#second bad post to come. maybe. im on the fence about it

[tiktaalic]

i have 2 more bad taylor swift posts to make before i log off and they are. firstly.

taylor swift. three founding tenets of her being. is that. one. her parents indulged her with singing lessons instead of getting her evaluated for autism. two. that she is like if a horse girl was a guitar girl. three. she is the irl version of the most conventionally attractive full face cw actress cast in a high school drama who gets bullied for being a weird uggo . and you know how you watch this and go this simply isn't realistic this woman would not get bullied for these things because she is beautiful and talented with normal interests. well guess what. not funny happened to my buddy taylor the other day.

[paingoes]

Now I'm wondering what WOULD happen if AU Delta were as powerful as canon Delta.

I imagine Apollo would be even more annoying after he graduated from medical school lol.

I really love that Delta lets Paris have a phone and keep in touch with his friend, and shows some genuine care for Paris and what's important to him.

The idea of Delta and Lorelai being internet/social media friends is really neat. What would their interactions be like? Also, was Lorelai allowed to have a phone, or did she swipe it from somewhere and has to hide it, like canon Delta with his laptop?

On that note, if Delta were to get news relevant to Lorelai, would he tell Paris? And without Paris asking him?

Yes!!! Sports! Maybe baseball, American football, or flag football for Paris. (I'd say wrestling or boxing, but I'd be worried for his opponent 😬.) What sport would suit Lorelai?

"Those are my lungs." Is Delta referring to the fact that he owns Paris (and therefore his lungs), or second-hand smoke? Just wanted to be sure I'm interpreting that line correctly.

1.) AS!delta would probably end up being forced to mask his powers by his parents. i said psychic!paris would go on to be a dictator but that's EMPIRE. Aegea is just one seaside kingdom in a larger galactic federation and they're not a warlike people. they'd definitely gain a powerful weapon through delta's powers but all the attention it would draw to him would definitely mark him for assassination or capture. so he's forced to hide it. he probably wears psychic dampeners like delta does in rubies. they would blend in with all his other jewelry so it just looks natural on him. no one ever finds out, hopefully.

delta really hates this. when he's younger he acts out a lot to try and show off. but as he matures a little bit, he comes to understand why his parents made him hide it. i mean. you saw how well it worked out for canon delta.

2.) haha i think he gets humbled by the licensing exam! he's just really dealing with the dunning-kruger effect at this point. levon critcizes him for being a know-it-all and delta says he's kinda bossy. he's a little less annoying after he graduates :)

hes at the peak!

i love apollo <3 this wasnt your question but he went as gene wilder frankenstein for halloween btw

3.) omg i didnt think about it but now that you mention it, lorelai probably IS sneaking her phone. you're really not allowed to have a personal phone if youre in combat right??? so yeah i think shes hiding it. however i think the consequences of her being found out are pretty minimal and if she did get it confiscated she'd just like. get a new one. lmfao.

delta watches lorelai's instagram stories (15 second videos of her doing parkour in the woods) in complete silence at 3am. replies with fire emojis. she hypes him up whenever he posts pics of himself :) its mostly small talk but they get along p well and i think they have good bants. nothing beyond that really. neither of them are online that often.

4.) yeah! i think paris's little panicked reaction when delta asks if she's okay means that delta is in fact keeping tabs on her situation. he'd tell paris if he found out something about lorelai specifically. however, if it was just general bad news about how the plantary situation might develop, he'd probably keep that to himself. no reason to make paris stress out about it for no reason. it's not like he can do anything :/

5.) im biased but i think paris would be good w baseball and basketball. i actually just want to draw him in a basketball shirt ive been meaning to draw streetwear destroyer for a grip. oh also paris canonically fences. yknow how it is w princes.

lorelai i think would be really good for tennis and volleyball <3

6.) delta was referring to the fact he owns paris <3

[angrylizardjacket]

fit by my side {Machine Gun Kelly}

@bitchylittleredhead said: Okay I hear your MGK x pastel!reader and I raise you MGK x Mother Nature!reader. Hella plants, strong love for animals, heckin soft, v kind, mom friend, sunshine child. (I just really really love soft paired with him, it’s so damn cute) also I love you I hope you are well 🧡 

Also This Concept

A/N: 3177 words. Gender Neutral Reader (they/them) ! im worried kells is OOC. also there’s no smut but it does get M rated, but there’s no genitals specified. gets quite sappy at times. also @url-under-construction i hope u like it and i hope its good.

----

When you meet Colson, he’s famous, but he’s not, you know, famous famous. You meet on the set of The Dirt; he’s one of the stars, you’re a production assistant and stand-in when they need it, and you don’t think for a second that he’ll even remember your name when this is all over. 

But he does; in rehearsals, you’re the one reading the lines for the characters they haven’t cast yet, and the first time the four main cast members see you, in your floaty, floral top, and your gentle aura, and then to hear you say, with absolute sincerity, ‘your mom’s a cunt’, it has them bursting out laughing. You smile, sweet and kind, and you step gently through the blocking that has the character you’re currently standing in for, stabbing Tommy - Colson - with a pen. 

Maybe the juxtaposition of you taking part in this whole production is what intrigues him.

When filming starts, you’re still around, and something about seeing you, amid this performance of debauchery, and yet you’re still sincere and gentle, your choice of attire making you stick out like a sore thumb amid the leather and grime. At first, he tries to play it off, that you look somewhat out of place and it’s eye-catching, but you bring the cast food and water and whatever they need, you go on coffee runs, and take a genuine interest in each of them, and by the time he realises that his mood lifts every time he walks on set and sees you there, he knows he can’t play it off as you catching his eye for completely platonic reasons.

He asks you out the week after Casie leaves from visiting set, having seen you interact with her, entertain her while Colson was in hair, treating her with just as much kindness and respect as you did everyone else on the production. It convinces him that your intentions are true, and he knows that he can’t finish this production without shooting his shot.

By the time the wrap party comes around, you’re calling him your boyfriend, at first tentative, looking to him for confirmation, but then you see the way he beams at how the words sound when you say them, and you grow more confident each time you say it.

It’s met with... confusion.

Really? 

It seems no-one saw that coming - if anyone, I would have expected Douglas - you hear, and frown. 

“What does that mean?” You ask; a frown is rare to see on your face, but you’re wearing it anyhow, and the woman your speaking to splutters her way around a sentence as she’s trying to backpeddle.

“I just- I mean, well, Kells - Colson - he’s so... Doulgas just seems more... refined? Not that Colson not, you know- you’re just -”

“I’m just what?” You ask, not accusing, more curious than anything else, and the woman’s voice dies in her throat as she looks you over; pale blue jeans and a pastel, patterned button-down that would have looked right at home in the eighties. 

“I’m just concerned for you,” she eventually says, laying her hand on yours like she’s trying to do you a favour, “Colson’s intense, I’m just worried you’ll get hurt.” You see what she’s trying to say, but her tone is so painfully condescending. 

“I’m an adult,” you tell her, tone understanding but firm, “and I appreciate your concern, but I promise I can take care of myself.”

The moment you can get out of the conversation, you find Colson, talking animatedly to one of the makeup artists, and you slot yourself into the space by his side. Automatically, without even stopping the conversation, he wraps his arm around you and pulls you close, and you gratefully take the moment to press your face against him, wrapping your arms around him without saying a word. It’s both strangely intimate and familiar, his thumb rubbing small circles against your side.

As he stops talking, there’s a lull, and you don’t have to look up to know the makeup artist is giving you both a strange look.

“Ignore me,” your voice is muffled against him, using one hand as if to waive off any last bits of hesitation. 

“They’re fine,” Colson assured, tapping you on the hip. He’s still oozing casual confidence

You’ve been together for almost half of filming, which isn’t exactly a short amount of time, but usually you try and keep things professional on set, so it’s nice to be able to be close to him in public. 

The rest of the cast know, of course, you’ve been out with them on several occasions, and they all have come to adore you just as much as you adore them. Something about hearing Daniel drunkenly assure you that if Colson ever hurts you, that there’d be a line of people ready to slap some sense into him. You try to brush him off, endeared by his drunken affection, but he turns suddenly to the rest of the cast.

“Hey, hey, hey - who’d throw down for Y/N?” He asks; without hesitation, Douglas, Iwan, and Colson raise their hands, eyes wide and alert, as if the offer needed to be acted upon immediately. The show of support has your heart swelling in your chest.

You find yourself fitting into his life back in LA easily; while beginning work as an assistant on a Netflix original series, you call into his house in the Hollywood Hills, delighted to be privy to demos and snippets from his next album. 

And you meet his friends, shake their hands and smile and chatter with them. They’re not sure what to make of you at first, no-one really is when you present yourself in conjunction with Colson, but soon they start to see what he sees in you. It’s endearingly genuine and thoughtful and honest and enthusiastic and -

“They’re like sunshine,” it’s Rook’s Instagram live, almost six months into your relationship with Colson, that really cements it to the public. Rook is smoking in Colson’s living room in the middle of the afternoon between recording sessions, and someone asked what your deal was. 

“I’m so sick of - and I know Kells is, and Y/N too, not that they’d ever say anything. ‘ve never heard them say a bad word ‘bout anyone, you know,” Rook hits the blunt again, his face scrunching up, “but everyone ‘round here’s so fuckin’ sick of people talkin’ shit ‘bout ‘em. For real, Y/N is sunshine, nicer than all of you motherfuckers put together,” and he laughs, but it’s clear he isn’t entirely joking, “- you know what?” He asked, eyes lighting up and standing abruptly, grabbing the phone.

“Baze, man, you seen Y/N?” He calls, and Baze responds from somewhere off-camera that you’re outside. The comments are going off, but he pays them no mind, heading out to the backyard, only to see you by the back fence, peering over into the trees, on your tip toes, one hand straining over the fence, in shorts and a singlet in sunshine yellow.

Rook calls your name.

You shush him loudly, and then, without looking at him, slowly wave him over.

As he approaches, he can hear the telltale sound of a bird chirping, and as soon as he gets close, he hears you whisper -

“I think they’re bluebirds,” you murmur, and finally look back at him, lowering yourself, surprised to see his phone held aloft. He tells you he’s live streaming, you wave awkwardly, which is when he sees the slice of banana you’re holding, “I’m not sure what they eat; do bluebirds eat banana?” You ask, a little helpless, looking at Rook, and then to his phone. 

After a moment, you step aside, and gesture for Rook to take a look over the fence, and sure enough there’s a nest with a single, rather sad looking bluebird with it’s wing bent at a strange angle, calling out pathetically, obscuring a few eggs, just out of arm’s reach. While he’s looking over the fence, also trying to reach them, and also trying to get the phone close enough to see if anyone watching the livestream could identify the bird or offer any suggestion, he hears your footsteps retreating.

“Stay there, I’m going to get Kells,” you call out to him, voice bright, “he’s got long arms!” And Rook bursts out laughing; you weren’t wrong. 

While waiting, he sits against the fence and answers a few more questions, until he looks up and sees you, expression concerned, and Colson uncharacteristically fond as he lets you lead him by the hand.

You show him the nest and ask for him to get it, worried the bird was hurt, and he obligingly reaches over the back fence to gently collect the bird nest, trying his best not to jostle the bird. The bird’s wing appeared to be broken, and Rook ends the live when you mention that you’re going to take the bird to the vet.

Already, the fandom is exploding from what had transpired. 

People are making suggestions as to what the birds should be named, people are claiming your caring and sweet personality is completely fake, people in the live managed to screenshot Colson’s expression as you’d lead him to the birds, how smitten he was with his hand in yours, and have started posting ‘get u a man who looks at u like kells looks at y/n’ all over twitter and tumblr.

“Bird update!” Several hours later, Colson posts a series of videos to his instagram story, “for those of y’all who don’t know, Y/N found a bird with a broken wing in a tree out the back of my place, we rescued it and it’s eggs, and took it to the vet,” and with that he flips the camera around, from a close up on his face, to show a large, cardboard box in the corner of the room. 

Peep Davidson was written in large, black letters on the side of the box.

The rest of the videos are outlining what the vet had told you all, and that the bird should only take about seven days to heal before you could put them all back into the wilderness. 

At that, he pauses.

“You worried about putting the birds back when you saw that cat the other day?” And he angles the camera to reveal you, laying with your head in his lap.

“The orange one?” You ask, voice heavy, as if he’d disturbed you when you’d been right about to fall asleep. You yawn, and he confirms, you give a little, lazy shrug and smile, “not sure where that cat is.”

“Fuckin’ hell, babe,” Colson laughs, “you gotta stop finding random animals in my backyard.”

“They find me,” you counter, and shift so you can press your face against his belly, humming contentedly as his free hand begins stroking your back. 

“Snow White-Cinderella-Pied Piper motherfucker,” how that is somehow the softest, most gentle words to ever leave his lips, is utterly baffling, but there’s so much love and adoration but you turn enough for the camera to catch your delighted little smile, “you’re-” he starts, “who’s that dude from that, that My Hero shit we were watching the other night?”

“Koji Koda, you weeb,” you tease him fondly, knowing exactly who he’s referring to, and that’s where the video ends.

That’s the day it’s confirmed for the rest of the world. There’s countless paparazzi photos, and hints, and speculation, but this is the first time he’d called you anything but your name, and they’d all seen you snuggling up to him, your head in his lap.

This also is the day the trend begins on his Instagram story of a photo of you, usually in his backyard, with whatever animal had decided to befriend you that day.

My partner. My backyard. No fucking idea who’s animal that is.

And he still goes out and gets fucked up, and sometimes you’re there, and sometimes you’re not. When you’re out together, it still doesn’t quite make sense; he’s hard partying and over the top, and it seems like it wouldn’t be your scene at all.

But then there’s photos of Colson and a few of his friends standing on the edge of a roof, announcing that they’re Kings, and you’re by his side, smiling and waving at the person taking the photograph. He manages to get himself injured pulling a stunt at a friend’s house party, but you’re in the back of some influencer’s vlog, straddling his lap with tissues in your hand, him holding you secure as you clean up the scrape on his forehead; it’s kind of sickening how in love he looks, as he watches the way you concentrate. When you notice his expression, your own softens, and you lean in to give him a kiss. 

And so you start to make sense, but people still ask why.

So when asked, you tell people that you support each other, and challenge each other, and yeah, that’s absolutely why you’re together, but it’s not the whole reason as to why you make sense.

Because no-one sees the way you hook your finger into his belt loop at the back of his pants at the house party, and you press a kiss between his shoulder blades, and he knows exactly what that means. He’s quick to make some flimsy excuse to leave as you step into place by his side, which everyone he’s speaking to immediately sees through. You play at being flustered, tucking your embarrassed expression against him as he slings his arm around your shoulders, and calls an Uber.

The drive back to his place has you both on edge with anticipation, his hands all over you in the back of the car while you try to hold a civil conversation with the driver. It’s killing you not to give in, but you know it’s worth it. 

“You’re such an idiot!” You announced, grinning from ear to ear the moment you get into the house, before the door’s even closed, and he slams it shut to press you against it. Kissing him feels like a cathartic release, but after a moment you shove him back, loudly admonishing him for taking part of a stunt that got him hurt.

“You could have been seriously hurt!” You keep poking him in the chest to punctuate your words, and he steps back each time, expression alight, pupils blown wide. He keeps reaching out, as if to touch you, to snag your clothes, like it’s a game when you smack his hand back every time. 

“Got a gnarly cut though,” he pointed out, as his ass hits the kitchen island. His legs open, making space for you, and you step into it.

“Gnarly cut,” you murmur, tone surprisingly derisive, and you reach up to push his hair back from his forehead. His head tips back, leaning into your touch, the look on his face almost dreamy even as you’ve got a hand on his hips, pushing him back on the counter. 

Then you’re in his lap on the counter, hand fisted in his hair, lips on his neck, leaving bruises and bite marks. He’s trying to get you naked, efficient and desperate, but the moment he gets your shirt off, you push the fruit bowl behind him onto the floor, and push him back against the granite countertop. 

“You were worried about me,” he smirks up at you, admiring you with your hands planted either side of his head. 

“Because you don’t worry about your damn self!”

“Ooh, breaking out damn tonight? Must be serious,” he teased, deliberately riling you up; he loved this side of you just as much as the sweetness. Instead of responding, you reach up under his shirt and rake your nails harshly down his chest and stomach, delighting in the way he arched up at the sudden sensation, eyes falling closed. 

With one hand still flat against his belly, the other comes up to cup his jaw, gentle at first, before your fingers move to caress his throat, and you press yourself against him. 

“If you get yourself killed, I’ll kick your ass,” you whisper, lips inches from his as you press firmer against his throat. He grins, and sighs, the sound content and syrupy and so fucking into it, leaning up, to meet your lips with his, to feel the pressure on his neck just a little more.

And you bite, and you scratch, and you ride him on the kitchen island. The location is new, but the situation isn’t; once he’d discovered the righteous, sexual fury you’d been bottling up, he’d been more than happy to let you unleash it on him. Not to say that he didn’t give as good as he got; there’s been several times he’s had you swearing a blue streak, seeing stars, desperate and blissed out in equal measure.

But then there’s your dominant moments, the mean streak, and the teasing, the sting of your nails and your teeth and the way you push him around, into the mattress, against the wall without hesitation, and that he covets. No-one else is allowed to see you like that. To be tied up or blindfolded or or punished or pushed around, at your mercy, it’s as close to Heaven as he’s ever felt on Earth, because he knows without a shadow of a doubt that your heart is kind, that you’d never really hurt him in a way he wouldn’t like.

You make him feel safe.

And it’s not just the sex, you’re never dismissive of ideas or suggestions, seemingly always ready to help if he ever needs it, rather than judgmental. It makes him want to be there for you too. 

He wants to be better for you.

Which is kind of terrifying to consider.

“I love you,” he tells you in the shower, in the afterglow, soft, pausing where he had been washing your back where you couldn’t reach. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but he felt like he needed you to hear them.

“Love you too,” you say around a yawn, though the words are as genuine as they’d always been coming from you, and you lean back against him, leaning your head against his cheek in a moment of quiet intimacy. You try to kiss him like this, but turns your face directly into the shower, and end up spluttering and breaking the moment.

Colson chuckles softly, stepping back and pulling you with him, out of the stream of water and into his arms so he could kiss you properly. You’re still giggling as you’re wiping the water from your eyes, looking at him with fond adoration. When you settle your arms around him, you quiet down and bask in the moment, his forehead coming to rest against yours, warm and safe in his embrace, sensing that, in that moment, he felt the exact same way.

[chat-noir-always-here]

Debunking “Adrien is perfect”

  To voice a rather non-Marinette-like opinion of Adrien: He’s not perfect. He’s never been perfect. He has, in fact, been riddled with flaws from the very beginning. Part of the reason Chat Noir gets hate is because he serves to exaggerate Adrien’s flaws and make them more obvious, destroying the perfectionism façade. And the sooner Marinette tosses the “I love the perfect Adrien” filter in the trash where it belongs, and starts actively recognizing and acknowledging his faults, the better off the endgame relationship will be.

 Long post is long and I don’t like cuts, cuz i’ve lost a few posts in the past using them. Please filter the tag “long post” I use it for walls of texts like these. 

First of all, flaws are just one of the many things that happen when someone either learns something the wrong way, spends too much time in the wrong environment, lack any decent role models... really there are a plethora of causes. What i mean is character shortcomings aren’t necessarily reasons to hate the character themselves. They’re more or less internal obstacles put there to be overcome in order to portray character growth. Of course spending an exaggerated amount of time with these characters without seeing them overcome particular shortcomings is frustrating it does not necessarily mean they will never be redeemed or developed and are/were deserving of hate.

 Except for Gabriel. That creature belongs behind bars.

 Most of Adrien’s flaws come from his toxic home situation:

The Miraculous Wiki puts Adrien at fifteen. Meaning Adrien has only been actively leaving the house (for public school and the occasional social get-together) for about a year. His fourteenth birthday was one of the earliest episodes and im assuming his fifteenth birthday happened off screen between the s3 finale and the new york special.

