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saffusthings · 23 hours ago

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second chances

mob boss! lando norris x reader

part forty-two: hello? are you there?

word count: 5.7k

warnings: this chapter contains descriptions of violence and gore. reader discretion is advised.

forty-one | forty-two | forty-three

It slipped out somewhere between Oscar raiding the fridge for orange juice and Logan bitching about how Max Fewtrell kept leaving his boots in the entryway like it didn’t pose a hazard, considering they all had an inexplicable tendency to walk around armed more often than not.

“If someone breaks in, Max, what? You gonna throw your fucking loafers at them?”

“They’re not loafers. They’re tactical boots.”

“They’re muddy gym shoes, bro. Move ‘em, man!”

Lando didn’t even look up from the glass he wasn’t drinking out of. He just leaned against the counter and posed a question aloud. “How do you tell someone you’re sorry?”

The conversation stumbled mid-step.

Max F. blinked. “By saying it?”

“No shit, Sherlock.”Lando scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I mean, like… how do you make them—y’know…”

“Not mad at you?” Oscar offered.

“Yeah. That.”

“You’re asking how to make someone forgive you,” Max Fewtrell clarified from the doorway, his voice knowingly even. “Which is a very different question.”

For a beat, there was silence. Lando glared at his coffee like it had personally betrayed him.

Then, it was Oscar who spoke up first.

“Time machine,” the Aussie offered with a wry smile, clearly proud of his little joke.

It took everything left of Lando’s willpower not to dramatically roll his eyes.

“Not helpful.”

“Chocolate,” Max Verstappen offered next. “Expensive chocolate. Or wine. Works on everyone.”

“She doesn’t drink,” Lando muttered, clearly exasperated by now.

“Then just send her the chocolate of course,” Max replied, completely unfazed.

“Or,” Oscar said, holding up a spoon like it was a pointer, “you could write her a letter. A real one. Handwritten. Not just a text. It’s very… Jane Austen. Trust me, girls eat that shit up.”

“I tried that,” Lando said. “I don’t think she even looked at it.”

Logan bit into an apple and spoke around it, his mouth very much still full. “You could try showing up at her work with, like, a sad sign. Y’know, something pathetic. Women love pathetic.”

“She’s not the kind of person who’d be impressed by public humiliation,” Lando replied dryly. “Especially when I’m the one she’d want to humiliate.”

Carlos, who had been silent until now, set his coffee down slowly.

“You want her back, si?,” he asked simply, getting straight to the point.

Lando didn’t answer, looking away. Carlos, of course, took that as a yes. It was no secret that Lando Norris was not a man who was used to asking for help, much less for advice. This certainly could not be easy for a man of his… personality.

“Flowers,” The Spaniard announced. “This is what always works for me.”

Oscar snorted, the sound echoing into his mug as he lifted it to his mouth for a sip. “Of course they did,” he muttered under his breath.

“No, listen,” Carlos waved off the young man and his usual remarks, turning instead to Lando. “You cannot get the cheap ones. You have to get the real ones, hermano. Be, uh, thoughtful, eh? Get her favorite ones. Not these ‘I want you back’ flowers. It must be ‘I am sorry I ruined everything’ flowers.”

Lando blinked, too deep into his new action plan to really be offended by Carlos’s bluntness. He’d have to let it go this time – the idiot was actually making sense for once, it seemed.

“Peonies,” he mumbled aloud.

Carlos nodded, giving the British man a concerned once-over. “Then send peonies. And do not write a note. Let the flowers do the talking.”

Lando blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”

Carlos shrugged, unapologetic. “I once ghosted a girl for three weeks and she forgave me after one bouquet. I’m just saying.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “…you’re the reason girls don’t trust men.”

But Lando had already tuned them out.

Always a man of action, Lando was knee-deep in floral websites within minutes. More than happy to let the rest of his men continue whatever it was they occupied their time with, he sauntered off with his phone in his hand, preoccupied with this new opportunity for redemption.

There was a fresh arrangement of flowers on her doorstep by the next morning.

Meticulously planned, Lando made sure that he gave nothing but his best. His best apparently included not just flowers, but arrangements – ridiculous, overdone, hand-delivered bouquets in tissue-wrapped boxes with quiet little cards that never said his name.

The first bouquet arrived with full, perfect peonies in pale pink and cream, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a soft ribbon that matched the color of her favorite sweater.

Of course, there was no note – he didn’t want to write the wrong thing. So he chose to write nothing at all.

He sent one a week later, and then again the next week. Each time, he’d send them in different colors this time in different colors. Some of them had sprigs of lavender tucked inside, others with a bit of eucalyptus. They were always delivered on Mondays.

She’d always said she hated Mondays.

He sent them once a week – always peonies, always without a message. Just to let her know he hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Just to make sure something soft was showing up in her life, even if it couldn’t be him.

He knew it wouldn’t fix anything, but truthfully, he didn’t know what else to do.

The first time, she stared at them for a long time before placing them gently behind the counter at the café. Not quite throwing them out. Not quite acknowledging them either.

The second time, she didn’t even look at the delivery guy. Just nodded, took the box, and walked to the back without a word.

They always arrived just often enough to remind her that she was still on his mind. That she hadn’t disappeared from his world, even if he’d vanished from hers.

For a while, she accepted them.

Once, Logan even told him while they were out on a job — that she had smiled when she saw this week's delivery – a stunning bouquet of stark white peonies in the softest lilac wrapping. As they loaded their weapons back in the trunk, Logan turned to him and put his hand on Lando's shoulder, daring to look him in the air in a rare moment of familiarity.

“Hey, she smiled. Even if it’s just a bit, that’s gotta be worth something, right?”

Lando hated how that simple thought was enough to rekindle the tiniest spark of hope in his chest.

Between the bullshit with having to manually throw out Binotto and the faulty shipment Stella delivered, the Reaper’s Circle was already having a pretty shit week.

Binotto wasn’t the only one of their clients who had started to play fast and loose with the rules. Verstappen had to knock sense into at least three different people who had decided to try their luck with asking for “an extension” on their payments, or just for “a little more time.”

What did they look like, a fucking charity?

So it was Lando who had to take Binotto and make an example of him, had to rough him up a little. It took a few hours of strategically placed cuts and meticulously calculated fractures to ensure that when he walked out of Jimmy’z, he served as an example for anyone else who felt brave enough to be as stupid as him.

Logan stood in Lando’s office just as this did any other day, more of Sargeant’s weekly updates scattered about the large desk in the form of meticulous photographs. The two of them were going over the surveillance details of the Monte Carlo police, as well as the officers who’s been trying to demand a greater cut over in the Moneghetti district.

“Those bastards aren’t worth half the money we pay them,” Lando snarled. “I mean, what the hell do they even do?”

“Uh, I believe they do… police things, Boss.”

The American winced as he said it, already anticipating the bout of rage he’d just signed himself on to be the target of.

Lando simply glared at him, too preoccupied with angrily pacing the length of the room.

“24 thousand euros, and what do we even pay them for?”

“I can dig up dirt on them, if that helps,” Logan offered eagerly. “There’s actually this new technique with my clip point blade I’ve been meaning to–”

The assassin cut himself off when he noticed he apparently no longer held Lando’s attention. Instead, the leader seemed preoccupied by a slip of paper he was reading, a worn sticky note with distinct scrawl.

Ah, he realized. The pains of young love.

“She just seems… quieter,” Logan shrugged, clearly hesitant to tell Lando this truth. He offered it in hopes that an update would cheer him up, make him less of… whatever it was he’d been lately. “Like, sure, she’s not really smiling like she used to…”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s not working!” Logan corrected, quickly realized his mistake. It was honestly a miracle how long he’d survived in this profession. “Maybe she’s playing hard to get? You know, I was tailing this girl one time…”

Logan’s story faded into the background as Lando absentmindedly brushed the pad of his thumb along the familiar grooves of the ink.

“Was she… Was she angry?” Lando interrupted, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Logan almost felt bad for the guy.

“No,” he responded just as quietly, his expression sincerely sympathetic. Even he had noticed just how much this girl – this apparent stranger – had worked wonders and brought magic into his boss’s life. Hell, he had front row tickets to the whole damn thing.

“She wasn’t angry,” he told Lando honestly, hoping it would make him feel a bit better. “Just… less happy, is all.”

Instead of breathing easier at this information, Lando’s expression only became more forlorn.

Something behind his ribs shifted. It was worse, somehow. Anger meant she still felt something for him. Sadness just meant the part of her that used to feel safe with him was perhaps… gone.

