#someone volunteer to become blob

[splish-splash-shiny]

This was once a sugar cookie man, then I injected him with a serum and turned him into this monster

[witherby]

What would happen if Mouse got sick? Like super, probably at deaths door kind of sick? ok maybe that last part was exaggerating it a bit...But like almost 39 degrees fever, coughing to the point of gagging and vomiting, runny nose, fatigue, no appetite for anything, etc. Based off my own experiences when I get sick. I wanna know what they would do and who would panic the most. Who would lose the little sleep they already have even more. Who would think that the babeh is at deaths door. And who would be the most relieved when Mouse is better a few days later with the help of a paediatric approved medication

-🍨

I like this prompt a lot so I'm gonna do it. Hope u reaaaally like angst tho.

The Littlest Wayne: Sick Bed, part 1

Masterlist is Here!

⚠️ Spoiler/content warning: Young sick child, fever, depiction of seizure ⚠️

It starts with a cough.

"Hey, careful," Jason says, patting your back. The water you'd been sipping sprays across the table as you choke. Tim reaches over to right the glass and Alfred goes and collects a rag to mop up the mess. "You okay?"

"Mhmm," you mutter, wiping your mouth with a napkin. "Sorry...I can clean it, grandpa Alfie."

"It's quite alright, Flittermouse." Alfred gently runs a hand through your hair. "Oh, my, you're quite warm. Why don't you head up to your room and I'll have someone bring a tray to you with soup and crackers?"

"Okay." You push your chair away from the table and duck underneath it, allowing the shadow of the furniture to swallow you up. Bruce watches the dark blob you've become slide out of the dining room and towards the stairs with less energy than usual.

"I'll take it, Alfred," Dick says before anyone else can volunteer, rising from his seat. He sets his leftovers in front of Jason as he passes, helping the butler prepare a tray for you. "Do we have any Tylenol for little kids? If not, I can just crush up a half-pill for them."

"Child-friendly medications will be found in the young master's en-suite bathroom cabinet," Alfred says. "It will just be a few minutes for the soup, Master Dick. I'd recommend you head upstairs and measure out a small dose for your sibling before it's ready."

"Kay, sure," he nods, excusing himself.

Dick hops up the stairs two at a time and enters the family wing of the manor, trailing his hand along the walls and door frames until he finds yours. He knocks lightly and rapidly, a silly little sequence to let you know which brother it is, then opens the door to let himself in.

Your bedroom is almost pitch black. Since the development of your powers, your space has changed to reflect your needs overtime, which means the overhead lightbulbs have been removed and the sheer, pastel blinds over your window have been replaced with thick blackout curtains. For your family who require some form of illumination to see, you have several night lights you pick and choose from; you currently have a round projector plugged in that casts aurora borealis across the ceiling (a gift from Tim) and you've activated the touch sensors installed in the floor that briefly light up everywhere Dick walks, leaving his footprints behind for several seconds until they fade away.

The furniture you originally had, designed in warm, woody colors with bright accents, have also been replaced with black hardware and dark materials. Your bed frame is a dip-dyed wood with silver accents, your mattress and sheets are black, and your dressers, nightstand, and closet have all been painted to match.

At first glance, the large bedroom looks like every goth kid's biggest dream, but the light from the hallway spills briefly into your space when Dick walks inside, showing the bright, colorful books sitting on your black bookshelves, the even more colorful clothes in your wardrobe, your vast collection of toys, and a litany of pictures and photos on all the walls. There is a vibrant, beautiful life in the darkness, which encapsulates you perfectly in his opinion.

"Hi, Flitty," he greets, moving slowly as his eyes adjust to the light. "Alfred's working on your soup, so big bro Dicky's here to do medicine time. Holler at me so I don't accidentally step on you in here."

"Okay," you say from his left. Dick turns and squints, spotting a lump on your bed. He smiles.

"There you are. Lemme see if there's any of the gummies in your med cabinet. Those ones don't taste all gross."

He steps into your bathroom and turns the fairy lights on, bathing the area in a soft glow, and rifles through your cabinet for a minute. Then he makes his way to your bed, sitting on the edge of it with some chewables and a glass of water.

"C'mere," he says, and you comply, shuffling across the bed to give him a quick hug. "Alright. Can you show me you're a big kid and take this for me? Then you'll get a nice bowl of soup and maybe some juice."

You comply without fuss. Dick hears more than he sees you take the medication in the low light, and you go back to hugging him when you're done. Dick wraps his arms around you and lies down, propping you mostly on his chest.

"You okay?" He asks.

"Yeah. Just sleepy," you reply. "And my throat hurts kinda, from when I spit my water."

"Aw, I'm sorry. You only need to stay awake long enough to take a couple bites and then you can rest as long as you want."

"Okay...stay?"

Dick hums, running his fingers gently through your hair. He was supposed to go back to Blüdhaven this afternoon, but...

"Yeah, Flitty. I'll stay."

--

It turns into a fever.

"I'm sorry to turn you away when you've already come by, Delilah," Bruce says, meeting your private tutor in the vestibule. "Mouse came down with something yesterday, and I don't think they'll be up for lessons for the next few days. I forgot to tell you."

"Oh, that's absolutely no problem, mister Wayne," the tutor smiles, shaking her head. "I wish them a speedy recovery! Let me know if there's anything you need."

"I will, thank you. Take care!"

Bruce closes the door after seeing her out, the Charming Socialite mask slipping off his face as he heads for the stairs. He meets Alfred at the top with a nod, stepping past him and walking up to your bedroom door.

He gently knocks three times against the glossy wood, calling your name. "Can I come in?"

After a moment, he watches it click open, and you squint up at him in the doorway.

"Hi, daddy," you croak, voice dry and harsh from the progression of your flu. Bruce tuts and scoops your clammy body into his arms, carrying you back to your bed.

"Honey, you didn't have to come greet me," he says, "manners get thrown out the window when you're sick, remember? Let's get you tucked in."

You don't fuss or complain, which makes the worry flare up in Bruce's mind. He pushes it back, refusing to catastrophize a cold. All of his children get sick, it's not unheard of. A little fever is fine, and so is your lack of excitable energy. It's normal and expected.

"How do you feel?" He asks, pulling the blankets up to your chest. You squirm a bit, kicking them down.

"Hot," you say, "sleepy."

Bruce compromises by tucking the blanket around your tummy instead. You don't push it down any further. He pulls out a thermometer from his pocket and scans your forehead.

"Yeah, you are running a bit hot," he admits. An even one hundred degrees. Should be easy enough to control with careful attention. "Alfred says you refused breakfast this morning. Do you want to try eating something small for lunch? More soup?"

You shake your head. "Not hungry."

"I know you're not hungry, pumpkin," Bruce says, gently squeezing your hand. "But you don't wanna starve, either. Then you'll shrink up like a raisin! How am I supposed to snuggle a raisin?"

You smile a bit and give a wheezy huff of laughter. Bruce smiles back.

"So, will you try? You can have anything you want. I just need to see you take a few bites of something."

"Okay, daddy. Want...um... I want more soup please."

"You can have more soup," Bruce promises, running a hand through your sweatslick hair. He reminds himself to run you a bath in a couple hours. Maybe after a nap. "Do you want anything else?"

"Mmmyeah. Bedtime story?"

"Yeah," he says. "Any story you want, after we get some soup in you."

You smile again. It eases the knot of dread in Bruce's chest.

--

It gets worse.

Three days into it, your fever spikes in the middle of the night. You completely refuse any sort of food or drink all day, despite the angry growling of your stomach, and the family unanimously decides to bring you to the hospital in the morning to get looked at. Dinner without you is full of worry and tense glances toward the family wing, and it seems like not a lot of sleep is going to be had before they find out the total extent of your illness.

When tossing and turning in bed for a few hours doesn't lead him anywhere, Damian decides to give in to the nagging in the back of his head and pop in your room to check on you. He rushes to your bed when he sees you seizing and gasping for breath. Your temperature's shot up to a hundred and six and you don't react when he tries to shake you awake.

Fearful and, for once, feeling every bit the child he still is, he clutches your body to his chest and screams.

"BABAA!!"

The door slams open in seconds, though to him it feels like an eternity. Hal and Jason are coaxing Damian to let go of you and Bruce climbs on the bed to roll you onto your side, carefully wiping the foam and drool away from your mouth while he checks your vitals. Tim is in the hallway calling 9-1-1 and texting Dick to let him know what's happening.

"Dami, you gotta move," Jason says, placing his hands overtop his brother's. Damian's grip on your arm is so tight it's bruising. "Let go, they're okay. Let go."

"I'm tracking their pulse, you dumb bastard!" Damian snaps. "Release me!"

"You're hurting them, Dames," Hal says in his ear, wrapping his arms around Damian's waist. "Bruce has them, now. You have to let go and get out of the way for the paramedics."

Green eyes snap to your arm. He seems to finally take stock of what he's doing and eases off, letting Hal pick him up and pass him off to Jason, who carries him into the hallway.

"Stay out here," Jason says. "It's our job to keep out of the way for now."

"Who's going to let the paramedics in?" Damian asks, trying to pry himself out of Jason's grip. As much as he tries to crane his neck, Jason's standing too far away from your door to let him see how you're doing, and his iron grip is unyielding.

"Alfred's by the gate controls, he'll let them inside."

Tim gets off the phone with the emergency dispatcher and glances at your door with a frown. Every hitching gasp and choke you make can be heard from the hall, along with Bruce and Hal's barely-concealed, panicked murmuring, and he crosses his arms tightly and shuffles over to Jason now that his task is done.

"Can we wait downstairs?" He mutters. Jason keeps one arm wrapped around Damian and slings the other around Tim's shoulders, guiding them to the staircase.

"I want to stay!" Damian insists, pulling against Jason, who ends up needing to sling the little assassin over his shoulder to get him to move. "Todd!!"

"Robin," Jason snaps in his best Batman impersonation. It's a damn good one, because Damian quiets immediately, stiffening in his arms and ceasing his struggling without further protest. Tim freezes beside him, but Jason just pats his back and keeps guiding him down the stairs.

The trio is quiet as they file into the main living room. Jason and Tim sit on the couch and Damian gets propped up in his brother's lap. Try as he might, he can't wiggle out of Jason's arms.

"This is asinine," he hisses. "I should be up there."

"Doin' what?" Jason asks. "Bruce and Hal are both in there with Mousey. Alfred's about to guide the EMTs inside. Tim called 911 and then told Dick the situation. You were the one that first found 'em and got help."

Jason gives Damian a squeeze, propping his chin on top of his head.

"You saved their life, Damian. Ya don't need to do more than that right now. Let the grown-ups take the reins for a while."

"But I —"

"You've done more than enough," Jason insists, not unkindly. His tone has been uncharacteristically soft the whole time, Damian realizes belatedly. "I'm sure they'll thank you when they come out the other side of this."

Damian didn't do it for your thanks. He did it because he loves you. Despite you quickly approaching the age where Bruce might offer you the Robin mantle soon, which has filled him with more anxiety and anger than he's had in a long time, he loves you dearly and doesn't want anything to befall you.

In spite of everything, he's your big brother and he loves you just as much as he can't stand you.

"They will be fine," he mutters firmly. "There's no alternative."

"Right," Tim speaks up. He sounds like he needs the reassurance just as much as Damian. "M is gonna be okay."

The three of them turn their heads when several pairs of footsteps enter the vestibule. Four paramedics rush in with a stretcher and duffel bags of medical equipment. Alfred orders them in the direction of your bedroom with simple, firm instructions, and they head off.

The butler then turns, spotting them out of his periphery, and he clears his throat and adjusts the belt around his robe. He's still in his sleepwear, having rushed out of bed to help prep for the emergency like everyone else.

"I've had my fair share of exciting nights," he comments, "but I must say, they never become more enjoyable. Why don't you all join me in the kitchen and I'll prepare some drinks? Hot chocolate should suffice on a chilly evening."

"Sounds fantastic," Jason says, hopping to his feet. He lifts Damian up with him, denying him the chance to refuse, and with a glance and jerk of his chin, coaxes Tim to get up and follow after.

"Put me down," Damian says, reaching up to tug on Jason's night shirt. "I won't run back upstairs. I swear."

"Yeah? You double-swear? Don't make me chase you, kid, I really do not have the patience."

"On Father's life," he insists.

Jason sets him on the floor. Damian follows them into the kitchen and takes a seat at the island, cupping his hands around a warm mug of hot cocoa when Alfred hands it to him a couple minutes later. He watches the wisps of steam curl up into the air and dissipate, unable to stop thinking about your writhing body in bed. Your eyes had rolled back and your limbs had locked up, jerking uncontrollably. And the noises you were making...

The mug gives a foreboding creak under his grip. Alfred gently places his hand on Damian's back and gives it several soft pats.

"Do not fret, master Damian," he says, "our little Flittermouse is very resilient. An illness turning poorly won't keep them down for long."

"I know," he says. Alfred nods, and with a final brush against his shoulder, tends to Tim next to ensure he's also doing okay. When Damian looks at Jason, he sees him calmly drinking from his mug without so much as a furrow in his brow. But there's an almost imperceptible ricketing noise that means he's bouncing his leg nervously. It makes his stomach twist almost painfully, to know he's just as scared as everybody else.

Damian takes a deep breath. He sips his coco. He thinks of the froth pouring out of your mouth when Bruce rolled you into the recovery position. He puts the mug down.

He knows you'll be okay. You have to, because he just can't live with the alternative.

[augustus-rok]

Nebula AU

Maybe I'll write a fic for this, maybe i won't, but here are the basics. Also if this inspires you to write something chuck me a tag cause I wanna see it.

Set during older/later high school rather than freshman year for Danny. However the portal accident still happened at the canon time.

Ghosts are more or less invisible with out tools or certain contamination levels. This also applies to general noise they make, they have to focus extra to be heard by humans. Typically yelling only equates to a whisper when right next to someone if you're a ghost.

As Danny doesn't become a hero immediately and gets to settle into himself first, his ghost form reflects more his track towards being an astronaut. Aesthetic more along the lines of solar flares and start dust. When ghost do actually come through the portal with intent to do harm he gets a helmet and thick gloves and has a sort of jacket layer over top. I imagine that his ghost form suffers from something like what's described in this post, and the helmet and glove and jacket are learned extra thing.

Story stuff. So it turns out when the ONLY ghost to wander through the portal other than little glowing blobs that only hover, is the antithesis of your theories you have to go back to the drawing board. So the Fenton's (kept out of the loop for a couple of months) and GIW are very much good guys and BETTER Scientists. And the militaristic mind set is swiftly put down when all of the subjects (the one) book it at the slightest hint of aggression.

Now Valarie, nicknamed Red Huntress during her internship, interns/volunteers with the GIW as a field watch/interviewer for Nebula. Which is the code name given to a Danny who never introduces himself and as such gets named by vote like a new firetruck by the community.

Hey BTW this is a portal Danny AU in my head.

The basement portal? That is a direct route to his lair, which is an astronomer's dream wrapped in a, you guessed it, nebula. The Wastes (or the area the Fenton Portal spawns in in canon) inhabitants spend a good few months flipping out at the arrival of what looks like a god or something. It's a decidedly "do not fuck with that" thought process.

Danny eventual.y introduces himself and makes friends without the protect the town from day one aspect. They all tussle a bit but the other ghosts go "hey it's a baby" and give him a proper lay of the land.

Cut to 21/2 years later after the Portal Accident, and Vlad decides to be a bastard and go after the adopted mascot.

Now the scientists have all learned that fighting= play/bonding. So they are all wildly caught off guard by the very sudden warpath through the city park.

Vlad doesn't put together Halfa Danny in this AU until well after there's been conflict. And after he managed to expose the active portal to ghosts outside of the immediate area of the portal that are perfectly willing to break into Danny's lair and some have figured out the horror aspect described here: FIC I RECOMMEND

So back to that fight. Ghosts are QUIET, especially Danny who even with the tech, radio/coms that make other ghost audible, has to be boosted to be heard by even other ghosts. (I imagine lots of sign language in this au) So this darling little sky watching ghost screams, a terrified child's noise, as this ghost that looks like a Vampire and a hoard of vultures(?) actively assault the poor thing? God the humans, the humans are scared. Everyone could hear that out side of the coms, and everyone saw it. They got good at televising the ghosts.

