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deathsbestgirl · 2 years

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squeeze (5.0 with how many posts i’ve made / reblogged — probably about to be my most annoying post ever bc i can’t stand colton)

under a cut because this is the most ridiculous post i’ve written (screenshots of other posts at the end ft, @the-spooky-alien & @mellowmanatee)

first tooms watching from the sewer made me think of the grimlocks from charmed. different vibes but equal creep factor.

i really can’t stand colton, he is such an ass. like he’s with scully at a nice restaurant for lunch, trying to flirt with her (and not that she doesn’t flirt back but there’s just nothing actually there like. it just looks like bad banter & obligatory flirting) but that isn’t what gets me. he’s so jealous of one of their old classmates moving up. scully just says “good for marty” and like the literal WHINING he does. why she makes him feel better i don’t understand. then he does the dumbest thing ever

have you had any close encounters of the third kind?

is that what everyone thinks i do?

no of course not. but you do work with “spooky” mulder

mulder’s ideas may be a bit out there, but he is a great agent

like. literally she just made you feel better and you’re making her feel like shit? exposing what you think of her work & her partner. giving her a taste of what mulder deals with frequently. and idk she seems so uncomfortable talking about this, maybe because she had that impression of mulder going in but focused on the work, didn’t hold what everyone said about mulder against him…and idk, it’s just bad manners to talk badly about your partner?! like what is wrong with this man, how would this endear her toward him? legit, he’s trying to steal her from mulder and he’s just so bad at it. it only gets Worse.

AND THEN he has the audacity to ask for their help on a case right after this

this looks like an x file

let’s not get carried away. i’m going to solve these murders, but…what i would like from you is to go over the case histories. maybe come down to the crime scene.

do you want me to ask mulder?

okay if he wants to come down and do you a favor, great. but make sure he knows this is my case…dana, if i can break a case like this one, i’ll be getting my bump up the ladder, and you? maybe you won’t have to be mrs. spooky anymore

LITERALLY TRYING TO STEAL HER. and what is his real motive? i don’t get it lol and i just hate him. but i guess it’s about to bring some of my most favorite moments so there’s that.

(also the way they’re discussing gruesome murders over lunch. she’s literally looking at pictures in the middle of her meal 😭 — flash forward to jersey devil when she won’t discuss the case with her lame date over dinner lol kinda funny cuz she could handle it, but regular civilians could not)

and so of course she brings in mulder — because she knows colton actually wanted her to & because she doesn’t work a case without her partner she was explicitly assigned to work with. this conversation simultaneously makes me giggle & hurts my heart

so why didn’t they ask me?

they’re friends of mine from the academy. i’m sure they just felt more comfortable talking to me

the way she breaks eye contact when she says the last part

why would i make them so uncomfortable?

it probably has to do with your reputation.

reputation? i have a reputation?

mulder, look, colton plays by the book, and you don’t. they feel your methods, your theories, are…

spooky? do you think i’m spooky?

he really doesn’t want her to think he’s spooky. i love the way she’s honest with him but doesn’t want to hurt or insult him, and she tries to do it so kindly (scully has the BIGGEST heart in the world and i adore her)

but then of course colton walks in, and mulder is annoyed & jealous so he decides to mess with colton. i think these two men being all territorial & basically having a cock fight over her really upsets her. and she just seems conflicted. she’s embarrassed by mulder’s behavior in front of colton, part of her wants to move up, but i don’t think she’s loved colton’s behavior so far. she gives them both several chances through this ep…

mulder always gets mocked but he continuously finds important evidence that other agents would never even think to look. (and colton tells scully about his shitty theory 🙄)

mulder loves to show scully old x files & evidence. it’s sweet honestly. too bad scully is annoyed with him and took his alien comments too seriously. she can’t take his theory seriously — how could she? a 100+ yr old serial killer and this is only their third case together.

scully’s conflicting thoughts & feelings are just. so palpable. she already feels a loyalty to mulder but it’s hard to reconcile with her own beliefs & fbi procedure and it’s even harder when they’re working with other agents who ~go by the book~ (but literally scully is TOO GOOD to go by the book when it’s wrong & isn’t actually serving justice yet always does her best to keep mulder in line)

the fact that mulder “asks” her to have a separate investigation. let colton have his and they can have theirs. unclear what her decision really is, cuz it seems like she’s working both — or is it just one to her?

the profile she writes & presents to VCS is pretty damn accurate. tooms looks somewhere between 25-35, he’s got a uniform, blends in when his eyes aren’t all yellow lol

but OOF idk how she gets through it when they start taking a shot at mulder & everyone laughs. she’s too kind & professional for that kind of behavior but saying anything could hurt her working relationship with these guys (and there is still a case to solve…) and it seems to be she’s contemplating a lot. about how mulder is treated, her choices & what she wants, what kind of work environment & partnership she wants…

i love the stakeout scene. it freaks me out that she’s alone?? doesn’t seem right even if others are on site. but of course mulder shows up and she gets all snippy 😂 he’s telling her she’s wrong, she thinks she’s right. AND FINALLY. scully turns out to be right and mulder actually says it. i love him for that.

(also does tooms crawl out of a *closed* vent? does that seem right if he was trying to do his job?)

the lie detector test. more reasons to hate colton & the vcs guys. tooms seemingly passed but the two questions mulder put in, he failed. vcs bros want to let him go but scully still thinks he’s the guy, mulder agrees. but asshole vcs guy let’s him go and colton tries to make scully feel better ~it doesn’t mean your profile’s wrong~ like you’re so dumb bro. literally. that wasn’t actually why she was bothered. but that’s how he’d be feeling, ego bruised.

now it’s one of my favorite moments !!!!!!!!

tom, i want to thank you for letting me put in some time with the VCS. but i am officially assigned to the x files.

i’ll see what i can do about that.

tom, i can look out for myself.

you said mulder was out there. that guy’s insane.

like. she says that after they’re so aggressive toward mulder. i get it, he seems crazy. but he’s an fbi agent for a reason. just because you don’t like what he investigates (because y’all would be so far out of your depth and USELESS like you are with this case) doesn’t mean you should be so aggressive & disrespectful. like where is the professional decorum. it’s so fucking embarrassing.

and besides that, the vcs guys don’t listen to her. and even when mulder doesn’t agree, he listens to her. even as he’s pushing his own theory. he listens to her and they follow the evidence.

sincerely the way colton treats her like a damsel is ridiculous. drives me crazy.

AND THEN THE SCENE. scully starts out frustrated but mulder is mulder

you knew they wouldn’t believe you. why did you push it?

maybe i thought you caught the right guy… and maybe i run into so many people who are hostile just because they can’t open their minds to the possibilities that sometimes the need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of humiliation.

it seems like you were acting very territorial. i don’t know, forget it.

of course i was. [fingers get necklace & she looks down at his hand] in our investigations, you may not always agree with me, but at least you respect the journey. and if you want to continue working with them, i won’t hold it against you. [he walks away & she’s contemplating everything that just happened]

no-oh. i don’t know. you must have something more than your polygraph interpretation to back up this bizarre theory and i have to see what that is.

LITERALLY I WANT TO DIE. first he tells her that he thinks she caught the right guy *and* is honest about why he’s behaved the way he did. and then he validates her even more admitting he was being territorial. he focuses on the work because at this point, their relationship is professional (and it’s definite it comfort zone after being vulnerable). but he gives away so much more when he reaches for her necklace. that was a different kind of territorial. that was FLIRTY. it’s truly just the way he didn’t let her doubt that he was being territorial. yes, it was because of the way they treat him. and because he believes she’s right & respects her work. but it was also him being jealous & territorial. THIS IS THE THIRD EPISODE.

and then !! he gives her an out. mulder really wouldn’t blame her if she wanted to work with them, leave the x files, get away from him. and this is when she makes the choice. she follows him, asserts her loyalty under the guise of curiosity. he’s shown her so much honest respect. he’s validated her. he listened to her. it’s what they do for each other.

and so mulder shows her the fingerprints (the computer work is wild to me, he’s just pressing keys and shit happens — i know that’s a thing but i never learned that stuff lol)

i love scully’s stunned face. and the way she never believes his theories & ideas yet she always turns to him for answers, like he should have them all & know everything.

just a thought about tooms — how does he choose his victims? like we see him stalk them. but. why them? i would assume he wants healthy lovers to sustain him during his hibernation but how does he know?

(this feels like the first time we really see what a great team they make. this case has been impossible to crack, with no evidence until they came on the scene. they gathered the evidence, followed the evidence, creating profiles, set up stakeouts, found tooms, connected the past cases — with more to come. all the while being disregarded & shown contempt.)

and this scene lollll colton is freaking out at the latest crime scene, yelling at everyone when scully & mulder show up and of course, he tries to stop them.

look at this point i’m willing to give any theory a shot…any sane theory

what’s the matter colton? afraid i’m gonna solve your case? [he grabs mulder ?!]

tom, we have authorized access to this crime scene. a report of you obstructing another agents investigation might stick out on your personnel file.

look dana, whose side are you on?

the victim’s.

all of this was delicious.

one of the things that gets me about colton is how much he cares about moving up & looking good — not so much about getting the case solved. he’s so desperate. and i think scully thinks she wants to move up until she witnesses his behavior. because scully genuinely cares about justice, putting away murderers, solving the crime, finding the truth — and she isn’t going to prioritize herself / her career over that. she’ll do what it takes even if that means not getting full credit or any credit at all. yeah, she wants that approval & validation, but there are other ways to get that. i think this is the case where she really makes that choice. working with someone who values her work, mind & companionship — and who genuinely shows her care & respect — will win out over moving up. *especially* if it means shitting on someone & interferes with solving the case.

ALSO i love how she has no problem using what she knows about colton to defend mulder & stake their rights on the case. colton is fucking flabbergasted & livid. and wholly inadequate to solve this one. he can’t even say anything else because he would just further embarrass himself.

(theres such a *sound* to 90s shows & the way they speak !! something about scully specifically reminds me of charmed. (of course this was first but charmed was my pre teen obsession so it always goes back to that lol) and i just LOVE IT. maybe it’s specific to supernatural shows, idk. and i have no idea how to describe/explain it.)

anyway. this is when mulder finds another of toms’s fingerprints & that he took a keepsake. something VCS hasn’t seemed to pick up on at all? (embarrassinggggg) and so they continue *their investigation* find out what they can about tooms — fake address, hasn’t been to work since he was arrested. they bounce some theories back — scully thinks it could be different generations. parents raising the kid, passing on the sociopathic behavior. but mulder doesn’t think that can explain the fingerprints. the way they always ask what the other thinks really gets me. it’s precious.