Lando turned away. There was a strange tugging sensation in his chest, he found, in response to Logan’s words. He shouldn’t have been surprised really – Lando hadn’t really left Y/N with all that much to smile about when he’d wormed his way into her life and earned her trust, all while lying right to her face.

But the problem was that Lando knew that smile. The smile that crinkled her nose and ruined his entire week. He was intimately familiar with the radiance of the smile she used when she was pretending not to be proud of herself. His memories held perfect recreations of the exact curvature of the smile she used when she was happy and didn’t know how to contain it.

Lando could never forget the smile Y/N used around him.

Or at least, used to.

He gave it one final attempt.

Some stupid, human part of him that she’d managed to dig up and make living once again pleaded with him to try one more time, to reach out for her once again despite it all. That part of his heart believed that if all the time they’d shared – from haphazard dinners made in her kitchen and movie night where she always fell asleep first to staying at her university’s library at unholy hours of the night – had been worth anything, that then there was still something worth fighting for.

So he arranged for one more set of flowers to be delivered to her place. These peonies were cream and soft pink — the exact shade of the kind she always watered a little extra at the shop, the ones she showed that little bit more love. They used to make her light up in this stupid way, like the whole world had softened just for her.

These ones he’d hand selected from his own garden, carefully the buds that were still barely in bloom – the kind that unfurled slowly over a few days, like they were shy about being beautiful.

He didn’t know all that much about flowers. For all long as he’d lived in this residence, he’d had a gardener who dutifully took care of all his plants, no matter how boring at times it seemed to Lando. Christian likely knew a lot more about flowers than Lando did, but had gone ahead and tried anyway.

He just chose the ones that reminded him of her.

The delivery man came back to the residence with a familiar bouquet and a less-familiar look of pity on his face.

“Didn’t take ’em,” the man informed Lando with a shrug. “Didn’t even open the door, really. Said she doesn’t want ‘em anymore.”

Lando stood in the middle of the foyer, staring down at the rejected bouquet in silence. The petals were still fresh, still beautiful, and yet somehow already wilting.

That hurt more than she probably meant it to, not because of the money or the gesture, but because it confirmed what he already knew.

Y/N didn’t want his apologies. She didn’t want him. The truth was that no matter how many flowers he sent, Lando couldn’t fix what he broke – not with peonies, not with silence, not with love.

Not anymore.

She had always loved peonies, and now she couldn’t even look at them without thinking of him. Now she didn’t even want them in the same room. Lando finally understood: there were some things he couldn’t buy, or fix, or drown in beauty.

Some damage was just done, and all the peonies in the world couldn’t bring her back.

He didn’t try again after that.

Because if even peonies hurt now, what chance did he have?

Days blurred. Weeks passed.

The world went on like it always does when people fall out of love — or maybe, in his case, when someone lets the person who loved them see them for who they really are.

Lando didn’t keep track in any meaningful way. Life had its own rhythm again: operations resumed, meetings were scheduled, threats were dealt with. No one dared mention her name around him anymore. It had faded from conversation the way most dangerous things do.

But even as the months stretched out like fading shadows, Lando still found her in places he didn’t expect.

He had been searching for one of his IDs when A sticky note, curled and fading, pressed between his phone and the case, tucked behind one of his IDs. Her handwriting spelled out some mundane comment, something stupidly her: drink water, don’t die :)

Another day, it was the origami stars. The ones she used to make when her fingers were too restless to be still, usually while he was telling some story she pretended not to care about. He had reached into the pocket of his winter coat and felt a small, crinkled shape — the tiny origami she’d taught him how to make, gentler hands placed right over his as he did his best to mimic each of the folds he’d watched her do dozens of times.

Another time he found two of them, pale blue and slightly squished, tucked in the front pocket of a he hadn’t worn since winter. He had never noticed how many she’d left behind. Some days, it made him feel like she’d never left at all.

That was the worst part of grief, he found – the way it hid, the way it waited.

He would find them by accident now, like landmines. Every time he thought he was fine, something else would come along and remind him of her, making it impossible to breathe.

He hated it.

He didn’t mean to think about her.

But that night, when the house was all quiet and there was nothing more to do, he couldn’t help but think of her. Even Lando Norris, the Reaper of Monaco, couldn’t stop the reel of old footage his brain kept playing back. On nights when sleep felt more like punishment than rest — she came back in whole memories.

It was worse on the nights he drank.

Not the reckless kind — not anymore. But the kind that made his head buzz just enough to knock the edges off, to make the memories less sharp and the guilt a little warmer.

He was already a few drinks in — not drunk, just loose around the edges — when it happened. Sinking into the large wingback chair, he let the darkness drape itself around him as he reached under the table to grab a different bottle, seeking something stronger.

If he focused just enough, he could spot her silhouette in the mirage of spotted lights reflected across his glass wall, the distant flecks of color blending together to remind him of the evening at the little Chinese place before Brazil.

Under the hanging lights, her eyes shimmered.

The lighting then had been dim but golden, all soft bulbs and reflections in window glass. He remembered watching her chew the end of her straw like she always did when she was pretending not to smile. Remembered the way she looked across the table at him — chin in her hand, laughter still blooming in her throat — and how the world had felt still for a moment, like it paused just to give him that memory in perfect detail.

She’d been radiant.

He remembered the warmth of it, the way the lights caught in her hair, the soft flush on her cheeks when she laughed at something dumb he’d said. She’d worn that dark green sweater he liked — the one that made her eyes look almost unreal under the amber glow.

God, she’d looked unreal under those lights — hair a little windblown, cheeks warm from the cold, eyes lit up with some joke he didn’t even catch all the way. Later that night, she’d reached across the space between them and took his hand gently, so gently, and asked him to stay still.

“Give me your hand,” she’d asked softly.

He’d frowned but obeyed, watching as she pulled a thin, threaded bracelet from her bag. It wasn’t fancy – nowhere near the caliber of the multimillion euro watches he always wore. It didn’t seem to matter to her — she’d still tied it around his wrist like it meant something sacred.

Now, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever having taken it off. He still wore it, tucked beneath sleeves and suits and the rest of the life he kept moving forward in. He still wore it, even after everything.

He tried then, inspired by the flash of anger that seared through him, to tug the stupid thing off. It was only a couple of stupid threads woven together, after all – how hard could it be?

Hooking his fingers under the braided string, Lando tugged with a mighty grunt. The skin of his face burned hot with shame, with frustration, with something when no matter how hard he tried the damn thing didn’t come off. He tugged and twisted and yanked on it until his fingertips were red and raw from all his failed efforts.

Stupid thing.

He told himself he’d cut it off the second he could get his hands on something sharp enough, but after too many drinks and not enough distance from his own thoughts — he found himself holding that thread between his fingers like it might answer something.

Sometimes love didn’t end in shouting or closure. Sometimes it just lingered like a thread around your wrist – fraying, but still tied.

A few more drinks later he found himself in his personal bedroom, pulling open one of the locked drawers in the back of the too-large walk-in closet.

He breathed a sigh of relief. The ring was still right where he’d hidden it, wrapped in a receipt and tucked beneath a box of spare cufflinks. Reaching for it, he stumbled to the ground more than he sat down with any amount of grace, the black velvet box smooth under his fingertips.

He hadn’t bought it for a reason. He hadn’t planned a proposal or imagined some cinematic moment with rose petals and violins. He’d just seen it in a market somewhere in Italy, or maybe Portugal, he can’t even remember. It reminded him of her, simple and delicate. A pale, iridescent stone — quiet and beautiful, just like her. He remembered seeing it and thinking that’s hers – not would be, or should be – just hers.

So he bought it, tucked it away and never told her.

He’d never gotten the chance.

He hadn’t planned on proposing. If he was being honest, he hadn’t even known what the future looked like. But he’d bought it anyway, because he’d wanted to – because he loved her.

He missed her.

Not just the version of her that had loved him — but her. All of her. Her stubbornness, her sarcasm, the way she threw napkins at him when he made a dumb joke. The way she used to hum when she studied. The way she’d fall asleep with her cheek pressed to his shoulder like she didn’t even realize she was safe there.

He missed the life they never got to have.

He turned it over in his fingers now, the weight of it a little heavier than he remembered. It was almost the only proof she was ever real, that he hadn’t dreamt her up. That he was real when he was with her.

Maybe she’d been a fever dream in the middle of the violence, a soft thing his brain made up to protect him from the rest.