Regardless the majority of his life was spent in isolation and his only company was his immediate family, Nathalie, Felix and Chloe. None of whom are particularly good role models except for Emilie. Maybe.

He’s rather overworked for a 14 y.o. boy. On top of school, he has fencing, piano and Chinese lessons. This leaves him with very little time for himself. 

He lost his mother. In Feast, Adrien expresses Emilie was a source of joy in his life--”Only Mom can make me laugh like that.” Felix marked the one year anniversary of her disappearance.  Worse still, we’re led to assume all Adrien knows is that Emilie disappeared. Did she abandon him? Was she kidnapped and killed? He doesn’t know. He has no closure regarding her absence. 

On top of losing his mother, his only remaining parent is an emotionally manipulative and abusive prick. Gabriel has denied Adrien a birthday party, threatened to take Adrien out of school just because he can, never lets him have friends over for any reason, hardly ever makes time for Adrien and only once in a blue moon will actually sit and eat a meal with the poor kid.

And on top of all of this he’s not out of the woods yet. He’s still living with his abusive father. He’s still not allowed to see his friends outside of school much. He’s still got a packed schedule. He still doesn’t have closure regarding his mother’s “disappearance.”

Looking at it like this paints Adrien in a rather sympathetic light.

 Marinette doesn’t know Gabriel is Hawk Moth either, but she does understand Adrien is lonely, isolated and in need of a source of love and comfort. She also understands to some degree that his heart is delicate, so she constantly handles him with kid gloves and looks on him with a perfection filter. 

We see how Mari reacts to upsetting Adrien in Malediktator when she softly whispers an apology after Adrien expresses his sorrow over everyone celebrating Chloe’s departure. She’s seems pained and distraught over causing him to be upset. Thus the reason Marinette calls Adrien perfect isn’t that she never sees any of his flaws--she just cannot acknowledge or process them under these conditions. Shes too busy trying not to hurt him. She also has shown some signs of having extreme anxiety, which messes with ones head and makes it difficult--nearly impossible--to think straight. She wants to be the source of love and comfort he desires (and already is in a way) so his faults go unprocessed.

But what are Adrien’s flaws?

1. He has trouble standing up for himself. 

He’ll take a stand for others.

 He stood up to Chloe on Mylene’s behalf in Horrificator and on Marinette/ Cheng Sifu’s behalf in Kung Food. He stood up to Lila in Oni-chan and Ladybug. He stood up to Gabriel in Simon Says--but as Chat Noir, not Adrien. 

There have only been two-ish instances of Adrien, not Chat Noir, standing up for himself. I say -ish only because he was kinda standing up for Lila in the first and Chloe in the second. 

First in Volpina he stood up to Ladybug for how she handled the situation with Lila. He personally believed she handled the situation poorly (which she did--there were/are serious consequences for that. still) and although he was kinda wishy-washy in conveying that it was only because he was scared of sounding too much like Chat Noir. Her partner. Her chief-of-staff. Who can and will call her out on such behavior. 

Second in Malediktator, when he more or less told Marinette she was wrong to be happy about Chloe leaving. Granted this was partly him standing up for Chloe, but aside from her—he, Adrien, was deeply upset chloe was leaving on such bad terms and made sure Marinette understood that. 

Abused children tend to be somewhat submissive/agreeable/etc. They have trouble speaking out when they’re uncomfortable or don’t want something or think a particular action is wrong. Usually because they are anticipating some kind of punishment for speaking out or afraid of offending the other person to the point that said person wants nothing to do with them anymore, or both.

 For Adrien to fix this particular flaw, he needs to prioritize himself and his own wants more. However he also needs someone who doesn’t chastise him for doing things he likes, tending to his own needs and setting boundaries. Kagami is not that person--she’s actually quite demanding of him and cold. Her understanding of relationships isnt great either, which is why these two really aren’t that great for each other. 

2. He puts his faith in the wrong people

  Adrien’s fucking household is about as toxic as it can get (please don’t take this as a challenge, S4). On top of his immediate family consisting of his abusive, toxic, terrorist father, there’s his cousin Felix. Felix who squished cheese under Adrien’s pillow, stole his phone, pretended to be him and sent an outrageous and awful video to his friends. 

 There’s also his mother Emilie whom, despite his love and adoration of her, lied to him for who knows how long and messed around with a broken miraculous to the point it forced her into an indefinite coma and left Adrien at his father’s mercy. There are theories that she did this for her family but nothing concrete or canon has been proven--all we know is that Emilie had been having frequent dizzy spells while she was still awake and using the peacock miraculous, and that she anticipated her fate and Gabriel apparently promised to save her.

There’s Lila, as well. “She’s not dangerous. She just craves attention.” Wrong, Adrien, she’s very dangerous. She is conspiring with your father to spy on you, attempted to get Marinette expelled from school, tricked you into leaving Ladybug alone with a supervillain whom she personally requested to kill Ladybug, pinned Marinette against a bathroom wall and almost got her akumatized, actually got Marinette akumatized and nearly cost you both the Ladybug Miraculous and TIkki. She isn’t just dangerous she is an actual threat, whether or not she is the future Hawk Moth who sent Timetagger after you when you were children with time-sensitive powers. Adrien has a slightly better understanding of that after the events of Ladybug and Oni-chan, so hopefully he will be on his guard at least in regards to Lila.

 The reason for Adrien’s overly trusting nature may lie in the fact that literally everyone closest to him, everyone for the first thirteen years or so, was toxic and/or a liar. You know what happens when you can’t trust anyone around you? You live with it. You accept all these bad people as they are, without making any effort to establish healthy boundaries. Adrien certainly lived with it--how’s an abused, isolated boxed-and-sheltered son supposed to know what healthy boundaries are when he’s lacking any healthy connections? I bet he can just barely endure all the anguish but he can’t stand to be alone so he just tolerates it. Not to mention the most guilty is his father. Where else is he supposed to go?

Like a frog sitting in a pot of water, you don’t realize you’re in trouble until the water is too hot. So you just accept it--all the bad feelings--you accept it, live with it and it still hurts but you rarely complain. Because anything is better than being alone. 

I think Adrien understands, deep down, that the love he is clinging to, the love provided by his relatives, isn’t really there. But if he looks at it too long and lets this knowledge sink in he’ll lose it. He really did lose it in Chat Blanc-- just that sky-crashing-down-on-him realization that he didn’t have his fathers love, hadn’t had it for a long time, just completely ruined our boy. 

 Of course the knowledge is there. It’s literally right there in front of his face and it’s only a matter of time before he is forced to turn and look and face the music. At which point I hope Marinette knows who he is and has a plan to save him otherwise Chat Blanc is just going to happen again. 

3. Yes, he takes the flirting too far sometimes

No--that doesn’t make him toxic.

Yes, Adrien overreacted to Ladybug never showing up in Glaciator. He shouldn’t have been upset with her in Frozen for not accepting the rose. He should have told her the damn truth about being forced to leave the city at the same time she was in the New York special. 

 However, he also apologized for overreacting in both Glaciator and Frozen. And again, abused kids live in anticipation of punishment for their mistakes. Adrien’s father has taught him that the slightest mistake can result in loss of freedom or trust, even if its circumstances beyond his control. And he now understands that Ladybug isn’t going to blindly punish him for being honest with her, which he now knows to do. 

 He makes mistakes, apologizes for them, and learns from them. That’s not fucking toxic--it’s natural, human and allowed. 

 He’s flirty and suggestive, yes, but the minute she signals she doesn’t want it or isn’t feeling it he stops. He has had immense trouble with not flirting with her, despite her telling him she isn’t interested multiple times. That much is true. But he truly and deeply cares for her and he would never force himself on her and it isn’t because he knows she’ll kick his ass if he does. It’s because unlike the vast majority of his family, he’s actually a decent human being. 

 He has even begun to “flirt platonically,” toasting their partnership and friendship rather than offering a romantic relationship she can never say yes to. If that isn’t the most soft and respectful fluff I don’t know what is.

 4. He is leading Kagami on

Did he cheat? I’m actually not sure. Thomas is being vague in his tweets and won’t give us a decent answer (because he likes “watching fandom burn”--i mean MOOD but clarify please). 

 Here’s what we know and have observed: 1. Chat Noir told Ladybug “I have a girlfriend” 2. He immediately followed that up with “It’s not good at all. I just said that to make you jealous”  3. He allowed Kagami to kiss him in the new york special 4. but he has trouble telling girls not to touch him--been a problem since episode one. Yes its generally cheek kisses chloe gives him but sometimes its not and he looked downright uncomfortable in a lot of cases of physical contact with her and with Lila 5. he seemed rather comfortable with kagami kissing him--except he did say no to her kissing him in the finale 6. but he’s also trying to move on from Ladybug and be with Kagami  7. If he were in a relationship with Kagami, he’d likely keep it a secret because both of their parents are controlling of them and may not allow it 8. His understanding of relationships and girls is kinda dreadful due to not having his mom around for advice and his father’s general lack of a concept of what healthy romantic relationships and boundaries are, and, as Nino put it, not being able to understand signals very well

Adrien’s current relationship status is up in the air. I’m about eighty percent certain he’s dating Kagami--but there’s still that twenty percent chance he’s not.

 Putting aside the question of whether or not he and Kagami are official, Adrien’s been attempting to move past his feelings for Ladybug. Which--won’t sugarcoat it--he kinda sucks at. At the same time, Kagami is aware he is in love with another but lacks the understanding that his moving on will take time. 

 The main issues here is that Adrien knows who he wants but can’t have her. Kagami is a wonderful person herself and he wants to get to know her better, but they aren’t really a good match and they are both going to get hurt in the end (Love Victor anyone???). Until that happens we are going to have some questionable moments in the show, and we just need to remember that Adrien is a child with a poor understanding of relationships, and not an evil person. Kagami doesn’t necessarily have a great understanding of them either--”Your indecision hurts me Adrien,” “Adrien you and I are perfect for each other!”--and she has flaws of her own she needs to unlearn. 

 For the time being, Adrien is leading Kagami on (it needs to be said--even if they aren’t dating he’s flirted with her, given her roses etc.) I say leading her on because, no matter how much Adrien believes Marinette is just a friend and they weren’t flirting in New York, loyal boyfriends who wish to be monogamous don’t dance with other women.

 Or look this happy when that other woman touches them

Does this make Adrien a deceitful and hateful character? No. Does this make him an unworthy character? No. It makes him an abused child with little to no concept of healthy relationships. 

Also Adrien’s friends, including Marinette, have no reason to believe he is dating Kagami. They know he is interested in her and she in him, but as Nino said, Adrien has a hard time picking up signals and understanding their meaning. Not to mention the boy is fifteen. Flirting skills, understanding boundaries, and other relationship concepts are a challenge even for ordinary fifteen year olds in healthy environments to grasp--case in point: Marinette.

Adrigami and Lukanette are simply not going to end well. The Love Square is the endgame and ultimately both Lukanette and Adrigami are going to fall apart to make that happen--I knew that going into the possible Adrigami and Lukanette  territory that the finale created.

 Kagami is a strong, intelligent person--she’s likely going to be the one to end it given what we’ve seen. I don’t like to think about what might happen then--she may be akumatized and Chat Noir would feel rather guilty and may not be able to fight her. But they will both come out of it with something they needed--Kagami will understand (as Marinette needs to) that Adrien isn’t her perfect soul mate incapable of making mistakes. Adrien will understand relationships better. 

 Its unfortunate that this has to happen in order for Adrien to learn due lessons, given that he actually does have someone who can talk to him about girls and relationships and loyalty: Nino.

 Given what Nino wasted no time in scolding Mari for spying on Adrien and Lila when she confessed doing so in Chameleon, as well as how he treats Alya, I undoubtedly believe Nino would be the one to come out and say “You can’t dance with Marinette when you’re with Kagami.” 

 Assuming he is with Kagami. 

In conclusion: Adrien is flawed but not deserving of hate. He is a traumatuzed child stuck in a toxic household who lacks proper mentors. Marinette, Alya and Nino are out of the loop about his potential relationship with Kagami. And Marinette and Kagami both need to acknowledge Adrien is imperfect. Nino and Adrien need to do guy talk like two seasons ago. 

Also Marinette probably has some intense anxiety issues. But more on that later.

[firefly464]

The Real World - Chapter 13

"Oh Im gonna take a small break and go easy on this chapter :D" - me the other day. i then proceeded to write the longest chapter so far for no god damn reason.

ALSO YAY COOL SYMBOLISM IN THIS ONE

Thank you @i-have-this-now​ for helping me with transitions because im a complete mess Thank you to @rivys​ for beta reading and editing!

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~~~

“They WHAT?!” Wilbur yelled, wheeling around to stare at the teenager behind him. 

“They uh, they’re going to try and bring our Tommy and Dream back?” Tubbo repeated, taking a step back. “Is that bad…?” Hadn’t this been what Wilbur wanted? For their own Tommy to come home? Why was he acting so aggressive about it? 

“Yes that's bad! Thats really fucking bad! Not Tommy obviously, but Dream?! Tubbo, Dream could come and break the peace treaty. He might start a whole new war, just out of spite. I cant… We can’t do that again. We just don’t have the resources.”

Tubbo paled as he realized what Wilbur was saying. Yes, they might have a chance to bring Tommy home, but at what cost? They would have to go back to living in fear, terrified that at any moment, Dream would come up behind them and try to kill one of them. He took another step back, shaking his head. He couldn’t go back to living like that. He just couldn’t. 

Wilbur walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, crouching slightly so that he was at eye level. “Tubbo, I need you to tell me something, and I need you to tell me the truth. Where are they going?” Tubbo shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. On one hand, he had promised Tommy that he was going to help him get home. He had given his word. But on the other, he couldn’t go back to living in constant fear. He just couldn’t. “The eastern dark woods…” he muttered, trying to push away the guilt that gnawed at him. He had to do this. For his friends. He had no choice. 

“Got it.” Wilbur stood to full height, his eyes set and determined. “Go get your things together. We’ve got quite the trip ahead of us.”

~~~

“You can’t be serious. This is all you have? Why are there- why the hell do you have so many buckets? How on earth are you going to carry them?” George shook his head as he looked over the meager pile of supplies that Dream had gathered. 

Dream just shrugged as he rolled up the bedroll he had found in one of the chests. “You never know what might happen. I’m just trying to be prepared.” 

“Right. So you decided the best way to be prepared was to pack 3 buckets, but not pack any food or actual fresh water. You don’t even have a flint and steel!” 

A snort of laughter sounded from behind them. Dream turned to see Tommy, snickering to himself quietly. When the teenager noticed that they were looking at him, he wiped the grin off his face and stood up straight, trying to look serious. It didn’t work. 

“You know, you could be actually helping instead of just standing there and laughing,” Dream remarked. 

“Aw, but where's the fun in that? It’s much more entertaining to sit back and watch you struggle.” 

“Oh really? I would love to see you do a better job.” He clipped the bedroll to the base of his pack. 

Tommy stepped forward with a smug grin. “Ok, I will, since I’m just so cool and awesome. First off, you need coal for torches and shit. Second, toss the buckets out. You’re not going to be pulling any epic mlg moves here. That's just not how physics work.” Dream grumbled to himself as he took the buckets out of the pile. 

“Shut up, both of you!” George cried out, bringing the bickering to a halt. “Clearly neither of you have any idea what's going on or what to do. So instead of arguing, why don’t you just listen to me and do what I tell you to do. We’re on a timer, aren’t we?” 

Dream and Tommy looked down guilty. They had forgotten about the 48 hour limit, and had ended up falling back into their carefree habits. “Right, sorry.” Tommy said. 

“Alright, Dream, I want you to go and gather some water. Once you’ve got a bucket full, I want you to boil it and bottle it. We can’t have you getting sick from dirty water. Tommy, go and gather some wheat. We don’t need too much, just enough to make enough bread for if we can’t find any animals. I’m going to go and get the horses saddled.” George’s voice was calm as he explained what each of them was going to do. The other two nodded and quickly rushed out of the room. 

~~~

“Alright I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never rode a horse before. I’ve got no fucking idea what I’m doing,” Tommy admited as he tried to find his balance atop the large animal. The three of them had gathered up all of their materials rather quickly, and were now on their way towards the forest. “Seriously, how the fuck do people do this?”

“By shutting up and not complaining.” Dream seemed to have figured out how to ride his horse pretty quickly, and was now spending his time taunting the younger teenager. 

“Yeah, well maybe if you weren’t so damn annoying, I would have less to complain about.” 

"C'mon, Tommy, hurry up. The sun's setting." George said, while Tommy almost fell off his horse.

The three of them rode across the rough wilderness, as the moon rose slowly along the horizon. This was going to be a long night.

~~~

“We can stop here to make camp for the night,” George said as they came across a small clearing. The three of them had been traveling for hours now, and found themselves in the middle of a birch forest. 

"Eugh, birch. This is literally the worst kind of wood." Dream said jokingly. 

"Agreed." Tommy nodded.

"What? Oh come on, birch isn't that bad." George relatiated as he set up a fire.

"What?" Dream laughed. "George, have you seen these trees?"

"Dream, they're just trees. Plus, we aren't gonna be here for long. We'll keep travelling as soon as the sun rises." George rolled his eyes.

“Ughhhh, really?! But that’s so early!” 

“Tommy, shut up. Stop acting like a child. You’re just lucky that we found a place to stop at all.” George handed both Dream and Tommy a couple of torches. “Here, set these up along the perimeter. The last thing we need is a bunch of mobs trying to kill us while we sleep.” 

Both Dream and Tommy stared at him in shock. 

“What? Do you guys not have mobs in your world?” 

“Wha- No of course we don’t! I didn’t think that they were actually real here, holy shit…” Dream exclaimed. 

“Damn… A world where you don’t have to worry about getting eaten alive in the middle of the night. That honestly sounds really nice.” he shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “Never mind that right now. I need you guys to set up the torches.”

~~~

The sound of a netherite blade slicing through the air echoed across the quiet forest. It had been several hours since they had set up camp, and Dream had long since given up on sleep. The events of the day had played over and over in his mind, making it impossible to close his eyes. And so, he had quietly gotten up and snuck away to a small open area where he could practice.

Over the past week, he had found that practicing sword fighting helped him to calm down. The simple, repetitive motions helped to quiet the intrusive thoughts that continued to plague him. He had started to grow quite reliant on it to stay sane. Maybe, when he finally got home, he would join a fencing class. 

If he got home. No. No he couldn’t think like that. Pessimism wouldn’t get him anyone. He needed to trust Tubbo and Wilbur. They were going to get him and Tommy home. They had to. 

“You know, you’ve really gotten a lot better,” said a voice from behind him. A squeal of surprise was torn from Dream’s throat as he spun around, his sword at the ready. “Pffft, what on earth was that?” George stepped out from the shadows of the trees into the light of the torches that Dream had set up. 

Dream placed a hand on his chest, trying to calm his racing heart. “Jesus man, you scared me. What the hell was that about?” 

The shorter man chuckled as he stepped further into the light. “Gotta keep you on your toes. What's the point of learning how to fight if you’re not constantly aware?” He drew his own sword and held it out in the form of a challenge. 

“You are actually the worst,” he said, raising his own sword in response. 

With a grin, George rushed forward in attack. Dream raised his sword to block the incoming strike, allowing his instincts to take over. He had learned that if he simply didn’t think about what he was doing, he often did quite well. And so he let his mind go blank, instead focusing on surroundings. The stars, the leaves, the trees, even the man before him was all taken in as they sparred. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” George asked, most likely hoping to distract his opponent. 

Dream only shrugged as he feigned an attack at his friend's leg, only to come up and create a small cut on his cheek. “Couldn’t sleep. I was hoping that doing some practice would help calm me down.” 

“And? How's your success rate?” 

“Well it was pretty good, until you arrived and scared me half to death.”

“Aww, I didn’t realize compliments scared you so much.” 

“Yes, I’m quite shy.” Dream couldn’t help but grin. 

As the two of them joked back and forth, they continued their little duel. It had been going for a couple minutes now, and they seemed to be at a bit of a stand still. A rush of pride surged through him. In roughly a week, he had gone from completely and totally useless to actually able to defend himself. Now, he just needed to set himself apart. 

