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lazypeachsoul · 1 year

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Housewarming

Summary: A housewarming party that turns a bit warmer that one might expect.

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Floyd x fem!reader (no Y/N mention)

Word count: 2.5k

Warnings: 18+ only. Oral sex (f receiving), a slight embarrassing situation. can't promise it's good smut because it's my first time writing it, but enjoy.

masterlist ; requests are open

Too busy arranging some sliders on a plate you ignored the company you now had in the kitchen. It wasn’t until you felt a pair of arms wind themselves around your waist that you realized sweet Robert had found his way to you.

“How come it’s our party and I haven’t been able to talk with you since everyone arrived?” He murmured, lips pressed against the crown of your head.

“Because I’ve been busy being a good host.” You shrugged, trying the perfect position for the appetizer. “And you were too busy talking about the best film. And best book. Oh, don’t forget the best record.”

You both laughed thinking about the amount of debates that had taken place during the party. Most of them with Jake and Phoenix as main debaters and Maverick or Penny as the moderator. It was chaotic, and borderline stupid that those topics seemed to rile your friends so much. But you knew Bob wouldn’t change his found family for all the money in the world, and you couldn’t be happier to consider them family too.

“I didn’t even have to talk, Phoenix has enough strong arguments to destroy Jake.” He joked while moving his hand from your waist to the sliders, trying to snatch one before you before you slapped his hand away.

“Those are for the guests! I’m trying to make them look pretty.”

“I can’t believe I’m not allowed to eat in my own house, that’s a sacrilege.” He huffed, trying again to reach for the plate. “You wouldn’t let me go hungry, right sunshine?”

His sweet voice against your ear was almost enough to let your guard down. Almost.

“I wouldn’t let you go hungry, Robby, of course not. But the guests get first dibs, it’s part of being good hosts.”

“Sunshine, they are friends. Do you really think they would notice if a plate was missing something? We spend months living on carriers, whatever you give us is gourmet.” He argued, squeezing his arms around you softly before pressing a soft kiss against your neck. “But I do like this new side of you. You look beautiful, fleeting around our house and playing the perfect host.”

You felt heat rise from your belly at his words. Or maybe it was because his lips kept pressing closer and closer to that spot under your ear that made your knees buckle. He was playing a dangerous game, knowing the living room was full of people who were probably close to realizing that you weren’t with them. But the move had been stressful and it didn’t allow for much time together, which made you almost wish you didn’t have to move.

“Our house does sound incredible.” You mumbled trying to move your neck away from his lips like the rational part of your brain screamed. “Robby, stop. Our friends are here.” You bit your lip when you felt one of his hands move towards your hip and grab it. “Your boss is here.”

“You can’t call me that and expect me to stop, sunshine. You know what it does to me.” You did, of course you did. But the irrational part of your brain didn’t want the moment to end. “And our friends are fine, Phoenix has enough in her for another debate.” He spoke against the shell of your ear before pulling your back against him. “I just want some time with you.”

“Later.” You tried to reason but it sounded weak even to you. He pressed you closed against him, making it very clear that waiting until later wasn’t in his plans. “Not here, everyone can see…”

And for a moment you thought you had managed to convince him to stop fooling around until you were alone again. But that thought quickly disappeared when you saw his hand move towards the counter to knock the sleeve of crackers you had set aside for the charcuterie board.

“Robert Floyd! Don’t play with the food.” You tried to scold him but the entire situation was too funny to even sound serious.

“Oops, how clumsy of me.” And the same way you couldn’t hide your amusement, he couldn’t hide the audaciousness behind his movement. He moved away from you but before you could start missing his body heat he returned to his position with the fallen crackers in hand. “These are too broken, my love. You know what?” He left the snacks on the counter before he held your hand and started pulling you towards the door left of “We should go to the walk-in pantry that you wanted so bad when we were looking for a house.”

You could only giggle at the implication of his words and suddenly the charcuterie board became the most unimportant thing. As soon as you stopped fighting his pulls and looked to the entry of the kitchen, making sure nobody was looking for you two, Bob knew he had won this battle and a bright smile took over his face.

“And we need to go together?” You asked sarcastically, knowing there was no fighting it anymore.

“Of course, what if you go lost in this big new house?”

Bob gave a final strong pull to get you inside the pantry, wrapping his arms around you before closing the door with his foot. You turned around ready to deliver the next sarcastic answer but were quickly shut up by Bob’s lips pressing against yours. A clumsy kiss that only fueled your need for it, your need for Bob. “God, I love you so much.” He mumbled when you broke the kiss for air, but remained close enough to feel his breath against your lips. “I need to thank you for organizing the party.”

You hummed against Bob’s lips, kissing him again and wrapping your arms around his neck, wanting to keep him as close as possible in the limited space of the pantry. “And how exactly are you going to thank me?”

You fully expected him to tell you everything he was going to do to you that night when you were alone again. To take this small moment to rile you up and tease you, leave you wanting more during the rest of the party. What you hadn’t taken into account is that your time with Bob had been very limited the last week, with grueling air training and never ending work. And he wasn’t willing to just stop after a kiss. His hands moved from their place on your waist, wrapping around you before lifting you from the ground and sitting you on the step stool that stood to the side.

“You are going to sit there looking pretty.” He held your face with his big hands before kissing your lips softly, murmuring a sweet ‘as always’. “And I am going to enjoy myself between your thighs. It’s a win-win if you think about it.”

He kneeled before you, wrapping his arms around your thighs and squeezing them softly. At that moment you were thankful you found a boyfriend as incredible as him, thankful that you chose a comfortable dress… hell, you were even thankful that you saw the idea for the step stool on pinterest.

“Robbie.” You spoke breathily, anticipation getting the best of you. “Our friends-”

But your boyfriend stopped you before you could finish your sentence with a simple movement of his hands that were now parting your thighs. Taking the glasses off his face he folded them and threading them through the cleavage of your dress with an amount of precision that should be scary.

“You hold onto them and try not to get us caught.”

You could feel the blood pumping through your veins when his rough fingers inched towards your dampening panties. Gasping when you felt the fabric shift and the air hit your heated skin. Or maybe it was the feeling of Bob’s face so close to your wet pussy that was making you gasp. “Robb-” “We have to make this quick, but I promise this is just a taste for tonight.”

You felt a soft kiss against your mouth, a gesture that Bob always had before he made you see stars. The first stroke of his tongue was always the sweetest, always accompanied by a groan from him and a need to brace yourself. You tried to hold onto the step stool when his tongue ran through your folds again but it wasn’t enough.

With every lick you tried your best to control your volume but it was difficult when the pleasure was only growing. You felt your body getting hotter and time seemed to stop. Looking down between your legs, seeing Bob looking back at you with glazed eyes while he sucked your clit only made you throw your head back in pleasure. Your mouth opened slightly, ready to let free the moan that was growing in your chest when the sucking stopped. “Don’t.”

Inside your muddled brain you realized the precarious position you were in and clamped your mouth, deciding to instead bite your lip. “That’s it baby, we wouldn’t want to get caught when I’ve just started.” His voice was sickly sweet and you could see the lust in his darkened eyes.

Bob’s fingers made their way between your thighs parting your folds and making you whine when you felt his tongue circle your entrance. “So good…” You breathed and you swore you could feel his smile against your pussy. The hand that was still holding you leg open lifted it until it rested on Bob’s shoulder, allowing him to be closer to you and forcing you to thread your fingers in his blonde hair.

Every lick felt electric in your body, every time he dipped the tip into your entrance and his nose bumped against your clit making the pressure in your lower stomach grow. You hadn’t realized how wound up you had been after all the work until you were spread in your pantry fighting to keep quiet. Your toes were scrunching inside your socks, breath now coming in pants and you tried your best to buckle your hips without falling.

“That’s it, baby. I know you are close.” He whispered looking at you with glazed eyes and circling your clit with his thumb. “Cum for me, let go.” He moved his mouth back against your clit and with a harsh suck you felt the overwhelming pressure explode. Muscles seizing, hands holding harder against Bob’s hair and your hand falling between your shoulders trying to control the waves of pleasure rolling through you. “Attagirl.”

And even with your blissed out brain you could hear the grin in his voice. He placed a wet kiss against the inside of your thigh before lowering it from his shoulder. Looking back at him you pushed yourself to move forward, lowering your hand from his hair to the neck of his t-shirt and pulling him into you for a deep kiss. You could taste yourself on his lips, making you whine.

“That was a hell of a thank you, flyboy.” You whispered, goosebumps covering your skin from the adrenaline and endorphins.

“It was my pleasure.” You wanted to keep kissing him but a noise on the other side of the door made both of you freeze. In a great effort you both raised from your places and straightened your clothes the best you could without a mirror.

“Bob? Are you here?” The voice spoke from the other side of the room and you recognized it was Phoenix who had ventured into the kitchen.

You looked at Bob in a panic, wanting to push him out the door but knowing out of the two, trying to explain the messy hair and the bulge in his trousers would be complicated. You took a deep breath and tried to fix your hair again before stepping out the pantry and quickly closing the door behind you.

“Hi Nat, anything you need?” You tried to sound inconspicuous but by the look on her face you knew she was suspicious.

“I realized both hosts had disappeared, so I was looking for Bob expecting him to be with you.” She leaned against the kitchen island and you leaned against the door of the pantry to mirror her demeanor. “Need me to help you with anything?” She spoke while pointing to the forgotten charcuterie board.

“Oh, thank you for offering Nat but I just need the crackers and it’s done.” You shook your head. “That’s what I needed from the pantry.”

She raised an eyebrow and your heartbeat quickened. Natasha had become your best friend in the time she had been Bob’s pilot. And that position as your best friend meant she could read you like an open book. If she was looking at you like that, she knew something.

“And you needed Bob’s glasses to look for the crackers?” Shit, his glasses were still hanging from the front of your dress. “And where are the crackers?”

You wanted the word to swallow you whole, but instead you felt the door of the pantry give slightly and a hand snaked from behind shyly. You quickly took the glasses and placed them on Bob’s hand, feeling yourself drown in embarrassment. The hand moved inside again and came out for a second time with the new sleeve of crackers. Idiot. You quickly took them and looked back at Nat who, after the entire interaction, looked to be holding back a huge laugh.

“Looking for crackers, huh?” She spoke before she burst out, losing her battle against the laugh.

You cleared your throat, trying to swallow your embarrassment before moving back to the counter with the crackers to finish what had been so rudely interrupted.

“Honestly, good for you.” You tried to hold a smile while arranging the plate but her words were making the best out of the awkward situation. “I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him to do something like that.”

Both of you burst into laughter, a laughter that was only interrupted when you heard a door close with a bang. Turning you could see Bob standing outside of the pantry, glasses now on and hair still a bit messy. “You know I can hear you, right?” His cheeks were rosy, not sure if it was because of the embarrassment or the comments of his friend.

You started laughing again, this time not even your boyfriend could hold it in. Thank goodness it had been Natasha walking in on you two and turned the awkwardness into good fun. Another person joined you in the kitchen when they heard the laugh coming from the kitchen.

“Is this another party I have not been invited to? What is so funny?” Hangman spoke and it only made the three of you laugh harder.

