to Helena’s lips (and how nearly unbelievable it is to feel comfortable with such a touch being swift, to not need to hoard, to believe there will be more), then extricates herself yet again from the sheets, the bed. She heads for the door: to make a show of unlocking it, to send them away temporarily so she and Helena can reassemble themselves to rejoin the world—but. Problem. Big problem. “Guys. I really can’t get the door unlocked now.”
“‘Now’?” Pete echoes.
“You mean you actually could before?” Claudia asks.
Moment of truth. So, fine, truth: “I didn’t actually try before.”
“Ha!” Claudia barks. “Are we still on impressions? That might’ve been a decent one, for real, because the attitude? Way H.G.”
“Thank you so much!” Helena chirps.
“H.G.,” says Claudia, with a whiff of pedantry—and that she feels free to express such an attitude toward Helena is most likely because she’s on the safe side of a closed door—“I was complimenting Myka’s impression.”
“But in it, you recognized my attitude.” Helena’s words are a full preen, and as she speaks, she’s rising from the bed, approaching Myka, slipping arms around her, such that Myka loses her ability to track what’s happening on the other side of the door, even as splinters of sound catch in her ears—“hinges inside,” “lock plate solid,” and finally, “break it down”—whereupon she realizes anew that neither she nor Helena is clothed, and that being caught and seen in that state will constitute a disaster that outstrips a great many of the others in her experience.
“We have to get dressed,” she breathes at Helena.
“Wait,” Helena says. “I suspect a realization is about to occur.”
At times, Helena can be eerily prescient. But what is it this time?
As if in answer, Claudia says, “I have a really depressing theory. Myka, can you get the window open?”, whereupon Myka understands Helena’s deduction: this isn’t mechanical; it’s artifactual. More specifically, list-artifactual.
She cannot open the window.
“Yeah,” Claudia says, a defeated I-knew-it. “I’d be all ‘try to smash it!’, but since I can’t see you try it and, like, bounce off the glass, what’s the point? I mean, go for it if H.G. wants the lulz.”
“I don’t know what that means!” Helena informs her. That too is a chirp, and Myka’s pleased to note it’ll probably head off the slapstick.
“Kind of a shame,” Claudia says, but with a drag, like she’s picturing it, and Myka is less pleased to have to devoutly hope that picturing involves everybody fully clothed. “Anyway I hate to say it, but it’s pretty clear this is on us, the list-makers.”
Pete groans. “You were supposed to check it twice! It’s right there in the song!”
“Listen, we seriously argued about the wording,” Steve says.
“And oh guess what!” Claudia says, defeat apparently tabled for the moment. “Everybody in the world is going on about their day as usual due to the unshocking news that I was right.”
“No, I was right. I was the one who said ‘proximity’ was likely to be too vague,” Steve says.
Myka’s inclined to agree with him.
“Bro, I was,” Claudia says, “because I said it was likely to be not vague enough.”
Well. Now Myka’s inclined to agree with Claudia.
She sees the conundrum. “I appreciate it either way,” she says, and that quiets the combatants.
“Regardless, we obviously need different wording,” Steve diplomats.
“I think our first mistake was thinking an artifact would word like we thought it should. You need to get more into its head than you did before.”
“I was in a hurry before,” Steve says, a little less diplomatically. “Because you were yelling at me.”
“I am so so so so glad,” Pete hosannas, “that none of this is on me.”
Myka cannot let that stand. “Who gave his cousin a thing?”
A pause. Then, “Whoops,” Pete says, very sad-clown.
Later, she’ll thank him again, but for now, she doesn’t mind having wielded this little shiv, inflicting this little nick, so he’ll remember that there is, or should be, always a downside.
“How fortunate they’re not asking for our help,” Helena says, bringing her back to the upside.
“Who’s better with words though? You certainly are,” Myka says.
“You hold your own, Ms. ‘Pleonast.’ But ssssh. Don’t remind them.”
“We’ll fix it, we promise!” Claudia says.
“Don’t feel compelled to hurry!” Helena directs, cheerily.
Steve says, “I think she means ‘Don’t yell at Steve this time.’” His hopefulness is clear.
“He isn’t wrong,” Helena notes into Myka’s ear.
Pete announces, “I think she means bow chicka wow wow.”
“He isn’t either,” Myka notes back. “Even less so?”
Helena answers by kissing her with intent.
Claudia snorts. “I think no matter what she means, Artie’s gonna kill us.”
“Alas, the least wrong of all,” Helena grants with a sigh.
The wrecking crew’s voices fade, and they may still be making non-wrong statements, but for Myka and Helena there is at last, again, peace. And once Myka pulls Helena back to bed—a delectable spin she is now bold enough to put on their dynamic—there is at last again not-peace.
Lazily later—and these lazy laters are vying to be Myka’s favorite at-last—she says, “Not to overinterpret the artifact’s thinking, but this feels very nice. As an in-proximity situation.”
“This particular proximity seems more than a bit naughty, however,” Helena says, incongruously matter-of-fact. She isn’t wrong. “Pete obviously made an inference to that effect. Perhaps if Steve and Claudia can use that as a way of writing us out of the current situation.”
“I’m sure that’s for the best,” Myka says, with no small amount of regret, first attached to her embarrassment at Pete, Steve, and Claudia’s involvement in that inference, but even more due to the sad fact that this beginning must come to an end.
“Are you...” Helena’s words are a smile.
“No. I’d much rather stay here forever with you.” Her practical side then takes over, as even Helena’s body twined around hers can’t prevent. “But if they don’t fix it we’ll die—pretty soon, unless they can figure out how to get food in.”
“Would the artifact allow us to starve? That seem the antithesis of a situation that might be termed ‘nice.’”
“‘Termed’? Isn’t problematic terminology why we’re still here?”
“Granted. But of course we’ll die regardless.”
The casual, literal fatalism trips Myka up. She temporizes, “The artifact might have something to say about that,” placeholding, as she finds her way to a real response: “But artifact aside... will you though?” It’s a question about... well, about whether Helena is, for want of a better word, real. Speaking of terminology. “Die,” she adds, not as a word she must expel, for its terrible taste, but one she feels a need to place. As a marker.
Helena takes a moment. Before, Myka would have read that pause as censure; it would have pushed her overboard into I-have-overstepped agony. But the plates have shifted, and her footing feels—strange but nice (oh, nice!)—sure.
The answer, when it comes: “Here with you, I don’t want to be bronzed again. So yes.”
That leaves Myka warm, yet shaking her head. “I honestly don’t know a lot about romance.”
“Don’t you?” Helena asks, all of her limbs beginning to move again against all of Myka’s.
Which, for the moment, Myka resists: “So I’m not sure if it’s weird that I find it incredibly romantic for you to have said yes to dying.”
Now Helena’s smile is a smile; she rears away, back and up, showing Myka her face’s full measure of delight. “Weird or no, whatever you find romantic, I’m inclined to approve. If that’s acceptable to you.” Helena bows her head, as if to formally request Myka’s benediction.
The very idea of such an ask floods her with happy tenderness. “Is it okay for me to find that romantic too?”
“‘Okay’ seems a sadly weak word to convey the extent of my approval,” Helena says. “Further, I find it romantic for you to ask my permission to find any thing romantic. Unnecessary, yet romantic. Is that ‘okay’ as well?”
“It’s a relief,” Myka understates. “Can I call it a romantic relief?”