His mind began working overtime, analysing every small detail. Quickly, he reached back with his free hand and pulled out a loaded crossbow. George’s face transformed into surprise when he saw the weapon. The bolt flew past his face, only just barely grazing the side of his head.

Dream quickly threw the weapon aside and pressed his advantage. Suddenly, the favor was tipped towards Dream. George was unbalanced, startled by the use of the crossbow. Still, he managed to raise his sword just in time to block another strike. 

With his free hand, Dream reached into one of the pouches around his waist and pulled out a small sphere, roughly the size of a marble. With a slight squeeze, the sphere expanded to the size of a baseball. While George was distracted with blocking the strike towards his face, Dream tossed the sphere behind him. With a crash, the sphere shattered against the ground.

Suddenly, Dream appeared behind George in a shower of purple. With a sweep of his foot, his friend came falling to the ground. With a final motion, he held the sword above his throat, his green eyes bright with exhilaration and delight. 

“Alright alright, you win. I surrender,” George said with a laugh. 

“Did you see that?! That was so cool! Oh my god that was so awesome!” Dream exclaimed as he helped George to his feet. “That was so damn cool!!” he started jumping around the small clearing in excitement. 

“How did you even do that? I’ve never seen someone use a crossbow in the middle of a sword fight before” 

“I’ll be honest, I’ve got no idea. I have no idea what the hell I just did. I just know that it was cool as fuck!” 

He shook his head, chuckling as he watched his friend dance around the area. George had never seen Dream show any sort of emotion before, much this level of excitement. Even though he knew the reasons why, he couldn’t help but feel a bit weirded out by it. Watching the pure joy flash across Dream’s face was strange. Still, it was nice. “You are such a dork” 

He only responded with a wide grin. 

A thought flashed through George’s mind, causing him to frown slightly. Dream stopped his playful jumping and walked over, his eyes now filled with concern. “Hey, you alright?” He asked. “Oh shit, you’re bleeding! Hold on I’ve got a few bandages on me I think…” 

As Dream pulled out a couple white bandages from his bag, George let out a slight chuckle. “Do you even know how to use those?” 

“Uhhh, not really? I’m sure I can figure it out. How hard can it be?” 

He wasn’t impressed. With a roll of his eyes, George held out his hand for the bandages “Here, just let me do it. It doesn’t really hurt, I think it's just a small cut. Probably just needs to be cleaned.” Taking a bottle of water from his bag, he quickly wet the bandage and started to clean the blood from his face. 

Dream pouted. “Well what if I wanted to help?” 

“Then you can go and wash the blood out of these,” George said, tossing him the now stained bandages. “No point in wasting perfectly good bandages because of a small cut.”

He caught them easily, but otherwise didn’t move. “Nope. Not until you tell me whats wrong.

The brunette cursed under his breath. Since when had he been so easy to read? “I uh, I was just thinking about… Stuff,” he waived his hand vaguely. 

“You wanna talk about it?” Dream plopped down onto the grass and patted the ground next to him. “Here, take a seat.”

He sat. 

“Spill.”

“I’m just… Worried, I guess? I mean, in a few days, you’re going to be gone and… the other Dream will be back. I guess I’m just scared about what he's gonna do.”

The smile faded from Dream’s face as he considered what to say. “What was he like?” he asked after a few seconds. “The other me, I mean.”

“He was… Scary. All he cared about was the thrill of the hunt. The mask made it impossible to tell what he was ever thinking, which made it ten times worse. Of course, it only covered his eyes and nose, so that you could still see his grin.” He shuddered. “I watched as he blew up the gates of L’manberg with a massive smile on his face.” 

“So then… why did you follow him in the first place?” 

“I had no choice. When Sapnap and I showed up, he was the only other person here. It was either join him or be left out to die to the mobs. After a while I guess I just didn’t realize how cruel he was. He was a good leader, and super charismatic. Not to mention a really good actor. By the time the war started… I guess I just trusted him, if that makes sense. He had kept me alive ‘till then, so why would anything change?”

Dream nodded. He wasn’t going to pretend like he understood what his friend had gone through, but he could still try and help in his own way.  “He taught you sword fighting, how to survive. You felt like you were indebted to him, right?” 

“Yeah… Pretty much. God, its so stupid! I should have been able to realize how messed up he was. Why the hell did I not realize?!” He took off his round sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut tight. “I was so fucking stupid.” 

Hesitantly, Dream reached over and placed a hand on his friends back, trying to comfort him. “Hey, that’s not stupid. You’d be surprised at how easily our minds can trick us into thinking we’re doing the right thing. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's not your fault.” A stab of guilt shot through him. He had been the one to add George onto the server. If he had waited a bit, would things have been different? Maybe if he had acted differently on stream, or not sent the declaration of war, maybe things would have turned out different. The other Dream might have turned out to be a decent guy, not someone that people trembled before and feared. 

“I should have been smarter… I should have joined Sapnap when he went off on his own.” 

The weight of George’s words finally sunk in. The other Dream was a monster, a killer. He was the living, breathing version of the mask Dream sometimes wore in his videos. The act of someone who enjoyed the hunt, and nothing more. These past two weeks had been peaceful and calm compared to what everyone had normally lived through, and it was all because the monster was finally gone. But now… now they were about to bring him back. They were about to bring everyone’s worst nightmare back to life. 

What choice did they have? It was either that, or let the entire world get destroyed. Either way, the other Dream was about to ruin people’s lives. He sighed. “It's going to be alright, ok? We’ll figure something out, I promise. You’re not going to go back to living like that. I promise.” 