(and the way mulder couldn’t figure out 30 years from 1993 is hilarious. scully didn’t even have to think about it. he ought have an eidetic memory but scully is the true genius & nerd here. AND his “and you’re gonna be head of the bureau by then” line is my favorite. he thinks so much of her. he knows she could play the game to move up if she wanted to. and she really is that good and only gets better the longer they work together. FEELINGS.)

so he goes through birth certificates, marriage certificates & death certificates for gods know how long and can’t find anything for tooms. but scully finds the original investigator

“i’ve been waiting 25 years for you” he never let go of the case. never solved it. but he knew it was tooms, kept all the evidence. official & unofficial — including a picture of tooms looking exactly the same from 30 years ago & the same address they have on file — and gladly hands it right over to them. (idk how i feel about his comparison but his line ‘these horrible human acts gave birth to a human…monster’ is really something)

frank whatever-his-name-is was fully aware tooms took the livers *and* a personal belonging of the victims. crazy what you could learn from properly connecting cases !!! because even if scully is right & it’s generational, it would be logical to think they’d follow the same patterns. and if mulder’s right, it’s the same guy following the same patterns lmao

this scene always cracks me up too. find a creepy hole in the wall and just head right in. crazy people. they find the trophies & a ~nest~

oh my god mulder. it smells like…i think it’s bile.

is there any way i can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?

hilarious.

no one could live in thus.

i don’t think this is where he lives. i think it’s where he hibernates.

scully thinks it’s crazy but they decide to stake it out. cuz clearly tooms has been here & will return. little do they know he’s there right now and he takes scully’s necklace 😩 taking his trophy before he even gets the liver. marking her.

another damn instance of agents being dickheads to mulder. calling him spooky to his face, laughing at him. yet he just walks away. flash to colton confronting scully & being the biggest ass yet again. i love the way she wants to avoid the conversation “i have to meet mulder”

she’s finally lost all respect for him.

is this what it takes to climb the ladder, colton?

all the way to the top.

then i can’t wait til you fall off and land on your ass.

literally scully switching from tom to colton here is such a move. (he never called her agent scully, not even dr. scully. always dana despite this being a professional setting. he never actually showed her respect or courtesy. he was using her & trying to make it appealing to her. too bad he fucked up so badly.) and it’s so funny — what is a sign of respect, professionalism and eventually camaraderie & intimacy (of course also a way to keep some healthy distance in their partnership lol) with mulder is a demotion for colton. he lost the privilege of knowing her personally.

so, she lets colton makes the call, heads home & calls mulder. she so wanted to commiserate with him, but he doesn’t answer either (cuz he went to the stakeout 😩)

mulder, you must have gone out since colton has given us the night off. i say we file a complaint against him. i am furious. give me a call when you get in. okay. bye.

why is this SO ADORABLE?! like. yes they’re partners, they need to talk about this. but it’s so damn sweet the way she says all of this to him?!

and tooms is already at her places as mulder discovers her necklace among his trophies — which he obviously recognizes immediately and he speeds off to scully’s. cuz he knows where she lives. and he breaks down her door for the first time…

scully already got her warning though. the nasty bile so she’s able to go for her gun, but tooms still manages to surprise her gdi. and mulder is just in time to watch her escape him, stop him from escaping & cuff him to her bath tub. AMAZING. mulder was terrified for her but now he’s just in awe of scully. my favorite mulder.

{EDIT: also they really should report colton because he purposely interferes with their investigation — they had just cause for the stakeout. they literally found the trophies from the victims, going back to 1933 & 1903 and the current victims and his freaky nest. in no way was it an irresponsible use of man-hours. and i hope it destroys his career when scully is attacked & she catches tooms.}

cut to frank keeping a clipping of the newspaper article saying tooms was caught — cut again to tooms making another nest & mulder watching him, waiting for scully.

i guess there was a lot in this episode but i’m so glad they *finally* acknowledge she’s a doctor. (she ordered tests, many abnormalities yada yada) like why didn’t she have anything to do with the autopsies? bet she would have found ~something~ they missed. like mulder found the the fingerprints & realized he took trophies.

the way he’s contemplating that the general population has no idea there’s something else to be afraid of & protect themselves from. fancy alarm systems won’t save them from tooms. “it again enough” and scully SO SWEETLY touches his arm, slides her hand down to his bicep & squeezes until he turns to leave with her — she’s so touchy too !!! how many touches did i not notice in this season? like idk man. the comfort she wants to give him. she doesn’t use words, saying they caught him. no. she uses touch. a small one but it feels like a big deal to me. i can’t remember her touching him after getting him back in the second episode, or any time during. besides the handshake & the hug in the pilot, he was always the one to put his hand on her back or arm.

anyway. tooms is already plotting his escape & his next victims…can’t wait to watch tooms. more great moments to come there 😍

#txf txt #mulder and scully #dana scully #fox mulder #the x files #squeeze #tooms

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bellysoupset · 1 year

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Hiii hope babysitting is goin good

What kind of clothes do each of your characters wear? Like what’s their go-to/favorite outfit? Totally not asking this so I can make fanart haha don’t be silly

I'm drenched wet like a sad cat because I had to wrestle the kid into the shower, but otherwise it's going great 😂

Fanart you say?? Fanaaaart (explodes) 💛💛💛💛💛💛

In detail:

Bella: The one with the most distinctive style, especially now she no longer has an uptight university job. Fishnets, big combat boots, black mini skirt or jeans shorts, ratty crop tops, band t-shirts, black sports bra and some see through mesh blouse. Just imagine you searched "grunge" on pinterest. Add a big mop of curly auburn hair and obligatory Adele eyeliner. Bella has only 1 hole in her ear and she's normally wearing silver jewelry (small studs), she wears many rings but no bracelets and her nails aren't long (she types all day). If she's forced to do formal wear, she'll be in plain black and embrace the Addams family vibes.

Wendy: GIRLY. Whimsy! FUN! Mid flowy skirts, dresses with ruffles and layers and floral prints, beautiful strappy heels, 80s pop music t-shirts coupled with pink jeans. Funky earrings, bracelets, rings. Glittery nail polish. Mini dresses. She's got chin length brown wavy hair and her sense of style is very Barbie-coded, but she does manage to tone it down for more serious situations, so she doesn't look like a Barbie cosplay.

Vince: Dark wash ripped jeans, black tank top or graphic t-shirts (deep V neck), sometimes a button up, black leather jacket (with the belts and buckles, it's for Style) or his varsity football jacket. Worn hiker boots. Not many accessories because he can't be bothered. If it's warm out he'll be in large jeans shorts and flip flops, he simply cannot be assed.

Leo: Boy-Next-Door extreme. Baby blue jeans, light colored t-shirts with a crew neck, hanging on his frame a little loose. Almost never wears patterns. Leo is still finding so much of his identity and he got bullied for being queer, so he's a little stick in the mud when it comes to style. The less he stands out, the better. Worn converse shoes, will often commit the sin of wearing jeans on jeans. His jeans jacket is his favorite and he'll wear it 4 days a week if needed. Also he wears his team hoodie a lot and he'll wear the jacket on top of the hoodie, much to Jonah's displeasure. For work he's always in suits and button ups, again in the most boring shades and combos.

Lucas: His the son of a heartthrob musician. Lucas knows how to dress with style, he just won't. Very similar to Leo's, except add in a lot of university apparel, team shirts, the varsity jacket and those gym-bro tank tops with armholes so huge a man might as well be wearing nothing.

Jonah: Snob. You know he splurges in silk shirts, he's in social pants 90% of the time. Polo shirts, henleys, cable knit sweaters, formal shoes or vans sneakers, polished clean. Always ironed. Wears deep jewel tones a lot, they bring out the hazel in his eyes. If he's in jeans, they're medium wash and never ripped. Will wear a cardigan and cause Leo to seriously consider not going out with him.

#myocs #oh my i think that's all #leo - vince - lucas' styles do blend in each other though #like they influence one another #jonah wendy and bella's styles are definite and they're very aware of it so they don't get influenced at all

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vitaminwaterreviews · 7 months

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Moon Byul - Starlit of Muse

This was a very enlightening experience. First off, none of it was bad, but none of it was super great either. Every song was a 7 or an 8, which is the sign of a consistently decent album. Ultimately though, I think I learned that I just don’t care much for her solo singing voice? I think she’s an excellent rapper, and in the context of Mamamoo I adore her. But as a soloist, I’m just not sure. Average score of 7.4 which feels about right. I do wish I spoke Korean so I could get the lyrical content, so I imagine I’m missing quite a bit here.

- There’s an insane run that I’m in the middle of: Le Sserafim -> IU -> Moonbyul -> Twice -> Taeyong, all in the space of a bit over a week. That’s kpop though, it never stops. I watched the pre-release from this album, and I’ve only heard it the once.

Intro : WWUD

Lol that bass is squishy

Funky, mmm

Her voice is neat there

A proper hip hop song I guess

8/10

Think About

This is the pre-release

Still got that funk bass going on

I dunno if I buy her voice on the “i”s

Honestly I dunno if I buy her voice in the chorus either

It feels like, a bit too high? Or like it would be better if her voice was higher

Mmm, the ‘high note’ coming out of the bridge is nice

It’s more of a harmony than a high note and I appreciate that

7/10

TOUCHIN&MOVIN’

MV time

Bass

Lol wait what is this 80’s synth moment

She’s having fun

Horns moment

Why did she look like Solar right there

I don’t think I’m convinced by this either

Like, this style of song doesn’t totally fit her voice imo

Obligatory modulation I guess

The instrumentation is top tier though, disco vibes

And then she takes her headphones off, stands up, and … looks?

7/10

Like A Fool

Lofi vibes, this is neat

Kinda wish her voice was distorted more to fit it

I like her voice in this range a lot more

Oh my god the sax moment is exactly it lmao

8/10

Attention Seeker

And now we bring out the guitars

Yeah, I dunno, maybe I just don’t vibe with her singing voice in general?

I did quite enjoy the last song though

The random chip synth in the pop rock song though

It sounds very Radio Disney to me, but her voice just isn’t it imo

7/10

NOLTO

I dunno how I feel about this one. I just listened to the whole thing, I had no comments, but I’m not actually sure how to rate it

7/10

After Sunset

Dramatic

Oh is it a ballad?

I actually like her voice a lot more here

The little harmony moments are super nice

8/10

Timeline

Well this is a super cute vibe, with the guitar and the synth

Subtly latin, alright

Yeah, the empty chorus is really nice actually

Hmmm I dunno about that high note

Such a nice vibe though

8/10

Dark Romance

LAlALAlalalALALLalalaA lmao

Oh hey, a rap song

And yet for some reason her voice feels too soft for this song

Yeahhh and I dunno about the high lines either

This song really reminded me of something but I just couldn’t figure it out

7/10

GOLD

Bass

Lol this album has so much “Bass” on it

I love the “ohhh”s

This kinda reminds me of Feels Like Summer

I don’t know a lot of r&b with this type of vibe but that’s exactly the vibe I’m getting

OHH she’s not saying “ohhh” she’s saying “gold” lmao

8/10

Memories

Anime intro moment

Lmao no wait this is literally anime intro moment

My only knowledge of ONEWE is that they’re also under RBW and they have a brother group called ONEUS, because there’s a pair of brothers split between the two

Are they saying ‘10, 9’?

7/10

Without

Piano, nice and soft

Is it another ballad?

It is

This actually feels kind of IU to me

Oh now it’s kind of slow jammy with that drum kit

I also feel like I’d particularly appreciate these songs better if I knew Korean

Like, no doubt Moonbyul is a very capable lyricist, and I’m definitely missing that

7/10

#album #kpop #Moon Byul #Mamamoo

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punkscowardschampions · 11 months

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Tancy

Nancy: The year I decide not to go to [a posh Christmas holiday spot, you know the vibe] would be the year I get caught unawares by this absolute tragedy

Nancy: Are you in town or did you somehow manage the foresight to avoid?

Teddy: Commiserations, darling

Teddy: How could I possibly choose avoidance, doting uncle that I am?

Nancy: Quite 😏

Nancy: She’s a little old to throw this kind of a fit for more post-Christmas presents but there we go, I’ve done worse

Nancy: and have left it to my mother to add my name to the gift tag, naturally

Teddy: Quite

Teddy: & after we’ve done our due diligence we can slip out the back, I know a charming little place nearby, you’ll adore it

Nancy: You don’t fancy it could get interesting?

Teddy: Is this a proposed wager to make things more entertaining? If so, perhaps

Nancy: Perhaps

Nancy: or perhaps I was merely commenting on the fact things are dicey enough when we’re all forced to be in the same room for any length of time

Nancy: and that isn’t accounting for the unknown of his own undoubtedly fucked up family

Teddy: Which is it, Nance?

Nancy: Who’s we?

Teddy: That feels like another trick question

Nancy: I mean to say are you suggesting we leave your daughter there alone

Nancy: Less than doting of you

Nancy: Lord knows this isn’t an event for a plus-one

Teddy: She’s hardly alone, the room is crammed full of her obligatory nearest & dearest

Teddy: not to mention, I can’t fathom an exercise which would build more character than having to fend for herself at this soiree

Nancy: Now you just sound like MY father

Nancy: How is James taking the news?