#robert floyd x reader #robert bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x reader #robert floyd fic #robert bob floyd fic #bob floyd fic #robert floyd #robert bob floyd #robert floyd imagine #robert bob floyd imagine #bob floyd imagine #top gun maverick imagine #top gun maverick fanfiction #top gun maverick fic #top gun maverick #tgm fic #tgm x reader #top gun maverick x reader

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gaypyro · 7 months

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Rating the New Champions Variant Covers

So marvel recently revealed a bunch of Varient Covers of "What if every hero had a sidekick/youth counterpart" and while I love most of the designs, some definately are better then others

#22

I hate the Vision Design and I dont know why. Something just feels fundamentally off about it/ Maybe its the fact its a pitch white, skintight 8 year old? Maybe its the posing? The Debris? IDK Man is feels weird.

#21

and

#20

These two get paired together for a single reason

It's just Billy and Teddy. I love Billy and Teddy, their some of the only actual Gay Men in Marvel, but come one guys. Certainly you can do a young Dr. Strange and Young Hulk thats different? Strange goes higher if only because I like the art more, the Young Hulk I just dislike entirely

#19

Speaking of uninspired, the only reason Miles is above Billy & Teddy is that at least shes a different gender then her mainline counterpart. Other then that its probably the laziest design here. Also, you may notice the webbing seems off, that will be a recurring trend here where limbs or background elements were layered improperly or something.

#18

I actually really like this character design. It looks like a fun character in a superhero elementry school spin-off book. The only issue um... thats Storm. Its the next gen Storm and she's white. That's basically my only issue, and why shes above the 3 I actively somewhat dislike designwise, but... Storm is one the premiere Black Superheros. Having her next gen counterpart be white feels so weird. I

#17

On one hand, I can 100% see normal Deadpool wearing this. On the other, the My Boy adds way to much charm for me to rate it with the other uninspired ones, and at least I dont feel like its whitewashing anything. We are at the point where I'd unironically love to see any of these designs in a book, even if its an Elseworld instead of main universe one.

#16

Teen Female Wolverine has been done to death, but I do like how this one goes for a more monstrous Angle compared to Laura and Gabby. The tattered, beast up costumes, beastial feet, large Ponytail giving off the deelling of a mane, nasty looking teeth, and BONE CLAWS very much makes it feel more like a feral forest mutant then the more clean, assassin design Laura had.

#15

The big thing I like here is it isn't a reimagining of Carol Danvers current, captain marvel outfit, but her Miss Marvel ones. We already have Kamala for a new gen version of Carols current design, so a reimigining of the old one, in a way that doesn't feel super fetishy is nice. First I thought it was a dude, but it might be a girl? Unsure.

#14

I really love this design, but it doesn't really scream Black Panther... and I honestly dont care. I love bright colors, makes my brain go byr, and the fact she has a completely different powerset most likely intrigues me.

#13

I have a weakness for fishpeople of all types ok? I find the designs naturally appealing. Even still, Starlord's Chibi Starfish Successor is neat, but not amazing. The ideas done a lot better later on.

#12

He looks like he is having so much fun with his Mentor. I also like how, unlike everyone else, Black Cat's Apprentice is kinda chubby. I don't know man he just seems like he'd be a fun guy to hang out with at college.

#11

Whats better then a succesor to one hero? a Succesor to TWO HEROES! The Captain America Succesor I feel very much has some elements of Wasp design, and I always am down for High Tech Wingspans even if they weren't intentionally going for it.

#10

Instead of being the Scarlet witch they made her the Magenta Witch. All in all I just really like the sorta sorceror design, especially the chosen color scheme. Also ghostly mystical fire is fun you should follow it into the swamp.

Listen I love this design. Its in the top 10 for a reason but man... that arm. Every time I see the image I cant help but notice how insanely small his arm is, like he was supposed to have both arms resting but they decided "Have him twirl a stake so people know its blade."

Moon Squire is here to kick ass and pass third grade math! I just like the Cowl mixed with baseball cap design lol. Moon Knight always fucking kills it with the drip though so im not surprised.

A Friend told me It's Gwen Tennyson cosplaying Magneto and now I cant not see it. I do like that shes implied to have a different powerset then Eric as well, always fun when they did that.

The better Chibi Venom. Only missed the top 5 since I dont think he'd be able to carry a book as the main protag, he is the perfect sidekick though. Just this mildly creepy cutie pootie handing with the fairly creepy Symbiote. After Extreme Venomverse shouldn't be surprised the Venom varient is amazing, but I am suprised thats the direction they went.

If Next Gen Storm and Next Gen Moon Knight are in the Elementary School book, Wee-Hulk is the main god damn character. She's just a very fun little kid hulk, I especially love how shes doing the Iconic "She-Hulk holds a Car Above her head" pose with an electric scooter.

Listen, Non-Binery Latin America Iron Man with the Criminally Underused Grey Armor design is great. They gpt Green Hair, Pronouns, and the backing of Americas #1 Arms Dealer, ready to take on the world!

The Thing has become one of them Yancy Street Kids, and the Fantastic Four are his gang. I just love the design, Spiky Rock person is always a favorite of mine.

Miku Ghost Rider. On Roller Skates. With a fucking Hellfire Flail. I am imagining she has an entire like, Magical Girl Transformation Sequence whenever she transforms, just with a lot more demons and fire then normal.

Listen, I get it. Legs dont bend like that. She is objectively less creative then the last 3 or 4. But, I like Crows. I like Ravens. I like Thor. And this Thor looks like she wont take any of Odins BS when he goes shit dad mode.

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mayg-b · 4 months

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@sbk-zgvlt @psycheprincess

Chapter 2 of my fanfic :)))

Chapter 2

Welcome to your new life

Sebek was looking at the potrait in denial, it was his litteral proof to doom

"it must be a dream, Im probably in some kind of coma and my brain is playing tricks on me, something like a lucid dream...that must be it

sebeks tense shoulders visibly relaxed, since it was a lucid dream he could atleast have a bit fun right?

..its not like all of this is real right?

knock knock

Sebek looked towards the door

"Come in" he said quietly

Maid from earlier opened the door, she looked like a cat got her tongue. But she didn't stopped at her place and came near Sebek and offered the cup of water to him

"h-here is the cup of water you...requested young master.."

Sebek took the offered cup and held it with both hands

"Thank you, are you alright?"

"Y-yes!...umm may I ask how are you feeling today"

"I'm feeling well, but I want to stay alone for a while"

"As you request?..."

Maid left, looking weirdly awkward

Well, not like Sebek can blame her or something

•Sebek Zigvolt, the main antagonist of the book was a loud character, a bit too loud for a lot of people's liking, he lived alone with his grandfather Baul zigvolt., for to train as a knight , Sebek didn't lived with his family, he lived with his grandfather, why?•

• because his grandfather was a high ranked soldier who retired, perfect person to train with. And for some reason that book never explained, Baul and Lilia hate each other,

desperate people made tons of fan theories for the reason, most popular being "Baul betrayed Lilia in war, but never got caught and Lilia never talked about it"

While least popular and the most stupid being "they were ex-lovers" it came after novel illustrations

Like, who thoughts that? People really should stop shipping just because the looks of the characters

• anyways Sebek was a hard-core Malleus fan in the book and wanted to be his guard...it was his litteraly only dream. He already had bad feelings towards the main character even from the start of the novel because he heard Silver was a human. Sebek despited humans. Due to racist reasons and war obviously. he didn't even joined Silvers welcome back party, a party Lilia prepared at the castle of all of the places. That alone just showed how close Vanrouge family was to royalty.•

Sebek pursued his lips

•Sebek refusing to attend made the already hate relationship between Lilia and Baul worse than before•

you already hate him tho, why get more mad when he and his family doesn't attends?

See readers, just another stupid plot hole definelty.

Sebek moved his head up and down as if he just made sense to something

since I'm only lucid dreaming, what should I do now?, showering would be nice actually...but before that...

when, the same maid, came to check on her young master. Who seemed to be a bit late for breakfast time (well, not late actually but Sebek always came 5 minutes early.. til now..) she lost it..

Okay, him being unusually quite was something she could understand. Sometimes his throat hurted to a very bad degree that he couldn't scream, that's why she already prepared medicine too actually.

But this? This was....unimaginable! Unbelievable!

What was it you ask?

His highness crown prince's portrait! It was! It was!-

Covered by a white sheet!?

'World must be ending'

Thought the Maid as she sitted down due to shock

creaaak

bedroom door opened and Sebek, who finished showing came outside, when he saw the Maid in that state, he slightly bowed his head to side and spoke

"is something wrong?"

poor Maid fainted, poor one indeed.

At the dinner table, Sebek was eating alone, of course there was various butlers and maids and some knights but he was the only one eating, seems like Baul was busy

'Isn't that Maid overreacting tho? I just covered the portait...I wanted to take it out but Eh, what if it comes off as a disrespect to the royal family?'

"..."

'Well I can't really blame the Maid, this Sebek did said he would go as far as to illegally camp outside of the castle doors if he couldn't become a knight...'

Sebek sweetdroped as he remembed the second-hand embarrassment he felt while reading that scene..

Well he really did not had a problem with this character like some others, really! He didn't minded that this character was loud and sometimes annoying, he was even sometimes happy that this character was proudly showing off his dreams and idol!

And no! He definetly didn't hated Sebek of this world before reading the book just because his siblings never-ending teasing for having the same name! Definelt not! Where did you get that idea??

It just that..sometimes Sebek took his hate with Silver and fanboying with Malleus a bit too far but he won't be like that.

Not in his lucid dream that's it!

Right now, Sebek was walking around the mansions garden,

'the faces of the knights when he said he won't be training today will never not be funny'

but can you blame him? The garden looks very peaceful.

While walking he came near a deep pond and he looked at his reflection

'now that I think about it...Sebek was a crocodile fae wasn't he? But he looks so much like a human...I didnt saw anything while showering either, Eh, maybe he has some kind of transformation or something'

while Sebek was watching his reflection and thinking, a pair of hands pushed him into the pond

'!?!?'

sebek, who was in shock, tried to swim back to surface but the water was too cold and his new little body wasn't used to swimming...

'Its scary! Its scary! But- I'm dreaming anyways, wouldn't I wake up if I die?....'

Sebek fainted as a Maid, and 2 knights hurried over to the pond while 2 other knights ran after the assasin..

End of chapter 2

( I'm done with chapter 2 what do you think??)

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wyn-n-tonic · 4 months

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Not to get too sappy on main but for all the curveballs that life threw at me in the last year, 2023 was a really good one for me in so many aspects.

On New Year's Day last year, I probably should've been in the hospital. The only reason my doctor did not 302 me was because I didn't have anybody to watch my dog so he just called me every day and if I didn't pick up the phone, he was going to send the police to my home.

I am so grateful to everybody on here who helped me during that time last year to keep my medications while I was unemployed. I hate asking for help, I was raised being told that it was rude to do so, so I have a bit of guilt about it and I will never be able to fully say how appreciative I am. So many people on Tumblr helped me stay in a headspace where I was able to make decisions for myself and obviously, as an adult who lives a thousand miles away from family, that was very important to me.

It allowed me to stay in my home, take care of myself, and work on the next chapter of my life without feeling like a deer in a bear trap.