Now, it was just a matter of keeping that promise. 

~~~

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[thebluenoteblog]

Give me That Title

Summary: You have been hooking up with Colton for months and though you have feeling for him you’ve known since the beginning what your relationship with him is. You’re okay with it. You’re also okay with being perpetually single. That is until you meet someone that makes you want to date for the first time in a while. Though Colton’s reaction to hearing about your date... well that’s more surprising than the fact that you decided to go on a date in the first place.

Player: Colton Parayko

Word Count: 5.1k

*Inspired by Meghan Trainor’s Title*

I know girls ain’t hard to find

If you think you want to try

Than consider this an invitation

To kiss my ass goodbye

You were on the floor in front of your floor length mirror, with makeup spread out on the floor all around you when your phone buzzed. You paused with the mascara wand next to your eye, finished what you were doing, reinserted the wand into the tube, screwed on the cap and then picked up your phone already having a pretty good idea of who it was.

Colton had just gotten back in town from his road trip earlier that day and odds were he wasn’t in the mood to go out partying tonight. He wanted someone to come to him. The most recent notification on your phone, right above a few from the NHL app was indeed a text message from Colton. You had been his most regular hook up for the past seven months and at some point, in that time he had given you his phone number when he got tired of dealing with snapchat.

If you were being fair, the two of you did a lot of talking to. If someone were to scroll through your text messages they would never know that you were just some twenty-one-year-old girl who had gotten caught up in a lifestyle that you had no business in. They would probably think that you and Colton were friends. Friends who just hung out a lot late at night.

You unlocked your phone, opened the text and scanned the message. You busy?

You glanced up into the mirror, at your half-done makeup. Yes.

His response was fast, like he’d been waiting for it. No, really. Do you want to come over?

Okay, if you were being fair, it was a very rare occasion that you passed him up on an offer to come over. You always responded to his messages and you were basically at his beck and call. Your only serious obligation was your college courses. Your work hours were pretty much ‘come and go as you please’ and so you did. Whenever Colton asked. He knew when you were in class and he knew it wasn’t now.

Being tied to a man who had no intention of ever committing to you wasn’t a huge issue for you. Committing your time to him wasn’t either because he was gone so much and spent so many nights out with the team that you could still have friends and a life of your own. Besides, you would be lying if you said you hadn’t hooked up with a few other people in the beginning just as he had. You assumed he still did, but you didn’t bother anymore, the sex didn’t compare.

Then two weeks ago, you met Chase. You were sitting at a coffee shop on Main Street, enjoying your tea when he had walked in. He’d sat down on the couch beside you as he drank his coffee. He turned to you, stared at your Blues t-shit for a moment and then said, “Can you believe how badly the Blues got it handed to them last night?”

You’d spent two hours talking after that, about anything and everything. He’d asked you out. You’d given him your number. Now you sat in front of your mirror getting ready for the first real date you’d been on in over a year since you had broken off your engagement and sitting there, on that couch next to Chase, in his faded St. Charles County Firefighter t-shirt, you’d realized something.

This thing with Colton wasn’t enough anymore. You wanted a real relationship. Someone you could imagine a future with and not roll your eyes at yourself for being ridiculous. Someone who would really love you and not just love getting you naked. Someone who saw in you whatever it was that Chase saw that made his eyes light up when he talked to you that day.

You wanted someone who would someday ask you to marry them. You would buy a house together. Make one of those salt plaster ornaments with your first house key to put on the tree that you would decorate together every year. Build a fence in the backyard for your dog and your kids to run around.

Maybe that would be Chase, maybe it would be the next guy you went out with, or the next. Maybe you would find him a year from now. But you knew one thing for sure. No matter how much you wanted him to be, no matter how much you loved Colt, he was never going to be that guy.

He would never commit to a girl who looked like you.

Hell, you didn’t think he was ready to commit at all, despite how nice of a guy he was and his picture-perfect image. He enjoyed living it up, he enjoyed his parties, he enjoyed his bunnies. A girlfriend would cramp his style.

You glanced down at your phone and saw that ten minutes had passed, you needed to hurry up and get your makeup done and you still had Colton to deal with. I can’t. I’m going out tonight.

Again, he responded before you could pick up your mascara to finish your other eye, so he must not have been doing anything. He was probably laying on the couch watching TV. Oh. Are you going out with (Y/F/N)?

You didn’t really think about what you were typing before you just hit send, you just did it and then dropped your phone before going back to your makeup. This time you finished all of your eye makeup and were on to your lips when your phone eventually buzzed.

It wasn’t until you picked it up that you read what you had sent him and actually felt a little bad. You knew you both saw other people. You knew you weren’t a couple and you were both free to do whatever you wanted, but neither of you ever made a point of talking about it. You only knew about it his exploits from the girls who bragged about it online and occasionally posted pictures of them together to corroborate their stories. No, (Y/F/N) is out of town. I have a date tonight.

He’d responded five minutes later with. You have a date?

You glanced at the message, not sure how to respond at first then decided on simply, Yeah, he’s really nice.

The dots appeared and then disappeared about five times before they stayed long enough for him to type out his response. You never go on dates.

You rolled your eyes. Leave it to a guy in the NHL to think he had a girl locked down because she didn’t go on other dates for a little while even though he was still fucking other people. I decided that I want something real. Is that so bad?

You finished your makeup and made it out to your car before he responded. I guess not.

If it ain’t no thing

Then I won’t be hangin around

But don’t be blowin up my shit at three am

Sayin how you need me now

You had now been out on two dates with Chase and Colton had coincidently texted asking you to come over as you were walking out the door to get into Chase’s truck the night you went out with him for the second time. He’d taken your rejection slightly less… diplomatically this time which was uncharacteristic for him. You’d only turned him down a handful of times, but you could never remember him being upset. He’d always continued to talk to you until one of you got too busy to hold up the conversation. This time though, he was clearly upset.

Can you come over? I have food that I shouldn’t be eating that you would love.

You smiled when you read the message, because it almost sounded like he was inviting you over for a date even though you knew that wasn’t what it was. You could still dream. Then you remembered that outside your apartment complex, Chase was waiting for you.

I’m sorry, I’d love to but I’m busy tonight. Raincheck?

He’d responded quickly like he didn’t even think about what he was saying before he said it, Big date tonight?

You narrowed your eyes at the phone. What’s that supposed to mean?

You waited for his response before you walked outside into the bitter February air. Nothing. I just wanted you to come over.

Now it was three in the morning and you were lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Still thinking about how uncharacteristically spiteful Colton had been that night. Then your phone went off for the first time. You ignored it, because, well, it was three in the morning. But then ten minutes later it went off again. And five minutes after that it went off again. Not five minutes passed before there was another. Then soon after another alert. Finally, you sat up in a huff, grabbing the phone off your bedside table and unlocking it to see the notifications.

All messages from Colton and he appeared to be drunk. Very drunk.

(Y/N) r u home

i miss u

u should com over

r u still with him

u should be here instead

You squeezed your eyes shut then opened them to make sure you were reading the messages correctly. Is that why he had been so spiteful that night? Was Colt… jealous? You couldn’t go over to his house now, because regardless of what you suspected, nothing had changed. He wasn’t going to commit to you. He wasn’t going to give you that house together or the Christmas tree with the first key ornaments or the kids running around in the backyard. It just wasn’t in the cards for them. Besides, he was drunk off his ass right now. He would never, in a million years send u or r in place or you or are if he wasn’t well past the legal limit.

Colton, go to sleep. You’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re saying.

The dots appeared right away but it took him awhile to type the message.

i no wht im saying i miss u com over ur with him arnt u

It took you a moment to decipher the message but when you did, you sighed and responded carefully. Colt, I’ve been home since 10:00. I can’t come over, its already three in the morning and you’re so drunk you’ll be passed out by the time I get there. You won’t even be able to let me in.

He didn’t like that answer. ill take a shower to sober up before u get here

Colton.

fine goodnight

You sighed again, Goodnight Colt.

Don’t call me boo

Like your some kind of ghost

If you don’t want me seeing other guys,

Then here’s what you need to know

Come stay tonight.

It was just those three words. The team was leaving for a road trip and they had the next day off. You had always in the past cleared your schedule on those days for him if he asked you to. The two of you would stay in bed all day, you would cook for him when you got hungry and he would leave for the roadie the next day relaxed and happy. This had started off as an occasional arrangement but had become a routine and now almost every time he had a day off in town, this was the plan.

You cleared your schedule.

When you got to his house with your overnight bag, you had just knocked on the door when it opened. He was standing there looking perfect as ever in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, but his hair wasn’t styled like usual. It was tousled and limp like he’d been running his fingers through it enough to destroy whatever effect the gel had previously had on it.

He stepped to the side to let you in and closed the door behind you as soon as you were out of the way. He turned to face you, “I’m sorry… about the other night.”

You shrugged, not meeting his eyes, continuing to face the living room. You didn’t want to talk about this. You knew your time together was limited. This may very well be the last time they spent a night together before you had a boyfriend and you had to end… whatever this was. you didn’t want to spend it talking about what he’d said two nights ago and how he hadn’t meant it. How he was just drunk. “It isn’t a big deal.”

You slipped off your shoes, leaving them by the door. You always felt weird wearing shoes in his house, everything was so much more expensive than what you were used to. You walked away from him before he could say anything else, placing your bag on the couch and then leaning against the back of it and turning to watch him. He was frozen in place, staring at the spot you had previously been standing. After a minute he shifted his eyes to you and made his way into the living area.

He stood directly in front of you, with his hands in his pockets. He looked unsure for the first time since you’d met him, and you couldn’t quite figure out why. “I made dinner.” He said. “It’s almost ready.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him, “You made us dinner?” You asked. “I always make dinner.”

“I know…” He said, he shifted, looking over her head at something in the distance, “I just thought… I don’t know. It was an early game and I got home at seven… I don’t mind cooking, so why not?”

You shrugged your shoulders, “I don’t know, I guess I just figured I would be cooking for you tonight.”

He looked down at you, meeting your eyes and smiling softly, “You don’t always have to do stuff like that. You can just come over and relax with me.”

Something was off. Colton was a nice guy. He was an amazing guy. But this was so far out of left field for your relationship that you didn’t know what you were dealing with. Then again, that’s how everything with him had been since the day you told him you were going on a date. He’d make sure to mark you up with hickeys everywhere when you hooked up the couple of times it had happened since. He was usually rough, but he never was one to leave dozens of hickeys all over you. Maybe one or two, nothing like that. His sideways remarks. Drunk texts. Now this?

You were in love with him. You had been for a long time and you knew it. Hell, you’d known when you let this start that you would fall in love with him. He was just the kind of guy you couldn’t help falling in love with. That’s why he had girls falling at his feet. He was a twenty-six-year-old professional hockey player, rich, attractive, with a great personality and he could have any girl he wanted. You never had any illusions that you would be the one to lock him down. Hell, at the time you weren’t even looking for a relationship. You were running from one.

But when he looked at you and said things like that, things like you can just come here to relax with me, it made you angry. Because you were in love with him. And when he said things like that and sent you a string of drunk texts at three in the morning, it gave you this irrational hope that he cared about more than just your pussy.

There was no way though.

And even if he did, did you want that life?

Constantly worrying about whether or not your boyfriend was with some other girl because he could have whoever he wanted? Always feeling like you weren’t good enough for him? Never being able to contribute equally to the household? Would he ever actually marry you even if he did date you? No. Probably not. You weren’t NHL wife material. Not pretty enough or classy enough.

But you smiled at him and pretended this battle wasn’t going on in your head and said, “Why don’t I help you finish cooking? I’m starving.”

After you ate, an amazing meal as it turned out Colton was actually quite the cook, when you made to help him with the dishes he turned around and set you on the island behind him, effectively banishing you from the soap. “I always help.” You protested.

“I’ve got it, (Y/N).” He said, his back muscles working as he washed a pot. “Just sit there and look pretty.”

You rolled your eyes, “As if that’s possible.” He turned to look at you over his shoulder, narrowed eyes and you bit your lip before responding, “Sorry, did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah. Don’t say it in your head either.” Then he went back to the dishes.

After the dishes were clean you expected to end up in the bedroom, but instead he guided you to the couch and handed you the remote, “What do you want to watch?”

You stared at the remote for a moment, then looked back at him. “I don’t know. I only watch movies in the theaters and I don’t think you’d like any of the shows that I watch.”

He frowned, “You only watch movies in theaters?”

“I don’t have the attention span to watch them unless I’m forced.” You said, “I’ll do anything to get out of it. Write, sleep, read, sex. Anything except watch the movie unless it’s a favorite and I’m in the mood to watch it. Which I’m not.”

“Okay, you like the Flames, right?” He asked. You nodded, “They’re playing now. Want to watch that?”

You smiled up at him, “That sounds awesome.”

By the time the game ended, you were curled into his side with his arm wrapped around you and you were ranting about every missed call while going on about Tkachuk’s game winning overtime goal. “Are you like this when you watch us play?” Colton asked, with a look in his eyes that you couldn’t identify and a smile on his face.

“Oh, I’m worse.” You said laughing and shaking your head, “When I lived with my sister she used to get so mad at me on nights you played late games because I would wake her up yelling at the TV.”

Colton placed a hand on your cheek and moved in. He pressed his lips to yours the same why he had so many times before, but this time if felt different. The kiss was long and slow and there were no hands pulling at clothes. One of his remained spanning your cheek and neck and the other rested on your waist, holding you in place.  Your hands, after the initial shock of the randomness of the kiss wore off, went up to his shoulders. He pulled you closer like he was afraid you were about to push him away, but you didn’t. You wouldn’t. You didn’t know if you knew how.

Especially not after the way this kiss made you feel.

You were the one to separate your lips, resting your foreheads together. Neither of you spoke for a stretch of time and the only sound filling the room was the Flames postgame in the background. Eventually he broke the silence. “I don’t like you dating other people.”

“Colton…” You said, squeezing your eyes shut. You didn’t want to hear this. You didn’t want him to tell you how he didn’t like seeing you with other people, but you could never be his. It wasn’t something you wanted to hear and if he said it… well if he said it you were going to have to get up and leave. You were going to have to end this.

“Please listen to me,” He said, his voice barely above a whisper but their faces were so close that you had no trouble picking up his words. “It hurts thinking about you dating someone else. It hurts thinking that I’m so close to losing you and if you don’t want me to stop you then there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

You pulled your forehead away from his and leaned back a little, looking at his hardwood floors, “Colton I can’t just be some girl that you call when you want to screw for the rest of my life.” You said it softly, but the words were harsh and he cast his eyes at the floor along with you, “I want something real. I want someone who is going to take me out on dates. We buy each other birthday presents. Set up a Christmas tree together every year. Have dreams of a future with each other in it. Someday I want a house with a backyard full of kids and a husband playing with them. I can’t have that if all I am is another girl who you mess around with but never want anything more from.”

When you were done he looked up at you and your eyes met. Before you could look away, he said, “But what if I want all of those things with you? What if I want something real too?”

Tears sprung to your eyes. Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t he just let you walk away when it was easier because you thought he would never love you. “Colt I don’t know if I’m cut out for that life. I’m just some girl who got caught up in a lifestyle she had no business being part of.”

“What’s so bad about it?” He asked, looking a little panicked. Like he hadn’t actually accepted the possibility of you walking away tonight for good. “Why couldn’t you date me?”

You shook your head, “I’ve been around your friends. They party. They drink. And athletes… they cheat. I know it’s a stereotype, but I would always be worried about it. Especially since the entire time we’ve known each other you’ve had the ability to just… do whatever you want. Besides the fact that I’m not pretty enough to ever be seen in public with you.”

Colton looked genuinely offended, “I don’t cheat. I never have, and I never will. I was raised better than that.” He placed a hand on your chin and forced you to look into his eyes, “And you are beautiful. I would take you everywhere. You would be all over my Instagram even.”

You blushed, “Colt…”

“(Y/N), give me a chance.” He said. “I messed up. I didn’t realize I was in love with you until someone else was already doing a better job at what should have been my job than I was. Please, let me fix it.”

You studied his face, trying to decide if he was serious. Trying to decide if you should give up what you saw in Chase for what you knew was there in Colton. There were obstacles, many of them, but if he was that determined to make it work then you would give it a try too.

“Okay, we can give it a real shot.”

I’m lovin’ what you got

But I’m hating what you doing

You gotta show me off, off

If you embarrassed,

Then thats the case I’m long gone

You’d been officially dating for four months now and things were going great. He knew how you felt about him going out drinking with the guys, so when he went, he invited you along. There were no more bunnies bragging about their conquest with him online, in fact they were beginning to suspect that he had settled down with someone. You were at every home game wearing his jersey with the other wives and girlfriend and even flown out to one of the away games. Pictures of the two of you together started appearing online, especially on websites that people used to track the habits of players and the speculation started.

Did Colton Parayko have a girlfriend?

The thing was, he wouldn’t confirm anything. People would tweet him, asking him about it. Nothing. People would message him on Instagram asking him about it? He ignored them. He posted a picture of himself with your dog on his Instagram and the comments were filled with the same question.

Do you have a girlfriend?

Is that your girlfriends’ dog?

Did your girlfriend take that picture?

Still he didn’t respond to any of them. You were beginning to wonder if it was because he was regretting his decision to enter a relationship with you. Was that what the issue was? Was he embarrassed of you? He’d promised that you would be all over his Instagram, but he hadn’t even let you tag them in a picture together. Did he wish he’d found someone more conventionally beautiful?

You were scrolling through a speculation post when he sat down beside you on the couch. “What are you reading?” He asked, looking over your shoulder.

You quickly locked your phone and dropped it into your lap, “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

He narrowed his eyes at you playfully, “I know your password and my arms are longer than yours.”

You sighed, “Why haven’t you gone public with our relationship?” You asked.

He looked caught off guard, “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t posted any pictures of us. You haven’t answered when anyone asks about us.” You looked away from him and down at the phone you were twisting in your hands. “If you’re embarrassed of me just tell me. We can end this.”

“No!” He said it before the words had even died on your tongue, “Of course I’m not embarrassed of you.”

You still didn’t meet his eyes, because honestly, you didn’t believe him. “Colton…”

“(Y/N),” He said, “I’ll post pictures of you right now. I’ll tweet out a response to the next person who asks me. I’m not embarrassed, why would I be? I didn’t know it was that big of a deal to you or I never would have kept it a secret. I just don’t like my private life to be all over the internet.” He grabbed your hand and pulled your phone away, setting it aside before taking your hand in his. “Please believe me.”

You looked up into his eyes and all you saw was love. He looked so genuine. How could you not believe him? “Okay,” you said. “I believe you.”

“We don’t have to keep it a secret,” He said, “I love you. I don’t care if people know.”

You smiled up at him, “I would like that.”

Give me that title, title

Come on give me that title, title

Better give me that title, title

Better give me that title, title, yeah

They’d been together for two years now and they had come a long way from the day that Colton had sworn she was going to walk out his front door and end up in the arms of another man. As she sat on her towel with her toes dug into the sand next to him, glass of wine in her hand, staring at the sun setting over the ocean, he couldn’t believe that he’d ever come close to letting that happen.

The words she spoke that day stuck in his mind every single day since she said them. Someday I want a house with a backyard full of kids and a husband playing with them. They already bought each other birthday presents and set up a Christmas tree together every year. They talked about their future together every day. But that was something that he hadn’t given her yet.

She was so distracted by the sunset that she didn’t notice him set his wine glass on the small table between them, low to the sand, before reaching into the beach bag, into the zippered back pocket that she never would have had a reason to open and pulling out the small velvet box. He settled back onto his towel with the box in his hand, but kept his eyes focused on her.

He’d had the whole moment planned out, but now that they were here, and he was holding the ring and she was sitting next to him, it was like he had never planned a thing.

He shifted to his knees so that he was facing her, and that action was enough to pull her away from the sunset. She turned to him with a smile on her face so genuine that it made his heart swell. “What’s that look for?” She asked, “You should be watching the sky, it’s beautiful.”

“I’d rather watch you.” He said, and her cheeks flushed. Whether it was from the tropical heat or his words he didn’t know. He kept the box hidden under his hand as he said, “(Y/N), the day we decided to be together, you said something. You said that someday you wanted a husband and kids and an entire life with someone.” He looked down at his hand which still hid the ring, then back up at the most important person in his life who was looking at him with wide eyes, like she wanted to believe what was happening but didn’t quite want to get her hopes up. He lifted the hand that wasn’t concealing the ring and used it to guide her into standing up. She rose to her feet, burying them in the sand.

He rose to one knee and finally reveled the box, snapping it open, “I want that to be me. I want that life with you. I’m ready for it. If you say yes, I promise that we’ll have a house with a huge backyard and a fence and a swing set for our kids to play on. We’ll be the family that you always wanted to have. So, (Y/N), will you marry me?”

She was completely in shock, staring at him like she couldn’t believe a single word he had just said had actually come out of his mouth. But it had, and as soon as she realized that, she answered him. “Of course, I will!”

He slid the ring on her finger, tossed the box on the towel beside them and then was up and twirling her in the air in a second. Yes, they had come a long way in the past two years. And god was he glad they had.

[rattlung]

i wanted to get this out for halloween but then it ended up getting (and taking) too long so i was like aight whatever i’ll split it and post the first bit so i know at least some of it will be in time for the spooky scary. not that it’s really spooky scary, but yknow

anyway the second i saw cowboy mirage and vampire crypto i knew i had to write a wild west au with them. if any of you knew me from my glory ovw days, you know wth im talkin about. 