Sam and Tucker, decidedly only civilians are terrified for their friend. They know what play fighting looks like, they've been to the lair. Valarie who catches on fast thanks to being the intern bestie to Nebula and maybe future girlfriend to Daniel "Hot space nerd in row 4 of homeroom" Fenton, is forced as fights, proper devastating ones, continue happening to keep her friends away. Especially the first time. Most importantly that first fight.

REMEMBER Danny's portal, not the one in the basement. Well he stretches, upper body desperately crawling away from his lower half trapped by the vultures, keening all the way. Still scarily audible. Then from the gap made of flaring stardust and molten plasma that is the active void that consumes the area his stomach would have been was he human- Comes a raging adult ghost. More than one possibly.

I especially like the idea of Skulker and his missle launcher showing up, being the third ever recorded humanoid ghost, and absolutely steamrolling Plasimus who is not a Halfa as in halfway point like Danny is so loved by the Waste ghosts for being. But rather just half a ghost, a human with a funky little boon.

Now as Skulker has the time of his afterlife chasing Vlad and the Vultures, lets have say Lunch Lady slip out of Danny's portal, maybe one of the more teenagery ghosts too.

Anyways, instant fussing. Danny relaxes enough to stop being a portal to hell and the humans are very careful in approaching them all. What with the older ghost's yelling at the aggressors to leave the baby alone. Skulker is dramatic, and likes embarrassing the whelp.

After this point things beginning to resemble canon more, only the humans have a natural non-guessing gauge of hostility for the ghosts in town.

They figure out pretty fast that the physical portal and Nebula portal only let through friendlies. (Not entirely true but they don't know that.) And the threats, well lets just say Nebula is never caught off guard in his own territory again. He becomes ruthless.

Meanwhile, Danny Fenton has friends both dead and alive helping him fight a guerrilla war against madmen. He sits in class undisturbed even as he tracks the startbursts he knows are his friends protecting him and everyone else untill he's free. He huddles in the attic crawlspace filling out data sheets and pin boards as his girlfriend and best friends scour government documents.

Nebula sits in the portal, toxic light cascading like water around him, watching his parents and GIW agents work in the FentonWorks lab.

He always gives good greetings to those who offer, and when asked he whispers secrets of the universe he's learned from the source over the radio.

The scientists for get to ask for his sources, but when they do they are always both awed and terrified of the sources.

Things go well. And things as always progress.

Link to Doodle I did that actually drove me writing all this.

[armageddon-generation]

Improving Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Frozen Empire has some neat ideas (Ancient ghostbusters, Phoebe & Melody, the Possessor, everything Dan Akroyd, Paul Rudd, James Acaster & Ernie Hudson do) but it’s bogged down by far too many characters and slavish fanservice. Afterlife was meant to pass the torch, but Frozen Empire is stuck replaying the greatest hits.

OPENING AND CHANGED VILLAIN

Instead of firefighters, we open on a 1900s team of ghost-hunters locking the villain Garraka away, led by Nadeem’s great-grandmother

Sealing Garraka away causes a huge explosion, and as we pull out of the burning building, we see a new ghost fly away. This is Melody, the ghost-girl, paralleling Egon’s ghost leaving his farmhouse in Afterlife's opening

Melody’s family were cultists who tried to summon big-bad Garraka. She’s the one who called the ghost-hunters to stop them, but was killed in the confrontation

Garraka tells Melody that her ‘unfinished business’ is summoning him to this dimension—the ritual she stopped her family completing. The only way she can be free is freeing him.

This establishes Melody’s distrust of ghost hunters, because they killed her

CUT CHARACTERS

Venkman and Janine don’t need to be here at all, they’re gone

Cut Podcast. Ray wistfully watches the opening car-chase  alone, out-of-the-loop. He seizes on the arrival of the Orb as his chance to get back in on the action. Podcast's absence also heightens Phoebe’s isolation

Cut Lucky. Her only real moment is defending Phoebe from Garraka, which itself was cut down from the trailers

THE AQUARIUM & COMMUNING WITH GHOSTS

‘Garraka wants to free the ghosts in the Firehouse’ is yet another reused plotpoint in a film full of them.

Instead the (much bigger) property damage in the opening chase loses the team the Firehouse completely, increasing Phoebe’s guilt and isolation

They’ve already been moving ghosts into Winston’s Aquarium lab, so go straight there

They’re testing new technology- think Ghostbusters (2016)’s ghost-chipper, proton-gloves, proton-grenades etc. Callie tests this stuff (bc she has nothing to do otherwise), bonding with Winston as the table uncle-figure she never had.

James Acaster's Dr. Lars is trying to communicate with the caged ghosts, to learn about the other side- he tries to interrogate one to no avail

The idea of someone volunteering to go on 'expeditions' as a ghost via the Spirit Extractor, like an abassador to the Afterlife, is brought up- both Phoebe and Ray are tempted

This makes Phoebe talking to Melody an incredible discovery- a sentient, talking ghost who apparently fully retains her humanity.

MELODY’S FAMILY

When Phoebe finds Melody in the diner, it’s because that's is where she was killed- where her family tried to summon Garraka.

Now the Orb is uncontained her family’s ghosts have become active again, and descend from the upper floors of the building to attack the diner.

Melody’s family are a Cluster Ghost- an amorphous blob of limbs and heads bonded by the sane traumatic cause of death, tripping over itself to get to her. This physical manifestation of her family trying to drag her down parallels Phoebe’s conflict about hers.

Phoebe now takes Melody on a tour of the Aquarium and they bond there, rather than the Firehouse

TREVOR

Finn Wolfhard's Trevor had fuck-all to do in this movie lmao

Replace his pointless sublpot with Slimer with him bonding with the Possessor ghost, which communicates through switching TV stations/radio channels.

The Possessor would probably need some kind of cute visual manifestation to sell this. Think Mogwai, Lilo and Stitch etc Slapstick antagonism turned genuine fun, games of catch etc

With Podcast gone, Trevor accompanies Phoebe and Ray to the library. When the Possessor tries to steal the chant recording he tries to reason with it- c'mon, man, I thought we were bonding, this isn’t you, Garraka’s controlling you, only to get absolutely dunked on

Ray’s research reveals that Garraka’s horns- the 'object' that allows its apparition to manifest- were hidden away separately from the orb

NADEEM'S GRANDMOTHER

To build on the theme of communicating with and humanizing ghosts, instead of pyrokenesis (which felt a little out of place) Kumail Nanjiani's Nadeem is literally possessed by his estranged grandmother.

The idea Nadeem was 'haunted' is already suggested, but by making it explicit we get the slapstick of her puppeteering his body and chewing him out for neglecting his family legacy- arguing with the same mouth etc

Swap Venkman questioning Nadeem with Callie, holding a comedic seance. This gives her a much-needed emotional beat bonding with him over their baggage with their ghost-hunting relatives (Egon vs Grandma). Callie expresses how it feels to reconnect with her dad's legacy, which Frozen Empire never gave us.

She then replaces Podcast helping Nadeem try to hone his powers- in this case, help him and his grandmother work together

GARRAKA THE GHOST-EMPEROR

Garraka can't manifest as a full apparition without its horns.

It's more like the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things, a hive-mind that works through other ghosts. When the ancient ghost-hunters banished Garraka to the Other Side it took over, and has ruled there ever since. This is the 'frozen empire' he's looking to expand

In this way ghosts are shifted from no longer strictly antagonistic, but victims of a cruel tyrant

 When Melody tricks Phoebe into freeing Garraka, it tries to take Phoebe's ghost as a vassal, but Melody volunteers herself to save her. Phoebe returns to her body just in time to see Melody be possessed.

Now Melody is more directly involved in the climax, giving the antagonist a complex, sympathetic face

Dr. Lars replaces Lucky trying to stop Garraka. It kills him to up the stakes

FINALE

Garraka takes Melody to the Diner, where she joins with her family’s Cluster, spreading its supernatural winter as it goes

Change the Death Chill so everyone Garraka chills has their spriti pulled out of them, to join it army of spectral drones. Everywhere it goes it's recruiting, getting stronger. If it finds its second horn it will be able to 'recruit' all of New York

Expand on the Possessor using the Ghostbusters’ own gear to fight them. It steals the Ecto-1 and all the old Proton packs

The new generation of Ghostbusters have to use the new tech they’ve been developing to defeat the old stuff.

Nadeem and his Grandmother finally call a truce and work together to play defence bending the proton streams. She grumbles about how bad this generation of ghost-hunters is

Trevor's bond with the Possessor causes it conflict when it tries to kill him- it fights itself, the equipment it's possessing self-destructing

From here it’s a race to stop Garraka collecting its horns. Garraka successfully finds the first, increasing the scale and power of the big freeze

In the final confrontation Phoebe lets Garraka pull her spirit from her body to loosen its hold on Melody. Melody lights her match: Her unfinished business wasn't to summon Garraka, it was to finish destroying him as she tried to when she died. Nadeem and his Grandmother incinerate the thing.

Again taking a good idea from Ghostbusters (2016), Phoebe is given the choice go to the Other Side with Melody, to finally discover and understand what happens next. Her family ask her to come back, hold on. Melody says that Phoebe should accept their love and support, as she was never loved or supported by her own family

Melody kisses Phoebe goodbye, because not following through on that (when we’ve seen ghosts make similar physical contact with people before) is taking the coward’s way out. They should've cast a minor!!

Nadeem's Grandmother gives her blessing to the ghost-hunters who inherited her family's responsibilities. Then she leaves his body and offers to guide Melody to the Other Side, apologizing for her death on her mother's behalf

We end with Podcast and Lucky finally arriving in New York for a summer internship with the Ghostbusters.

Dr. Lars has returned as a ghost to be an 'ambassador' to the Other Side (playing a ghost would really unleash James Acaster's weird and whacky side), and the Possessor is even working with them as a new team mascot.

Ray has settled into a role as the team's full-time researcher, rather than working in the field

[clarkesrifle]

Title: The Forgotten Day Pairing: Levi Ackerman x nb!reader Warnings: None, no spoilers Genre: Fluff Word Count: 2.2k Summary: The Survey Corps had no time to remember birthdays -- it was a miracle that anyone knew each other’s name, really. Imagine your surprise when you found a crudely-wrapped item with your name on it on your forgotten day. Ko-Fi | Requests! Notes: Unedited, written when I was lonely.

The Survey Corps had a high turnover rate, as was natural with the profession. How many had died since its establishment? Were any of them remembered, or was all that was left of them was a tiny inscription within the seemingly endless book of those that died in the service to humanity?

Birthdays were unimportant. For some, remembering that comrades were human beings with families, lives, and histories made their duty too difficult. It was decidedly easier to ignore those things. Comrades, at the end of the day, were a means to an end. A partnership doomed to fail. It was easier to forget about them when you didn’t know their important days.

It was hard for you to grasp at the beginning of your tenure. Despite your family’s economic status within the walls and regardless of your experiences with your birthdays, you found it difficult to trust the people around you when you knew so little about them.

Where are you from? Have you seen a titan before? Why did you enlist? Have you killed one before?

Sometimes, it was difficult to discern whether your friendships were born out of genuine care for each other or rather the respect that was necessary to function together as a unit.

Captain Levi had intrigued you from the start -- so many rumors about him lingered throughout the walls. He was a bonafide celebrity and a mysterious one at that. How many families told stories of him? How many children’s nightmares were soothed by the mere mention of his name?

You remembered the first time that you had ever seen him -- the Scouts marched through the quad on horseback, passing through Shiganshina’s marketplace. You crawled on top of the fruit stand’s fabric canopy, feeling it dip underneath your weight. You were so small then, it feels like.

Levi walked his horse into the quad, directly behind Commander Erwin. How could so much strength and resolve lie within such a small body? He didn’t strike you as overtly handsome at first glance. No, your appreciation for his appearance grew slowly over your years wearing your wings.

Admittedly, the years that you did remember your birthday were lamentable. Days off within the corps were few and far between, and when your birthday didn't matter, you couldn’t exactly do anything for it.

Your body felt as though it was about to explode; training only grew more intense the longer that you were enlisted. You supposed this burning pain was worth it -- the Scouts couldn’t risk any more people than necessary, and the best way to prevent deaths was extreme preparedness.

Your squad leader, the infamous Levi, pushed you harder each day. Keeping your cool, both physically and mentally, was difficult whenever he was around. Impressive was the least you could say about your captain.

He seemed peaceful whenever he trained, as though he were relaxing lakeside -- you allowed yourself a quick moment to picture Levi lakeside -- without a care in the world or a titan to slay. It was mesmerizing to watch him use the ODM gear; it was as though he were performing a beautiful and intricate dance.

Much to your chagrin, he ordered you to clean the muck from the stables and care for the hooves of the horses following training, a task that would surely take you hours. Levi, in all of his mysteriousness, was particularly anal about cleanliness.

Being alone with your thoughts was particularly distressing on your birthday. You couldn’t help but wonder about the people you’ve lost -- how many birthdays had they lived? How many more would there have been? Why were you given the privilege to live when they were gone?

For some faces that lived behind your eyes, you regretted not knowing them more. You noticed with anguish that many of those faces lost their sharpness in your memory, the years replacing their features with blurs and blobs.

The moon was rising by the time that you finished your appointed task. Your lower back throbbed, your calves screamed as you climbed the stairs towards your lodging.

Your room was perfectly modest -- only a bed, a dresser, and a desk were provided to you. The pillow was flat; you were not the first nor the last to use it. The blankets were made of a course and itchy material but did its job well enough.

Blinking, you noticed a horribly wrapped item sitting upon your bed. It seemed to be covered with the same paper the captains write correspondence with, tied with twine. Written on it was your name in nearly illegible chicken-scratch, but still, it was your name.

“Um,” you mumbled under your breath. Sitting before the present, you undid the complicated knot with your calloused fingers. Inside lay a book; it was leather-bound, old, possibly expensive. The inside of the wrapping paper had a small note written on it, which read: It's your birthday. Congrats on not getting munched on for another year.

You gasped quietly. It was your first birthday present in years, possibly ever. After the initial shock had worn off, you hungrily opened the book, skimming through pages after pages of incredible drawings, information about a world you'd probably never see.

You flipped back to the beginning, noticing that whoever gave you this gift had left a small note just under the first chapter heading: I keep hearing about the world outside of the walls. Thought you might be interested.

Closing the cover, you held the book tightly to your chest. Thank you, you thought to yourself.

Hearing Armin speak of the sea intrigued Levi. Throughout his life, he had never allowed himself to think of the world beyond the walls. By the time he went on his first expedition outside of them, he could only think about titans.

He had first noticed you upon your entrance to the corps. Erwin had given a rousing yet truthful speech, as he did at every graduation. Levi stood offside the stage, taking in the group of cadets that had stayed.

The Captain had long become used to seeing the fearful faces, the determined faces, the strong, the angry ones. Yours, however, intrigued him.

You looked resigned.

You looked incredibly aware of the sacrifices you would have to make, the people that you would lose. You looked so painfully aware of the trials and tribulations to come. It seemed as though you were the only cadet that understood the reality of being a Scout.

So he pushed you. He knew deep down that he pushed you harder than the others. Levi had even requested you to be apart of his squad. Erwin had looked at him with curiosity at that, only Levi, who could read the man better than anyone else, could see it.

It had been Erwin who had first noticed your feelings for your squad leader. You had been subtle, truthfully, and only a man as detail-oriented as the Commander could see.

He had noticed it after you delivered tea to his chambers, where he, Levi, and Hange were having a meeting to discuss the budget for the next quarter. You had lingered a mere millisecond when you handed Levi his cup, skin grazing against each other so gently. Levi had been surprised at just how much he felt at that slight touch, how much heat erupted on his hands.

You did not stay long after that, wishing Hange a goodnight with a gentle squeeze to her elbow -- Levi was unaware of the friendship that you two had.

Levi glanced at his Commander, who smiled over his teacup, looking pointedly at him. "What?" Levi asked. Erwin shook his head, a low chuckle coming from him. "What?" Levi asked again, impatiently.

"Nothing," Erwin replied, a soft smile gracing his features. "Just don't let yourself get too distracted, Captain."

He refused to elaborate.