This ring was nearly the only proof he had ever cared about her enough to dare to think that she could someday be his.

He held it between his fingers for a long time and let the metal sit against his palm as he tried to imagine how her hand would’ve looked wearing it. He also tried not to imagine what her hand might be holding now – if it wasn’t his.

Maybe I’ll finally stop thinking of her, he told himself, if I can just see her once.

What Lando wanted to know, deep down, was that she still smiled sometimes. He wanted to be certain that despite his Midas touch, he hadn’t ruined Y/N entirely. He wanted to see with his own eyes that she was okay, that she was safe. He needed her to still be able to smile, to still be building the life he watched her dream about. He didn’t need to talk to her or even approach her – just needed to finally confirm that Y/N had moved on.

Just to see. Just to know. Just to remember what it looked like to love something without touching it.

Perhaps then he would finally be able to let go of this godforsaken guilt festering in his chest.

So on that late Thursday night, Lando propped himself up until he was steady on his two feet, grabbed his coat, and headed out into the night.

The streets were quieter at this hour, the city breathing in its own way — hushed murmurs of distant cars, the occasional flicker of neon signs reflected on the rain-slick pavement. The neighborhood was mostly empty by the time he made it to the block where Brews & Books sat, still gleaming faintly under the warm light of its storefront. The leftover light spilled through the windows, cutting faint patterns into the pavement.

The café was tucked into the corner of the street like always, windows glowing soft and golden against the dark. Brews & Books — the lettering still intact, still the same warm serif she had chosen for the sign herself.

It looked exactly how he remembered it.

Outside, it wasn’t freezing — just cold enough to cut through his jacket in that way that made everything feel sharper, more real. He welcomed it, letting the wind bite at his hands and cheeks like it was a punishment. Or maybe a penance.

He kept his head down as he walked.

For once, Lando Norris wasn’t dressed nicely. Instead, he wore jeans and a hoodie and that same worn coat with the thread bracelet still tucked under the sleeve. If she saw him, he didn’t want her to think he was trying anything. He just… wanted to see her.

That was all.

He’d timed it carefully — picked a night he was fairly sure she’d be working, when the café usually stayed open late for evening study hours. He’d walked by enough times before to know the rhythm of her schedule. The soft hum of her days.

So when he got there — the familiar corner glowing faintly in the dark, window fogged from the warmth inside — he let himself hope, just a little.

With his gaze locked on the glass storefront, he waited for a glimpse of anything – a silhouette in motion, a flash of her in a messy bun, the curve of her smile as she handed someone a drink. All his attention focuses itself, seeking out the sound of her voice rising faintly through the door. Her laugh — god, her laugh.

He would’ve taken anything, even just her reflection in the glass. So he waited.

One minute. Then two. Then five.

He shifted from foot to foot, tucking his hands deeper into his coat. Then, he kept glancing back at the window like she’d appear any second, but she didn’t.

He didn’t go in, didn’t even get close enough for the security camera to pick up more than his silhouette. He just stood across the street with his hands in his pockets, the ring burning a hole in his coat.

Watching. Waiting.

His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his fingers brushing the frayed bracelet on his wrist. He just stood there — across the street, in the dark, watching the life that might’ve been his… if he hadn’t ruined it.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. And, finally, the truth started to set in.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t coming.

And the thought hit him harder than he expected: she used to love this place.

She used to light up in here. He remembered that night he showed up soaked from the rain, and she’d dragged him behind the counter just to dry him off with the sleeve of her cardigan. She used to hum while she organized the books. She used to sneak extra whipped cream into his drink and then pretend she hadn’t. She used to live here, in that warm way that he had never really seen her take up space anywhere else.

Now? Even this felt empty.

Did I ruin it for her?

Had he taken the one place that was hers and turned it into something she couldn’t stomach?

His jaw clenched as he looked away from the café window and swallowed hard.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, under his breath.

He shouldn’t have come out here like an idiot thinking she’d still be where he left her. He should’ve asked Logan before coming here. He should’ve checked if her schedule had changed, should’ve done anything other than walk out here like a complete idiot expecting some kind of… moment.

Because now he just felt stupid.

He stayed a little longer anyway — because some part of him still hadn’t caught up with reality. Some insane, idiotic part of him was still half-convinced she’d come around the corner any second and look at him like she used to. Certainly there had to be a reality where he got to see her one more time, got to witness one more time the way she used to light up when she would realize that it was him who had walked through the door.

But that didn’t happen

Frozen in place by some unknown power, Lando felt the rest of the world go quiet as he let himself miss her, just for a moment. For a moment, he let himself love her, quietly and from a distance. For a moment, he told himself that maybe, from now on, that this was what love had to look like.

So Lando stood alone in the cold a while longer, with a bracelet on his wrist and a ring he couldn’t give to anyone.

It took him longer than it should to realize something’s off.

The lights were on. The sign beside the door was still lit — OPEN in neon, flickering letters. The usual warm glow still poured from the café windows. He hadn’t noticed it at first, too busy watching for her, but now that he was really looking, the whole place was… awake, still thrumming with the faint hum of electricity.

That was the first thing.

The second thing was the music. Something played low, an acoustic track with a familiar rhythm that was barely audible from the street.

Yet no one was inside.

There were no customers, no baristas. In fact, there was no movement at all.

Instead, each booth and table and chair lay empty, devoid of even a single soul. From here, he could still spot a mop bucket abandoned near the center of the floor space. One of the chairs was left pushed back like someone had stood up quickly and never sat back down.

Lando squinted through the window. There was no sign of her – or of anyone else, for that matter.

There was a pressure in the air, a certain amount of wrongness that his body recognized before his brain caught up. His stomach tensed, the muscles tightening subconsciously to the unease he now felt creeping through his whole body. The sensation was faint at first, like static on the back of the neck. He hadn’t survived this long by ignoring a gut instinct like that.

That was the third thing — the bad feeling.

His hand drifted automatically to the inside of his coat. The leather of the concealed holster there was familiar, the weight of it comforting.

Just in case.

Worst case scenario, he told himself, this’s nothin’ more than a simple misunderstanding. It was more than likely that some barista had stepped out for a smoke break or someone with the closing shift merely forgot the lights on.

But Y/N wouldn’t do that.

The thought nagged at him.

Immediately, he stepped forward and crossed the street, barely looking on either side of the pathway before making his way over to the familiar entrance. When his hand went to press against the glass door, it gave way immediately. The door wasn’t locked.

That was the fourth thing.

He pushed it open slowly, the bell above it jangling with the same cheer it always had. The sound made his chest ache with something akin to grief for this place he’d somehow developed fondness for.

He stepped inside, and Lando’s eyes narrowed. His palm instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. his long fingers still curled near the handle of the gun, but with the index finger still pressed up against the safety lock on the side of the barrel. There was no need to draw it yet.

Huh.

Lando’s eyes narrowed. His fingers instinctively brushed the inside of his jacket, where the holster sat snug against his ribs. He didn’t draw it — not yet — but the tension settled across his shoulders like a warning. Years of training and muscle memory kicking in without being asked.

He rounded the side of the first booth, his eyes flicking over everything now. The register appeared to be closed somewhat haphazardly, its security latch visibly loose. On the countertop sat a single transparent cup, likely intended for some drink, only to be abandoned with the now-melting ice cubes as its sole content. He also noted a blueberry muffin on a plate, untouched. From where he stood, Lando could also spot the familiar sight of a note stuck to the side of the shelf, clearly in Y/N’s handwriting: restock oat milk!!

He was just in the middle of attempting to identify what it was about this scene that was so disconcerting when–

The loud, shrill ringing of a phone interrupted his train of thought, nearly startling him in the process. The stillness of the place had lulled him into a sense of ease, one that was disrupted the longer the ringing went on.

Isn’t anyone going to get that?

It rang again and again, going unanswered. Despite the fact that the sound seemed to emanate from behind the swinging door that led to the backroom, Lando could hear it clear as day, even out here.

Why won’t anyone answer it?

He moved slowly now, eyes scanning, every step heavier than the last. Each step followed the same heel-to-toe rhythm his body had long since memorized, his body working on autopilot as he continued to scan the room in an attempt to figure out what was going on.

"Hello? Are you there?"

Not paying enough attention to where he placed his steps, Lando’s shoe squealed against the tile. The floor behind the bar must have been slick with something, the rubber of his boot catching on it slightly.

He looked down to see what it was.

A spray of fresh, red blood.