so anyway, slooow burn, animal death, blood, blood drinking, and possible ooc-ness because i couldn’t decide on whether i wanted mirage to have a very thick southern accent or not so his dialogue may be a bit whack. also with it being an au, characterization probably got skewed to shit. sorry about that :^(

cross posting fucks up formatting, so to be safe here’s the ao3 link but if that’s not the jam for your bread, it’s all under the read more

=======

The sun had set hours ago, but Elliott remained at his post.

Crickets and grass were his only companions on his porch, not even a candle was lit to keep him company. He didn’t want anyone to know he was out there and the little flame would have given him away. Besides, the moon was high that night and the stars glittered from behind it thanks to the cloudless sky. His eyes had adjusted well enough, and the open fields of the farm didn’t provide enough shadows to cause much concern.

No, Elliott was confident he’d catch who he wanted tonight, it was only a matter of whether or not the little bastard would show up.

He sighed and leaned forward in his chair to rest his crossed arms on the railing of the porch, then placed his chin on them. He hoped whoever it was would show. He couldn’t afford another big hit to the stock again. In the last week, he’d lost three chickens - one of them was the hen he’d sank three dollars into earlier in the month. It’d been a good one, too, healthy eggs up until she went missing with two of her sisters.

It was like nothing Elliott had ever seen before. There were never any carcasses left in the coop or on the land, no blood and maybe only a few stripped feathers. Coyotes were never that clean - not in Elliott’s experience anyway. And to take so many at a time?

Then the marks started showing up on the cattle. Two clean little holes at their shoulders that Elliott would have missed had it not been for the blood that oozed out of them, staining their fur a rusted brownish red.

That changed things. The body-less crimes started making sense, because they weren’t being killed - they were being stolen. Chickens were easy to make off with. Just toss a few in a bag and be on your way. Cows, though, they were marking those. Maybe one man was sent to scope out the pens to pick out the healthiest ones, then send off a crew to look for the marks and round them up to bring them home.

Elliott fought off a yawn and the on coming sense of second guessing himself. They would be coming with a group. He hadn’t thought of that before. If they did show up tonight and they were armed, there would be very little he could do with his mother’s old rifle. Quickly he decided he wouldn’t leave the porch if he saw anything. Just fire off a few shots and hopefully scare them off.

All of the Witts had met unfortunate ends. Two Witt sons died in the war, one to the flu soon after his third birthday, their mother to the plague - and the last Witt, dead to a bullet wound received while defending the cow that sneezed on him that very morning?

Yeah, no thank you, he’d stay right there on the porch, yes, ma’am.

So sit he did, scanning the horizon, the treeline, the pens, and tried not to fall asleep. He wondered if Ms. Williams had any hounds she’d be willing to part with to do this kind of stuff for him. Growing up, he’d always wanted a farm dog and Anita Williams trained some of the best he’d ever seen. Elliott would be able to leave it outside to patrol the land, sleep out on the porch, and chase off any predators or thieves that might be lurking while Elliott was in bed. That would be better than suffering through the brutality of waiting for the sun to rise himself.

Elliott didn’t notice his eyes had closed until they snapped open at the sound of sudden rattling in the hen house. He waited a moment, wondering if he imagined it, but soon there was a murmur of cluckings and Elliott got to his feet. He picked up the hat he’d hung on the back of his chair and placed it on top of his head before grabbing the rifle, standing at the very edge of his porch.

Surely they wouldn’t be going for more chickens, would they? When the cows they had marked were out roaming?

Elliott stepped off the stairs and onto the dirt pathway. If it was chickens being targeted tonight, that means there was likely only one of them. He checked the chamber of his gun before heading off, getting onto the grass as soon as he could in order to dampen the sound of his approaching footsteps. By the time he’s at the fence, the clucking had shifted and grew into something louder, the few hens he had left squawking at whatever was in there with them.

And maybe it was because their din was too loud, but Elliott couldn’t hear anything else. Nothing but feathered ruffling and the scrape of chicken feet.

A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck but he crept forward anyway. He wiped the palm of his hand off on his jeans and pushed open the gate, wincing hard when one of the hens in the coop got louder. The rest were a bit hysterical in their noise making, but this one’s panic was visceral. This wasn’t just someone walking through their nests and aggravating them out of sleep - these chickens were scared for their lives.

Elliott crept up to the wired entrance of the shed and peeked around. Small shadows flicked back an forth on the hay-filled floor in a frenzy. Hoarse, creaking noises spilled from their beaks and wings fluttered as they battled each other in their panic to press to the corners of the shed, close to the walls to get away from -

Now, Elliott wasn’t a religious man - which was an odd thing, when one lived in a small town like he did, where the person he bought canned goods from was the pastor’s brother, and the biggest building was the church which was always filled on Sunday. He never went to mass, not even for the holidays, and the Witt Family’s bible had been left in the bedside table’s drawer since he was a boy.

But he didn’t have to crack apart the thin pages of God’s Word to determine that whatever the thing was in front of him was bad.

Especially when it turned, a chicken limp and unmoving in its hands, and stared Elliott down with eyes that burned like indigo flames.

This isn’t a coyote, his mind helpfully informed him just as his mouth spit out, “Oh, fuck.”

The creature stood up fully and despite all its human-like qualities, there was still that electric energy that was just not right, uncanny and out of place. It showed off a human face, but its skin was so white it almost glinted blue when it passed through the moonlight that bled through the shed’s wooden panels.

Which is how Elliott noticed it was moving toward him. He raised the rifle up and pointed it square at the thing’s chest. If froze in its step, still as stone in half a second, but above the crying of his birds Elliott could hear the trill of something moving in its throat.

“Dro - Drop the chicken,” Elliott ordered, the stillness in his limbs compensating for his trembling voice.

To his surprise the creature listened to him. Its trill from before burst from its throat and its frown opened to let out a hiss, pitched low and piercing. The teeth it bared to him had a pink sheen, wet with blood, and its canines ended in vicious points - points Elliott was sure would match with the ones marking his cattle out on the fields.

“Oh, shit, okay - “ Elliott muttered, too panicked to remember that the creature could hear him.

It hunched down suddenly, dropping into a stance that made Elliott think it was going to lunge for him. Before he could really process that information, could even think to fire a shot at it to knock it down, to kill it, the creature spun around and crashed through the other side of the coop. Elliott blinked at the wire it split through like paper then hurried around the house. It was fast, already having leaped over the fence, a black shape that moved without sound, whispering over the grass in one, two seconds before it disappeared into the trees.

“That’s not a fuckin’ coyote,” Elliott said over the thundering of his heartbeat and the screaming of his chickens.

----=----

For a whole entire day, Elliott allowed himself to think that it was over. He let himself think that that was the last he’d see of the thing, that he’d scared it enough to retreat just from pointing a gun at it. Maybe the fear of Elliott actually using it would keep it away, whatever it was.

Truth be told, he didn’t really want to find out what it was. From the look he got out of it from the shadows, it looked human enough. A man as tall as him, dressed to the nines in black and red silks, slim with features Elliott might have tipped a hat at had he not been terrified the time he saw them. Human features. It looked human.

And yet, the bloodless chicken he’d been forced to get rid of proved otherwise. Once he’d been able to move, he’d wandered back in to examine it and found that it was little more than a husk, dried out and useless. It’s carcass was clean, feathers mostly untouched with no red soaked into them. On its breast were two, neat puncture holes.

The next day, one he’d used to catch up on sleep, he started feeling watched.

As he left the stables after shoveling out the floors, a familiar chill walked along his shoulders like icy fingers, eliciting a shiver from him. It lingered for a moment and slowly dissipated when he searched his surroundings, forcing himself to outwardly appear calm when he found nothing.

It would happen again - and often - in the following weeks. When he left the stables after milking, he’d feel it then. When he fed the chickens, when he lead the two horses out onto the pasture, checked on the hogs - someone was watching him. Waiting. And yet, as each night passed and he’d wake up, Elliott would set out to work and find that none of the livestock had been touched. The hens didn’t go missing. The puncture marks on the cows had scabbed over, and no new ones appeared.

Worriedly, Elliott wondered if he were next, that he was the one being stalked - but why wait so long? He lived alone on the Witt farm, and no one had visited him in the time between then and the encounter.

The idea of a peace offering came to him when he had to put one of the roosters down. It was the older one of the three, the one that was always more aggressive and tried to start fights with the others. Apparently, it had to learn the hard way that all fights it started were not always ones it could win. Elliott should have separated it sooner, or maybe had done something, but his mind had been in other places as of late. He’d felt terrible - for the cockerel, for himself. For his family. The only thing they’d left behind was this farm, and he was making a mess of it.

So, out he marched at the first sign of dusk, right to the edge of the trees where he’d seen the creature dart off all those days ago. He planned on calling out to it until it showed, dropping the rooster at its feet and declaring, There, see? I’m doing just fine on ruining everything on my own, so why don’t you just take the damn bird and go?

He didn’t do any such thing. He just stood there for a long moment, listened to the robins in the woods and the huffing of cattle behind him, and stared down at the rooster in his hands. Eventually, the watched feeling came. Elliott was so used to it that the chill hardly even registered. It was just eyes on him, now, no longer threatening or frightening.

For a moment, neither of them did anything. Nothing jumped out to attack him, and Elliott didn’t say a word. He never actually did. Eventually, he dropped the rooster onto the grass and turned back to the house, not even waiting to see if the creature would show itself.

The sun was finally wishing the horizon a farewell, sinking just under the trees as he’s finishing up the last of his rounds. Elliott tested the locks on the doors of the stalls to make sure they wouldn’t swing open and cast a long look at a cow sitting on the other side of one. She stared back at him. The scabs on her shoulders were just about gone, now, and her fur had grown over the little pink marks that’d been left behind. The rest of the cattle’s marks were just about the same. Nothing fresh.

Inside the Witt home, it was dark. There was still washing up he had to do in the big metal basin sat underneath the kitchen’s window. He probably wouldn’t get to until the next morning, so he pointedly kept his gaze away from there. He moved passed the old dining table that hadn’t seen use in years - mostly it was just full of tools he hadn’t moved back into the shed yet - and made his way toward the fireplace. Soon, the cold blue glow of the darkening sky was warmed by the slow starting flame. Elliott poked at it until he was thoroughly bored of watching sticks crumble into ash and was sure it wouldn’t smother itself.

With a heaving sigh he got back to his feet but didn’t go far, falling onto a wooden bench close to the fireplace. There were bigger and more comfortable places to sit, like the large wicker chair right beside him or the stool that had a pillow sewn onto it haphazardly, but Elliott had always sat on the bench. Maybe tomorrow, after he was done the cleaning, he’d move all the extra furniture out into the shed along with the tools on the dining room table. No use in having so many if he wasn’t using it. He didn’t get much company - none at all, really.

Elliott found himself staring at the book left on the seat of the wicker chair and doubted he’d even get around to doing the washing up.

Over the crackle of the fire, something thumped right outside the front door. Elliott straightened, twisted around to look toward the noise, and thought how weird it was to be thinking about never getting any visitors only to have one stop by. Or maybe the word was ironic.

But then he remembered the time and he held his breath to listen. There was no shuffling of someone on his porch and no knocking on his door. If someone rode all the way out to the Witt’s Farm after sundown it’d be for an emergency, so there was no real good reason for the stranger to be quiet.

Slowly, Elliott stood. Avoiding the floorboards that creaked, he crossed the room toward the door and picked up the rifle he’d left there. The silence was deafening and ringing with the dreadful thought of how he might actually be going crazy. Then, the idea of Elliott opening the door and finding nothing at all was almost as terrifying as opening it and revealing the shadow from the hen house. Had he actually heard something? Was there really something in his woods? What if he went outside to the coop and all of the lost chickens would be accounted for? What if the marks on the cows had healed so fast because they’d never been marked in the first place?

Elliott put his hand on the doorknob, sucked in a breath, held it, then twisted it and pulled it open. The door’s creak seemed like a wail in the empty night - because that’s what it was. Empty. No one standing at his stoop, no shadow perched on his railing ready to strike.

Nothing but the rooster he’d left at the trees, untouched and dropped carelessly at his door.

And for reasons he couldn’t explain, Elliott narrowed his eyes down at it and felt angry. Maybe it was the sleep he was losing, the constant worrying, the loneliness - or maybe he actually was losing his mind. Whatever it was, it was enough to have him bend over, snatch up the bird, and stomp down onto the path toward the trees. When he got there, he still said nothing, but that time he didn’t even wait around. Elliott just tossed the bird back onto the grass where he’d left it the first time and turned to storm away, ignoring the petulant feeling that rose at the display.

He made it about four yards before something hit the dirt behind him. He froze without looking back and grit his teeth.

“Alright, you sumbitch.”

Annoyed, he faced the trees again, passing the bird on the road. That chill was back. Instead of stopping him, have him think twice, it only achieved in making the anger thrumming around in his chest burn defiantly brighter.

Two indigo flames held his gaze when Elliott noticed them, dimmer than the last time he saw them. They regarded him with disinterest and that alone had him nearly seething.

“I’m tired of playing this game you’re havin’ with me,” he snapped. The shadow might have raised a brow at him, but with how dark it was Elliott couldn’t be sure. It didn’t say anything, so the question - the one he’d been wondering since that night - burst out of him. “Why haven’t you just killed me yet?”

Now the eyes moved, turning in a way that told Elliott that the creature had tilted its head. But still, the silence. Slowly, it looked down at the rifle Elliott had nearly forgotten about, pointedly, then back up at him. Elliott heard it hit the ground in the next second, which is how he learned that he himself tossed it aside.

Something that was smothered by the heat of the moment whispered to him, You sleep deprived idiot, just what in the hell are you doing?

What he said out loud was, “Do it, then. Nothin’s stopping you, so do it.”

The shadow did nothing; not a sound, not a movement.

Elliott heard his own breathing over the gentle breeze and wondered why it was so slow. He’d seen the speed the creature had moved at and his only protection was too many paces away. If it wasn’t planning on killing him, the anticipation should have been. But he was calm, staring demise dead in its lightning blue eyes, fists clenched at his sides.

The thought of it being incapable of speech occurred to him, but with the way it watched him, Elliott didn’t find it likely. Despite how inhuman they were, there was sentience behind the shadow’s gaze. Maybe too much for something that fed on blood. It looked at Elliott and he felt that it was capable of telling him exactly what it wanted to with a stare alone - all that and more. It was a heavy kind of thing to know. Elliott realized he had a hard time looking away, so when he managed it he didn’t dare look again.

“Just, get - get out of here.” He started making his way back - and didn’t look at the damned rooster again, either. “Leave me alone and terrorize some other poor bastard’s chickens.”

Coward, he thought, but didn’t know who it was directed to.

----=----

The next morning, Elliott woke up to one less crowing and his rifle propped up on the porch railing outside.

Something in the woods still watched him.

----=----

A few days passed until he saw the shadow again. Elliott was leaving the hen house and had thrown a look up at the sky to gauge the time, sighed at the moon, and turned to shut the wired gate behind him. When he turned around, a figure that definitely had not been there before stood in the path in front of him.

He gasped and sent himself back in a fit of shock, back slamming up against the shed. He scowled once he realized what - or, rather, who it was, but that was gone in the next second, too. The shadow’s posture was still one of casual disinterest; hands in pockets, shoulders relaxed, and expression blank if not aloof. But it was different, Elliott was sure. The skin, while always having been pallid, took a different tone, now, one that was qualmish and almost sickly. And the eyes - the eyes hardly even glowed.

It looked more like a ghost than a shadow.

“What’s wrong?” He asked - and why was he even concerned? It hadn’t tried to kill him yet, sure, but it was responsible for taking out almost a quarter of his chickens.

True to a pattern, the creature said nothing, however, it did give a meaningful look into the shed behind Elliott. When its gaze returned, he could see how its throat worked around a swallow.

“Are - “ Elliott looked back at the hen house as if to check to make sure that was what the shadow had looked at. “Are you asking me to - “ He cut himself off again, but pointed into the house.

It narrowed its eyes at the incredulous inflection in Elliott’s voice but did not say no.

The whistling of grass is the only sound for a long moment as a cool night’s breeze moved over the fields, Elliott at a loss for words. As the wind washed over him, chilling him that much further, he could see the creature’s nostrils flare minutely, and this time when its throat moved it was around a rumbling noise. From the base of its chest it traveled up and out as that familiar trill. It filled Elliott with a sense of urgency, one he couldn’t really explain.

He was torn. It was strange to be asked such a thing, but he supposed he should be grateful of the fact that it was asking at all. But how was he even supposed to answer? As far as Elliott knew, none of his chickens survived. He’d never found markings on them, they would just disappear. With the colder seasons approaching, he really couldn’t afford to lose any more of his livestock.

The cows, though, they’d apparently survived a few run-ins with the shadow.

Elliott looked over to the stables and felt shameful the second he did. Was he really considering it? Other than the fast healing punctures on their necks or shoulders, there had been no real changes in their behavior or health. The morning he’d find the marks on them, they’d appear nonplussed. But what if it hurt them? What if the experience was traumatic in a way Elliott couldn’t see?

Then again, could he really afford to deliberate on this? In that moment, with the shadow looking at him expectantly, it seemed to be between Elliott and the cows. Really, the choice was an easy one, but he was still allowed to feel guilty.

“Follow me,” he told the shadow.

As the temperature steadily declined throughout the days, Elliott had started rounding the cows up into the stables more often. It got too cold at night , and he didn’t want to give the cows a chance to catch an illness. It meant waking up earlier to give them more time to graze but it was safer. While he was unlocking the paneled door to the stables Elliott thought that maybe that was the reason he was losing more chickens. It was harder to get through a locked door without raising suspicion than it was kidnapping a few birds and letting the farmer’s blame fall onto coyotes.

The shadow didn’t make a noise but when Elliott turned, it was standing right behind him, nose wrinkled a little at the intense smell of animal and dirt. He didn’t jump that time. He picked up the unlit lantern he’d left behind on the stacked bales of hay, lighting it fast and hung it on the rung in between two of the stall doors. Inside one of them, the dull eyes of a cow shimmered and regarded him blankly. Elliott drug the door open and stepped inside next to her, touching at the glittering wet nose and felt her hot breath huff against his hand in recognition.

“It doesn’t - there’s no - it - it’s not gonna hurt her too much, is it?” Elliott couldn’t help but ask. Now, he expected a nonverbal answer so he looked back to shadow for it, finding more whites in its eyes and the stoic expression looking cheaper. It wasn’t watching him anymore, purely focused on the cow Elliott was petting at nervously.

It stepped closer, into the stall, and Elliott watched as the cow’s head tipped up apprehensively. The huffing of her breathing got a little bit faster and Elliott heard himself shushing her lowly, scratching around the longer scruff by her ears. He couldn’t imagine he was helping too much, but the only thing she did when he saw the shadow disappear around her other side was let out a small grunt of displeasure.

Time passed; the only sound came from his and the cow’s breathing and the brisk wind rattling the wood of the barn. Elliott kept up his attempt at comfort, watching her face intently, and was surprised to find her calm once again. Slowly, he stepped away, gauging her reaction at the movement but didn’t get one.

He moved back into the base of the barn and heaved up one of the metal buckets he’d filled with grain. It was a favor he’d done for himself that night to save himself some time when he woke up to feed them, but he figured that the cow deserved some special treatment. Elliot brought it over to her front and held it right under her nose for her to sniff out, knocking the handle out of her way and hugging it to his stomach due to the weight of it.

The cow’s ears twitched back and forth in contentment, dipping her snout into the grain and eating it by the mouthful. Relief coursed through him like the blood in his veins and Elliott felt himself smiling a little.

“Good girl,” he told her, to which he got very little in the way of a response.

The shadow straightened in a fluid movement, one Elliott watched with rapt attention. Even in just the few short minutes, there was an excruciatingly apparent change in the creature. The intensity of its eyes returned, their brightness amplifying its now fuller features and adding more color to the porcelain-looking skin - it was the most human Elliott had seen him.

“You were starving,” Elliott muttered with a voice awed in his realization. He thought back to the look the shadow had given the cow before and identified it now as a pained and feral sort of hunger. “Why didn’t you just take the damned rooster?”

The creature wiped the cow blood off of wet lips and had the audacity to look at Elliott like he was the disgusting one. Before he could remark on that, prove to the other how backwards that was, the shadow’s mouth opened and for the first time, he spoke. In a voice that was low and smooth, with layers upon layers of something deep and new to Elliott threading through the syllables, he simply stated, “It was dead.”

Elliott sputtered, a little dumbstruck. “So?”

The shadow’s eyes narrowed into a disbelieving glare. “It was dead for a long time.”

“You’re gettin’ partipu - pertil - picky about what blood you’re drinking, now?”

If he were being frank, Elliott wasn’t sure why he was antagonizing the shadow. He’d been merciful so far in not maiming him. And Elliott couldn’t exactly say that if he’d left something out for the hours the rooster had been sitting, he would drink it, either.

But surely drinking blood wasn’t enjoyable in any sense.

Elliott pulled the bucket out from under the cow. Some feed stuck to the wetness of her nose which she cleaned off with a few swipes of her tongue. “I guess we’re done here,” Elliott said to her, but mostly to the shadow.

The shadow that had since disappeared from the stables.

Sighing, Elliott replaced the now three quarters filled bucket with the others as he shook his head. “Guess we are.”

----=----

They weren’t, but Elliott had expected that much.

Every other night, now, when Elliott was finishing his rounds he caught sight of the shadow leaning against the barn doors like it was an arrangement they’d agreed on. He’d finish locking up and meet him there where he’d open the doors and wave the shadow inside, direct him to one of the seven cows, and pretended it wasn’t abnormal. Every farmer had an odd case; a pair of horses that only fed at a specific time of day, cattle that grazed exclusively on the left side of the pasture, a herding dog that befriended and mothered ill lambs.

Elliott’s odd case was a vampire, but it was fine. Every farmer had an odd case. Some odder than others.

Things started to change on the evening Elliott had just left the stables unlocked. One of the pen’s posts had crumbled from age and the fences around it sagged too close to the dirt. It was a reminder that he’d have to put work into replacing them before the winter, or else he’d have a lot more work come spring. Like the dishes in the basin and the extra furniture still in the front of his house, that was a problem for tomorrow’s Elliott. He’d just repair the broken one for now.

He was just testing out the sturdiness of the new post when he noticed that the shadow was standing behind him. By then he was so used to the minor jump scares that he only just barely lost the hammer in his grip. It thumped onto the old, rotten fence post he’d left laying there and landed quietly in the grass.

“Lord - Jesus - Chri - you gotta stop doing that,” he told the shadow, hand over his heart.

Silence from the shadow. He’d gone back to his quiet pledge, not having spoken since their very short conversation in the stables.