Hange was the next to notice. You volunteered your extra time, particularly on your loneliest days, to help her with various experiments. Most of the time, you were on standby, looking out for Erwin. It was very clear to you that these experiments were largely unapproved.

Levi visited Hange's laboratory one day, a ration bar in his pocket. You may not have noticed him slip the bar into your bag's pocket, but Hange surely did.

It had taken plenty of prodding on the scientist's part to get Levi to admit a certain level of care and affection for you. You had been hurt slightly during an expedition. It was nothing serious, and yet the Captain insisted that you stay behind on the following day's adventure. You had fought tooth and nail to convince him otherwise, which landed you a day's worth of paperwork for insubordination. He strategically picked the following day, forcing you to miss the mission to finish the massive pile of work that was needed in a short amount of time.

"Y/N'd just be dead weight," Levi grumbled to Hange after she had cornered him. "I'm not going to babysit someone just because they got hurt and were too stubborn to heal."

Hange scoffed at her shorter friend. "It was only a twisted ankle, y/n was cleared for the mission immediately."

"I'm not going to risk another brat being killed because of a stupid, unhealed injury. That's final." Levi looked below them, taking in the four-meter titan underneath them. Easy.

He triggered his ODM gear, rearing his arms backward and slicing forward at the beast's neck, grinning as the nape fell off of it towards the ground. The titan fell, mouth agape, onto its side. Landing onto a tree limb, he scoured the forest floor for more.

Hange was not far behind. She landed beside him, intent on harassing him until she was satisfied with his answer. He rolled his eyes. Maybe it would have been less of a hassle to keep Y/N in the game. Babysitting didn't seem as awful as being stalked.

He hadn't meant to overhear Armin one night, but the conversation intrigued him. The sea. A forest that not even with fifty gas reserves could he traverse. Small pieces of white, cold fluff falling from the sky like a gentle rain.

A strange warmth built in his chest -- he could picture it all easily, but he couldn't picture any piece of the world without you being there with him. Levi wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He had crashed into an abandoned home after slaying a titan. He needed a moment to refill his gas tanks, and he needed a place under cover to do so.

Levi had landed in a library. Books covered most of the floor, the walls, the tables throughout the room. Besides the dust, the new debris, and the vines growing into the building, it seemed as though life had been suddenly paused and could start again at any moment. Strangely, he felt like he was intruding on something.

He found himself drawn to a book, hidden at the back of a shelf. The books that had once been in front of it had been thrown to the ground in the mad dash to escape the titan-infested city.

The spine of the leather-bound book had a portrait of a snow-capped mountain imprinted into the material. A mountain. He hadn't heard of one before he had overheard Armin that one night.

It had been covered, hidden.

Illegal, he realized. Interest built in his chest, he grabbed the book and flipped through it quickly, looking at the intricate drawings. He thought of you.

Slipping it into his waistband, Levi left the library through the way that he came.

Shamelessly, Levi dug into the records in Erwin's office long after the Commander had retired to bed. Y/N L/N, he read, yanking the file out of the cabinet and searching.

Six months away.

He made a note of it before slipping the file back into the cabinet and pretended he never did anything at all.

In the days leading up to your birthday, he found himself busier than he had expected. He had hoped to wrap the book days in advance, but life never turned out how he wanted or expected. He waited until after training and bought himself time by asking you to clean the stables and care for the horses.

You were just as fastidious as he was when it came to keeping things clean, something he was impressed by and thankful for at this moment.

He hadn't the time to go into town to buy proper wrapping, so he improvised.

Being a soldier was about improvising a bad situation into something better.

Something better was wrapping the book in stationary. "It looks like shit," he mumbled to himself. He attempted to save it by tying it with twine, but he looked out of his bedroom window and saw that you were already heading back towards the barracks.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought to himself. Undignified, he ran up the stairs towards your bedroom -- which he knew was yours based on how pristine it was -- and dropped the book onto your bed without much thought.

The next day, he watched with a rare smile as you read in the mess hall. Happy birthday, brat, he thought to himself. He took a sip of his tea, savoring it.

He wasn't sure if the warmth in his chest was from your appreciation of the gift or the heat of his drink.

[bigasswritingmagnet]

When History Comes Calling ch 2/14

Fandom: Mass Effect Rating: Teen Pairing: none, some background Fshep/Garrus

Summary: In 2170, Mindoir was attacked by slavers. Hundreds were taken  captive, hundreds more were slaughtered. Kiryn was the only Shepard to  make it out alive. For years, he buried his grief, kept his head high,  and did whatever he needed to survive.He survived Mindoir and the batarians and when the Reapers came he survived them too.

But  when the war ends and he escapes his batarian masters to the Citadel,  the discovery that his twin sister is alive and well might just be the  thing that breaks him. The Hegemony's greatest assassin will remember  what it means to have something to lose.

AO3 link in notes!

belated and special thanks to @reblob-blob for beta-ing, and @snuffes @thehumantrampoline for their assistance <3

---

His plan had been sound - find the largest assortment of refugees in the safest location. Keep a low profile. Get the lay of the land in the world outside batarian space. He remembered the Citadel being touted as a beacon of safety and civil obedience, but after 15 years in his… particular profession, Vondur had learned that there was always a seedy underbelly. Sure, he was going to have to start from scratch, but with his skills it wouldn’t take long to rebuild his reputation. 

In practice, though. 

In practice, it was hundreds of shipping crates stacked on top of each other, the smell of unwashed bodies and dirty laundry, a constant jumble of voices crying and shouting and arguing, bright lights glaring down like spotlights. Guards at the exits, eyes suspicious and watchful; dull-eyed bureaucrats processing the new comers without sympathy or interest.

It felt like the slave pens. 

He found a dark corner out of sight of the main crush of people. It looked out over one of the Citdael’s arms, the orange city glow dotted with spots of black where the power was lost or the buildings crushed to rubble -- the night sky turned inside out. He wrapped his hands around the railing and tried to find the moment. 

It was a technique his very first instructor had taught him, and one that he had come to rely on heavily. Ignore the past, ignore the future, ignore even the present. By the time you acknowledge the present it is already the past. Find the moment you are in. The breath in your lungs, the beating of your heart. The feeling of cold metal warming against his palms, the light reflecting off passing ships lighting up the insides of his eyelids...

The feelings that the present was stirring up - old fear, nausea, memories of being helpless and alone -- all faded, leaving him clear headed and calm once more. 

When Vondur opened his eyes, the world had righted itself. He was still here, but now he could think. And he could notice, consciously, the person coming up behind him. He’d been aware of their presence, but only by instinct. Now he could analyze the clues he’d picked up -- perfume, the rustle of clothing, the weight of the tread -- and know not to attack the civilian human female coming up behind him. 

“Excuse me?” 

He pretended to be surprised when he turned. The human gave him a shy smile. She was small, about five foot even, with her blonde hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Younger than he’d been expecting - maybe 16 at the most. Either fashion hadn’t changed in the last 15 years, or the colonies were more fashion forward than he remembered them being, because her clothes would have been considered retro when he was her age. 

Most interesting, however, was the lanyard around her neck. From here he could see the word ‘volunteer’ in big orange letters on the ID card that hung from it. 

“Hi there! My name is Sarah. I’m a volunteer for the Citadel Refugee Project. I help new arrivals get settled in after they’re processed.” 

Her words had the patter of a memorized script, but suddenly she hesitated. 

“So, um, I’m not sure if anyone told you-- and I’m sorry if I’m wrong, but I’ve been seeing a lot of them and-- I thought, if it was me I’d want someone to make sure I knew-- I just-- it’s just that I--” 

“It’s okay,” he said, giving her a casual, nonthreatening tilt of the head. 

She straightened up and cleared her throat, and didn’t quite meet his eyes when she said “administration can get you in touch with a doctor who can deactivate and remove batarian control devices.”   

Vondur, having only just righted himself,was once more knocked off course into a whirl of unpleasant memories.

Like all slaves, Vondur had received the implant when he was first captured. At first, he had been constantly aware of it, perpetually afraid that any bump or electric shock would set it off. As the years passed it had become normal, a part of him the same way his biotic implant was. Filomet never had cause to threaten him with it, let alone put it to use. Most of the time, Vondur didn’t think of it at all. 

Vondur reached up a hand and touched the back of his head. In the soft place at the base of his skull was his implant. Just above it, a thick ridge of scar tissue that did not completely hide the small, hard lump of the device.  

Remove it? 

Why shouldn’t he? He was a free man, now. Able to choose his own path. He would never need to answer to anyone else ever again. Yes, he’d planned to keep up his… profession, but now they would be his jobs, his choices. The payment would be entirely his, not whatever sliver of a percentage Filomet felt generous - or frightened - enough to pass his way. 

He could choose who he would kill. 

Sarah was looking up at him nervously. He did a mental check of his expression - impassive, neutral, displaying no trace of the shock she’d given him. Good. 

“Thank you,” he said, his voice as level as ever. “I would like to see the doctor.”

 Sarah said she would walk him to the office -- a handful of desks -- located in one of the courtyards -- the squares of space the shipping containers opened into. It was staffed by actual employees of the CRP. They managed identification paperwork, locating families, finding temporary housing, medical support, ensured steady supply delivery, and in general jumped the bureaucratic hoops Citadel administration demanded be jumped.  These were the souls who actually solved the problems, Sarah said. 

“The Citadel set up the camps and they send food down but they don’t really care. They spend more time making sure nobody gets into the rest of the station than they do helping people.” Her voice held a heavy bitterness that surprised him; the kind that came from experience. 

“You’re a refugee,” he said, and she gave him an awkward half smile and a one-shoulder shrug.

“Yeah. I mean, I was. I guess I’m technically a citizen of the Citadel now. But I came in on one of the shuttles. I made a lot of friends down here, and I knew what it was like. It didn’t feel right to just… leave and never come back” 

“Understandable,” said Vondur, who didn’t understand at all. He had made friends - or at least bonded - with some of the other slaves in the pens. When Filomet had taken him away, Vondur had not looked back. He wanted to get as far away from that part of his life as possible. 

I did help them, he thought, irrationally defensive, I saved them in the arena. I stopped Filomet from using bait slaves. There was nothing else I could have done. It’s not like slaves can buy slaves, or free them. I needed to focus on survival. There's nothing wrong with that.

Sarah was still talking. She was, it seemed, quite the chatterbox. And very… peppy. 

“It’s not so bad down here. Especially now the war is over. The Reapers were kind of a major bummer, y’know?” She flashed him a grin. 

‘Major bummer’. Billions dead, worlds destroyed, your understanding of galactic history and your place in it completely upended… 

“Mmhmm,” he said. 

“They do holiday celebrations, and you can go to virtual classes- oh, and we have vid nights now. You should definitely submit a suggestion, because they’ve played Fleet and Flotilla like a billion times. What kind of vids do you like?” 

Vondur floundered for an answer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d watched an actual film. It would have been on Mindoir, but he couldn’t think of a single title, couldn’t even remember what kinds of vids he used to watch. 

“I don’t watch a lot of vids,” he said. That was a legitimate response, right? Plenty of people out there didn't watch vids.

“Oh. Well what do you like to do?” 

This one was even worse, because Vondur did have answers, and not a single one of them was something he could say to this girl. He liked working on upgrades for his sniper rifle. He liked to spar and train to improve his skills in killing people. He liked to practice shooting. 

He liked to work. Not to kill. But everything up to that point, the challenge of it, the rush of adrenaline. There was, in his heart, a grim satisfaction in a difficult task completed.  

“I like to read,” he said, lamely. Desperate to change the direction of the conversation, he said "And you?"

“I love vids. I want to make my own when I’m older. I especially like the classic stuff. Did you know the Blasto vids are based on a human series from the 1970s? It’s called Dirty Harry; you should check it out. Blasto wishes he could be that cool.” 

“Definitely,” he said, wondering what the hell a Blasto was. An argument broke out ahead of them, catching Vondur’s attention. And oh, by the glorious Pillars of Strength, there was a familiar face in the crowd. 

Vondur stopped suddenly. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I think I see someone I know.”

Sarah beamed up at him. 

“Of course! I’m so glad for you! I’ll see you around-- wait! I forgot to ask you your name!” 

“Thomas,” Vondur said. He'd chosen the name as one that was average and inconspicuous, but not too average or inconspicuous. Then, because it was a thing he remembered people said, added “Call me Tom.” 

“It was nice to meet you, Tom,” she said, and stuck out her hand. It took him a moment to realize what she was doing, but just a moment. He shook it, and gave her what he hoped was a friendly smile. It wasn’t a very big one. 

“Same to you.” 

He waited until he was sure she wasn’t going to stick around to watch, and headed for the group of arguing batarians. They’d lowered their voices, but their body language told him they were barely holding on to their tempers. They were too busy to notice his approach, and Vondur liked that just fine. 

It was so much more fun this way.

“Hello Ukarem,” he said, and watched the batarian go rigid. Very, very slowly the batarian turned and looked up at him. Vondur felt no small satisfaction seeing all four eyes go wide with stark terror. 

“Vondur,” he rasped. 

“Isn’t this a funny coincidence. Glad to see you made it to safety.” 

The batarian opened his mouth, but all that came out was a strangled groan. Vondur glanced at the other batarians. He didn’t know them, but from the looks on their faces, they knew him. 

He put a hand on Ukarem’s shoulder, dug his fingers in. He could feel the batarian trembling. 

“Let’s take a walk. I’d love to hear all about it.” 

“But…” one of the other batarians tried, braver than the rest. Vondur looked at him, focusing his entire attention on the lone soul who dared. Holding eye contact, Vondur tilted his head back ever so slightly. You are so beneath me, so little a threat, the movement said, that I do not need all four eyes to watch you. 

It didn’t matter that Vondur didn’t have another pair; body language was body language, and Vondur knew how to send a message. 

The batarians edged backwards, and Vondur steered Ukarem away. 

They walked in silence for a minute or so, as Vondur led them to a less crowded area. 

“I have money,” Ukarem said. 

“That’s good,” Vondur said, mildly. “Financial stability is very important.” 

“If this is about that job on Camala--” 

Ukarem had provided wildly inefficient intel on the state of the target’s security. Vondur had been shot several times, and very nearly died. His target had managed to escape; one of Vondur’s few failures. Because the target was human, rumors started that Vondur had botched the job on purpose out of species sympathy. He’d had to kill several humans in very nasty ways to repair the damage to his reputation. 

“Clouds long cleared,” Vondur said, in that same mild tone. “How long have you been on the Citadel, Ukarem?” 

“I was in the Terminus system on business,” he mumbled. “Came here as soon as I heard they were taking people in.” 

“Really? Why not Omega?” 

“Seemed safer. The reports that were coming through…”

Vondur walked him over to the railing where they could watch the ships go by, hidden behind several large potted plants. Ukarem tried to dig his heels in, babbling nervously. 

“Look, Vondur, you don’t have to do this, I can make it worth your while, whatever it is--” 

“I need a favor, Ukarem.” 

The batarian froze, then relaxed, relief pouring off of him in waves. 

“Oh! Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Name it.” 

Vondur leaned casually against the railing, looking out at the ships rather than at Ukarem.

“I think my least favorite thing about the Citadel is how suspicious they are. You can’t just walk in and out. You need paperwork. An ID card, birth certificate, background checks, proof of citizenship…” He looked over at the batarian. “You know what I mean. You have to be in the system if you want to get anywhere out here.” 

“Yeah” he said, but his expression was puzzled. “But… you were born out here. Couldn’t you just…?”

“I wouldn’t want to raise a fuss,” Vondur said. “A lost child, presumed dead, escaping his dreadful masters and regaining his freedom, rising from the ashes of destruction to take back his old life? That would attract a lot of attention. The kind of attention that could be very…  disadvantageous for someone in my field of business. But most importantly, Ukarem, I don’t want to.” The last was said in a voice hard and cold and full of dark promises.

“Right, right, sure, of course.” Ukarem was nodding very hard. 

“Besides, if I went the legal route, well, I wouldn’t need your help. You’d become rather useless to me. And you like to be useful, right Ukarem?” 

More nodding, Ukarem having apparently lost the ability to speak. 

“You have friends on the Citadel, right? Friends who can get me what I need?” 

The nodding continued. 

“You should let them know I’m willing to pay a little more for express delivery. I’m in a bit of a rush.” 

