#oh i also enabled posters so you can get a poster of it from the teepublic if you want

[beesorcery]

i redesigned this shirt and now you can put it on your body

here it is, the final culmination of my fun cool graphic design project where i replace cities with 8balls!! If you want to follow along the process you can check out these posts: one, two, and three :D

if you are interested in wearing this as a shirt i made a teepublic! you can also download the files from google drive if you would like to print the design yourself

thanks for following along!! i have really had a lot of fun doing this (and just following 2our in general, the vibes were sweet) and i'm glad other people enjoyed it too :)

(better quality images under the cut <3)

[insane-control-room]

Some things are meant to be remembered; for the right reasons.

i've posted this review on steam, but i think that i want to say it here, too.

Here is my review of the 'promotional' material (according to steam) Secrets of the Machine

What I liked: the art appeared to be a true return to form; the style had its original charm with updated lighting techniques and slightly better optimization than previous games in the Bendy series. The audio design was also nice, with good ambiance and nice composition.

And now, the jank.

The game handles reasonably well; but it is clearly slapdashed together and is missing important components. There is no starting menu. There are no loading screens; and it is very jarring. There are no options in the game menu - you cannot minimize the game, you cannot brighten the game, you cannot make the game run any better on your computer, and it is incredibly laggy. If you have a potato laptop? Nah, get out. No game for you. There are no subtitles that you can enable, and voices are very muffled. Additionally, the game is very dark, and as mentioned, you cannot adjust that in the settings of the game, nor in steam settings. You have to do so from your computer.

Controls are extremely janky, as you cannot run, you cannot jump, and there is no indication for interaction with any objects. There are no control settings for remapping, and you cannot even see which keys do what.

Puzzles are boring and confusing; with no guidance. There were no hints, no rhyme or reason. There was more puzzle in the BATIM chapter 1 demo release. This thing is very confusing, especially when you cannot see anything at all. You will spend a long time walking back and forth between two rooms, wondering how you can progress, because you've done everything you could: you smashed cutouts; you hit targets; you opened and closed hands; you found posters for future games, but nothing that could move forward the one you were playing at the time. If you look at the community page, you will see that most people simply spent their time clicking on the soup can dispenser to see how many cans they could get.

If you have epilepsy, nah get out. Oh? I didn't mention the flashing lights? Well the developers did not either. Not only did they not mention the flashing lights, not in the game nor in steam, but they included TWO car crashes without warning - one audio based, and another that was directed at players. This is not only rude, but it is dangerous. Warnings exist so that people can make educated choices whether or not to interact with content that may be sensitive to them. Warn people appropriately. This 'game' did not take any measure to protect its players. There are many instances of sudden loud noises, flashing lights, and jarring location switches (not to mention the car crashes).

The story was lacking, and has nothing to do with the puzzles that a player is faced with. It feels like three disjointed tracks, and none of them align, all of them crashing together in a discordant, unsatisfying, confusing mess. It brought in more new characters that had nothing to do with the original story nor interested players, and had content that went against previously established material. It was (as you can tell, from a writer's perspective) a bad story.

It was less of a demo, less of a playable trailer, more like a tech demo with a few morsels for fans to pick apart and wish there was more of, wish there was more effort put into, wish there was more love and care for them, the players who arguably were the foundation of this game. There were teasers for games that, honestly, lacked the soul that the very first game had, and here's a point to prove it: there was an easter egg that if you clicked something 414 times (very funny.) it would rise in the air and then fall down without further ado. In the game files, the name for that sound effect? Sting. Yeah. It did. Games are a collaborative work; between the creators and the players. Blatant disregard and flippancy towards half of the collaboration is not acceptable behavior. This is a development team that mocks those who once loved them most, those who poured over their coding and carefully crafted world to marvel at what they had made, and coaxed in others with the rich promise of a delightful story that anyone could engage with on any level. The spite the creators have shown for the individuals who, essentially, had given rise to their stature in the first place, is painful.

Finally, by the time that I got a chance to sit down and actually play the game- I personally could not. The developers, by constantly updating a clearly unfinished game, had made their final update - that of a wood board blocking the actual place where gameplay takes place. You cannot go to any of the places shown in the screenshots, because the game is locked on the opening area. I've seen many people complaining of it; hoping that they can play the game.

Now, in the fashion we've seen common of JDS, they have rescinded their terrible design choice - but without notifying players that it is now possible to play the game; without telling players that this was purposeful; without telling players anything aside from a big old screw you. It is entirely possible that the only reason they put the game back into a playable state was the torrent of negative reviews that spawned after their. interesting. choice. regardless, those who care about their playerbase would have informed those who complained that it was a temporary gesture for storytelling reasons. They, however, did not, and there are a multitude of reviews marking the game as unplayable.

No matter what, the bottom line is this: This is not okay.

I'm not sure how much more eloquently I can put the fact that I'm heartbroken. This game, unlike any other, shows how much scorn that a developer can have for their own fans and playerbase. I am glad that there are people who enjoyed it, but I wonder - what did you really like about it?

Is it the memories?

[sassyfrassboss]

I can no longer find the article but--

Rumor tracking anon here - I don't have *that* article but I do have one from Vanity Fair about the 2017 BAFTAs (and Kate's first time accompanying William). I bookmarked the article because there's a line about Meghan in that is so wildly out of place that it made me verrrry suspicious about her:

We have high hopes for Kate and William’s (oh yeah, William is there, too, in a tux) night at the BAFTAs. Will they recreate the La La Land poster pose alongside Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling? Will Kate reference Meghan Markle in overheard conversation (“My future sister-in-law is an actress, as you may or may not have heard, so . . .”)? And will Meryl Streep and Kate Middleton pose together, enabling a flood of “one royal meeting another” captions to be posted on Twitter?

In the grand scheme of things, Meghan in February 2017 was *not* important enough to be worthy of this kind of throwaway comment in the same breath as all those people. So then why would Vanity Fair do this? Always rubbed me the wrong way. But now, hindsight being 20/20, it tells us a lot.

I'm fairly certain that this is around when Sunshine Sachs and Vanity Fair were negotiating Meghan's cover because it's the first time her name was dropped with all these A-List celebs. I do think it's part of "everyone loves classy" but it's such a random throwaway it slipped under the radar. (And specifically my gut is telling me that the "my future sister-in-law" part was Meghan or Sunshine fishing for an invite to Pippa's wedding among other A-list freebies.)

Here's the link. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/02/kate-middleton-prince-william-baftas-alexander-mcqueen

Hey love! How are you!?

Thanks for this! Can you imagine Catherine EVER talking about a woman she had only met once by this point? HAHA!

Plus Harry and Meghan had only been dating for 6 months at this point and 90% of that was long distance.

There were a ton of articles around this time about Meghan and Catherine. Many of which were about how Meghan would be much more suited to the role of Duchess or even Queen than Catherine ever would.

So this was also right around the time that the rumors on Tumblr started that Harry & Meghan had split up after she had been escorted out of the UK a few weeks prior. The rumors were that she took photos of the Wales kids and was caught. Charles had her escorted out of KP and to the airport sometime in December or early January. It is said that Harry dumped her because she wasn't worth the drama she was causing with his family. Later when she flew out to Skippy's wedding, which she is said to have been given a passing casual verbal invitation at a house party, and then she and Harry slightly reconciled but she was still chasing after him to get his attention back. They fought a ton on that trip apparently. Which proves true from the beach photos that were taken. It was right after this she shut down her blog and IG and claimed she quit Suits for Harry.

[noushienoushnoush]

I recently watched Naruto the Bonds movie. I think I've seen it before? But remembered nothing of it and given that I've been in a rabbithole of sns content lately, I was curious as to how sns is portrayed in this movie given that, you know, the title and how the main poster for it is just Sasuke and Naruto, which is pretty different from the other movie posters.

And boy was it a journey. I was laughing my ass off the whole time. I keep thinking about the part where Sakura is going to head back to Konoha to warn people of what's going on Naruto says "oh yeah, me and Hinata will carry the mission" and i will protect her or wtvr he said but IMMEDIATELY FORGETS ABOUT HER??! (Not to mention how annoyed he was to have to go on this mission on the first place)

We don't see Hinata until like way later when she's captured along with the village people like plssss.. meanwhile as soon as Sasuke shows up, Naruto loses his shit and when Sasuke leaves the basement where the zero tails is (wth was up with the zero tails thing? It made no sense), Naruto just leaves this giant weapon of mass murder and crazy old dude who enabled it to run after Sasuke.

Oh and also at the end when they're falling down from the sky and Naruto says in the most affectionate voice "I feel him.." as Sasuke leaves (though of course they immediately change the focus to ooh! But Naruto can feel all his friends! How nice! Ans here's Jiraya saving them!!)

Like the creators of this movie were so all over the place but one thing they did get right is Naruto losing it whenever Sasuke is around. And of course his talk no jutsu about pain and loneliness.

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Vice Versa ep 10

Oh the pink and red/blue and purple of it all.

First, I can't believe I predicted something so spot on! It's their pink. When I wrote the below, I was just hoping I was on the right track but to have Puen say it himself at the end? 🤯💯

What else can I say? Other than now that Puen and Talay are together, and following on from all the scenes with these colours in ep 9, there were again a lot of these pairings in the scenes with Puen and Talay. Starting with the opening scene:

Then the editing room:

Fuse and Kita at the film premiere...and the red wall behind Kita and the sky blue of the film poster to the right of Fuse (also Up in a blue suit):

Then all the friends together:

Even in the brief bar scene there's the blue/purple lights on the wall and the blue jeans with Up's red sweater, the red drum kit, and Talay's pink trousers:

And at the food stall, pink behind Puen and the group and blue to the right (the extra in the middle also has a blue and red striped top):

In the close up of Puen, he's in red and the blue lights are behind him:

Back at Talay's apartment (the lights have been different colours throughout the series), and not once...

...but twice...with the blue on Talay's side and the pink on Puen's:

And in Puen's very blue room, he pulls out Pakorn's favourite boxers (there is also a red 'bust' to the right of the room visible in the wider frame shot):

And finally, Talay's suit - blue with pink pinstripes:

So at this point, I think it's clear that Pink is and always has been Puen's colour...and @nolastpage, you mentioned in your tags on a reblog of my post that you hoped we'll get to see Talay's colour...well, I think Talay's colour is blue. First, his name means 'sea'. Second, the very first ep was Ocean Blue. Third, he wears a blue bracelet in this universe. And fourth, all these blue/purple and red/pink pairings lean towards it being on the blue-indigo scale.

In both a support of this and also to make things a bit confusing, in ep 7, Puen sees some lights when he's out with Pang -> "blue, orange, light blue (I think he says "si fah" which is blue but 'fah' alone is sky), and pink" - and wonders what to call the 'tone' of these colours. Pang suggests "Talay" or 'sea'. This could indicate a few things -> that Talay's colour is the blue in that mix (because Puen is the pink), that Talay really is a blend of all those colours, or that Talay's colour is whatever you interpret 'sea' to be - potentially the blue of the water with a pink sky and orange sun...much like this perhaps? (actually, I don't think this helps at all 😂 It's maybe just a cool connection).

Anyway, so it could be that we'll continue to get these colours in ep 11...but, whilst Puen and Talay are separated, I think there'll be an absence of them. At least around Talay there'll be less pink and around Puen there'll be less blue. But I might be wrong.

(What is interesting is that when I go back and look at some of those scenes with pink and blue, there is often some orange or a sunlight-type glow...seriously, scroll back up and have a l👀k).

In part 2 of ep 10, Puen and Talay talk about how Talay has ended up 'liking' pink because it reminds him of Puen. They come to the conclusion that this is the thing that they have in common and will enable them to get back to their own universe. Whilst this may or may not be true, in writing the above about the moment in ep 7, I was reminded that Puen has also picked up something from Talay - he adopted the habit of naming colours because Talay usually does it. So perhaps it's not just the colour pink that connects Puen and Talay but ALL colours, naming colours, and being aware of them...

But actually, it might be more than that. Because, thankfully, being each other's portkey ended up NOT being about them falling in love...but more about about how they change each other in the process of falling in love. About how pink goes from being something Talay hates to something that makes him think of Puen. And Puen starts to see colour, be aware of it, and name and associate colours with people and places just like Talay does... Make of that what you will.

Anyway... I loved that they both seemed so on board and on equal footing about saying their goodbyes and preparing to leave and that they were both committed to going back when it happens. Only, it happened for Puen but not for Talay...yet! I wrote a whole load on this here, so I won't repeat myself...

So next week?! Well...here I come with my clown predictions... because I've mentioned a few times now that I've wondered if we might get a reversal of the first three episodes -> we've had the Pink to go with the Soft Blush (which I LOVED that Talay called Puen's pink colour 'shy' when Soft Blush was when they started connecting), so perhaps next week will be a green (a 'sea' green maybe?), and then we'll get a blue to finish it up. I have a theory (and share it with @grapejuicegay) that Dol might actually be Talay's portkey (that they might be the person we see in the overhead shot with Talay in his dream) and it was interesting during their goodbyes that Dol had a blue and green striped top with a pale green shirt over the top:

And then, the wishes on the tree are blue, pink, and green. I mean, come on! This is just screaming at me. (The title screen also blended green with pink before it settled on the latter).

But, you know, I might be wrong. Ep 11 might also be something quite neutral in vibrancy (I wonder about a beige/sand palette) due to Puen and Talay's separation...but whatever, I could go on and on, so I'll stop 😊 (oh and I talk about Fuse, his shirts, and Aou here).

[Ep 1] [Ep 2] [Ep 3] [Ep 4] [Ep 5] [Ep 6] [Ep 7] [Ep 8] [Ep 9] [Ep 10] [Ep 11] [Ep 12]

The ramblings of this post brought to you by the pinkest beer I think I've ever had. It's not bad...a little sweet...the Brewdog with just guava is better, I think. It's the raspberry that tips it over the sweet edge. Oh and it wasn't intentional at all, purely a coincidence that I was drinking it whilst writing this post 😄

[pudgy-planets]

By the way.

I wasn’t kidding in the slightest, she’s a flat-out Mermaid NEET.

Meet Royal SMD-200 (Sea Maiden) Ruri. She is the sole member of her class.

Primarily designed for aquatic and deep sea operations, she was gifted with a highly specialized, computational algorithmic mind for assessment of combat planning.

She can withstand extremely high pressure and due to her biomechnical nature can breathe indefinitely underwater with the help of gills and naturally refilling oxygen reserves within her body. These oxygen tanks can be utilized as a propulsion in the water and on land, it enables her to float, since she can’t exactly walk through normal means… as for the location of the gills that’s undisclosed.

As she was designed for peacekeeping purposes… She doesn’t quite have a backbone. Or any sort of vehement will. So when she was enrolled into the institution, upon the headmistress’s request… it didn’t quite pan out the way you’d think.

Has never attended a single class or lecture in-person, she accomplished all of her studies from the safe, impenetrable fortress that is her dormitory. Or Dorkitory because her room is laden with posters of her favorite video game, manga, and literary characters.

Anxious. Very anxious. Going outside? Wrong. She’ll be content staying within the confines of her ‘Gamer Palace’. Just… leave her delivery right outside the door please. She’ll get it in a few minutes.

If you’re wondering about her capabilities in combat, don’t. It’s not because she doesn’t have any potential, but her professors have NO data to utilize because Ruri (or Rudy, she likes being called this too, due to CHALKZONE.) is so self-isolating and self-conscious she refuses to come to training.