“I don’t see why not. However, to what extent is it romantic, or non-, that we seem to be finding—or placing—ourselves in recursive loops of romantic-allowable querying?” Helena accompanies this academically focused, seemingly serious question with yet more limb movement.
Myka is actively in bed with someone who’s questioning the romantic quotient of recursive loops of romantic-allowable querying. It is a level of “nice” that she could never ever have ideated on her own. “I genuinely cannot believe any of this,” she says.
“I can assure you that I will be taking some time—if allowed, and thus perhaps only in an ideal world, some great length of time—to determine whether your incredulity will ever cease to be tedious and elevate itself to ‘romantic.’ Some great length of time,” she repeats, playfully.
Myka knows Helena’s appreciation for time’s length is far greater than any ordinary individual’s... so this smacks of a promise. Myka’s gratitude rises, as does her willingness to pursue any and all romantic activity, despite her apparently romance-dampening incredulity... but then the limbs pause. “However,” Helena says.
“What’s this ‘however’?” Myka asks, now selfishly impatient.
Helena has, obviously and of course, heard and felt the impatience. Myka’s neck receives a press of lips, a curve of smile. “However: fortunately, at this juncture, belief isn’t required. Participation, on the other hand, is. So?” This is something Myka has always suspected was a Helena tactic, but here in intimacy she recognizes as true: challenge not for its own sake, but as an attitude in which to wrap something different, deeper, some authenticity Helena isn’t fully willing, or doesn’t quite yet know how, to express.
Myka moves her own limbs, her limbs that are even longer than, and just as flexible as, Helena’s. She moves them against Helena’s. She cannot believe she is doing so; nevertheless, she is. She is participating.
She places a chock under this particular incredulity, for unlike facts, the quality of emotions can escape her if she doesn’t consciously tie them down. She paints the word “bonus” on the emotion-wheel as she secures it, to ensure she elevates that felt quality too. Then she eases herself back to the full experience of the physical, this smooth beauty—and that is the word for every touch-heat-rise their bodies execute—that she and Helena together are creating... are enjoying.
She sighs soft against Helena’s neck; in return, Helena offers again her lips-on-skin smile.
They are participating. In this. Together. Lips on skin.
“So,” Myka agrees.
END
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hella1975 · 4 months ago
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i cannot stand the aot fandom this is not a new take at all they are universally intolerable but oh my dayssss u are FORBIDDEN from making ANY take about the show it's actually insane to watch. 'aot is perfect' no show is perfect. 'tell me you didnt get the show 😂🫵' people have different opinions/interpretations about things. 'eren is a good guy they could never make me hate him' i think there's actually 4 seasons and two movies explicitely using him as a tool to show that no one is 'good' or 'evil' they are only trying to survive. hello. the fandom r all so far up aot's ass that they actually discredit its writing in the process and it would be laughable if it wasn't so frustrating
#bc aot IS insanely well written but no one talks about it???#like all they do is SAY how well written it is but no one is brave enough to give examples or meta bc SOMEONE will jump on it#declaring they've misinterpreted the Single Correct Way of watching the show and are dumb and a hater for saying such a thing#i remember posting about my initial aot watch on here and i did NOT like eren i thought he was whiney and annoying (he is <3)#and i thought aot was overhyped but ive since finished it at long last and omg. it is so fucking good#one of those shows that you need to watch ALL of it to truly get what's going on#and the conclusion of eren's character i am genuinely so obsessed with ill probs make a separate post just about him#bc i have really 180'd on eren and i can see now he IS well written. but not for any reason i can see anyone else talking about???#people are just banging on about he was right and justified and a saviour and tragic etc etc and while those things are important#and should be considered that also like. was not the point imo#the irony and tragedy of eren jaeger was that after all the 'i am special simply bc i was born into this world'#concluded with the revelation that actually he was not special. the rumbling happened because a normal boy got a hold of a great power#and he mishandled it. he was immature. he acted his age. he was just some teenage boy and he responded in kind#there was selfishness and silly whims and a quick temper. he was never this godlike figure he gets painted as#and i ADORE THAT TAKE. THAT IS SUCH AN ICE COLD CONCLUSION. EREN WAS NEVER SPECIAL - THAT'S THE POINT#and like countless times through history one selfish person with their hands on an insane amount of power and a conviction#that they are doing the right thing goes on to lead to a continuation of the cycle of war#like the end credits with the tree is genuinely HAUNTING. it never ended. eren KNEW the rumbling would be unnsuccessful#and would leave enough of their enemies alive that they'd eventually retaliate HE KNEW THAT and did it anyway#why? bc he just /wanted/ it. desperately and immaturely. and so the war turned over for another generation and another and#LIKE THAT IS SUCH A POIGNANT HAUNTING TAKE. I FR STARED AT THE BLACK SCREEN ONCE I FINISHED IT FOR 5 MINS IN HORRIFIED SILENCE#yes it's not his sole motivation but ultimately the crux of his character boils down to the fact he's just some kid#to the point even when he's explaining it to armin at the very end they SHOW HIM AS A KID. THAT IS THE REAL EREN#THAT ANGRY SCRAPPY CHILD WHO THOUGHT HE COULD BEAT THE WORLD INTO SUBMISSION#NOT A HERO NOT A GOD NOT A DEVIL - JUST A KID GIVEN A POWER HE NEVER SHOULD HAVE GOT HIS HANDS ON#but if u say all that some chucklefuck tells u to kys and that u just Didnt Get The Masterpiece Of Attack On Titan#but do u know what? maybe people disagree w me! maybe this is just my interpretation! guess who's NOT gonna have a hissy fit about it?#fandom is about DISCUSSION and i have never seen a fandom as fucking allergic to it than the aot fandom#like omdddddddddd have a day off man isayama isnt gonna suck you off#aot
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icewindandboringhorror · 5 months ago
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finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh
#Given some of it IS lines of code and stuff but like.. minus all that it's still probably at least 85 - 95k words hhhhhh#AND I have to do this for another 3 characters. Then a few partial quests for 3 others. THEN the other random misc stuff in the game#(like there are public areas in the city like a park and a forest that you can go and do a few things at. and chat with a few random#townsfolk that aren't actually full characters or anything. And there's a community board where you can#browse some of the random job advertisments or silly things that happen to be posted around#and also pick up a few odd jobs of your own to help earn coin to buy gifts for the npcs. etc. etc.)#Originally I was thinking like 'ah I'll make a short little game just to try it out! :3 It'll take maybe a few months!''#haha........................hee hee........................................hoho#Also evil that it would have been done already if I didn't totally drop itand stop working on it for like 5 years randomly#i could have made 5 years of steady slow progress gradually. instead of like 'one initial idea dump + about a month of art and writing'#...... 5 year break..... 'sudden mad dash to try to get probably 400.000 words written in a year or less' lol#I just really want to be done and have something out there already so it can lead to doing other things in my world..!!!!!! T o T#Like this can be an introduction and then maybe from that I can make other games. or short story anthologies. or other such things#But there needs to be some initially not very complex easy to interact with starting point first I guess... if that makes sense#That's part of why I stopped posting worldbuilding lore dump stuff as often because its' like.. massive walls of novella length#text are much more inacessible to engage with than like.. ooh a game! and there's characters! so its more approachable! and theres#visuals! oo! and the text is broken up in small bits line by line with other things in betwen! oo! etc. etc. lol#Not that THIS is even very accessible. I think dialogue heavy interactive fiction/visual novel type stuff is pretty niche and considered#boring or tedious compared to something with more ''gamplay'' like where you can actually move around in a world#and shoot things or whatever lol. But its an inbetween point. something SLIGHTLY#more accesible for now. Since i just dont have the budget or means or ability to make some skyrim type thing obviously LOL#Though maybe if theres any interest in the visual novel that could lead to making other things too. or at least I hope. I have a VERY cool#idea for a more ''gamey'' type of game that is a super fun concept and etc. but I would need to hire at least 2 people to make it.. ough..#I could do all the writing and probably half of the art. But I think I'd inevitably need a 3d artist and someone who can Code For Real hbjh#the system for ren'py (the thing I'm making a visual novel in) is not that complicated if you stick to just simple dialogue and stuff.#Making a whole moderately sized 3d game with minigames in it and a bunch of quest features and etc. would be out of my simplistic scope#''just learn it yourself!!' ... i barely manage to eat and sleep reliably every day lol... i do not function well enough to spend months#learning that many new skills. I already have a lot of of things I'm good at (not in a braggy way but just factually like.. i already have#a wide variety of different things under my belt).. at some point I have to just be happy with what i CAN already do and focus on that#and admit I need to get outside help sometimes ghjbh... NO more new skills/hobbies!!! ... ANYWAY
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eddiemunsonsmum · 1 month ago
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Just saw this comment on a story posted a month ago.