Nod nod nod. Vondur worried Ukarem’s head would go flying off.

“Oh, and before I forget… I’m still getting settled in, but once I am, you can let your friends know that my services are available. On a case by case basis, of course.” 

Ukarem froze mid-nod, his eyes very wide. 

“Really?” he blurted out. “But-- but you’re not-- you’re--” 

Vondur patted him on the shoulder and turned to leave. 

“If your friends could get back to me in the next two days, I’d really appreciate it.” 

As he mixed in with the other refugees, following the herd towards the daily food distribution, Vondur wondered why he didn’t feel as light as he’d been expecting. He’d just solved several major problems in one go. Now he had the right connections, he was going to get the documents he needed, he’d be able to find some work…

So why was there some deep, biting dissatisfaction in his mind? 

It was Ukarem’s surprise that he was looking for work. The sentence he hadn’t dared to finish. ‘But you’re not a slave anymore.’ Idiot. This was his trade, his craft. Throw away fifteen years of work honing and perfecting his skills just because he didn’t have to? What else was he supposed to do? He didn’t know how to do anything else. He didn’t need to know. And this life had been his choice. Filomet had stood in his cell and given him options, and Vondur had chosen. A short, brutal life in the mines, or the best weapons and training Filomet’s money could buy. 

It had been an easy choice, and it had been his. 

It had.

[silver-wield]

I really don't get people who are "fictional characters aren't real, so if people hate them it's not that deep", like please stop, I will defend tifa and cloud till I die. There's nothing wrong with people liking and defending fictional characters.

Ok, let’s unpack this shit and I’ll try and use small words for yall creepers....Who am I kidding? I’m not gonna use small words because even if I did yall wouldn’t understand. So Imma do this my way and fuck yall if you don’t understand. Go back to school. Fucking google it. 

The association and relation to fictional characters.

Cognitive brain function is the mental process that allows us to receive, transform and recover information that we take in through day to day life. It’s what allows us to relate to the world and people in it. Through cognitive brain function we gain both emotional and physical skills. 

Emotional skills developed through cognitive brain function include empathy. 

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Notice there’s no codicil to that. There’s no “you may only have empathy for others under these specific requirements or situations. Your empathy is null and void in situations others deem inappropriate.” There’s none of that. Because empathy is individualistic. It’s a learned trait, not something we’re born with.The brain chemistry exists for greater or lesser degrees of empathy, but it must first be brought to life by experiencing it. Empathy needs a trigger. 

Some of the first exposure we get to empathy is as children when we’re learning to read.

We want the hero to save the day. Because he’s earned it. We want the wicked stepmother to suffer because the heroine is so sweet and kind and “omg how dare they hurt her?!”

That’s empathy.

You put yourself in the heroine’s shoes and felt her pain. Related to it. Was that just meaningless because she’s fictional? Or does it matter because you care? Have I ruined your favourite childhood story by making you question why you cared at all?

It’s okay to care. 

As the brain develops from childhood, we use these early memories to form the foundation of our identity. Those who felt empathy to a greater degree will continue to feel empathy to a greater degree. These people make amazing listeners and they often work in caring professions or volunteer or they’re just basically great human beings because they have an innate sense of kindness. Because they learned early what it felt like to care for others. Because they cared for fictional characters. (That’s not to say I’m discounting other situations good or bad that act as a trigger. In this instance, I’m only referring to what’s necessary to explain empathy in relation to fictional characters)

Through these fictional characters they were able to try out different facets of their personalities. Learn what felt best for them. Helped them build their core values. Once these are set people don’t change. They evolve them, add and take away, but at their core, this is who these people are. If you are empathetic at your core you will always be empathetic at your core. 

Recognition.

The act of recognising others is a basic identifier and part of cognitive brain function. We look for similar aspects in ourselves to identify in others and prove their legitimacy. They exist because we acknowledge them. Yeah, it’s actually that simple. It’s the same reason we see the sky as blue because that’s the identifier we’ve given it. We acknowledge the legitimacy of blue and relate that identifier to the colour of the sky. 

With fictional characters it’s no different. They exist because we acknowledge their existence. The brain, while sophisticated, does not know the difference between fact and fiction. We use our judgement and knowledge to provide the necessary context to the situation. If we say it’s real, then it becomes real, and any feelings related to that also become real. The brain doesn’t stop us and say “but this isn’t real.” It doesn’t know it’s not real. The brain is an 3lb blob of pink jello wobbling about in your skull. It takes the information that you send it and makes conclusions based on similar past situations. 

If you showed empathy towards fictional characters as a child and treated them as though they were real, the brain will continue to recognise fictional characters as though they were real. 

Why you hate.

I was gonna say we, but let’s be real, it’s just you lot.

Hate: a hostile feeling directed toward another person or group that consists of malice, repugnance, and willingness to harm and even annihilate the object of hatred.

Hate is not an emotion. Anger is an emotion. Hate is a motivator to emotion. Hate is long lasting and gives you excuses for your actions because you ascribe emotional attachment to it. You’re angry and it’s unfair that you’re not getting your way. The object of your anger is preventing you from being happy. It’s causing a block. So you hate because it makes you feel out of control of yourself. If only this thing in your way was gone, you’d feel better about yourselves. It’s not you that’s the problem. It’s them. You’d be a perfectly good and decent person -- you are a perfectly good and decent person any other time -- if just this one thing wasn’t bothering you. Hate provokes resentment, which leads to bitterness, which leads to the erosion of the sense of self. It damages you at your core. Like all negative influences do.

Hate also leads to fear. A basic emotional response that is prevalent in every single human being from birth.

Yeah. Birth.

Humans are born afraid. 

Fun right? Wanna know how I know that little fact? It’s called a startle reflex and all babies have it. It’s that really cute thing they do when they’re sleeping and suddenly throw their arms up because they think they’re falling. That’s fear. Not so cute anymore, is it?

Since we’re born afraid, our instincts work to resolve that fear. In the case of hate, the “correct” response is to obliterate the thing making you afraid. Oh, look, now we’re segueing into racism. Something else that’s funny not actually funny.

Do I need to go on? Or do we get the message that those with empathy have a positive outlook on life and that their response to outside stimulus is to try and understand and help work things out. Those with a hateful outlook take a different path. 

I’m not even gonna go into the whole gaslighting bs that yall haters use to try and resolve your fear and hate in these situations because part of that resolving is the need to be acknowledged as being in the right. Your hate was justified. 

No. It wasn’t. 

In conclusion.

Because we gave legitimacy to a fictional character and showed a realistic emotional behaviour towards them, they became real. Our brains do not differentiate between real and fictional because of connections made during early years brain development. Once those connections are made they cannot be undone. If we feel they are real, then they are real. And you do not get to decide to what depth that emotion is felt. You do not get to undermine that emotional connection that we form with fictional characters. 

You are not in charge.

Your innate sense of fear and psychological lack of development in certain emotive areas makes you small minded and hateful because you lack development and the expression of that hate is to attack the thing you fear because by doing that you think you will find peace.

You will not. Because that thing will always exist. Because there will always be someone who disagrees with you. Because you cannot control the world. Your control issues are something yall need therapy for. Among your other many many issues. 

TL;DR Fictional characters legitimacy and emotional connection is dependent on the individual and you don’t get to tell us “how deep” that connection is, but yeah, it is actually that deep and you need to get over yourselves because you’re not the boss of the fandom and your hate is harmful to yourselves as well as pathetic. 

[windywooshes]

Zenitsu Agatsuma x (GN)Reader

~*:beloved short cut guide:*~

(Y/N): Name (E/C): Eye color (H/C):Hair color [ i.e. brunette, blonde,...]

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It was harsh and loud when they fell in love with it.

Very loud.

It was crying in pain.

For a moment their throat felt dry and hoarse as if feeling the impact of the high screeching octaves in their own body. It was ear piercing. Never before durring their stay in the Butterfly Estate they have caught that much of a loud voice. It sounded more like a dying animal, if we are honest here...

It took them a lot of courage to inch closer to the pushed open door to the infirmary beds. They couldn't really stand the sight of blood and mutilations of the injured demon slayers. (Y/N) has never really worked with patients before as they were one themself but sometimes, things were critical and there weren't enough Kakushi to lend a hand for Shinobu and the others, so they had to go under the dogs and patch up some of the swordsmen and women. Sometimes, it wouldn't be so bad. Just a broken limb, some cuts. Nothing, what a first–aid kit can't handle. Other times it would look more grotesque and crimson. In those times the view haunted (Y/N) till the late hours, bringing nightmares with them. This time though...it wasn't even half as bad. The (H/C) never saw someone pulling so much drama over a cup of bitter medicine. Was he that sensitive in terms of taste ? They carefully stepped into the room, deciding to aid Aoi with the difficult patient.

„TANJIROOOOooooOooOOOuuu, pLEaSE hElP mE !!! I doN'T WAnT tO dRInK tHIs bITtER medICINe !!!“

“But Zenitsu...you need to get better–„

“I DOn'T cARe !!!“

“Would you stop making so much drama over a darn cup of herb juice ?!“ Oh shoot...never has (Y/N) seen Aoi pulling that kind of furious grimace before. And they'd rather not want to see it again, it was horrifying.

„H–how about I bring you some mochi to eat after you drink the tea? S–so it can wash away the bitter taste...“ the (H/C) voice drifted off and became a bit too silent and soft to hear but the male seemed to have caught every bit of it and shined up in joy and happiness. „Really ? You'd do that ? Waaaaaaah, my herooooOOOoooooo !!!!“ Oh sh*t this is a million yen smile- too precious- needs protection at all costs.

The blonde was about to jump out of the bed like a salmon and tackle them to the floor with a hug, but was held back by the twin tailed girl who just huffed and looked the volunteered nurse dead in the eye. „Then you shall take care of him and keep an eye on his medicine cup. Every day. 3x times !“

They saluted and rushed off to get the treats as quickly as possible. They were freshly made by the three little power girls Sumi, Kiyo, Naho and (Y/N). They got to have a small bite from them before and they tasted amazing ! It made (Y/N) very proud actually ! So just as prideful as they were, they served them to the blond haired boy and his friends. And as planned, the medicine was gobbled down like a shot of alcohol and the red bean balls chomped down to get the lingering bitterness out of the mouth. The group was having a small conversation to get to know each other. Or more like (Y/N) was having a small chat with Tanjirou since he was the only one of the group who you could talk normally to as Inosuke was in his sad phase, while Zenitsu just kept on clinging to their waist and sobbing about his pain and the danger he went through and how much he still is going through because of the aftereffects of the poison. They felt a bit flustered, honestly, not being used to such PDA sessions with strangers but burshed it off quickly. It felt pretty cozy to sit there and chat, patting the soft locks of the boy. As if hearing their inner voice, Zenitsu calmed down a bit and just kept on holding onto their form, more loose now. After some more chit chatting and story telling, they felt warm breath tickling against their sides. Both, Inosuke and Zenitsu seemed to be sleeping soundly. (Y/N) took a small glance at the boy. His sleeping face looked so adorable! Him being so calm in general was a sight they were surprised to see. He alsways looked like a goldfish which was just about to burst with those buldging eyes and wide open mouth.

Seeing him so peaceful made the (H/C) feel so...relaxed. The other pair of eyes looked curiously at them as they were gently unwrapping his friend's arms from their waist. The air smelled sweeter than before all of a sudden.

After they managed to stand up and pick up the dishes without making too much sound, they gave the only awake member of the group one last wave, before rushing into the kitchen to power scrub any type of dirty silverware they could find to calm themself and the blood which was running through their veins. Secretly hoping that no one did notice their now more reddening face.

Through the recovery of the quartet, (Y/N) managed to get closer to the chaotic squad. Even though she was asleep most of the time, (Y/N) got to spend some quality time with Nezuko as well. From hair braiding to sleepovers, no one was save from both of them. At one point (Y/N) was (t)asked to help with the daily stretching and stamina training as well as officially becoming Zenitsu's personal nurse since they seemed to be the only one who was not affected by his exhausting persona. And they gladly accepted. More quality time with Mr Fry ? Heck yeah, thank you Aoi-chan !

Though (Y/N) couldn't help but scowl once they heard that he won't come to training anymore. About to bring another tray of (extra) bitter medicine to hopefully kick some motivation back up the arse, they heard the infamous sobs of the breath of thunder user. „NezuUkoO-cHaaAAAAAaaaannnN...I miss heeeeeeeeer...Inosuke, don't they think that it'd be so wonderful to be taken care of by her ? Aaah~ I bet even her medicine wouldn't taste that bitter~“

“Hm...“

“I wonder if she is doing well? Do they think she is dreaming of me ? Oh, I should find some flowers for her later~“

“Hng...“

It kind of stung, hearing the blonde fawning over the girl. No hard feelings. Nezuko WAS a beauty after all. She was also very kind and soft...and apparently strong too- quality aspects, they couldn't help but feel slightly jealous even though they were a good catch themself in any aspect. But it never seemed to catch the attention of the blonde. It made the mood drop a bit sometimes even though they tried to tell themself that it was stupid to get their feelings stand infront of their friendship. But seeing how different he was acting around the demon girl, heck, even around the other girls of the estate, made their heart feel a bit heavy. It's not like they weren't grateful for getting any type of love and attention from him but it held a lingering aftertaste of friendzone. They wanted to be presented flowers too. They wanted to hear his voice softly coe their name as well...feel the affection he was emitting and have it for themselves as selfish as it sounds.

This topic was chewed over and over with Shinobu-san as well as the other 4 residents in the estate and all of them got their back. Keep throwing in encouragements and plans as to how get the both of them closer. Everything seemed like a dead end as none of the plans have ever worked out.

The (H/C) sighed and rounded the corner, walking into the room with a pout plastered on their face. Setting the tray down with the medicine and two freshly made sweet treats. They crossed their arms, looking stern at Captain Obvious.

“Shouldn't you be training ? Why did you abandon Tanjirou like this ?“

“A-ah, (Y/N)-san...you see...it's no use. The training is just too hard..and I always feel so demotivated whenever I lose to Kanao-chan...“ Zenitsu stuttered out while looking off into the opposite direction, clearly feeling a bit guilty when hearing the water wielder's name.

Inosuke just grunted, his back facing the part-time nurse's, still sulking. (Y/N) shook their head and sighed.

„Well, he at least manages to get stronger than they guys.. He'll probably overrun they both in some days...“

The boar's head moved a little. It even looked like the ears of the mask perked up. Got one hooked. (Y/N) could start cursing themselves out for the next words as they were making them feel slightly bitter,

„Bet Nezuko-chan will be really impressed to see his improvements too~“

Thunderkid's head seemed to make a full 180 flip to Inosuke, screaming that they should quickly set off to training again. And before the (H/C) could react the, now empty, cup was placed into their hands with a thank you. With the boar under his arm, Zenitsu dashed off for training once again. It seemed to be just in time as the mere glimpse of Tanjirou's swift improvements seemed to kick in some additional adrenaline.  (Y/N) started to make the bed with a mix of satisfaction and sadness.

Days passed and the demon slayers seemed to get fitter and stronger. It made the (H/C) smile to see the three in full spirits again. Even our beloved little demon girl seemed to have gotten some of that spark as she was now more frequently joining the late night hang outs with everyone in the household. It was a wonderful time. The house felt even livelier than it used to be before, so it made parting even harder.

When the group set off for their next mission (Y/N) couldn't help but get all gloomy. They understood that they have a job to do, that they do it to protect the villagers and that they have their very own personal reason. But it didn't help the worries from rising up and drowning the mind in sadness. Especially to see someone beloved go into the danger zone. And they can't imagine the big fat blobs of salty water which the (E/C) orbs cried when the group was brought back to the mansion, all beaten up and one with a deep wound up his stomach. No one ever saw (Y/N) in such a devasteted mood. Whenever they were tending to Zenitsu's wounds, they had tears rising up in their eyes, their lip was constantly quivering and their heart gave out one heavy depressing sound. It made the blond worry horribly. He was happy to have someone that concerned about him but he couldn't stop himself feeling guilty to see that sad stadium for a whole week. It became better though once he returned to his training, all fit and refreshed.