Instantly, his gun was out, his finger hovering over the trigger now. He moved faster now, stepping past the edge of the bar counter and through the swinging door into the workspace. His body moved before his brain could even finish catching up.

And that’s when he looked down. His breath caught, and time slowed.

Crumbled on the tile like the air had been knocked out of her, one of her arms was outstretched, the soft skin of her palm open towards the door. The deep burgundy of blood rapidly stained her abdomen, with even more dribbling out of the side of her mouth. There was enough of the thick liquid for it to just begin pooling beside her, the floor beneath her soaking fast. Her body twitched weakly, like she was still trying to move.

Her eyes met his for the briefest, most agonizing second.

She tried to speak. All that came out was a wet, choking sound — like the air was catching on itself, like her lungs were filled with something thicker than breath.

Blood.

“Y/N!”

a/n: so...

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witchbitchlovesdilfs · 2 days ago

Text

Pain Relief Pt. 5

Jack Abbot x chronically ill f!reader

series masterlist, next

synopsis: reader finally meets robby and dana

warnings: fluff, alcohol, prosthetic leg, language, reader has pots

words: 1.22k

a/n: in love with him. jack comfort in next chapter!

“Thanks again for coming,” he says, face pressed into your hair as he holds you close, hands travelling the expanse of your body and sliding down to keep your hips in place.

“Of course,” you say cheerfully, savoring the way Jack holds you. “I’m just glad that I finally get to meet your friends! A girl can only hear so much about Robby and Dana before going mad with the need to befriend them!”

Jack pulls away, smiling down at you. “The three of you are going to be insufferable together.”

You grin and pull away to check your hair and makeup. “They didn’t have work earlier, did they? I don’t want to interrupt their time off when they could be getting sleep.”

Jack softens at the caring words. “They took today off specifically so they could meet you.”

You flush at this. “Wow, now I feel special.”

He watches you devotedly and says, silently, “You are.”

The bar is moderately busy when you enter, at Jack’s side in cute yet comfy clothes. You feel like you’re meeting the parents.

Jack waves nonchalantly at someone in one of the booths near the back, and you follow him to stand before a man and a woman - both smiling like they know a secret.

Robby clasps Jack’s hand in greeting and introduces himself to you with a sincere smile. Dana practically suffocates you in a hug, whispering how grateful she is that Abbot’s been happier lately. You flush and slide into the booth next to Jack.

“So,” Robby drawls out, fiddling with a napkin. “Jack told us you’re an artist.”

You glance at Jack with wide eyes. He’s calm, leaning against the seat with his muscular arms crossed. “I try,” you say sheepishly.

But Jack doesn’t let you undermine yourself. “She’s great,” he says, setting a comforting arm on the top of the booth behind you, still nonchalant. “I’ll have to show you the painting she did for me.”

Robby and Dana share a look.

“He let you paint him?!” Dana exclaims with a teasing smirk, stirring her glass. “He must really be in love.”

You blush and look down at the table, spotting a hint of red floating up Abbot’s cheeks out of the corner of your eye.

“I’m going to get a drink,” he decides, tapping the table and swiftly escaping the scene.

You bite your lip, staring at his back as he orders at the bar.

“How did the two of you meet?” Robby asks, and your head flies back in their direction. “Jack hasn’t really been giving us specifics.”

You fiddle with your hands. “I came into the ER, actually. One of the student doctors wasn’t being the nicest, and Jack told him off.”

Dana scoffs. “Sounds like him.”

Robby scratches his beard in thought. “What was the doctor’s name?”

“Howards,” you say softly, scared that you’re going to get Jack in trouble.

Robby’s eyes lit up in amusement. “Dr. Howards transferred a few weeks ago.”

“A certain Attending wrote him up for disorderly conduct,” Dana adds, hiding her grin behind her hand.

“What are you two gossiping about?” Jack’s back, nursing two drinks. He places a Pina Colada in front of you, telling you “It’s virgin”, and your eyes widen. How did he know? Well, you did mention that one time that whenever you went to a bar you tried to find a nonalcoholic drink instead…But he couldn’t remember that…Or could he?

“A certain student doctor you got fired,” Robby fills Jack in as he slides in next to you.

Jack freezes. “I didn’t fire him,” he says slowly, deeply.

Dana laughs. “We didn’t realize why you had such a vendetta against him until Y/n filled it in for us.”

Jack looks at you, and your face turns crimson as you turn away, wrapping a hand around the Pina Colada and taking a sip to cool your heart rate.

Jack shakes off the embarrassment. “Yeah, well, the guy was an asshole. Sooner or later, somebody else would’ve made a complaint.”

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye, and you notice that he’s watching you. Waiting for you to make eye contact. Instead, you place your hand on his thigh and squeeze. Thank you, your gesture says.

Jack nods and takes a gulp of his drink.

Waving bye to Robby and Dana, you sneak your hand into Abbot’s. He startles, looks at you, and lets you wrap your fingers around his.

“I’m tired,” you hide your yawn behind your other hand.

“Come home with me?”

Your head turns so sharly you’re sure you’ll get whiplash.

Jack sees the confused and flustered expression on your face and immediately assures you, “Just to sleep. I want a pretty face there when I wake up tomorrow.”

You’re so red you think you might explode. Looking down, you try to conceal the massive grin on your face. “Only if you let me sleep in your clothes.”

He sets a hand under your chin and lifts your face so you meet his loving, gentle gaze. He can’t conceal his smile either. “I’ve got a shirt and boxers with your name on them.”

When you reach Jack’s apartment - which is insanely close to the hospital, you realize - he tells you that it’s not much. You wave him off.

Jack pushes the door open and rushes over to silence a loud police scanner sitting on a nearby table. You hardly stifle your laugh as a hand flies to your mouth. “You’re really dedicated, huh?”

He blushes and practically pummels the scanner until it’s off.

You turn to look around, and that’s when you notice it: the painting on the wall beside his couch. The painting you made. You step closer slowly as your heart flips.

“Told you it would brighten things up,” Jack says. He’s behind you now, and as he wraps his arms around you, you think that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

Jack shows you to the bathroom and hands you clothes to change into. You thank him and shut the door, scrubbing off your makeup and slipping into the gray tee and black boxers. The shirt is big on you, the collar stretched out a bit, and there’s something so domestic, so intimate about it that you nearly cry.

When you step into the hall, Jack’s sitting on the bed. His prosthetic leg is propped against the nightstand, and he’s slipped out of his jeans. You redden at the sight, eyeing up the way his curls bounce.

Jack’s heart stills when he sees you in his apartment, in his clothes. “You look great,” he says as you timidly sit on the bed next to him.

You slip under the blankets. “Thanks.”

Jack follows suit and lets himself get comfortable. Letting himself take one more lingering look at you, he reaches over and turns off the light.

Everything is quiet except fainting honking from outside and the sound of your breathing. You let your head hit the pillow and turn to face Jack. In the dark, you can just make out that he is facing you too.

His arms outstretch. You slip into them quickly, like you’ve never done anything else, tucking your head under his chin and breathing him in.

“Good night,” he breathes.

You plant a delicate kiss on his throat. “Night.”

Taglist:

@miraclesabound @qardasngan @mads198-9 emma8895eb @celiacallsitcausal @interestellarprincess @kmc1989 @wisps-writes-fic @queerroyalty58 @kate654

#the pitt #jack abbot #jack abbot x reader #shawn hatosy #jack abbott #chronically ill reader

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ckret2 · 3 days ago

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Hi, I hope this is okay to ask-- I was hoping to hear your opinion/interpretation! Do you think Bill could have a diagnosable personality disorder? Specifically NPD? In some of his interactions I've noticed he shields his inecurities by covering it with ego or pride (or sometimes lashing out). I'm not too knowledgeable, so I just wanted to hear your take. Thank you!! :))

DISCLAIMER: i need everybody reading this post to not be weird about narcissism for 5 minutes, and if you believe "narcissistic abuse" is a real thing I'm going to politely ask you to leave the post, it's not for you.

I'm leery about armchair diagnosing villains with already-vilified personality disorders, and it's hard to get a villain more "surely he can be diagnosed with something" than Bill Cipher and hard to get a personality disorder more vilified than narcissism. So this isn't going to be something I discuss often, because some of you out there reading this are lovely folks but some of you I don't trust.

But yeah, I think you can make a strong case for NPD.

Of course it's really easy to find evidence of the outward negative traits associated with NPD (superficial charm, manipulativeness, entitlement, etc) but the clincher is gonna be whether he has the underlying traits that cause the outward ones in the first place.