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*cries in Eddie Munson Solo Series no one wanted to read, interact with or request for*
No shade to the person that commented this on their own fic if you recognize it. It's not their fault. I'm not mad at them. More crying in the tags.
#and no I didn't tag the solo series like I normally would because it's not about THAT. It's not about trying to get people to read it#It was just really ouchie to see the same concept I wrote 2 years ago get triple the notes in ONE MONTH.#and double the notes of my solo series masterlist in general in one month vs 2 years of my stories sitting there rotting#Then I see people saying they need more solo Eddie and I'm just here like my dudes I begged for requests. BEGGED. But bc I wasn't#/have never been a popular writer people don't want it from ME. It's like omg we want THIS but not like that. Not from you.#Can't help but let it get you down when nothing has changed in 2 years. It's not like I worked my way up and have the interaction now#that every other blog I used to commiserate with back in the day is getting currently. Fandom isn't a competition but it's not fair either#and I really struggle with that a lot of the time#Also yes I will concede I should be happy with the notes on the solo series because they are the highest of all the work on my page but#they're still nothing compared to what some people have just hours after posting a new story.#I saw someone complaining the other day that there are less new stories in the fandom than ever 1. That's simply not true. 2. Even if it wa#can you blame writers for giving up when readers are checking the same popular blogs over again or reading the same 5 tropes the same#2 pairings over and over. The same series? Over and over. Ignoring everything else and then complaining that their faves don't post enough?#That the popular writer with the incredible series (that rightfully deserves interaction) hasn't posted a new dad!eddie or rockstar!eddie#drabble in ages meanwhile there are writes out there pouring their souls into dad!eddie and no one reads it. There is so much rockstar Eddi#smut out there that it could sustain a brand new reader for an entire year before they needed a new fic#Idk man. I'm just feeling so defeated. I write for fun now. But there was a point in time where I desperately tried to build a platform by#offering requests and writing a lot of things I would not otherwise write to try and gain traction on my page and every time I see another#food fucking fic get hundreds of notes I get so sad that I wrote that stupid Melon fic because I had people in my life that told me#they would be excited to read it and for what? One of them still talks to me. The others moved on so fast. Most didn't even reblog it.#Some of them have since written their own food fucking fics that got triple the notes of my OG. Again. No shade to them. I don't own the#concept. It's just disheartening and fucking sad above all else. How hard I tried to get people to LIKE me and my stories. 😂#Just sad hours in general tonight my guys. Going to go and pour the bad feelings into Aftermath and then maybe make a bad life choice and#pour all my savings into an ipad#YES I KNOW first world problems. I know. That's why I try not to talk about it bc it seems so petty considering the state of the world#But you can't help what gets you down#EMMs Journal#EMM's Journal
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idiotsonlyevent · 6 months ago
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hello! where are the meijack panels from if you don't mind my asking? is that the adventurer's bible? if it is do you know where I can read it? sorry if this is a really obvious question, I've only found Japanese copies when I google it and I'm not fluent enough in that yet. thank you for your post and for being CORRECT about chilchuck, and have a lovely day!
no worries - it is! you can find a mega link to download the adventurer's bible here (also linking the full post i got it from, because it has the link for daydream hour and a bunch of other art books as well!). if you'd prefer to not download something or don't have the space, i use mangafire, and if you'd prefer a physicial copy, you can see if your local library has it!
for reference: meijack (and the rest of his daughters) appear on page 20! also there is an updated version that hasn't been translated yet, though i anticipate we'll be getting it in 2025/2026, since it just came out last year.
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urmomsstuntdouble · 10 months ago
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not to be political but I've seen a lot of people saying that those who call Israel an apartheid don't know what they're talking about and um. As someone who has studied South African apartheid as well as grown up in a Jewish community. This claim has more merit than you think
#this post is brought to you by an article i read “debunking” the claim that israel is an apartheid and their “evidence”#included several policies that are the same if not more intense than apartheid era policies against black south africans#there are comparisons that hold weight here#although one thing i dont get and havent had explained to me yet. it looks to me as though both arabs and jews are indigenous to the region#in the way that both the hopewell culture and lenape people are indigenous to my state of pennsylvania#and thats a flimsy comparison i suppose since the hopewell culture (who lived here first chronologically) has died out#but anyway theres a case for indigeneity for both jews and arabs#its so silly to me that we dont consider both to be indigenous? yes many jews that came into israel in the early 20th century were#white europeans and carried the colonial baggage of that with them#but idk why its so hard to believe that an oppressed group can also be an oppressor?? like where's the intersectionality babes#anyway. the original point of this post was that maybe more of yall need to look into what south african apartheid was actually like#much like h*m*s leadership a lot of the ANC leadership was forced into exile and had to live and work outside of their country#(and this comparison is not perfect im aware. the tactics of the anc and h*m*s are totally different. however i think this comparison has#weight in that they are both one of the biggest names in opposition to the government. they do this in different ways at different levels o#intensity and violence. that is not to be ignored. but there are some comparisons that we can make and exile doesnt strike me as a bad one)#the bantustans in south africa were also constructed in a way that much like the west bank makes it highly difficult for an actual real#state to form#and the way that theyre set up invites puppet governments and corruption. this gives a major advantage to the apartheid state#id recommend reading Trevor Noah's Born A Crime if you havent#its a great introduction to what daily life in aparthid and after was like (its a memoir from about 1990-2005ish)#(apartheid was legally ended in 1994 but there are still remnants of it today and there were even more at the time of Born a Crime)#anyway these are my political thoughts of the day#edit: to my tangent about both groups being able to have some sort of claim to indigeneity. that in no way justifies any of the brutality#going on#i think its espeically cringe of israel to claim indigeneity and a sacred relationship with the land then create an environmental#catastrophe like they have in gaza. making the land unliveable is a bit of a perversion of the relationship you have with that land innit#in case it wasnt clear: ceasefire now and free palestine
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lunar-fey · 2 months ago
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ohhhh my god. okay. so. my aunt does like, she buys random junk in bulk from retail wholesalers and then resells it on like, facebook marketplace and ebay and stuff. whatever. so my mom works for her. makes a flat $50 a day, regardless of the fact that shes disabled and doing hard labor for at least 8 hours a day, often 10+. and min wage here is $10 an hour but mom argued that $50 a day is still more than what she would make working the same hours at an actual job because of taxes...like girl that would be 50% taxes. you do not pay that fucking much. so thats already Bad.