The peace didn't last for too long though. (Y/N) was out to fetch some groceries when Uzui barged into the estate and was about to kidnap the poor girls for his mission. No one could imagine the anger rising up inside of the (H/C) once they heard that the trio decided to take on the job with the breath of sound wielder. After the squad returned from that nightmare of a mission, (Y/N) made sure to write an anger stuffed letter to the former pillar. It was so effective that they got an apology letter back from the man. Most of it was braging about his own flamboyant form while the other 1/6th was about the strenght of the boys and how well they managed the situation. Fighting alongside until the end.

It might have been to calm their worries down a bit but (Y/N) couldn't help but curl up in their room and stay awake. Overthinking.

So as (Y/N) was doing some health checks and bandage swaps they decided to talk to Zenitsu. Or more like...confess. They didn't know why it could help but...it felt like it should be now or never. The last chance to be talking in peace. Without any additional worry building up. Their mind has been fuming for nights as to how or when to do it. With the other two knocked out cold and the demon playing with the girls, the (H/C) decided this was the right time. It was perfect. No interruptions. No chaos. No...Nezuko...

Zenitsu was feeling uneasy when he heard his nurse come in. He immediately heard that something was off. The shaky hands which were fumbling with the fabric of the bandage. The furrowed eyebrows which should aid as a help to calm one down. The sound of the rapid heart beating and the unsteady breath. He noticed it clearly. He heard it clearly. And it made his tummy churn because he understood those painful and nervous wave lenghts. He knew those sounds too well. It was not just any type of worry. Not any type of sobbing.

The (H/C) finished up the bandage change quickly and rushed off to bring their patient his warm meal. (Y/N) could course themself for being so shaky right now. There was no doubt they were a nervous wreck. How do people confess ? What words do they use for that ? How do they like...not die on the spot ???

Okay, deep breaths. Get a hold on yourself. You. Are. One hardcore b*tch. You got this.

Even the imaginary cheerleader crowd inside their head didn't really help. With shaky hands, (Y/N) shuffled their way back into the room. What a nervous wreck, even Zenitsu looked so concerned.

One thing came over the other and the soup went on full force sailing through the air, right into sir fryhair. Splashing all over this poor boy's body, burning and staining the whole bed. There it was. Magnificent scream of terror and pain. Zenitsu yeeted out of the bed and squirmed around the room, probably waking up the whole neighbourood right now. Reflexes fast but mind still behind, (Y/N) picked him up and rushed out to the garden, throwing the gold fish back into it's natural habitat. The cold pond water. The koi weren't quiet happy but the burning stopped and the spots hopefully won't end up becoming fat wounds.

Kanao took a quick glance through an open shoji door aaaaand quickly closed it again. Probably alarming the others to prepare new med and bedsheets.

Long story forward, the both of them ended up back in the room of crime. Shinobu talked to them before, asking about what stunt exactly they were trying to pull off. After listening to the sobs and stutters, she nodded her head, making sure the others won't disturb both of them after clean up. And there you were. Everything sparkly now and Zenitsu full of weird smelling cream all over the red spots. Both just awkwardly looked on the floor, not saying a word. The air felt thick and heavy. The other inhabitants leaning their ears sneakily against the door or the room. Hoping to get any snippets of the conversation.

"I like you."

Hoo ! There it was ! Everyone helds in their breath in. It felt as if hours have passed after it became deadly quiet in the room again.

The blonde was quiet. Looking out of the window. Evening was slowly approaching. The sun kissing the sky goodnight, lighting up the room into a soft warm yellow tone.

His breath became uneasy. Not being able to look them in the eye, he stared off into a corner of the room before looking down on his bandaged palms which he placed on his lap. A sorrowful smile forming on his lips. He looked up and looked them into the tear glistered (E/C) marbles.

„...Thank you so much, (Y/N)-chan...

.

.

.

.

.

.

...but I'm truthly sorry...“

It was soft and hushed when it broke their heart.

So soft..

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I apologize if this isn’t one of the sparkliest or most well written pieces out there ! I’m still a bloody hobbyist when it comes to writing ^^”

Could have worked on this for ages because of the inner perfectionist but I think it's better like this, haha.

I'm about to start daily routine again but feel free to send in requests if you have them ! I could try making some of them into stories or headcanons, just mention what you’d like to have. No NSFW though, sorry hh

[sweetteaanddragons]

The Usual Way

Or: In Which Oromë is Spectacularly Late, and Finwe’s Family Aspires to Avoiding Becoming a Disaster

This is heavily inspired by my previous “In Which Oromë is Late” story, but diverges from it in that by the time Feanor has married Nerdanel, Oromë has still not shown up and discovered the elves. This is also heavily inspired by a line in one of my other fics. Which line will become more apparent as the story progresses.

Also: I have mixed the usage of Sindarin and Quenyan names on the probably faulty assumption that if the two peoples hadn’t diverged, the language they had would be something that was not quite either. Not being a linguist, I had no idea what those changes were likely to be so . . . here we are.

. . . .

Feanor is the one to find them because Feanor never lets little things like possible death stop him from being the one to go deepest into the woods, particularly when he has a new sibling on the way who will need food.

Nolofinwe is with him because he follows his brother everywhere he can, especially now that Feanor has gone and gotten married and shares a tent with Nerdanel instead of them.

It’s a tent he pitches right next to their’s, and he’s promised Nolofinwe that he and Nerdanel will keep following Finwe in their people’s slow trek across the land, ever in search of more food, instead of going off on their own as some do,  but it’s still different, and he hasn’t quite managed to reconcile Nolofinwe to it yet. He just needs a little more time.

All of that slips to the back of his mind the moment they find the camp.

It’s a much smaller one than their’s, just three tents pitched by a small stream that runs burbling through the silent trees. 

It’s also a much quieter one that their’s. No one’s fetching water from the stream. No one’s tending the fire that’s been allowed to burn down to embers. No one’s talking quietly within the tents.

There are hoof prints in the soft mud by the stream’s bank. There are other marks, shallower ones, that look like nothing he’s ever seen before, and suddenly the shadows between the trees seem darker than they were.

“Feanor,” Nolofinwe said, voice tight. “Look. The Hunter’s been here.”

“I saw,” he breathes, voice barely audible, just in case something is still lurking, but he has to know, so he still steals forward grimly to look into the tent.

Probably the grim Hunter has rode on. Probably he wouldn’t bother them anyway; he prefers elves who wander alone to elves who travel together, even if they’re only in groups of two.

Then again, he seems to have carried away the whole camp.

He’s glad when Nolofinwe sticks close to him.

The first two tents are empty of people, though there are blankets and food and a few other items they might take back, as sick as it makes him. They can’t afford waste.

The third tent is not empty.

The third tent has three children inside.

One is only an infant, tucked into the eldest boy’s arms. The third child is clinging on too. All three have wax or cloth stuffed into their ears, and the eldest boy looks at the others like he’s afraid if he blinks they’ll disappear.

His eyes go even wider when he sees them.

Feanor kneels down to put himself at their level, and Nolofinwe follows belatedly.

The eldest boy looks at them suspiciously for a long moment before slowly removing the blob of wax from his ear. He holds it ready to jam back in at a moment’s notice, though.

“I’m Feanor, and this is my brother, Nolofinwe,” he says. “What’s your name?”

The boy relaxes just a little at the mention of brother and even more when he hears the -finwe. Everyone knows of their father. 

“Maitimo,” he says quietly. He hugs the other two children impossibly closer. He does not volunteer their names.

“What happened?” Nolofinwe asks.

Maitimo promptly bursts into tears.

. . .

(The story, as it comes out later, is this: Maitimo’s mother had gone to get water from the stream last night and never returned. Her brother, who was the youngest boy’s father, had gone to look for her. He hadn’t come back either. At that point, the remaining adults had known better than to send anyone else. They had known.

But then the whispers had started.

And then the screams. 

Maitimo had blood on his fingernails from where they had dug into his father’s arm as he desperately tried to keep their last remaining protector from going outside.

His father had shaken him off.

Maitimo had clapped his hands over his ears before the whispers could turn their attention on him.)

. . .

Maitimo clings to his brother’s shirt as Feanor carries both of them back to camp, and he keeps a suspicious eye on how Nolofinwe is carrying his cousin the whole way there.

The baby in Nolofinwe’s arms frets.

But the middle boy, the one Maitimo calls ‘Laure in a soft, frightened voice - he doesn’t make a single noise.

Not once.

. . .

Their father looks older when they tell him what’s happened. The Hunter has grown bolder, and still they are no closer to finding a way to protect themselves from him, or any of the other horrors that lurk in the endless trees.

Nameless horrors aside, there are still three children that need looking after. Finwe manages to pry the names of the younger two out of Maitimo: Macalaure and Carnistir. His other question, if they have other family somewhere, fares more poorly. If there are others out there, Maitimo doesn’t know.

Feanor gets a curious look on his face as soon as it becomes apparent that they’re going to have to find someone to look after them.

. . .

(“Nerdanel,” he says, leaning against the tree that she is perched in the lower branches of, chipping stone into arrowheads, “you still want children, don’t you?”

Nerdanel does want children. She is, however, somewhat suspicious of her dear husband’s tone. “I do,” she says slowly, not quite committing to anything. 

“How do you feel about three?”)

. . .

The three children are absorbed into the camp easily enough. Maitimo follows Feanor around like a second shadow, and Macalaure toddles after, one hand clutching his brother’s shirt. Nerdanel binds Carnistir to her back the way the other women do and sings to him as she works.

Feanor works hard to make sure all the children have enough. He will not have another Findis. Maitimo helps him solemnly, bright and quick and always watchful.

He never lets Feanor wander into the trees for even two paces alone.

Macalaure still doesn’t speak, but Feanor returns from collecting fruit with Maitimo one day to find him hiding behind a tree one day while Nerdanel sings to the baby.

When she stops, Macalaure starts quietly humming the tune.

Maitimo makes a soft sound, and Feanor looks down and, for the first time, sees him smile.

. . .

He doesn’t plan on it happening again, because finding children in the woods is never something you plan on, but he isn’t entirely surprised either.

After all, the woods grow more dangerous every year.

It starts with whispers this time. Whispers of something new in the trees - something that looks like an elven child but runs with wolves and has blood on its teeth.

As it turns out, that story is correct in every particular except for the part where it claims the boy only looks like an elvish child. Standing across from the child now and seeing the wonder in his eyes as he takes in Feanor’s bright clothes, Feanor’s pretty sure that an elvish child is exactly what he is.

Feanor takes a cautious step forward.

The boy bares his teeth and growls before he takes off running through the trees.

. . . 

They can’t just leave him out there. It isn’t safe.

He folds up a gift of food in bright red cloth that Nerdanel has donated to the cause at the edge of their camp. Macalaure pats his shoulder and hums a questioning noise.

“I’m trying to bring you home a new little brother,” he explains, though he’s not sure if little is the right term or not. Maitimo has shot up these past few years, but Macalaure remains worryingly small.

Macalaure hums a happy note and offers up his small wooden horse to add to the pile.

. . . 

It takes three gifts of food to lure the boy into their camp, and it’s the growing chill of winter that finally drives him all the way in to the warmth of their fire.

Nerdanel wraps him him in a blanket, and his growl seems half-hearted. He curls into the warmth, and when they wake up in a morning, he’s still there, safe in the middle of the pile of warm bodies the children inevitably make.

. . . 

The boy doesn’t talk - or, no, as Feanor corrects the unwary sharply, he does talk, he talks perfectly well - he’s just speaking in the tongue of wolves instead of the tongue of elves. They’ve managed to teach him a few words already, but they can’t expect him to learn overnight.

Feanor listens to his growls and watches his body language and learns to speak his tongue while they’re teaching him their’s, just as he’s learned the meanings of every one of Macalaure’s wordless hums.

. . . 

(The full story never does come out, for obvious reasons, but they can guess the outlines well enough - parents gone, child left alone, and, by some miracle, taken in instead of eaten by a pack of wolves.

They do not guess the unthinkable truth: That sometimes, a child may be left deliberately behind during a particularly hungry winter.)

. . .

The child’s original name, whatever it might have been is lost. Maitimo calls him Celegorm after one too many days of him rising before the stars have reached the proper place in their dance, and for good or ill, the name sticks.

. . . 

Three years later, when Nerdanel announces that there’s going to be another baby, Carnistir’s eyes swing towards the woods as if he expects his new sibling to come toddling out at any moment.

“I’m having a baby,” Nerdanel clarifies.

Feanor whoops and picks her up to swing her, laughing, through the air.

He doesn’t see the looks that the older children share.

. . . 

Celegorm doesn’t think to be concerned and Carnistir is still too young, but Maitimo works harder than ever, and Macalaure - 

Macalaure goes and sits by his father’s feet and helps him work on the new type of bow Feanor has been crafting and then he says, “Will you still want us after the baby comes?”

Feanor drops the bow and turns to stare down at Macalaure’s hunched shoulders because he can’t quite believe that the small, scratched voice he just heard was Macalaure. Talking. Actually talking.

Then the rest of what he says sinks in, and oh. He knows that feeling. He’d turned every ounce of it into jealousy and fury and hurled it all at tiny Findis.

“Till the end of the world,” he promises.

Macalure talks more, after that.

.  . . 

The new baby is small, but not too small, and Nerdanel is tired, but not, the midwife assures him, too tired. Everything is fine. Everything will reamain find.

Finding children in the woods is much less stressful.

They let the other children hold the baby one by one.

“Small,” Celegorm whispers in an awed tone. Little Curufin has caught hold of one of his fingers and refuses to let go.

“For now,” Feanor agrees. “Let’s go show him to your uncles outside.”

. . .

Technically, Feanor doesn’t find the twins in the woods. Someone else does that part.

But. Well. Apparently the given assumption amongst Finwe’s people is that any unclaimed children found in the forest are now his and Nerdanel’s.

Neither of them is going to complain about it.

. . . 

(Two months later, Oromë shows up and tells them of a land where light shines like fire and the dead can still walk.

Feanor looks down at six of his seven children and immediately feels guilty for his heart’s pained twist.)

(Things don’t improve when someone brings up Miriel.)

. . .

A/N: The line this story was partially inspired from was Amrod and Amras’s comment from “Bearing Children” that they got their baby changeling in “the usual way.” Which . . . under the circumstances implied that the usual way was finding a baby in the middle of the forest, probably surrounded by dead people. And, in this AU, that is sort of the usual way for their family. Six out of seven definitely qualifies as the usual.

[royalty-red]

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore.” with Gai and maybe the rest of the boys??? Idk I just want angst

I’ll never let you go (but sometimes it’s better to let you go)

The world is spinning, turning and twisting upside down. Everything seems out of focus, blobs of what seems to be people blur and blend together. Someone is speaking near him but their voice seems so far away, muffled.

Gai stumbled around the practice room, trying to keep up with the pace of the music, but it’s all too much. The bass is too loud, rattling his bones to the very core. The sounds of the other’s shoes squeaking on the wood floor hurt his ears, causing him to wince at every movement.

“Come on Gai! Pick up the pace!” The instructor clapped. Shaking his head, Gai forced himself to control his body, to be one with the music.

Turns out, ignoring your pain isn’t gonna make it go away.

The next thing he remembers was hearing Perry scream and the world fading to black.

Perry had been keeping a close on Gai ever since they stepped foot into the practice room this morning. For the past few days, Gai had been sick. At first, they all thought that it was just the flu but Roy and Perry being the moms that they are suspected it was something worse.

Much worse.

“Do we need to call the ambulance?” Blink asked, staring at his beloved hyung on the ground.

Roy crouched down to the ground, placing the younger’s head on his lap. “Mavin already called. They should be on the way right now.”

Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion to the others. The door to the practice room busted wide open, two men entered and told them to get away from the patient.

Roy reluctantly handed Gai over to them, standing up to join his friends. “Is it bad?” Sid whispered, tears welling in his eyes. “I don’t know, Sid. I don’t know” Roy whispered back, his eyes glossing over.

“We have to take him to the hospital.” One of the men finally announced.

Everyone watched as they pulled a stretcher in beside their unconscious friend on the ground and wheeled him out to the ambulance. “Two of you can ride in the ambulance with him. The rest will meet up with you guys in the hospital later.” Their manager explained.

Roy and Sid volunteered to ride in the ambulance with Gai. Without hesitation, they both jumped in the car sitting next to Gai.