And we don't see direct evidence of a fragile self-esteem underneath Bill's outward grandiosity, but there's hints that it's there—particularly, I think, in his self-presentation, how he'll lie about himself or otherwise try to make himself look better—more powerful, more knowledgable, more authoritative than he actually is—often seemingly just to try to impress the other party. We see that over & over in TBOB, but it's present before then too—for instance, in the reddit AMA he's called out for presenting himself as godly when he clearly isn't all-powerful and he admits he "might've overstuffed his resume"—"dress for the job you want"—like he wants people to see him as better & more accomplished than he actually is. He spends almost every scene he's in trying to impress somebody.

And then in TBOB he spends a lot of time dancing right up to, and then around, admitting to things that one might imagine he might find shameful. For instance, not only does he swerve around admitting that he's in Theraprism until his cover's blown, he also pretends that he's somewhere super cool and enviable. When we do find out where he is, suddenly it's everyone else's fault he's there and he doesn't need anybody that won't help him and he's too good for this place. Someone as proud of his power as Bill is would likely feel ashamed at being locked into such a powerless position, especially one that carries an implication of "there's something wrong with your mind (not in a cool edgy quirky way, just in a sad way that makes us want to help you)"—but it's like, he refuses to turn and face that shame. He chooses not to look at it.

If his massive ego was secure and stable, he wouldn't be afraid to face his failures and flaws.

I'm not interested in writing an essay psychoanalyzing everything we know about Bill so I'm just using those as a couple examples of how he may be using grandiosity to shelter an inwardly fragile sense of self-esteem, and I'm gonna stop there.

It's something that I personally headcanon as likely, and I tend to use NPD as a loose map when I write him to determine what's going on inside Bill's head in various situations (what he's thinking when he's trying to pump himself up and tear someone else down, when he's manipulating people, when he's in denial about something, etc), what's going on underneath the surface thoughts, and what must've happened in his history to cause him to develop this way.

A LOOSE map because I'm never gonna bring it up directly in fic or give him any kind of diagnosis. Because, again, I don't trust all of y'all; and because my strongest guide to his personality is "what would BILL CIPHER do" rather than "what would some generic person with NPD do," and if the two conflict then "write him like Bill Cipher" obviously wins out; and because, while it is possible to treat symptoms of NPD, I don't know how to do that, I'm just trying to write a fic that convincingly portrays helping Bill improve his mental health and I make no claims as to whether anything that happens to him would be helpful to a real person with real NPD. It probably wouldn't. Bill's a cartoon character. I get to choose which conversations give him epiphanies.

On a similar note I think you can also make a case for Ford possibly having NPD—that dual "he's the most brilliant, he has the most potential, he's a genius who will do genius things" & "if he doesn't succeed then he's worthless, he must pursue the highest ambitions to prove his worth, nothing's scarier than failing to live up to his potential"—although more on the vulnerable end of the spectrum. And I'm a strong "at his core Ford is (and was always) a good person" believer so I don't wanna see anyone misusing that headcanon to vilify him, all right? All right. we're being nice to Ford and we're being nice to NPD.

But that's also something I keep in mind when writing him & Bill together, and the way they can get into "i'm gonna try to impress this guy because he impresses me" "oh shit this admirable guy is admiring me" feedback loops

#anonymous #ask

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thecottageinthedark · 2 days ago

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#i sincerely do think there is no non-biphobic way to explicitly exclude bi people from tour dating pool#tainted by the opposite gender? biphobia. and you've reinvented cooties in a gay font#they'll cheat? you could too. we dont have the exclusive rights to the concept. why does it only come up when talking about bi people#they'll leave you for someone of another gender? skill issue. be the better option. who you are doesnt make you inherently better#hot take if its insulting to you that someone would leave you for another gender I do think its because tou've got some sort of#gender-based superiority complex going on. if not straight up sex-based#if anything a bi person being in a homosexual relationship with you in a society that still enforces heteronormativity#more or less violently should count for something. but its the opposite to you troglodytes#to be fair I also would not want to be with someone preemptively accusing me of cheating or having no spine#been there done that. not ever doing that again#like yeah it sucks being cheated on and left but that could happen with literally anyone#and also on the not sharing experiences... the ecperiences of... liking the same gender? facing homophobia for liking the same gender?#dealing with internalized homophobia? coming to terms with your sexuality?#yall act as if bi people are completely accepted everywhere and always lying about who they're attracted to#as if assuming we secretely only like one gender or still half in the closet wasnt denying our whole sexualities and identities#and shoving us into boxes we dont fit in so you can justify excluding us from a community we're supposed to belong to

#it took me so long to come to terms with my bisexuality *specifically* because of these attitudes#i already felt unsafe and unwelcomed in the lesbian community when I was complaining about facing abuse from my female partners#and being shut down about it. told it didnt happen. that was impossible. that i probably deserved it anyway#maybe that's what helped me put it into perspective in the end. cant lose much support from a community that never supported me anyway#but it still took me so long. just to admit to myself I was in fact also attracted to men. but knowing id be facing biphobia on top of#general homophobia with very few places where I could feel accepted did stop me#and also if anyone is actually reading this. to clarify.#im not saying you should throw a party and be infinitely grateful your bi partner is in a homosexual relationship#what im saying is. dont treat your partner as if theyve already cheated or already left if they havent#everyone would agree that's abusive if only monosexual people are involved. but somehow it's ok if the person's bi?#make it make sense. anyway#these are obviously My Feelings that i wanted to share and not expecting anyone to read this at all#but if you did i hope it brought you a new perspective or maybe something you can relate to#i love you mwah ❤

I think every lesbian who says she wouldn't date a bi woman is functionally on the same wavelength as men who say they would only marry a virgin

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supreme-leader-stoat · 23 hours ago

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I do wonder what it is about art galleries, specifically, that makes them such a tempting target for wackjob climate activists. If it were just a one-off event then yeah, sure, whatever, that's one person doing something stupid, but it feels like every few months to a year you get another story about someone trying to deface a famous painting because they're mad about climate change.

And it's not like there's any sort of direct link between the two subjects. It doesn't do anything to the companies or politicians responsible for what they're protesting, so that's out. If it were about making some sort of flashy symbolic statement I'd think you'd go after a classic car show or a casino, or at least something with a connection to fossil fuels or electrical consumption, no matter how tangential. I'll at least grant that it usually generates a few days of media buzz, but contrary to popular aphorisms, there actually is such a thing as bad publicity and it's entirely possible to shoot your message in the foot by being an idiot. So seriously, why the art galleries?

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adragonsfriend · 2 days ago

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Hey serious talk for a second ok? some of you do this thing where you go “and yeah so the Jedi often take in kids from parents who are too poor to take care of them” as some kind of trump card against antis and I think your need to “defend” the Jedi has outweighed your good sense. Like I fully understand the urge, but you need to take a step back from that argument and think about what you are saying.

“They don’t kidnap kids they take in kids from parents in vulnerable, desperate situations” is not the argument you think it is.

Presenting a strategy and/or habit of taking in kids from desperate people in desperate situations as like some super high charitable trump card thing is some incredibly Christian missionary logic there ok. It is taking advantage of desperation and fear in order to acquire child.

There are so many alternative ways to write the Jedi dealing with situations of finding Force sensitive kids in desperate situations that do not suck!

Jedi who work with communities for an extended period of time, coming to know and be trusted by those communities before being offered a child born after their arrival

Jedi who encounter families with Force sensitive children work to improve the entire families’ circumstances to provide stability before offering to take in the children

Jedi encountering a desperate parent who was already trying to find a way to get a child out of their care before the Jedi arrived for some specific reason (maybe someone who always planned to give up the child for adoption but can’t trust either their family members or the system?)

Jedi actively delaying the guardians giving up a child to make sure they’ve fully considered why they’re doing it, if they’re really sure, to varying final results

In The Living Force, it’s emphasised that upon encountering a force sensitive child in a neglectful orphanage situation, a Jedi should have assessed the whole situation and helped all the children there, rather than just whisking away the Force-sensitive one (and thereby created a situation where the child had a reasonable choice about whether to go or not)

And if you’re thinking “but those seem soo lucky and too good to be true often enough to sustain the order’s population...” then it’s possible that what you actually belive is that the Jedi need to prey on desperation to acquire sufficient children, and if so, you should not be defending that as moral. That is the opposite of a defence of the Jedi.