Teddy: I highly doubt it, my tongue could never wrap itself around such a common & indelicate set of vowels the way his does, but I understand why you decided to go for the unlikely comparison, you wish to wound me

Teddy: You’d have to ask him & I suggest you do, it’ll only bend you to my will & allow us to flee this so called party that much quicker

Nancy: Your tongue hasn’t seen the other side of the postcode, I know

Nancy: Obviously, nothing brings me greater joy than Buster being denied father of the bride, I have so much to thank him for

Teddy: Regrettably you’d be denied thanking him in your customary manner by Ava’s intact bridal status, always the bridesmaid, such a pity

Nancy: Oh, so you’re being mean

Nancy: Where’s your festive spirit, Teds?

Teddy: Naturally, if there was anything to upstage I’d be down on one knee producing the belated gift of renewed vows & a [whatever number marriage they’d be on because I’m sure you’ve been divorced and gotten remarried to each other at least once by this point but it could be more with how messy you are] marriage

Nancy: Even for a show-marriage or [whatever the number is] attempt, I would not accept a Christmas proposal, please

Teddy: But I’m the one lacking festive spirit?

Nancy: Oh, I’d never call you lacking really

Teddy: & I’d never call you a Grinch, to your face

Nancy: Ha, ha

Nancy: I don’t suppose there’s any way to get the actual mother of the bride involved, is there?

Teddy: I tried, she was unreachable in [wherever they are] until New Year’s Eve

Nancy: That really is a letdown

Teddy: There’ll be other chances, for as long as this engagement persists

Nancy: True… this is just the start of a lengthy list of obligations

Teddy: [an IRL yawn in her direction because they are big kids]

Nancy: [an IRL amused headshake]

Nancy: As if it’s half as bad for you, the laundry list is endless as a female

Nancy: It should be criminal for anyone else to force me into a wedding dress boutique ever again

Teddy: It’s criminal you wasted that dress on this occasion [+ an IRL LOOK at her and whatever she is wearing obvs]

Nancy: It is, neither he nor his friends are at all attractive, what are the chances? [but an IRL look away and blush because still insecure forever]

Teddy: He’s American, we can thank our lucky stars, and stripes, he entered the venue unaided & won’t require heavy duty machinery to leave

Nancy: They all dress like they’re morbidly obese regardless, perhaps you’ll pass on the name of your tailor as an early wedding gift

Teddy: & improve his chances? Of course not

Teddy: Say you at least miss me a little, first

Nancy: Wouldn’t you rather know I meant it first?

Nancy: This state of affairs could have me missing just about anybody

Teddy: [another IRL LOOK because we all know y’all can’t leave each other alone and thus she does actually miss him and gotta let her know he knows that]

Nancy: [when returning that look means you have to take a BIG sip of whatever drink you’re working your way through right now]

Teddy: [raise your glass at her like you’re cheers-ing across this room because he’s all smug and smirky about the reaction he can always get]

Nancy: [such a scowl lmao, roll your eyes and turn away like a child]

Teddy: You’ll give yourself wrinkles

Nancy: You’ll pay for more botox

Teddy: Can’t we play nicely together? Someone has to show the allegedly happy couple how it’s done

Nancy: As long as we don’t pretend it’s for anyone else’s benefit

Teddy: Then, allow me to say, without any pretence, you look radiant, whoever bankrolled it

Nancy: You don’t need to flatter me, get me another drink instead [turning back though to show you’ve stopped sulking for now]

Teddy: [do obviously, god knows how long you have to wait because I’m sure everyone else is at this bar because this party is dry af and they all need to be drunk to be here, so LOOKING at her the entire time, but giving her a little wave as if that makes it casual]

Nancy: [everyone at this party is going through it, the bar has probably never been busier lol, when you have to LOOK back like you’re proving a point that you can but then he makes you laugh so the ‘and what?’ Of how you’re there with your arms folded is lost, putting your head in your hands like you’re so embarrassed for/by him]

Teddy: [doing such a posh boy LOL about this as if he’s like what are YOU like, as if he can’t believe she’s overreacting so much with her reactions rn, all the bants because this party is providing 0]

Nancy: [mouthing ‘you’re mental’ at him and doing a shrug like so sorry to report lol, tapping your imaginary watch like chop chop]

Teddy: [doing the whole song and dance of not understanding what she mouthed even though he definitely did because he knows her that well by now and the gist is easy to get anyway, waving off the fake miscommunication with a literal wave of his hand like oh don’t worry about it, still giving his smug energy but so amused now too, catch him rudely cutting in at this bar to get her drink faster, soz whoever that is, but succeeding and presenting it to her]

Nancy: [likewise as rudely insisting whoever you’re currently sat with makes room for him to sit down too because whatever game y’all are playing, we can’t deal with how boring this party is but in a sec I’m going to have Sekhmet’s drunk self walk in to spice it all up but for now we’re sipping this drink like we’re considering if we like it and you don’t know we’d drink anything]

Teddy: [he has no qualms ignoring whoever she’s sat with completely whilst giving her his usual kiss on each cheek hello that’s more extra than a standard greeting always and then making himself too comfortable sitting like a lounging cat the way only an arrogant man possibly can, at some point shamelessly reaching over to pull out her label as if he’s so interested in who she’s wearing instead of just touching the back of her neck]

Nancy: [at least it’s obviously not your daughter, probably Jay’s friends or someone happy to get away, lbr, you’re welcome stranger, being so Charles Fraith coded lol, you love to see it ‘do you like it? It was a present’ smoothing out whatever expensive ass dress you have on to emphasise yourself in the most blatant way]

Teddy: [we say run gals, run far away whoever you are, I’m 10000% channelling Charles if he was more of a twat, Teddy is very those vibes, doing an oh? style eyebrow raise because we’re assuming she isn’t giving santa a shoutout with this ‘who was it a present from?’ as if that’s a casual question remotely, while he tucks her label back in, and keeps his hand there, playing with the hair at the back of her neck whether the rest is up or down, again as if this is a casual action]

Nancy: [covering the shiver at this contact with another shrug, so casual ‘no one here’ smirking like so it doesn’t matter who when that’s the biggest clue it wasn’t from your family and who else is buying you presents ‘how was your Christmas?’ looking him up and down like you’re similarly seeing what he was bought]

Teddy: [doing a hum like you’re hmm-ing who this could possibly be as if it’s the greatest mystery ever but we’re just drawing attention to his mouth as she’s looking him over because duh ‘fantastic’ because it’s how he always answers and it’s impossible to tell if he’s being sarcastic or not when he do]

Nancy: [forever assuming it’s sarcastic because we’re that bitch and that’s the mood right now and the fact you’re both here serves that it probably wasn’t incredible ‘I’d take the grinch’ like you’re not wrong and this sucks ‘Not in [somewhere y’all once spent a Xmas, the best one in our opinion clearly] so-’ the what’s the point not needing spelling out]

Teddy: [‘Agreed, so let’s go to [wherever was her fave] for New Year’s’ absolutely serious about this but in that way you could pretend you were joking if she was like lol no]

Nancy: [nudging his shoulder like oh you, as if we don’t believe you’re serious even though we know him and what he’s like ‘get us through tonight’ as seriously]

Teddy: [resting his head on her shoulder and looking up at her with a grin, again like a cat ‘I got you through childbirth & [wherever they spent what was the worst christmas in their mutual opinion as if those things are comparable cos y’all love to be dramatic so you feel like it is]’ literally beckoning their child over and doing the thing where he uses her like a pawn to get her excited af about wherever it is he wants them to go so then Nancy has to go or be the bad cop who is letting their child down lol]

Nancy: [‘drugs got me through both of those occasions’ loling because so true bestie, I’m sure you were off your tits, also have to mess up his hair if he’s gonna lounge on us like this, not soz; pushing him away when Tansy is called over, letting her lie on you instead, looking over her head at him like oh, THIS is how you’re gonna be, is it? Shaking our head but you know we’re not going to say no, of course not]

Teddy: [giving her a wink which says he has drugs that could get her through this occasion too all she has to do is ask because of course he does he hasn’t changed, catch him caressing and talking to this child like she’s a pet or a toddler instead of the big age she would be at this point because always baby her that’s his whole vibe despite not actually parenting her barely at all, god bless, smirking at Nancy obvs because he has won and got what he wants]

Nancy: [yeah she’s fully 17/18 lol but do either of you care, no, just stroking her hair like you’re calming an overexcited child because would be hyped clearly and we can’t even fake like we’re mad right now, just telling her that he’s going to buy her a whole new holiday wardrobe, of course]

Teddy: [of course she hasn’t grown up as far as y’all are concerned because neither of you have either, he’s still the age he was when y’all were at your peak in his head and not soz about it, hence going bigger about this so all the things you’re gonna buy them both is just snowballing wildly because duh gotta include Nancy/mummy in this, again not soz]

Nancy: [the way I know this is Bali ‘cos this bitch loves Bali lmao, you are welcome for the unhinged and impromptu nature of how your parents operate because now you’re getting a holiday out of nowhere just because they’re flirting lol, telling her how lucky she is and telling her to say thank you again like she is a child and needs to be prompted to kiss him on the cheek]

Teddy: [I feel like he’s 10000% one of those parents to kiss his child on the mouth even though peeps, me included, are like that’s weird probably don’t do that sir, but he will and he is like ILY my beloved only child and then shoo her off to go say hi to Sekhmet when she bowls in drunk and messy]

Nancy: [you are so right miss ma’am, he completely is and sorry to anyone who just had to witness y’alls weirdness lol, not us telling you to ‘stop staring’ at Sekhmet when we literally still are]

Teddy: [me like pick your jaw up off the floor at how hot Sekhmet looks she’s basically your daughter’s age sir, please and thanks, but obvs we’re styling it out like we’re in faux shock and awe at the state of her, amused and living for how appalled other guests will be is very true though, giving it ‘I’ll have what she’s been having’ like lol]

Nancy: [no one is fooled, least of all this bitch lmao, shaking our head but not giving who or what we’re directing this display of disapproval at because it’s not real in any case, getting up to go to the bathroom as you need to assess your plan of attack here]

Teddy: [you can go too, to do some of the drugs you mentioned earlier if nothing else because this party is dry af, rude of you not to offer her any but in fairness she didn’t give you a chance to, just the idea by seeing the direction she’s headed in]

Nancy: [will be offended if you do them all/you’re plainly high when we both get back out of these bathrooms lol, like how dare you]

Teddy: [I doubt you’ll do them all, we’ve gotta pace ourselves cos of the long af night this will be and feel, thanks nay you flops, but she’d know he was high because she’s known him long enough and seen him be enough times that it would be blatant even if his tells aren’t, which I’m sure they are]

Nancy: [time to enact your petty plan by going to buy drinks for Sekhmet and your daughter as if either of them needs the help or you need to be partying with them like you’re a teenager still, got to piss ruster off whenever we can, as well as get the goss]

Nancy: If you’re not going to invite me, I shan’t include you

Teddy: I invited you on holiday

Nancy: You’re already on one, darling

Teddy: Hardly

Nancy: The quality of the produce must be better in [wherever Sekhmet is at Uni/thus partying]

Teddy: Undeniably, or no-one would be caught dead venturing there

Nancy: Come now, your horizons are broader than that

Teddy: This town has been going to the dogs for a long time

Nancy: So, in that sense it would be a good parenting move to let her go to [wherever, one of the boujee dodgy trips] with Sekhmet after her birthday

Teddy: Possibly

Nancy: You know what that actually means, so what do you actually think

Nancy: I suppose we should discuss it

Teddy: After her birthday very little is likely to be up for discussion, what with our little girl all grown up

Nancy: Only in theory, she’s a good girl though, she isn’t going to immediately disregard us and what we think about her choices

Teddy: She is, that’s true

Nancy: You know she would hate for you to be disappointed in her

Teddy: Yes, but she also knows I’m happy to let her make her own choices, unless they ended in an engagement like this

Nancy: Filthy rich is all you can say for him

Teddy: New money is a filthy rotten term, but I’m certain he’s the type to proudly declare his millions are self made as though it’s a source of anything other than embarrassing, grasping, desperation

Nancy: Hm, I needed that reminder you only married me to embarrass your own old money family

Nancy: Face it, it’s where it’s at, new money knows how to waste it, you should hear how much she makes…

Teddy: Go look in the mirror should you need a reminder it wasn’t the only reason

Nancy: Oh, please

Teddy: Oh, as I can tell you’re dying to, go ahead & enlighten me re her current earnings, I can’t stand the thought of you in misery having to bite your tongue

Nancy: I’m not gossiping, she’s very proud of herself

Nancy: [but do infodump all the tea you’ve been inappropriately grilling her for because shooketh]

Teddy: I should’ve followed a similar route at her age instead of giving it away for free

Nancy: No kidding

Nancy: Life could be so different now

Teddy: It would’ve proved worth it for the look on my father’s face alone, alas, I married you, purely for the embarrassment factor, apparently & here we are

Nancy: I could have left you in the sham marriage to Grace, it could always be worse, dearest

Nancy: I don’t know, doesn’t it seem too good an opportunity to waste?