In the six months that I was unemployed last year, I wrote 300,000 words and so many of you have laid your eyes on so many of them, I am in awe every time I think about it. And every time I talk about it. And every time somebody else talks about it to me.

So, 2023 great things:

After six months of unemployment and thinking about my next move and trying to move away from the mental health field, I was recruited by an organization that works closely with mental health but ultimately is not mental health. I really didn't think that I would like it but now the only thing I can imagine doing that isn't this is if I were a full time writer.

I went to the Eras Tour with @amneris21 in my home state. It was incredible to meet her, I'm so grateful that she included me in her ticketing group, it was the kindest thing. I regret that we didn't take more pictures but singing Fearless in the pouring rain was an honor and I wouldn't have wanted to do it that with anybody else.

Literally a week before our concert, she texted me and said that somebody in the ticketing group dropped out and asked if I had anybody I wanted to invite along. I called my sister (found family) eighty times before she picked up and I screamed so loud that I'm pretty sure I didn't need the phone to be heard all the way in Chicago and I am so amazed and thankful that I had the opportunity to bring her along and that I was in a place where I could make that her birthday present as well.

At my Eras Tour date, I told nobody what I wanted my surprise song to be because I did not want to jinx it. After months of thinking I wouldn't be able to go, I was able to go and one of our surprise songs was my favorite song and then she announced Speak Now (Taylor's Version) and then I cried so hard I gave myself a nosebleed.

boygenius altered my brain chemistry.

I got to travel to Arizona to see @marvelousmermaid for her birthday and I would do it again and I regret that I couldn't stay longer.

I got to see my dad!

I wrote a book.

Great things upcoming in 2024:

My book comes out this year!

(If I can ever feel good enough about a draft.)

(And a name.)

(You'll be able to buy it wherever books are sold.)

(Name and cover coming soon.)

(You can follow @wynharper for sporadic updates because I forget it exists.)

#personal #blah blah blah #shut up wyn

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blankvort · 1 month

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you've probably answered something like this but favourite songs from the stage show and i want details, GO‼️

pezberrywhoreee i cannot even begin to describe the dearth of times i have answered anything related to mean girls and the amount of times i have internally cried and screamed wanting to interrupt a conversation to talk about mean girls. i say that god is dead but you are doing his work right here. putting this under a read more because you said details and this became a study of why every song in the stage show is better than opioids and thin mints combined <333 no articulacy here just 8000+ words of vibes and ranting

first of all if cady sings a single line i am violently shoving every note of the song into a mental folder called faves in such eldritch fonts that my brain computer is halfway to summoning cthulhu whenever it loads the soundtrack. she is described as the heart of the story on the backstage casting call page for a reason and that reason is her absolutely incredible range as she struts from the plucky guitar gyrations and membranophone-focused percussion of it roars into the candid, confiding, crescendoing (and other c words you can probably guess based on the verbiage i use in dms) keys of stupid with love and then climb the vocal volcano that is apex predator and akfjskhfidbdihgshejfhiajw i love her and i love her songs and i need to shut up now i’m sorry

second (but not really because i’m still going on and on about cady i’m sorry) i’m upset abt most other productions burying cady’s fourth-wall breaks and kind of making the segue into revenge party less. i don’t know riled up?? because 1) where did my girl janis’s influence go it is so much more impactful when cady’s main reason for going along with the revenge plot and pushing it further is hearing about janis being outed from janis herself! when her main motivator becomes aaron, who she likes super superficially by the time more is better rolls around, you think wow! what a bitch! for even longer! like you don’t even have to cut the “your hair looks sexy pushed back”/”are his eyes gray or green” conversation that prods her into sending gretchen over the edge this isn’t a time issue 2) where did cady’s brain go bring me a whole box of profound regret and impulsive decisions let the people in the back hear the hows and whys of her descent into plastichood and moreover i would like her to sing more and most of all i love it when characters break the fourth wall. by that i mean i want the “sounds kind of bad right to spy on someone but they’re the first friends i’ve had and i don’t want to have none” things back because the narrative nudity and the way it follows the melody of the verses in fearless is a+++

now. my legitimate favorite songs from the stage show in chronological order

a cautionary tale: the repartee the art freaks have is elite and so are their riffs. The lyrics are 3am notes app poetry lines and that’s an amazing thing for mean girls. It’s not the typical broadway opening number but it’s rough and brash and brilliant. To me the cast of mean girls strikes the perfect balance between caricature and lived-in character and the insouciance of this song towards seriousness reflects that wonderfully. Janis assuming the worst of everyone by saying that the temptation to be popular and hot is far too great and saying that you can’t buy integrity at the mall is some nice, if blatant, foreshadowing regarding cady losing her integrity as she gets caught up in the perilous biome of shopping centers with such dangerous patrons as build-dat-bear. The last line of the chorus abruptly changing the amount of beats in the measure adds an extra kick layout fosse quality that i love too. The ending is the apotheosis of mezzo-soprano/tenor harmonization. Need both janis and damian to step on me but for different reasons. No i will not elaborate

it roars: i have a soft spot for wild life but it roars is superior in every way to me because it introduces cady, the show’s sense of humor, the cast’s incredible skill when it comes to singing and dancing (seriously i had never seen an ensemble that made me want to be ensemble before mean girls), and the perfect transition from a cautionary tale will always get me hyped. i have many thoughts about the many changes the mg script and score have gone through throughout the years but oh my god my jaw dropped at the breathtaking belting of “i have danced with the maasai, i have climbed kilimanjaro” when i first heard it mashed up with it roars and the callback the verse gets in fearless 2.0(?) totally dislocated it. Also i know that it’s a pairing so unpopular it’s basically nonexistent but hear me out when i say that it roars is just a more optimistic, afrobeat inspired version of what’s wrong with me. Cady never seems to think that it’s the student body that needs to change, she thinks she needs to fight and win to belong just as gretchen thinks she needs to serve the most powerful person in school to be deserving of… idk anything?? Of course you cannot trust me on this because i will ship cady with anyone if you give me the chance. Writing cady/the marymount girl fanfic as we speak

it roars is the first indicator that musical cady is pretty different from movie cady in that she earnestly wants to go to the us, wants to have more/better friends, wants to try high school and skateboards and rapping and starbucks venti chai. which makes sense because you know you gotta have that sick i want song so characters feel less tossed about and more thrusting into. there’s a better way to word that but i don’t have the skull size to summon a less immature dictionary right now. a curious thing about it roars, though, is that kenya, being a country and all, has high school and skateboards and rapping. no starbucks because apparently rwanda was an easier location to settle into but that’s a good thing actually nobody should support starbucks. either way you can really see that cady’s been sheltered from the realities of any society past the stone age and idolizes this incredibly abstract view of friends and people. she’s equal parts desperate and determined, artless and acute. it’s ironic, i feel that at first her speech patterns (lions and birds and stuff) seem at odds with her sub-saharan surroundings as though she’s already trying to integrate herself with this slangy teenage culture she knows nothing about and then when she finally finds herself in slangy teenage culture she compares everything to the survival-based rules of the savannah. i know this is probably for streamlining purposes but it’s also so interesting to me that her immediate reaction to her parents’ funding being cut is wow adventure wow possibilities. she knows that everybody wants connection but she doesn’t yet know why connection has to be culled by all these arbitrary rules like fashion or acting cool. like i don’t remember where i read this but some novel said that the only thing worse than being smart is being smart and sensitive because then neither the logical nor emotional explanations for any event can make sense. i swear i will find that book someday to take a photo but today i am bedridden because i walked the five or so inches from home to the grocery store

back to it roars. i hate the grammar in the line “none of my closest friends even has hands” but i love everything else about the song. the beat is so bouncy and the ostinati of the wind and brass sections are top tier. the comedic beats are underscored by cutting the music and then the vocals come back in soaring alongside the strongest bass since george perry and i could die happy if hospitals changed the flatline noise to any cady singing “so exhilarating”.

two paragraphs and we’re still going strong dead god help me. personally i feel like the best delivery of the ensemble lines have to be as obnoxious and deafening as humanly possible but i get people who feel differently. it’s just really great to me when cady is polite and confused and very presumptuous and sonja aquino’s actively going through act two of the exorcist in real time. i think that’s why danielle wade is my cady of choice too. love it when autism: the song is put through the epiglottic funnel of anxiety. also i’m wiping tears right now about the fact cady refers to phones as little screens in her first act one song and in the act two opener she’s glued to her phone because she wants attention so badly and still doesn’t feel like she has enough even though she talks about how america and the plastics are so much more than what she’s used to. Also very interesting that cady views inclusion as a game that needs to be won (and eventually comes to view baleful adoration as winning) even though she later exhibits a sort of survival of the fittest mentality that shows up as early as her mention of baboons attacking those that go near their pack. Fun fact i think her takeover of the plastics mirrors dispersal in male baboons wherein mature male baboons leave the pack they were born into to find another troop to temporarily stay in and usually if they end up replacing the alpha male of that non-natal troop they commit infanticide because then he can reproduce with the alpha male’s old mate/s. That’s not super fun but it is a fact to me. but i’ll talk about the strange views musical cady heron seems to hold about winning more in my do this thing essay which i am definitely going to write despite my best efforts to make this post under five thousand words

gonna slide the it roars reprise in here too because it’s not on the soundtrack but it still makes me feel things. “i’m sixteen just like everyone here but not like everyone here” and what if i said mean girls is the best dissection of the torturous dichotomy between being desperate to belong and being desperate to be unique. There’s a thing called theatrical exaggeration but for mental health purposes i choose to believe that north shore class of x immediately clocked cady as a weirdo utterly undeserving of trust or respect when they saw her wear socks and sandals. I know i just complained about people calling every iteration of cady boring but i feel like i haven’t seen actual hate for musical cady (at least not as much slander as i’ve seen sent to og movie and especially movie musical cady) because you can better bear witness to her most vulnerable moments when she’s singing directly at you instead of saying things in a soundproof recording studio. She’s not quitting she’s regrouping! Which is a fascinating choice of words to me because regrouping in math is basically carrying over values because they’re too much. She gets sucked into this idea that more is better even though she has to compartmentalize the information she’s learned from hostile classmates and teachers and draw connections to her experience with animals because more is not better without proper management. Also this bitch is gonna get e coli if the janitors don’t care enough to clean the slut-shaming graffiti on the wall they are not wiping down those cubicle doors

where do you belong: i love gay people. “so what if all the ducklings think you’re ugly it’s because they’ve never seen a swan” is ted talk worthy material. never getting over the fact that damian knew this girl for all of maybe one introductory french class’s worth of interaction, accused her of doing drugs, and then built her confidence back up from the seventh circle of hell. the “your mother called you baby girl?” “singing!” exchange is peak best friend banter and showcases the art freaks’ dynamic of frank, funny jerk with a tarnished heart of gold and budding broadway babe with a shocking amount of wisdom obscured by hilarity and hypocrisy. the debate team rejected damian because he was too fabulous to be deigned to one oregon-oxford role i’ve decided. i love unreliable narrators and damian shooing cady away from the mathletes as soon as she shows the barest interest in them is an entertaining way of showing that nobody in this story is free from social norms. the lunch tray percussion is something all marching bands should adopt and so are the lighting cues. janis’s reactions to damian killing his dance breaks are the best. rachel hamilton is my fave ensemble student i don’t care if she gets maybe two or three lines total. she was giving bombastic side eyes before anyone knew the word bombastic. i desperately need to know if she knew what cady was actually saying or if she thought cady was just a lion king stan asking to be canceled. damian painting everyone but his two-person clique as problematic is also peak teenage behavior. everything at that age is just finding the lesser of two evils and figuring out whether or not you want to meet the bigger evil anyways. janis deriding “the geeks and the freaks” despite being labeled as an art freak by every mg promo is also amusing and barrett and mary-kate’s deliveries of “christian believers” could send me to heaven any day they want. the ending is so satisfying to listen to and even more satisfying to watch. also i do mean it when i say that cady was adopted by the local gays in this number. are janis and damian aware that having their own table in a school that makes juniors and seniors have lunch at the same time makes them more powerful than all the politicians of the globe combined