Elliott was used to that, too, so shook his head and leaned down to pick up the hammer and the post. He could leave it to dry out on his porch, break it apart further and use it for tinder later. “I left the barn open,” he said when he saw that the shadow was still standing there.

“I know,” the shadow responded. Something flashed in his eyes, probably on account of how fast Elliott snapped up to look at him, not having expected an answer. It was some kind of struggle, Elliott imagined, because his mouth opened a second before he said anything. “Thank you.”

Elliott’s eyes widened. “I - uh. Y-yeah, you’re welcome. It’s fine. It’s - y’know, it’s better than you killing my chickens.”

That flash of something struck again. Elliott wanted to apologize. He genuinely didn’t want to offend the shadow, and he might have actually done it if he didn’t speak before him. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”

And that would have been smart, wouldn’t it? Letting the town know about the blood drinker in their woods. They could have helped Elliott a few dead birds earlier, rounded up enough of them for a search party - if they even believed him in the first place. But that would have involved killing the shadow, or running him off, and Elliott didn’t really enjoy the idea of that. In some kind of morbid way, through all of the heart-pounding meetings and stress-induced nightmares, he kind of liked the company. He’d probably miss it if it were gone.

Besides, the nightmares were really nothing new.

Still, he decided he wasn’t going to tell the other that. He just grinned, leaned up against the freshly repaired fence - very sturdy -  and said, “I think I’ve got you handled.”

The shadow’s brow rose and he looked Elliott up and down, then finally back up again. “No,” is all he said.

The smile dropped from Elliott’s face but he didn’t say anything more on that, because, unfortunately, the shadow was being very fair. “Right, well,” he muttered, pushing off the fence. He was ready for bed. “Have a good night, then.”

“Are you Witt?” He was asked after a few paces.

Elliott paused, turned around slowly. “How’d you know about that?”

“I listen,” the shadow stated simply.

Looking around acres of empty land, Elliott wondered, to who? “Yeah, I - well, I’m one of them. Witt’s my last name, so there’s… Well, there’s been a few Witts.”

The other’s head cocked to one side. “Which Witt are you?”

The only one, really. “I’m Elliott.”

The shadow nodded, looking him over once more. “Good night, Elliott.”

All he did was stand there for a moment, blinking, too caught up on how his name sounded in the smooth whisper of the other’s voice. He’d never heard it be said like that before.

Then, finally, his brain caught up.

“Hey, wait,” he called, despite the shadow not having moved an inch. “That’s not very fair, now is it? I don’t get to know your name?”

He wouldn’t exactly say that the shadow was the teasing sort, but it did take numerous weeks to get a decent two-sided conversation out of him. Mostly, Elliott expected the same response from before. Another ‘no’ before he disappeared for a few nights again.

“Tae Joon,” was what he got, though.

Elliott tried it out for himself. “Tae Joon.”

The shadow’s head tilted further.

Elliott smiled, tipped his hat. “You have a good night, Tae Joon.”

He shifted the wooden post around for easier carrying and put his back to the shadow, knowing that if he turned around now he probably would find empty air. It was fine. Elliott knew he’d see him soon.

=====

yyyyeaahh this is what i’ve been putting off prompts for BIG oof :^(((( 

not sure when i’ll finish the rest of it tbh but here’s this for now i guess 

[minecraftoworymode]

picked a whole bouquet of whoopsie-daisies the other day reading some Very badfeel content so to cheer myself up here’s some super self-indulgent ramblings about romeo recovery post-s2

“YOU CAN DANCE IF YOU WANT TO YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY BEHIND” or how romeo learned to stop worrying and indulge in the ““feminine”“ shit in life

when romeo transitioned he scrubbed everything that could be potentially viewed as feminine from his appearance and behaviour. while he did everything he could about the former (hairstyle, clothing, body language, voice), it didn’t feel like enough bc he couldn’t change some things that ppl used to be jerks- his frame (short and lithe), his family, his being trans- so he made up for it by trying to “act” like a “real man”. this unfortunately meant he was super vulnerable to manipulative alt-right indoctrination tactics (”we will validate you as a man as long as you endorse our assholery and share our shitty beliefs about what it means to be a man”) and he was on the verge of getting sucked into gamergate ideology when [THIS LORE IS ANOTHER POST] and hey, now the world is minecraft. u dont gotta perform gender roles for villagers they dont care. xara will not only actually eat ur liver for pulling The Bullshit but when you are kind she smiles, so bright and warm, and it is very very nice so maybe you should keep on doing that. n fred? fred is chill with their Everything in a way uve only ever Dreamed of. romeo marinates in this sauce for a couple centuries and comes the closest to being comfortable in his own skin he’s ever been.

however,

after the Incident he slam-dunked himself back into the hypermasculinity juice bc it was a mindset “safe” from feeling pain, whether his or others’. n since the worlds the admins created dont have the same ideas of gender as the world they came from, once he’s been dethroned romeo has a particularly hard time adjusting wrt That on top of all the other 2750347502730 issues he has to face

anyway flash forward a couple months of being incredibly volatile bc he now has to confront all the terrible things he did and how Dare u make him do that and maybe if hes nasty enough he can provoke someone into killing him and saving him from having to unpack All Of That- (note from @simple-mooshroom-herder​: Xara and Jesse at least grasp that Romeo will probably burn himself out on this bullshit eventually and the best thing to do is interact with him with a certain level of healthy detachment. Eventually he'll see that theres no "getting out of this" and he'll start to do the Work but until then its very frustrating to see that tactic take him nowhere.)

- one day petra notices how he’s constantly staring at all the ppl wearing cute dresses in beacontown and at first she thinks he's being creepy but then realizes that he's not being creepy and actually she knows exactly how he feels bc she also used to look at ppl wearing clothes super not suited for combat like that, like she wished she could wear them too, like if she just didnt have to keep up this image of the Warrior who is Not Soft Ever-

n ok. listen. these worlds have been specifically engineered to be better and kinder than the one the admins came from, and when people mess up- even REALLY mess up- people are generally not only willing to forgive you but support you as you try and get better. it’s instinctual for communities to respond to misdeeds with rehabilitation and reconciliation, rather than retaliation and renunciation (tho its not an overnight thing and it generally takes 1-3 people to spearhead the process, esp if the actions have affected a large group of people). like. ivor created something that almost destroyed the entire world, not just beacontown, yet by the end of season one he’s grown to be a part of the team- n its not just jesse & co being forgiving here, bc when ivor made his s1 build with 3 lava source blocks people objected to it, but by s2 he not only has lava in his build but a giant lake of it. (im assuming the fences around said lake are coming eventually, bc safety is still important, but the implications im choosing to take from this are a) despite almost ending the world people let him into their lives anyway and b) the community not only grew to accept but encourage his self-expression.)

BUT ANYWAY before i go off on that even more one day petra and romeo basically put on an impromptu fashion show in jesse’s house (bc their house is huge and, kind of perfect for a fashion show, and also right next to the order hall’s armory whence they stole a bunch of fancy swords to match the outfits) n theyre having a blast until the hero in residence , returns to their residence (and with COMPANY) n romeo is absolutely Mortified- caught red-handed showing feelings of an almost human nature, oh my god, this will NOT do- n this whole grand soliluquy of shame and excuses and apologies grabs the steering wheel of his tongue but he cant even spit a single syllable out bc jesse and lukas almost immediately dip leaving romeo panicking for a second before they come back with their inventories FULL of cute outfits, including a billion skirts and dresses, some of them are even enchanted so theyre like. super shiny or constantly flowing or things like that.

this actually ends up spiralling into a town-wide... not quite fashion show bc there's no runway or anything, everyone just shows up in their cutest/coolest outfits .. fashion convention?? Anyway several people come up to him and compliment him on his outfit casually before continuing along, not recognizing him not only bc of how hes done his hair and makeup n what hes wearing but he just seems... so happy (he might be wearing something on his head? like a headpiece or hat or something? but also maybe not hmm)- whoever this is, he's not hunched over like he's got several centuries' worth of sins crawling on his back he’s not trying to shrink and make small a human-shaped apology for the simple fact of his existence not dragging his feet like hes ready for, dreading, a hundred mile trek through the desert repenting hes just. hes literally just Vibing

anyway he's mostly been silent or just providing very quiet "thank you"s but when it turns out that some people showed up ready to play music and there's a song that he knows he literally cant help but start jamming out its the GOod Stim everyones a-dancing and a-jiving and some people start to sing and so of course he does too (the healing power of dancing and singing in cute outfits.... unfathomable) but. ppl recognize his voice

and after a few seconds he notices how quiet it's gotten all of a sudden n everyones looking at him like "oh shit thats the admin" and honestly his heart breaks. visibly

but

then someone starts singing, so quiet it takes a moment for him to hear over the sound of an encroaching panic attack (oh god he has airpods in), but when he looks over theyre smiling - theyre smiling at hiM???? AND IT DOESNT EVEN LOOK MEAN??- and doing this very simple step, that he catches onto just as easily as he matches their singing (its a fairly common little tune n dance)

theyre like standing like a good few meters away but as they take turns with lines in the song they slowly inch closer

and he thinks hes starting to recognize the dance that the steps theyre doing is from but at the part in the song thats coming up ur supposed to allemande left and even tho theyre like, less than a meter away now literally no one has really wanted to get close to him, let alone actually touch him, so hes totally expecting them to be like 'psych' and humiliate him in front of the entire crowd-

BUT THEN THEY ACTUALLY GO FOR IT???

he completes the step without even thinking about it n continues onto the next in this state of dull bewilderment where there is but one braincell active in his head and it is just going, in a very tiny voice, "danser?"

- when they linked arms the person briefly seemed surprised that he didn't like, chew their arm off or anything (he had. kind of snapped at people a few times during the past few weeks), but then their shock turned into a wide smile and they sort of- nodded? at someone over his shoulder like 'come and join us, it doesn't look like he's going to kill me after all you guys can put the eulogy writing on hold'

what rly makes his heart do the confused and hopeful conga is that this isnt even anyone romeo knows, its a total stranger. or- like- he saw them while he was pretending to be jesse he just didnt care to get to know them beyond ‘name and gimmick’- its not even someone who has any reason to think he'd be cool to befriend its literally jsut someone taking a chance on him (tkae a chance take a chance take a chance take a cha)

afterwards hes like "i should thank jesse for putting you up to that, it was fun" and theyre like "what? jesse didn't "put me up to" anything, dude, you just looked super choked. * something something surfer lingo who would i be if i just left someone to feel bad when they could be having fun dancing you know?*"

he H

[ollies-studyblr]

German III: 4.12-4.16

Relative Pronoun Review:

What determines whether the relative pronoun is masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural?

It matches the antecedent (the word it refers/relates  back to).

What determines the case of the relative pronoun?

Its use in its own clause.

Where does the relative pronoun go in the sentence?

At the beginning of its clause; if it goes with a preposition, the preposition is first in the clause.

Where does the conjugated verb go in a relative clause?

It goes at the end of the clause.

Which relative pronouns are not identical with the definite article?

Dative plural (denen), and all the genitives (dessen, deren, dessen, deren) are not identical.

Wo ist das Mädchen, das gestern hier war? --> (N/nom.)

Der Hund, mit dem ich gestern gespielt habe, ist sehr freundlich. --> (M/dat.)

Meine Verwandten, die  in der Schweiz wohnen, heißen Trachsel. --> (Pl/nom.)

Der Junge, dessen Bruder krank ist, ist sehr traurig. --> (M/gen.)

Der Hosenanzug, den sie am Sonntag trägt, ist sehr elegant. --> (M/acc.)

Wir sitzen an einem Tisch, der 200 Jahre alt ist. --> (M/nom.)

Die Kinder, mit denen ich nach Hause ging, sind sehr nett. --> (Pl/dat.)

Interview Q&A:

Where was he Nov. 9, 1989?

at home preparing for school the next day

What did he do when he heard the news?

He decided to try to visit his parents.

How difficult was it to cross the border?

The line was long, but there was no passport check.

What were they greeted by in the West?

Huge crowds, with total strangers handing out welcoming flowers and bottles of wine.

What word did they hear over and over?

“Wahnsinn” meaning “crazy, unbelievable”

Did they find his parents?

Yes, they were home following everything on TV.  They had even seen his car come through!

What happened in school the next morning?

There wasn´t any school.  Teachers as well as students were in West Berlin.

Did he get to keep his teaching job?

Yes, the history and government teachers had a much harder time keeping their jobs than the math, science, and language teachers.

What does he think of the “Wall in the Head” idea?

It´s still there for many people—those who always see the “bad”  instead of the “good” in a situation.

How did he get the piece of the Wall that now sits on his desk?

He joined the other Mauerspechte (wall peckers) and hammered off several pieces for his family.

Fun Fact Review:

What four countries occupied Germany after World War II?

England, France, the Soviet Union (Russia), and the United States

What is the name of the plan that helped West Germany rebuild so fast?

the Marshall Plan

In which zone was Berlin located?

the Soviet zone

When did the Soviets block all land and water routes to Berlin?

1948

What is the German word for "airlift"?

die Luftbrücke

Who was Gail Halvorsen?

He was a pilot who dropped little parachutes with candy and raisins for the children of Berlin.

What was the nickname of the planes that dropped little presents as they approached the Berlin airport?

Rosinenbomber (raisin bombers)

Why did the Soviets build a wall all the way around West Berlin?

They did this to keep their citizens from going to the West.  They needed them to work in the East, but the standard of living was much better in the West.

On what date was the Berlin Wall begun?

August 13, 1961

What was it made of at first?

barbed wire

What kind of communication was there between East and West Berliners after the Wall went up.

none

How dangerous was it to try to cross the Wall?

It was extremely dangerous; the guards had orders to shoot immediately.

What were some of the other defenses used besides just a wall?

trenches, spikes, guard dogs, electrical fences, mines, false walls to mislead would-be escapees,  trip wires that automatically shot the person tripping them, search lights, watch towers

Where were the major anti-government demonstrations right before the Wall opened?

Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin

When did the Wall open?

November 9, 1989

How did it happen?

There was an announcement on TV news that East Germans no longer required an exit visa to leave the country.

What does "Wahnsinn" mean?

insanity, craziness

What sorts of things did the East Berliners buy when they first went West?

electronics: microwaves, boom boxes, TVs, VCRs.

What does "Wiedervereinigung" mean?

reunification

When was Germany officially reunited?

October 3, 1990

What is the "Mauer im Kopf?"

"wall in the head"—a psychological barrier to accepting people from the other half of Germany

What are the slang words for former East Germans and West Germans?

Ossis and Wessis

What is a main prejudice of the Wessis against the Ossis?

They expect the government to do everything for them; they don’t know how to work.

What is a main prejudice of the Ossis against the Wessis?

They��re arrogant and selfish and treat us as second-class citizens; they´re acting like carpet baggers.

Who is the current Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and why is that special?

Angela Merkel: she´s the first woman Chancellor AND she’s from the former East Germany.

Fun Facts:

Escapes did occur by increasingly clever means, but the DDR became just as clever at preventing them. If you go to Berlin, be sure to go to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, and give yourself plenty of time to see all the museum has on display. You´ll be amazed at the many ways people used to escape, mostly in the early years.

It’s also amazing the lengths to which a government will go to keep its people from leaving. All of the items pictured here were used, although not necessarily all at the same place. The devices to stop vehicles (anti-tank obstacles and anti-car trenches, as well as beds of spikes) served little purpose after the cement wall went up. Then most of the devices were aimed at individuals: patrol cars, search dogs, low tension fences, tripwire alarms, and various "walls" to give the person the deceptive feeling she had escaped before actually reaching the legal border. The most gruesome of all came late in the game, when fences were armed with shrapnel guns attached to trip wires. In essence, the would-be escapee shot herself!

A government that has to resort to such extreme measures is bound to collapse, and that´s just what happened. In October, 1989, the DDR celebrated its 40th anniversary amid great pomp and celebration. But all around the country, the protests were well underway, centering mainly in Leipzig and Dresden as well as Berlin. In a never-to-be-forgotten evening news broadcast on November 9, an unexpected statement was made that residents of the DDR no longer needed an exit-visa to leave the country. That was it!

In a very short time, all the checkpoints in Berlin were swamped with people wanting to "go West." They mostly wanted to visit relatives, sight-see, shop, and then come back. Thousands streamed across the border, and the department stores were wiped clean of things like microwaves, color TVs, boom boxes, and computers.  At least one woman in labor came, so her baby could be born in the West.  (Fortsetzung folgt)

Post Wall Facts

Things changed very rapidly in both East and West Germany. As the Mauerspechte ("Wall peckers"—a play on the word "Specht" woodpecker) chipped away souvenirs, and cranes took away large chucks of the Wall, the cement barrier almost disappeared. The DDR tried to maintain its independence through various changes in government, but it was almost inevitable that it would become part of the BRD, which already had unification built into its Basic Law.  DDR money went out of existence quickly, and the official "Wiedervereinigung" (reunification) came on Oct. 3, 1990.

The euphoria, however, could not last forever, and reality sank in. You would have to read many books and watch many documentaries to come to your own opinion about what could/should have happened. Politicians made loud but unrealistic claims that misled thousands who took them literally. The East German economy all but collapsed since it had a highly deteriorated infrastructure and few quality goods to offer.  The education system fell into disarray because many of the teachers had gotten their positions through political connections. It is fair to say, however, that many people were more "Opportunists" than "Communists." Life was tolerable and fighting the system had seemed hopeless, so they just went along and did the best they could. Wouldn´t most people in such situations?

Prejudices instilled by society (consciously or unconsciously) surfaced, "verified" by events of the day. "Westerners (Wessis) are selfish and think they know better about everything." "Easterners (Ossis) are lazy and greedy and just want hand-outs from the government." "Wessis are coming East and trying to take over our businesses and schools." "Ossis are coming West and taking our jobs and our hard-earned benefits." And, as always, a lot of the tension  had to do with money. Who owned land or houses abandonded  30–40 years ago? The former owners who had made a good life for themselves in the West, or the current owners who had done all the upkeep? The government? Who was going to pay for all the rebuilding that was truly necessary in the East? Western tax money? Large private companies that were viewed with deep suspicion in the East?

These and other questions led more than one person to say, "The Wall in our midst has come down, but it will take a long time for the Wall in our heads to disappear." Maybe as the generation that never knew life with the Wall grows up, it will be able to overcome the prejudices of the past and feel itself as only a "German" once more, not "Ossi" or "Wessi."

[sasukebarmitzvah]

watching every naruto opening and discussing my opinions because im bored liveblog

original

took me a little while to warm up to it idk why maybe because its not as up tempo and its a shonen and i want to get hype but i love it now. love the part where the camera pans around team 7 fighting randos they are babies… also its so funny when sasuke holds out his hand to naruto to help him out of the lake and he jsut fist bumps him. gay boy

Haruka fucking kanata baby!!!!!!!! a fav. like we all know this. i listen to the song just regularly a lot and every time it comes on shuffle im like Oh my god its haruka kanata. read the english translation of the lyrics… sns

this one got stuck in my head for a while lol. i like seeing everyone babie and i like naruto shaking his head at the end to dry off like a dog

DDMnanannaddnnaaaaa naaaaaaaaa nda aaWE ARE FIGHTING DEAMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OOLI OLI OLIOOOOoohh!!!!! very fun very good also a very good time in the show, hello tsunade

**edgy shonen opening where theres something important in front of a chain link fence**

lol skipping 6-9 bc thats the huge chunk of filler which i didnt actually watch most of

shippuden

heros come back is SO GOOD absolutely one of my favs. banger first of all. i love how its actually choreographed and naruto sakura kakashi are like moving to the beat and i love the part where the animation is like pencil sketchy and theyre running and their bodies warp bro its just cool. the part where everyone dramatically reaches for gaara is fun, also love deidaras moment. anyway i shake my ass to this song eveyrday

distance oh god oh fuck. YOU ARE MY FRIEND!!! the sasuke and naruto stuff where they are little baby at the beginning at the end we return to the same place theyre there and like about to stab each other i’m going to scream. i lvoe the song of course. hello sai! i love team 7s little spotlight moments where they get to pose to the music its so cute. why is sasuke snake jesus? DO you remember that long lost DREAM!!!!!!!!!!

BLUE BIRD YA BANGER ok the whole symbolism. when naruto falling next to sasuke rising is positioned like yin and yang lol. when naruto is falling from the sky but then sasuke comes to mind and he springs into action lol. ok random people from the fillers i dont care about. naruto fell in the lake he picks up the bird feather interspersed with a couple shots of sasuke horgh. additional reading: paper bag by fiona apple

closer is one of the ones where im like eh its ok its not my favorite and then it gets to the chorus and my dumb ass is jsut screaming YOU KNOW THE CLOSER YOU GET TO SMETHING THE TOUGHTER IT IS TO REACHIT. the funniest part where narutos moping and thinking of sasuke and then he just perks up and smiles at the camera like. gay boy. like getting to see the asuma fight scenes in this op, also it was so funny seeing him get all the screentime in this op knowing hes about to die like yeah very subtle

SHA LA LA!!!! LOVE IT i love it i love it soooo much first of all banger second of all naruto looking into the water and his reflection is sasuke. lollllll. metaphor m-e-t-a-p-h-o-r the little prechorus bit in the middle gives me chills. love sasuke walking into the purple pool like a smug motherfucker thats my boy. at the end zooming into sasukes pupil zoom out it’s narutos eye oh the poetry..

signs another one of the ones where im like eh whatever its fine but not my fav but by the chorus i am standing on the table freaking out. like fuck jiraiya but this one got me a lil. the lighting and choreography of the sasuke itachi fight bit is sooooo nice and pretty, love getting to see all the new players in the story. baby ame orphans fading to the shot of yahiko as pain.. :(

this one literally makes me cry. i get chills what the fuck. definitely one of my favs. am i a bitch? maybe. i like the song by itself but like the way the rise/general shape of the melody flows with the visuals its like oh god oh fuck. again fuck jiraiya but like the role his character serves as a link between these disparate groups of people and the way thats used in this opening… how it starts and ends with him writing and this is the arc where naruto reads tales of a gutsy ninja and he learns about how he got his name and jiraiya wrote the book and hes WRITING and im going CRAZY!! i’m starting to tear up watching it rn. the shot of konan and the pains in that moment just before they leap forward. Sayonaaaaaaara aa lksasldfkwpoeifjhnuerIELFeuiertekdjsnlfweiourbg kakashis moment is cool in this op. also love to see the girls getting fight scenes in this op cus they sure dont in the actual show LOL anyway yeah im at the part where the melodys just hitting sooo different oh my god naruto frog eyes

DIVERRRRRRR. FAV literally like naruto is drowning. hes drowning and everyone is pushing him up so he can breathe again everyone is fighting to save him and thnen he s ouf ot the water and then he sees sasuke drowning and he JUMPS BACK IN. FOR ONE PERSON EVEN THOUGH ALL THESE OTHER PEOLE were working to help him out he dives back in for SASUKE whos drowning in the eyehole of obitos mask which is cool. ok yeah this is another one where im like tearing up because THe cymbal is em….. the way The movement of the visuals is choreographed with the song is so much. nico TOUCHED the fucking walls.

this one kinda annoys me i dont know why it just wasnt my favorite. love the sasuke and naruto staring at each other intensely moment though, would this be a shippuden opening without that. also the part at the end where sakura holds up her kunai and it like slashes and covers sasuke and naruto… inch resting…