but today mom shows me a video of a knife theyre gonna sell, and i watch 2 seconds and i realize its an automatic knife, and i tell her hey. thats illegal to possess in this state. let alone sell! and mom is like ohhh [aunt] knows what shes doing itll be fine.... we sell knives on there all the time she just doesnt put pictures and calls them something else on the listing to get around fb/ebays policies :)
LIKE. HELLO. THATS NOT BETTER. YOURE COMMITTING MULTIPLE CRIMES. *AS YOUR JOB.* and she was just like "its not a big deal she knows what shes doing." folks, this is the same aunt that, very illegally, paid me to sort through her clients confidential tax documents and bank records and stuff. because she works for a bank. and took the records home to sort them. i dont think she DOES know what shes doing, actually!
#why do both of my parents need to be so impressively incompetent. i like. cannot find the words for how . i feel about this#like. idc about crimes. go forth. be free. but maybe. just maybe. you should not make your job#“hi today i will post about how i am selling illegally possessed objects on a widely used public forum”#dont do crimes STUPID. yanno.#in other parent news. its now like. month 6 or so of dad refusing to get his insurance reinstated.#hes been on the same step (taking his paystubs to the dhhr office) for like 3 months?#anyway apparently he found out today/last night that when he was a kid he was diagnosed with gastroparesis !#which is like ! cool! you have a diagnosis AND ive been living with that for 16 years and can help you 🥰#but we were sitting there with mom (this was right before the knife thing) and she was like “well you gotta get your insurance now so you#can get on the right meds“ and dad was like yeah ill go....#and mom was saying well go in the morning when they open etc etc and he was like i will#and i pointed out that just two weeks ago i told him that too. and he didnt want to. bc hed lose money due to not being able to work#and mom was like well he doesnt work at 8am. and i was like yeah i know but i told him to go at 8am two weeks ago and that was his response#and then he proceeded to claim that this whole time he didnt know they opened at 8am.#folks. he doesnt start working until like...usually 10 or so. WHAT GOVERNMENT OFFICE DOESNT OPEN UNTIL 10.#PLUS. WE LIVE IN A RURAL HOUR. *BUSY* TAKES LIKE AN HOUR. MOST OF THE TIME YOURE IN AND OUT WITHIN 20 MINITES.#ive been fucking considering PAYING HIM to go get it.#and then he claims he didnt know it opened at 8am. when i have told him that. MULTIPLE TIMES.#WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE LIKE THISSSS THEYRE THE MOST IMMATURE ADULTS IVE EVER MET AND THATS IMPRESSIVE!!!#IVE KNOWN PEOPLE WHO PAY THEIR RENT IN COKE OR WHO ARE ESSENTIALLY PROFESSIONAL PARTIERS. AND *THEYRE* MORE RESPONSIBLE AND MATURE THAN MY#PARENTS. SO WHAT GIVES.#also theyre 50 like cmon yall. youre not even 20 or 30. i think you should know how to not like. get your job shut down or die of lack#of medication.#did i tell yall one of the times a few months ago i was nagging dad abt getting his insurance#his response was literally. no exxageration.#he was like oughhh i dont wanna see doctors because then theyll find out somethings wrong with me#and ill have to go on a bunch of medication.#and then he actually for real. said.#“being on too many medications killed my grandma”#even mom was like cmon man. thats not even true. they misdiagnosed her and put her on WRONG meds. she wasnt even on that many.
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boygirlctommy · 11 months ago
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i made 2 new ocs and i love them but one of them is going to die and im upset about it
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thecherrygod · 2 years ago
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thinking about hdb while holding my head in my hands and suffering
#my posts#i cant fully articulate this#idk if i have the time either#but. help. i will tag this with my organization tags. i may see this at some other time and maybe ill be able to so#disco elysium#hdb#im just thinking about him and martinaise harry and his childhood and the 15th indotribe thing and dora#how probably considering the type of friends he had and how they all ended..... they were probably all like him personality wise#like. im not saying they were bad people like harry was kind of an asshole but not fully#like they were all a bunch of teens in a bad situation trying to make the best of it however they can and well... didnt work out too well#but what i mean is that i think thats partially why he got that level of attached to dora? she didnt go through what he did#she had the money to not go through that she was stable she was a constant in his life that was pure and that wasnt always#going through something. a guide. harry went to her like a moth to a fire with pure devotion bc she was everything he never had#she probably also treated him different than what all his previous friends would have. i imagine her to be very gentle#and harry probably never got to know too much about people being soft so that was also. new. but somethign imposible to him#so i can see how he would love her like that to the point of basically worshipping her as god and how he would still love her#years after it went to shit even when he cant remember anything. it makes sense#i think they were engaged bc the wedding gown but idk if its said in game. but he loved her enough to want to marry her in a world#where real love isnt possible for him but only for new people in a new world he still wanted that with her even if it didnt work out#he holds to whatever he can of her as a lifeline and i. man. dude. yeah no i get him#idk how long they were together but it also doesnt matter bc of how harry is as a person#also of course at first it was all good. she was basically fixing him but he cant get fixed only with love in a world like that!#or with a life like his... it was always going to go down. and i. dude#... i am thinking about this as someone who still loves someone and we werent even dating like#i think if we dated and it went bad like. i think id be in a similar situation to harry tbh. i get him#yeah no yeah lmao i do think of this person also sort of as the only good thing in my life#and i am glad she did reject me when i confessed bc if i had fully lost her i dont know where id be? but also man its been 7 years#of the rejection and basically 10 of falling for her. i get harry so fucking badly on this one USHDGIUHUSG#ok in the end i did say what i had to say but in the tags i dont think ill make a proper post out of it#but i did write it in a way that wasnt articulated for a post so i think i was right making it like this lmao
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violexides · 2 years ago
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i have so many neat articulated thoughts on so many issues it is a shame that i accidentally convinced everyone i know in my personal life that i am extremely stupid in order to shield myself from failure and boost other people’s ego 👍
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snekdood · 4 months ago
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bitches prolly out here psychoanalyzing my old art on behalf of my abuser to cushion their belief that im a Horrible Person but then dont see the irony when I point out the shitty things my abuser has drawn and how I see it as clear evidence of their mindset and beliefs (of what's okay to do and how to treat people) descending and pairing that along with everything else they've done and it paints a clear picture of how this person got to the point of thinking it was okay to abuse me the way they did and then the people looking for reasons to hate me through my art will act like "they're just drawings !!!" about their art. which one is it. does someones art say something about them or not? or does it only say something about them if you hate them?