stupid with love: ALSKAJLDJASLDAJLLKJ. stupid with love is the best musical representation of how a crush driven by hormones and being treated with the barest sense of humor and dignity can devour a person taylor swift eat your heart out. the music really sweeps you up into this story like you’re a close friend privy to even her most embarrassing thoughts and the way her love life flashing before her eyes just shuts out whatever aaron was going to say about lebron james is the funniest thing because yeah! you can be convinced you’re totally in love with someone when you’re that age while ignoring everything that makes them a well-rounded human being! the way cady’s clearly grown up in a caring household that’s so chock full of trust that her parents can’t fathom that she’d do anything remotely dangerous while having the whole house to herself for more than one hour BUT also feels like she doesn’t “get” love is super interesting to me to like most sixteen-year-olds have the idea that their parents don’t understand them sure but has she come to the conclusion that familial love isn’t enough? that she doesn’t get enough familial love anyways? that love is unknowable? does she wholeheartedly believe that she fell in love at age five? stupid with love is a song of so many possibilities and it’s as giddy and delusional as you’d expect, every emotion heightened by cady’s new brand of eloquence. fetch may never happen but calculust absolutely should. the little snippets of dialogue in between are so endearing on both cady and aaron’s ends to the point where i can forgive ms norbury clearly not knowing how to conduct a class. who’s gonna tell cady to raise her hand before she answers. i’m kidding she can do whatever she wants, even ignore the existence of multiplication. multiplication is a bitch cady i get it

we once again see that cady is determined almost to the point of self-destruction and that she’s desperate to live a ‘normal’ life by getting together with the normalest boy of all time and the song so perfectly sets up why we should care about cady and aaron as a couple–he’s the only person thus far to not even suggest what she should think/do, encouraging her in a teasing way to be herself (ie smart) instead of telling her to be dumber so he can feel better about himself. cadaaron is the only straight ship ever argue with the wall. also the instrumental on its own is literally such a bop?? i’d drop a grand piano on myself daily if the keys could just perpetually play the song. quoth my own blog my heart belongs to every video out there of a cady opting up on the last “i learned math so i can learn love” it just fits so well thematically and makes the song even more satisfying because it makes you think yes!! summon that girlfailure swag and learn love. also this song is so next to me from twihard: a new musical coded with the pencils and/or feet providing the musical pulse. this is me very subtly begging you to listen to twihard: a new musical as put on by the esoteric ensemble productions and uploaded like a full decade ago starring danielle wade

apex predator: i love women. i love bon jovi. i love zoology. this song was made for me tina fey told me herself. i can even forgive whoever made halls rhyme with dolls because of the regina furry confirmation. the first few chords kind of give me jaws theme vibes. it’s grinding and warning and doused in grit. you get the brightness of cady’s other songs cut with the flinty, darker strings of janis’s numbers. the heavy drum sort of sounds like a heartbeat, quickening as cady realizes the might of the pride and considers how regina’s help compares to janis’s in an almost clinical manner. shout out to erika henningsen’s “exotic pet” obviously. that line should be studied by every ivy league with a literary program because regina and cady considering the other an exotic pet instead of a real friend but still seeking each other’s approval……. maybe the narrative foils are really reflections of my tin foil hat but hear me out. it’s so interesting that they refer to regina as an apex predator because apex predators are animals without natural enemies but almost every single friend or admirer of regina’s exhibits an envious kind of awe when it comes to regina. regina’s so magnetic that you can’t be her enemy but close enough to pseudo-celebrity that you can’t exactly be her friend either. also the harmony at the end combined with the epic percussion deserves its own award. no longer does egot mean anything. One must be an egota (emmy grammy oscar tony apex predator singer) to be considered showbiz royalty

stupid with love (reprise): cady is so so smart and so so stupid. aaron getting confused at a genuine compliment not solely based on his looks is adorable but i also love it when the line delivery gets changed to be more like “wow i already know i’m cool but it’s nice to hear it from the cute possibly murderous girl who sits behind me”. same goes for cady’s “shit” right after aaron swears off dating–it’s funny as hell whether she’s smiling through the pain or so disappointed in herself she looks like she’s experiencing medical shock. her making love into a function is similarly messed up but funny as hell. i literally have a google drive folder full of audio clips of the “i just don’t get it–i’ll never get it–i just don’t get it–somehow…” part it’s so serious

sexy: this is modern feminism talking i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in - the greatest mind of our generation karen smith. if the national emergency alarm was changed to the ending riff i would become an arsonist just to hear it over and over again. a youtube commenter said that she sings every line like she’s waiting to be shown the script and redo it and whenever acting and singing can waltz along in magnificence together i sob in joy even if that waltz is set to trashy pop. literally every costume shown is worthy of fashion week and then some. the sex doctor bit is beyond saturday night live. sexy rosa parks deserves the world. modern feminism is a mess but at least it built the last verse of this incredible song.

someone gets hurt: regina pretending to cry and aaron being confused again and then being manipulated into a makeout session is so so funny. so terrible but so funny. the incredible blare of noise after that first “until someone gets hurt” feels like being pushed off a cliff and into a sea of warning sirens which feels fitting. if any song from the stage show were to be played by a chamber orchestra i would want it to be someone gets hurt because everything about it is almost four seasons by vivaldi to me. as i said do not expect sensible comparisons from this review. it’s really dark and intense like all of regina’s numbers but this time her style of seduction is on full display, highlighted by some heavy timpani work and a male ensemble that’s carrying more than just regina on their backs holy cow. squidward would worship regina with how she made the bass clarinet sultry despite hitting something in the high fs during each “hurt” and holding that “go” for like five seconds. the ending is giving celine dion’s villain arc. it’s also maybe the first time the audience sees aaron through the eyes of anyone other than cady who’s so starstruck she might as well be blind and we see a guy who’s still susceptible to regina’s yknow reginaness. she guilt trips him about his potential infatuation with his body and then gets extremely touchy with him while wearing a playboy bunny costume. she asks if she was a game he wanted to play despite (maybe devoid of remorse) playing him just to get back at cady. she’s making so much shit up because peeling away too many layers of her perfection would be dangerous but so would losing aaron to cady’s actual openness. first she says “fine” to mean that she’ll be fine without aaron in the reverse psychology sense, then they say “fine” to mean that they’re both hot af, then he says “fine” to agree to get back with regina and possibly to convince himself that his interest in cady can and should be pushed aside because being with regina is better for them both. love this song. hate being unable to sing a single note of it.

revenge party: my overall fave song of the obc album, the stage show, and the movie musical. words alone cannot describe the excitement that electrocutes my nerves when i hear “now you know, caddy—” because everything from that line onwards is going to be stuck in my head for at least a week. some people can’t function until their first cup of coffee in the morning, i can’t function until my first listen of revenge party. in slight relation to that gretchen’s squawking will make me spit out any drink; such has been scientifically proven over the course of several years. i actually have a line-by-line analysis of revenge party drafted so i won’t go into detail right now because i need viewer retention but i mean it when i say art freak harmonization is the best kind.

whose house is this: if kevin g has one fan it is me. let the man rap even if half his lyrics don’t make sense. i have heard the big fun from heathers comparisons. i have heard the halloween from be more chill comparisons. all of them are so incorrect i could set several houses ablaze with the rage i feel at the very suggestion that whose house is this isn’t a masterpiece. no joke this is the first song on my workout playlist. the way nobody even cares about cady in this number is hilarious and so is kevin refusing to swear. gretchen deserves all the thank yous and so does the horns section. karen’s actions are just. Absurd as they always should be. the mario kart ass instrumentals during that “turn the freaking music up” segment make me pleasantly stressed. there are traces of jungle techno but little to no traces of cady’s signature sound and the usually lax but articulate and expressive rhyme scheme of her songs switching to frenzied verses full of immaturity and inconsideration makes me feel things that should not be felt while listening to a rave number with flatulent bass.

more is better: the only romantic duet to ever exist if you ask me. the fact that cady switches from the more sincerity-charged love to like most likely because the plastics’ philosophy is to be cool about things makes me want to bite the bars of alcatraz prisons. the way cady’s signature sound only really returns after aaron chooses to leave her because she’s become regina 2.0 without even acknowledging it is the stuff of emotionally resonant legend. as i said in my aaron review post the only thing that bothers me about this number is aaron kissing cady while she’s clearly drunk and he isn’t but cady kind of gets him back after do this thing so. yay equality. aaron’s so tired of being manipulated and told to shut up i feel so bad for him. cady’s so in denial about missing her old home in any capacity and being uncomfortable with the skin she’s tried to grow into for aaron’s sake and i feel so bad for her. the shimmering sound that comes with cady singing “stars” makes me feel better though. 11/10 would be sad again. say no to excessive air conditioning and light pollution

someone gets hurt (reprise): i like it when gays have bad breakups without even dating. what more do you want. but actually i am obsessed with the way this is blocked out because the way the chaos of cady’s house gradates into the dark street where there’s nothing but her and her crumbling friendships. the link between janis and regina is really reinforced by this song and it makes me feel insane.

world burn: the only way regina can redeem herself for wearing a black turtleneck and black pants is by slaying so hard you forget she’s just printing shit and polluting the corridors and she does it in world burn. her having a recurring set of notes to follow until she absolutely loses it is iconic. i learned so much about hernia formation through this song so i think it’s also an educational heritage site. the contrast of her 1984-esque lyrics and beats with lines like “trang pak is a grotsky byotch” is beyond hilarious but in the context of the show it makes my timbers shiver. she is both manipulated and the master manipulator. renee rapp’s opt up for the ending is golden but every regina brings their own flair and intensity to it. something that really interests me is how different actresses interpret the lines “this is what i get for helping / helping someone lame fit in” because to generalize regina either thinks she was actually helping cady or is trying to convince herself/the audience that her primary motivator was controlling cady’s every action before she got too hot to ignore or because she saw her hanging around janis and damian or because regina can’t ask a girl out like a normal person. idk it’s very fun and very satisfying to listen to and ramps up the ante for all antagonistic songs ever!