newsongs so weird i love it. like what the hell is going on. why is naruto running like hes from some weird gmod video from 2013. love the LITERAL choreography, everyone dancing to the song like this is a musical. theres just a lot of weird moments which is fun. love sai naruto and sakura making the seal together to shoot lightning. raikage leaping gracefully across the beach

i do not enjoy this one. i just dont. it just feels like we’re bootlicking which of course we are because this is the war arc and everything is a nightmare

i remember seeing the first episode with this opening and i was excited bc its like… great another naruto pining for sasuke one this is what im here for. a light banger. minato manlet monday. ohh right this was the one where gaara sees his dad again and his OH I SEE SASUKEE

Banger! nico did indeed touch the walls again. i like that this one is like visually thematically consistent thru the whole thing, i like the nighttime dimly lit atmosphere with the bursts of brighter colorful lighting, also whenever i see tsunade i freak out. narutos cute at the end

SUCH A BANGER!!! also very cool visual style, appreciate it for that like the last one, its got that pretty consistent aesthetic with the red sky and the high contrast black blocking its fun and cool to watch. did i mention the song is a bit of a banger. obito passing thru the rock is cool too bad hes an idiot

ok from this one there were two lines i remember always seeing in the english sub that made me freak out. and one of them was like “this red hot love burning my heart” and it was over kakashi and obito fighting like damn OK. also the “i put the candle out with my finger” thing sticks in my head idk why. hate that we have the narutos big meaty claws i mean manly hands moment though. omg its hashirama and madara and then it CUTS TO SASUKE AND NARUTO IN THE SAME POSE LOL OK…

SILHOUETTE IS a banger… not as much so as some of the others but its a lot of fun. very colorful op, we got some naruto pining for sasuke, classic. also love the thing where ppl are running and they age as they do and they sort of grow into their present selves, a fun visual bit. the end where narutos like obito be nice now look at all these people behind me who think youre a meanie please be nice :(((((((((

another one with a really good visual principle ugh i love how the style of the show is integrated w the styles of more traditional printmaking its very swexy and nice to look at

LINE uugrgh i love this one, maybe a fav… naruto chasing after the light and sasuke trying so hard to snuff it out as they both reflect on their memories of each other oh god oh fuck… also i love the bits where it just has all the characters in a row like it reminds me of that one post about how in the endgame trailer they had a shot of all the female characters together to be like Girl power!! and someone was like yeah thats them showing u exactly how many women theyre going to disrespect LMAO but yeah i do love this op. also the song itself being slower w/ the triplet tempo is a nice change of pace

blood circulator hee hee… the version of this with naruto and sasuke moments is A Lot but even just the generic first version is fun. the part where narutos like knocked on his face hes sinking into the tar and hes not even trying to save himself hes just staring at sasuke, but then he sees sasuke distressed and he goes bijuu mode immediately like What did u say about my mans? there is some homoeroticism

i really hate everything about this i hate it all. sasuke is cute. thats it. ok first of all why did choji cut his hair his long hair look was so gooooooood. hinata bimboification? i mean if anything it was fun to watch these fillers just cus it was fun to watch kakashi be the hokage but really goofy and also the Crumbs tossed to the kakairus… but yeah i hate everything temari got bimbofied too like ugh please let her be a dyke :( this isnt even me talking necessarily about the opening this is me just being like i hate the naruto ending. LOL SASUKE AND NARUTOS NO HOMO BRO HIGH FIVE AT THE END LOLLLLL

ok im done

[ofdianaes-blog]

DIANA  ARCHIBALD [ VIRGINIA GARDENER ] is a JUNIOR at Broadripple Academy. She is SEVENTEEN years old, from BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS and has been at Broadripple Academy for HALF A year.

hiya all ! i’m meredith, i’m 18 and i never learned how to fucking read i’m super excited to be here ! feel free to slide into my ims if you want to plot at all, i’m down for whatever and am super excited to get to plotting with you all, and i hope you love/hate my new baby, diana just as much as i do. i’ve included some stuff about her under the cut, as well as some plot ideas i’d like to see. y’all can also message me on discord if you want for easier plotting, i’m meredith#3445

okay, her bio is all the way at the end of this just in case it’s posted on the main by the time i post this and i don’t wanna make anyone suffer through it. if you haven’t seen it, just scroll on down and it should be there for you to learn all about my girl. now for wanted plots/plot ideas ( i’m like, zero percent limited to any of these ) 

BLACKMAIL OR SYMPATHY? THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER basically, this plot is someone knowing that diana is a big fat faker. maybe they went to middle school with her, or one of her many different personalities in high school before they both ended up at broadripple. with all the times she’s moved, as long as it was in state ... it might very well be a possibility she knows one person. maybe they read her diary, she keeps it under her mattress. maybe they just caught her mouthing the words to a billboard top 100 song and her cover is blown. who knows! we can sort all that out. this person can either hold this over diana’s head, or they’ll feel bad for her and attempt to show her the ropes of everything and keep her secret on the dl. the first is more fun for me, the second is more fun for diana. your pick. 

YOU’VE_GOT_A_FRIEND_IN_ME.mp3 someone that sees through that pretentious candy shell to the mediocre chocolate that’s beneath. i imagine most people have a low tolerance for when diana gets into one of her real cinema is dead, i was born in the wrong generation moods, but this is the person that sticks by her, reminds her she’s being obnoxious, and she can still listen to the smiths in 2019, no one is stopping her. did they meet in english class, sharing an illicit cigarette, bonding over how diana is always getting a coffee? it’s all up to you, but partners in not really crime is something i’d love to see for her. she gets lonely, y’all. 

RIVALS TO ENEMIES TO RIVALS (100k, F/?) i’m running out of creativity for these plot ideas, okay? anyone who dare insinuate (or outright say) diana is wrong about, ahem, anything, or has poor taste or whatever is bound to be at the receiving end of her wrath. and by wrath, i mean glares across the hallway and the angry writings in her journal. don’t call it a diary, even though it really is, she’ll get mad. if this person wants to share passive aggressive quips and feuds, then ooh boy, is diana the enemy for them. this can be someone who’s uninhibited by her desperation for the cool factor and is just themselves, or someone who thinks she isn’t cool enough. either one will make her skin crawl. 

FILM PROTEGE / HER YOUNG PADAWAN they don’t even necessarily have to be into the same shit she is, or film at all, though they could want her to teach them about shitty foreign films and 80s sadgirl music. if she sees anyone shy or meek or just not with big enough of a personality, she’ll ceaselessly volunteer to show them to the world of not knowing how to shut their damn mouth. god knows that’s the world she’s living in. while she isn’t necessarily a rebel (she always recycles and does her homework), she does partake in habits such as [ gasp ] swearing and the devil’s lettuce. whether this person is shy or just extraordinary strait-laced .... let diana ( holes voice ) fix that 

okay, now her bio is below this line. enjoy !

Though Diana Archibald is indisputably a firecracker, to say she came into the world with a bang would be a bold faced lie. She was born to the archetypical white picket fence, upper middle class family. She donned pink onesies and cooed alongside family pet golden retriever, a friendly, brown-eyed creature named Max — Diana would vomit at how the stereotypes seemed to stack so neatly. Tragedy and betrayal, however, can taint even the most normal of lives, and with her mother’s cancer diagnoses, her father was out the door before she could toddle. Hindered by the cost of medical bills, Elizabeth Archibald, Diana’s partial namesake, withered away into nothing. With her father unable to be located for child support or to take her in, who was once a perfect, porcelain blonde baby doll became red faced and tearful toddler — a ward of the state, sent on the pipeline from foster home to foster home.

Diana was raised on half rewound VHS tapes and scratchy, skipping DVDs that she was shoved in front of to keep her docile and occupied. Her obsession with stories didn’t stop there, as she stumbling through the minimal words in picture books turned into devouring novels with a wind up flashlight under the thick covers of her bunk bed. She saw herself in the pages of protagonists burned by tragic backstories, of boys and girls who rose from the ashes and became strong and willful and exactly who she wanted to be. She wanted nothing more than to satiate the hunger she felt to be like them: to be something. And so, the lies began: carefully crafted, always a new story wherever she went.

The first half of freshman year, she was a bubbly cheerleader in a tiny town on the Connecticut border, where she reeked of bubblegum and painted her nails bright pink in class, doodling the names of the cutest boys in school amongst her math notes. Second half, she was a band geek in Cambridge, with grades imbalanced to direct her towards the arts as she nervously learned to play the clarinet, swapping spit under the bleachers with pimple faced boys who played the drums and frizzy-braided girls in the brass section. The first half of sophomore year she lived in the suburbs of Boston, where she had heavy black eyeliner and a permanent scowl on her face, she recited poetry and wrote her own, deep and dark. She got a stick and poke on her ankle in her best friend’s garage, and shoplifted religiously. Once January hit and she was somewhere else, demanding she was referred to only by her last name. She wore flannel and beanies and refused to speak in class, passing a joint back and forth around in the basement of a senior who looked at her with leering eyes. The first half of her junior year, she was the perfect church girl, her hair always in neat braids and a smile on lightly glossed lips as she perfectly enunciated hymns and messages of peace be with you. A golden cross hung loosely around her neck, and she meticulously frosted cupcakes for the school bake sale and highlighted passages in her bible.

That’s how she supposes, she ended up at Broadripple. After she was shoved out of that town, that school, that family, her newfound love of religion was deemed of enough importance: Diana was a lovely candidate for the philanthropy of Broadripple Academy, and they would be so happy to have her attend. She was used to moving, but not into buildings with ivy covered walls and pleated skirts being added to her wardrobe. The sudden, abrupt change unlike any other had left her floundering for a new personality to latch onto, a new story to spin: until she came up with the best one yet. The perfect story was a story maker, pathological liar turned into filmmaker. Polaroid camera is always tucked into her backpack, and phone is always ready to film. She’s no longer a participant: she’s an observer. Her father was an important producer in Hollywood, she told everyone in her science class. Her mother was a retired soap opera star, but she was just as beautiful as she was in her haydey. No one cared enough to Google, and ambiguities and carefully placed anecdotes were her specialties — it worked. Now, she was the creative, wide eyed and quiet, journaling late into the night and always with a cup of coffee in hand, contraband cigarettes kept in her bottom dresser drawer. She reads classic literature and insists music sounds better on vinyl, carefully critiquing the film taste of her peers.

No matter how carefully crafted, aren’t all ruses bound to end?

and her personality section !

She’s black coffee and vinyl records, she’s the crunch of fall leaves under your shoes and absent sharpie doodles up and down your arm. She’s ballpoint pens and perfume that smells like vanilla, she’s the big glasses perched on her nose that she doesn’t really need, she’s cheeks carefully dusted with blush to make her look kissed by winter air. She’s cinnamon bubblegum and sitting cross legged in the grass, snapping photos of bunnies as they trot between trees.

DISHONEST: There’s an itch that can’t be scratched away, and it’s to tell another lie. One more won’t hurt. She tells herself, in fact, it might just help. She’s lived in Beverly Hills and Brooklyn, she tells them, twirling her hair nervously around her finger. She’s never even left the state.

ASTUTE: There’s no denying Diana is smart. One has to be, to stop themselves from getting tangled in a web of dishonesty. Math and science aren’t specialties of hers, but they still come easily, and her natural flair for artistry and the dramatics has made her an excellent writer and creative student. Good grades are easily achieved, and Diana easily takes notice of things other people try to hide.

SELF-IMPORTANT: Diana does everything better, she’s sure of it. After all, she’s had to put in the research into how exactly to do things right. This new personality of hers only amplifies the airs of betterness she seems to put on — though there’s no cracks shown in confidence, it certainly is a facade.

GREGARIOUS: Even in her quite states, it’s always been easy for Diana to make friends. She’s naturally empathetic, and has no issue molding herself to suit what the conversation needs. She’ll donate to charity or talk shit behind your back — whatever the conversation calls for. She’s a social butterfly that can never seem to settle on a hive, and that leaves most of her relationships at surface level.

[fmddevin]

take care of me: daein’s story of fear.

scenario: so this is about the very first time daein tripped on acid & also his first bad trip. so....you could say he was pretty scared. big reason he doesn’t do lsd much. word count: 2,200 😳 notes: please know this isn’t saying if you get high you’re the same as very stupid kim daein. this is just his experience where tbh, a lot contributed to his bad trip. just please be safe & smart ok!!!!!!! and also, he’s dumb, especially in this phase of his life, and says/does some dumb things!! they don’t reflect my views. in fact...i cringed writing 98% of this. but also! if things like drugs & overdose and anything else in the tags make you uncomfy, please don’t read this...it might bother you! there’s also quite a bit of cursing. and i hate this & it’s not good AT ALL but i’m running out of time so i have to post it. anyways that’s all, ily all <3)

everything started off fine.

everything started off perfectly fine, and that was the scariest part.

there he was, in the center of the room, staring down a girl with her friends on the other side of the room.  he was still too sober, too bored, and was wondering where a few drinks could land him by the end of the night. truth be told, the usual routines were getting to be repetitive - get drunk, find a girl, land in bed by 3am, kick her out before his parents woke him up in the morning. but that was becoming a little too predictable, and tonight daein was craving a change of pace. he’d even gotten their early, thinking that getting there at the start of the party would hype him up. he only intense disappointment of a near empty room, not yet at it’s peak.

“you don’t look like you’re having much fun.”

huh? he can’t tell if he said it out loud over the blaring music, but from his furrowed eyebrows he’ sure the girl in front of him can sense his confusion. he scans her over, but nothing’s coming to him. no name, no potential friends - hell, did she even live here? because he swears he’s never seen her before, and if he did he would’ve tried talking to her a long time ago. “i mean - i guess. i might dip - party’s kinda dead, you know?”

she takes a step closer, and her unexpected proximity almost causes him to step back. “or maybe you’re just dead. what’s your name? i might be able to help you out,” she offers, gesturing across the room. shit. she wanted him that quick? that was a record, and he’s already getting himself ready to go before she turns around to him. 

“i have a friend here, he’s probably got something that’ll make you have some fun. i’ll tell him to hook you up.” for a second, he has no idea what she’s saying, and the only thing that’s really processing is that he won’t be getting laid tonight. deflating in every sense, and mouth agape in embarrassment as she talks,  he can only mumble a small thanks as he follows instructions.  really, he had no reason to comply, but trusting a random stranger seemed like the most exciting opportunity that would come to him for a while. only after she continues he gets it, and as he’s following her across the cup littered room he sees him. he would’ve just dismissed the guy in the corner of the room as a wallflower if he didn’t know any better, and although he’s getting the gut feeling that he shouldn’t be doing this he walks up to the expectant male.

“first time?”

“uh...no, dude. i’ve smoked plenty of times.” for a guy who pretends to be such a badass, he obviously’s the lamest of the bunch, because the other two begin cackling at his response. was that the wrong thing to say? so he laughs, along with them, pretending he’s in on a joke - even though it might be him.

“you’re funny. but for real, you’ve tried acid before, right? i don’t want to give it to you if you can’t handle it, man.”

 shit. acid? shit. this was really….really getting real. here he was, thinking he was getting a discount on some weed, when peeking out between the other’s hands is something much smaller than what he was expecting. he’s puzzled, but tries his best not to show it and shake the feeling off. “nah, im good. just a little nervous, that’s all. i haven’t….done this in a while, so….yeah.” by now he knows he sounds stupid, but this wasn’t what he signed up for when he agreed to come to this party. but what was he supposed to do? he had asked for fun and here came his saving grace - who was he not to accept an offer given to him so conveniently? fear is only reluctance about the unknown, he reminds himself. he’s not really scared to try it, he’s just scared because he doesn’t know what to expect. 

daein’s a sixteen year old phony, a kid from florida who smoked his first joint and thought he was the big man on campus. hell, he barely got away with sneaking that past his parents. how was he going to manage this? alcohol was predictable. he knew his body, and knew he could recover by the time he was supposed to be back from a “sleepover” with his friend. he’s never done anything above those things, and quite honestly is scared to try. but it wouldn’t hurt, just this once. he’s not going to let some nerves ruin his fun, right?”

“so…? you joining, or what, man?” daein’s lost in thoughts until he becomes aware of the awkward stare off, coughing uncomfortably. “oh - right, right. how much?” he asks, bringing his hand toward his wallet before the other brings it back down. he’s told not to worry about it, that it’s on the house - as long as he comes to him next time he wants to buy. just like that, it’s in his hand - what was it, exactly? a little square, almost like a piece of paper. it took multiple shots to knock him out cold. it was hard to imagine this would do anything.

looking around the circle they’ve formed, he’s watching to see who’s going to go first. not so much because of his nerves, but more because he doesn’t really know shit about what he’s doing. other kids might have learned from the movies or watched their friends, but these saturday night sneak-outs were the only times daein really got a glimpse of the real world. if he wasn’t here, he was at home studying, sleeping, or eating. but always, always under the watch of his parents. they were like hawks, which may have explained his desire to act out just this once where he wasn’t under their control.

everyone brings the thin slip to their lips - daein follows suit. everyone puts it under their tongue - he follows again. it’s like a game of simon says, except daein doesn’t really know what voice in his head is telling him to do all this. do i swallow it? do i chew? but no one else seems to do much else, so he lets it do it’s job.

now, the party’s starting, he thinks. except….it’s not. an hour passes. hell, wasn’t this stuff supposed to mess you up? he can barely feel a difference and it feels like he’s been waiting for hours. “i don’t feel shit,” he rather obnoxiously complains, only feeling the same boring buzz of alcohol. he wants more than this.

“dude, is this all you’ve got? you’re fucking weak. come on, i told you i’m not a lighthead. do you have anything else?”

“trust me, just chill out for a bit. it’ll kick in - i swear, you don’t need anything else.”

daein’s eyes plead for a reconsideration, but by the look on this guy’s face he’s not going to risk it. fine, he thinks. he doesn’t want to help him out? daein’s gonna speed up the process.

“pussies.” another shot.

but now….now he’s feeling something. the teen swears its because that one last shot gave him that extra push he needs, but after a while he’s not convinced that’s it. because it’s like a feeling in his chest, a feeling that’s getting bigger and bigger until it’s almost boiling over. he feels like he has bubbles in his stomach.

skip forward thirty minutes later, and it’s really kicking in. holy shit. he can feel every one of his toes, he swears, and when he tells his friends they tell him he’s gone crazy. it feels like the lights are getting hotter and hotter, and he wonders if it’s because he’s been dancing or it’s just his imagination. and honestly? he feels good. it’s like he’s really in one of those coming of age movies, everything seems so fun and everything is so funny. it’s like he’s dancing on the clouds, and daein gives himself a pat on the back for ever thinking this was a good idea.

it was different, but definitely manageable. this is nice, this is fine, he thinks. but the problem is, it’s like he’s going up an elevator he can stop.he wants everything to….stop here, but it’s not. fuck - how’s he going to get home.

now he’s got a new goal - have someone take him home, and take him home now. the feeling in his chest hasn’t subsided, and something’s telling him he hasn’t reached his peak high yet. what the hell was he going to do if he saw his parents like that? it was one thing climbing a fence drunk, but this….this was definitely different. he doesn’t have a clue how he’ll be able to sneak into his house like this - hell, he can hardly make it across the room. everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion around him, like he’s the only one who knows what’s going on. louder than the music, the voices, everything, he can hear his heart. it gets louder, louder, louder - shit, was it gonna beat out his chest?

“shit, is it gonna be out my chest?”

“what, is what gonna be out your che - man, what’d you take? you look awful.”

he knows that, but what can he do about that right now? he’s hot, at least, it feels like he is, but everything about him seems heavy and he’s not even sure he can wipe the sweat from his forehead. it seems like he has a piece of crinkled plastic over his eyes, like something’s stopping him from seeing clearly. he can’t see. it seems like every time he panics, he feels worse, and although he tries to calm down he’s not doing too good.

“home - i’ve gotta head home - now.”

“no can do. ask….tyler or something, i don’t know. i’m headed out with marina.”

“but-” he’s never heard himself this desperate. “-please.”

“sorry, devin. duty calls.”

duty calls. that’s his thing. and now that he’s the one asking for the ride, he realizes how shit the phrase really sounds. he’s the king of egocentrism, because all he can think is aren’t i more important? but he’s getting too unbothered to care, and through hooded eyes watches the other leave through the back door.

he makes the mistake of slumping down into the chair, and with how heavy his body seems it feels like he’s sinking into the carpet. he has to remind himself that he’s okay, that everything’s just an illusion, but it’s hard to remember when he feels like he’s falling further and further into the ground.

he’s sitting down, and still, it’s all just too much. he wants to throw up. there’s nowhere to go - his friends are assholes, and his parents will beat his ass. so he figures he’s a badass and can wait it out, and tries to close his eyes. but that doesn’t block out everything. he still hears the loud noises, feels the bodies brushing past him, feels like someone’s moving his chair around and around again. and for the first time that night, he realizes how alone he can feel around so many people. because he has no one. his heart’s getting louder, still. he’s slumped over a chair in the middle of a party and he thinks he’s gonna die. all he can think is - 

“how the hell did i get here?”

hot. cold. hot. cold. from breaking out into sweating fits to random spurts of chills, everything’s out of wack. and the funny part? he’s not even blaming it on the acid, he just wishes he knew where the thermostat is. but he can’t even find out, because the soles of his feet feel as if they’d got shackled down. he can’t go anywhere, and this is not ok.

he knows he needs to calm down, but the more he worries the faster the room seems to spin. the louder it seems to get, and the more daein wishes that it would all just stop. when he tries to get up again, only this time, he really feels like he’s headed for the floor.

until there’s nothing, nothing but darkness.

[leah-halliwell92]

Talk of the Future

Chapter 2

I spent many a day speaking with Lord Elrond about the ins and outs of what could happen in the next sixty to seventy years or so with the rediscovery of the ring of power. I didn't go into too much detail but enough for him to be informed about what the future held...and some much needed information on the betrayal on a certain white wizard.

But besides my then routine, and warmer/friendlier, chats with him my life had become routine. Wake up, get dressed, eat, wander the grounds, and more often than not spend time reading either in the library or in my chosen bit of greenery or lake view to end the day with Lord Elrond with tea. Not a bad routine, and to be honest its a routine I've been craving for for some time. But like all things that are longed for, I'm looking for a more active part of this new life. And no I'm not expecting to be thrown back to my world or time, so Im trying to make myself as familiar as I can with this "new" world not only to survive but thrive if at all possible.

Did I mention that Lord Elrond's sons are a force all their own? Because they are and have made it their life mission to train their newest little sister. I can still hear Elrond's quiet laughter at his son's antics... as well as what they planned to do with me when I asked if I could possibly try my hand at archery, hand to hand and fencing.

I'm not going to lie they are so much fun to do after working out to build up muscle has been done. It took me nearly a year of what I know as cardio training, endurance training and muscle training to even lift a proper sword never mind that elven swords tend to be easier to handle than those made by the other races on Middle Earth. But even then muscle memory needed to be built on. How to hold a sword, dagger, bow and the tension needed for the arrow to fly from the bow intended for the target aimed at.