Her intelligence? Her Strategical and Tactical Acumen? Superb. Amongst the highest of the Cyber Academy.

Her physical prowess? None to speak of. She’s flabby, overweight, and above and beyond the usual BMI.

Is she useless? No. Far from it. Her essays and reports on tactical simulations are immaculate. Is she incapable? Also no. But her lack of willpower and crippling anxiety means she’s a liability under most circumstances.

The goal of her enrollment is to break from this self-made shell of hers. No literally, her bed is a giant fucking pink clam shell decorated in stickers. Jokes aside, her potential in untapped, lying underneath those glasses (she’s blind, please don’t make fun of her for those-) and waiting to be unleashed.

When that day comes, no one will know… but she’ll likely surprise everyone~

Oh yeah and here’s this fat-assed nine-tailed Kitsune… I’ll talk about YOU later.

[lonespektr]

Oct 4th & 5th Double Whammy The Columist & Cuphead Day 18/19

Exhausted from Covid Booster but not down

A feminist jurno

Twitter dox threats bout her kid

Lil fake model cuuute

Omg that dude is giving pick up artist extrodanaire

She has to write a book

Omg why is there a poster of him in the office

Back to Twitter

If it's that's bad you should go to the police

Bb journo kicked off school paper

Black Pete! Extremely racist no prob with that

Advocating violence

Back to Twitter

Oh she did comment on black pete

A negative commentor looks like a construction worker

Is that her friend? Because she was saying shit things before

Her bike got jacked

Why did she break the fence?

Is that an orb weaver? They make webs in hallways its mad irritating

Grooosss why

Joy boiled egg

Rom com

Now he fucking stay there?

wtf

Now comments section of the egg post

Just murdering guys that probably aren't the commentors at all

Like literally none are confirmed

Now she wants to chat

At least this is confirmed

It's wild hearing older languages than yours and you're like damn we stole Hella your words

Full serial killer trophies and all

These just bug me because you can't just become a serial killer if you're pissy

Out to eat in public

It would piss me off a fake guy spewing fake violence irl has no anger

Now pizza gate shit

None of this is tracking

But what's her face is a great actor

Even still it's getting slow the character deviations aren't explained

The fact that she's doing all this out in the open is....

Pizza gate person is a punk

This is... Dozens

I would say it's writing but there was one on the news

19/16 is not cool though

Still making protest posters

It's lagging in the middle how can she be that good at murder with no practice

Principal way too far

What's the payoff if she's already around the bend?

Police

Just dropped a name and left

Dumb enough to leave bloody tools but smart enough to have a kit? 🙄🙄

The pizza gate is intense though

They going to bring up the writing eventually or nah?

The good guy stick doesn't play like they think it does because he is still peddling misogynistic violence and he never backs her about anything he just says ignore people saying all the things I do generally but to your face

You're not a good guy

They can't all be single yea

There's the model

What kinda writing call the police but not who or why

🙄🙄🙄

Too busy with murder to see the kid is the turning point?

Sigh That only makes narrative sense if she expressed.. Nm

Crying?

Sirens were heard she just chillin??

Boom living with dad

Cold turkey nature walk

Now he's fucking enabling

HOW CAN ANYONE BE THIS INEPT

Back at it

She love touching evidence

Pick up artist gone

Going to the event bloody

I mean good ending but not enough to justify the lag

Could have made it a tight hour also needed more messiness too clean a narrative

The Cuphead Show

I never watched the original

It was a game

Based on 36 Japanese animation

Well first off the theme song is a banger

In classic style of explaining the show in the intro

Come with me to the Inkwell Isles

It’s just off the coast, maybe twenty-nine miles

Where there’s good and there’s bad

And then there’s in between

With Cuphead and Mugman, you’ll see what I mean

Ice cream and rockets, trouble never ends!

Watch these ding-dongs as they make new friends (Zig-zag, zig-zag!)

They’ll need some help just to stay on track

Oh no, there’s that guy! You better watch your back

So, if you’rе lookin’ for fun (Yes, we’re lookin’ for fun!)

And a dash of heebiе-jeebies (We’ve got the heebie-jeebies)

Then pack your bags and let’s go!

Welcome to The Cuphead Show!

Welcome to The Cuphead Show!

Absolutely has the vintage feel

The main thing is two chuckle nugget brothers

One neurotic one chaotic get into shenanigans

And by the end it turns creepy

There's 2 seasons

It's only 10 min per sode

The cups live with their elder kettle

It's in that time frame

They run into the devil on day one

After that there are mobsters and adventures in babysitting but also ghosts pirates murder mystery and they get locked up meet a beastie girl ghost scammer and a monster candy town mayor

It's 80 slice of life 20 creepy

All while having near by brushes with the devil oh because one of the cups owes the devil his soul

I mean oh no that guy you betta watch your back

They don't try to update it the animation is retro

And the voice work

There are some fourth wall breaks

Some episodes are all horror and some are the horror of children misinterpreting things

The background is, - the painting uh landscape is creepy and set (old timey) and the animation is bright and incongruent like it used to be

They are bited sized and only a few episodes are flat

[writefasttalkevenfaster]

John Munch / Simple

Prompt: “Suck it” “oh i’m gonna suck something” 

Word Count: 3,887 

Warnings: canon typical situations and violence, discussion of rape (non-graphic), hurt/comfort apparently, fin and munch are literally some of my fav characters to write for lmao, some discussion of the psych evals from 1x22

A/N: what is this? how did this happen? I don’t know - i blame @laneygthememequeen​ mostly, but also my friends for enabling me beyond belief lmao. 

“Am I allowed to come in or must I bow and show my allegiance before I am deemed worthy?” and you didn’t need to look up from your desk to know who it was. Your pen still moved, scribbling notes in the margins of the answer that was given to you by Roger Klessler — more hassle than law. 

“No need for allegiance, Detective Munch — I know you only give that to your squad and your string of conspiracy theories,” you finish with the page, sparing him a glance, “only compliance is needed — the one thing you didn’t do on the last case.” 

“Your hands aren’t exactly clean yourself, counselor,” he shuts the door behind him, slipping his hands into his pockets, “what did you do to get that warrant again?” 

You raise an eyebrow, “Are you questioning my integrity?” 

“Funny, I didn’t know lawyers had any,” 

“They don’t, but I can try, can’t I?” you lean on your elbow, “what do you need?” 

“We have a suspect in holding who just invoked, we thought they might be a little more conducive to having an A.D.A. in the box with them,” he tilted his head. 

“Alex isn’t available?” 

“Alex told us to get you,” you held in your sigh, “don’t you lawyers talk to each other?” 

“No, we communicate through telepathy,” you reply drily, grabbing your coat and bag, “Let’s go.” 

~~~

“Counselor, you should remind your client that his options are running out,” to say this meeting was going poorly would have been the understatement of the century, “and my patience is running thin.”

A serial child and women abuser — with videos abusing so many children and women over the last twenty years, videos that made your stomach turn — and to make matters worse, he had made into a business, selling these children and women and their pain for profit — and now it was time to make his pain your profit. 

“You have no evidenc—” 

“We have a witness who saw your client, we have his DNA being run against the blood that was found at the scene, and when it comes back it will match and your client will be facing life in prison—” your teeth grit,  “And I’ll be sure he gets it. Or, give up your sick buddies. And maybe you’ll have the possibility of parole in the far off future.” 

“You fucking bitch—” he spits at you. 

“Is that the best you can do?” you raise an eyebrow, as you see Munch tense out of the corner of your eye, “Mr. Bradford,  I’m not scared of you. I’m not a defenseless child or battered woman you can intimidate—” you cross your arms, “not so easy picking on someone who can fight back, is it?” 

 Bradford lunges,  but Munch shoves him back into his chair, “Do we need to add assault on an A.D.A. to your laundry list of charges, Bradford?” and you blink, slack jawed, a shiver going down your spine — if Munch was a second later— “Try that again and I’ll have you—” 

There’s a knock on the window, and your eyes snap over, “Control your client, counselor, or I’ll have him locked up in solitary,” your jaw is set — you wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing you waver, “the offer had 24 hours — it now has an expiration date in ten, so look forward to hearing from you in one.” 

The door shuts behind you, your fingers white knuckling the handle of your briefcase. Liv frowns, “Are you—” 

“I’m fine,” you wave them off, as Munch emerges from the room as well, “tell me when he caves to my offer. And when you’re setting up the sting to get the other guys — I want to be there to make everything go smoothly. No screw ups this time.” 

“All due respect, counselor, but we don’t need a babysitter,” Fin says. 

“All due respect, Detective, maybe you do,” you swallow the lump sitting on your throat, “we need to nail these guys — we have all of New York, 1PP, and the D.A.’s office all breathing down our necks — it needs to be airtight,” you scan all of their faces, “unless all of you would like to take the heat?” 

“I don’t think any of us want that, counselor,” Cragen cuts in, “we appreciate your help. We’ll let you know when we decide to go ahead with the sting.” 

You nod curtly, intent on leaving the precinct as quickly as you could — the image of Bradford lunging at you still fresh and stinging — but nothing was that easy, “Counselor,” Munch was at your side, standing beside you at the elevators, as you pressed the button, “in a rush?” 

“To go home? Yes,” 

“I just wanted—” 

“Wanted what, Munch? What do you want?” you sigh exasperatedly, fighting a losing battle for your voice not to break, “I’m not in the mood for a verbal sparring match, so why don’t we take a rain check?” 

The elevator doors ding, and you step in, hoping to spare yourself the agony of a response, but he follows, the doors shutting behind him. 

But surprisingly his voice was soft,  “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” 

“I’m fine,” you cross your arms, hoping that it would hold you together, until you got to your office, “I’m not scared of him, Munch—” 

“I know you could kick his ass, counselor, I’m not asking you if you’re ready to go seven rounds in the ring with him—” he leans against the wall of the elevator, “I’m just asking if you’re alright.” 

You raise an eyebrow, “John Munch asking me if I’m alright? No sarcastic remark?” 

“I know, I’m surprised myself, I might have to ask Skoda to do a psych eval on me,” and you crack a smile, shaking your head. 

“It was scary,” you admit, something you didn’t want to, “I’ve been threatened before — messages, verbally, even had a guy say he would kill my family—” you bite your lip, “but I never had someone try something, physically before.” 

“It’s okay to have been scared, y’know,” the elevator doors ding, and you step out, shaking your head, “no one expects you to be strong all the time, counselor.” 

And you pause, looking back at him, “But I do,” you blink away the tears, “good night, detective.” 

~~~

“It’s too risky!” you ignore Munch, continuing to fix your makeup, “You saw how you acted when Bradford lunged at you — why—” 

“I would do anything to make sure these men get put away,” you finish your makeup, grabbing the outfit Liv had handed you, “and that includes this.” 

This being an undercover operation designed to get names of victims, ages, and dates if possible, before arresting the group for exchanging pictures and videos of their crimes. 

“Putting yourself in the middle of this chaos? You’re being reckless—” 

You slide past him and into a bathroom stall, “I know what I’m doing,” 

“Do you? Do you know how many things could go wrong?” he continues, “I could list them for you for posterity — assault, battery, rape, and let’s not forget murder—” 

“I don’t think Liv will let me get murdered when she’s in the room with me, and I would you, Fin, Stabler, and the Captain wouldn’t either—” 

“Things go wrong on these ops, counselor — the field isn’t as safe as a courtroom — court officers, a metal detector right outside—” 

His words fail when the door swings open, a skin tight bodysuit clung to your figure, crimson, just as his ears nearly were, his eyes raking over your outfit, before finding their way back to your raised brows, “You were saying?” 

He stumbles over his words, “I was saying that—” you cross your arms, waiting and he finds himself distracted all over again, before he shakes himself from his stupor, “I was saying that this is too dangerous—” 

“Munch—” you cut him off, “I appreciate your concern, really I do, but I’m going to nail these guys anyway I can, so you can’t change my mind,” your hand finds his shoulder, squeezing, “but I can count on you to have my back right?” 

He simmers, sighing, his eyes softening, “Of course,” and you squeeze his shoulder, and he calls after you as you head towards the squadroom,  “I just hope they taught you taekwondo in law school,” 

“And I hope you know by ‘having my back,’ I meant more than my ass,” you flash him a smile over your shoulder, shaking your head, and flexing your fingers. 

It would be fine. 

You would be fine. 

~~~

It wasn’t fine. He couldn’t find you. 

“Where is he? Where is that son of a bitch, he took—” 

“Munch, calm down,” Liv starts, and he’s shaking his head, his finger in his face. 

“You were supposed to watch them, you were supposed to—” 

“Hey, Munch,” Elliot cuts between him and his partner, his hand on his shoulder,  “we all were there, Bradford slipped out during the raid, there wasn’t anything we could do. We’re going to find them.” 

Munch brushes him away, finding Fin, “Where are we on Bradford?” 

“Got him sneaking out during the takedown,” Fin points you out in the crowd, “looks like he had a knife pressed against counselor’s back, just out of view.” 

“How the hell did that scum sucking, gangrenous low life of a—” 

“Looks like he stole it off one of his buddies he was setting up,” Fin rewinds the tape, and points it out, “lifts it right from his pocket.” 

“Where does he go?” Fin fast forwards, until he gets to the cameras outside, shooting from the van itself. 

“He steals a car down the street, must belong to that brownstone,” Fin shoves the equipment at another officer, “Let’s get the license plate and get a bolo out.” 

Liv and Elliot join the two of them, handing a report to Fin, “We got a list of places that Bradford was known to hang out at—” 

“What are we waiting for?” Munch brushes past them to the car, rounding the car to the driver’s seat, pulling it open, before Fin stops him. 

“I’m driving,” Fin says, holding his hand, and Munch opens his mouth to rebut, “do we really have time to argue right now?” 

Munch glares at him, before handing him the keys, “You better not abide by any traffic laws,” 

“Do I ever?” 

~~~

“Can we go any faster than this? I swear my great uncle could drive faster than this,” Munch expects his partner to be angry, but he’s only sighing and shaking his head, “what?” 

And Fin side eyes him, “If you’re in love with—” 

Munch gapes at him, “I’m not—” 

“--then why don’t you just say something, man?” Fin scoffs, “you can deny it all you want, explain it away with one of your crazy ass conspiracy theories, but it’s there, John.” 

Munch pulls off his glasses, running his hand over his face, fingers resting right below his nose, “You know every time I got married, I thought I was in love,” 

“I know, and then your ex-wives screwed you — what about it?” 

“This is different,” he sighs, “and I don’t want to admit that to myself.” 

“What’s so bad about that, Munch? You want to try again,” and Munch is shaking his head. 

“You know a psychiatrist once told me that the reason all my marriages failed was because I chose women who were spoiled, beautiful, and not my intellectual equal?” 

“Meeting some of your ex-wives, I could believe that,” Fin’s eyes fall back to the road, “what’s your point?” 

Your name slips from his lips, “this is different — this is someone’s who's my equal — smarter than me, beautiful— it could — we could be—” he cuts off, “I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose--” and he cuts off, sighing, “I don’t know.” 