i’d rather be me: did you mean the feminist anthem of the twenty-first century? i’d rather be me is pure janis in her sort of jumpy, edgy, eleven o’clock exasperated glory tuned to this effusive fusion of pop and rock. the energy this has is soooo good because every girl in school is tired of being treated like shit because of the expectations placed on them by society and the idea that by i’d rather be me the female student body of north shore is so exhausted of the plastics’ bs that they parade janis around despite shunning her for years is amazing. most criticisms of this are abt how wordy it is or how it’s not worded right but hello janis is a teenager her inner and outer monologue is not going to be as mature as fucking grizabella the glamor cat and it can include words that anyone would study for the sats like sycophant. sycophant is not that fancy a word i learned the word sycophant from a star wars fanfiction i read when i was seven how could you not know the word sycophant at age seven squared after making a living out of reviewing shows written by wordsmiths like sondheim. sorry that was mean i’m just tired of people either going “they wouldn’t talk like that they’re teenagers” or “they shouldn’t talk like that they’re part of a theatrical production worth millions of dollars!” lmao

ok so i think that janis was losing herself just as much as cady over the course of the revenge plot taking place because okay she’s ruined regina but she’s barely changed anything about herself and if her plan had worked without hitches wtf was she going to do. was she going to keep hanging out with cady. was she going to fill the power vacuum left by the plastics herself. was she going to run regina over with a bus herself. i’d rather be me is the culmination of the crushing pillars of her revenge plot and the full realization that revenge wasn’t what she wanted–she wanted to change the way the world works, change it into a place where people can just do and be without being ostracized. to me the instrumentals and the mockery in the lyrics are almost stinging?? someone with even could describe this better than me but the strings during the instrumental section between verses remind me of a mosquito bite because they’re high and sharp and put against the heavy drums and cymbal crashes they really paint this picture of a dam of anger breaking and giving way to a new wash of awareness.

also i cannot stand it when ppl say this song is the show giving endorsement to janis being a hypocrite there is a reason why all the lyrics are in future tense. she is wrapping her mind around the notion that there is no pleasing everyone, that there is no true gratification gained by holding grudges and letting them control your every thought, that if you don’t let yourself have the liberty of lashing out you’re only going to manifest your maliciousness in worse ways with longer-lasting effects. that being said let girls be haters

also the obc album should’ve let janis swear. every public performance of i’d rather be me should let janis swear. let her have a line with bite before her throat turns into a cavern where vowels go to melt into a singular solution

also janis’s costumes over the course of the whole show are amazing but her look in i’d rather be me goes so hard. if i had any of janis’s jackets i think i’d curl into it like a cocoon and wait until the heat death of the universe for metamorphosis into coolness

do this thing: no joke this is the second song on my workout playlist. i hate the title so much but i love also the audience reaction when ms norbury starts singing as if she didn’t just slay the what’s wrong with me reprise gets me every time. truly the actresses in the adult women track are so underappreciated and so are the adult women in general. kevin g’s unabashed doing of the thing regardless of the haters is iconic. the return of the heavy percussion is so enjoyable and so are the mathletes’ lines lining up with the steaming kettle sound somehow behind each buzzer even though i hate buzzers because in real life mathletes nobody wants to answer on beat. ms norbury best matchmaker ever i LOVED the detail of aaron being present for the mathletes’ win but cady clearly focusing on the competition above all else. i’m pretty sure the mathletes are also the only characters to drop an f-bomb in a song which is just fantastic + the gretchen/regina parallel between kevin and marwan regarding schquillz is phenomenal. “the limit does not exist” being both the answer to the question that signifies cady’s return to her old self with more self-assurance and the theme of the musical in terms of not limiting other people is a level of genius i will never reach.

i see stars: i’m sorry they gave cady a big finale where she calls everyone beautiful and bright and holds hands with the other girls she’s hurt and you expect me to not love it?? this one had to grow on me though because i was so bothered about the stars imagery coming up maybe like five songs before when we’d been following animals and math for the whole show. as we all know characters can only have one or two interests before they become completely incoherent. but now i know more about light pollution and have played the video of this song with the pride chorus more times than i’ve blinked so i get it. shane oman also breaking his crown during the escalation of the instrumentals from a very optimistic but singular combo of strings and cymbals into the violins and heavier drums and whatever else is such a good detail. i still get goosebumps with that “you stars” there is just so much emotion packed into this finale and the rest of the ensemble joining in is as effective as onions being cut directly into my eyes when it comes to crying. obviously my fave version of this is the one with cady and janis’s mini duet during the rhinestones don’t shine part but guaranteed this one will make me cry no matter what

now. for the songs that didn’t make it onto my absolute fave list they are still my children just bastard ones and i will go into detail about them too because there is no point in writing this post if it does not crash the tumblr dashboard for you

a cautionary tale (reprise): akin to its origins, the reprise of a cautionary tale kicking off act two is there to introduce the act, but unlike its first iteration, the reprise is literally just there. no jokes no nothing. would love to see it reworked into something that reminds the audience they’re north shore freshmen being told this story by janis and damian because i forget about that framing device until the dialogue break in i see stars every time lmao but other than that it’s serviceable and any song that involves art freak harmonization is a solid song

meet the plastics: maybe i don’t love women as much as i claim to. I don’t know why i don’t like this song more truly. Maybe i just need to listen to it more lmao because the lyrics are great, the tempo changing with each introduction is great, and gretch waiting until regina’s out of earshot to try and convert cady into a fetch truther is great. Maybe it’s the “humps my leg like a chihuahua” line that turned me off from it because nell benjamin i do not care that you wrote legally blonde i do not think regina george would bring up animal humping imagery considering what her mother puts her through unless she was hopped up on pain meds. All that being said i would die for the polyphony at the end and karen playing with cady’s hair near the end is so cute

what’s wrong with me: gretchen it’s not you it’s me and i like songs with a specific sort of climax and what’s wrong with me really does feel like a music box piece played by some dusty not-quite-antique you find in the attic that makes you feel a particular, peculiar strain of melancholy because it’s so cyclical and fragile. which is the point, probably! It just sounds really different from the rest of the show and i feel like the lyrics don’t quite fit the language we’ve heard gretch using so far but maybe that’s also part of the point. That being said the line “see that you see what’s wrong with me” makes me go mad because there are so many ways to interpret it. Is she telling the audience that they should be able to see what’s wrong with her? Is she saying that the audience sees something good in regina that she can’t see anymore because of her constant mistreatment? Is she once again asking what’s wrong with her or has she finally had a breakthrough about her dismal self-esteem?

fearless: oh my god a cady song and act ender that i’m not totally into sound the sirens. but really fearless without the revisitation of the it roars/wild life passage that tells the audience what makes her fearless aside from wanting to move to america (which might make her more fearless than i thought now i sound that out but still) isn’t my favorite songs despite it having some of my favorite moments like karen’s ribbon dance, gretchen’s very cool dance, cady mirroring regina’s pose on top of the cafeteria table at the start of meet the plastics at the end, the mini someone gets hurt reprise at the end, it isn’t my favorite to listen to because the lyrics are just all over the place. Cady why are you saying that she’ll go cry to mama do you think mrs george is sober enough for that. Cady why are you spouting live love laugh merchandise ass quotes. Cady why are you quoting dwayne the rock johnson “imagine stronger, better, bolder” are you going to play a lacrosse game against regina. Why does karen not wear more vests after this number

You know what made me care about fearless?? The fearless reprise. Oh my god the fearless reprise. I need to make a separate post about the fearless reprise but i can’t listen to it more than once a day or i’ll end up crying for hours on end.

stop: is it homophobic of me to put three damian songs on this list? probably but i make up for it by filling that broadway cares bucket every time i can. and it’s not that i even really dislike stop!! I have so many thoughts about stop!! i just don’t like it when compared to the other songs that can hold up inside and outside the context of the show!! i just feel like it has to be experienced live to understand its award-losing enormity unlike where do you belong and even then it sounds noticeably different from the rest of the show + essentially pauses the narrative to talk about a whole other story that never gets resolved outside of damian being ghosted (i thought theater was supposed to provide escapism 😔) and then frays a bunch of threads out from the ensemble in a way that doesn’t feel quite as well sewn in as the worship we see during apex predator or after rockin’ around the pole because like. it’s funny sure but just the act before we saw that things can be funny while also moving the story along past attempting to hammer in the message “stop ignoring your real friends” in cady’s thickened-by-makeup head.

also how does damian even know about her word vomit. cady barely even word vomits in the stage show. it’s all just word coughing fits of confusion and unintentional comedy under peer pressure. whenever she says something embarrassing she either gets cut off or turns it into a whole song. i’m sorry damian i love you and your stupid straw hat but we just saw the whole show we don’t need a recap of everything that happened in the last hour with almost zero internal rhymes and without the frantic pacing of ya got trouble from the music man. cmon.

onto things i love about stop tho which are a) the gaiety (and gay-ty) b) the dancing and c) the staging. i love it when gay characters just get to be silly goofy instead of singing themselves to their graves and even if damian was built off the dramatic thespian homostereotype he gives me the impression of a silly goofy teen trying to balance the interests of his best friends with his sanity through the medium he’s most comfortable in which happens to be literally show-stopping song-and-dance number. also we get cadnis content in the background and the choreo i’ve seen for how janis plays keep away with cady’s phone only gets better (which of course is a synonym for gayer. let the babies hold hands before they yell at each other in the street and see a 15-second death they’re both sort of kind of responsible for). the dancing of course is wonderful. i mean does it make sense in-story for damian to somehow be popular enough with the ladies to rally them into a giant dance break after asking them to divulge their biggest, darkest secrets like an hour after being kicked out of the girls’ bathroom and calling one of them danny devito? probably not. is it really enjoyable when you aren’t itching to get back to the main story? yes. it also makes north shore feel more authentic in a sense?? obviously there’s so much about the social hierarchy exaggerated for comedic effect but yeah public high school is that crazy one day you’ll hear that a classmate got into a drunk driving accident and the next you’ll hear that the same classmate scored an audition for the x factor. and the transition from the art classroom, which is one of my fave sets in the whole show because aghhhh i want to pause everything and analyze art whenever it comes up in a tv show or movie or video game or musical because it’s almost never just art present for the sake of filling the set! there’s a reason why the set designers put that there or downloaded that asset or whatever! based on the official yt video in stop we see a sort of cubist portrait of janis ian, a few monochrome figure studies, and some more abstract pieces and i so want to know what this number would’ve looked like in-universe. did cady legit just run out of class to confront damian and get swept into a gay tea spilling session until the end of the day. be glad you got suspended girl

so. while i cannot begin to fathom the stamina it takes for damian to go from that gorgeous dance break into the grand vocal ending—philip doesnt know what he’s missing out on for sure—stop is not something i play on purpose but if the obc album shuffles to it i won’t complain!

what’s wrong with me (reprise): is it homophobic of me to put every gretchen song sans whose house is this on this list? probably but again it’s just not something i can put on repeat/a number i think depends on the production to arouse much entertainment value. it’s fucking hilarious though i’ll give it that. like it might be in the top three of mg songs when it comes to unadulterated comedy. my heart breaks when gretchen realises she’s stuck in this cycle of servitude and is still being hurt by the people she most desires the approval of and her work is still going unappreciated and then i get a heart attack from laughing because regina’s reign of terror is so absolute even her own mother has feared her from the age of three onwards?? in addition to that what’s wrong with me reprise is why i cannot stand for mrs george hate she’s just a girl too. a toxic girl who never emotionally developed past high school but like. what do you want her to do. she has never had a heartfelt conversation with her daughter ever. also “why couldn’t it just be drugs” is so funny to me because yknow. reggie gets hit by a bus and spends the rest of the show so high she forgets her love languages are acts of slanderous service, passive-aggressive gifts, weaponized physical touch, quality time spent playing hard to get, and words of refutation. taylor louderman deserved a tony for pulling the kalteen bar scream off every night too i think it’s night queen aria levels of difficulty.