Personally, I think the Jedi just stumble across and/or work to create the types of situations above—where the guardians actually do enter circumstances where they can consent out of something other than desperation—with greater than average frequency. It’s the will of the Force, destiny, whatever. Simple as that.

Even in the prequels with Anakin, while I do not think it goes far enough in the direction I’m pushing for here, we see Shmi be the one to ask if Qui-Gon can help Anakin after Qui-Gon leaves a conversational opening for it, and then we see Qui-Gon attempt to free Shmi at the same time as Anakin. Even after she implies she might accept Anakin becoming a Jedi if it will save him from the life in slavery, it is still important that she be helped and freed. In her language when Shmi finally sees Anakin again as she’s dying, “now I am complete,” I think it’s reasonable to assume she’s stating that she’s glad the gamble she took letting him go paid off—ergo, she knew she was taking a gamble, not that she was some pathetically grateful recipient of Jedi aid.

If Star Wars were capable of having scenes that intentionally did more than one thing at a time, maybe we could’ve had a scene that did a half decent job of making the improvement of Shmi’s situation essential to the whole interaction on a cultural level (literally just move the “Qui-Gon gave her a valuable object to sell with the understanding she would know what to do from there” plot line someone invented in a comic into the movie itself—use one of Padmé’s dresses lol) rather than using it as something to raise up Qui-Gon’s individual moral status without actually helping Shmi at all.

Helping everyone in the situation so they can actually consent to giving away care of a child has to be essential to the Jedi on a cultural level—not just individual—in order for this to work. I think it is essential to them, and so I try to write that into my stories.

Do you think about what Jedi could actually be, or do you just respond to antis’ talking points with the first idea you can grasp onto? Because the latter can apparently make you say shit like “poor people should give up their kids to other cultures when they can’t take care of them” rather than “everyone should have the resources to be able to take good care of their children.”

And that’s important.

(And just to get ahead of the curve, yes I know that what I’m saying is “some variation of Star Wars would be so good if it was good.” Star Wars fanfic/discourse would also be good if it was good, and unlike the movies, fandom is always in the process of remaking itself. So maybe we could make it good, sometime)

#pro jedi #<-no one expect me to start using this tag regularly. it if for reaching a specific audience only #it’s like specifically a tag for entering the discourse circles #jedi #star wars #krayt complains

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storkmuffin · 2 days ago

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This just went up today, but especially in light of your excellent insights into San behaving at a meal/table.... I'm not sure how long they were drinking before camera's started rolling, but he was absolutely off his face by about 30 seconds in, bless.

https://youtu.be/SxPTgpdboiQ

Also featuring Mingi hyping up the tiniest room like he's in a full-on stadium (and doing a fantastic job!)

youtube

One of them - I forget, sorry- said they'd had about two glasses before the shooting for this began.

Disclaimer: Apparently getting to do this drunk content is meant to be an indication that your group has really Arrived. I don't quite get why but sure. This is where my being Korean does not alleviate my fundamental lack of information about what's normal or a milestone or whatever inside the Idol music genre, so I apologize in advance for the highly personal and specific nature of my response.

Ateez are so obsessively, compulsively, endlessly rehearsed that they can be really quite drunk and still perform these songs. Is this normal? I'm not a showbiz person, so I don't know, but I think that people who are part of a long running Broadway show or something also get like this, where they can turn in a professional performance under almost any physical condition as long as they are even halfway conscious. They must really live these songs day in day out.

This was a moment, during Wave, where my being a still relatively new Atiny who is also not terribly interested in like, the whole history of everything that's ever happened, is an obstacle. Yunho asks, "Do you know what this song is??" in a voice that sounds like he's mimicking Mingi, and then Mingi comes from behind to choke him, so I assume this is another one of those Eternal Yoke of Teasing that Mingi is trapped in?

Can anyone explain?

Unlike a Broadway play, though, when Mingi fumbles his lines, neither Seonghwa nor Yunho let it pass. At all.

If I was at an actual 회식 (hwesik) I would fight everyone to go sit next to these two, and only these two. Jongho is such a solid dude. He's really growing on me. And kind of like how I assume that people that my cat feels comfy with are great humans, the fact that the Untouchable Yeosang is so at ease with Jongho only adds to his aura.

If I were to conduct character analyses of this group based on just this one video, I would have to conclude that there's exactly one really cool guy, one really solid guy, and then six total doofuses, two of whom are exceptionally camera conscious and controlled, and four that are normal people.

One of the abnormal doofuses, of course, is Yunho.

There's always this guy. The overly strong one who gets suddenly very physical with the furniture in a drinking setting. And yeah, they're also usually the biggest one, and nobody can stop them.

Seonghwa says, with that air of surprise, "I'm actually getting drunk." This is Seonghwa being extremely relatable because I too (apparently) announce it to the table, unasked, when I feel myself getting drunk, with this same look and tone of surprise, even though I was the one drinking.

Then you get a demonstration from Yunho and Wooyoung of Good Drinking Etiquette. If you're someone who can hold his liquor, you're supposed to keep an eye on the weaker members of the pack to make sure they pace themselves. I'll say this for Yunho - he reacts fast, and correctly. The active body language of intervention is part of the correct behavior.

Wooyoung also running intervention. He suggests that Seonghwa needs to drink water, and when that doesn't really seem to work, he too stands up and engages in active body language to make sure Seonghwa keeps to a pace he can manage.

They have lost San, completely, pretty early on, and the Right Way to deal with someone like him, and there's again always that one guy, the ones who can't drink but also don't vomit, cry, or get violent. You include him in the group and socially reinforce his not-fun-but-just-fine way of being drunk by telling everyone (or him) that he's just real quiet when he drinks.

Jongho and Seonghwa play that role here, for San.

You know how I said there were two unusual doofuses, and one of them is Yunho? The other one is Yeosang. They are imbibing at what looks like the same pace as everyone else, and yet they never fail to address the camera. And Yeosang is cooler than Yunho - Yunho just does the choreo. Who is he outside the choreo? Does he know?

Seriously, these two are always somehow center frame, looking at the camera, hitting their angles.

So Wooyoung is the cool guy because he's the only one who actually brings up a general, relatable, light topic of conversation that can keep the mood bright and people engaged. For example, in answer to the question, What sort of performance stage makes you the most nervous? He has a creative answer - throwing the first pitch! Yunho relates so hard.

Wooyoung also tries to bridge the strange east-west divide that keeps happening at this table because Seonghwa and Mingi literally have nothing to say to each other, ever. He does it by addressing Jongho, who is usually a great partner for him in banter.

Which hyung is the least dignified these days, he asks, basically. (Literally he asks, Who's the hyung that comes crawling down to you, meaning, on the bottom of the hierarchy ladder where the maknae lives). And Jongho is like, I'm glad you asked, and says YOU. And Wooyoung pouts and they have a drink.

Then Mingi does the thing. The thing you're not supposed to do, actually at a hwesik or a drinking outing, but people do, constantly. And since Mingi specializes in doing stuff you're not supposed to do if it fits what he thinks is right, here goes.

Mingi tattles on Jongho to outsiders, kind of using their presence as a backup and a protection for the score settling attack he's about to launch. San is out of it, asleep, kaput, gone. Seonghwa generally does not really care what Mingi is saying, I think. But Yunho is totally alert, all systems on red, because he can sense the disturbance in the force.

All Mingi has said is, "I asked Jongho to go to dinner..."

But Yunho know something is up, and he looks to see if either Wooyoung or Hongjoong can be of use. I think he concludes that they cannot, because he runs intervention as soon as Mingi finishes the setup for his tattletale - "And Jongho said he didn't want to eat.."

"Take a shot! Take a shot!" And make up the spat, whatever it is. Yunho doesn't say it to Mingi because probably it's no use He's addressing Jongho. Mingi refuses to be led back to the socially smooth path.

He finishes telling the story, that after refusing Mingi, Jongho was spotted by Mingi going out with San. Meanwhile, Yunho has smiled for the crew (and the camera) and glares at Mingi. Mingi isn't supposed to do this, but he's doing it.

Hongjoong takes Mingi's side, and because the point is to make this awkwardness introduced by Mingi end as soon as possible, leans on the more socially adept Jongho hard by saying, We won't hear your explanation. Hongjoong is very often on Mingi's 'side' but I don't know if he genuinely is, or if this is the less costly method.

Then Wooyoung takes over the leadership for the mood again, and calls on San to do his cute aegyo.