#personally I think me making fun of a douchey type of dude is less bad than drawing 'rape is fun' but yknow#ig I can just weigh the gravity of how bad each thing is accurately idk#vent#'yeah but you started to identify with the douche bag character !!' well- even before i realized I wanted to be him- the plot was#already that he was going to grow out of being a dick. him and mj were going to help eachother realize their flaws and become better#to eachother and everyone else. so by the time i DID realize I wanted to be a guy I already had in mind the mature version of him#floating around but I didn't really post about it bc I didn't want to spoil anything at the time#and it took me a LONG TIME to accept that I wanted to be snake. I was trans before that. and then when I was close to accepting it#I had that whole 'lsd' thing that made me slink back into my shell bc the people I was around made me feel like I would never be a guy#so instead I figured if I couldn't be snake then the next best thing was to be *with* him and started to self ship myself w him and he#evolved even more into an even more mature version of him that by the time I got out on the other side of feeling like I couldn't#be a guy I had this more serious and mature version of him in my mind and started to accept that I wanted to be him and basically was him#and just didn't know bc that version of snake was more like me than the one I made in 2013/14#in 2013/14 I was only ever considering my comic in the context of some sort of comedy and just wanted to make a douchey character#to make fun of bc I had a lot of douchey people in my life who I felt like needed to be knocked down a peg and I figured the best way#to do that was to make an example out of them via the old version of snake and have him be an overly confident asshole whos hubris#often gets himself humbled even if hes too prideful to accept or admit it#at this point in time I didn't really see much of myself in any of my ocs. maybe a lil bit in mj and (mostly)peaches bc I didn't know it wa#ok to id with a guy... but even when I did subconsciously id with him here n there...i didnt relate to snakes douchey-ness like at all.#sometimes I jokingly act like a douche but again its for the same reason that I made snake a douche back then in the first place-#to make fun of people like that- to hopefully show them how foolish they are by me mirroring them or. alternatively. making people#laugh at me acting that way because pretending to act like a douche is easier to enjoy and laugh at than dealing w an actual douche#i'd do it with my ex-bestfriend all the time- I made snake such a dick because we'd laugh about it together and bc we wanted to make#fun of the dicks around us who lacked any self awareness and if not that any actual fuck about how lame and shitty they come off#what can I say. it's fun to mock people sometimes.#when I actually started to accept it my first pic I drew of him being obviously trans was in 2016... soo a couple months before I remet#my abuser...#which honestly explains why that whole relationship was so rough on me. I had just finally accepted myself and then this person comes#along and tries to smear me and gaslight me into thinking im Horrible for who I am. like. hello???????#my first time fully being myself was with them and their friend group and they all accepted me until their cult leader told them not to
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absolutely-esme · 3 months ago
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I have seen too many posts where a time traveling member of the JL decides to kill Danny to prevent Dan from happening and not nearly enough where they decide to kill Vlad for the same reason.
Even if a hero was pushed to the point of preemptively killing one of the two people Dan was made from in order to prevent his creation, why would they pick the one who is currently both a hero and a kid instead of the one who's already a villain and a grown ass adult?
Also, it would be so much more fun to read about Vlad getting hunted down by Booster Gold or scrambling to try and stay one step ahead of the world's fastest man while desperately trying to figure out which of his evil schemes they found out and got this hero's attention and pissed them off this much.
Was it bugging his nemesis's house? He can see how that probably looks bad out of context, but he swears the video surveillance of a teenager's bedroom was regular supervillain creepiness, not other types of creepiness!
Edit: Two things.
First off, my wording about having seen too many of the other thing was intended playfully. I am not putting those fics down. You don't have to justify it to me, and I am genuinely sorry if I came across as antagonistic. I think everyone should be allowed to write whatever they want and I don't expect it all to adhere to my likes and dislikes.
That said, I wanted to address something else. I've gotten a few different people just talking about how they would have no reason to target Vlad because of what looks like an older version of Danny, and I wanted to clarify.
Here's the thing: Dan does not look like an older version of Danny, he looks like a fusion of Danny and Vlad.
Unless someone they have reason to believe tells them that Danny grows up to be Dan, there's no reason for them to assume that Danny and Dan are the same person (especially considering that Dan is a name the fans came up with and not something the character himself went by).
So this time traveler sees a teen hero fighting an adult villain both of whom share differing physical characteristics with the Future threat, and the most likely conclusion to draw is that it's a Conner scenario.
Alternately, maybe they did actual research on the origins of the threat before time traveling instead of just hoping that murdering the first person they saw with a familial-level resemblance to the threat would prevent him from going on a rampage.
Here are some pictures of them
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See how much Dan gets from Vlad's side?
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fiercynn · 8 months ago
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okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.
here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.
and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!
and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.
and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?
maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:
continuing to send arms to israel
putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships
bombing yemen
bombing syria
bombing iraq
vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations
testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice
refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza
halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this
lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)
questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)
perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital
questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same
honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add
or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.
and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.
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icewindandboringhorror · 7 months ago
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Hrmm... put together a roommates quiz finally after years of thinking it would be an interesting idea lol.. Though obviously not meant to be taken super seriously, I just like thinking about this aspect of personality compatibility. Like yeah, maybe you could get along with someone just chatting with them, but living together is such a different thing. .. curiouse...
#Not that I think that many people would really care since I barely know anyone on tumblr in real life and would never live with random#internet strangers lol but... idk.. I made this to give to friends from time to time and thought... why not post it here too#just out of sheer curiosity if anyone takes it what the most common results would be and etc.#My initial assumption is that most people would probably fall into the 'maybe' category and that either extreme of 'best roomates'#and 'worst roomates' would be the least common#very long also since I like to be thorough I guess#THOUGH... upon second thought... tumblr is home of the like Weird Introverts Who Sit Inside All The Time.. so maybe it's more#likely to come across compatible poeple on here. given that many of the questions are about how meticulous#people are with their scehdules or how often they invite friends over or if they like to mostly stay inside etc.#(since personally I think having a roommate coming and going and bringing random people over all the time would be too chaotic#lol... I need a peaceful quiet household)#Also I kind of don't like the way uquiz seems to do results. I was hoping it would be a number tally? I used some sort of quiz making site#before where you weight the question responses with a number (so the 'Best' response is worth a 0#The worst is worth like 5 points. and all the in between are like 1 - 4 points or something). So then it is actually possible to have a#''perfect score'' category (someone who gets a literal 0 points). and also you could weight some EXTREMELY bad answers#to add like +10 to the score instead of just +5. And someone who got the MAX possible points would be the WORST compatibility. etc.#But uquiz seems to just be like ''which category did you score towards the MOST'. So someone can give some pretty bad answers#that are VERY non compatible. but as long as MOST of their answers landed in a 'compatible' category#then they would still be listed as compatible despite still actually having some dealbreakers in there. Which is also possible with the#'every answer is a number amount' ranking system too. but I feel like that one does allow for a little more customization#and accuracy (like making the dealbreakers add like...+40 to the score or something so that#there's basically NO way that someone could answer with one of those and still get a good score. Or the ability to have a literal#'perfect score' (getting a zero) etc.#BUt anyway lol... inchresting.. inchresting... curious to consider maybe making a uquiz#for the characters in the gameI'm making like.. which npc are you type quiz or something#now that I've made one and seen how it works.. hrmm hrmm....#(< game will not even be done for like another year but still thinking about nonsense like this lol)
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prael · 2 months ago
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Rivalry
Kinktember Day 8: Hate Sex
(G)I-DLE Shuhua x male reader smut
words: 4,799 Kinktember Masterlist
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School rivalries can get fierce, but none as fierce as this one.