“Well that’s easy, John,” Fin pulls over, the car screeching as it does, “we won’t,” and he jerks his head, “whose car does that look like?” Munch calls in the car, unbuckling himself and slipping from the car, “We have to wait for back-up—” 

“I’m not waiting—” before he adds, “you don’t have to come—” 

“I’m not letting your bony ass get shot again,” Fin is already shutting the car door, pulling his gun out, “let’s go.” 

~~~

“Are you scared now?” Bradford asks, circling you — a predator gauging its prey — no, he was simply playing with you now. Your wrists flex against your restraints, the wood grain of the chair digging into your skin the more you struggled, the rope around your wrists ungiving, “are you, counselor?” 

It was rhetorical — judging by the tape stuck to your lips and the fact he continued to speak, and his fingers fist into your hair, pulling your head back, “Come on, no smart remarks now?”

Are you that stupid that you’ve forgotten that you taped my mouth over? 

No, wait he was that stupid. 

And he slaps you — the sting of his palm against your cheek dazes you a moment, and then his fist lands a blow in your stomach, choking on the same air you breathed, tears burning before slipping down your cheeks. 

“Do you think this is bad?” and now he’s holding your face between his fingers, nails digging into your cheeks, and he grins, a shiver going down your spine,  “just wait.” And he disappears a moment, his shadowy figure rifling through a bag on a table. 

Your eyes darted around, looking for something that could help you, something to help you escape, but nothing was within reach. Your chest squeezed — what if you died here? What if you never saw your family again? What if you never saw your friends again? What if they never found your body? Fear claws up your throat, eyes burning. 

What if they found your body? 

What if Munch found your body? 

You had promised him you’d be careful, but you were careless. You didn’t watch Bradford close enough, you didn’t stick with Liv, you were stupid — so stupid. 

And you wondered if he’d rape you before he was done — if they would find your body like so many victims that came across your desk. You wondered if he’d kill you at all — or just let you live with the memories of his torture. 

And you didn’t know what was worse. 

But then something clatters in the distance, and his head is whipping around, there are footsteps, and he’s grabbing a knife, cutting your restraints free,  “Come here bitch,” he mutters, hurrying to cut the ropes, at your feet before moving to the ones at your wrists,  “they aren’t taking me before I get a chance to slit your throat.” 

Blood roaring in your ears, you know you have to do something — he’s almost done cutting the last rope at your wrist. You couldn’t wait for help. 

You rear your head back, before smashing it into his, hard. His groan gets caught in his throat, as you lunge for the knife, the handle within grasp of your fingers, and you’re trying to crawl away, a deep ache in your skull. You’re stumbling to your feet, but his fingers close around your ankle. 

“I should have fucking killed you from the start,” and you kick him with your free foot, hearing him scream and the satisfying crack of his nose breaking, gripping the knife in your hand and pushing yourself to your feet. 

And you rip the tape from your mouth, “Get the fuck away from me!” you point the knife at him, heart pounding against your ribcage, as he lays clutching his bloody nose. 

But he’s still getting to his feet, “You better hand over that fucking knife—” 

“You better not take another step before I blow your brains out,” and suddenly Fin and Munch are there, Fin stepping forward to arrest Bradford, as Munch is beside you. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” and he’s trying to ease the knife out of your fingers, but you won’t let go, “let go of the knife, it’s okay,” he’s murmuring in your ear, slipping the knife from your fingers, “you’re okay. I got you.” 

Your knees are buckling, and he’s holding you, your head buried in his chest, “I thought he was going to—” 

“I know,” he says softly, “I know, but you’re okay.” 

“Because of you,” And he’s helping you up, and police sirens in the distance, as he helps you out of the building, “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be,” he whispers, “I’m sorry,” 

“For what?” and his arm around you squeezes you gently. 

“For not saving you sooner,” And suddenly EMS and police are flooding the scene, Fin is shoving Bradford into a car. And you spot him, glaring, but Munch steps between his view, his arm around your shoulders, “don’t bother with that scum. He’s not worth it.” 

And he wasn’t — you knew he wasn’t, but you know that you wouldn’t be able to prosecute him now. But, you craned your neck to watch him be taken away, you wanted to see the bastard get put away at least. 

It’s over, you tell yourself as you rest your head against Munch’s shoulder. 

It was over. 

~~~

“I just want to go home,” you shake your head, but he pulls you along regardless, protesting all the same.

“Just let them look at you, please?” he asks, “if only for my sanity.” 

And you scoff softly, “I thought you lost that a long time ago,” 

“There’s that wit,” he replies, and you go with him, fingers intertwined with his. E.M.S. examines you, insisting on taking you to the hospital for a possible concussion. But you don’t want to — you just want to sleep, you want to take a shower, you want to forget this ever happened— 

“Please just let me go,” you’re pleading with him, tears slipping down your cheeks, “John, please let me go home.” and he’s wavering for a moment, before his hand is on your shoulder, gently pushing you back down. 

“I can’t, and you know that, counselor,” he never wanted to see you cry like this, he never wanted to see you as a victim — because you aren’t just another victim at his desk or in photos spread across his desk — you were you. 

But you were also a victim now. 

“Why not?” you lie against the pillow in defeat, tears slipping down your cheeks, and he’s leaning down to your level, running his fingers through your hair. 

“Because you’re hurt, and you need to be seen. I don’t trust doctors as much as the next conspiracy nut, but you still need to see one,” he tilts his head, “do you want me to come?” 

And you’re blinking back tears, before nodding, “I’m sorry, I’m—” 