“You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” Sid cried, clutching his best friend’s hand in a death grip.

The world was still spinning when Gai opened his eyes. The first thing he sees is white, and a blinding light being shone in his face. Is this what heaven looks like?

Voices can be heard and he felt the hard hospital bed dip to the side, a comforting hand running through his hair. “Gai, are you awake? Is it too bright?” Gai groaned, putting his arm over his head, shielding his eyes from the light.

Doctors and nurses flowed in and out of the room the whole day asking various questions. “What’s the last thing you remember?, “How long has this been going on?, When did the symptoms start?”

Gai was beginning to look ill again, his symptoms worsening as the days go by.

They were back at their dorms, relaxing in the living room. Soft music blared from one of Blink’s mini speakers. Sid and Perry built a pillow fort and wrapped Gai up in layers of blankets making him feel as comfortable as possible.

He hasn’t been eating lately, not being able to stomach anything. His skin has become pale. Paler than what it normally was and his head constantly feel like it’s been run over.

“Gai, sweetie. Why are you crying?”

Everyone’s head snapped towards their second youngest maknae, eyes growing big in concern. “Come on, baby. You can tell me” Perry said, wiping his tears away.

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore!” Gai sobbed, finally breaking down. A pair of strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him close. It felt like a dam had finally broke, spilling out all the emotions he’s been bottling up the past week.

Gai closed his eyes, basking in the comfort of the eldest’s arms until another wave of dizziness and nausea hits.

Perry gasped as Gai suddenly started shaking, eyes rolling to the back of his head. The others screamed as his body started convulsing harder.

“Someone call the ambulance! He’s having a seizure!” Mavin shouted.

Roy quickly placed Gai’s head on his lap to prevent his head from getting hurt, running his hands through his blonde locks.

“Sid, I’m scared” Blink cried, burying his head in Sid’s shoulder, to horrified to watch the scene unfold before his eyes.

Gai’s seizures stopped before the ambulance could arrive, “he’s not breathing!” Roy shouted, going hysterical.

The door to their dorm busted down at that exact moment, medics rushed in. Blink screamed, trying to rush over to his friend but Sid held on to him. The medics quickly performed CPR

Gai please don’t die on us now, please

After what felt like an eternity, Gai gasped and bolted straight up out of the stretcher, breathing heavily. The boys cried and hugged each other. “It’s gonna be alright. Everything is gonna be fine now.”

Oh boy were they wrong.

Mavin prayed to whatever gods there were in the sky, even kneeled down and begged them to erase the picture of a lifeless Gai lying in a hospital bed. It felt all too real, like at any moment his was gonna be ripped away from them, crawling into the cold hands of death.

Two hours. It’s been two hours since they wheeled his seemingly lifeless body into the OR. Two hellish hours they spent, pacing, crying and comforting each other.

They hoped and prayed that everything will be alright but in the back of their minds all they can hear is Gai’s raspy, weak voice saying “I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

A silent agreement was passed between all of them that night. They’d rather let their friend crawl into the cold hands of death than watch him suffer.

i hope this is angsty enough for you ;-; i tried my best @summerbloom-gai

[kotlc-oneshots]

Blind!keefe au

Hey all!!! Sorry I’ve been dead, but writings block kills lol. Anyways I got this idea off of some lame discord convos and uhhh I hope it’s good. Also it’s late and lmao I have no motivation to edit my own writing uhhh here u go. Some mild swearing. Will be Kam if I keep going w it. Lov yall.

*~*~*

Pt.

one

Keefe

I’m lying in bed, of course, when the shrieking of my alarm goes off about four feet away from me. I blink my eyes open until they don’t feel sticky and gross, then grab my alarm clock. It’s a simple thing, a brick with about 5 buttons total on it, probably.

I pushed the button on the bottom left corner, and the loud wail finally ends. I groan and rub my head, wishing the colors and blobs that cloud the center of my milky vision would just come into focus.

However after years of hoping for that, every morning, I know nothing is going to happen. With a small sigh, I go into my ultra-specifically organized dresser.

Today is the first day of my senior year. Even if I wont be able to see myself, I want to know that others will appreciate the way that I look- or, at least, am dressed. There’s not a lot I can do if there’s anything wrong with my face or hair. I wish I could, though- even though I’ve been blind since birth, I still always want to look presentable. In order to do that, my friends help me once every other week to organize my outfits for the upcoming 14 days. It started in sophmore year, when Sophie got the wonderful idea, and it's been a tradition since. And thanks to my ‘photographic (ha) memory’, I always know what clothes I’m wearing. Always.

I’m about halfway dressed when hear a beep from the direction of my bed.

“New message from Fitz.” The automated, robotic voice of Siri tells me.

“Hey siri- read message from Fitz.” I respond, then finish putting on the rest of my clothes.

“Ready for your first day as a senior?” she reads back to me. I automatically change the sound to Fitz’s deeper, more human voice in my head. It’s pointless, but necessary.

“Hey siri- text Fitz ‘hell yeah brother.’” After a quick confirmation of what I’m sending, I go into the bathroom next to my bedroom. I carefully feel my way around for my toothbrush and brush my teeth, then proceed to run my hand through my hair. For a short moment, I wish I could see myself as more than a blob of milky, too bright color, but it fades quickly. I’d rather not think about it. So I finish up in the bathroom, then return to my room for my bag. With a quick ‘hey siri’, I manage to find my phone as well.

After a few more voice commands, I receive the news that Fitz will be here to pick me up at 7:30, which gives me about 20 minutes. I hop over to the kitchen and make myself a quick, hearty bowl of cereal. Being me, I choose the healthiest kind- Lucky Charms. When finished, I smile to myself and set the bowl near the sink- I know my dads at work by now, so I don’t have to worry about him. Sometimes there’s good things about waking up early. As I slip my bag on and go to the door to wait, I remember how lucky I am to have such a good memory, and such a constantly cleanly household. Otherwise, I’d be as clumsy in my house as Sophie is. I grab my cane and walk outside, chiding myself for thinking so much about the little things.

Fitz is there, honking his horn, about 5 ish minutes after I get outside. Sophie yells at him for being annoying, and I chuckle a bit. A window rolls down, and Biana’s voice comes through hollering to go to the back passengers side. I use my cane to help me a little bit, then grab onto the ledge made by the open window. I proceed to find the door handle, then carefully step into the car.

“If any freshman gives you crap today, you have full right to hit them with your cane.” Dex, who must be on on the other side of Biana, says.

“Thank you. I’ll definitely do that,” I respond with a laugh, and I can practically feel the worry in the air as Sophie warns me not to.

“We really don’t want you to get suspended on the first day. So just wait until tomorrow, and give them an extra hard whap on kneecap.” Biana adds cheerily.

“This is why you’re my favorite.” I awkwardly try to wrap my arm

around her head, but fail miserably. My peripherals are even worse than the center of my vision- there’s almost no light visible towards the edges. So I end up hitting her on the head, and play it off by messing her hair up. This, of course, causes her to whack my arm and call me a jerk.

“Alright, dumbasses, knock it off,” Fitz, my best friend of the

past 6 years, yells. “By the way, Keefe, we’re pulling in now.” A knot forms in my stomach. Man. First day of senior year at Foxfire. I can’t believe its so close to being over. The beginning of the end.

We pull into the parking lot and step out of Fitz’s Volvo. I turn towards the building, and take a deep inhale of the crisp morning air. My friends and family always like to comment on how pretty the building looks. Foxfire is a really prestigious private high school, and I know that they put a lot of money into the architecture

and the grounds. It's a pity that all I see is a building shaped blob of its beige color, and the faint blobs of green and other colors that I know are trees.

I try not to let myself think about it.

We walk into the building, and Fitz automatically splits off. He's supposed to help some teacher set up the presentation that the Freshman go to. I love him, but it's the first day of school and that man is already busy. This year is gonna be rough if we wanna keep up our hangout sessions- although, we both did take the same 6 AP classes. We’ll probably study together, when he’s not with his million other commitments.

After a few hugs and highfives, and a few debate friends greeting me, I go to my first class. I’m /not/ getting caught in that crowd, especially with the idiotic freshman pretending that they own the place. Off to AP music theory it is. C118 is easy enough- no stairs, and it's a pretty straight shot to the classroom. Again,

I thank my perfect memory to get me around. I may not know what the building looks like, but I basically have the blueprint downloaded in my head. Good times, man.

First period doesn’t result in much. We all get a copy of the syllabus, and a short introductory reading. I can feel a tinge of annoyance when the teacher acknowledges my inability to.. Uh, read it, but a girl named Linh volunteers to help me out with it. She seemed nice enough. She had a bit of a Canadian accent, and when I asked about it she confirmed that she was from… Minnesota. She was really sweet, and I’m genuinely hoping that’ll become a friendship.

The next couple periods go uneventfully. Fitz is in one of them, and Dex the other so I don’t have to worry about another situation like in first period. And the teachers always let me go about 2-3 minutes early, so I can avoid the crowds- that is, until lunch. I’m on my way down to the cafeteria when I run into… someone. They must have been very quiet- I didn’t realize they were that close to me and coming around the bend. So when they did, we kinda collided. I hear a soft curse when they thud to the ground, and from the shape and sound I know its a guy. I put the cane in my left hand and offer to help him up. I’m not sure what it is, but he doesn’t accept it.

“You good man? I didn’t see ya there.” I laugh a little, because

duh. He doesn’t. I can’t really make out any of him- his hair is /probably/ black- and this agitates me, because he doesn’t respond. And then he practically runs away.

I have no way to identify him- probably a dumb freshman that didn’t want his ass kicked by the blind senior. Trying to shake off the interaction, I roll my eyes and start on my way to lunch again.

//

“Honestly, today was AWFUL. The second half, at least.” I’m now at Fitz’s house, along with Dex. “I already told Dex about that one guy that ran into me, but Stats teacher was awful. She probably heard something from Michaels about last year- just because I rarely showed up doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing! I got along in that class fine.”

“Keefe, I taught you like half of that course.” Fitz replies, laughing.

“Because you actually know how to do math! Michaels is an awful excuse for a pre calc teacher. Dex, be glad that you got Hex.” I retort. It’s not wrong- Mr. Michaels had been very incompetent. If not for Fitz, I would have gotten the worst grade I ever had in my high school career.

“You know I am.” Dex agrees. “Even Hex hates Michaels, but she won’t admit it. Outright, at least.”

“Ok, enough about horrible teachers. Tell me about the guy who ran into you.” Fitz pipes up, not wanting to be apart of a conversation dissing his soccer coach. I let him divert the conversation, even though I really wanna rag Michaels to the ground most of the time.

“Well, that's the thing. There’s nothing to tell- I ran into him and he fell. Then he ran away, without saying a word,” I say. “I wanna know just as much as you do.”

“That’s cute.” Dex comments, and I shake my head.

“You know what I mean.”

“Suuuuureee.” The tone of his voice makes me hit him, which starts a wrestle between the three of us that lasts for about half an hour. By the end of it, I’m sure I have multiple bruises from falling, kicking something wrong, and getting hit, but I don’t care much. We fall into a panting heap on Fitz bed, and we through half hearted punches at each other that hold no intention. Needless to say, I’m sweaty and gross, and when Fitz informs me that it's almost 8, I ask to go home. A man's gotta shower- and get his beauty sleep.

So Fitz drives me and Dex home, the three of us having pointless conversation about classes and plans we should make. I get dropped off first, and they wait as I carefully make my way to door of my house, not leaving until I get inside. I hear the thrum of his engine as Fitz drives off, then make my way to the bathroom.

After a quick shower, I brush my teeth and head off to bed.

I drift off, and my thoughts are filled with a mysterious blob with probably black hair and evil math equations.

[echodrops]

The Promises I Made (2018)

For the past twelve years, I’ve spent every New Year’s Eve compiling a list of fifty promises I intend to keep or fulfill over the next twelve months. The results have been truly amazing, and I have kept some promises I never thought I could. Although this year was really, really bad, oh lord... This year, for New Year’s, there will be a new set of promises for to me keep, but here are the old ones, for review!

 The Promises I Made (2018 edition)

1) I will be less anxious at work and not let passing comments from students or passive rudeness get under my skin as much. Status: Somewhat kept; I feel like I wasn’t as upset by students being rude this year as last year, but then again that might just be because I had better students. XD

2) I will be more proactive about my responsibilities for the college newspaper committee so we can make a great product. Status: Uhh… Can I count this as kept if the newspaper committee was put on hold due to decisions from the higher administration, so I didn’t have to be proactive about these responsibilities?

3) I will actually visit Mexico, not just accidentally take a wrong turn and end up there... Status: Broken. You know how some people like live next door to a restaurant for years but somehow never get around to trying it? Yeah that’s me, with the entire country of Mexico. Like, I literally live less than a mile from the border… I really should just go get lunch one day or something…

4) I will actually decorate my office with all the stuff I have had sitting around at my house for months. Status: Actually kept. I don’t feel like the decorating is really done in the office, but the decorations are no longer cluttering up my actual home instead of the office!

5) I will be better about focusing so that I can grade quickly and feel less overwhelmed throughout the course of the semester. Status: You know, it’s hard to say whether or not I did grade more quickly because spring semester I took on a really annoying class schedule and it screwed me over hard. I feel like I was a little faster this year, but I felt more overwhelmed than ever.

6) I will get the scratch on my Camaro buffed a bit to clear up the parts that can be cleared. Status: I just… didn’t do this. Broken.

7) I will repair the mortar on the fence outside the Utah house and seal the bricks on the window sills. Status: Somewhat kept/broken. I fixed the mortar on the fence outside but did not seal the windowsill bricks.

8) I will finish at least 26 books over the course of this year. Status: Look man. If my promise had been “Finish 26 fanfics longer than 100,000 words,” I would have blown this promise out of the water. But as it stands, I think I only made it to 10-ish printed books. I’m naughty. 9) I will retrim the grape vine at the Utah house and also spray/get someone to spray to kill the wasps. Status: Broken. I don’t know why I thought it would be smart to make a promise about trimming the grape vine, since that’s something you do in fall… when I’m not even in Utah… Hrmmmm… 10) I will get the mail man to stop delivering the wrong mail to my box because I’m getting ten times more mail for other people than for myself. Status: I had so many opportunities to do this, and I just didn’t. RIP.

11) I will have the fire escape window installed on the Utah house to make it legal to rent. Status: Broken. That’s a lotta money fam.

12) I will update Home and a Half at least four times (and no more double posts, just be chill Yehn, be chill for once…) Status: WOW. I was so, so optimistic, wasn’t I? 13) I will actually build all the furniture I bought for the Texas house and never assembled. Status: Mostly kept? I think there’s like one more thing I haven’t assembled (the spare futon), but up to this point I haven’t needed it, so...

14) I will actually watch Stranger Things since everyone keeps nagging me about it. Status: Broken. I just didn’t do this at all.

15) I will go to a dentist and get this annoying wisdom tooth removed and also see what can be done for my front tooth that got pushed out of alignment by said wisdom tooth. This really needs to happen ‘cause the partially erupted tooth is killing me. D; Status: Wisdom tooth is still hurting me… I am the worst at taking care of myself… 2019… the year of self-care?

16) I will take a road trip with my friend Karen like we’ve been talking about for a while. Status: Actually did this! Finally something completely kept. It was a great trip too.  

17) I will continue to serve as the video game club’s faculty sponsor. Status: I was too busy… T_T Broken.

18) I will lower my credit card debt by at least $2000. Moving is so expensive. T_T Status: I ended up having major set-backs this year in the form of having to pay out of pocket for a new windshield in my car and also my Playstation flat out dying on me, so this goal did not get satisfied. But now that my car is completely paid off (hell yeah!), I’ll finally be able to start making big payments on this sucker.

19) I will have ALL my lesson plans planned out in advance for Fall 2018 so that I can just chill next fall. Status: YO THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. There were still some instances of needing to fix things, but overall I did actually have all the lessons done in advance, and that was probably the only reason I survived fall at all lol.

20) I will finish painting the living room in the Utah house, finally. Status: I… forgot I even made this promise. Yikes.