It's been drilled in since the very first day, no matter what class you were in. From math tournaments to football games, these schools live and die by their standing. If one of them wins, the entire school wins. If they lose, then the school loses with them.
The fun in this rivalry has long since been drained from the system, replaced with spiteful desperation and a toxic desire. The sort of thing that has spilt well beyond the competition hall or the sports field, so much so that local authorities have had to step in for the safety and peace of mind of the students who might've gotten hurt in the chaos.
Needless to say, no individual is really to blame—or maybe all of them are.
You're coming off the back of a crushing victory at the start of this year's Summer Cup, bringing home an early advantage that, to you at least, has meant you could finally take a breath of fresh air, relax, and support your school the rest of the way. You had been chosen for the bits of media coverage (some of this actually makes national TV) such as the post-game interview spots, something not particularly fun, but something that gives you a chance to enjoy the win and rub it in the face of the rivals. Meaning that you were late to the ice bath and the shower and you're now walking through the corridor alone, while everyone is outside awaiting the next game.
Everyone except her.
There's a girl, wearing an outfit in the colours of your rival. Her yellow (really short) shorts, and white top, rolled up to just below her bust.
"You're in the wrong place," you call out as she walks closer, but she says nothing and gives a casual side-eye as she tries to walk on by. This pisses you off, so you move to block her. "I said you're in the wrong fucking place."
"Funny," she replies through that contemptuous smirk is there. She doesn't even try to mask it. "Since you're the one that's in my way. Get lost."
"See that?" You point to the wall, to the crest of your school. "This is our building. You aren't supposed to be here. What? Can't you read?"
The girl, having fully shifted her attention to you at this point, folds her arms beneath her chest. "Oh, grow up. It's an athletics competition. This is an athletics centre. You can take your tribalism elsewhere, bud."
The nickname and condescending tone, the absolute nonchalance that this girl seems to be able to project when speaking to you...it does something. It sends a twitch through your fists. "My tribalism? You're the one sporting your colours in our building."
The girl makes a brief, sarcastic sound. "I hate you all the same, but that doesn't mean you can deny me using the toilet in here. Move."
"Why don't you walk your pretentious arse back out the door where you came from, find the one next door and use it instead? Just seems like some foolish excuse to come in here and sabotage us, you people have a track record of this shit."
"Yeah, or," she responds, giving the most fake smile, before taking a step forward into your space. "Maybe I really need to use a toilet. Ever consider that, smart guy?"
This close, you can really take a good look at her. From her petite and lithe, athletic figure, to her soft skin, and messy ponytail. Her demeanour, too, along with her hazelnut eyes and pouting lips. It takes a moment, but soon, you recognise her. This is Shuhua. Maybe the most vocal of your rivals. Known for her antagonistic behaviour, her temper, her endless mocking and recently her frustration with always coming second.
"I know you."
"Congratu-fucking-lations, now step aside unless you want me to piss down your leg."
You grit your teeth at her crude words, "Toilet huh? Okay. Use it, but I'm escorting you there and then back out of the building. I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."
"I don't know, I'm a pretty skinny girl and you're a strong guy, maybe you could throw me pretty far..." Shuhua says as she steps past you. "You can wait by the door, fucking pervert."
You roll your eyes but don't dignify the insult with a response. Instead, you make sure to walk closely by her side and lead her to the ladies toilet. "You've got five minutes."
"Oh no. So scared," she drones before you swing the door open for her. She's about to step in when she stalls and glances up at you. "Sure you trust me? What if I... Oh, what if I leave the tap running and waste your water? How's that for sabotage?" Shuhua absolutely drenches her words in sarcasm.
You pull the door closed, forcing her to step inside without waiting for a reply. Once more, your fist twitches at the annoyance.
A couple of minutes pass before the door finally swings open and you watch as the girl saunters back out with a self-satisfied smirk. "There, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Want to come in and check the taps?"
That, funnily enough, does make you laugh, if a little humourlessly. "Don't you ever get sick of yourself? Actually, scratch that, that was stupid to ask, of course not," you mutter. "You know, I almost feel sorry for your school. Having to deal with you must be a real fucking burden. Hey, what's that they say, one bad apple and all that."
"Ugh, the fucking ego," Shuhua shakes her head as if she can't believe the nonsense. "You're even worse in person." She sighs and gestures in a bid for you to lead the way back towards the exit.
"Sounds like jealousy to me," you retort and start walking, and she follows behind. "Doesn't feel great, does it?"
You don't have to look, her exasperated scoff speaks volumes. "Wow. Is this really what your school thinks? Of course, it is, why would I ever have thought differently. You are all so fucking alike. All stuck in this same, boring headspace. And for the record, no, it isn't 'jealousy'. There is no jealousy here because I, unlike you, can pull my head out of my arse."
She's nothing if not stubborn, and while you know she's trying to get a rise out of you, you bite, "You're all the same at that fucking school, this is who they raised. Vocal, obnoxious, bitter. Too much time caring about how you look rather than results—"
A door slams behind you. You turn. The door to the locker room. Shuhua has disappeared.
You rush into the door, throwing it open. Empty, or so it seems, but she has to be in here somewhere. You walk down the left row of lockers, taking slow, quiet steps. Listening, hoping to hear the smallest bit of movement. The crunch of feet, a giggle, the slight jangle of coins.
Nothing.
You're approaching the end of the row of lockers and nothing so far. You get right up against the corner, readying to quickly round it when you think you hear a small breath from just the other side.
Three, two, one, and you launch yourself around the corner.
Shuhua is right there, waiting, she grabs you by the shoulders and pins you against the lockers with a crash, before smiling sweetly.
"What the fuck are you doing—"
You're immediately hushed by the feeling of something soft pressed against your lips, followed by the press of a hand against your groin and a thigh, nestled right between yours.
It takes a moment. You're not quite sure how to process this. It's instinct more than anything that makes your hands come to grasp and clutch Shuhua's ass firmly. She grins and lets out an approving hum, slipping her tongue in while squeezing harder against your groin and getting another equally pleasurable response of you tightening your grip on her.
There's a few moments of this, kissing, back against the lockers, Shuhua against your chest. Then, your tongue meets hers, and she lets a soft moan into your mouth. A moment of weakness that allows you to shove her backwards against the wall with a thump. It takes less than a moment and you're both back at it again, clawing away at each other. Your body presses her into the wall, lips parting before briefly, quickly reconnecting. Shuhua doesn't resist, and not long after, you've parted the kiss, she's moved her lips to your neck and you're running a hand down her thigh.
"What the fuck are you doing?" you growl into her ear as your fingertips approach the edge of those frustratingly short shorts. "Did your little brain figure out you can't win these events so you have to find other ways to know what winning feels like? If you can't beat them, fuck them?"
The girl pulls herself from your neck and takes a fist full of your hair. "You piece of shit," she seethes. "Like you aren't desperate for this pussy."
You aggressively push your hand up under her shorts and she squeaks as you clutch the flesh of her ass in a tight grip. You pull her and she raises a leg around you. "This pussy? You have got to be kidding me. Have you seen the cheerleaders at our school?"
She uses her legs to push you aside, forcing you to swap positions with her. She has you against the wall now, and her hand has dipped down the front of your shorts. She's grinning, groping you in a tight, frustratingly wonderful, fist. "Bunch of bimbos who fall to their knees as soon as you turn on the charm."