“Don’t apologize,” he’s wiping your tears away, “don’t ever apologize for this.” 

~~~

You don’t remember much else — it’s a blur of testing, until finally they let you sleep. And you don’t know how long you sleep. But you don’t dream, and for that much, you’re thankful. You awake to the low hum of hospital machinery, and quiet voices in the room. And you blink, the fluorescents much too bright for you, and your eyes flutter shut again, before not before voices creep in. 

“—been asleep?” 

“It’s been a few hours,” Munch whispers, assumedly trying to keep from waking you, but that was out of the question already, “docs gave something for sleep.” 

“Have you said anything yet?” and it’s Fin asking. 

“When? In between the ambulance ride here and the C.A.T. scan and the fifty other tests they ran?” Munch replies drily, sighing, “it’s not the right time,” 

“You know there’s never going to be a right time, John,” and you’re grateful that you’re turned away from them, your brow furrowed, their voices growing louder, “you have to say something or is counselor a mind reader now?” 

“Well—” 

“Don’t spout another conspiracy theory or you’ll be the one in the hospital bed,” you could almost see Fin crossing his arms. 

“You know that psychiatrist also told me I could make a conspiracy theory from a five-year-old’s lemonade stand,” 

Fin raises an eyebrow, “Well now that I believe,” 

“What am I supposed to say?” Munch asks, “‘hi, I know you almost just died, but I think I’m in love with you?’” 

And your eyes snap open, the air sucked straight from your lungs — “It can be that simple,” 

He was in love with you? John Munch was in love with you. Your heart squeezed at the thought — you hadn’t a clue that he was. You knew he cared — but you didn’t know he… loved you.  

“Nothing is ever that simple,” and you turn around, the words leaving your lips without a thought. 

“It can be, John,” and both him and Fin’s gazes snap to you, a small smile on your lips, “if you let it be.” 

Munch is staring at you slack jawed, while Fin is grinning, elbowing him, “I’ll leave you two alone,” before he adds, “remember that there is an officer at the door—” 

“Fin—” and he’s gone, disappearing out of the door, and Munch is wiping a hand down his face, his cheeks flushed red, “so how much of that—” 

“All of it,” and he’s covering his hands with his face, “for someone who claims to be so evolved, you’re very cute when you’re embarrassed,” 

“I’m cute?” he repeats, and you hold out your hand to him, and he’s staring a moment — as if he can’t believe it — before taking your hand, “how cute?” 

You snort, “Just cute enough, don’t go getting an ego,” 

“You’re sure it’s not just the concussion? And the almost dying?” and you roll your eyes, tugging him closer, by his coat’s lapel, and he’s whispering your name. 

“How’s this for an answer?” and you kiss him — his lips barely brush yours a moment, but he’s already pulling you back in, parting and meeting until you hold him there a moment, fingers twisting in the hair resting on the small of his neck, “John—” you breath against his lips. 

“I don’t understand why…” he whispers, your foreheads brushing. 

“Why...?” 

“I don’t understand why me,” his fingers cup your cheek gently, as if you’d disappear between his fingers, “you could be with anyone — why would you choose this paranoid, old detective?” 

“Because it’s you,” you softly chuckle, and you draw your lips to his again, “and I wouldn’t want you any other way,” before you add, “except maybe sharing your feelings more so I don’t have to overhear any other conversations to know how you’re feeling.” 

“I could say the same to you, counselor,” 

“Excuse me, I said how I felt first,” you gape at him, in mock offense. 

“Only after hearing how I felt,” but you shrug, smiling as your noses brush. 

“Still, I was the first, so suck it,” you reply, and he laughs, a warm sound that makes your chest stir. 

“Oh,” his lips brush yours, a smile on his lips,  “I’m gonna suck something.” 

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

Ya know, I truly hope Miss Renesmee Carlie Cullen fully dedicates herself to just....being as out there and iconic as possible

first things first- ANYTHING with the loch ness monster on it, she owns. Posters, shirts, jackets, shoes, folders, buttons, iron-ons, there is always at least 5 pieces of Nessie merch on her at all times

once she gets old enough to start high school, the cover story is her and Edward are siblings that Carlisle and Esme took in, and sometimes her classmates will ask her what her biological parents were like and she will flat out be like 'oh, they're vampires' and Edward and Bella are like. 5 feet away trying not to scream

every Halloween she'll show up to school in an elaborate Nosferatu costume

goes out of her way to photobomb people in increasingly ridiculous ways so there will Always be a photographic record of her and in like 100 years she can get a huge kick out of teens on the internet trying to make a conspiracy about her

joins as many school clubs as she can, even if she has no interest in them- she just Really wants a concrete record of herself to exist lmao

ICONIC at school theater though. One of those demon theater kids that come to rehearsal purely to cause chaos and nothing else, but her voice is incredible so she secures every lead. One time she somehow managed to star in a show while also playing in the school band for it- her classmates still have no idea how she pulled it off

Always brings blood out in public in a CLEAR THERMOS and it stresses her family out so much but everyone else thinks she's just like, weirdly into tomato juice so the Cullens can't stop her

to everyone's surprise...her biggest chaos enabler is Jasper lmao. everyone thought he'd be a logical, responsible uncle but they're just. A Problem together. He'll 100% assist her in any prank she wants to pull, he gets her fake id's when she wants to sneak into a club with friends, he bails her out of jail without telling her parents, they figured out if she gets high and he reads her feelings he'll get high too and it's. So fucking funny.

she's always carrying some random instrument around school- like for a while it's a guitar or a harmonica, fine, but then she'll start lugging a cello around, a tuba (she doesn't even play, she stole it off a guy who was annoying her) and it escalates until one day she's wheeling a piano around the building. no one's even sure how she got in in the doors of the school. She keeps running kids over in the hallway with it

You know the Catherine Tate Lauren Cooper skit with David Tennant? Where she's being a terrible student and then perfectly recites Shakespeare? 100% Nessie

when she starts getting dates Jacob keeps trying to wing man and be over supportive and give her a ton of girl advice and it's embarrassing as hell so one day when he was on a spiel about How To Woo A Lady she looks him in the eyes and goes 'oh really? did that work on my mom?' and the Cullens fucking LOSE IT. Jacob had to go live in the woods for a few days because he couldn't cope

Emmet and Jasper: arrive to school in their jeep. Rose and Alice: arrive in a convertible. Edward: arrives in his dumb volvo. Bella and Jake: arrive to school on motorcycles. Nessie: arrives to school on a unicycle while juggling

one year she ended up getting nominated for prom queen and Edward read the minds of the teachers tallying the votes so he knew she won and he and Bella were so excited!! they're like we're gonna take so many pictures of our baby looking like a princess! And then she emerges from her room, actually drenched in pigs blood. Like she just did it to herself and went to the dance and accepted her crown like that

she regularly commits crimes against fashion. If she comes out of her room and sees Alice contemplating turning herself over to the Volturi, she KNOWS she's picked a great look

somehow gets ahold of Aro's cell number and sends him selfies of her blatantly breaking vampire laws captioned 'whatcha gonna do'. he keeps blocking her but she keeps managing to get through to him somehow

she illegally sells soda out of her locker and does people's homework for cash, while also paying other people to do her homework for her. she organizes every single senior prank. she's never gotten a detention in her whole immortal life because every teacher just Adores her for some reason

had 100% used her powers for deserved evil before. Like, if someone's being a dick at school, she'll sneak into their room at night and give them nightmarea threatening them to be a better person lol

sometimes she'll show up at the hospital unannounced and ask Carlisle, in front of his coworkers, 'yo can I raid the blood bank?'

her bedroom looks like a library. every wall, floor to ceiling books.

she's been publishing trashy romance novels under a fake name for almost 40 years now and no one in her family knows

one birthday Jacob takes her on a trip to vegas and they get wasted, at some point they were laughing about how ridiculous their lives are and they're like 'wouldn't it be fucking hilarious if we had a baby'. they then black out, hangover style, and wake up like a week later with a payment on her card to a fertility clinic. Jacob's like 😱 and Ness is just like 'you get to be the one to explain this to my parents'

Their kid is absolutely hilarious, they were correct, and at some point they realized 'wait...drinks blood..doesn't sparkle...can shape shift...we've somehow created a classic pop culture vampire' lmao

Edward had to threaten them to get them to not name the kid Vladimir

Also to be clear: Nessie and Jacob have the EXACT same dynamic as Will and Grace. that's canon.

says its her goal to star in a live action all female production of mamma mia and Carlisle is like 'honey you know you can't do anything on broadway or in hollywood' and she's like, 'no, in real life. I'm gonna go to greece and attract a bunch of women with abba songs' and he's like,,,,,ah

she loves all music but she goes out of her way to Only play stuff she knows Edward hates lmao

one day she remembers she doesn't need to breathe and can see under water and just. books herself a ticket to scotland and Finds The Loch Ness Monster

she actually personally finds a lot of monsters and cryptids like her hybrid aura just attracts all kind of weird shit and she LOVES it. She stops writing trashy romance novels and starts writing autobiographies of her traveling and hanging out with paranormal beings and everyone just assumes its fiction so she becomes a best selling fantasy author lmao

100% she's very into witchy stuff and only like...half in a trendy way. She's like what if on top of everything I've got going on I can cast spells? Think I deserve that power

when she's a couple decades old she catches Edward looking grossed out one day and she asks him what's up and he's like 'I really dont need to hear what creepy teachers think about my daughter' and she's like. oh. Dad we are gonna get SO MANY pedophiles arrested shdndjdn she gets him to expose teachers and she baits them then calls the police. queen.

She finds out she can get tattoos but they fade completely out of her skin within 5 years so she's always getting crazy tats

posts selfies on social media of her just like. hanging out with mountain lions or chilling on top of the space needle. her classmates think they're all photoshopped obvi but it drives her family insane

imagine you're 15 and you're on a nice hike in the woods and you come across your one classmate half naked, sacrificing a bear in some ritual, blood dripping down her face, bigfoot chilling on the rocks behind her filming the ritual on her phone...like on one hand, what would you do, but on the other hand. you've known this girl for a bit and you aren't surprised at all

anyway. stan Nessie Cullen.

[finnoky]

AU where Quirin takes and raises Eugene after the DK falls

•| Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts |•

Oh you have no idea how much this enables me - I stand by Quirin raising Eugene until the end of time bc it’s what they BOTH deserve

1) Oki so, here we see Eugene taken away as a baby without disclosing an EXACT location — that will not stop Quirin though, who had a stance against cutting him off completely despite it being Edmunds orders [It made sense to send the boy away but to send him to an ORPHANAGE was another story] Quirin finds Eugene a month or so after they get separated, during that time he found a house and a stable farm to raise a kid on [Gotta have an income] and then promptly goes to the orphanage and adopts Eugene.

By then, Eugene’s name has already been changed and frankly... Quirin thinks it suits him, though he occasionally slips up and calls him Horace. He feels a duty to raise the Prince but also kinda has a “My son now” mentality! Disagrees with Edmunds choices + decides... His kingdom is doomed, so he’s gonna ensure Eugene gets a stable upbringing with KNOWLEDGE of the Dark Kingdom without necessarily telling him “Oh BTW you’re the prince”. Being a father is hard and he struggles a lot, esp in early days, it’s a whole new challenge from being a knight but... Not one he really regrets?

Cue some fluff! Knight-dad trying to raise a baby and establish a life in a new country — Over time he grows and becomes Village Leader + Develops a bond with the monarchs based on his knowledge and previous high-rank in society from being a knight! Gets offered a guard position but turns it down in favour of spending time with his toddler son. Eugenes first word is Dada and Quirins never felt so content. Baby fluff of Eugenes milestones — Quirin has Eugene helping on the fields as soon as he can toddle without tripping (tho it’s mostly Eugene playing and running around while Quirin works) Toddler Eugene is a little darling and knows exactly how to use his cuteness to get praise and sweets

2) Eugene starts thievery / acting out soon after Quirin dates and marries Ulla, though it soon become a hobby he usually indulges in with his friend Arnie [though they take on the names of the coolest book characters Flynn Rider and Lance Strongbow!] Quirin thinks it’s just a phase and leans into the whole calling Eugene ‘Flynn’ because... He really loves the books, that’s not too odd? Though he doesn’t know of crimes + just thinks they go out to play a lot. Eugene ignored Ulla for the first few weeks because he doesn’t like the idea of someone new staying around — He doesn’t hate her, it just raises a lot of questions about his mum that Quirin doesn’t know how to answer... He resolved on the explaination that she was very sick and couldn’t take care of him anymore, though loved him dearly — it’s enough to placate him.

Eugene doubles down on stealing when he’s 10 and suddenly there’s gonna be a new baby in the house. [He doesn’t WANT a sibling + worries Quirin will love the baby more than him since he knows he’s adopted & all that though is too scared to ask] Eugene grows an attitude and Quirin finds himself exhausted and constantly caught in petty bickers as Eugene keeps running away + acting up, especially to his wife (Who loves Eugene very much, of course) ‘Flynn’ declares he wants to travel the world and be far away from step-mums and nasty babies, uhhh Domestic fall out stuff?

Things change when baby gets here and suddenly Eugene is a big brother and Quirin is MORE distracted, sometimes they forget to even read him a story and he can’t stand the squirmy little creature... All it does is cry and take what little attention his misbehaviour had earned him... So naturally, petty crime continues + Eugene starts caring less about getting caught, so it becomes more risky. He and Lance befriend some bad influences and start taking Big Kid Crime. It’s fun! Until Eugene is brought home by a guard and Quirin gives him the silent treatment for the next week. Quirin... He loves his sons, both of them, but he just isn’t sure how to handle a distressed 11 year old and a baby, it feels like there’s not enough hours in the day and Eugene is SET on making life harder for everyone.

Eugene stays against ‘Varian’, frequently makes the baby the villain in his games and makes him cry on several occasions. It gets even worse when he starts crawling bc now he can’t get anytime alone, it’s just frustrating! The solution probably comes when Varians starting to talk and he says ‘Oo-gee’ as one of his first words — ‘Lisa’s first word’ style — and Quirin and Ulla admit that Varian is obsessed with Eugene. It’s sorta a wake up call for Eugene to start trying to get along with the kid, and it works! He finds it fun to teach him things & have someone to talk to (even if he just babbles back) By the time Eugene is 12 he’s calling Ulla mum and love spending time with his little brother

3) Right! When Eugene is about 18 he picks up theiving again, mostly because he isn’t suited to the farm life and it’s easy money (Plus how else is he gonna achieve his dream of financial independence?) He moves out the farm under the guise of finding a new life with his best friend, though they quickly realise it’s not amazing when they get tangled up with the Baron + his antics. Eugene visits home every so often and claims everything is fine, it’s going great, he doesn’t need any extra help + his life is just dandy. His dishonesty mostly bc he doesn’t wanna worry Quirin and there’s been a bit of a strain since Ulla passed away.

Life keeps on like this. Eugene ages, steals alchemy supplies for Varian and hides his true income source because he wants to make Quirin and Varian proud! Varian grows up to be more headstrong in what he wants because he has someone standing up for him and telling him he’s proud, though the longer Eugene spends away the harder it gets? He loves it when Eugenes here! But the house feels empty without him, and Quirin is so busy + stressed from Varians experiments that there’s still that desire to do more, prove himself.

4) Movie diverts a bit! Eugene finds out about the hair glow and thinks... If one person knows about this then it’s him, and takes Rapunzel to Old Corona over night rather than a campfire. Varian is ecstatic to see him though gets confused by a random girl Eugene claims to have just found — He’s about to ask questions when Eugene asks if Varian could do his magic thing to find out about her hair. Varian insists it’s alchemy and agrees, dragging Raps down into the lab! Boop gothel talks to her when Varians gathering all the equipment and talks her ear off about how cool Eugene is and asks how they found each other since the story is weird... Experiements start!

Meanwhile Eugene is talking to Quirin, when Quirin pulls out a wanted poster and puts it on the table. He finally found out about how bad Eugenes crimes are and wants answers. Now. Eugene sits and tries to explain its not what it looks like, but Quirin doesn’t wanna hear it. The disappointment is evident and Quirin criticises “I thought you grew out of this, what role model is this for Varian?” Eugene doesn’t have an answer but argues his case that it was to be reliant — and he doesn’t wanna do it anymore anyway! Quirin accuses him of using the girl, while Eugene insists her name is Rapunzel and he’s just helping her, get the crown, be set for life and never have to bother him again.

Their argument is cut short by a Varian coming back upstairs looking frazzled, says there’s something about the magic that’s familiar but he can’t place it — sure is strong tho, and continues gushing and asking Eugene for all the details of what he’s been up to. Eugene... Explains, his usual light-hearted rendition of a great quest, while Quirin leaves and stays upstairs the rest of the night.

Varian sees them off in the morning! Hours after they’re gone Vari is still looking into the magic thing — that’s when he remembers the old legend about a sundrop... about how it saved the Queen... About the Princess. Varian sneaks out the house and heads up to the lantern festival to tell Eugene and Rapunzel his revelation, but he gets there just as Eugene is being lead away by guards. Varian finds Max and tells him how they need to free Eugene + basically... Helps him escape with fewer pub thugs and more alchemy. When they get to the tower Eugene tells Varian to stay on the floor and climbs up to help Raps - Varian stays at the bottom of the tower for approx 10 minutes before finding the back entrance and climbing up. Figure he gets there just as Gothel deages, it’s suddenly and before anyone knows it Varian is the one pushing her out the window bc he saw a stabbed Eugene and put two and two together. Then! Cue New Dream scene, except Varian is sitting on the floor in shock a distance away... After New Dream hug Eugene looks at him and Varian admits that “Ok, magic isn’t that bad”