21) I will be better about walking my dog because I have been slacking lately. Status: I wanted to be better, but every fucking time I go to walk my dog, the neighbor’s Chihuahua runs through their fence and tries to attack my dog, so literally every walk becomes a nightmare and there were a lot of days when I just didn’t want to deal with that stress… :/

22) I will finish a game other than FFXIV this year. Man, so many games have been piling up… Status: I couldn’t even find time to play FFXIV this year, let alone another game… 23) I will write a new, original short story. Status: I… did not write like at all this year. 2018 was just really hard for me. T_T

24) I will get my black glasses fixed this year, finally. Status: Uh… Kept… I think? At least I think this promise was referring to the damage to the frames of my black glasses, which I did get fixed. But now the lens has a scratch… V_V

25) I will attend more professional development/on-campus events and trainings to bolster my evaluation. Status: Eh, kept? I’m signed up for a conference and did some extra training thing that I can throw on the sheet, so I’m calling it good.

26) I will ink and color at least the one drawing of Yehn’zi that I finished sketching a while ago and did absolutely nothing with. Status: A whole lot of nope on this one.

27) I will really finish moving in to my Texas house, no more “I’ll fish out the clothes from the Space Bag when I need them but never actually hang them up.” Status: I’m counting this as kept, since the only thing that didn’t happen is that I never took the plastic wrap off the top of my nightstand, but like… hey that’s a really convenient way to avoid water spots so…

28) I will volunteer at a non-profit organization to fulfill my “service to the community” work requirement. I mean, I will volunteer from the goodness of my heart… yeah… Status: Shitttt this didn’t happen and it really needed to… Oh dear…

29) I will level ALL my classes to 70 in Stormblood. Status: This also did not happen. No time to play.

30) I will reach 1000 followers on tumblr. You should follow me. I’m only marginally a waste of time and space. Status: Kept and exceeded! I’m at like… 1540-ish right now I believe.

31) I will find a salon so I can get my hair dyed consistently instead of looking like a shabby blob half way through each semester. Status: Well, the good news is that my hair color fades so nicely that one of my students actually asked if the strawberry blonde was my natural color. But uh… no… it’s not… so…

32) I will find some way to pay back my coworker for all the incredibly nice things she has done for me already. Status: I mean, I took her out to lunch a lot but I don’t know if I really managed to feel “equal” on the debts I owe her for helping me out.

33) I will see an Anhinga (it’s a kind of bird!) in Texas. Status: Kept! The very first time I went looking for it, I found it, so score.

34) I will win Camp NaNoWriMo this year (because November might never be a possibility for me again, given how much grading I seem to end up doing during that month). T_T Status: Broken. Again, I wrote almost nothing this year. Too much stress. T_T

35) I will scout for new neighborhoods to move to with better internet access and closer to my work. Status: Kept. It’s still a bit too early for me to be looking for specific places, but I have a better sense of where I’ll be aiming for when I do go to buy something.

36) I will try to get better at Spanish, possibly by using my DuoLingo app more. Status: …Broken.

37) I will buy sod for the front part of the Utah house so that my house actually looks decent from the curb. Status: I COULD HAVE… But I didn’t.

38) I will be more proactive about commenting, reccing, and reblogging content I appreciate online because I find so many wonderful things but I rarely say as much about them as I should. Status: I think I was worse about this than last year. I miss the days when I didn’t feel like every five minutes taken to myself was stealing from my work responsibilities…

39) I will actually use my Instagram account to upload my photography somewhere public. Status: I forgot I made this promise too. Oops…

40) I will go dolphin-watching in the Gulf. Status: Somewhat kept? I mean… I stood on the pier… And saw dolphins in the Gulf. That counts, right???

41) I will clear all the photos and videos off my phone and camera SD cards because they are overflowing. Status: Kept but now they’re just sitting on the hard drive unsorted and in a confusing jumble of unnamed folders...

42) I will update my calendar with important dates—holidays, birthdays, etc.—and be productive about sending cards and well-wishes. Status: Broken, just totally broken.

43) I will complete my series of posts about Yato/Hiyori. Really. Status: >___> One day…

44) I will not work later than 10pm on any given work night. I can’t keep running myself ragged. I need to brake sometimes. Status: HA. I was really hopeful. More broken promises…

45) I will explore some new places/cities in Texas that I have not been before. Status: I… did not do this. I had a chance to do this and I didn’t. D;

46) I will get a gardener for the Texas house because the lawn is basically unmanageable by myself. Status: Kept. Because… the lawn really was unmanageable by myself so…

47) I will clean out the fridge more often. No expired milk or ancient leftovers this year please… Status: >_____> Ooopppssss.

48) I will get some sort of watering system set up so that the lawn at the Texas house isn’t a total disaster anymore. Status: Somewhat kept. I did buy hoses and sprinklers to water the lawn but mostly it’s just been raining a lot and that made the grass greener on its own.

49) I will help make one of the super complicated cookies from the new cookie cookbook I bought for Karen. Status: Actually kept! We learned much about the workings of cookie guns.

50) I will keep these promises. Status: Ouch, this one hurts a little.

Totals Kept promises: 12 Broken promises: 29 Somewhat kept/broken promises: 9

Y I K E S ™. I thought last year was crazy and was so hopeful for this year… I had NO IDEA how hard this last year was going to be. So many broken promises; I feel so guiltyyyyy. DDDD; Although I’m still at the same job and not planning on dramatically swapping entire career fields again, things are still in the process of settling and there’s still SO much more I feel like I need to work on. 2018 was the year of being constantly overwhelmed. Unfortunately, 2019 doesn’t seem like it’s going to be much calmer because I’m still working on designing classes and getting my lessons ironed out, but I at least no longer feel like I’m at rock bottom… So, I’m cautiously, very cautiously, feeling the tiniest bit optimistic?

  Let’s do this, 2019! The new set of promises will be up by tomorrow.

[historyfanstudyblr]

Astronomy Notes 3/20/19

For context

When I was at a community college, I was a volunteer note taker for a student in my class thru the accessibility center. I didn’t know who the student was or why they needed someone to take notes for them to respect their privacy, but it was a really cool experience knowing that my notes might help another student learn. While I don’t think someone would try to plagiarize my notes, I figured I’d go ahead and upload them all here anyways. Maybe someone will benefit from them.

Astronomy notes 3/20/19 – chapter 19

Star formation:

· Begins when a part of the interstellar medium collapses under its own gravity

· Cloud fragments begin to form as it collapses

· Cloud fragment heats up as it shrinks and eventually becomes hot enough for nuclear fusion

· At that point contraction stops and a star is born

· Emission nebulae are the birthplaces of all stars

· The large Magellanic Cloud (LLC) is a small galaxy/emission nebula where we have observed some star clusters, about 100ly across

Gravity vs. Pressure:

· Temperature of a gas is a measure of the average speed of the atoms or molecules in something

· Higher temperature implies a higher pressure, and vice versa

· Fast-moving particles emit energy as thermal radiation

· A small number of atoms, brought together by gravity will simply disperse

· A very large number of atoms is needed for temperature and pressure to increase

Interstellar clouds:

· Dense interstellar dust or molecular cloud, tens of parsecs across, thousands of solar masses – 10K, 10^9 particles/m^3

· Most interstellar clouds have just enough internal pressure to support themselves against gravity

· Process of star formation begins with some sort of instability (such as a shock of a nearby supernova, a nearby star being born, or magnetic disturbances in the cloud)

· A single cloud will turn into several fragments, which can take millions of years

· A single cloud usually forms several stars together (dozens or hundreds)

· Most starts appear to be members of multiple systems of stars, showing this to be true

· The sun seems to have been separated from the original cluster it formed in

Collapsing cloud fragment:

· Most stars form like the sun, which is the type of star we know the most about

· It will start out as a fuzzy, gaseous blob about .01 pc (100 times our solar system) and mass between 1 and 2 times the mass of the sun.

· Density is 10^12 particles/m^3

· Temperature is similar to original cloud due to dust (since photons can easily escape the thin material) – temperature really only rises in the center to about 100K

· Eventually the radiation from the center finds it hard to escape the cloud due to increasing pressure

· Pressure increase also causes fragmentation to stop

Protostar:

· Size has now shrunk to about the size of our solar system (100 AU across)

· Density in the inner regions is high enough that gas completely traps the radiation it emits – causing heat to build up rapidly

· This new dense opaque region is called a protostar

· A protostar’s mass grows as more and more material rains down on it from the cloud fragment

· The protostar’s radius continues to decrease, since pressure is unable to overcome the gravity

· The protostar now has a surface, a photosphere (inside the surface protostellar material is opaque to the radiation it emits)

· After 100,000 years, core temperature is about 1 million K, surface temperature around 1000K

· Size about Mercury’s orbit (100 times the radius of the Sun)

· Luminosity is much higher than the Sun

· At this point the luminosity is entirely due to the release of gravitational energy as the protostar continues to collapse

· The star can now be placed on the HR diagram

The gas cloud

· As the cloud fragment contracts, is spins faster and flattens into a rotating protostellar disk (about 100 AU) surrounding the protostar

· This is due to the conservation of angular momentum (an object already spinning will spin faster if it becomes smaller, like an ice skater)

Protostellar evolution:

· As a result of the gradual leakage of heat to the surface of the star, the protostar cannot reach equilibrium and contraction continues

· Protostar moves down and slightly to the left on the HR diagram (roughly constant temperature but less luminosity)

· This is called the Hayashi track

· Protostars on the Hayashi track often have violent surface activity resulting in strong protostellar winds – called the T Tauri phase

· Luminosity has fallen to about 10 times the luminosity of the sun, temperature is 10 times the solar value

· Gas is completely ionized

· Core temperature has reached 5 million K (still too cool for fusion)

· Rate of contraction slows down as luminosity decreases

A newborn star:

· About 10 million years after its first appearance, the protostar finally becomes a new star

· Its size is 1 million km, contraction raised the central temperature to 10 million K (temperature needed for nuclear fusion to begin)

· Fusion begins at the core

Reaching the main sequence:

· Over the next 30 million years the star contracts a little more and eventually reaches the main sequence

· Core temperature about 15 million K, surface around 6000 K

· Pressure and gravity are finally balanced, the rate of energy generation in the core is equal to the energy radiation at the surface

· Reaching the main sequence took around 40-50 million years

· Will remain unchanged for the next 10 billion years

Stars of other masses:

· Most massive fragments produce most massive stars, smaller fragments produce smaller stars

· Larger cloud fragments become main sequence stars a lot faster

· O type stars can form in a million years, M type stars can take a billion years

Zero-Age main sequence:

· Mass is not the only determinant of a newborn star’s location on the HR diagram

· Composition of a star affects its internal structure

Main sequence:

· Main sequence is not an evolutionary track, a star reaching the main sequence as a K cannon work its way up to an O or a B

· Next stage of stellar evolution involves moving away from the main sequence

Failed stars:

· Some stars do not have enough mass to begin fusion

· Jupiter, for example, never evolved beyond the protostellar phase – if it had accumulated more matter from the Solar Nebula, it would have eventually start fusion and become a star

· The T Tauri phase of the sun blew winds that caused the rest of the cloud matter to disperse, stopping Jupiter from gaining any more

· The threshold for nuclear fusion is about 0.08 the mass of the sun

· Low mass gas fragments eventually become brown dwarfs (about 12 times the mass of Jupiter) or planets (anything smaller than a brown dwarf)

[usually-abnormal]

Timothy Character Bio

(Like with Zethes much of this is headcannon. Unfortunately, Tim only had three major appearances in the show. Then the writers just kind of forgot about him, which totally sucks...)

Name: Timothy Hu

Age: Pre mutation 16, post mutation 18

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Brown

Hight: 6’0

Species: Mutant, formally human

Powers: (Post cure) Enhanced strength, acidic touch

Timothy lived a fairly normal life in New York with his mom and older sister, and aside from the usual teenage problems and occasionally having run ins with bullies he was happy. However, he soon began to notice strange occurrences in the city. People going missing, robots, and of course mutants. The cops didn’t do much or didn’t even seem to notice the weird stuff going on. However, one fateful night he would discover what appeared to be men in turtle costumes fighting a man in a robot suit. Actually seeing someone stand up to villains of the city inspired him to become a vigilante called the Pulverizer! Which didn’t go quite as well as he’d planned since he had no combat training what so ever...he figured it would be one of those things he’d learn on the job. How hard could it be to kick butt right?

Unfortunately things would continue to go down hill for him. After meeting the Turtles, (where he discovered they were mutants by the way) training with Donnie, and accidentally messing up a mission they were on, he was determined to continue his training and become good enough to fight by their side! What he didn’t know was the dojo he he started classes at happened to be involved with the Foot Clan, and since they were also fighting the Kraang he was under the impression that they were good guys. Really he probably should have been tipped off when he realized they were using him for cannon fodder. Once he realized he could use his position to help the Turtles, he became a spy for them. Even volunteering to Be mutated himself, thinking he could be stronger that way. But things didn’t go quite as planned...

When he was mutated, he was turned into a blob-like monster and was later frozen by Donatello during a fight when he tried to befriend April and accidentally hurt her. When he was first mutated, Donnie promised he would find a way to cure him. He was the first mutant he promised that to. Yet, for two years he stayed frozen in his lab. Even after finding a cure, even after an alien invasion where they had to flee New York, he was left behind. Forgotten. Abandoned. And when they came back? Nothing. Eventually he would be cured, but he would not be happy with his “Friends”.

Additional information:

Timothy is an amazing artist and wants to illustrate comics one day.

He’s actually pretty good at fixing things, not something as complicated as Donnie or the Kraang would make. More or less stuff like cars and motorcycles.

He actually went to the same school as Casey and April, but he wasn’t friends with them. He shared the same chemistry class with April and had crush on her, but he never said anything. And Casey...well he didn’t get along with him well... he tended to mess around with him a little too much... (Note, I don’t think Casey would ever intentionally bully someone. He’s not like that. But he does seem to be the type who could take a joke a little too far or not concider someone’s feelings sometimes. 2012 Casey anyway.)

After he’s cured, he keeps some of his powers since he was a mutant for so long.

He’s extremely mad at the Turtles after he’s cured, especially Donnie. And he’s a lot more bitter and cynical after he’s cured too.

[taeshabibi]

28 Days - Part 9

Genre: Angst/Fluff/Romance

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Warnings: Major Character Death, Mentions of Depression and Suicide.

Summary: You and Jeon Jungkook despise each other and were sworn enemies. But what if Jungkook took his own life? Would you be willing to make a deal with the Devil to relive the past 28 days and prevent Jungkook’s early end?

Read: Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3: Part 4: Part 5 : Part 6 : Part 7 : Part 8 : Part 9

Jungkook sits down on his bed and motions his hand for me to sit beside him. I stay frozen in my stance.

"Try again Playboy, I ain't never gon be on your bed," I snap. Jungkook looks at me strangely and bursts out laughing.

     "You have got to relax. I hope you realize you aren't my type at all. And why would I try anything, when you have a boyfriend?” Oh yeah, I forgot Taehyung and I were fake dating.

    "Bro Code are the rules. I'm just here to help. Am I not allowed to be a decent human being?"

    "C'mon Jungkook, when have we been decent human beings to each other?"

     "You make a fairly good point. I just feel so guilty about what happened today. I can't believe Ji Hee could be cruel to you..." he looks down in shame. “And I feel like it's all my fault. God I just want to die." He exhales a deep breath. Instinctively, I Dashi Run Run Run and sit beside him on the bed.

     "No no no! Don't say that. It wasn't in your intentions for Ji Hee to hurt me!" I patted his shoulder to assure him.

     "Yeah, but I'm a bystander sometimes, and it screws all the people around me over..." He then unexpectedly smiles.

     "I thought you said you'd never ever sit down on the bed, next to me, a Playboy?"

    I get up and tried to make up an excuse. "Uh, uh well you said you wanted to die..." I smack my head with my hand. "OH wait that's more of your dark humor?"

"Duh." He clicks his tongue and says "badum tss". "I still don't get it." I shrug my shoulders.

"You don't get a lot of things, y/n. So how about we get started on fixing your face so it doesn't get worse?"

"True..but first..." I get a chair from his desk and place it near the table of supplies which was next to his bed. "I'm using this seat, I'm not sitting on your bed."

"That's pretty pointless, considering you already sat on my bed and the chair you placed is right beside the bed.. but Do You.” He picks up the antibacterial ointment and twists the top off. He motions for me to get closer so he could put it on. Pulling back from him, I say, "I can do it myself, Jungkook, I'm not a baby."