the funniest part of this song to me is probably the way it starts and ends so abruptly. usually you can tell when a song’s about to start in a musical but gretchen nearly breaking down into sobs as soon as cady turns her non-self-tanned back without missing a beat is both relatable and hysterical. my girl is clinging to les mis motifs and middle school herd mentality in a world meant for fosse tributes. the spotlight is only on her when she talks about how dim her light feels in comparison to other characters. then mrs george joins in and you get the first female/female duet to rival defying gravity since idk. everything in fun home. i take cash and credit not criticism.

but really the gretchen/mrs george connection is so interesting because they tether themselves to regina in a style that’s irreconcilable with happiness on either end and they know that but possibly for a mix of selfish and sympathetic reasons don’t want to leave in any capacity. the way they’re separated on stage by little more than a change in colored lighting is interesting too and raises the question of whether or not they’re aware that regina’s sun is burning those closest to her in general.

also. can plastic cady snap and yell at me i want to feel something

in conclusion i love you pezberrywhoreee thank you for asking this. i think i said the words “also” and “but” more times than i said the word “gay” and that’s a real hurdle to fly over. i think i expect many random things in your inbox hereafter as retribution/reward depending on how you see it

#sigh.#mean girls the musical #mean girls musical #mean girls broadway

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latenightgasstationwalk · 8 months

Text

Staving off a tide of violent urges as I process the various horrors I saw today. This job is becoming actually bad for my brain. Today I went to an apartment complex that I’ve already bitched about a few times, but today was my breaking point lol I was lead into the apartment by this Maintainance man, who promptly took off the second he knocked on the tenants door, they came to the door abs I couldn’t even process what I was seeing when the door swung open. One bedroom apartment, 5 people on the floor wrapped up in blankets and literal crack smoke in the air. A windowsill is stacked high with picked clean chicken bones? Roaches everywhere. as soon as I walked in one of the people in the apartment went up to this girl who was completely still on the couch and started violent shaking her screaming “WAKE UP HEY WAKE UP THERES PEOPLE HERE” and she was 110% unresponsive. The windows had been broken for about a year and just had a board put over them….on the inside. Here’s a fun fact: When you break a window and board it up from the inside, all of mother natures mighty feats of degradation of man made materials will ruin your sashes and window frame forever! At least that’s what happen when you leave busted windows up for a FUCKING YEAR WITH NOTHIN TO PROTECT THEM BOARDING THEM UP FROM THE INSIDE MAKES 0 SENSE

Just a week before when I went to measure the windows The aforementioned maintenance man insisted I measure these windows from the outside, because he “didn’t wana take thee boards down” so I was like “uh ok” I really didn’t see a problem at the time. So he very clearly didn’t want me to see the inside prior, for obvious reasons, so he had me do it from the outside so I’d show up and be blind sided. That was my working theory when this happened initially. Come to find out, my co-worker / best buddy already went and measured these 7 months ago and told them they were beyond repair and glass replacement wouldn’t even work at this point. So this guy Fucking knew what he was doing the entire time.

So when I got back to the shop and informed my boss of what happened she called and said she didn’t want to put her technicians in any danger so we wouldn’t be returning. This Fucking maintenance man told her that he was in there the whole time. Like I wish I took a picture of this mother fucker when I came outside of that actual nightmare, he was sitting on a picnic table smoking a cigarette, this guy bailed on me as fast as he could and went out for a lil smoke break while I tried by best to avoid any stray needles that may have found their way onto the carpet. Then tells my boss on the phone that he was in there with me lololololol sublime excellent wonderful amazing im this close to turning one of these mother fuckers into an example it’s not even funny.

Either way, my boss said she’s going to try to get permission from the big big bosses (we’re a small company owned by a multi-billion dollar company) and she said even if we do go back in the future we’re going to have ground rules that these maintenance blockheads have to follow the second they don’t were Fucking splitting.

Like I just can’t do this anymore, one of my clients at this job is a housing assistance program that provides housing for addicts and that’s like my main daily thing. And like I’m not looking down on anyone in that kind of position, I have addicts in my life and it’s terrible and sad, but I can’t help but not feel safe. Especially when the extent that the people who are supposed to be coordinating this Shit for me do is call me and warn me about the bad stuff lol I’m not accusing anyone of trying to steal my tools, but I’ve been told probably 10000 Fucking times by the same guy “not to leave any expensive tools around because the people in this unit have already stolen from several contractors” it’s like dude what the Fuck. I make $19 an hour I don’t get paid enough to fight off the most desperate people alive.

And this keeps happening every Fucking day because they’re putting me in charge of all the glazing jobs that the more senior glazer doesn’t want anymore lol so this is just my life for probably the next couple years. Trying not to get killed for the $10,000 worth of tools in my van or just the van in general. Like it’s really Fucking dumb. I’m sorry if I sound insensitive to the struggle of the people in these situations but I promise you anyone in my position would be incredibly frustrated and generally unhappy lol

Thanks for reading

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mixamatcha · 6 months

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do u have any headcanons for the ew guys? :0 ((also WOOOO fellow mexican do u have any mexican/hispanic headcanons either?! sorry if that's weird to ask lol just curious :P))

Thank you for the ask!

I have plenty of headcanons for them! Though a good amount of them centralize around Edd, Matt, and Eduardo! (Since they're my favorite characters), so, I'll just go over them in order, I think

(Very long text blog, by the way, lol);

Edd Central;

The most important one to me is probably Edd and Tord being platonic life partners, I never truly could see them as a romantic pair, so this just made all the more sense to me. I always sorta thought of Tord and Edd as childhood friends anyways, while the other guys came later, like they met in school perhaps when Tord had just moved there with his parents and Edd was the first one to talk to him and they've been inseparable ever since type of thing. I always depict Tord being really clingy, mostly out of me projecting, but also because, dang it, drawing these two together is lovely :[ (I'll put some art below all the text). Edd I always sort of headcanoned as AroAce, other than one or two instances there aren't many depictions of Edd thirsting over people in a way that would make me go "Oh yeah he's _________" but the way he values his friends, especially Tord, always struck me as similar to my own experiences as someone presiding on the AroAce spectrum. He loves people clearly, but I just don't think I could picture him in a fully romantic relationship. Though I don't think I would describe his relationship with Tord as brotherly, I feel like they're more than that but not in a romantic way? It's hard to explain, but that's the big headcanon that's gonna be present on this page. Final note I headcanon that one of Edd's parents is from Spain, so he was raised in a halfway Spanish household. The reason for this is mostly because me and my other Hispanic friends like to jokingly have a rivalry with Spain because haha world history is funny and since I headcanon Eduardo to be specifically Mexican it just seemed funny for one rival to be at least partially from Spain and the other to be from Mexico. Also, imagining them arguing in spanish gives me life, like picture Eduardo and Edd bickering from either side of the fence and every now and again Eduardo points out the differences in the Spanish dialect they speak to fan the flame, like come on. All lighthearted, obviously, I never see Eduardo and Edd as like

MEGA HARDCORE RIVALS

I think its more of a silly friendly rivalry where they sometimes accidentally end up actually arguing. Is this also projecting? Probably, but I don't care! Also, I don't think they met as young as they're depicted to in PowerEdd? Everyone knowing each other since they were kids always was sorta weird to me because? Where? Did Eduardo's accent come from then? If anything, I think they met in their teens and have been verbally beating the crap out of each other ever since.

Matt Central;

Despite Matt being my second favorite of the main guys, I managed to go nearly 9 years in this fandom without learning to draw him at all. Which is a shame since he's such a silly guy. Personally, I headcanon that Matt was adopted as a kid, we see that his mom in fun dead's hair is a lot darker than his and to me? In my brain? It kind of screamed that she used "box dye" to match her adopted son. I DO think his grandma is blood related, but I think she got in contact with him much later in life (perhaps when he was 15-17), and that's how they've managed to be in contact in certain scenes or episodes. Keep in mind that I don't read the comics for the series anymore, honestly? So if anything in there IS relevant, I, yknow, I haven't seen it! It's a smaller note, but I also kind of just like the idea of Matt being Czech (not by adoption. From birth). It's not like a big thing in my HCs it's just always sort of in the back of my mind. Sexuality-wise, I thought of Matt as pansexual! It just makes the most sense in my little brain

Eduardo Central;

Come on, how could I NOT get attached to this guy? He's rude, He's morally dubious a lot of the time, He's Hispanic?? You basically described at least a good sizable chunk of my extended family. Anyways, as said before, I definitely headcanon him as specifically from Mexico (specifically somewhere in Michoacán), and I mean like born and raised at least until he was like seven and then he moved to the United States until he was 15-16 when he then moved with his family to the United Kingdom. I think if anyone, he met his friends in high school, Mark and Jon just always seemed less like childhood friends troupe and more like the "I met him in science class and now he comes over to my house at 2am and knocks on my window because he got lost on his way home and he needs to use my bathroom and also probably raid my kitchen" kind of friends. Him and Jon specifically have such an honestly terrible but also interesting dynamic since it's one I've seen a lot in my life. Personally, I think he means a lot of what he says in a non serious manner despite his tone? As, we see in the end part 2 that he DOES at least CARE about Jon, this just comes off to me as someone who has problems expressing that at all which is sad but not an excuse or justification, just an explanation. I absolutely headcanon Eduardo as gay because.. I don't know! I genuinely just do not get straight vibes from the guy, and I definitely see deeply internalized homophobia but not a straight guy. I don't think I see him and his friends as in any kind of romantic relationship, but you know it's just something I like to keep in mind when thinking of him. He's also very connected to his culture in my mind, I can imagine him genuinely teaching Jon and Mark about it often. Actually, we only ever see these guys in very HEAVILY characterized, overly specific situations, and I'd like to more often imagine all the things we missed in between. After Jon is gone, I think it's fair to imagine he mellows out, perhaps due to regret? I don't know, am I saying he's the best character ever and is exempt from all guilt or flaws? No. He's an asshole. But is he one of my favorites, nonetheless, because of how I wrote him in my own mind? Yes.

The Edd and Tord Fanart I Promised Earlier Lol;

#eddsworld #eddsworld fanart #edd eddsworld #fanart #eddsworld edd #mixiaart #ew eduardo #eddsworld eduardo #ew matt #eddsworld matt #eddsworld headcanons #headcanons #theyre all my little blorbos #my little sillies #i want to attack them like a wild animal affectionately #ew edd #mixiaask

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taylortruther · 1 year

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Alright this is gonna be wordy and a little all over the place but I love seven so much I will never pass an opportunity to talk about it (this is the first anon, btw)

first, I love anything piano based (my fav insturment <3) and I'm also a big fan of Taylor's head voice.

I think seven is the most unique song she's ever written. In terms of production, lyrics, storytelling and the subject of the song. She's never written anything remotely like this and probably never will. I don't think I've heard anything like it from any other artist as well. The song has a certain type of wisdom in it that everyone knows but few can articulate so beautifully.