Seonghwa speaks up, suddenly, to say, "It's a special weapon to save the day when the vibes are bad." (Because the vibes almost went bad just now). Yeosang is doing Yunho's same placating smile at the third party production crew. Jongho is just annoyed.

San gives it a hearty go, because he's a kind boy and drunk and he has heard the beseeching tone in Seonghwa's voice that said, Do the thing and please lift the mood please please.

Jongho recovers enough to do this killer follow up, to the delight of everyone.

During the next to final singing bit, the theater kid takes over again, and Wooyoung, as the one cool guy, puts a stop to it with a smile.

Wooyoung was MVP this outing, saving the day repeatedly.

I'm really excited for the upcoming concert. Despite it being the comeback song, Lemon Drop seems to already be residing in the members' bones. I can't wait to see it live.

Public health announcement: Don't drink the green bottle soju. It's shite. Absolutely shite. It's a cheap chemical bastardization of proper soju, which is delicious and doesn't give you nightmare hangovers. Soju in green bottles is SHIT, kind of like how wine coolers are not actually wine. Nobody I know voluntarily drinks the green bottle soju. I mean, all alcohol is carcinogenic, especially for women, but that's neither here nor there.

#ateez meta #drunkteez #wooyoung meta #yunho meta #jeong yunho #jung wooyoung #jongho #ateez

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centrally-unplanned · 2 days ago

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By the way, should follow up on this, I finished Roommate! Yeah, you can actually finish it, the game is spaced out over ~2 months. Eventually, her mom gets sick in the US, and she has a weeklong internal debate about what to do about it before deciding to take a leave of absence from school and fly over to take care of her. To, I shit you not, Scarsdale, New York. My dating sim 90's visual novel name-dropped Scarsdale. Partner and I have a theory that Ryoko is just a one-to-one recreation of the chatty ex of one of the devs, because the hilarious specificity of the details is just too on-the-nose - and the evidence kept piling up!

Anyway, I have of course done all of my "big takes" on the concept of the game at this point in my previous essays, so just some closing thoughts:

In between the game's rigorously-scheduled mundanity it continued to deliver sporadic moments of genius where the real-time concept really shone. Having someone have a fight with a romantic interest in class and get upset about it is dime-a-dozen in fiction; having Ryoko come home from school one day, awkwardly stone-face through pleasantries, and then rush to her room and lock the door for three actual days of my life, leaving me wondering what was happening, is not. This was authentically emotionally impactful. This approach is the only way to create that simulacra of real life's moments of waiting and being "in-between", it deserves real credit for that.

I also have a personal soft spot for the ending, a "goodbye-at-the-airport terminal" scene complete with kiss moment (obvi), because I have in fact actually gone through that exact thing in real life; saying goodbye to someone you know you probably are never going to see again is rough. Which is very true in this case because, to clarify/remind, after my playthrough finished the game deleted my save file and left me no ability to "access" that version of Ryoko again, only of wiping the drive and restarting:

The game's execution is honestly its biggest problem - it just seems unfinished. The impact, for example, of her "shutting herself in her room" due to being depressed would be heightened if she ever left her room! She doesn't really, you log in, convo happens, and then it's over and she vanishes. The game clearly wants to create this sort of "lived experience", but didn't have the chops to deliver moments where that really happens with enough frequency.

Sexual harassment is discussed on three separate occasions in our convos, and I don't think I have exhausted that well. You of course have a train groping incident, but hilariously to me there is one discussion of the male MC being groped repeatedly by coworkers - equality woo! To quote Ryoko, this game is "a storm of sexual harassment" - the George RR Martin Sex Tape hitting shelves soon:

Another chink in the storytelling armor is that due to the choices to A: stick your "get together" moment at the end of the narrative for tension purposes, B: make most of the dialogue one-off slice-of-life, and C: trap the protagonist in the Sega Saturn version of a literalized House of Leaves: Moe Edition, while Ryoko is very well-realized your relationship isn't. Not only is there no real arc to your dynamic, but there aren't many moments of emotional introspection that push or explore your connection. Though while the above choices are proximate causes, fundamentally this is a writing problem. I could do better. I could fix this.

As I mentioned previously, every ~50 times you log in you can unlock a bathroom spying scene, the only mildly erotic content in the whole game. And each time it is a different CG! I got two out of the three - I don't feel like I missed dialogue trees, I think to hit the final one you have to be incredibly dedicated. And now, of course, my save file erased itself and I can't go back in to unlock anything. So it is lost to me, forever veiled on the other side of a late night shower's fogged-up window. Surely that final scene would have changed everything.

Overall this game is dumb but it's also my fucking blorbo, I love it. I am looking a little bit into seeing how hard translating it would be as a rom hack? The problem there of course is that the answer is going to be "extremely hard", because Sega Saturn roms just are not built with a user-accessible dev architecture, shocker! But I am going to ask around some more experienced discords and see if it turns out to be a relatively easy case. I also have the official artbooks/guides, and I might scan those.

I also have this, like, weird fangame version of it stewing in my mind? One that leans into the "meta" elements I have talked about on here - but not in a horror way, that is super overplayed with digital waifus. Just one where it is, authentically, a real-time dating sim with a 90's girl, but she is aware that you are not in the 90's with her, and that you are kinda trapped in the house in this sort of limited frame for the girl's benefit. And the arc of the relationship goes from that being cozy to her to that being a crutch for you both? I may toy with sketching that out as like a write-up; I am not sure my Ren'py Indie Visual Novel Debut is around the corner or anything, but it might be fun to detail it out.

Hope to hear from, uh, all the other people playing Roommate out there? Let me know your, um, favourite idle chat before school scene?

#Roommate - Ryouko Inoue #Ash's 90's Roommate Saga

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myshollow · 16 hours ago

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Some specifics of a unique dynamic each reimagined girl has

While not a very prominent dynamic, especially in comparison to these other ones, Margaret is one of the few people who finds Muscle Man funny, as she looovvvessss awful jokes eats that shit up. When they first met (and all times after) it was like your mom finding her friend at the store and talking for hours for Mordecai they just wouldn’t stop yapping. When having the opportunity to hang with any of the park guys outside of Mordecai and Rigby, Muscle Man would be Margaret’s go-to. She’s his only fan at stand up at the coffee shop, and a few times they’ve done dual acts (it was awful terrible). The only reason Muscle Man’s not banned from comedy nights despite crashing out after bad reception is that Margaret keeps sneaking him back in. Wtf.

Margaret/Muscle Man:

So Eileen actually has backstory lore where she used to work at the park before Mordecai and Rigby, but ended up getting fired by Benson. The situation was..very nasty, leaving Eileen to..hate Benson, but she’s too shy and non-confrontational to be upfront about it (girl talks major shit though). It’s to the point that Benson thinks the coffee at the coffee place fell off because Eileen kept MAKING SURE to spit in his. Benson doesn’t know about Eileen’s hatred and just feels neutral towards her. What makes things worse is that Benson keeps stopping himself from firing Mordecai and Rigby…even though they destroy the park like every week, making Eileen feel even worse about getting fired. Biased ahhh Benson. They do eventually resolve things and become acquaintances/friends, but damn it’s rough out here

Eileen/Benson:

Starla at first lowkey hates Pops for beating her and “humiliating” her during the wrassle frassle. But that hatred grew into curiosity, as how can a seemingly frail old man like him be so cracked? Once she gets the opportunity, she meets him alone and inquires about his skills. Silly silly Pops is very vague about his skills but is excited that someone is taking full interest in his wrestling hobby, and thus they start to practice together. His old-fashioned nature and her modern nature actually contrast well together, as they help each other learn different techniques. They manage to be very compatible as friends in general. Starla, being very open-minded, finds his weirdness and silliness fun. And Pops is always open to learning about all the new trends. And plus..they both love some ✨fashion✨.

Starla/Pops

CJ, having absolutely no friends besides Mordecai, turns to Margaret, as she has those NETWORKINNGGGG skillssss. Margaret, being the nice nice girl she is, is happy to try and build up CJ’s social smarts more. Though this kinda leads into it being an experience for both of them. CJ, knowing exactly what she wants from life and not having the resources for it; Margaret being the opposite. CJ really makes Margaret think about what she wants..really makes her start questioning herself. (Yes this is gay as hell reimagined margaret is a MAJOR LESBIAN she just doesn’t know it yet..nor does she fully understand that she’s into CJ for A BIT) It’s sort of a nice change of pace to be around CJ, as she’s the only person Margaret knows that is adamant and clear-cut (in a friendly way) Silly silly girls..happy pride month.