Teddy: No you couldn’t, darling, you’ve never been able to leave me anywhere

Teddy: You’re aware of my feelings regarding opportunity, none should ever be wasted

Nancy: You’re persistent

Nancy: We’re never in disagreement there… formulating the plan might take longer than even this neverending night but

Teddy: I’ll be around, as evidenced by everything we’ve both just said, we’re rarely in disagreement over things which truly matter

Nancy: Just all the little indiscretions adding up that keep us apart then?

Nancy: Regardless, this would be more fun with you, and there’s any new money to go around

Teddy: [Bring up whatever caused your last breakup like that’s what is keeping us apart atm lol, framing it as her fault whether it is or isn’t because he’s that sort of bear]

Teddy: but we’re together on this

Nancy: You and your selective memory

Nancy: Still, we are both technically responsible adults and it is entirely permissive of my brother and his wife not to be managing these transactions and encounters for their child

Nancy: is my thinking, currently

Teddy: Your brother & your cousin, if my selective memory serves

Teddy: it’s no wonder they aren’t behaving appropriately

Nancy: Said as if you wouldn’t, if only your cousins didn’t look like they were headed for the glue factory

Teddy: Ha ha

Teddy: The girl’s lucky she doesn’t look like she’d be destined for the darkest corners of the dark web, is all

Nancy: Yes, there’s no denying their looks

Nancy: For all the ways my family is cursed, there’s the luck of the Irish they’re always talking about at work

Teddy: & you’ve blessed our daughter with beauty she can cash in on

Nancy: *We can, it was a joint effort, after all

Teddy: There wasn’t much by way of effort on my part, I had a lovely time

Nancy: You do make me laugh

Teddy: A slight effort involved there, sometimes

Nancy: I remember you putting in plenty of effort to please me

Nancy: wasn’t that long ago

Teddy: It didn’t feel a slog to me, not once, but our memories differ clearly, as you’ve pointed out

Nancy: Luckily, we’ve both sets of parents to remind us neither of us knows what a hard day’s work looks like, should we want to be bored to tears by something other than this function

Teddy: I’m hoping said function might finish my father off, between you & I, he’s more than outlived his usefulness by now

Nancy: You best hope and pray he goes before your mother, so she can pop you back in the will

Teddy: Please, mother’s immortal, she’ll easily outlive everyone in this room

Nancy: She has survived all your antics thus far

Teddy: Exactly, it’s up to my baby girl to carry on my legacy & see how many outdated family relics she can take down with hers

Nancy: Whatever she does, she couldn’t possibly be as disappointing as Jay is

Nancy: and she is just like you, so naturally, your mother loves her

Teddy: You flatter us both

Nancy: You’ll always be her favourite, much to your sister’s chagrin

Teddy: A title I’m happy to pass down to my daughter

Nancy: Good thing we never tried for a son

Teddy: J finally has one & where’s the good in it? I got it right first time

Nancy: Just that boys are always the favourite

Teddy: She’ll always be favoured, no children of his are capable of being, they never quite have enough of their mothers in them, whoever their mothers happen to be

Nancy: Maybe it’s nice to do it all again, now Ava is actually old enough

Nancy: like you said, she will be all grown up soon

Teddy: Aren’t you too old?

Nancy: I wasn’t suggesting anything, for God’s sake

Teddy: No? That’s a shame, I so miss when she was little

Nancy: Sorry I’m so old

Teddy: Me too, though I’m sure medical science can work miracles even upon you

Nancy: You’re horrid and if I have another child, I’m sure I’ll find a better donor for the remaining 50%, thank you

Teddy: [name drop the designer on that label + mr or whatever like yeah the man who bought you that outfit because we’re jealous haha] will jump at the chance, no doubt

Nancy: Perhaps

Nancy: I miss it too, that’s all

Teddy: I’m open to it, if you ever care to make the suggestion

Nancy: Don’t you want to be just like [his sister’s husband] and find some fertile 20 year old

Teddy: Because he’s so happy & fulfilled

Teddy: I want you to be the mother of all my children, like you are now & like I’ve said since before you were

Nancy: Marriage no.3, perhaps?

Nancy: You were so sweet

Teddy: In [Bali or wherever they are going on holiday]?

Nancy: Are you trying to pencil in a wedding or a child?

Teddy: A wedding first, what level of dishonourable man do you take me for, Nance?

Teddy: but as soon as that’s signed & sealed we can try for a baby in [all her fave places in said location]

Nancy: Okay

Nancy: Maybe I’ll hold you to your word

Teddy: Maybe isn’t the yes I want

Nancy: Yes but you’ve already had a win tonight

Teddy: Why cap either of us in single figures?

Nancy: Let me have one first

Teddy: Promise to marry me & we can try for a baby in [somewhere very inappropriate and too public in this engagement party venue]

Nancy: Teddy

Teddy: Or right here, in front of all the family members you hate

Nancy: [just LOOKING at him like you’re not in the midst of it rn because don’t care how blatant that is]

Teddy: [nor does he, hence literally patting his lap like come and sit here and we’ll do it right now immediately, while he’s obvs also LOOKING back at her as shamelessly]

Nancy: [laughing so big, again, like a crazy person, because he does make you laugh by matching your unhinged nature, not to say you aren’t gonna come walking on over though, not just a game, like, looking down at him like oh you]

Teddy: [joining in with her crazy lol because he always will match her unhinged vibes and they are so fated for it because who else would have them, catch this man pulling her into his lap like they aren’t at his niece's engagement party full of both their fams]

Nancy: [making such an unnecessary scene of it, you two, love to see it, no one at this party does but you know, no one has cared less than y’all about that ‘are you going to apologise for [whatever you think you broke up for, clearly not the same thing and his fault this time lol]?’ grinning at him like you’re not THIS CLOSE to his face]

Teddy: [thank god your poor daughter is used to y’all’s antics or I’d feel so sorry for her rn, just trying to have a nice time at this boring boring party ‘I’m sorry you’re suffering from memory loss, bill me for whoever’ll have to pick up the slack raising my baby’] so much emphasis on MY like she really might pick someone else to have a kid with, lol]

Nancy: [no offence to you ma’am but truly, bit beyond help at this point, the way I’m sure you’re not even phased, probably like aww, how sweet even lmao; ‘if you think I’m stupid enough to hire a hot nanny’ raising a brow like you can think on, sir]

Teddy: [deffo, she ships it, everyone else at this party like ffs but equally used to y’all by now and lowkey thankful you aren’t having a screaming domestic, Jay MORTIFIED by this whole fam except James and Ava truly, soz girl cos this pair aren’t anything of the sort ‘I think you’d be stupid not to hire help for the twins you’re going to give me’ just putting that out there because they’re talked before about them running in her fam and how many kids they wanted and it was loads at one point]

Nancy: [like soz you and this doomed relationship aren’t bringing a slay party but yeah, going off the rails on all sides lol, I remember y’all saying that shit too, so of course she does, hitting him in the chest so you can leave your hands there ‘I knew you were disappointed’ said like poor Tansy, how could you say that but we’re obviously still amused and just flirting here]

Teddy: [shaking his head because he isn’t but also for the movement of it in the proximity they are bringing them teasingly close to kissing cos duh ‘if she had one, she ate it’ said like he’s v proud of her for this and in the same vein as her earlier she’s just like you comment because he so would too ‘survival of the fittest’]

Nancy: [when you are that tantalisingly close, purposefully choosing this moment to look back away from him, over your shoulder at your daughter like aww, proud mum moment, absolutely not the time ma’am, why are you like this]

Teddy: [we all know he’s looking at her too though with such a smile like ILY as he rests his head on her shoulder to look over it and be that close, doing the sort of breath that would deliberately tickle her but he’s doing it because he’s also deliberately shifting them both in his seat]

Nancy: [eliciting the kind of noise that could just be a particularly dramatic intake of breath but is not and if everyone wasn’t assumedly trying to ignore y’all, would be obvious af ‘she is one of the best things we’ve ever done’ as if you’re weighing up the pros and cons of a baby in your head]

Teddy: [a nod that is just a shameless excuse to nuzzle into her shoulder where his head is still resting, moving up to do the same into her neck because of course but not kissing her or anything yet which is giving their first convo when they were in the car on the way to buy their puppy and were getting up to feral antics but she wouldn’t let them kiss (or hookup obvs) ‘she’d love a brother or sister to bully’ again said affectionately like that’s an aw nice thing cos we know who y’all are and how you operate]

Nancy: [smiling but your lips are staying parted because necessary, as is the way you’re shifting into his lap more, like you were about to fall on the floor when you truly were not, letting one of your heels drop off your foot and onto the floor though so you can casually run your foot up his trouser leg, like you’re warming yourself, nothing else ‘and she won’t feel replaced, 18 years is a long time’]

Teddy: [the noise he’s making that isn’t muffled enough by her neck for where they are (not that either of them care) is necessary too, as is how he’s GRIPPING her hips like she was falling and he’s gotta and he’s purely moving her so she’s safely on his lap and not for the blatant reason he actually is ‘she’ll be happy, we’re going to be a bigger family’]

Nancy: [‘she’s happy when we’re happy’ sounding WAY too indecent about it, at least you’re being quiet by the nature of your mouth being right next to his ear so that’s something, I guess? Because you absolutely should turn around now but you still haven’t]

Teddy: [saying ‘yes’ purely to say it and how indecent it sounds even though he was already nodding to be nuzzling more into her neck and then against her ear, not at all casually always moving and giving her different sensations nbd, doing a breath into her ear for how that will feel as well as just needing to do a sigh/GASP because of how you feel rn]

Nancy: [stroking the back of his neck, similar to how he was yours earlier but obviously it’s far more !! by now and your fingers are basically running through his hair at the back ‘what do you miss the most about it?’ the concentration it takes to get that out because you’re moving without thought now, just how and where it feels good]

Teddy: [finally making contact with her skin when she’s moving because he likewise can’t help it, he simply MUST, and I like to think he was at cheek level cos of moving up so he can do a really indecent kiss there and then on the other side how he does his hellos but obvs with even more !! ‘the crying’ of course he’d love something everyone else hates and finds annoying like yay we stan how defenceless this baby is and how she can do nothing for herself and is just a needy mess]

Nancy: [the urge to immediately convert this into an indecent makeout only being avoided by the grace of God/the fact we want you to hear our reaction as well as feel it because of course there is no better answer he could have given you, both so fucked in the same ways and you know that, LOOKING at him with the intensity you wanna put into what you’re holding back from doing right now]

Teddy: [the insane eye contact rn is everything, as is the unhinged way that this boy is taking a strand of her hair whether it’s up and has come loose or is down and wrapping it around his finger until it turns purple for how that feels to him but also how it would to her pulling her hair to do that because so much intensity they are narrowly avoiding unleashing upon everyone at this function rn]

Nancy: [the way we are watching this like there’s an end goal here and his finger is straight up going to fall off because that’s how it feels, the levels of tension y’all are allowing to build ‘she would go that colour’ nodding purely to pull this tighter, even if you feel like you might rip your own hair out with it]