5) Oh god the series! First off — Raps is closer with Varian in this (that’s becoming a theme...) so doesn’t just throw him out into the blizzard when he comes asking for help. Instead he and Eugene go back to Old Corona together after the storm, Varian isolates himself from guilt + has a tough time dealing with what happened, but he lives in the castle as Eugene starts getting angrier with the king and wants answers for what happened. He’s the one that finds Dark Kingdom stuff and he and Varian work on it together... Eugene has a suspicion he came from the Dark Kingdom so when the rocks start pointing there he’s like dope!

No villain Varian joins them on the trek to the Dark Kingdom + it’s all fun and games, Eugene tries to get more answers from Adira as they travel but she says it’s not her place to say... All he needs to know is the kingdom fell, and everyone was evacuated... She’s almost annoyed as she explains it, then Hector is treble annoyed when he finds out Eugene was raised by QUIRIN since that went against the direct orders... Though Adira defends it and says he was doing his duty of keeping Eugene safe, it’s basically a rift between them that’s confusing until they get to the DK and the revelation happens.

I feel... Moongene could be a thing in this AU? but since I’m running out of points I’ll leave it with Cass taking her canon role! I will point out! when Quirin is freed initially only Varian runs into his arms... Eugene hadn’t really spoken to Quirin properly since their movie fallout & he’s not sure he belongs... Until Quirin holds and arm out to him and pulls him into the hug too (PARALLLELS) and we get a happy reunited family (tho with some issues to work out regarding somethings... they need to rebuild trust, but work on it slowly. Edmund stays ‘Edmund’ to Eugene. He sees Quirin as his father & doesn’t push as much to reconnect with Edmund... Though that makes it easier in a way. There’s less pressure once Edmund understands and they form a friendship, but Quirin is Dad 100% (Sometimes Edmund gets called Dad 2))

[quickspinner]

Month of Miracles Day 8 - Uncertainty

Find the prompt list here!

Hallmark Movie AU Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 (end) | Read Month of Miracles on AO3

Marinette had a lot of experience with embarrassment, and she was well aware that no matter how much she wished it, the odds of the earth opening beneath her and swallowing her up were pretty slim. In fact, at this point in her life she was pretty sure that if it ever did happen, it would be while things were going perfectly fine, just to spite her. 

So as she stood on the sidewalk outside of the library, peeling a sticky bow off her forehead (and probably a perfectly square section of her foundation with it, which she was sure would look just great), trying not to look at the very attractive rock star (former rock star?) beside her, she was annoyed but not surprised that the ground remained solid under her feet.

“Well,” Luka sighed, “I guess since Rose is paying...can I take you to lunch?”

“I, um—” Marinette began, and then shivered, grabbing her arms as the wind suddenly cut through her. 

“Here,” Luka said, and Marinette finally looked at him. He was holding her coat open for her, waiting. He was already wearing his. “Marinette?” he asked when she didn’t move immediately, and Marinette jumped.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, hastily jamming her arms into the coat. It was harder than it should have been, since she still had the big stick-on bow in her hand, and her internal screaming grew louder as Luka continued to hold the coat patiently until she finally got her hand through the cuff. She jammed the bow in her pocket as she turned towards him with a grateful, if embarrassed, smile as she began buttoning the coat. “Um, thank you, but I’m sure you have things to do, and, well Rose didn’t exactly give you notice there, so if you need to, um, go, I understand.”

Luka gave her a slow smile. “Well, since one of the things I have to do is eat lunch, I’m not going to turn down a slice of Sally’s pie on Rose’s dime. And since she kind of played us both here, I think she owes you one too. Unless you don’t like pie?” 

“I love pie,” Marinette blurted, and had to stop her hand from flying to cover her mouth. 

“Well, okay then. Let’s get some pie.” Luka gestured, and Marinette found herself walking alongside him. “Maybe some soup, too. Sally’s tomato bisque is amazing when it’s cold outside.” 

Marinette made a noise that she hoped sounded like agreement. What on earth was she doing? Didn’t this make it look like she wanted to go on a date with him? What if he thought Rose was acting on Marinette’s behalf?

A touch on her arm jolted her out of her spiral. “Are you all right?” Luka asked gently, slowing down his walk. “Look, I know Rose is...a lot. I didn’t mean to enable her pushiness, so if you’re not comfortable—”

“No!” Marinette exclaimed quickly, and then sighed. “Well...yes, a little. Not she’s a lot a little, but I’m a little. Uncomfortable, I mean. N-not that you did anything, or...um…” She clamped her teeth together and fought the urge to scream.

“It’s just that this is a little awkward, because Rose has all the subtlety of a brick to the head and now we’re both trying to pretend that we don’t know we were set up?” Luka smiled, and Marinette actually laughed a little bit despite the vivid blush she was sure was spreading over her face.

“Yeah, kinda,” she admitted, hunching her shoulders. 

Luka shrugged. “Well, we could bail on lunch, walk away and pretend none of this ever happened, and hope that we never see each other again. Buuuuut this is a pretty small town, and avoiding people here is hard, so the chances of recurring awkward are high.” 

“Good point.” Marinette winced. “Um...what are our other options?”

“Well, I’m personally a big fan of just embracing the awkward.” Luka gave her a lopsided smile that looked nothing like his posters. “So I propose that we go have lunch, no pressure and no expectations, ask all the questions we’ve been dancing around until now, and see if we can’t just power through the awkward and come out friends—or at least acquaintances that can greet each other on the street without combusting from embarrassment.”

Marinette laughed. “That...that actually sounds like a plan.” 

Luka’s lopsided smile turned into a grin, and in that moment she could see a flash of the rock star she remembered. 

It was a short walk to the café (it was a short walk just about anywhere on Main Street, really), and before she had quite recovered from that grin, Luka was holding the door open for her and waving her through. 

“Hi, Sally,” he said as he followed her into the café. “Where should we sit?”

“Anywhere you like, hon, just don’t take up the big tables,” Sally replied absently, preoccupied with something behind the counter. “Your usual?”

“Am I so predictable?” he sighed, leading Marinette to a small booth near the windows. 

“You are when it’s this cold out,” Sally laughed, looking up, and noticed his companion for the first time. “Nice to see you again Marinette! Do you need the menu?”

“I’ll have what Luka’s having, actually,” Marinette said, blushing a little as she slid into the seat across from Luka. “Now that he’s talked it up I have to try it.” 

“Sure thing, hon. Tea instead of coffee for you though?”

“Yes please,” Marinette replied quickly, shrugging out of her coat. She raised a self-conscious hand and touched the spot on her forehead where the bow had been, glancing at her reflection in the window. 

“Rose’s treating today, so make it the big bowl please,” Luka called, and got a good natured wave from Sally to indicate she’d heard him. He turned his attention back to Marinette, and she tried not to squirm.

“So,” Luka said, slipping out of his coat and stuffing it into the corner beside him. “Do you want to start?” 

“Why did you retire?” Marinette blurted, and covered her mouth. 

Luka winced. “Wow, right out of the gate.”

“I’m sorry,” Marinette backpedaled frantically. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, it was a fair question,” Luka sighed, sitting back and tapping his fingers lightly on the table as he thought. Marinette bit her lip, feeling terrible for asking, but also really wanting to know. 

“Sometimes you take a chance, and things don’t work out,” he said finally. “But...sometimes they do work out, and then you find out it wasn’t actually what you wanted in the first place. I love the music, I thought I loved performing, but that whole lifestyle just...didn’t work for me.” 

Marinette wasn’t sure what to say to that, and was grateful that Sally arrived just at that moment with her tea and Luka’s coffee.

“Okay, my turn,” Luka said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Why are you here? In this town, I mean. No offense, but you kind of stick out.”

Marinette made a face. “The real reason? My mother thought I was on the verge of some kind of breakdown, so she conspired with my grandmother to guilt me into taking a vacation. As if all my problems aren’t still going to be there when I go home.” She glanced up at him, gathered her courage, and said, “Why are you here?”

“My family is here,” he said, pushing the salt shaker around on the table absently. He leaned back as Sally came to slide two bowls of soup on the table. Luka thanked her, and then looked back at Marinette. He gave that lopsided grin again at the slight pout she was aiming at him, and gave in. “So it was the logical place to come when I decided I needed to figure out what I really wanted out of life.”

Marinette raised her eyebrows. “And did you?”

Luka shrugged. “It’s a process, but...yeah, I think I’m on the right track.” He raised his eyebrows back at her. “What was stressing you out so bad at home?”

“My boss,” Marinette groaned, as they both picked up their spoons. “There’s so much she can do for me in the industry but she’s so rude and mean. The words constructive criticism seem to have no meaning for her. It’s like she expects me to read her mind and fix things without any guidance. Why did she hire me, if she hates everything I do so much?” Marinette stirred her soup listlessly, and then finally tried some. She smiled at Luka. “This is good.” His mouth was full but he aimed a wink at her in lieu of an I told you so. “So why a Christmas tree farm?” she asked.

Luka shrugged. “I don’t even really know myself. When my mom bought it I thought it was just another one of her crazy whims, and that she’d sell it again before the next season even came around. But, turns out she likes the farm, and she likes the town, and she runs a kayak rental during the summer that keeps her adventuring spirit satisfied. I still expect her to up and leave with practically no notice someday, but for now she seems happy. Make sure you try the toast on the side, by the way, it’s amazing.” He tilted his head slightly. “Why does Christmas hate you?”

Marinette had to take a moment for that one, taking her time with her next spoonful of soup. Luka didn’t press her, just went on eating his own.  “I’ve never had much luck with Christmas,” she muttered, and then felt like he deserved more of an answer than that. “Not every Christmas, some were fine, but some were...just times when I found out that people weren’t the friends I thought they were. Then last Christmas...” She hesitated, feeling foolish. “My boyfriend dumped me,” she said finally, and then blushed. “It sounds really stupid and pathetic when I say it out loud, and it’s not like he did it on Christmas or anything like that, but...” She shook her head.

“But now it’s Christmas again and you’re having a hard time separating the season from the memories?” Luka suggested. Marinette nodded. 

“My ex, he’s...kind of famous,” she admitted, “And now he’s back in the news because he’s got a new girlfriend, and there’s rumors there’s going to be an engagement announcement soon, and we work in the same industry so we’re still part of some of the same circles, and...yeah.” She shrugged and looked down, eyes suddenly stinging. “It just kind of feels like Christmas isn’t on my side this year either.”

“Hey,” Luka said, reaching across the table to catch her hand. Marinette looked up at him, startled, and he smiled. “What kind of pie do you want?” 

His hand was rough, but warm from where it had been wrapped around his coffee, and for a moment she could only stare at him. He has kind eyes, she thought. 

She hadn’t seen that on his posters, either.

“Blueberry,” she managed to say, and it wasn’t as hard to smile back at him as she thought it would be. 

Fiction Master Post | Month of Miracles

[the-black-birb]

Thank You. [Oikawa Tooru x Reader]

Summary: In the midst of falling in love, somehow you break your own heart.

Pairing: Oikawa Tooru x Reader

Genre: angst

I wrote a sequel!! You can find it here!

A/N: This is a bit of a mess and a little bit personal, but I hope you like it nonetheless! sad Oikawa warning. Also, I listened to Ashe’s Moral of the Story while writing this, so maybe give it a listen while reading!

***enjoy!!**

When Oikawa and his girlfriend broke up, the whole world knew.

The gossip forums were gossiping. His fan club was torn apart. Some were ecstatic that their king was newly available. Others were distraught that he had his heart broke (and a select few thought him being taken was part of his appeal). The volleyball team expected a moody number one, with killer serves and impossible sets to boot. But practice continued surprisingly smoothly, only with a somewhat quiet captain.

But, to Oikawa’s dismay, the world kept spinning.

When you heard Oikawa broke up with her, you were truly surprised. They seemed happy, you thought. He smiled with her and looked just as breathless and model-like as he did before the two of you met. He held her hand and took photos with her and kissed her cheek, just like boyfriends were supposed to do. Oikawa Tooru, true to his reputation, was the perfect boyfriend.

Iwaizumi had stopped giving you updates on Oikawa when he started dating her. You didn’t mind. Clearly, he had moved on from you, and that was fine. If he was okay, you didn’t need to hear from him. But he wasn’t.

When you and Tooru stopped talking, no one except for Iwaizumi knew.

You weren’t sure what you had was enough to call a relationship. The two of you went to different schools, the ‘dates’ you went on were always far away from the public eye, and you never really had a label for the fire between the two of you. You and Tooru were never anything more than friends.

You and Tooru were friends, who had keys to each other’s house. You were friends that saw each other every Monday when he brought his nephew to volleyball practice, and you brought your little sister. You were friends, who accidentally kissed the first time he walked you home. You were friends, who called each other on restless nights to stare at the same sky.

Once, he stayed on call with you all night until you fell asleep. When you woke up the next morning, you could hear him snoring.

But, when Tooru was with you, he was all yours. None of his fans knew, nor his teammates. You didn’t tell your friends, worried about the outrage. Tooru was all yours, and you were all his.

Sometimes, you wondered if you gave away too much of yourself to him.

You gave Tooru milk bread and aliens. Last week, you saw a vintage poster for ET and you felt your heartbreaking beneath your ribs.

You gave him volleyball. When you passed boys on the court on the way home, you wanted to take their ball and throw it far, far away. They’d never look as at home in the court as he did, so what was the point?

You gave him the way you looked in the light of the stars, when nothing else mattered in the world but the two of you.

You wondered what Tooru gave to you. You wondered if he’d worn the sweatshirt of his you gave back the last time you spoke. Or if he’d kissed her the same way he kissed you. Slowly, at first, like he might break you, and then suddenly on fire. If he held her waist like he’d never see her again, or if he cried on her shoulder the first time he lost against Karasuno.

You wondered what little moments he couldn’t have again because of you.

Still, it was your choice to stop talking. You asked him if you could end whatever it was between the two of you.

School was hard as a third year. You were preparing for college, and to have a life. Tooru had been clear with you that volleyball was an undeniable part of his, and you were okay with that. If it was you or volleyball, he would choose volleyball. And you, with your own ambitions and aspirations, could understand that.

But you didn’t know how much it would hurt to be his. Or rather, not his. You were a secret to be kept. In order to be protected from his fangirls, and to make both of your lives easier, it was better for him not to say anything at all. You tried to understand that, too, and at first, you didn’t mind. You didn’t need everyone to know, just Tooru.

And then, you did. Because you doubted if he truly meant that. Or maybe he just didn’t want them to see you. Maybe you weren’t enough. You pushed away your doubts, desperately, knowing that Tooru was a good person.

But suddenly, every day was a chore. He was distraught over losing to Karasuno. You got it. He thought this would be the year he could make it to nationals. Three years of being a “powerhouse” school, but not once did they go to Tokyo. You got it.

You never told him you loved him. Back then, you weren’t sure if you did. In retrospect, there was no doubt in your mind. You loved him, and it was scary. You gave so much of yourself to him, and you were vulnerable and scared. He was relying on you every day to be okay and you wanted to be there for him so badly. But, what if he saw you couldn’t make him happy? What if he saw you were only good for comforting him, and no good for being in love with?

And, suddenly, you couldn’t handle it.

“Let’s stop this.” It was a Thursday afternoon and the sun was setting over the café the two of you would always meet at. Tooru was drinking earl gray tea with extra cream, just how he liked it. You had a black coffee and a chocolate cake. It was your turn to pay.

“Huh?”

He thought he misheard you.

“Let’s stop talking for a bit. College applications are rough. School is getting tough. I need to focus on me,” you explained. He stared at you plainly.

“Oh. I’m not sure what to say.”

“It’s okay,” you replied, looking into your mug. “I’ve got to get home early today to take care of my sis. Here’s your jacket, I washed it. I’ll see you around.”

You texted Iwaizumi immediately. Check in on him, you begged him. Make sure he is okay. Tell him he’ll find someone better. Find someone he’s not afraid to post online or tell everyone about.

For a few weeks, Iwaizumi did as you asked. He told you how Tooru was doing and you gave him tips on how to comfort him. Even though you weren’t talking to Tooru, you were still caring for him. A pit formed in your stomach, sure that this was the worst possible way to get over him. But, you assured yourself, he just needed space from you. You were enabling him to wallow for so long. You were the reason he wasn’t getting happier. You were guilty and in love and heartbroken and for goodness sake you just wanted him to be okay.

Then, you got a text from your friend at Seijoh.

You won’t BELIEVE who I’ve cuffed!!!!!

And then an image.

You had just dropped your little sister off at volleyball practice. You started getting their early because you knew Oikawa got their late.

That night, your mother picked her up in your stead.

Iwaizumi stopped texting you after that, but you didn’t need him to update you on Oikawa’s life anymore. Suddenly, he was everywhere.

Every date they went on, every kissed they shared, and every moment together was public. He looked happy, although his smile never really met his eyes.

He was probably just tired, you told yourself.

Your friend was ecstatic. She told you about him all the time. “Oikawa bought me flowers!” “Oikawa gave me his jacket!”