CJ/Margaret

Mona’s only friend for a while was Samson (Techmo). Before Samson teamed up with Walks, he was with Mona. Mona was VERY brash and reckless, making for a concerning but compatible contrast with Samson’s scholarly, observant nature. They’d often go on adventures together, Mona to seek out treasure and glory, Samson to learn more about the world. Though after the whole Mona killing a guy incident, she grew depressed for a time in her life. Samson was always by her side to help. Mona’s current calm and pacifistic attitude is actually more preferable to Samson, as yeah Mona was A LOT beforehand. They still go on adventures every now and then, but spend most of their time telling stories, inside jokes, or just spending a quiet moment together. Mona’s death hurt Techmo back then and now just as much as it hurt Skips, though he’s repressing it A LOT.

Mona/Techmo

Both being interns who stay on the sidelines, Celia has taken notice of Thomas’..kinda strange behavior, but is too anxious to confront him about it. Thomas, being thrown off guard by Celia’s constant presence, decided to manipulate her into being “friends” so she’d be less suspicious. Interns gotta stick together, right? The whole time, Celia was still doubtful, but over time enjoyed Thomas’s presence, and was willing to put her suspicions to the side. Thomas began to actually like Celia and like having her as a friend, which only made his mission and inevitable betrayal that much more painful. In the time before the spy reveal, they took solace in their shared need to be “regular,” and would just do nice, casual activities together. And hey, Thomas actually knows how to DJ, making him that much more relatable to Celia.

Celia/Thomas

Pam, being a tall, strong, smart person who knows her way around technology is definitely a lot for Skips to take. While he’s been able to resolve his jealousy regarding someone like Techmo, that was just over one skill he lacked. Pam “has all the skills he has,” and more. So yeah, while he didn’t pay much mind to her at first, he’s over time gotten pretty dang jealous and insecure about her skills, to the point where he can’t stand being around her. It doesn’t help that due to his already established jealousy, he finds her weird and overbearing attitude annoying. In the pinnacle of this, Skips feels replaced by Pam, as a lot of the park crew go to her for all kinds of problems he could/couldn’t handle. After..a lot of crap goes down, they start to resolve things and become pretty good friends, as Pam can help Skips get just a bit more updated.

Pam/Skips

Stef/Rigby

Whenever Stef messes with Mordecai, he gets annoyed but doesn’t try to feed into her attitude. Rigby doesn’t have that mindset and gets VERY mad. When they’re in the same vicinity, it’s just constant juvenile insults and growling/hissing??? Stef has a ball with Rigby, loving his pissbaby energy. Their “rivalry” usually motivates Rigby to do dumb shit to “show her what’s up” or whatever. Though when they both actually stop and use their brains, they realize that they actually have a lot in common. They’re both shifty, fun-loving, jerks. When Stef/Rigby both get their individual development, they become pretty good friends, loving that they can fully be scoundrels around each other. Rigby actually admits that Stef is pretty awesome, and vice versa. Stef has always noticed Rigby’s intelligence in how crafty he is, before most others.

#regular show #reimagined show

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ladyloveandjustice · 2 days ago

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#on the one hand steph not being a prodigy like the other bats but doing what they do anyway fearlessly is one of her most charming traits#and I say this as someone who's other favorite bat characters are damian and cass i love prodigies in fiction#but it doesn't feel true to who steph is. she's always defined herself as one of the 'have-nots' in a world of 'haves'#but you're absolutely right that it boggles my mind how she's genuinely so good in canon when you take context into consideration#they never ONCE mention fighting training! not even a perfunctory 'oh steph got in lots of scraps as a kid'#because...i genuinely don't know why not!#post-52 after Steph has had SO much bat training she's still extremely low ranked in the batfamily in terms of abilities#i stand beside the fact that tim may have technique but steph has raw strength creativity and a scrappiness that could give her edge#she should at least be able to take tim. i feel this in my heart (no hate to tim)

I do agree that Steph having to struggle is part of what makes her so relatable, but it just...wasn't written in a way that made much sense when you look at what she can do vs how little support she had. There are other ways to write her as having to work harder (she could struggle in specific areas but be acknowledged as prodigious in others, for example) that would have been more consistent Either way, it would have been realistic to have seen leaps of improvement by the time she was Robin.

It's kind of the double edged sword-- Steph being an underdog, her resilience, not giving up when everyone's against her, is part of what makes her loveable and inspiring, yet the reason she's was an underdog is because of sexist writing where other characters's treatment of her was often incredibly condescending at best or nonsensical and cruel at worst.

As for Tim, yeah she should absolutely be on his level at the very least Look at this part in Robin 5-- In one corner, Tim has been trained by Lady Shiva and Batman and fought multiple big deal supervillains. In the other corner, we have Steph is out crimefighting on her own for her second time ever with only high school gymnastics experience and scrappiness to rely on.

She gets the drop on him and overpowers him! It might not have stayed that way if the fight had continued, I'm sure Tim-Drake's-gotta-be-the-best truthers would say, but the fact she gives him this kind of beating when there's such a huge experience gap between them?

(and also. despite his claim here it didn't hurt that much he then immediately indicates it actually did and even complains about it in the first page of the next issue, which I always found very funny)

(Tim you're the same size)

So, realistically, you look at this and think she should be better, or at least as good as Tim, if she receives the same training.

And it wouldn't be a knock against Tim if she had been more skilled than him in that area after recieving Batman training, he often admits that he's not the athletic prodigy other Robins are, that that's not his strongest area, his strengths have always been strategizing and outthinking threats, and he can outdo Steph in that area easily.

One thing that always bothered me as a kid, and still bothers me, is it honestly makes so little sense Steph didn't rank super high on the scale of Martial Artists after receiving the Robin training, if it's so amazing. Considering what she could do while untrained, the experience she had, it's baffling that no one ever considered her a prodigy, or that she wasn't at least notably more skilled than say, Tim was, when she started out as Robin.

Like, Steph was in the field and knocking out grown men twice her size with zero training. It was not even mentioned that she took martial arts classes or anything to explain how she can do this, just gymnastics and softball. And both were high school gymnastics, high school softball, not fancy expensive classes??? Even Babs, in Batgirl Y1 had the advantage of having taken martial arts classes and presumably a lot more since her goal was to be in the FBI.

Meanwhile Steph like. She's jumping off rooftops and surfing trains and taking down bad guys with nothing. Tim's gone through extensive Batman training and trained with Lady Shiva and all this stuff, and obviously she's not as good as him and needs him to watch her back at times, but she can keep up with him, and even saves him or get the jump on him quite a few times, and that's incredible when you think about it. Tim gave her gadgets and instructions in the field, but it's never shown that he taught her any moves.

There's even a panel where Batman notes Stephanie almost snuck up on him and "not many people can do that" when again, no training, no martial arts classes, this is way before he agreed to give her any help at all-- and then for some reason, after noting this girl with no training is more talented than most people he knows, just keeps telling her she's not good enough and should go home.

That's a ridiculous level of raw talent, and it's honestly so bizarre nobody in the Batfamily ever noted that and kept telling her to go home. When she does get training, it's very sporadic, it is not clear how much Batman or Black Canary trained her the first time, he disappeared on her and then fired her as soon as he came back, and we never saw her get trained on screen by Dinah (the only person who ever acknowledged she had talent). She sparred with Cass, but Cass never taught her anything. Despite all this, she was noticeably getting way better during the era.

But when she received the six month Robin training that's supposed to make them so strong or whatever...how did that not result in her being a prodigy? She's the only Robin who was an experienced superhero before she took on the mantle?

Bruce literally tells her "Tim did this better" when he was training her about something, which makes no sense considering she came into being Robin with way more skills and experience and martial arts prowess??? When she was surviving on her own and fighting villains before that? When she could nearly sneak up on Bruce even before that?

You could claim she's a "bad student" or whatever, but she was a clearly very good at taking her gymnastic coach's instructions, enough to become a genius at it, so that doesn't really hold water.

The only explanation that would make any sense would be that Bruce taught her badly on purpose. which. unfortunately wouldn't be too far out of character from how he treated her in that era. (And that she apparently improved a lot under Babs tutelage as Batgirl but not his. So. Not a good look for him)

I mean the real answer for why all this makes no sense is DCs misogyny ofc. But it’s pretty wild how there’s no justification for this in universe.

#stephanie brown #robin #tim drake #dc comics #the spoiler

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