"I didn't even have to turn on the charm for you. What does that say about you?"
She takes a firmer grip on your length and a loud groan escapes from deep within you. Shuhua can't help herself, her lips quirking into that insufferable smirk, her eyes shining. "It says that you couldn't take your eyes off my ass the entire walk down that corridor, you fucking animal. You were practically salivating. Just like you're doing now."
She uses her free hand to swipe her thumb against the corner of your mouth.
"Pretty sure that's yours," you tell her before you slide your hands up her exposed sides and slip your fingers under her shirt, pulling it up and she quickly raises her free arm so you can slip it over it and over her head, leaving it around the arm still buried into your trousers.
There she is, bra and tits on show and being fucking annoyingly hot.
Even if she doesn't stop you from undressing her, she still berates you for it, "Look at you, can't wait to touch them, can you. Are you really that simple? See a pair of tits and you get hornier than a fucking dog in heat?"
"So says the girl who can't get her hand off my cock," you reply, hand slipping beneath her bra and your fingers closing around her nipple.
She raises an eyebrow and looks down at her chest, "Did I say you could touch me there?"
"So now we're talking consent, Miss 'Grab-cock-ask-questions-later'?" you snarl, fingers rolling the nipple in between them. "A bit late, don't you think?"
Shuhua's really stroking you now, even with limited space inside your shorts, she's able to use her thumb to circle around your sensitive tip with each jerk. "Yeah, well. I didn't sign up to get molested by a dickhead like you."
"Right back at you."
Shuhua laughs a little then cracks a wicked smile, one that is as seductive as it is contemptuous. The girl shrugs, reaches a hand behind her and unclasps her bra. She takes her hand out of your shorts and lets it fall off with her shirt. Bare little tits with stiff nipples stare at you—and you stare back. "Never seen a pair before? Or just not a pair on a girl as hot as me?"
"I've seen better."
"Yeah, sure you have sweetie." Shuhua tugs at the waist of your shorts and underwear until she pushes them down to your knees. "You know..." she starts as her gaze drops down to your aching shaft. "There's a rumour at our school that all the guys in your school are decidedly average down there, and are real bad at using them," she looks you in the eye with an eager smile, biting her lip.
"Want to know what they say about girls at your school?" You grab a hand full of her tit in a tight grasp and squeeze her flesh firmly, eliciting a sharp gasp. "They say all the girls are sluts but are fucking terrible at giving head. Funny, since all you seem to do is run your mouth." You push her back until it's your turn to have her pinned against the lockers. "Here, I'll show you how you can put that mouth to better use."
Pushing down on her shoulders, you guide her to her knees. "Hey, I never said that I—" You jerk your hips and you hit her on the cheek with your length. "The fuck?"
"You've been licking your lips since you pulled my shorts down. Stop pretending this isn't what you wanted." You rub yourself against her cheek.
"I should tear this ugly cock right off," Shuhua says as she wraps her fingers around the base of it. Then, before you have time to register it, her mouth is already on you, engulfing your head. The sudden wetness around your most delicate part, her tongue dancing along it, the suction her mouth produces; it's hard to comprehend all of it. What she says and what her mouth is doing contradict one another.
Then her head begins to bob, her lips firmly wrapped around your cock. As she sucks, she simultaneously strokes it, making sure no bit of you remains unserviced. It doesn't take long for her to build a tempo, and it doesn't take long for you to want more.
Your hand locks around her ponytail and she shivers when you pull at it. She glares at you but doesn't complain and continues working your length. Her mouth feels absolutely exquisite—warm, wet, and tight. With every stroke, the desire to be buried inside her gets stronger. You groan, moving her faster on your shaft.
"Rip it off, huh? Look at you sucking me off like the needy little whore you are. Just look at you."
Shuhua moans into you and she keeps on sucking. The vibrations the noise creates are an absolute pleasure. Your hips buck and the motion takes the girl by surprise, who immediately gags as you hit the back of her mouth. She immediately goes to draw back but the hand locked onto her ponytail refuses her release.
"Where the hell do you think you're going," you force your hips forward.
And you're off. You begin facefucking this annoying girl, who struggles and chokes every time you go balls-deep into her mouth. Still, not once does she try to push your hips, or her teeth to bite. Not once does her head make any gesture to signal that she actually wants you to stop, or even ease off. It seems she's determined to prove that she's not only better than all your cheerleaders, or your classmates, but she's also determined to prove that she's capable of taking everything you give, and all without needing to ask for respite.
"You're so much prettier when you aren't talking," you taunt her.
As a response, she stabs her nails into your ass. Hard. The pain makes you roar, both in surprise and anger. Shuhua simply responds by sucking you harder.
As fun as this is, the urge to ravage her more is still incredibly high, even if that means pulling out of the confines of the girl's sinful mouth. You give it a good couple of minutes before you finally relent and let her go. You pull your hips back and Shuhua instantly coughs, splutters and falls backwards onto her rear.
"The fuck do you think you're doing? I'm not done with that. Get it back here." She spits those words at you angrily, looking almost disgusted, with spit drooling down her chin and coating her lips.
You look at her, hunched over the floor, panting, in only her little yellow shorts. Looking more beautiful and desirable than you ever remember her doing on camera or out on the track. You fall on your knees in front of her and push your hand into her shorts, causing her breath to hitch and her pupils to dilate.
"Well aren't you eager?" she hums, letting out a husky purr as your fingertips tease the delicate lips of her entrance. "What's up, couldn't take any more of my mouth? We're you going to cum so quickly? I know you've never had anyone quite like me before."
"Not even close to cumming," you sneer. "In fact, let's get one thing clear. I don't have standards as low as the boys in your school, I don't just cum at the sight of some tits and the feel of your trashy mouth." Your finger slips past her lips and a surprised moan escapes her throat. "God you're fucking soaked."
"Trashy?" she scoffs and slowly rolls her body in response to your intruding digit. "Should have seen your face with my lips around you, you fucking adored it, dickhead. If you want disappointment, try being in my shoes. This pathetic excuse for fingering? It's like when I did it for the first time."
"Yeah?" You drive a second finger into her and curl your fingers as you begin to stand, forcing her to follow you to her feet. You push your body against hers, pinning her to the locker, squishing those tits against you.
She lets out a taunting, "Yeah" this time, huskily, while arching her back a little, raising those beautiful breasts. "And my first time was real bad. I couldn't even make myself cum. Maybe we do have something in common." While she's talking, you're using your other hand to free her shorts and panties from her hips, sliding them over that juicy ass that you press against the cold metal locker. "I doubt you have ever made a girl c—"
You move fast and hard. Your fingers curled into her cunt, palm pressed against her clit, thrusting into her, and your eyes fall right onto hers, piercing, right into her soul. Her eyes widen with shock and then quickly darken and roll back. Those sweet, vicious lips of hers open as her mind is stunned into silence and her face contorts in pleasure. "Cute," you smirk, speeding up.
"I—I'm fine. You—" You push your other hand against her neck and you lean right against her ear.
"Shut your pretty mouth," you growl, you thrust your fingers deeper. Shuhua can't control the shocks of her own pleasure as she grows limp, her eyes rolling back, her moans coming out uncontrollably and rapidly. Her pussy is quivering, pulsing, you can feel her orgasm growing inside.