Two painful, yet fruitful, years later and I am skilled enough at hand to hand to handle my own and a proficient sword's woman. As for archery, IT hates me not the other way around. I am efficient enough at it to the point I can shoot and kill or hit a target but not quick enough to do it as most elves I know. I was teased incessantly for it by those that believed themselves so high and mighty as to think I didn’t understand what they were doing. 

I was making my way to my room when I hear a kind voice call, “Kess.”

I turn and am met with the Lady of the Light herself, “My lady Galadriel.”

I stop and give her a small bow in respect.

“Rise child,” she said with a kind smile.

I did as she said.

“So you are the child my son has been speaking to me of,” she says with a knowing grin, “Elrond believes you know things of things that have come to pass.”

I nod minutely and force myself to make eye contact with her. 

“Are you available to sit with me for luncheon and tea today?” She asked kindly.

I nod with a curious look on my face and watch as she gives me a knowing grin and walks away. 

Changing my route I make my way to find Elrond and inform him of the day’s change of plans. 

He looked just as curious as I felt as when I told him of who I was going to be spending my lunch hour and rest of the afternoon with. 

This done I went about my post training routine of showering and dressing...generally making myself presentable again. 

“Hello there,” Elladan said as he and Elrohir settled in one at on each side, “Finished with your training session already?”

I give Elladan a knowing look, “I don’t know why you insist on archery training when you know I will probably die in battle should I focus on archery as a fighting tactic.”

The boys laugh and Elrohir says, “But it is a handy skill to have. Even if you are not good at maintaining a continuous shoot and reload streak you have deadly aim and that is something that is and will come in handy in the battle field.”

I hummed and nodded knowing that he was right and there was no point in contradicting him.

We walked on talking and laughing until I spotted a couple of pretty elven ladies out of the corner of my eye near the archway of the hallway on my right hand side. 

“Maybe I should go find My Lady to join her for luncheon,” I said coming to a sudden stop.

Elladan and Elrohir stop and look at me with twin furrowed brows.

“Are you certain?” Elladan asked.

I nod and start turning in the other direction when one of the women come strutting in and block my path. 

“What a coincidence running into you?” The dark haired elf maiden said.

I start to shrink into myself knowing what was coming next.

“Yes it is,” Elladan said his voice light but closed off, “We were escorting Lady Kess to my father’s study for luncheon and afternoon tea.”

I felt Elrohir at my back and looked to the side to see him looking at the archway I had spotted the Elleths. 

The air became stilted and thick as the five of us became quiet. 

I look to the side at the vine covered veranda and at the last second decided on  a mad escape plan.

I walk to the veranda and take a look at the scenery that lay at my feet. 

“But we were going to invite to tea,” the same dark haired Elleth said a fake grin and malice in her eye.

“She has already made plans,” Elrohir said warning in his voice.

I gave a deep sigh and sat on the veranda as the elleth spoke with Elladan and Elrohir. I took the opportunity to make sure they were busy talking to the boys before throwing my legs over and jump to the terrace beneath the hallway figuring it better to ask for forgiveness than permission when wanting to leave the vicinity of two ruthless bullies.

“How...nice of you drop in,” the Lady Galadriel said from behind me.

I felt my neck and face bloom into a heated (embarrassed) blush that led me to again lower my head and mumble out an apology for invading her rooms in such a manner.

“No need to worry,” she assured me kindly, “And you are stronger than they  perceive you to be.”

“They see me as weak because I am mortal,” I said my gaze still focused on the ground.

“They fear that,” she said putting a finger under my chin and pushing my face up to meet her motherly gaze, “They fear the strenght that lies beneath the surface and the light and fearlessness you carry in your heart.”

I give her a watery grin as tears gather in my eyes.

“I’m not strong...” I mutter brokenly.

“Why ever not? You are in a foreign world away from your loved ones and comforts,” she said warmly “that is enough to render a being powerless to their surroundings. And you carry within you the knowledge of what is to come. You carry within you the knowledge of the fates of many as well. Something a great number of beings would consider to be a burden...I cannot reassure you that none of which you know will not come to pass. However I know that my people see which you carry and feel slighted and even jealous with the grace with which you carry it all.”

Forever Tag List: @sdavid09, @fizzyxcustard, @patanghill17, @fandomgalcentral, @imagines-for-multiple-fandoms, @theimaginesyouneveraskedfor, @disneymarina, @thegreyberet, @red608, @evyiione,  @arwenaminmaeleth, @deepestfirefun, @inkededucatednnerdy 

Love and War List: @hails270105

Hobbit Tag List: @jotink78​

[heyyyyadora]

I haven’t written in a while but finally I can post my Secret Santa gift to @caprisunns based off their amazing prompt image of Literal Big Furry Catra

really indulged in this one cause im a big slut for supernatural AUs

“Okay, go ahead! Coast’s clear.”

“Adora… I don’t know.”

“Come on, Catra, it’ll be fine! It’ll be awesome, actually! You deserve to have a good time.”

“I just… I don’t know, it still feels weird. Bad.”

This was Adora’s idea, of course. She knew Catra hated having to be stuck in such a feeble frame (as she put it), day-in-day-out, suppressing herself, her instincts, her self. As much as she protested she was fine, she was okay, it was just the way of things, Adora could sense her buzzing with need, the drive, to just let herself go.

She didn’t get on too well with most of the supernatural community. She’d… made kind of a name for herself. She had a couple of fae friends, maybe, but only one was more than a loose acquaintance and was kind of a bit much to deal with all-in-all.

But she still had a right to find a space that she could be who she needed to be, a safe space. And now Adora was in her life there was no way that she wasn’t going to be there for Catra, to be her support and help her find happiness and health.

“Catra, you will not be the weirdest looking girl in the house. In fact I think for once I’ll actually stick out the most of the two of us.”

“Well, you are pretty freaky lookin’…”

“Oh, you are not going to bait me into responding to that, I’m not falling for it! Now go on… I’ll look away.”

“I mean, heh… it’s not like I mind you looking.”

“Psh… just do it, okay?”

Catra sighed and nodded, and Adora turned her back to the girl to stare at the alley wall. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

Okay, Catra. Relax. You’re like, the most confident person out of everyone you know. Not to mention the most terrifying. Not like anyone would dare to mess with you now, let alone when… ugh. Okay. She put the bag she carried down and slowly started to undress. This was… the most annoying part of it all, really, that moment where you’re all gross and fleshy and exposed. It did encourage her to get on with it, though.

Catra breathed slowly in, then out. Then, trying her best to stay relaxed, she summoned herself up from deep within.

Her hands were first. It was a tingle in her fingers that spread up the back of them, like static electricity buzzing up her arms. It took a few seconds then slowly, barely noticeably at first, a few dark hairs began to appear… then more and more. Not a second or two later the same sensation began in her feet, then at the back of her neck.

As the fur grew so, too, did the underlying flesh and bone. This went in reverse to the fur, starting from her back and shoulders, which grew longer and wider; her neck, thicker, along with her thighs. She sneezed as whiskers sprouted from the sides of her nose and, immediately after, her face followed the lead of the rest of her body, stretching out and expanding; soon her nose was a snout that extended out under her eyes. Her vision blurred a little and she had to blink a few times to focus properly; the colours of the world were changing, growing less vivid, but she could see much further in the dim evening light than was possible just a few seconds ago.

A minute later from when it began she finally exhaled the breath she’d been holding, a good foot and a half higher from the ground than before. She flexed her claws, brushed them through the mane around her neck, guided some rebellious fur out of her eyes and ears.

“I’m done.” Her voice was deeper than before, rougher. She wasn’t used to the feeling of her tongue in her mouth, but at the same time her whole body felt looser, more relaxed, more natural. This was her. This was Catra. This was how she’d be all the time if she could.

Adora turned slowly, her eyes trailing up to meet Catra’s as she broke out into a grin. Immediately she reached up and offered a gentle scratch at the fluffy fur around Catra’s neck.

“You look great.”

Catra couldn’t suppress a purr but batted the hand away with a rumble in her throat. “Don’t push it.”

Her thick tail flicked with agitation and she shifted nervously from paw to paw. “Let’s go inside, quick.”

Adora bundled Catra’s human clothes into the bag and zipped it up before taking it up on her shoulder. Still smiling she took Catra’s hand, curling her fingers around just one of hers. Then she guided Catra out of the Alley and down the steps of the club to start their night proper.

As they stepped inside immediately they were hit in the face by the usual sights and sounds of a thriving nightclub – though of course a few of the sights were not so standard at all: vampires dancing with werewolves; fairies chatting up demons; dragons and mandrakes and kelpies alike drinking each other under the tables peppered with supernatural creatures of all shapes, sizes and colours.

Catra’s eyes hurt.

“Oh! There they are!” Adora chirped up and led Catra by the paw to one of the tables where two people were sat- well, one of them was, at least. Some sort of bird or angel girl with pink, sparkling hair and fluffy white wings she was obviously struggling to stay comfortable with as they pressed into the back of her seat. The other wasn’t sat at all because, well, there was no suitable means for him to achieve it with the body of a horse. He was the first to look up and call out brightly.

“Adora! Hey!”

“Hi, Bow! Hi, Glimmer! Sorry, we had some stuff to sort out real quick.”

“It’s cool! We got drinks already.” Bow looked from Adora, to Catra, to Adora again. His grin never faltered but he was clearly waiting.

“Oh- Catra, this is Bow! Bow, this is Catra.”

“Hiiiii, Catra! So cool to meet you!”

“Hey.” Catra offered plainly. Bow’s hand hovered in front of her. She grunted and took it in a paw to shake hands, which he did far too enthusiastically.

“Aaaaand this is Glimmer!” Adora next indicated the winged glitterbomb that had been too busy looking at Catra to say anything. “Glimmer? This is Catra!”

“Ohhh, hey, yeah, hi.” She was similarly curt which ticked Catra off. They shook hands too but with much less vigor from either side.

“Sure.”

“Sooooooooo,” Bow cut through the ice like a pro, annoyingly. “How long have you been seeing each other?”

“Bow! I told you all this stuff already!” Adora huffed.

“I know, I know! But I wanna hear it from Catra too! Besides, maaaaybe there’s some stuff you left out…” He wiggled his eyebrows and Adora snorted. Catra just sighed.

“Like… a month.”

“Aaaaaand? How did you meet?”

“…I’d got my fur stuck on her fence.”

Adora sniggered but Bow didn’t – he looked delighted, actually.

“And she totally didn’t freak out because she’d already met me and Glimmer, right?”

“I guess. I figured she must have been crazy but she was super cool about it all. Took me in her place and patched up a load of my cuts. I was too… shocked, I guess, to stop her.”

“So she knew you were a fae from the start?”

“Maybe. I dunno. But it probably gave it away when she went away for a minute and came back to find a naked girl raiding her wardrobe covered in barbed wire cuts.”

Adora choked. Bow clapped his hands joyfully. Even Glimmer gurgled into her drink a little bit. Catra raised her eyebrow at Adora. “You left that part out, huh?”

“Well, yeah! For your dignity, I thought!”

“Adora. I have no dignity.”

Bow, meanwhile, was beaming at the two of them, “Awwwww, but seriously, that’s so cute! Like an actual fairytale!”

“Bow, literally everyone here is like an actual fairytale.”

“It’s so romantic though!”

Catra sniggered. “Well, it probably would be less romantic if you knew I was gonna raid one of your horses…”

“You what?” Adora’s gaze locked onto her in outrage.

“I’m a cat, Adora! And when I get a big hunger, I gotta eat something big!”

“You are staying away from my horse field.”

“Soooooo, anyway!” Bow chimed in again. “That’s kinda how Adora and I met! And Glimmer, through me. She was just so like… obsessed with some of my herd, I was kinda sorta super flattered. So I like, begged Glimmer to say I should go up to her and well… she did kinda freak out, but in a sorta…” He put on his best Horse-Freak-Adora voice. “‘Oh-my-god-you-are-amazing-is-this-real-am-I-dreaming-etcetera-etcetera…’”

Adora put a hand over her face, blushing. “I do not sound like that.”

“Yeah, you totes do.”

“Okay! Well. Now that we’re all introduced! Catra and I are going to go and get drinks!” Adora was blushing harder by the second and moved quickly away from the table. Catra shrugged and followed, a slight smirk on her face.

“Okay! Seeya guys later!” Bow cheered after them.

“Later.” Was the only word from Glimmer.

They navigated the crowd slowly, a tricky task given the added difficulty of additional limbs sprouting in front of you at the worst of times, plus having to avoid stepping on the number of patrons who were less than a foot tall at times.

“Sorry about Glimmer. She’s… usually chattier than that. I dunno what’s up with her.”

“I caught her once.”

“You…” Adora stopped and looked at Catra. “You caught her?”

“She looked like a bird.”

“You were going to eat her?”

“I let her go, duh.” Catra shrugged it off like it was no big deal.

“Wh… why didn’t you say anything?!”

“I wasn’t gonna embarrass her in front her friends, Adora.”

“But…” Adora couldn’t argue with it and she decided against it. “…Fine. Okay. That’s cool. My girlfriend tried to eat my best friend.”

“I caught her, Adora, I didn’t try to eat her. Don’t be weird about it.”

“Don’t be…!” She stopped and just gripped Catra’s paw tighter, lurching forward for the bar. “I need a drink so bad.”

“Yeah… you and me both.”

“What? What is it?”

Catra sighed. She nodded her head to a small group that was at a booth to the left of the bar. The most notable of them was the Spriggan, a tree-person who had to crouch for her head not to be reaching the ceiling. She had long, wavy vines for hair with flowers tangled into them. With her was a human man who was entirely focusing his attention on the third person… a girl with dark, leathery scaled skin and terrifyingly sharp teeth, like those of an angler-fish or other deep-sea terror. Catra’s eyes were on her and they were filled with all number of mixed emotions.

“You okay?” Adora pushed in gently, noticing her distraction.

Catra snapped out of it, looking back to her girlfriend. Her shoulders sagged for a second. “Yeah. It’s nothing, forget it.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ugh… look, I told you I’ve not got a lot of fae friends right now. She’s…” She sighed. “She’s part of that. The fish girl. She’s… my ex-girlfriend.”

“Oh, god.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Catra.” Adora took both of her paws and looked her in the eyes. Despite Adora’s entirely mundane aura, just this once they seemed to glow with an unseen fire. “You are going to have a good time with me, and Bow, and yeah Glimmer once we get past the whole thing that I’m sure she’s totally actually cool about. You don’t have anything to worry about with her, or her friends or anyone she might think she knows here. She is not going to ruin your night.”

Catra looked back at Adora and swallowed. Her heart rose up to her throat a little and she had to push it back down hard. Eventually she offered a weak little smile. “I know. Just, like…” She paused for breath again, giving only the briefest of looks over to the deep-sea girl before Adora pulled her gaze back. “…It’s not her I’m worried about. It’s me. Can you… can you promise me- promise you won’t let me ruin my night?” Adora looked at her with such pure care and sympathy she wanted to die a little. “No, seriously. She’s… she’s okay. She’s cool. I just- don’t let me start anything. Keep me away from her. Please?”

Her response was a tender little kiss to the side of her face and a brush through her mane that got a soft rumble in response.

“Yeah, of course. Come on, Catra.”

She let her wonderful girlfriend she had to fight hard to believe she deserved, take her to the bar. Their night started right here.

[thesleazyfoxs]

Fics written in 2k18 review

Borrowed from @saltandlimes yeet

Total Word Count: 21,219

Total fics written: 8

Fandoms written in: Star wars and Detroit Become Human

Chronological list (by date posted)

March:

One Summers Day - 4595 words, complete, GA, Kylux modern day flowershop au

August:

Traveling Starlight, 600 one shot, Complete, GA, Kylux Time traveler/Immortal au (character death)

September:

Erasing Evidence, 3246 words, Complete, E, Hankcon reverse au, public sex

A Crown Of Feathers, 4972 words, 2/3 WIP, M, Kylux Wing au, angst with a happy ending

October:

Stars In Ones Mind, 1117 words, Complete, GE, Kylux fluff

November:

Mirrored Coin, 3950 words 1/2 WIP, M, gav900 angst/character death/ptsd

December:

Tangled Heartstrings And Wires, 2379 words 1/? WIP, M, Hankcon, angst, ptsd, mystery, reverse au

Did you write more fic this year than you thought you would, less, or about what you’d predicted?

I definitely wrote more than I thought I had. I had a really big slump cause I felt like I was in limbo after being in the same fandom for so long and I doubted my ability to write which well made me too depressed to write. I did get into a new fandom where I wrote a few new fics tho! 

What’s your own favorite story of this year?

I don’t think I had a fave I liked writing all of my current projects. Each other allowed to me connect to new folks and that’s what I seek in a fandom environment. 

Did you take any writing risks this year?

I dived into a lot of ptsd fic and long fic. Both are things I struggle with ptsd especially in real life so to have characters that are either pretty blank slate (gav900) or who have shown actual signs in canon of having ptsd (hankcon) it has allowed me to poke around.

Do you have any fanfic goals for this year?

To finish everything on my wip list including projects I havent posted already along side my original fiction

What was…

My best story of this year:

I’d say a crown of feathers but that’s because the person im writing it for ( @sparrowlicious ) seems happy with what i’ve gotten done so far which is a relief and nice

My most popular story of this year:

Erasing Evidence lol 

it was a very specific smut fic i wanted to see in the world and i went for it and apparently everyone else wanted to see it too

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe (in my opinion):

Mirrored Coin but I can see why. Character death usually doesn’t do well in fandom especially when the rest of the fic is the results of said death and how they got to that point in their relationship and how it affects deviancy 

Most fun story to write:

One Summers Day which is odd to reflect on because im not much for slice of life but i got to show kylo and hux can be both soft with each other while still having a troubled past 

Hardest story to write:

So far? Tangled Heartstrings and Wires only because for the plot to work i gotta do a lot of planning and making sure things line up and all the pieces connect. it’ll be a challenge 

Biggest disappointment:

I don’t think I had disappointment for one fic in general but there was a point i was considering dropping out of the star wars/kylux fandom completely cause i felt really alone and alienated 

Biggest surprise:

Finding a new fandom to write fic for. DBH the game itself is shit but the fandom that popped up around it is so kind and creative and diverse 

Favorite opening lines:

It started off no different than any other day, second cup of coffee already in hand as Connor sat down at his workspace where he had several cases spread out to look over. With the increase in cases both human and android it had put a strain on the whole department. Connor was basically a zombie at that point, long shifts bleeding into each other to the point he immediately crashed when he did make it home. It was frustrating in more than one way, to say the least.

There was a chorus of voices as others called to each other and he looked up to see the cause. Gavin entered the room and the first thing Connor noticed was the change of his android uniform.

It had been redesigned to better work with field work, the fabric much more form fitting and resistant to damage. The dark blue across the shoulders with the glow of the @ next to the DPD badge made it obvious they were part of their force. It only made sense such alterations were made after a previous accident where someone got stuck jumping over a fence in pursuit of a suspect. He went to take a sip of his coffee when Hank followed soon after and he nearly choked. He couldn’t take his eyes off Hank as he made his way over to his desk next to Connor. The new fabric clung to his partner's body, filling out in a way that had Connors heart in his throat.

Erasing Evidence

I just found it really fun to write Connor completely flustered about how attractive he found Hank

Favorite closing lines:

  “I can try.” The ticking of the clock and their slow breathing was all that could be heard in the room and he lost track of time. Had it been a minute? Five? Maybe an hour? He really couldn't tell. The words felt heavy on his tongue and almost like they would drown him if he didn’t get them out. “What really made you come here?” Hux gave a little huff of laughter, breath warm against Ben ’ s face , and a small smile that made Bens stomach flip.

   “Well , you’re interesting , that’s for sure. You’re also the first person to ever so blatantly reach out to me even though , to be quite honest, I thought you did so in a rather vulgar manner , but I guess even that had its charm. We both are broken , but perhaps we can fit together.”

Ben drifted asleep in the comfort of warmth and the soft sound of breathing. In his last conscious moments he thought that just maybe that happiness would be willing to stay.

One Summers Day

A rather soft moment between the two it was rather entertaining to write and I feel this is how they were in canon before things got bad the two making jokes and i wanted that in a modern story

[actualbird]

dogjeremy au: things that happen after michael now knows his dog is jeremy (part 1 to basically the resolution of this au plotwise)

see, michael now has a mission. he has a purpose. gone are the days of vague sulking and sorrow because dealing with a missing person’s case with no leads was awful, everybody was just searching blind. but now michael knows whole things 1) jeremy is a dog, 2) thats not normal, and 3) if he turned into one, there must be a way to turn him back. 

so it is time for michael to go into Research Overdrive: This Puzzle Must Be Solved So That I Can Save My Friend From Eternal Dog-itude. and research overdrive will vary depending on which route of squiptitude caused jeremy’s dogness, all rather entertaining in their own right. 

if this au is post-squip and the dog is a squip sideeffect, it’s likely jeremy has no idea and michael finds it out while combing thru squip information. he stumbles upon a weird forum buried under a bunch of internet mazes. the forum is basically like “SHES A DOG NOW AND MTNDEWRED ISNT WORKING PLS HELP” to which michael has to respond by like, taking deep breaths, because what the fuck is a squip even?? he does digging, establishes contact, finds out the dog was able to turn back, but comes up empty with how she managed it. “i turned back when i found peace” “k cool but wtf does that mean”. yes this means michael probably makes jeremy drink mtn dew red. it doesnt do anything sadly but it’s really funny watching a dog drink soda from the bottle.

jeremy was cursed by squipwitch or made a wish on a shooting s(quip)tar, jeremy has to fess up. when michael interviews him about all the events that led up to jeremy getting turned into a dog, he gets a little cagey before finally admitting that he, well. kinda wished for it. he didnt wish to BE a dog, he just wished to not be him (which breaks michael’s heart in so many ways, but one problem at a time.) curses/wishes are easier to work with because fairytale logic dictates that curses are mostly to teach lessons. theres something jeremy has to learn from being a dog, and once he learns that, he’ll turn back. now the only problem here is that...they have to figure out what that thing is.

(”you have like a hundred issues, dude, how are we supposed to find and fix one,” michael tells jeremy.

“hey!” michael jeremy a second later when jeremy nips at his arm.)

michael has a lot more energy though now that he knows. things are still bleak but now he’s working towards a goal and his best friend is no longer missing and by his side. it’s kinda like a fun few days for a while yknow. like the 2 minutes music montage in the movie with the pop song in the background and michael and jeremy are trying to figure things out either through squip testing (maybe if we fuck up the squip coding so much, itll just undog jeremy) or....weird talk therapy. weird because michael is quiet genuinely terrible with other people’s emotions and jeremy can only talk through an ouija board and pre-written index cards. 

im on the fence on whether or not michael would tell anybody else about jeremy. it’s ultimately jeremy’s choice, but michael thinks more people knowing might increase their chances of finding a solution but jeremy also doesnt want to like, do more damage (because what if nothing works? it wouldve been better off if people just...didnt know). so maybe they tell christine. or the rest of the gang. but the one jeremy is adamant about not telling is his dad. (and that hurts jeremy a lot but he doesnt think he could survive watching his dad not believe that hes jeremy. jeremy kinda wishes he could get michael to bring jeremy back to his place just so he could see his dad. maybe cuddle against him. but his dad’s allergies. also, his dad’s probably worsening depression under the brunt of jeremy’s disappearance. jeremy isnt strong enough to go through that.)

so they keep working to find a solution!! but the fun montage can only last for so long and every lead they try to follow comes up empty. things are starting to look bad again. michael tries to keep a brave face on for jeremy, but he realizes that kinda useless. jeremy’s already seen him break down countless times over his own disappearance and---

oh man

in the midst of all the research michael. kinda fucking forgot about all that. about everything he told jeremy. 

he told jeremy that he’s in love with him.

and now michael cant even seem to help him turn back so they can talk about it.