I love the fact the production sounds like summer. I wish I had more knowledge in music to properly explain it, but something about that piano-based upbeat melody really takes you back in time to your first summer vacation from school.

I'm a big fan of words, storytelling and poetry so the main reason I love it so much is the lyrics

The "please picture me in the trees" to "please picture me in the weeds"

"I hit my peak at seven" and the little pause before "feet in the swing" because it's both literal and metaphorical. She swung so high she reached seven feet (obviously not really, but she was a kid and they only speak with hyperboles), but she also peaked emotionally at that age - she was the freest she's ever been, a ferocious child not bound by expectations and social norms and voices that implore she should be doing more. Everything in this sing is both literal and metaphorical.

I am so in love with the lyric "are there still beautiful things?" I want to tattoo it. I feel like this lyrics is the thesis of The Catcher In The Rye and I enjoyed the book and I love it when works of literature parallel. It's one of the most relatable lines she's written becasuse are there still beautiful things? Is there anything beautiful in adulthood? Is there still beauty in the world when you can no longer swing so high you fly above your hometown, or when you realize that fairytales and prince charming don't exist? When your life expand beyond the simplicity of drinking sweet tea and braiding your friend's hair, could you ever find this simple, unfiltered joy again?

I have a tattoo referencing "I love you to the moon and to saturn" it's just a very wholesome lyric.

I think knowing Taylor and what she's being through helps appericate this song more because "I used to scream ferociously anytime I wanted" hits different when it comes from the woman who had to sit quietly and politely, and be a good girl as people made jokes on her expense. It's also something she talks about in Marjorie, "Never be so polite, you forget your power / Never wield such power, you forget to be polite" I love the way this part of the song is phrased, the fact it's both "please picture me running through the fields as a child" and "when I was a child I could throw a tantrum in the grocery store". (I just love when Taylor does this, like with the line "your hometown skeptics called it - champagne probelms" it tickles something in my brain). She wants to be remembered in her freest form, rather than what she was forced to grow up into.

And then, obviously, there is the verse discussing child abuse. I know that spoke to many people and I find it beautiful.

I love that even this story within the song helps demonstrate her naïvete. She was so young, she couldn't fathom the idea that a father could be cruel to their child, she had to find another reason and the most logical one was ghosts. And that brings me back to "are there still beautiful things?" because when she was a child the thing that bothered her the most was whether snow white's house is near or far away, and now the questions she asks herself are more like "will I survive this?" "Would they believe me if I come forward?" "Will it be ok?" There is no going back once you learn and experience these kind of things.

I'm obsessed with "I think you should come live with me and we could be pirates, then you won't have to cry" because a. I love pirates and b. It's just so adorable! This lyric makes me wanna eat drywall.

I also really love "though I can recall your face, I still got love for you // just like a folk song, our live will be passed on" It's been so long since she's seen her friend she doesn't actually remember them but this love is still deep inside her and it's passed down onto everything, it's in the sky and in the trees and in the sun. It's the kind of love that never fades. I especially like when she sings "and just like a folk song, out love will be passed on" because I really love the way she sings it.

I've had a blast writing this lol

and i had a blast reading it! thank you so much for sharing, you articulated all of this very beautifully and i think captured why so many fans love it. hugs to you anon :*

#seven #this is probably one of my favorite anons ever #big brain

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terramous · 2 years

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i am desperate if nothing else

words: 3.9k bthb: poisoning title: sleeping at last - mercury unbeta'd because i wrote this all in one sitting without an outline and dont need someone else to tell me it's bad dedicated to my beloved @marjansmarwani <3 carlos whump for the soul AO3

TK is as surprised as the rest of his team when dispatch informs them that their medical call was taking them to the APD precinct, and TK couldn’t fight the fear that shot down his spine like an ice-cold lightning bolt as he thought about who he knew was on shift.

But he was texting Carlos not even an hour ago, and his fiance wouldn’t have had enough time to go out on a call, get secretly injured and return in that timeframe.

The most likely reason why they were called in was for a civilian. Officers were usually having their medical emergencies outside of the precinct, in the field where everything that could go wrong tended to.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Nancy chided from the passenger seat. “I know you think that if you look away from him for two seconds then the roof is going to cave down on his head but I assure you, he’s fine.”

“He’s on shift though. And all we know from dispatch is that we have a mid-twenties male who’s not in a good way,” TK said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“They also said he appeared to be really sick. It doesn’t make any sense if Carlos was sick enough to need an ambo visit you would’ve noticed something was off with him this morning. You’re not an idiot, TK.”

“Still.”

“I’m sure if he’s there he’s using all his TK-enforced medical knowledge to help out as best he can.”

The rest of the ambulance ride was tense, but Nancy kept her light banter, mixing it with the odd reassurance as they moved through the streets of Austin. TK would never admit it but she was a good presence to have at times of stress, however mild or severe.

Thankfully, as soon as they crossed through the main entrance, an officer TK didn’t recognise scurried over to them, “this way, he’s really not well.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” Tommy beat TK to the punch. His mind was miles ahead of hers but hers was much clearer.

“I heard him being sick in the bathroom and thought maybe it was just a hungover civilian, a newbie with nerves or someone who lucked out with food poisoning so I didn’t think too much of it. After all, people tend to want privacy when they’re not feeling great but by the time I washed my hands I could still hear him throwing up.”

TK hissed in sympathy, not something he particularly felt like doing in the APD bathrooms after everything he’d heard about them from Carlos’ peeved text messages.

“I knocked on the door, just wanting to ask if there was anything I could do to help but he didn’t even lock the stall behind him. I took one look and knew he was really not well,” the officer continued, still walking at a brisk pace a few steps ahead of the crew. He seemed very agitated, sweeping his hands in large and frantic gestures as he talked. “I stayed with him for a bit, thinking I’d help him get cleaned up once he finished and talk to the captain about him heading home, but he just seemed to get worse and worse.”

TK scanned the bullpen, looking for any sign of Carlos, only to come up with his desk unoccupied. So he was probably out on a call, but TK couldn’t help the tiny part of his brain that was screaming at him.

“My partner called 911 when he just started shaking and muttering,” the officer pushed open the door at the furthest end of the bullpen, “he’s right in here. The first stall.”

They really didn’t need much clarification as there were a few officers gathered around, hovering nervously around the opening of the stall.

TK was the first one into the stall, catching sight of the sweat-slicked black curls that made his heart leap to his throat. “Alright can I get some space with the patient please?”

The officers parted easily, leaving TK to kneel on the floor of the bathroom stall and sling his bag off of his shoulder, unzipping it quickly. Carlos was leaning heavily against the side, sweat dripping off of him by the bucket. From what he had gathered from the other officer’s story, there was no way Carlos wasn’t dehydrated by now.

“Hey Carlos, how are you holding up?” TK asked softly, easily slipping his gloves on.

“TK?”

“Yeah, I’m here and I’m gonna take real good care of you.”

Groaning, Carlos reached out a hand to rest on TK’s knee, a simple contact, a much bigger comfort. “I told them not to call 911. It’s not that bad, babe. It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” TK said, clicking his tongue. “I’m just gonna take your pulse if that’s alright?”

Carlos nodded, “mmhmm.”

Taking Carlos’ wrist in his hand and pressing his fingers over the pulse point, TK felt his own pulse spike. Carlos’ heart was racing, which he had to remind himself made sense for the amount of vomiting that had been going on.

“Pulse is 160, Cap.”

Tachycardia.

“That’s high,” Carlos hummed, his eyes heavy-lidded and not even looking at him.

“Can you tell me what symptoms you’ve been having?”

“Sick, mostly. My head is pounding and I’m a bit shaky. Mostly just throwing up my organs.” Carlos winced seemingly just at the thought of it, clearly the events leading up to their arrival had been particularly unpleasant. TK knew how much Carlos hated vomiting, insisting that he had never done so since he was fourteen, taking outrageous lengths to avoid it every time he was nauseous.

“That doesn’t sound very fun, but hopefully we can get you sorted out soon so you’ll feel better.”

TK turned to look over his shoulder, to find Nancy handing him a pulse ox before he could even ask. “Respirations are 24– pretty shallow.”

There wasn’t enough room for them to run vitals together but that was something she could do just by watching. Which TK was grateful for as he was too busy trying to figure out everything else to focus on counting respirations.

“You know the routine, I’m just gonna clip this on your finger. Might be a bit tight or uncomfortable.”

Carlos just hummed again, “go for gold.”

TK clipped the pulse oximeter on easily enough, already grabbing for the appropriate BP cuff as he waited for the reading, a soft beeping filling the air as it counted Carlos’ heartbeats.

“Have you taken any medication today?”

He was met with another lethargic noncommittal noise as Carlos found the energy to speak. “Tylenol–for the headache.”

“And when was that?”

“Few hours ago.”

“How many did you take?”

“Two.”

TK straightened Carlos’ finger to check the blinking red display on the screen of the pulse oximeter.

“SpO2 of 98%,” TK relayed, moving on quickly. That was a completely normal reading and it did good to ease his mind, even if it was only a tiny bit. “I’m going to take your blood pressure now, okay?”

Carlos just nodded this time, offering his arm to TK who was quick to feel for Carlos’ pulse, his fingers only needing to meet the inside of his elbow for a brief moment before TK felt it, a steady and strong thrum against his fingers.

The tearing of velcro was the loudest thing in the room as TK moved to wrap the cuff around Carlos’ bicep. “Are you still with me?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible, noticing Carlos’ silence and faraway look.

“Not going anywhere.”

“Good.” The diaphragm of TK’s stethoscope found its place in the same position his fingers had been a mere moment ago as he adjusted the way the air bulb sat in his palm. Twisting the valve shut in a few short movements between forefinger and thumb, he was ready to inflate the cuff.

“It’s going to get a bit tight in a few seconds but it’ll be quick.”

Carlos just hummed, completely used to the process by now.

TK watched the dial on the gauge climb with every pump of the bulb, until it hit 180 and he twisted the valve ever so slightly in the other direction. With a soft whoosh the cuff began to deflate.

The thunderous noise of Carlos’ heartbeat began filling his ears as the dial slid past the 150 mark– not ideal.

TK took the stethoscope out of his ears and completely opened the valve to let the cuff completely deflate as soon as he couldn’t hear the heartbeat anymore. Casually moving to remove the cuff he spoke.

“150/95.”

Hypertension.

Carlos furrowed his brows, undoubtedly trying to remember what normal readings were meant to be. TK didn’t think he’d figure it out, he seemed to be quite far out of it.

“When was the last time you had anything to eat or drink?”

“Lunch.” Carlos’ eyes were shut now as he tilted his head to lean against the wall behind him, taking slow and calculated breaths, his lips parted.

“What’d you have?”

“A sandwich, cupcakes Nate brought.”

TK was pulling his pupil torch out of his pocket as Carlos lurched, scrambling to hold onto the toilet and heave himself over it before throwing up. TK was quick to follow suit and support his partner’s frame as he heaved and shook with the force of his own bile leaving his mouth.

At least there was no blood in it. That was good enough for TK as he helped to aid his trembling boyfriend back into his previous position, wiping some of the curls plastered to Carlos’ forehead away in a slightly unprofessional manner.

“Nancy, run a line of saline,” Tommy’s voice came from behind them.

“On it, Cap.”