She wore it when the two of you went to get lunch one day. He never let you wear his team jacket because he needed it for competitions. You liked the alien sweatshirt better, though, because he’d had it before he even went to Seijoh and it smelled less like sweat and more like him.

She seemed happy enough with his track jacket, though.

“What should I get him for Valentine’s Day?” she asked you suddenly. You were caught off guard. You’d never had a Valentine’s Day with him.

“Well…” you trailed off. “I’m sure he’s getting a lot of chocolate from his fan club. Why don’t you get him something different that he likes…maybe tea?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Do you think he likes tea?”

You almost laughed. How does she not know he drinks tea?

“Maybe. I hear earl gray is good for relieving stress? He might be appreciative of that, with college exams and all,” you feigned ignorance. She seemed excited at your idea, however, and quickly dragged you to the store to pick out the perfect tea.

You helped her, of course. Not only because you knew the exact brand Oikawa kept at home for special occasions, but because she was your friend and you loved her and hoped she was happy. You hoped he was happy, too.

And then, they broke up.

It was as if the whole world had been set on fire.

She called you, in tears. He hadn’t given her a clear reason, really.

“I need to focus on me,” he told her, and you could hear his voice. “I’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m just not happy with you.”

She asked you, sobs bubbling up in her voice, “Why wasn’t I enough? Why aren’t I enough?” But it wasn’t her voice you heard.

When she had finally calmed down and hung up to go finish her homework, you found it in you to go visit your café.

You weren’t really sure what you intended on doing. For memories sake, maybe. For the first time since you had met Oikawa, you were ready to let go of him. He was choosing to make himself better, and you were proud of him for that.

Before Oikawa was yours, the café had been yours, too. You went there with your friends and your younger sister. You went there when you found out you got into your dream high school, and when you had your first breakup long ago.

But then, the café was Tooru’s. You hadn’t been there since you broke up, afraid the heartbreak would be all too much again.

That day, you walked in as yourself again. You came home, all on your own.

“Hey.”

Of course, that didn’t mean you were alone.

Sitting at the far end of the café and looking out the window sat a familiar face. In front of him was an earl gray tea with extra cream, a black coffee, and a chocolate cake.

“I thought I might find you here.” He didn’t smile at you but pressed his lips into a straight line. The corners of his eyes dragged down. He didn’t look happy, but he looked honest.

Wordlessly, you sat in front of him.

“Thank you for the tea,” he told you. “I don’t want anything from you, I swear. You can pretend to not know me after this or to know me. Whatever you want. But could we talk, just for a little bit?”

You nodded, holding back the tears threatening to slip from your eyes.

“Of course, Tooru. We can always talk.”

[currywaifu]

𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: escape room 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: minagi tsuzuru/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 3.4k words, 3 images

𝐚𝐧: the combi of my love for this tsuzuru sr card + a certain enabler + my first time wearing handcuffs being in an escape room = the birth of this fic. it’s chaotic, but so is every escape room experience i’ve had. wtf is this fic.

One of the perks of having Tsuzuru as a boyfriend was that the two of you always found ways to have fun and go out on dates without spending a lot of money. Neither of you were big on splurging out a bunch of money anyway— not with you rather spending your allowance on necessities and Tsuzuru being the King of Part-timers™.

Watching community and college plays, having picnics, movie marathons, making dinner together, going grocery shopping, taking advantage of coupon sites, couples promos and happy hours to get great deals on things you wouldn’t normally be able to just for the ultimate discount...

It was domestic, it was homey, and it was Tsuzuru through and through; you loved every single second of it.

Which was why you were surprised when he suggested going to an escape room together.

“Those can be kind of pricey, right?” you replied, raising your voice slightly to make sure he could hear you despite the noise you were making in the kitchen. You turned the burner to high heat, scooching the veggies over to one side of the pan, melting the remaining butter in the other half.

“Oh, well, a friend gave me a 20% discount coupon. Apparently he didn’t need it anymore,” Tsuzuru’s voice was a little quiet coming from your phone’s speaker, and you quickly put down the soy sauce to adjust the volume before going back to the stove.

“I figured there was some kind of catch,” you replied with a soft chuckle as you continued stirring the veggies and sautéing the rice. “When do you wanna go? I know we’re both busy over the weekend, and that’s when we usually—“

Your hand halted its motions as soon as Tsuzuru uttered the word, “tomorrow.”

It wasn’t like you weren’t free, thankfully you only had one, albeit three hour, lecture during Tuesdays, but wasn’t he saying it a bit suddenly? It was a Monday evening, after all.

“Why tomorrow?”

Your boyfriend’s awkward laughter rang, but he remained undeterred as he explained to you his reasoning— going to an escape room would be a good way to get more writing experience, especially in terms of creating and feeling the ambience.

“Plus, not only is it cheaper if we go together, but the rates are also lower Monday to Thursday,” after a few seconds of silence on your part, he quickly added in, “and! And, we usually don’t have dates like this… so it’ll be fun, right?”

That thought process was so like Tsuzuru that you couldn’t help but smile.

Oh, the rice and veggies were already turning brown?

“You know what? I’m not even surprised,” you commented, adding and stirring in the rest of the ingredients. Ahhh, it was starting to smell heavenly, “by the way, have you had dinner yet?”

“About to. Excited to figure out what kind of curry we’re having,” a giggle escaped you upon hearing Tsuzuru’s deadpan voice, “are you almost done cooking?”

“Just about done!” after giving the rice a taste, you decided to season it with a pinch of salt and pepper, “thanks for giving me your fried rice recipe, by the way. Even though I’m the one cooking it, it feels like I’m about to eat something you made with love~”

As you were pretty much done with the kitchen, Tsuzuru’s exhale was a lot more audible to you. You could already envision the slight quiver in his tight-lipped grin and the way he would avert his eyes for a few seconds as he addressed you.

“Seriously, don’t be so cute,” he said, sounding a little exasperated, “sometimes I don’t know how to respond anymore.”

“A writer at a loss for words?” it was steadily getting difficult to keep the bubbling up amusement in check— you should probably be serving yourself dinner and accomplish your work for the night, but in the same manner it was always fun to flirt with the brunet. “When you put it that way, it makes me want to act even cuter for y—“

“Anyway!” you couldn’t hold back your laughter at his sudden interruption. Alright, that was enough for the both of you tonight.

“So are you free tomorrow?” he asked.

Well, who were you to be able to say no to that?

You completed signing the waiver the staff asked you to fill out, before turning to Tsuzuru.

“I forgot to ask, but which room are we playing? They have, like, 3 different ones here.”

Your eyes followed where Tsuzuru’s pointer finger landed— a simple but eerie poster in black and white, the three masks you could commonly see in craft stores plain and copies of one another, save for one thing. The first mask had gloved hands atop its eyeholes, the second had them covering where the ears would be, and the third had them placed over the lips.

Domain of Discernment.

“I don’t know much about it, but it’s one of the more popular ones. Apparently we’ll be held captive by some serial killer named Sire Maniac, and we’ll have one of our senses taken away,” he explained. Before he could potentially say anymore, one of the personnel went over to bring you right by the room entrance.

After giving a brief rundown of rules and some info about the room itself, she brought out an unused pair of foam earplugs and a blindfold. “Since there’s only two of you, we’ll be taking out the not being able to speak part. Both of you, choose who gets their sight or hearing removed for 50 minutes.”

You and Tsuzuru turned to look at each other, quietly discussing amongst yourselves which option would be more beneficial, coming to the conclusion that you would be the one to don the blindfold and he’d be the one with the earplugs.

“You might accidentally fall asleep if you had the blindfold,” you joked, “besides, I trust you to be able to guide me.”

Not one to be a killjoy or cheat, he plugged in the foam properly as you get your blindfold tied securely by the woman, making sure it definitely wouldn’t loosen up midway through the game.

When the both of you are within the room already, the both of you hear (well, Tsuzuru lip-reads) the woman say one more thing.

“After hand-cuffing you two and I leave the room, the timer will start. Good luck.”

… hand-cuffing?

With a sound of a click and seeing the door shutting from the distance, the both of you knew the timer would be counting down from 50 right about now.

You’re the first to speak up. You’re unsure where he’s facing right now, so you pulled your left hand knowing the pull of the metal chain would catch his attention, and you were right.

At the slight pressure on his right hand, he turned to face you with a hum leaving his mouth, and unexpectedly finding himself stupefied at the sight of you. You opened your mouth to say something, and he can excuse himself all he wanted that it was him not used to lip-reading yet, but he knew it wasn’t the truth.

He felt a little guilty, really. You both knew how flustered or embarrassed he could get around you, but how blissfully unaware you must be right now that his brain was literally mush because of your blindfolded self and how you were handcuffed to him. He, well, he never thought… no, he could never—

Time to kill that train of thought. Right now.

He should really be responding to you right now. What… what were you saying?

“You want me to describe our… surroundings?” he sighed in relief as you nodded. Okay, at least a part of him was still functioning properly. All he had to do was focus on that and not hyper focus on you.

The two of you were in a cell of sorts— barred, jail doors preventing your exit into a much larger room, which inevitably would lead to a door the both of you would escape to.

Though the jail room was significantly smaller, there were an assortment of items to sift and look through— boxes with and without locks, some papers scattered on a small desk, a lampshade that was left turned off, and a CD player were what stood out the most to him.

After relaying it to you, you pulled him again by your shared shackles as you asked him to read out what was in the papers—the first, a hint on how to figure out the number combination to unlock one of the boxes and a code decryption guide.

The second, a torn page from a “book” of either plants or poisons, based on the content and stylisation. Atropa belladonna, also known as deadly nightshade.

“Why are shade and floor highlighted though?”

Another pull on the cuffs. Another look at you— and trying not to be awkward about it as he combined his lip-reading with whatever the earplugs couldn’t block out of your voice.

“Shade? You said there was a lamp shade, right? Maybe a key or something is hidden under there?” you suggested, a pout set on your lips, “don’t know what the relevance of floor is, though.”

He didn’t have to look very far, the papers being situated on the desk beside the lampshade. It’s in his second time staring though that he realised something’s off with it. “You’re right, there’s something in the lampshade.”

When he lifted the bell-shaped cover, he’d come to find that there was no lightbulb in the first place, but a thin flashlight cleverly inserted within a vase. “If there’s a flashlight in the vase, then—“

“Shine a light on the floor!” you exclaimed, excited at the prospect of being able to move forward with the game, despite not being able to see.

Doing just that, he swished the flashlight left and right, verbally listing all the letters he could see.

“X, O, I, C, T…” you repeated, before trying to clap your hands (keyword: trying to, handcuffs say no), “the order is toxic! So the encrypt—“

“I’ll decode it ASAP,” Tsuzuru replied, immediately referring to the guide the “killer” oh so graciously left there.

“The passcode is… 420652,” he fumbled with the digits on the only 6 numbered padlocked box, before grinning, “alright, we got it!”

Another tug, and at this point he’s already aware that tug or pull on the cuff equals you having something to say.

“If they were gonna do a 420 joke, they should’ve inserted a 666 joke for the full eerie, creepy effect.”

Okay, just how was he able to lip read that perfectly? Was he just that used to the dumb jokes you made?

“I can just imagine your dream escape room— all the hints and puzzles are meme related,” the earplugs were unable to block your laugh, ringing through the room as he opened the box. A key, and a CD.

Knowing that between the two remaining boxes left, one of them needed a key so that was pretty much solved. The disc, on the other hand…

He called your name, you turning to face him based on the direction of his voice. “Since there’s a CD player and a CD, and unless I go really close I wouldn’t be able to hear anything—“

“I’ll listen carefully, no sweat!”

“I swear, if I hear the word wall another time, I will scream... and this isn’t even a horror room!”

The two of you came across your first real obstacle. Your audio just talked about poisonous vines growing on walls and other surfaces, while his box just contained another note that neither of you could decipher whatsoever. For five minutes, the two of you stood there, pondering.

Every once in a while, Tsuzuru would check the giant timer— currently displaying that 35 minutes were left.

“… honestly, just give it to me,” you suddenly spoke, Tsuzuru’s shoulders going up in shock.

“Give what?”

“The box! While we try to figure it out, I’ll use my nonexistent luck to just guess the passcode somehow,” you explained, feeling up the type of padlock it was “it’s just rolling everything around anyway until it magically opens.”

Within less than a minute, you had figured out the passcode.

“I’m—“ Tsuzuru trailed off, clearly just as shocked as you were. Your eyes probably would’ve been wide open right now.

“Eye… so this is where all my luck went,” you said, before shaking your head to refocus yourself, “okay! So inside the box is a… another key? It has buttons… car key?”

You hand the object to the brunet, who, upon taking it from you spared no second in his next actions.

“Wall,” he said out loud, pointing the car keys at the wall. With one press of a button, the wall, slowly but surely, opened to reveal another room. Though you couldn’t see it, the sound was loud enough to amaze you as well.

“Worm,” you breathed out, “pretty lit, not gonna lie.”

You wouldn’t know but the room was actually extremely dark, so not lit at all. Thank god he had a flashlight or else the handcuff + your blindfold + him not being able to lip read combo would be… particularly deadly.

The misunderstandings, he could already imagine it. Ah, well, for the writing experience.

“I don’t know what worm means, but yeah, lit.”

“Sorry,” Tsuzuru apologised as he bumped into you for the nth time.

Obstacle number two was unlike any other. It wasn’t another audio recording, neither a puzzle nor riddle.

“Ah, shit, sorry!” you shouted for the nth time, raising your voice as much as you could so Tsuzuru would be able to hear you properly.

This was getting ridiculous. You were able to figure out the meaning of an audio file after a few loops, while Tsuzuru got to work reading more clues and unlocking locks. The real problem, however, was since the room was dark and had limited space, the two of you tended to crash against one another even with what limited movement you could make.

You had to wonder— did the staff get some sort of amusement or feel any pity watching people stumble around in this room through the CCTV? It wasn’t so bad in the jail room, but this closet? storage? room gave you two a run for your money. How did other people get through this room, genuinely? Especially the bigger parties?

“… I have an idea,” Tsuzuru mentioned. You wait for him to tell you what it is, his hesitance confusing you. However, before you could have said anything, you felt his strong arms wrapped around you.

Was… was there an equivalent to a verbal keyboard smash? Even if you weren’t saying it out loud to save you the embarrassment, the fact still stood that your brain was legit going ztesxrdctijmoljhnge right now. Help—

“How does this… help?” you asked, still a little confused by his motive. He wasn’t really one for PDA, and despite the two of you being the only ones in the room the fact still stood that the escape room staff are probably required to glance at the CCTV monitors every once in a while to check up on you two.

“Since we’re… handcuffed, and there’s barely any space it’d be better to just stay together,” he explained as nonchalantly as possible, “sorry, it’s just for this room. We’ll go back to normal when we get to the last room.”

See, if your brain was working right now, you’d be able to think of a counter or a better solution— actually, if you could see right now maybe you could point out something about Tsuzuru’s face that screamed he was lying, but something about escape rooms just made your logic go brrr.

That, or you were just a simp for your own boyfriend.

… not gonna lie, the chances of it being both were pretty high.

“Makes sense. Can’t bump into each other when you’re already stuck together,” you said, already convincing yourself.

Sorry to whoever’s manning the CCTV monitor, it was their fault for handcuffing the two of you anyway.

Well, this set up wasn’t that bad. Other than, you know, getting to hug Tsuzuru, you were able to still keep doing your task while he did—

You heard the padlock unlock after your fingers pressed a certain combination of numbers. Pushing the device upwards, the cabinet doors opened as you removed the lock.

“It’s a digit push combination padlock! How are you doing this? Blindfolded?”

“I… I have guessing powers. For locks.”

“I’m considering robbing a bank or business with you now.”

“Awww, cute couple’s date idea!”

After two or three minutes of Tsuzuru doing some last minute riddle solving, the sound of jingling keys and him letting go of you let you know of one thing— you two were almost out.

With a writer compromising one half of the team, and an exceptional guesser and context clue figure-outer as the other half, you weren’t gonna lie— the last room was kind of anti-climatic to go through.

…

SIKE!

Every time the two of you ever accomplished anything, be it decrypting a message, unlocking something, or finding a hidden item the two of you still reacted to it— Tsuzuru being more on the shookt side and you being on the hype side.

With fifteen minutes to spare, only one thing was left to do— finding who Sire Maniac’s real name, and then decoding that name into number form so you could use it on the exit’s number pad lock. It was pretty obvious to you that you had to use the number equivalents of the name, but first… you needed to know the name.

“You sure you don’t want to try your luck?” Tsuzuru teased, procuring a huff out of you.

There were only two clues. The first was a letter to an A. R. Nicolas, detailing something about being thankful for a book.

Initially, the two of you thought that that A. R. Nicolas would be his real name, but clearly it was some sort of pen name based on the second clue— several torn pages from a book penned by the very same A. R. Nicolas the letter was addressed to.

It was clear— Sire Maniac and A. R. Nicolas were the same person, but what was his third identity? His real identity?