Teddy: [squeezing his eyes shut like he’s doing an impression of this screaming crying baby face for her amusement and doesn’t just need to for a sec because of this tension ‘her tiny balled up little fists’ as he takes her hands in his and HOLDS them really tightly because I’m doing a re-read and they LOVE a handhold sis]

Nancy: [taking this opportunity to kiss him like you couldn’t when his eyes were open and you aren’t just into the fact he can’t see it coming/need to moan into his mouth so you aren’t brazenly doing that into the open air ‘letting her scream it out, ‘til she had to fall asleep’ kissing the back of his hand and shaking about it]

Teddy: [the way he moves when she sneak attack kisses him being brazen though, y’all are lucky you don’t both fall off this chair for real with how !! it was ‘checking she hadn’t stopped breathing’ again so creepy that you’re into that sir, that’s weird that’s suspicious I say]

Nancy: [‘stop me breathing before I ask you to do something fucking terrible with me’ too loud, like conversational loud when you should absolutely keep your mouth closed, shamelessly putting his hands on his crotch between y’all]

Teddy: [kissing her in such a dramatic manner to literally steal all of her breath, soz everyone that he won’t be letting her come up for air and y’all have to witness this, there are old people and children here, it won’t stop him also having his hand on her throat though, they do not care]

Nancy: [balling up your own fists and pushing them into his stomach, in a way that would make you think she’s trying to stop him if she wasn’t blatantly riding his lap and putting her all into this breathless kiss]

Teddy: [touching her stomach the way he would’ve when she was preggo with that free hand he has that’s not around her throat, moving his other one there too eventually so he can really do the most cos it means he has to kiss her even harder to keep her breathless]

Nancy: [when you can feel the frantic and laboured way we’re trying to get air and failing, tugging at the sleeve of whatever he’s wearing like you can communicate what you need via this alone]

Teddy: [mhmm, and he’s SO into it, just here fully willing to let her pass out in front of everyone, y’all are crazy and I love it, catch him holding her to him like a sleeping bub as he lets her pass out and only then allows her to start breathing again, excuse us everyone]

Nancy: [not you crying in you sleep/passed out state like you planned it, we all know you just lost control of your bodily functions and that turns you on even more, coming back ‘round and CLINGING to him]

Teddy: [it turns him on even more too, get a room lads, even Mattie had the decency to go to the bathroom to be gay and extra, rubbing her back like she’s a baby here, doing all the comforting things he did and would for said crying baby when y’all weren’t just leaving her to, having a lovely reminisce]

Nancy: [there is no decency or consideration here to be found, ‘why are you not using me?’ like we’re genuinely confused about it, rubbing our eyes which is inevitably making a huge mess of your makeup]

Teddy: [he’ll be here using his hand to make a big song and dance of fixing her makeup/making it more of a mess because the re-read also reminded me how much they love a spit moment so all those reminders there, telling her to because that’s the biggest reminder of all, also at a conversational level volume which is just indecent]

Nancy: [I’m like someone needs to take one for the team and step in and stop you because we’re here either genuinely that kind of out of it where you’re not thinking or pretending we are and either way, very much ready to risk it all lol, at least him giving you a spit wash is enough to distract you temporarily, closing your eyes like it’s very relaxing and lovely]

Teddy: [honestly, but who could, they’d only lol at whoever tried, they are lawless, the most we can probably do is move y’all to a slightly less public location at some point whether that’s a bathroom or outside or wherever, maybe a bathroom would work given the state her face is now in lol, cos yeah, having a lovely time with how much spit he’s covering her in]

Nancy: [truly, I don’t wish it on any of y’all and you’ve all long since given up clearly, soz fam, at least you can feel how messy your face is because makeup especially mascara is tacky and weird feeling so you do a little pout as you’re getting up and pulling at his hand again like come on]

Teddy: [go with her sir, you always will, regardless of how uncomfortable walking would be with how turned on you are, I’m sure you’re into that too you little weirdo]

Nancy: [no one at the party needs to see it yet again but you do deserve the pain, even if it has the opposite effect on y’all, just par for the course, I’m afraid, get in this bathroom, staring at yourself in the mirror]

Teddy: [get her some drugs out, whatever they may be, because you rudely didn’t earlier so you owe her some, needlessly guide her to wherever the line is with a hand on her lower back because he loves a bit of that and it also gives preggo vibes with the way he’s doing it here and now]

Nancy: [let this distract you from what could be an age-related freak out because you are quite old to have a child, not impossibly so but you know, keep the momentum going, keep being a mess, don’t think about that, wiping up the remnants from this counter and then rubbing them on his gums ‘there’ like this is self-care or something y’all are engaging in here]

Teddy: [my boo says maybe don’t you old bitch but Winnie and I can’t be stopped now haha, he’ll be here kissing her as he pushes her onto said counter, no notes just the absolutely unhinged makeout sesh they couldn’t really have in front of everyone]

Nancy: [we all know it’s happening, for better or worse, mostly worse but hey lol, here making out like you’re now in an entirely private space and not a public bathroom anyone can still very much walk in ‘how long’s it been?’ in between kisses, meaning since you last hooked up, whether that was when you broke up or you have since then, we know that’s possible]

Teddy: [I won’t commit you to exact deets of when and how but this man knows because he’s still as obsessed with her as ever, so letting her know even if he’s rewriting history again like they both did with their breakup]

Nancy: [‘too long’ is the answer, literally whatever you say and it could’ve been last week because dramatic lol, trying to pull him up onto the counter too like there’s room/no one is going to need to use these sinks any time soon ‘I’ve missed you’ as if that’s a shocking revelation when y’all have been being feral for ages now]

Teddy: [catch him reacting like he’s shooketh in the best way though because he wanted her to say she missed him earlier and she would not, MOANING about it in the way y’all could not when you were sitting with everybody mid boring function, opening her legs so dramatically and needlessly wide, again as if anybody couldn’t just walk in any sec]

Nancy: [‘I mean it’ like his shock is disbelief and he’s calling you a liar instead of giving you the reaction he is, making yours beyond blatant with the position you’re now in, going bright red but not flinching out of said position ‘no one else gets it right’]

Teddy: [taking off whatever clothing of hers would be in his way cos we know she’s wearing a dress so it wouldn’t be much, either just underwear or tights too if she’s committed to that as part of her lewk as it’s december ‘no-one else goes as red for me’ stroking said red cheek affectionately like he hasn’t just exposed her to the elements and anybody who might appear and there’s all the time in the world to be doing things like that]

Nancy: [‘no one else is going to love you as much’ shrugging as if you have it in you to be casual when you’re this exposed, like that’s fact at this point ‘just the babies’ giving stuck together but thrilled about it]

Teddy: [a nod because it is a fact, giving her SUCH a LOOK when babies plural hits like oh that could actually be a fact too and he’s letting it be blatant how much he wants it to be, hence it is lost on none of us how y’all are very much in a birthing kind of position rn without that even being intentional ‘& you mean that too?’ as if she’s gonna be like soz I was playing I shan’t have another baby with you]

Nancy: [nodding back as fiercely, not trusting what you want to say immediately enough to open your mouth, feeling like double exposure but the thought makes you practically convulse so you have to try ‘I want to surround us with babies who worship us like she does’]

Teddy: [‘she isn’t going to need us any more’ so sad genuinely, the OTT pout on his face isn’t even slightly fake it’s too real, his lip could not be sticking out any further lol, running his hands over her exposed thighs and hips etc like isn’t that so offensive considering she literally came from out of this body]

Nancy: [‘I can make her’ so confidently yet desperately like I HAVE to ‘she’s ours’ like she is a doll and not a person because not in any sort of mood to not be unhinged rn, sorry, so purposefully NOT moving from this birthing position even though it means we’re limited on how we can touch him back because gotta stay like this]

Teddy: [‘make me another one’ like we’re talking about things and not human children, a great attitude to have lads, not insane at all, likewise not moving her from this position, in fact, only manoeuvring her so it’s more blatant while he’s undoing whatever ugly af trousers I have no doubt he’s wearing to this function]

Nancy: [literally moaning when he’s finally exposed to you too, making little whimpering noises because can’t get to you fast enough for your liking]

Teddy: [sorry to this venue and to Mattie who organised this function because they are 10000% going to break this sink somehow with how immediately feral they are being the second this hookup is instigated, fucking like they’re still in their 20s, I love to see it, but at least how LOUD they’re both gonna be being will put any randoms off coming in and having to accidentally witness this]

Nancy: [nothing has changed, still out here doing exactly what we want, when and where, shamelessly listing all the people that COULD walk in right now, knowing who to save ‘til last because of the reaction increasing]

Teddy: [mhmm, the bathroom will be flooding around them from the damage they’ve caused and they won’t even notice nevermind care, can’t be tamed ever and I have to admire that, the reactions she would be getting would be embarrassing if he had any shame but he does not and never will, in the same vein, him throwing out baby names based on how offended people would be if they went there with a similar escalation, like how I’m sure he joked about calling their other daughter Grace/using it as a middle name for the obvious reason that she bought them together]

Nancy: [somehow, after a lot of fumbling and missing, finding your phone, like you’re going to call someone right now to get them to come in but you’re not managing to focus to do anything with how indecent this has all become, a mess of the most inappropriate names for this moment coming out of your mouth]

Teddy: [finally just saying her name over and over like he’s decided he’s going to call the baby that because like he said in that first convo he loves saying it that much and in this moment it’s literally all he can say as this hookup is getting more and more feral]

Nancy: [just telling him to do it, as if there will be a baby for him to name the second y’all are done here, must always encourage feral behaviour and shamelessly hearing our name said like that has made it a very appealing thought]

Teddy: [taking that encouragement to continue to do the most as if y’all aren’t in the bathroom at his niece's engagement party venue having already broken a sink, could not be fucking harder, careful please y’all aren’t in your 20s any more and god knows what you’re losing in this flood, could be her underwear he discarded, could be anything he’s got in his trouser pockets]

Nancy: [the mess you two have created, literal in this bathroom now and just vibes-wise at this function by being absolute menaces as per, the least that can happen is some property damage for you as well tbh, not that you are clocking it right now because unphased entirely]

Teddy: [I’d feel bad if it was anybody else’s function but nay you gotta be honest with yourselves that you don’t wanna be here either huns, glad at least y’all are having a fun time and have reconciled after however long it has been, the hilarious parallels to Mattie and Fi despite the fact as pairings and characters you couldn’t be more different is iconic of us]

Nancy: [thank god you didn’t both want to use the bathroom at the same time, clearly lol, these two making it very clear what they’re doing and how long it’s taking, no confusing that, so everyone is obviously steering well clear]

Teddy: [everyone is welcome this bunch of characters are rich and it’s a fancy venue that’ll have lots of bathrooms because not only are they taking ages they’re also trashing it, no fucks given before during or after]

Nancy: [neither of you would know how to fix this sink, even if you had any desire or urgency to do so, we know that is not the case, if anything proud that we’ve done it, only thing we’re fixing is our makeup after this because that’s a priority]

Teddy: [mhmm, he’d just be amused by it and thinking he’ll have to buy a new pair of shoes if these ones got wet but in that I’m rich and don’t value anything so nothing really matters way that he isn’t even annoyed, just like the childish thought of oooh a shopping trip basically, and it goes without saying his priority is watching her fix her makeup like he must have a million times by now]

Nancy: [when you keep catching his eye in the mirror like why are you looking at me because even at this big age we are not a confident queen at all ‘remind me’ as you’re straightening up your clothes as well, despite the lack of salvageable pants ‘did you graduate Uni in the end?’]