You push closer and kiss her as the muscles in her lower belly spasm, and she trembles as her cunt clamps down on your fingers. Shuhua pulls and scrapes her fingers along your skin. "Fucking god, fuck," the girl tries to continue to speak, but she is in total ecstasy. You drink the words directly from her mouth.
When you pull away, her body falls away from the locker, but you hold her tightly and dip a hand right under the curve of her ass, keeping her standing. You smirk triumphantly. "Who can't make you cum, bitch?" you tease her.
"Fuck you," Shuhua mumbles into your ear.
"Oh, you will." You shuffle across the room, finding the nearest bench and falling back onto it, pulling Shuhua onto you. "This is all you're good for, I bet." You pull your shirt over your head and then Shuhua throws herself against your naked body. Her tits press against your bare chest, and your stiff cock is trapped between your stomachs.
"We'll see," she breathes, running a hand into your hair and yanking at the locks as she pulls herself upright.
Your lips meet hers, a passionate and desperate union as the need to be in her consumes your every fibre. Tongues dance and your hands explore one another's bodies. Groping, stroking, touching, squeezing, grinding. When the kiss ends, she leans her forehead against yours, her eyes lidded.
"I hate you," you growl into the space in front of her.
"You too," she says, hoisting her hips up over your cock. With a mischievous and playful look in her eye, she furrows her eyebrows. "But you won't when this is over. You're gonna fucking worship me."
Before you can think to retort, she sinks herself onto you and, after what feels like a torturously long series of minutes of teasing and waiting, your bodies finally unite. Her inner walls are unbelievably hot and wet, squeezing down around you as if desperate for you to remain buried within her. Shuhua makes no attempts to hide her expression, her head rolls back and her teeth press down on her lip to conceal an enchanting whine. Her breasts press firmly into your hands as you hastily reach to cup them.
It doesn't take long at all for the pair of you to adjust, and you begin to pump your hips beneath hers. She's fucking down onto you too and it's a mess, there's no rhythm, two different bodies fighting to control a single movement, all the while searching desperately for the best result. You're on different wavelengths, and it's glorious, the chaos is addictive. It's raw fucking, and it's fucking amazing.
As frustrating and confusing as it is, nothing in the world feels better right now. Your chest heaving with every desperate gasp as she grinds onto you and around you, her lust-filled gaze still struggling to fight away your shared frustrations, it's raw and incredible.
"Oh God, right there." Shuhua squeezes her eyes shut and buries her forehead into the crook of your neck, her body shuddering and tensing with every push you make into her. Her pace on you is irregular, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. But as her orgasm grows inside of her, she sinks harder and deeper down upon you, taking you as deep as she possibly can and as often as you will give it to her.
"Bad at using it, am I?" you jest with a strained voice, slapping her ass hard as the impact causes it to ripple. "So bad that you're cumming already?"
"Tch." She goes to speak, to say something witty and defiant, but the sensation hits and her eyelids flutter, she twitches and lets out a shuddering moan as another climax hits her, "Ah fuck. God." Her nails dig into the skin of your chest, hard, painful enough that you hiss. "I'm doing all the work here."
"As you should be. Getting the privilege to ride my cock, the least you could do is break a sweat," you tell her.
She opens her eyes to flash you a glare and she slams her body down on your hips a bit faster. "You just know— that you couldn't— fuck as good as me."
Shuhua rides you mercilessly, completely lost in her desire to get herself off again. You enjoy the way her tits bounce and the way you can freely land a series of spanks on her bouncing ass.
"Guess that makes me more of a winner than you'll ever be." She tries to bite her lip, to hide it, but the pleasure that shines through her features is impossible to miss. She cums again, harder, no doubt about it.
This time, when the climactic orgasm subsides, she fights against her exhaustion with ragged, heavy breaths. You can see her lips twitch. Words escape her, so instead, she focuses on attempting to ride your cock even more mercilessly, just like earlier.
"Looks like you're all spent," you continue and push a hand onto her hip, steadying her before shoving her aside and away, pulling out. Shuhua topples and stumbles onto the floor, with her hands on the bench, breathing heavily. She's bent over the bench and her back glistens with a thin layer of sweat, her ass up in the air. Her body trembles with anticipation.
You don't hesitate. Not for a single second.
Before Shuhua can so much as open her mouth, you're behind her, your hands on her hips, her skin slick.
"Here's your loser's prize," you tell her as you slide back home, back inside her, feeling yourself plunged so deeply. Her thick ass presses against your hips and you spread it to push in deeper. You take in the beautiful view of her well-toned, petite back. The outline of every muscle stretches and flexes as she claws desperately at the benches as her pleasure is recharged, and restored, as though the fire is reignited with your touch. She lets out a soft little hiss, the briefest hint of displeasure that's quickly overcome by her passion for the raw sensation of sex. She relishes your presence and your length, and as she relaxes once more, she allows herself to sink into the rhythm of the rut.
You fuck her, taking pleasure in the way her body pushes back against yours, your balls slapping against her, and the obscene wet noises as you take her from behind. It's a dizzying crescendo, a desire so great that it cannot possibly be contained. To both yourself and Shuhua, desire cannot be denied, for you to cum inside her.
All you have left now is to pound the life out of this smug bitch's tight cunt, one hard, sharp, aggressive thrust after the other.
"Finally—" You raise a hand and bring it down upon the cheek of her arse. Hard, harsh, jiggling. The skin flushes and burns an angry red. She squeals in delight, she arches her body up as she takes the rough fucking. "Finally something useful has come out of your fucking school. One good pussy, just for me." Another slap. Another cry.
"Making me cum, is all you're good for. Just a cock," she spits back as her body shakes and bucks back onto your hardness, "One good fuck, just for me."
Shuhua straight-up shrieks when you wrap a fist up in her ponytail and yank her backwards, arching her spine. She cums again like this, and the hot rush of pleasure sends you spiralling off the edge yourself. It is utterly satisfying, the burning in your loins, and the immense pleasure that follows as your dick unloads in powerful spurt after powerful spurt. All of the tension evaporates, and all the negativity flows away as you find absolute pleasure. Shuhua takes what you give to her and it's absolute bliss.
For the longest moment, there's nothing but moans and grunts as you cum together before you let her collapse against the bench and you fall over her. Shuhua heaves beneath you, your warm fluids slowly leaking out around your exhausted cock. You suck in deep, gulping lungfuls of air as you grind out the final dying sparks of a well and truly mind-numbing orgasm.
"Still feel the same way about me now?" you groan. Your cock slips out, followed by a mixture of your combined orgasmic release.
Her head lifts. Hazel eyes focus and then fixate on yours. She almost manages to mask the grin, but she can't help it. Shuhua bites her bottom lip and glances at the space where, moments ago, your body had been conjoined.
"I still hate you. Don't think this means I'm suddenly a fangirl."
"Of course not, it's in your DNA to hate me. Just like how the sight of you still makes me sick." You place a kiss against the top of her spine and savour the brief hum of approval she gives.
"Uh-huh." Shuhua laughs. "Shame you couldn't last a little longer... I was just about to let you fuck my virgin ass." She lays her forehead against the cool wood of the bench, and you rest your head between her shoulder blades. "I guess my pussy is just too much for you."
"Or maybe," you hiss into her ear. "Maybe I'm saving that for the next time I catch your obnoxious ass around here."
"You think there will be a next time?"
"I know there will."
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