“What are the poisons on the torn pages again? Those usually have something to do with the answer,” you asked Tsuzuru. The sound of shuffling of paper entered your ears as he began listing them off.

“Ricin, amatoxin, tetradotoxin, chloropicrin, batrachotoxin… and arsenic.”

“Huh… arsenic is the only one that ends differently, lol,” you pointed out with a laugh, before it quickly died as the realisation dawned on you, “no fucking way.”

“Okay what the hell, I think you’re on to something,” Tsuzuru replied hastily, “because A. R. Nicolas, as in A. R. Nic. Arsenic.”

“Tsuzuru. Tsuzuru. Tsuzuru—“ you chanted, before laying out one last game-changer, “Sire Maniac. Is a fucking anagram. For I am Arsenic.”

With a speedy enter of the number 2773642, the two of you had achieved freedom.

“Not gonna lie, some parts of it were a little cliche, but… I had fun,” you told him, the two of you walking home together, “I felt simultaneously dumb and a genius at the same time.”

“Same to both, honestly,” Tsuzuru replied, before looking down at your hand linked with his. “Huh, haven’t you had enough of being stuck with me?”

You rolled your eyes. “I could say the same to you— didn’t you totally take advantage of us being handcuffed together? Or me being blindfolded?”

It was just a joke, but Tsuzuru’s sudden sputtering caught you off guard. Did… aha, no way, did he actually enjoy that gimmick?

“Tsu~ zu~ ru~”

“Whatever you’re thinking, that’s not it—“

“Are you sure? Because—“

“You’re misunderstanding something.”

“I’m just saying, it’s better to be honest~”

As the stoplight turned red, the two of you finally found the time to take a good look at each other. The laughter that erupted was instantaneous.

“Thanks for going out with me today,” Tsuzuru said softly, the blooming smile on his face impossible for you to not mirror.

“Thank you for inviting me,” you replied, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

After a few seconds, the stoplight turned green, and the two of you continue making your way back home.

want to order again?

𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐬: ⤷ curium fairway (the person who sent arsenic the letter) is an anagram for “i am currywaifu”.

⤷ the “reader is good at guessing part” is just based off of me. being really good at guessing padlock combinations.  ⤷ the hugging part was based on my two irl friends (who are dating) hugging in front of the cctv

⤷ the “one sense gets removed” and “being handcuffed to someone” part is based on two different escape rooms i played

⤷ i wasn’t supposed to make a whole concept for the escape room with media and riddles... but i decided to finally make use of all the research i did before on poison. am i on a watchlist?

[zrtranscripts]

Season 9, Mission 4: Out of the Past

Heist

~

[birds twitter]

AMELIA SPENS: Okay team, let's go over this one more time. General Bakari has sent Abel a distress call from a remote Tunisian base, Red Scorpion, which is probably home to red fungus and definitely home to one Ernest Van Ark.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, despite the fact that you, you know, um, what was it? Oh yes, blew him up with a rocket launcher, Five! That's... [laughs] It's typical! My luck. We get Janine back safe, and oh, who pops up but the devil himself?

AMELIA SPENS: Bakari wants a team to sneak something out of Red Scorpion. Our hope is that it's a red fungus countermeasure. To get there, our team needs to infiltrate New Agadir, a city in the middle of the desert, while posing as Death's Hand, a mercenary group whose greatest hits include assassinating a blue chip CEO using a neurotoxin-tipped knitting needle and overthrowing at least three heads of state.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: This is all so exciting! Proper Mission Impossible stuff!

AMELIA SPENS: Peter, remind me why you brought the new person along. It's Frances, isn't it? From the Hebrides?

FRANCES DEMPSEY: I wanted to try a run. Janine said I could come because it's a low-danger assignment, and because I promised to stop asking to be on the Tunisia team if she let me. I overheard Sam talking about the mission.

AMELIA SPENS: Marvellous. Janine should add “make Sam keep a secret” to her bucket list. [sighs] At least you're not pestering me to let you go. I've already had to veto Jody's involvement. I need her here working with me to train runners on McShell tower protocol.

PETER LYNNE: [laughs] I bet she was thrilled about that.

AMELIA SPENS: Anyway, our problem is getting a team to Tunisia. The information in Bakari's transmission enabled us to contact the Maghreb Protectorate, a government which operates in what used to be parts of Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Another government, that's incredible!

AMELIA SPENS: Yes, well, they're no use to us yet. They have no jurisdiction over New Agadir, and besides, our governments do not yet trust each other enough for them to provide assistance. Our team can't risk crossing Europe - too many unknowns - and our few ships are all either exploring or acting as repeater stations for overseas agents - too far out to be useful.

All we have left are small coastal merchants. I've found one scow captain willing to take people to Tunisia, but he's cautious. He wants the latest nautical charts. Pre-apocalypse, obviously. Not a lot of hydrographic surveys since Z-Day. You're approaching the London home of Horatio Brewer, famous British investor. Should have what we want.

PETER LYNNE: Are we sure about that, Amelia?

AMELIA SPENS: Fairly. Mr. Brewer was a keen yachtsman. Old Ministry intel says he planned to escape Z-Day by sailing to a second home on the Tunisian coast. Had all the prep work done, then his neighborhood turned gray. We think zoms got him, but he was keeping his preparation safe in a basement vault.

PETER LYNNE: Great. So basically, we're looting a dead man's travel plans. Lovely. Um, see that street across the park, Five? That'll be his, so better hurry while it's still light out. Come on, everybody. Run!

~

[birds twitter]

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Wow, this is a classy street. Look at the mansions. That one's got ivory cherubs carved over the gates.

PETER LYNNE: Neighborhood's in pretty awful condition, though. You've got overgrown gardens, smashed windows. No sign of V-types though, thank God. Dearg made me a prototype one-man burn cube, Five, sewn right into my chest. Anti-P-type measure. Got the trigger, but not massively eager to try it.

AMELIA SPENS: Maybe not, but it's the only reason I'm letting you near Tunisia.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: So Amelia, who exactly are these Death’s Hands people? Will they be tough to impersonate?

PETER LYNNE: Frances...

AMELIA SPENS: Oh, they're a nasty bunch. Former special ops, freelance since Z-Day. Bakari says they've been traveling the world as hired guns. Their rep gets them a lot of private security gigs. He's given us contact details for the real team, so we can lure them out of our operation’s way.

PETER LYNNE: Frankly, I don't think we should be trusting Bakari. This whole thing is probably a trap, which is why, Frances, Janine said that you can't – [zombies moan] Oh, God damn it!

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Uh, isn't that the place we want? Big Georgian house covered in ivy?

PETER LYNNE: Well, Amelia, there's a horde of zoms milling outside Brewer's house, so we can't make it to the entrance.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Well, we could gain entry by the house next door. Look at the big white mansion. Its roof's half collapsed, sloping into the road. We could clamber across it, jump to Brewer's roof, and get in through his attic window.

AMELIA SPENS: You know Peter, I'm warming to the new blood. Quickly then, off you go. I've got the scow captain waiting on tenterhooks. I need this deal closed ASAP. Run!

~

PETER LYNNE: Amelia, we um, we got in through the attic window, followed a ladder leading deeper into the house. Now we've found a sort of private antique collection? So we're in a carpeted hall full of artifacts in glass cases.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: They've got plaques. That's a Roman bust, Celtic coins, an Egyptian amulet. That's a Carthaginian pot from Tunisia. Shouldn't these be in a museum?

AMELIA SPENS: Ah, well, Mr. Brewer was a rather avid black market trader, made a fortune trafficking plundered historical artifacts. Actually, it might make a good impression if our little expedition returns some stolen goods. Grab the Carthaginian pot, Peter.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, burglary with Amelia, just like old times. So let's see. It's a classic. We've got the pot on the pedestal, so if I just lift its case - [alarm blares] Ah. I honestly didn't think the alarm battery would have lasted this long. Um, Five, grab that pot, would you?

[zombies moan]

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Uh, guys, apparently there are zoms in the house too, coming up the stairs behind Five. Six big ones in dark suits.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, that'll be Brewer's former home security. Alarm's got their attention. Hello! Still on the job, eh, boys?

AMELIA SPENS: Wish I could find staff that dedicated. No need to waste rounds, blueprint says there's a master bedroom down the corridor on your left. Brewer always left a spare key in the lock for his mistress. If you can lure the zombies in, you can trap them there. Run!

~

FRANCES DEMSPEY: Keep going, Five, there's the door past the amphora vases. God, how big is this house?

AMELIA SPENS: It was originally five smaller houses that were joined together behind a Georgian facade. Brewer felt he needed the space.

[door creaks open, floor creaks]

PETER LYNNE: Amelia, we're in the bedroom. There's a – ooh, four-poster bed, lovely. Uh, photos of Brewer and his family. Nice mustache. It's very Howard Hughesian. Um, Frances, you okay?

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Zombies! I forgot how scary they are up close. Didn't have them on Dearg. I'm actually shaking.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, uh, oh yeah, of course. No no no, um, it's okay, Frances. See, so the key was in the door and um, here's what we're gonna do. We're all going to get behind the bed. This room's really big, so when the zoms come at us, we'll then be able to circle around and lock them all in.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: The house isn't in the best structural condition. There are big cracks in the walls, and that creaking probably means the floor is compromised. If any more bodies start stomping in here -

[zombies growl]

PETER LYNNE: See, there are the zoms and they're... coming straight over the bed, so run for the - ! No, no, no! [shouts]

[floor collapses, glass shatters, PETER and FRANCES cough]

AMELIA SPENS: Peter, Five? What happened?

FRANCES DEMSPEY: The floor gave way under the bed! [coughs] The zoms were too much weight. It just smashed down through the house, took the zoms with it.

[house creaks]

PETER LYNNE: This house is definitely unstable. Yep, uh, sounds like the whole place is coming down.

AMELIA SPENS: If you follow the corridor outside the bedroom, you'll find stairs. Take them down to the basement. It's a reinforced garage, should remain intact if the house collapses. Plus, it's where that vault is. Hurry up, you don't have long to grab those charts, and they're absolutely vital.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, also um, there's a horde of zombies chasing us. Come on, run!

~

[zombies moan, house creaks]

PETER LYNNE: Yep, there's the stairs, Five. Straight down, down you go.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: The chandeliers overhead are really shaking. Five, look out!

[chandelier falls, glass shatters]

PETER LYNNE: [laughs] That was close! Chandelier smashed right through the stairs. Could have done without the glass shards in my face, to be perfectly honest. Um, edge around the hole it's left in the stairs. [house creaks, zombies moan] Oh, fantastic. Amelia, we just passed the ground floor and I can hear more zombies barging into the house. So that'll be the horde from outside, attracted to all the noise.

AMELIA SPENS: Just keep following the stairs down. There are exits in the basement, but you have to reach the vault first. Run!

~

PETER LYNNE: Yep, yep, yep. Five, close the door, close the door! [door slams shut] Oh, good. Amelia, we've made it. We're in the basement garage, and the stairwell’s collapsed behind us. Ooh, this is a huge concrete car park. There's tons of fancy cars. There's Bentleys, BMWs... a Model T? All right, just, could you give me a minute, Five? I've just got to pick some chandelier out of my face and eyes.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: That's amazing. Your wounds, the way they're healing. Enhanced cell regeneration? The scientists on Dearg talked about it. [gasps] This is what Van Ark did to you!

PETER LYNNE: Yes, it is. Not really looking forward to meeting him again. Rather pull my kidneys out, honestly. But Janine is not leaving me behind this time. I just got her back and I won't lose her again.

FRANCES DEMSPEY: Dearg was his, you know. I was trapped there for ages. If you're going to a Van Ark lab, I can help. And honestly, I can't stay in Abel. It's funny, when we got security fixed at Dearg, first place I wanted to see was where Alice lived. But being there... a lot of older runners, they look at me, they see her. It's hard.

That's why I really came today. I needed to get out. And I guess I started to feel... if I was going to be her ghost, I might as well run, like she did. I don't want to be a ghost, Peter, and I don't want to go back to Dearg. I want to see the world, find out where I fit in.

AMELIA SPENS: People, you should get moving. That wasn't the only staircase leading to the basement.

PETER LYNNE: Over there, Five, look. It's built into the concrete wall, huge round metal door. That looks like a vault to me. Come on, run!

~

PETER LYNNE: Amelia, we're at the vault door. Here's the C-4. Do the honors, Five. [explosion] [coughs] Okay. Okay, right. Uh, vault is a big gray room with shelves, lots of shelves. Uh, model yachts, dusty piles of... ooh, gold. Five, Frances, look for those charts.

[paper rustles]

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Hey look, found a massive file on a shelf titled Inventory. It's an index of Brewer’s deals and trade contacts. There's a whole chapter on Tunisia.

PETER LYNNE: [laughs] Gotcha! There's tons of nautical charts on this desk under the sextant. [dragging footsteps] Uh, what was that sound? Five, could you go and check behind the shelf of canned food? [zombie groans] Oh, good. Hello! Amelia, we've found Brewer. Looks like he locked himself in here after he'd been bitten, entombed with his wealth like a rubbish pharaoh.

[laughs] Oh good, we've also got a zombie wife and two zombie children in the shadows. Welcome, everyone. He's taken his whole family down with him. [more zombies growl] And that is going to be the rest of the zombies in the garage. So Five, Frances, we're gonna move towards the door. Need an exit now, Amelia.

AMELIA SPENS: There's a ramp on the west end of the car park, leads up to the surface. The shutters open from inside. Hurry, get the charts to safety, run!

~

PETER LYNNE: Okay Five, Frances, I think we've lost the zoms. Street looks clear behind us.

AMELIA SPENS: Well, I'd call that a success. Five even kept the Carthaginian pot. Now we've got the charts, I can have people heading to Tunisia in days.

PETER LYNNE: Janine's finalized the team. It's her, me, Five, Sam, Maxine, and uh, computer expert. Look, I-I am sorry Frances, uh, but honestly, you are safer here. We're going a long way from home, and trust me, Van Ark isn't to be taken lightly.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: Wait a second, look at this. The folder I took, it's full of photos, Brewer logging artifacts he traded. Look at this Roman mosaic from Tunisia, the symbol in the corner.

PETER LYNNE: That is the endless circle from Mor Island.

FRANCES DEMPSEY: That's not all. Brewer's notes say he sold the mosaic to a military base code-named Red Scorpion in Tunisia before Z-Day. He says the commander of the Red Scorpion base scared him, told him not to record any names. Whatever that place is, it's definitely connected to the fungus, and they've known about it since way before we have.

~

[letterboxd]

Life Detained.

The Mauritanian director Kevin Macdonald talks with Jack Moulton about researching Guantanamo Bay’s top secrets, Tahar Rahim’s method-acting techniques, the ingenuity of humanity during the pandemic, and his favorite Scottish films.

“You’ve got to understand that for a Muslim man like Tahar, this role has a much greater significance than it does for you or me.” —Kevin Macdonald

It’s not uncommon for a director to release two films in one year, but Academy-Award winning—for his 1999 documentary One Day in September—director Kevin Macdonald is guilty of this achievement multiple times. Ten years ago, he released his first crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day and the period epic The Eagle within months of each other. A decade on, he’s done it again.

The Scottish director (and grandson of legendary filmmaker Emeric Pressburger) released both his Life in a Day follow-up and the legal drama The Mauritanian this month. The latter tells the story of Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi (sometimes written as Salahi), who was held and tortured in the notorious US detention center for fourteen years without a charge. The film, adapted from Slahi’s 2015 memoir Guantánamo Diary, features Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as his defense attorneys Nancy Hollander and Teri Duncan, with Benedict Cumberbatch, who also signed on as the film’s producer, playing prosecutor Lt. Stuart Couch.

Benedict Cumberbatch as prosecutor Lt. Stuart Couch in ‘The Mauritanian’.

The Mauritanian also introduces French star Tahar Rahim to a global audience, in the role of Slahi. “The ensemble is excellent across the board,” writes Zach Gilbert, “while Tahar Rahim is best in show overall, bringing honorable heart and humanity to his role [of] the titular mistreated prisoner.”

Much of the story is filmed as an office-based legal thriller involving thick files, intense conversations, and Jodie Foster’s very bright lipstick. Macdonald expertly employs aspect ratio to signify narrative shifts into scenes recreating Slahi’s vivid recollections of torture and his achingly brief conversations with unseen fellow detainees.

Qualifying for this year’s awards season due to extended deadlines, The Mauritanian has already earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress for Rahim and Foster respectively. Slahi remains unable to travel due to no-fly lists, but he was a valuable resource to the production, providing an accurate and rare depiction of a sympathetic Muslim character in an American film.

It was the eve of Life in a Day 2020’s Sundance Film Festival premiere when we Zoomed with Macdonald. Behind him, we spied a full set of the Italian posters for Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic Blow-Up. As it turns out, he’s not a fan of the film—only the posters—so we got him talking about his desert-island top ten after a few questions about his new film.

The attention to detail on Guantanamo Bay in The Mauritanian is impressive. There are procedures depicted that you rarely see on-screen. How did you conduct your research? Obviously Guantanamo Bay is a place which the American government spends a great deal of effort keeping secret. It was important to Mohamedou and me that we depicted the reality of the procedures as accurately as we possibly could. That research came primarily from Mohamedou who has an incredible memory. He drew sketches and made videos of himself lying down in spaces and showing how he could stretch half his arm out [in his cell]. There are a lot of photographs on the internet of Guantanamo Bay which are [fake] and others are from a later period because the place developed a lot over the years since it started in 2002 and Mohamedou was able to [identify] which photos were rooms, courtyards and medical centers he had been in.

Director Kevin Macdonald on set with Jodie Foster.