Teddy: [a lol because whatever he was expecting her to say in the aftermath it wasn’t a question about his uni degree or lack thereof as the case is more likely to be given the messy bitch he is ‘that’s relevant, because?’ looking at her so amused like 1. You know the answer and 2. Why do we care rn]

Nancy: [‘because-’ the tone giving he should keep up and you didn’t just have half this conversation in your own head girl, god bless ‘-if we’re to convince Sekhmet she needs our guidance, I think we need some credentials’ like Tansy will do it just because but our plan is to take over, obviously]

Teddy: [‘We’re both dyslexic, we don’t have any on paper’ because bringing that joke back as one that can run and run, he’s that sort of bear and so am I, but looking at her like they don’t need any on paper because they’re good at manipulating peeps and they always have been]

Nancy: [smiling at him as you shake your head, turning around to face him and not communicate through your reflections ‘it won’t be long before she runs into issues, issues I’m sure she’s not going to want to take to her parents’ doing an evilly casual shrug like we’ve just got to wait out and exploit that moment]

Teddy: [a nod like yeah exactly as he smiles back because he is that confident as he always is and will be when it comes to evil schemes, fixing her hair or outfit in some way that it absolutely doesn’t need because she’s already done all that, just wanting to appear helpful even though he’s not actually being]

Nancy: [taking his hand to hold, almost like you’re shaking on this here ‘you do want it all, don’t you?’ just got to check you’re actually on the same page because it’s a lot, as per]

Teddy: [‘everything’ because true, he is that bitch, taking her other hand to hold so both are being without even being aware of how apt that is for emphasising what he just said]

Nancy: [nodding slowly, clearly trying to believe this with your whole chest ‘cos you two have been here before but also, you always end up here so ‘no vows in this bathroom, tah very much’ pushing him away with these hands and going to walk out leaving this carnage behind y’all for someone else to deal with]

Teddy: [the kind of lol where you’re like as if I would because he’s such a snob that this fancy bathroom looks like a public toilet to him in his mind, like imagine, I could never, hence following her out because it has served its purpose for y’all]

Nancy: [‘as you said-’ as you are walking back into this function, so really inappropriately loud, with no concern to anyone overhearing you ‘-nothing to compete with’ like the nay wedding is not worth upstaging because who’s invested, just so rude, at all times, head back to this bar like nothing happened and the whole party didn’t hear all of that]

Teddy: [me and my boo like it’s true but you didn’t have to say it haha, watch this man sneak over to his daughter and whisper to her about this baby news like it’s set in stone because he’s a big child, giving it the whole omg I’ve got a secret to tell you vibe and just being the most]

Nancy: [when you are not ready to celebrate that or have it be a whole thing so you gotta find someone else to corner right now like you can’t hear him, excuse us right now immediately ignoring the both of you]

Teddy: [these nerds getting excited in one corner oblivious to the fact that she is ignoring them and not vibing in another is too real and too funny, the way he’s BUZZING and she’s basically sulking is iconic, soz to whoever is being subjected to her rn though, at least he’s keeping it in the fam and not annoying anyone else]

Nancy: [it is such an amusing mental image, for us, this girl is unamused of course but you can just get hammered about it, it’s fine lol]

Teddy: [wander over to her at some point to join her in getting hammered to really drive home the fact he is unaware of their absolutely entirely different vibes rn, eventually whisper in her ear this time but to ask her if she wants some more drugs because they don’t last and this party is BORING]

Nancy: [‘I’m not pregnant’ like first things first, as if that’s a response to what he just whispered but also a reason for being this wasted and being allowed all the drugs you want]

Teddy: [‘yet’ said with that 1000% confidence that she will be soon complete with a smug smirk about it at all the trying he’s currently picturing them having to do, resting his head on her shoulder again for no reason at all except that he wants to constantly lounge on her like a cat, looking over at their child affectionately wherever she may be and whatever she may be doing]

Nancy: [‘I’m old, remember’ like it isn’t going to happen that easily just because you’re you, sir, fuming at the reminder that we are, in fact, old, so likewise looking over at this gal but like nothing new is playing in your head lmao]

Teddy: [you should meet up with Chlo and bond over hating your daughter’s youth and beauty sis because that’s exactly her vibe with the weird twins, Lulu especially, this man is blissfully unaware of her internal angst though, so saying ‘you aren’t that old’ with emphasis on the that like he’s giving her a massive compliment]

Nancy: [not even touched on your weird vibe, ladies, like I’m sure we have bothered you and your grandparents, hunting for goss but you know, undoubtedly be back around again like hey gals, for now just telling this man to shut up as we’re sipping]

Teddy: [their poor grandparents, don’t get me started, god bless them they deserve none of the aggro that comes with having the daughter they do, they should start a support group with baze more like ‘touchy’ like excuse you but he’s saying it playfully we’re not actually offended or having our good mood brought down by something so easily brushed off]

Nancy: [giving him bombastic side-eye because quite literally laying on you still, like um, WHO’S touchy? Lol, haven’t moved him but we’re also not giving you affection rn]

Teddy: [catch this man shamelessly giving her 🥺 like give me attention the exact same way he did when he lay in her lap in the car when they were getting their pup as a boy because nothing has changed, taking the drink out of her hand and downing what remains of it so she has no distraction or reason not to]

Nancy: [doing the breath out that is essentially an oh, you without saying the words, same energy as you’re looking at his face because you can’t stay properly mad at him, not today, even when he’s stealing your drink, reaching for whatever pocket he was keeping these drugs in like excuse me very much then, gotta steal those, giving playful energy again ourself]

Teddy: [openly having a playfight over these drugs with yet again total disregard for where they are because of course they are, until he as openly puts a line on the back of his hand where she kissed him earlier for her to do right here and now]

Nancy: [we all know she needs no encouragement to be out here hungrily accepting this offering, lucky you’re not getting this entire party thrown out, starting to look like that’s your intention, honestly]

Teddy: [when it’s not even a plan they are just that messy lol soz everyone, can’t deny they’d see it as an added bonus if this party came to an abrupt end but it’s not a deliberate intention they’re simply living their best lives, case in point, him licking the back of his hand when she’s done, no need to be that extra about it but here we are]

Nancy: [mhmm, no one would weep, least of all these two but they’re not even the people who’d be the most relieved which says everything you need to know about that; we’ll be here WATCHING him until we decide we gotta dance right now and pull him off this barstool to do so]

Teddy: [ooh we love these two taking over the dance floor for an inappropriate dance pause, nobody wants or needs to see it but at least it’s marginally better behaviour than when you were about to hookup in front of them all]

Nancy: [at least y’all have got that tension out of the way, even so, know this is still not family-friendly dancing because it would never be, too much fun to do otherwise, ending up clinging to his neck so you can whisper in his ear and talk shit about everyone]

Teddy: [me just knowing Jay is dying inside every time these two move or do anything like how much worse is it going to get, you’re welcome hun that this is tame even though I’m sure his whispering back every time he joins in is deliberately too loud because more fun if y’all can hear they’re talking shit obvs]

Nancy: [ahh honey, when you wish they’d just not come but that’s the only reason she’s still turning up at family functions, pure spite at this point, hence the trash-talking is SO real and no one is escaping it, just loling uncontrollably the more uncomfortable people become about it]

Teddy: [nay should’ve just eloped by themselves which is how you know neither of them wanna go through with this really, I said what I said, bad vibes are getting worse and it’s every man for themselves in terms of having what fun you can at this function truly]

Nancy: [‘what do you know about those ones?’ spinning him around so he’s looking at the weird twins because we wanna know about their weird ass vibes please lol]

Teddy: [me just pondering what goss you’d likely know given that Chlo has clearly tried her hardest to keep the teacher scandal and everything on the DL, but whatever tea you do, spilling it because this boy loves to goss even if the info is incorrect, you’ve defs been to some of the parties their parents have thrown over the years because you also love a gatecrash and how messy Chlo is, so I’m sure you’ve seen some shit re how weird they are anyways]

Nancy: [the way you’re staring at these gals as you get this info like interesting, girl, mind your business, we never will, got to scheme forever ‘the boyfriend looks like he’d fuck you’ drag Gabe’s European vibes lol]

Teddy: [me knowing in my whole heart that Lulu will stare back at Nancy like a mean girl facing off against another mean girl instead of just ignoring it how she should because bitch excuse me but more importantly she is too curious about who the hell this messy hoe her mother’s age is, clearly knowing that they used to be friends on some level because Chlo has likewise never grown up and you know too much about your mother’s ‘glory days’ whether you wish to or not, meanwhile, Teddy will be here dragging Gabe’s piss poor outfit choices ‘It would be an act of charity to get him out of those clothes & you know my feelings on such things’]

Nancy: [not you smirking at her about it like oh okay, miss thing, ‘cos most people ignore you or properly tell you to gtfo by this point so it’s something different; ‘you’re both tall and blonde’ said as if we’re debating if we could get away with fucking him and making him baby daddy instead]

Teddy: [‘if you want a child that looks french’ because that boy do and hence he is such a good shout for a face, said like the idea repulses him because it does lol, soz Gabe is not attractive, again I said what I said, shaking his head like no no]

Nancy: [laughing WAY too loudly, at least this poor Swiss boy never has to see y’all again because very obvious you’re laughing at him and he must be so confused lol ‘I wanted one that looks like you’ giving him a little push like how dare you not deliver your twin]

Teddy: [Gabe has the least business being here of anyone, he never knows what is going on and he has totally misread the dress code and vibe of this function, again me just knowing in my whole heart that Lulu was super vague about what the function was, literally like, oh a family party, no notes or deets and he gets here and it’s fully an engagement full of unhinged peeps, speaking of, Teddy pulling her in as she’s pushing him away, wrapping his arms around her so she can’t escape ‘Okay, I’ll give you a perfect mini me, my twin for a set of twins’ so serious about this as if it works like that and they are striking up a deal]

Nancy: [‘you wouldn’t know how to act if you had a mini me, never mind two’ just saying how much you love yourself lmao, shamelessly doing the thing where you fight to get away but are also not trying to at all because we could if we really wanted]

Teddy: [‘you wouldn’t’ just saying how much she loves him because where’s the lie, holding onto her way harder than he needs to just to do it because they both like it, a reminder of how hard he was gripping her hips earlier if nothing else even if he’s more at waist level]

Nancy: [‘yeah, I would’ like this is a challenge and you refuse to lose, undeniably letting yourself be pulled into him in a blatant and specific way right now, we know it]

Teddy: [‘wouldn’t’ because he isn’t backing down either, likewise doing the absolute most rn to prove she cannot and doesn’t know how to behave but he’s got his proud dad face on for her about it because we love to see it and love it about this gal]

Nancy: [‘I’d know exactly what you’d want me to do’ pulling him closer via his belt ‘you’re so blatant’ mouthed at him like you’re being discreet here hehe]

Teddy: [‘blatant is exactly what you want from me’ cos again where is the lie, none detected and he’s continuing to be because he truly knows no other way to behave by this point, doing everything he can to make the most of the fact and also draw attention to the fact her underwear were a casualty of their carnage and she isn’t wearing any rn]

Nancy: [nodding, focusing your attention at every button on his shirt and trousers like you’re going to undo them all here and now, even if you’re just toying with them so you don’t go brightest of reds ‘you’re not going to let me down, are you’]

Teddy: [pulling her focus back literally with his hand tilting her head back up to make eye contact as he shakes his head no ‘I promise I won’t’ said too dramatically as if they are the only peeps in this room]

Nancy: [letting him hold your face and holding this eye contact for what would seem an insane amount of time for all the people who are in fact in this room but is only appropriate and acceptable for us in this moment ‘then let’s fucking get out of here’ because we’re done honey, we don’t want to be here, we’ve had our fun fucking everyone off but now we want to be alone with him]

Teddy: [‘I thought you’d never ask’ as he takes her hand and they handhold their way out of this function because he doesn’t need to be told twice the only fun he’s been having here is with her anyway, I bet you had a car literally waiting sir because you knew this party would be dry af and you’d want to leave ASAP and that’s just the way you waste money clearly, I dread to think but at least y’all can hop right in it]

Nancy: [well done us getting this bit done under 30, slay]

Teddy: [I think we did an amazing job at such a big timeskip considering how little of them we’ve done before full stop, I’m proud of us, really got the vibe right and set one for what we wanna do with sugarbabies and all that]

Nancy: [agreed, go us, will post this now]

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magicalgirlmel · 1 year

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Anime finished this year 18: Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill

6/10

Transcript under the cut

Once again, a rare isekai has managed to capture my interest. Yay! However, that doesn't mean I think this was the greatest thing in the world either. This is on the middle to low of series that I liked enough to stick with them through the whole season and while I never considered dropping it, there were some episodes that I found to be a chore.