Carlos looked around lazily, still seeming quite dazed as he spoke. “Why? I don’t need an IV.”

“It’s just for dehydration, you’ve been throwing up a lot,” TK explained softly, in his most reassuring voice possible.

Reaching back into the kit on his belt TK grabbed his pupil torch again and clicked it on. “Just look at me while she does that. You’re going to feel a little pinch and I’m going to shine this light in your eyes. It’ll be a bit bright but just keep your eyes open and it will only take a couple seconds.”

Carlos was a wonderful patient, he didn’t even flinch as Nancy cannulated him and he just happily looked straight at TK as the light passed into the far side of one eye, and then the other.

As the light disappeared back into TK’s belt, Carlos blinked rapidly, a few tears gathering on his lash line.

“A bit bright?”

Carlos just nodded.

“Pupils are dilated but round and responsive.”

Here came the hard part.

“Any drugs or alcohol?”

“Nothing like that,” Carlos pursed his lips and looked up at TK with cloudy yet quizzical eyes, “why?”

“Just routine questions,” he explained with a shrug that he hoped seemed nonchalant and natural.

“Did you hit your head at all?”

“No.”

TK didn’t even notice Nancy move until she spoke softly. “Temp of 103°.”

Fever. TK had suspected as much.

It wasn’t a dramatic ordeal, but they would definitely have to take him to the hospital. Probably just to ride out the dehydration with an IV for a few hours and then sent on his merry way. But the hospital was definitely their next visit.

“Nancy, can you get the stretcher from the bus?”

“On it.”

TK was glad he had a team because he didn’t want to be away from Carlos for even a split second, let alone long enough to get the stretcher through the bullpen. But Tommy and Nancy had his back, they always would.

“We’re gonna have to swing by the hospital, get you checked out,” TK explained, already preparing for an objection.

“Seems dramatic, but I’m sitting in a puddle of sweat.”

“That you are. Think you’ll be able to walk to the stretcher when Nancy gets back?”

Carlos looked at him for a few moments before nodding slightly. “I can do it.”

Getting Carlos off the floor of the bathroom stall was not the easiest endeavour of TK’s career, the lack of space making it quite difficult to get the two of them on their feet but they made it in the end, Carlos leaning heavily on TK with half-lidded eyes.

“Just a few steps, yeah?” TK asked, making sure to shoulder as much of Carlos as possible, seeing how close Carlos was to losing the strength he needed to keep himself upright.

“I can do it, don’t worry,” Carlos assured him, clinging onto his boyfriend with one arm, his IV bag in hand as TK used both of his arms to support his weight.

Unfortunately the stretcher wouldn’t make it into the bathroom so Carlos had to walk out the door to get to it, but TK had hold of him and there was no way in hell that he was going to let go.

Carlos trudged on without a word, gaze transfixed on the door and the stretcher that lay just beyond it. He knew he had to get there, but only had to take himself that far and TK’s team would take care of the rest.

No matter what, they were there and they weren’t going to anything short of everything possible to help him.

“You’re doing great, just a bit further and you can kick your feet up.”

Just when TK thought it would just be a few more steps and this nightmare would be halfway over with Carlos situated on the stretcher, Carlos’ steps halted quite jarringly, startling TK.

“What is it?” TK asked, turning to Carlos, keeping his grip on his fiance firm, stabilising.

Just in time to see the rapid blinking as Carlos’ head tipped to the sky and his knees buckled.

It took all of TK’s fast reflexes just to keep Carlos from clipping his head on the sink as he went down. The tremors were full blown convulsions by the time the two of them hit ground.

“He’s seizing!” TK hissed, quickly turning Carlos onto his side.

“I’m timing it,” Nancy supplied hastily. If TK dared look away from Carlos he would likely find her looking frantically between her watch and Carlos’ quivering body.

It was the longest two minutes of TK’s life.

To kneel there helplessly while Carlos’ frame was wracked with a seizure was something TK had never imagined. Watching the spasms of his limbs, the jerky movements of his head, listening to the grunts and groans that bounced off the tile walls of this small space.

Horrific. If TK were to describe it in a single word.

Slowly, the seizure tapered off, as Carlos stilled, TK felt like he could breathe again.

He gave Carlos’ mouth a quick sweep, ensuring that it was clear, only a thick stream of saliva to drip onto the floor. “Airway is clear, he’s breathing.”

“Take another set of vitals,” Tommy instructed calmly but TK knew her well, he heard that unfamiliar edge to her voice.

Nancy took the lead on the next set, clearly sensing that TK was otherwise distracted, waiting for any signs of consciousness following the seizure. But he listened in as she relayed her findings.

“Pulse 165bpm.”

Carlos didn’t move, but TK’s eyes were locked on him, watching the slight way his lips shifted with every breath. He was breathing, he was going to be okay, he had to be.

“Respirations 18.”

Normal. TK had to convince himself that Carlos was going to be fine lest he fall apart right here and now in the bathroom of the APD precinct. Some rational part of his brain had to cling onto something that wasn’t the worst case scenario despite the fact that he just watched the love of his life have a seizure.

“SpO2 89.”

Panic struck. TK was about to move for the first time since Carlos stopped seizing, only to find Tommy had somehow appeared next to him, already sliding an oxygen mask over Carlos’ face and setting the tank next to TK’s leg.

“BP 85/50.”

“Let’s hook him up to the lifepak, TK help me roll him on his back,” Tommy said. But it lacked the firmness of an instruction, regardless of how eager TK was to do exactly as she said.

Carlos’ eyes remained firmly closed as Tommy anchored his head in place, maintaining his airway.

“TK, can you put an OPA in?”

“Yes, Cap,” TK said, a little too hastily.

There was something sickening about measuring up the airway. He’d done it a million times before but never like this, never lining up each end of the hook-shaped plastic tube with Carlos’ earlobe and the corner of his mouth, carefully shifting a reservoir mask out of the way.

The one with the blue tip was the perfect size.

TK couldn’t help his hand shaking as he used the other to hold open Carlos’ mouth, sliding the end of the OPA against the roof of his mouth until he felt resistance, and in the fluid motion he twisted the plastic and it easily fell into place with little assistance on his part, the plastic rim catching on Carlos’ teeth.

Realistically it had only taken him ten seconds, but it felt like forever.

He couldn’t stop himself from thinking of exactly how far the other end of the airway sat down Carlos’ throat.

Nancy was quick to unbutton Carlos’ shirt instead of pulling out her trauma shears, after all it was halfway undone when they arrived so why hack apart his uniform?

With the fluid placement of the pads and wires, Nancy clicked the lifepak on, the display quickly piecing itself together to show the team what they wanted to see. A normal rhythm.

“Okay, TK, on the count of three I want you to turn Carlos towards you, and Nancy get that backboard under him.”

If TK took a backseat in his brain it was normal, standard procedure. Nancy shifted the lifepak to the other side of Carlos’ pelvis, next to TK as she retrieved the backboard, lining up the green plastic with Carlos’ head and feet.

“One, two, three–” TK tucked a hand over Carlos’ shoulder, the other on his hip and pulled Carlos toward him and Tommy followed the motion, stabilising Carlos’ head, using her knee to hold her hand steady.

Nancy slid the backboard into place and with another count, Carlos was tipped back onto it and adjusted until he was situated perfectly in the centre.

Tommy and Nancy handled the whole affair of strapping him in and positioning the lifepack, oxygen tank and fluid bag. One between his ankles, the other on top of his legs, the last on his chest. TK just allowed himself the small kindness of running his fingers through Carlos’ hair, sweat-soaked strands catching on his nylon gloves, his fiance’s face unmoving.

Then it was just a matter of calling a few of the lingering officers back in to assist them in lifting the backboard onto the stretcher, Tommy completely taking charge, letting TK slip into autopilot as Carlos was secured and the stretcher lifted up to full height with a firm click.

Carlos woke slowly, like he was simply waking up from a nap instead of a seizure and likely overdose. At least that’s what the doctors said his labs indicated.

He’d been swapped from a reservoir mask to a nasal cannula as his oxygen levels improved and held steady since arriving at the hospital; he looked much more himself without half of his face obscured by medical-grade plastic.

Fortunately TK had been able to stay by his side the entire time, Tommy and Nancy not even mentioning it as they told him they had to get back to shift, Tommy pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head as they left, urging him to call with any updates. So he’d been sitting in a little curtained-off room of the ER in his paramedic uniform for three hours and he was itching to wear anything made of a fabric less firm and scratchy.

“Hey, handsome,” TK said, a soft smile curling his lips, “have a good sleep?”

Carlos took a few moments to process what TK said, clearly still piecing together his surroundings and where they lined up with his most recent memories. “Mm, what happened?”

“We’re not entirely sure yet but the doctors think it was an overdose.”

“An overdose of what?”

TK sighed. “Antidepressants, they think. I guess they just uh,” he gestured vaguely to his head, “yeah.”

Carlos’ face scrunched up in confusion. “But I didn’t take anything.”

“That’s the tricky part. Also the part that is going to have one of your coworkers coming by this evening to talk to you about. Especially due to your career, there’s a slight, but not negligible possibility that it may have been a targeted attack.”

“Are you saying that I got poisoned?”

TK hurried to interject. “We’re not sure, but it’s a possibility.”

“How would that have even happened?”

“Possibly if you ate or drank something that someone else prepared for you. Otherwise I’m not too sure. No one is saying that is what happened but until we know how you ended up overdosing, it’s still an option.”

Just the idea of someone setting out with intention to harm Carlos made TK’s stomach churn, it wasn’t the first time and yet he feared it may not be the last.

Carlos went eerily silent, a dark look overcoming his features. “The cupcakes… that Nate brought.”

Now that was a shock. Nathan was Carlos’ partner, they’d worked together for years and Carlos trusted him completely, with his life every call they went on. It made no sense, but Nate wasn’t at the precinct when TK walked in.

“And where was Nate when the ambulance arrived?” TK asked slowly, careful not to insinuate anything.

Carlos shook his head. “He went home not long after our lunch break– he wasn’t feeling well.”

That made more sense, but still made TK’s blood run cold. Considering the state they found Carlos in a matter of hours ago, what could be said for his partner who fell ill sooner and wasn’t admitted to the hospital three hours ago?

He was already pulling out his phone and scrolling through his contacts before Carlos could even speak, pressing the phone to his ear.

“Nathan Lovell. I’m not here right now, you know what to do.”

“Fuck.”

TK hung up and redialed faster than he could think to do it, his body just knowing what to do of its own accord.

“Nathan Lovell. I’m not-”

TK’s attention was grabbed by the loud opening of the ambulance bay doors just up the corridor, pulling the phone away from his ear to listen.

“Twenty-seven year-old male. Presented as a fever and blurred vision but now possible overdose. Seized twice since we arrived on scene. Arrested as we pulled in just now.”

“Resus is open, straight through those doors.”

Through the gap in the curtain TK watched the stretcher whisk past, swarmed with medical personnel. Nancy Gillian straddling the patient and delivering chest compressions.

“Is that–” Carlos started, sitting up to get a better look despite the fact that the scene before them was already long gone.

“I- I don’t know.”

#911 lone star #911 lone star fic #tarlos #tarlos fic #max forgot how to tag fics #userac #userkimmy #tuser-paige #userjilly #jazzyjess #max.doc

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