How did you approach creating an honest representation of the graphic torture scenes, without putting the audience through it as well? Whenever films about this period are [made] they’re always from the point of view of the Americans and this time we’re with Mohamedou. You can’t underestimate the fact that there have really been no mainstream American cinematic portrayals of Muslims at all, so in portraying a sympathetic Muslim character who’s also accused of terrorism, you’re pushing some hot buttons with people. It was important that those people who are uncomfortable with him understand why he confessed to what he confessed.

Everything you see in the film is what happened; the only difference is that they weren’t wearing masks of cats and Shrek-like creatures, they wore Star Wars masks of Yoda and Luke Skywalker in this very perverse fucked-up version of American pop culture. Obviously, we couldn’t get the rights to those. Actually, I don’t feel that it is graphic. There is more violence in your average Marvel movie. It’s psychologically disturbing because you’re experiencing this disorientating lighting, the [heavy-metal] music, and he’s being told his mother’s going to be raped and he’s flashing back to his childhood. To be empathizing with this character and then to see them to be so cruelly treated is so deeply disturbing.

How did you prepare Tahar Rahim for his convincing portrayal of such intense pain and suffering? Tahar went through a great deal of discomfort in order to achieve it. He felt that to give a performance that had any chance of being truthful, he needed to experience a little bit of what Mohamedou had suffered, so throughout the movie he would insist on wearing real shackles which made his leg bleed and give him blisters. I would plead with him to put on rubber ones and he would say “no, I have to do this so I’m not just play-acting”.

He starved himself for about three weeks leading up to a torture sequence—he had lost an awful amount of weight and he was really unsteady on his legs. I was very worried about it and I got him nutritionists and doctors but he was determined to stick with that. You’ve got to understand that for a Muslim man like Tahar, this role has a much greater significance than it does for you or me. He felt a great weight of responsibility to do this correctly, not just for Mohamedou, but he was speaking for the whole Muslim world in a way.

Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley as defense attorneys in ‘The Mauritanian’.

What compels you to study this period in time? Mohamedou was released a couple of weeks before Trump came to power in 2016, so the story is still ongoing for him. He’s still being harassed by the American government and he’s not allowed to travel because he’s on these no-fly lists. I didn’t want to make a movie that was saying “George W. Bush is terrible”. We’ve been there, we’ve done that. This is looking back with a little bit of distance and saying “here’s the principles that we can learn from when you sidestep the rule of law”—what it takes to stand up like Lt. Stuart Couch did when everyone else around you is going along with something that’s really terrible.

You see that around Trump with the choices within the Republican Party to stand up and say they’re going to sacrifice their careers to do the right thing. It is a hard thing when there’s this mass hysteria in the air. The basic principles that the lawyer [characters] are representing is not about analyzing and replaying what happened after 9/11, they’re directly related in a bigger way to the world we all inhabit.

Did anything surprise you in how your subjects for Life in a Day 2020 addressed the pandemic? One of the most affecting characters in the film is an American who lost his home and business because of the pandemic, so he’s living in his car. He seems very depressed when you meet him for the first time, then later he’s telling us there’s something that’s giving him joy in his life. He brings out all these drones with these cameras on them and puts on this VR headset and loses himself by flying through the trees. I thought that was such a great metaphor for the way that human ingenuity has enabled us to survive and thrive during the pandemic.

I get the feeling of resilience from [the film]. This is a more thoughtful film than the original one. I see this as a movie of [us] being beware of our susceptibility to disease and ultimately to death and mortality, [and] how we’ve found these consolations as human beings. To me, it’s a really profound thing. It also speaks to the main theme of the film which is how we’re all so similar, same as The Mauritanian. It’s confronting you with all these people and saying we fundamentally all share the basic things that underpin our lives and the differences between us are much less important than the things we have in common.

Let’s go from Life in a Day to your life in film. What’s a Scottish film that you love but you feel is very overlooked or underrated? That’s really hard because there aren’t many Scottish films and there aren’t many good ones. Gregory’s Girl is the greatest Scottish film ever made—it’s the bible for life for me. That’s very well-known, so I would have to say Bill Forsyth’s previous film That Sinking Feeling, which was self-funded and made on 16mm black-and-white. It has some of the same actors and characters as Gregory’s Girl in it. Or my grandfather Emeric Pressberger’s film I Know Where I’m Going! which is a rare romantic comedy set in Scotland.

John Gordon Sinclair and Dee Hepburn in Bill Forsyth’s ‘Gregory’s Girl’ (1980).

Which film made you want to become a filmmaker? I think it was Errol Morris’s The Thin Blue Line, which is one of the top five documentaries ever made and in my top ten desert-island movies.

What else is in your desert-island top ten? Oh god, don’t! I knew you were going to ask me that. I’ll give a few. I would say there would have to be something by Preston Sturges—maybe The Lady Eve or The Palm Beach Story. There would have to be a film written by my grandfather, so probably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which is the best British film ever made. There would have to be Singin’ in the Rain, which is the most purely joyful film I’ve ever seen. There would probably be The Battle of Algiers, which I rewatched recently and was an inspiration on The Mauritanian. Citizen Kane I also rewatched in anticipation of watching Mank, of which I was very disappointed. I thought it completely missed the point and was kind of boring.

Which was the best film released in 2020 for you? I thought the Russian film Dear Comrades! was really stunning. It was made by a director [Andrei Konchalovsky] in his 80s who first worked with Andrei Tarkovsky back in the late 1950s. He co-scripted Ivan’s Childhood. I would love to make my masterpiece when I’m 86 too!

Related content

Films with Muslim characters

Movies that pass the Riz test

Scottish Cinema—a regularly updated list

Follow Jack on Letterboxd

‘The Mauritanian’ is in select US cinemas and virtual theaters now, and on SVOD from March 2. ‘Life in a Day 2020’ is available to stream free on YouTube, as is the original.

[neerasrealm]

I am enabling you

BAND AU BAND AU. SO GLAD I GET TO WRITE ABT THIS YEEEEEEE i kinda lost motivation towards the end but dfvsdgfhsd its fiiiiine. i got a couple more ideas for this au so...expect a couple more fics?? maybe??

Jason wasn’t sure if he could call the room a ‘practice room’. It felt more like a lounge. The walls were checkered with soundproof foam in places, as was the floor. There were also a lot of things hanging up on the walls. Posters of various rock bands and cult classic movies, all framed of course. The room was littered with instruments. Guitars, basses, a keyboard, a drumset, microphones- any instrument one could need, it was there. But there was also a lot of comfy furniture. Bean bags, a couple armchairs that had been dragged out of the trash, and of course, the old reliable sofa. It was stained and the springs were starting to break, but it was comfy, and Jason was quite happy lounging across it. He kicked his foot calmly in time to the beat of the music quietly playing from his boyfriend’s record player. He sighed and glanced over at the boyfriend in question. His name was Zalgo, and he had copper-brown skin and fluffy brown hair that was dyed red at the tips. Tattoos swirled up his arms and another stretched across his neck. He was covered in piercings too. His ears, his nose, a couple on his eyebrows, even a snakebite on his lower lip. His eyes were closed, and he was lounging in a big bean bag, a weed joint clenched between his teeth.

‘’They’re late again.’’ he murmured. 

‘’Nnh?’’ the joint flicked upward as Zalgo grunted. 

‘’The girls. We were supposed to have a practice session,’’ he looked down at the watch on his wrist. ‘’Twenty minutes ago.’’ 

‘’Mmmh…’’ Zalgo shifted in the bean bag, then abruptly jumped up in a startlingly quick movement. He stretched and groaned, then pulled the joint out of his mouth, smacking his dry lips. He looked over at Jason. He was wearing contacts again. These ones were golden and bright, and accentuated how...alluring, his gaze could be. His mouth curled up into a small grin. ‘’Just means more time for you and me.’’ he murmured as he walked slowly over to the couch where Jason sat. The redhead smirked at him as he leaned down toward him. 

‘’...You’re getting old.’’ Jason murmured before shoving Zalgo’s face away. The other man groaned and swatted at him before breaking into laughs. 

‘’I am not! I am just as cool and as sexy as senior year! Girls love me!’’

‘’You’re gay, Zalgo. And almost thirty.’’

‘’Hmph.’’ Zalgo puts his hands on his hips, pouting. Jason looked him over for a long moment. Zalgo had certainly kept his style from highschool. He wore a loose cut black tank top with a metal band’s logo on it. The neck was low, exposing his collar and the necklaces he wore around his neck. He was also wearing black ripped jeans with a studded belt with chains hanging off it. Almost every finger on his hand was decorated with a ring shiny ring. He was attractive, and carried himself with a confident flare only he could pull off. Jason could never pull that off. Showing so much skin, playing with makeup- it wasn’t his thing. He stuck with classic jeans, button-ups and ties with sneakers. Simple, yes, but it worked for him. And somehow Zalgo thought he was handsome enough to have dated him for over ten years. Jason smiled a bit and settled back in his seat.

‘’Do you...want to sit down?’’ he asked slowly. Zalgo looked down at him and grinned. He moved to lay down beside Jason, but the redhead put his hand on his chest and stopped him. ‘’...give me the joint first.’’ 

Zalgo huffed and rolled his eyes. He handed his boyfriend the joint and lay down, snuggling up against Jason as he took a drag of the joint. He sighed out, smoke blowing from his mouth. Zalgo looked up at him, watching him calmly. He reached up and caressed the other male’s jawline. ‘’...anyone ever tell you you’re fucking beautiful?’’ 

‘’No, my mother didn’t love me.’’ 

‘’PFFFFFT-’’ Zalgo wheezed loudly, bursting into loud cackles of amusement. Jason smiled and laughed gently. They were so distracted with just laughing on the couch like a couple of stupid dumb teens that they didn’t hear the front door being opened. They did however, hear it being slammed shut without warning, and it scared Zalgo so bad he fell off the couch with a yelp. The two stared at each other as they heard voices in the front hall downstairs. Zalgo grinned and rolled over onto his stomach, listening intently to the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs toward them. Zalgo skittered across the room and pressed himself against the wall beside the door. 

Jason took a drag of the joint and watched the door, which was quickly and violently kicked open.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KYLE?!" 

He blew smoke out of his mouth. "Hello Natalie." He greeted calmly. Natalie was a short girl, with long caramel hair and tanned skin. Her eyes were bright and green, and she grinned wide at him. She was dressed in a denim jacket that hung off her shoulders, along with a white Guns N' Roses t-shirt and ripped navy jeans. As she waved her hands excitedly Jason could see the watch around her wrist glint in the light. A birthday gift he'd given her a few years ago.

"There you are!" Zalgo lunged out from behind the door and yanked his niece into a tight bear hug. She squealed and battered her fists against him, making the both of them giggle. Jason glanced over at the door and noticed a girl he'd never seen before, standing there looking around anxiously.

She had curly ginger hair and wore a simple green jacket with denim jeans. She was shorter than Natalie, who was short enough for a seventeen year old already. When she caught Jason's gaze she smiled nervously and waved a bit. Her smile quickly dropped however when she noticed the joint in Jason's hand. He glanced at it, then reached over and snuffed it out in the ashtray on the end table beside him. Zalgo would probably be mad about him wasting good weed later, but he didn't really care. 

"This a friend of yours, Natalie?" The redhead asked as he sat up on the couch. 

"This is Alice." Said a tall girl as she walked into the room and leaned against the doorway. Her name was Jane, and she was Natalie's girlfriend. She had dark skin, decorated with paler splotches in random places. She wore a long black dress with a leather jacket, fishnet gloves and tights, and platform boots that made a satisfying 'clunk' noise when she walked. Her hair was done up in braids, which were tied up in a pseudo ponytail. And she was also munching on a teacake that she'd definitely stolen from the kitchen. Jason glared at her.

"I told you to ask before taking those, y'know." He muttered. Jane shrugged and watched Natalie stumble out of the tight hug she'd been suffocating in. She turned to Alice with a grin and lunged over, slinging an arm over the smaller girl. 

"This is Alice!" She said again. "She's part of the drama club in school. Really good singing voice!" She turned to the ginger girl. "Right? You're an amazing singer!"

"U-Um-" Alice rubbed at her arm anxiously. "I'm not...that good…" she mumbled, her head lowering. Jason softened as he looked at the poor, nervous girl. 

"Nice to meet ya, Alice." Zalgo said gently. He walked over and crouched down, holding out his hand for her to shake. Alice stared at his arm.

"Your tattoos are so cool-" she blurted. She immediately slapped her hands over her mouth, wincing. Zalgo chuckled.

"Why thank you! I'm pretty proud of em myself." He said with a warm smile. "So you're Nat's friend?"

"I...guess," Alice rubbed at her arm again. "She uh- she said she wanted me to...join a band…? I-I dunno if I'm really cut out for that…"

Natalie shook her head and clamped her hand down on her shoulder. "Alice, I already told ya, your singing is incredible bro!" She leaned down and grinned at her. "Uncle Zalgo knows eeeverrryyythinggg about music. You just gotta impress him and you're in the band."

Alice looked at Zalgo. "You're...uncle Zalgo…?" She asked quietly, sounding even more scared. Zalgo nodded and stood up.

"Sure am." He gestured over at Jason. "That's Jason, by the way. He has a huge crush on me and sleeps in my bed. It's super embarrassing."

"Hey, you came out to me." Jason growled. Zalgo laughed. 

"It's...nice to meet you, sirs." Alice murmured. Jason looked at her and smiled gently. He sat up on the couch so the others could sit down. Zalgo obliged, flopping himself down next to him with a soft grunt. Natalie was quick to join them, sitting on Zalgo's other side while Jane occupied the arm of the chair. That left Alice...standing in front of them. Like she was being judged. It reminded her eerily of an audition.

"How old are ya?" Zalgo asked with the tilt of his head. Alice fidgeted. 

"Erm- fifteen." Zalgo looked at Natalie and arched a brow. Alice coughed. "B-But um- I've been singing since I was seven." She added. Zalgo gave a nod.

"Alright...think you can demonstrate?" He asked. Alice glanced away anxiously and he smiled a bit. "C'mon, you can't be any worse than Jason."

"Rude."

"I like Jason's voice." Jane piped up. Jason smiled.

"Thank you, Jane, you're the only person here who shows me any kindness…"

"Hey! I bring home pizza for you!" Zalgo said, pouting.

"You work at Pizza Hut, Zalgo. You get that stuff for free." Jason replied sternly. Alice laughed a little bit at the two of them. Jason turned back to her and smiled. 

‘’So what style of music do you do?’’ he asked. Alice’s eyes widened.

‘’Oh- mostly showtunes, broadway stuff.’’ she replied. Jason nodded. She felt a bit more relaxed now. It just….felt like an audition. She’d done those dozens of times before. ‘’I can sing Defying Gravity- from uh- Wicked?’’ she suggested. 

‘’Go ahead, girl.’’ Zalgo replied, leaning back on the couch again. Alice nodded and cleared her throat. 

‘’Something has changed within me...something is not the same, I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game,’’ she hadn’t had a chance to warm up, and she winced at how her voice sounded. But when she looked at the others they didn’t seem to notice. ‘’Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep…’’ she took a deep breath, preparing herself for the high notes coming up. ‘’It’s time to trust my instincts...close my eyes...and leap.’’ 

‘’Stop.’’ Zalgo interrupted her. She stopped and looked at him, afraid. Had she failed the high note? Did her rusty voice really sound that bad…? ‘’You’re amazing girl!’’ 

‘’Wh-wha-’’

‘’Seriously! You sound like you could be on broadway!’’ Zalgo grinned wide at her as he spoke. Jason nodded in agreement. Nat hopped up off the couch and slung her arm around Alice’s shoulder again.

‘’So is she in?’’

‘’Well of course she’s in!’’ Zalgo stood up and thrust out his hand. ‘’Welcome to the band, Alice.’’

Alice smiled sheepishly and took his hand. ‘’Thanks...what uh- what do I get for being in it?’’

‘’Free music lessons and pop tarts. Plus vibing privileges.’’ 

‘’V-Vibing privileges…?’’ 

‘’You’re allowed come over whenever.’’ Jason explained. ‘’Though you probably have better things to do than hang out with two thirty year old men who do nothing but watch Netflix all day.’’

‘’Oh.’’ 

‘’Oh c’mon, we’re cool!’’ Zalgo pouted at him. ‘’In fact, I can prove it.’’

‘’Please don’t.’’ Jason murmured. Alice watched Zalgo scamper over to the corner of the room and grab one of the instruments. He held it up proudly. It was a red guitar, with two necks and a body cut into jagged shapes. He grinned and held it down to playing height, strolling back over to Alice. 

‘’Pretty sweet, huh?’’

‘’Oh my god do you have to show that thing to every guest we get?’’ Jason called irritably. Zalgo shot him a look. 

‘’How do you even play that…?’’ Alice asked in amazement. Zalgo smiled.

‘’Lots of practice and quick timing.’’ he replied, strumming a few chords. ‘’What instruments do ya play, girl?’’

‘’Oh uh- I- don’t. I just sing.’’ Alice glanced away nervously as she spoke. Zalgo arched a brow at her, surprised.

‘’I thought she’d be good for backup!’’ Natalie chimed in.

‘’I think she’d be good for my songs,’’ Jane added. ‘’Just like with Jason.’’ Zalgo nodded and looked at the ginger girl for a moment. He turned on his heel and put his beloved guitar down, then moved over to another part of the room and rummaged through a plastic bin he had laying around. 

‘’I know just the thing for you then,’’ he murmured. Alice looked surprised, until he stood up again and held up a tambourine. ‘’This is exactly what we’ve been missing, and it’s easy to learn!’’

‘’...oh.’’ Zalgo strode over and handed the tambourine to Alice. She looked at it for a moment, then shook it halfheartedly. He grinned and clasped his hands together.

‘’Perfect!’’ 

Jason sighed quietly and climbed up off the couch. He dusted his hands off and glanced at Nat and Jane. ‘’You guys hungry?’’ he asked. Zalgo shot him a look.

‘’Wait what happened to practice?’’ he whined. Jason rolled his eyes and walked over to the door.

‘’You already showed off your guitar, Zalgy. And I’m hungry.’’ Jason muttered. ‘’And I’m sure the girls are starving too.’’ he turned and looked at his boyfriend. He knew Zalgo couldn’t say no to him, not when he pulled out that nickname. He eventually sighed.

‘’Fiiiiine.’’