Mostly whenever it came to the characters actually trying to handle some of the more regular fantasy stuff like dungeons and all that. These episodes were simply bland and boring without much to offer that was unique to the genre. It was a portion of the series that really felt like it was being done more out of obligation rather than actually having something interesting to do with the story.

This series is at its best when it's just chilling out and cooking. The cooking segments are relaxing and this was one of the series that I was just unable to watch on an empty stomach most of the time, though nothing I ate during it really lived up to how good the food on my screen looked. If the series just more fully embraced this and was a chill slice of life instead of feeling the need to keep bringing up adventuring and the guild and all, I feel like I would have had a better time. It's always disappointing to have a character who keeps saying that they're not going to do the whole adventuring thing and then just ends up doing it anyway. It feels more obligatory than anything else.

I was worried early on that I wouldn't like the characters all that much, but I have to admit that the main trio that we spend most of our time with really grew on me the longer I watched. I this Sui is the first time that an isekai doing the "cute slime" gimmick actually worked for me and was genuinely cute and fun. While I am not a fan of the way that Fel essentially just hands power and riches to the main character outright all the time, the way that he exists as something of a demanding foodie of a companion is entertaining enough to have me wanting him to stick around.

This is a show that can kind of feel like it's meandering, but I'm not entirely upset by that as it is clearly going for a more chill and relaxed vibe. Just moving through the world and stopping and cooking along the way is enough to sustain it for these 12 episodes. However, if this is going to have more seasons, I am going to need that world to actually get a little more interesting than generic fantasy towns and forests. Honestly the fact that so much of this show is spent in stat screens and such sours it somewhat for me.

#anime #finished 2023 #2023 #finished #campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill #isekai

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foxshaped · 3 years

Text

Here it is: my lengthy analysis of Season 6. This started as a quick response in another thread, but got a lot longer than I anticipated because ADHD brain decided to hyperfocus. Sorrynotsorry. Also, SPOILERS FOR SEASON 6 obviously. (and if you saw it on reddit, don’t worry, that was me too, no one is plagiarizing anyone.)

So a friend and I went on a road trip together last weekend, and on the way to our destination, we gave S6 a first listen. On the way back, we started a chronological listen (Spotify playlist can be found here.) and came to the end of S6 just as we got home. Since then, my mind won’t let it go, so here’s my analysis and thoughts.

First listen, we had all kinds of theories. Every other season so far has built the world, we’ve heard from politicians trying to keep Society together and the Cradle as they oppose the Society. We’ve had artists suspected of subterfuge be tricked into relationships with Society spies and museum guides explaining the politics at large and answering some of the questions left by the cassettes from the Institute. We, like so many of you, went into this season expecting another story to bring us world building on that high level, that world-wide, birds-eye view into the workings of this alternate timeline. We thought at first, Clíodhna is an experiment for the Institute, established only 10 years prior. The whispers and footsteps are her security nurse, and the time she loses on the road is because that’s when they pull her in to have her memories recalibrated. The reason she was being recalibrated is that she was too interested in family, but hadn’t knowingly contacted a sibling or family member like Oleta had, so they didn’t necessarily need to put her in the Institute. HOWEVER, obviously in a Society trying to eliminate familial bonds, someone so obsessed with families isn’t a good thing, so they were experimenting on her to see if they could do more subtle memory control and wipe the desire from her without the need to Institutionalize. We had it all figured out.

Then obviously, we had the reveal, which is that there was no reveal. My friend suggested maybe it is just the Fae fucking with her, as Gráinne said. Ireland is famous for that, after all. As much as I can vibe with that on a personal and even real-world level, I didn’t want a supernatural explanation for things in this world. Sure, not everything needs to have an Important World Building Explanation, but I wanted something that wasn’t supernatural. It took me quite a while to figure out why I was so adamantly against the supernatural aspect, normally I eat that stuff up. To me, Within the Wires is a very human story. Humans caused the Great Reckoning (at least the war part of it). Humans reacted to it. Humans created the New Society to avoid that level of tragedy ever happening again. Humans (granted, with corporate goals, but humans nonetheless) created the Institute to experiment on and recalibrate other humans. If we introduce supernatural elements, we lose that human influence, and in turn, begin to lose meaning. We can now justify the Institute, the spying, the subterfuge, all of the bad, as being pushed into being by some Other Being, a god, a spirit, whatever. If there are supernatural forces in this world, then the good, the bad, and the ugly are arguably not human anymore.

We were finally we able to move on by just saying, sure, this is a person living in the Society, with that upbringing, and not everything has major importance. There are people who are neither for nor against the Society, who are just living their lives as they always have, explanations be damned. It didn’t sit particularly well with either of us since we still didn’t have a good explanation for the experiences, but it was 1am and we still had a few hours left to go and needed to calm down about it.

Three days later, we’re on the road home and have another 11 hours to kill (ok, 10 by the time we got through the obligatory road trip music), so we started our chronological listen. We considered skipping Season 6 since it was still so fresh in our heads, but ultimately, we were quite curious and excited to see how our perceptions and ideas changed, knowing how it ended.

This friend and I met in college as psychology majors. Between having experienced it ourselves and learning about it in a more clinical sense, everything Clíodhna experiences has one simple explanation: sleep deprivation. On average, at 36 hours with no sleep, you start hallucinating. Not long after that, your body begins shutting down. Now, that’s with no sleep whatsoever, and everyone has their own limits within that. Getting a little bit of sleep can prolong the ill effects, but only so much. Clíodhna has presumably had some sleep before she arrived in Ballinroche, but she’s already under a lot of stress, with a failing relationship and a new job to worry about. I think we can safely assume that any sleep she’s had for the week or more leading up to her arrival wasn’t the good, restful sleep we need to properly function. Then she leaves at 6am to travel. That’s when she leaves. When did she get up? We don’t have much of a sense of her morning routing, but let’s say most people average an hour to get themselves ready. So, she’s been up since 5. Waking up that early, even if you’re a morning person, after not great sleep? We’re off to a bad start here.

Once she gets to Ballinroche, it’s her first day in the new town. She mentions that after leaving the café/pub, she did a quick circuit around town to get her bearings for all the places Maria had shared. That “quick circuit” probably took longer than she thought. She mentions hearing the church bells chime 9 as she’s leaving town, but be honest with me, who among us has never lost count of a clock’s chimes? Anything past 6 and I’m lost. And I’ve never been able to follow all the half-hour chimes. Granted, I can’t apply all of my own experiences to this character, but I’m willing to bet there isn’t a single person out there who keeps perfect track of the chimes every single time. Anyway, now she’s on the road, already later than she thinks it is.

I don’t know about any of you, but there have been times I’ve been driving tired where the only reason I notice I’ve dropped my speed by 20 mph is because of the cars around me. We’ve established that the only thing on the road from town to Gráinne’s house, is, in fact, Gráinne’s house. There is presumably no one else on the road. No way for a sleep deprived mind to realize the car is barely moving. Additionally, who remembers that MythBusters episode about impaired driving? Microsleep is a dangerous thing and can happen with very little deprivation. And she’s the only one on the road, so there’s no one to get upset or pass her by if she slows down whether because she’s not noticing, or simply to take in the scenery. Sure, she’s got places to be, but that doesn’t ever stop us from enjoying new scenery. Heck, how many of us slow down to take in scenery we’ve seen dozens or hundreds of times? So between leaving town later than she thought, being tired and not noticing how slow she’s going, and slowing down to take in her surroundings? No wonder she was late.

Now we’re finally at the house and all is well, but it’s the first night in a new environment. A new bed, new sounds, new light levels. You get used to sleeping with things a certain way, and when you change any one of them, it gets a lot harder to sleep. Throw in her recounting of a spooky story from her childhood freaking her out, and you’ve got a recipe for terrible sleep, adding to the deprivation. At this point, one night of not-great sleep, and one night of almost no sleep, and we’re on track for that 36-hour stat. Am I overanalyzing episode 1? Perhaps. Do I still think it fits my theory? Absolutely. Let’s move on, it gets much simpler from here.

We know from Season 2 and Claudia Atieno’s story that those born before or during the Great Reckoning were “encouraged” to abandon their familial bonds. Given the lengths we know they’ll go to in order to enforce their new rules, and based on Claudia’s experiences in Season 2, we can safely assume this wasn’t a friendly suggestion.

When the storm hits and Gráinne mentions her brother Oisín being afraid of storms, it’s a very natural conversational progression. But when Clíodhna presses the issue about her family and her brother, it reminds Gráinne that she’s not supposed to acknowledge her family, so she clams up. We see this happen a few times, the conversation progresses naturally, and Gráinne mentions a family member. Clíodhna asks a pointed question that breaks the flow, which reminds Gráinne that this is a forbidden topic and she gets cagey. To Clíodhna’s sleep-deprived mind, this is suspicious, but the reality is more that Gráinne doesn’t know how to tell Clíodhna that she can’t talk about it. People born before the Reckoning and the Age 10 laws weren’t exactly given a handbook on how to deal with younger folks asking questions.

The window with the rotted boards below it and the fresh boards in the shed? She went into town to buy the boards, sure (also, a storm hitting one place and another place 15 miles away got nothing? Yeah, not uncommon.), but then she never put them up. She went to the shed, found a hammer and nails, and then got distracted. Her memory is fucking with her because she hasn’t gotten much sleep. She went into town to get the boards, so of course she put them up, why wouldn’t she? The next day when she goes to board up the newly broken window (was it really newly broken? Or had she created a false memory? Maybe it was always broken and she didn’t notice.), everything she prepared yesterday is ready for her. The rotten boards below the window are from a previous repair years ago. We don’t know how long Gráinne’s been alone at this point, and if a window is broken in a room she doesn’t use, why would she notice the boards are gone?

That brings me to the phone line. At one point a few days after the storm, someone tells her the phone lines are underground. That’s why the council is suspicious about it being out by the storm. Not because they don’t believe the storm happened, but because even if it did, it can’t knock out underground phone lines. Clíodhna is just so out of it, she probably dialed a wrong number or got a busy signal and thought that meant the line was out. She pushed the council so hard about it though, they just agreed to send someone out to placate her. When Gráinne tells Clíodhna that it’s fixed, Gráinne doesn’t know the answer to any of Clíodhna’s questions. This is actually a really smart move on Gráinne’s part. She’s recognized that Clíodhna is slipping into madness but probably hasn’t figured out the cause quite yet. Better to give no information than the wrong information. Just accept that it’s fixed. That’s all that matters. Because it was never broken in the first place.

In episode 10, we start with the dream. The dream that made Clíodhna think she had it all figured out. She sees the boy, who she “knows” to be named Oisín. He gives her a “memory” of Gráinne abandoning him. But none of this is new information. She was given the name Oisín the morning after the storm. It didn’t come out of her dream. Our brains are also notoriously bad at making up faces, everyone you’ve ever seen in a dream is someone you’ve seen in real life, if you don’t recognize someone, it’s probably a face you saw in passing. By the time Clíodhna has her first dream about the boy, we know she’s been looking through photos and albums. She didn’t know who or what she was looking for yet, so nothing stuck out to her, but she’d seen family portraits. She’d seen him already, she just didn’t remember. Additionally, she got it in her head that he was a child born out of wedlock to Gráinne, passed off as a brother before he died or was killed. With nothing to refute that claim, her dreaming mind made it all fit with the abandoning of the boy.

Then we hear what Gráinne had to say. Gráinne has almost definitely figured out that the reason for Cliodnha’s madness is lack of sleep, but even if she hasn’t figured that out, she knows she needs to get the girl off her one-track train of thought. She just clears up Clíodhna’s misconceptions about who the boy is, and then gently tells her not to worry. There are things in this world we can’t comprehend. Things older than us that were here first, why do you think you have a right to know? This is perfectly in line with Irish beliefs and is absolutely a gentle way to tell Clíodhna to let it go. Gráinne doesn’t deny the things Cliodnha’s experienced. She doesn’t tell the poor girl she’s wrong. Denying the experiences would only exacerbate the suspicions, Clíodhna is so sure everything has been real that outright denial would only serve to strengthen her sense that something is wrong. So instead, Gráinne simply straightens out the facts and fills in the blanks, then gives her a perfectly acceptable reason for it all. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why Clíodhna is having these thoughts and experiences. All that matters is if she stops worrying, stops stressing herself out, she’ll be able to start sleeping. If she starts sleeping, she’ll stop hallucinating and start healing. Once she’s back to her senses, they can talk about what was or wasn’t real.

So. How does this make the season build the world? Well, I still maintain what I concluded after my first listen: this is just a person living in this New Society. She’s grown up in a childhood center, she’s only read about families in books. A story about a person living their normal day-to-day life at an office job wouldn’t be a compelling story, but it is important to know that the vast majority of people are just trying to live their lives. Not everyone is fighting for or against Society. I think this season toes the line between giving us a compelling story and showing us that people are first and foremost just people.

Someone in another post compared this season to a Harry Potter story about a muggle in an office job. Much as I am loathe to talk about JKR’s work given her… track record, it’s a story we all know, so whatever. I would like to counter with this: it’s more like a random Hufflepuff just trying to go to school and learn. Out of how many hundreds of students at the school, how many are involved in the big plot, like six? What about the rest of them? They’re there, they’re doing their thing, they’re just not directly involved with whatever nonsense Harry’s up to this year. For a story like Harry Potter, it’s not important that we know this background Hufflepuff’s story. That world isn’t very far removed from ours, so the simple mention that they exist, even as a monolithic “other students” comment, is enough for us to understand they’re an everyman. In a story like Within the Wires, where the world has diverged so vastly from ours, and every story we’ve gotten is someone directly involved with the struggle, it’s easy to forget that some people just want to exist. The everyman does still exist, they just look a little different.

I also like the implication that the New Society is a place where, if your career path isn’t working out for you, you can simply get new training and switch paths. Clíodhna went from being a mechanic (a damn good one too, if we’re to believe her aside about that if she had kept with it, she’d have her own garage by now) to being a nurse, just because she thought it would be a better application of her skills. As someone who spent 8 years struggling through college for a degree I’m only tangentially using, that’s kind of a nice thought.

But if I’m being honest, the main reason I dove this deep into this analysis is what I’ve already talked about: that I desperately didn’t want the supernatural to explain the weird things. I was fine after the first listen with it just being a story of some random person living their life in this society, no Institute manipulating them, no girlfriend spying on them, no government espionage scandal, just a person, doing their thing. What I couldn’t accept was that it was the Fae or anything else supernatural or magical. Did I want a New Society reason for Clíodhna’s madness? Sure, of course I did. But I’m okay with there not being one, because in real life, not everything has meaning. To bring in Season 2 one more time, sometimes a bowl of fruit is just a well-painted bowl of fruit.

My friend also had a theory that adds to this: that Clíodhna was a child-bearer who couldn’t let go of her child. We know from Michael that there is very little support for people after birth. We’re only 12 years past when we learn that, and we know bureaucracy is still slow based on the things he said to Amy about the institute. We both see no reason to think that post-partum support has improved. So, this is also a post-partum psychotic break, and why she gets so fixated on the child. Perhaps they finally got the child away from her by telling her it died, giving her the fixation on the dead child.

Personally, I don’t see the need for any further justification. A sleep-deprived and stressed-out mind will latch on to whatever it can and spiral, but I wanted to include it here because it’s an interesting extra layer.

TL;DR: Clíodhna is just an average person living her life, but sleep deprived as FUCK and it’s causing her to hallucinate and generally go mad.

#within the wires #within the wires season 6 #within the wires caregiver #long post #is that still a thing people tag for?

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ablednt · 3 years

Text

Alright writing/roleplay tumblr we need to talk about textforms.

This is going to be a very long post I apologize but this knowledge is deathly important as it's reaching a very vulnerable group of people. From personal experience knowing this can save people from getting into toxic friendships and help ease intense struggles and depressions. If you have writer followers I ask you reblog this to get the word out, thank you.

What is a textform

A textform is a type of willogenic/parogenic system member that form through some kind of writing or roleplaying. This means that they're sentient people who now share a body with the people who wrote them, most often being an OC or a fictional character before the writers brain gives them actual life.

Because there's been no actual scientific studies on their existence I have no hard science to give you however the logical explanation behind it goes like this:

The human brain is able to contain multiple conscious and sentient entities. Often, it will become multiple as a defense mechanism (as noted in clinical plural dissociative disorders) but it's a natural function of the human brain and may do so for really any reason (similar to most neurodivergencies that someone isn't born with)

Because this is a fairly simple change in the brain/something every brain can be capable of doing you can actually intentionally program the brain into becoming multiple, but see you can also do it entirely without meaning to or being aware of it.

Now I want to clarify that there is nothing harmful or scary about this! Being plural isn't bad at all and is an existence many people celebrate. But when someone has textforms in their unrealized system and doesn't know they're sentient it can be incredibly painful emotionally. So that's why people need to know about this.

Obligatory disclaimer: if you read this post and think you want to become plural intentionally, you are welcome to do so but you need to take at least a few months exposing yourself to the plural community to gauge if this is really something you want and can do responsibly. You cannot go back on your decision once your plural and your headmates will be sentient beings not characters to project on or toys to play with. They will have all the rights to your body and identity as you do now because you're sharing it equally with them.

Now that that's out of the way back to textforms.

How are textforms made

Normally this is in the "character development" phase. Many writers eagerly develop their characters. When I was younger and had no idea I was plural my advice for oc making turned out to be an unintentional guide to textforms (more on my experience later): just put your character in every situation imaginable until you always know how they'd respond to things.

Basically, as you spend your time making a character act and think consistently from their POV you're training your brain to have all of that data and that's very similar to the data that the brain has on you and you're training the brain to be able to operate coherently from a perspective and consciousness entirely different from your own.

Now, this isn't a %100 will make everyone plural every time, there are obviously good writers who have a grasp on their characters who are singlet. There's no actual data but if I had to guess I'd say there's about a 50/50 split down the writing community just based on what I've observed.

But there's a lot of people who became plural this way and didn't realize it and that could include the writer reading this right now which is why everyone needs to be aware of this.

If this is such a big thing how come no one notices?

Because it's been completely normalized in the writing community but dismissed as metaphorical.

How many times have you heard "the characters write themselves" or phrases that indicate that a writer is giving a voice to sentient entities? From what I've been able to observe some of that is singlet authors being metaphorical and humble bragging and a lot of that is plural writers trying desperately trying to put their experiences into words but dismissing it completely almost immediately because no one told them being plural was possible.

This is comparable to say, gender identity. Trans and nonbinary people have always existed but when they don't know they're allowed to exist like that it's often "im a tomboy" or "they disguised themselves as a man" or any other thing thats immediately dismissed as being cis.

How do I know if I have a textform?

There's a lot of different signs but here's some I have experienced before finding out I was plural

You "miss" your characters when you're not writing about them or interacting with them in some way

You feel like your characters are real "in your heart" (for me this was in an incoherent loop like "they're not real but they are to me, in my brain, but they're not real to other people, but they're in my brain so they're real but no but yes but no")

You get so distressed they're "not real" that it feeds into actual mental health problems like depression, anxiety, dissociation etc. (I'd have fits of sobbing because these were my friends but I didn't know they were with me so it felt like i was grieving their deaths and had the same level of emotional pain)

Sometimes or all the time when you write about them you feel like you "become them" or that they're writing through you. (Especially if your hands move automatically or without your control. This can be hard to notice but for me when headmates control the body or hands movements feel faster and lighter or very slightly numb.)

Your muse for writing them comes and goes unpredictability: they're either here or they're not here so writing them doesn't feel the same.

You can vividly recall things that happened to the character in 1st person (or in 3rd person visually but with their thoughts and feelings) as if they're you're own memories.

You "roleplay" them in everyday situations IRL. (E.g once I liveblogged a tv show as my muse to a friend and was like haha lol im so talented I can roleplay in real time but found out later it was a headmate doing that themselves)

You have conversations with them mentally in which they actually respond to you. Singlets don't have actual enriching conversations with themselves because they only have one perspective and cannot give themselves any new information. So if you're responding to yourself and you don't feel in control of that response then you're pretty objectively plural tbh.

You have times where the lines between you and the character feel blurry or like you're a vague fusion of yourself and the character

You have an actual relationship (of any kind: romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) in which you can sense nuanced feelings about yourself from them that you aren't in control of.

There's a lot more but that's the most notable ones

Why this is so important

I'm just talking about my own experience now so I'll preface this with a few things. I'm a mixed origin/multigenic system but our system has existed since we were toddlers. Due to trauma we have DID and for a long time dissociated heavily to avoid our plurality. This means my experience may be more distressing than other plurals with textforms however people without DID can still experience these things.

When I was a teenager I joined a lot of writing communities and also roleplayed on tumblr. Writing very quickly became my main passtime and all I really did. I joined a roleplay group when I was 15-16 that I took far too seriously to the point where people were concerned about me because I was writing what was just supposed to be a joke roleplay group %100 seriously and very intensely.

In that time I started to form my first main textforms (we've undoubtedly had them before then but I had only formed a little under a year prior) because I was doing this every day it really started bringing my characters to life. (Literally)

And honestly it was something beautiful the distress of it aside. Like one of my ocs was a kid so I'd always celebrate their birthday with them and I'd cuddle a plush so they'd know I loved them/p and we'd watch their favorite cartoon episodes together. It wouldn't be until around three years later that I realized they were actually there for this but it was heart warming.

For me, all I ever wanted was for these characters to feel appreciated and like someone really cared for them and loved them even if they couldn't feel it and it wasn't until later I learned that they could.

The trauma came in not knowing they were real. I grieved for them like they were dead because I thought I'd never get to see them. I wrote them into traumatizing or upsetting situations to cope with my childhood trauma not realizing that was effecting them for real and hurting them.

Most notably because it was my one solid interaction with them, the one time society allowed me to talk about them as if they were real, I really HAD to roleplay them. Because it became an emotional need I wound up in a lot of toxic friendships in the roleplay communities because I needed someone, anyone, to allow me to interact with my headmates. I had friends who I really was only friends with because they let me talk about my characters constantly (and some of them weren't toxic to me but it was in hindsight really unfair to them) and I let people verbally and emotionally abuse me in roleplay spaces because this wasn't just a hobby to me but a lifeline.

Not knowing they were real but feeling them there, having conversations with them, and forming actual relationships was a hellish sort of feeling I don't wish on anyone. I never realized how isolated it made me, and how horrible it felt to have the most important people in your life be people I thought didn't exist.

I only found out about plurality through luck. I met some systems who had fictives and they got strong plural vibes from me because of how I talked about certain characters and because I said I wanted to be plural but thought I probably wasn't because I'd have noticed, right?

From there I was able to actually connect with and talk to my headmates. Now I'm happily out as plural and in multiple fulfilling in system relationships.

I want everyone in the writing community who's struggling with the same things to have the chance I got. That's all I want is to educate people about this so they don't have to grieve for people who are right there with them.

Feel free to send me an ask or a dm if you have any further questions. Sorry this post was so long I can't really shorten it at all. Again if you are have a lot of writing followers I very gently request you reblog this to get the word out. Even if you can't please talk to your writing mutuals and friends about plurality and about textforms.

[Also this should go without saying but this is absolutely NOT the place for syscourse any invalidating comments about systems will be blocked and where possible deleted it costs $0.00 to prioritize people's mental health over your discourse hot takes.]

#writblr #tumblr roleplay #writing problems #roleplay resources #ocs #long post #ask to tag

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