"Are you sure you can? This ointment is fast healing, but it hurts like hell when you put it on."

Snorting, I grab the medicine from his hand. "It can't be that bad." Using my phone's camera as a mirror so I can see my face, I put a blob of ointment on my finger and place it on a cut above my upper lip. "HOLY SHITAKI MUSHROOMS! WHY IS MY FACE BURNING LIKE IT GOT STUNG BY A RADIOACTIVE WASP?" I scream and drop the antibiotic. I pull Jungkook by the collar of his shirt and our faces were so close that our noses were touching.   "WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME?" I whined.

    "Yes, this is clearly my fault. I apologize. Wish I gave you a heads up beforehand," he rolled his eyes. "Yes it is your fault. How the heck am I supposed to put this on?" I pondered.

   "I could put it on you, and you could endure the pain-"

    "That's an INGENIOUS IDEA! Why didn't you suggest something like that before?" I yelped.

     Jungkook tousles his hand through his locks and chuckles. "I guess I finally met someone who's even more crazier than me.”  I sit down on the chair so we're across from each other. He squeezes the ointment out of the container and hovers his hand above my upper lip.

"Are you ready?”

     "Hell no, but let's just get this over with." He gently spreads the medicine on my upper lip. I wince, but the whole time, he's looking right into my eyes. Even though it's painful, it isn't as bad as before. His golden brown eyes gazing into my own distracts me from the pain. It's like he's my own personal adrenaline.

"Not that bad right?" he softly murmurs as he places more ointment on my cheek. His fingers are so gentle. He lingers his hand there for a few seconds after spreading the ointment. I felt that he was doing that on purpose but I don't say so.

     Jungkook does the same to my other cheek and chin. Our faces were inches apart and we continuously look into each other's eyes. This wasn't my first time that someone else put cream on my face. My parents and school nurse have done the same. But it felt so intimate when Jungkook does it. Why was my heart beating so fast?

     "Your hair is in front of your forehead, where you have a wound. Is it okay if I move it?" Jungkook asks for permission. I nod and he slowly pushes my hair from my forehead. But the weird part he doesn't stop. He ruffles my hair, with his fingers repetively. It felt oddly calming. He suddenly discontinues and I'm lowkey disappointed.

     "Oh sorry. It's just... your hair is so soft," he apologizes and pulls his hand away. His face turns red like a tomato.

    "Really? Thanks! I use a special shampoo and conditioner that my mom's hair stylist recommended to me. I can tell you the name of it if you want-"

     Jungkook shakes his head. "Nah I'm good." He finally places the last of the ointment on my forehead and neck.

    "Well thanks so much. I guess I'll get going now." I tried to get up but my stomach was hurting so much. But I couldn't fully stand up. Sitting back down, I grunted.

"Y/n are you okay?"

"I'm gonna be honest...no. My stomach is in ridiculous pain. It's getting worse with each second," I look down in embarrassment.

"You don't have to be so ashamed of yourself. Honestly, the fact that you're not even crying or fainted..I'm impressed," he says as he props his chin in his hand.

I perk my head up. "Really?"

"Yeah. You have a lot of pain tolerance in comparison to most guys I know. You're really strong," Jungkook admits.

I grin. "Thanks so much! So what are we gonna do about my stomach pain?"

"I guess we're gonna have to put some rubbing alcohol on it...which means you're gonna have to take your shirt off."

I back away from him. "Oh hell nah."

"Y/n it's really not that big of a deal..."

"It is a big deal to me," I cross my arms. I've never taken my shirt off in front of a guy before. Never even had my first kiss. Yeah, that may be pathetic to most people, but I only want to be intimate with a guy I cared for. And it's not like I didn't have the opportunity to get a boyfriend.  Even though I'm not the most attractive person, a few boys have flirted with me before. I didn't have feelings for them so I refused their advances. And now I have to take off my shirt in front of a boy I despised a few days ago?

"Y/n I won't do anything to you..Oh, I know why you don't want to!" Jungkook chuckles and smiles to himself, knowingly. Oh dear Lord, he knows I'm a virgin.

"You'd feel like you're cheating on Taehyung."

"Hahaha yeah. I care for my boyfriend a lot, you know." I tried my best to sound like I was telling the truth.

"I get it, but you can't put the rubbing alcohol on yourself. And if we don't treat those wounds properly, you can get blood poisoning." He shrugs his shoulders like he tells this to people everyday.

"Blood poisoning?" I screech, with my eyes widening.

"Yeah. Look, you taking your top off won't have any effect on me. If it makes you feel any better, I've seen tons of girls shirtless before, so I'm immune." He covers his mouth and realizes what he just said.

"Damn, Jungkook. Really didn't need that extra not ordinary information," I scrunch my face and look away, disgusted.

     Jungkook begins panicking. "That's not what I meant! The circumstances required it. You see-" I️ put my hand up in front of his face.

    "I'd rather not hear about the situations that led you with being with shirtless girls."

     "I'm sorry y/n for making you uncomfortable.."

     "It's okay, you're human. You shouldn't be ashamed of yourself, Jungkook."

"I know I sound like a major player. I don't want you to think of any lower of me than you already do-"

"I don't think of you any lower," I say with complete honesty. His sex life is his own business.

He sighed in relief. "If it makes you feel any better, I can take my shirt off too. So you're not alone.” He raises the edge of the bottom of his shirt and I immediately shut my eyes.

    "I'd rather you not, you Playboy!" I yell.

Jungkook giggles at my gullibility. "Okay, how about you lift your shirt halfway up? So it's still below your chest and we can take care of the wounds on your stomach. Sounds good?" Hmm, that actually was a decent plan. I wouldn't have to take off my entire shirt and he can take care of the main gashes. The cuts on my chest seemed minor anyways.

"Okay." I️ stand in front of him and slowly lift up my shirt above my abdomen. It was a bit difficult to, because my sweaty sweater stuck to the wounds. He looks down at my body and grimaces.

"It's not that bad right?" I ask hopefully.

"No y/n it's really bad. Your entire stomach is black, blue and red. What did they do to you?!"

"They kicked me with their high stilettos. Oh yeah, one of those annoying jocks also hit me. It was only for about fifteen minutes." I shrugged.

     Jungkook looks like he's about to pass out. "You haven't had any breathing problems or lost of consciousness since then, have you?"

"Nope just exterior pain," I say, trying to not make it sound like a big deal. He calls someone on his phone and they discuss my physical state. The conversation ends and he puts it back in his pocket.

"I just talked to Jin Hyung. You know he's studying to become a doctor right?" I nod. Everyone in our school knew he's  a medical prodigee. He would have skipped grades and graduated college by now, but he stayed in high school to get the normal teenage experience. Apparently, he volunteers at clinics and has saved numerous lives in the emergency room.

"Anyways, I told him your symptoms and he says you don't display signs of internal bleeding. But if you don't improve in a few days and you feel your health deteriorating, you have to let me or Jin know. Okay?" I nod again. I mean what else can I do? Go to the hospital and get my butt whooped by my mom?    She'll make me move to a different school if she sees my condition. I wouldn't be able to continue on with my mission. I had to trust Jungkook whether I liked it or not. Later, I'll check google when I get home to see if I'm dying or not.

"Alright let's clean your tummy now." He obtains a few cotton pads and puts rubbing alcohol on it. This is gonna be just fun. He tenderly presses the cotton pad on my abdomen and I squirm.

"Y/n you gotta be still, or I can't help you." He places his hand on my bare back to hold me still. I was about to sass him, but he just smirks at me.

    "Just go with it." I gulped nervously and he cleans my entire stomach, while his hand held onto my back. It felt strange, but oddly assuring at the same time. This was just like when we were having direct eye contact when he was cleaning my face. He distracted me from my pain. He moves his hand away and pulls down my shirt. "You're done."

"Uhh thanks," I stretch my arms. Is there anything I can say now?

     "By the way, our absence in is covered in class. I got the attendance teacher to cover for us."

     My eyes widen in shock. "You were able to convince Mr. Stein?" Mr. Stein was one of the scariest attendance teachers to ever exist. If a kid skips class, he haunts them by calling his parents immediately and standing outside of their classes waiting for an explanation. If the student doesn't have a believable excuse, he yells at them and sends them into detention for a week. Our school was very strict and barely anyone could get away with unexcused absences.

"Yeah, lets just say I can be very persuasive." He winks at me.

    "Huh? Honestly I don't even want to know." I'm assuming it has to do with the money his family has. But how can he manipulate the system and not feel guilty?

     "I try to attend all my classes in school, but sometimes I gotta help with my dad's job, so I skip. Stein covers for me always, which is nice," he says casually.

    "What's your dad's occupation?"

    His cheery smile becomes a cold stare. "You'd be better off not knowing." Jungkook was scaring me again.

    I sigh. "It's alright, I'll just leave then. But officer I got one question for you... WHAT ARE THOSE?" I point to his Iron Man socks he was wearing indoors.

     Jungkook glares at me, completely unamused. I️ cough awkwardly. "Okay I have a second question then." Jungkook raises his eyebrow. "Depending on what it is, I'll answer it."

"Why did you save me today? You were teasing me all week knowing that I wrote the lie on the board. We've pranked each other since we were kids. What was different about today that made you my savior instead of a villain?"

Jungkook pursed his lips together before finally answering. "I just dislike it when people abuse their power and harm others. It's different when I do it to you."

     "Different how?" I scoffed.

     "First thing, I don't ever have my friends involved in my mischief. It's all from my own resources.”   I open my mouth to argue, but he's right. His shenanigans just involved him. “Second, I don't think I've ever physically hurt you. Have I?"

     I have war flashbacks. No he really hasn't. Emotionally traumatized me? He hasn't done that either. He pissed me off a lot, but he's never crossed the line so far. And I've been equally terrible to him too. "I guess not."

     "But what Ji Hee did...it's unacceptable. Having a bunch of minions gang up on a single girl because of an ingenious prank?" Jungkook frowned.

     "Wait you thought my prank was ingenious? You liked it?"

     "Hell yeah! I wouldn't say it's one of your best, but not gonna lie, I was impressed. Also, Ji Hee's face after realizing the prize wasn't real was so funny. Ahh I haven't been that entertained like that for awhile," he reminisces and then smiles. "But wait how did you know it was me?"

     "I immediately recognized your bubbly handwriting. Surprised no one else did. See, you gotta be able to change up your writing. Major flaw in your pranking technique." I nod, soaking up his advice.

"I just hate people like Ji Hee who attack defenseless people. I mean if she wanted to hit you, she should have at least done a One VS One to be fair. But to be honest, she wouldn't win."

"C'mon Jungkook you know I wouldn't be able to stand a chance. She's on the school's dance team for Pete's sake." I roll my eyes.

"Yeah your body ain't got that muscle, but you have a fighter's spirit. If you actually tried, you could beat anyone," he says with sincerity.I shake my head. "Well I wouldn't be able to beat you. I mean you're a walking brick of muscle," I look down and gesture to his athletic physique.

"Excuse me, y/n did you just check me out?" Jungkook steps closer to me and cocks his eyebrow. "Uh, no, I was looking at your outfit. I love plain black shirts!"

"Sure. Anyways, back to Ji Hee. Yeah you lied. She could cry a river about it. But the fact that she had all these people holding your body, torturing you and you could do nothing to defend yourself. That's not cool." I nod. Someone who gets me.

"And the bruises and cuts...if I didn't come sooner, some parts of your body could have been permanently damaged. She probably knew. But didn't care because she was blinded by her hatred." I nod again. I didn't have anything to say. I didn't know that Jungkook had such a wise, old soul.

"I'm gonna let you on a little secret," Jungkook whispers. He looks around the room as if there were security cameras watching us. I️ inch towards him, eager to know what he was hiding. He gestures over to me, like no one else in the universe could ever know.

"I️ may enjoy destroying your life, but when anyone else attempts to, it hurts me."

[pjstafford]

Last Saturday night I was at a David Duchovny concert in Vancouver.  The concert venue was at the Imperial - a great venue- but in a neighborhood that the Urban Dictionary says is the worst neighborhood in all of Canada and some homeless advocacy groups argue  is the poorest neighborhood in all of North America.  Many of us at the concert had traveled to Vancouver from across the globe and there was some fear and trepidation which I over heard from other concert goers about this neighborhood. I had worked as a homeless advocate and have been on the board of a homeless shelter in the 90′s in Albuquerque.  I want to share my viewpoints of my experience in the worst neighborhood in Canada from an X-File frame of view because what brought me to Vancouver on October 14 was, of course, to see David Duchovny in Vancouver where the X-files was and is being filmed during a week-end which included 1013 Friday.  How does homelessness and the X-file find a theme together?  That is outlined in the link to the video above.  

I guess one way to set the mood is to say that my friend and I were only spending a week-end in Vancouver, but many other David Duchovny fans had been in Vancouver a week and had been to many famous filming sites.  My friend and I were staying at a Ramada fairly near the venue.  We drove through the area at first looking for parking before deciding that the valet parking at the Ramada was the best choice.  As we drove by I said- looking at the homeless and the city streets and remembering the video above- “oh, my God, this is the neighborhood they shot “Home Again” in.”  I realize, of course, the complete insensitivity to the plight of homelessness to see it in such focused X-file terms, but it was my frame of mind at the time.  My friend and I did in fact look for the filming sites of “Home Again” as we walked around the neighborhood, but because it is from the last season which we have not yet seen hundreds of times (only dozens) we were unable to locate exact locations.  We did watch the episode again back in Seattle the night before I flew home.  

On Saturday morning we decided to walk to the Ovaltine Restaurant (the filming location of a scene in Jose Chung) and to go by the venue.  We found ourselves walking down what I now realize is the area considered the worst two blocks in at least Canada and possibly North America.  The poverty was clear- people living in tents on the street a few blocks away from some fine, upscale and beautiful neighborhoods.  We then went to the Ovaltine Restaurant, the venue, back to the hotel for an hour of two, back to the venue to stand in line (starting at noon), walked back through the neighborhood to gastown for a bite to eat and back to the venue to stand in line again, before taking a cab back to the hotel after the concert.  

I want to state fairly clearly that there was not one time I felt scared or fearful (although I would not walk back to the hotel in the evening because I am not foolish) and the only time I was asked for money was after leaving the venue after the concert.  As we walked down the blocks at 9 a.m on a Saturday morning, we were greeted with “Good morning Ladies” and comments that our coffee cups were pink.  When our way was blocked and I said “excuse me” people moved out of the way politely.  There was nothing unpleasant about that walk except for being confronted with the fact that poverty exists and people (human beings) live in horrific conditions day in and day out.  

As we stood in line for 6 hours to see a concert, there was an need on an occasion to use a restroom.  The coffee shop sometimes let you and sometimes said that it was just for customers so my friend and I started using the community center on the corner which was truly more of a homeless center.  Again, I was greeted, offered water and shown the restroom.  My friend found blood in one of the restrooms so we climbed the stairs to use one on the other floor.  There were food being served, there were disposable containers for needles, there were signs telling people where to go if they were overdosing.  People were being afforded respect and dignity.  I was impressed.  

Here are some statistics from “Addressing Homelessness in Metro Vancouver” a white paper published in February 2017.  

An estimated 80% of homeless people suffer a chronic health issue (45% suffer two or more health conditions concurrently)15 b. 44% of sheltered and 55% of unsheltered homeless have an addiction (2014)16 c. 33% of sheltered and 36% of unsheltered homeless suffer mental illness (2014)10 d. 30% of sheltered and 27% of unsheltered homeless have a physical disability (2014)1

As we stood in line several neighborhood people talked to us.  We actually had sandwiches we did not want to eat, but couldn’t find any person that wanted the sandwiches.  Again most neighborhood people were polite, courteous and curious about why so many of us were waiting in line in front of a concert venue 6 hours before the doors opened.  I laughed on and off for hours at a woman who said “what are you protesting?”  I told my friend that we were the laziest protesters ever - no signs, no marching, no chanting- worst protest ever.  At one point a women who appeared to be suffering from withdrawal of some time fell.  Other people in line offered her assistance but she could not focus on them enough to accept their help.  She was in her own world.  After a few minutes when I witnessed her getting her shaking under control and her checking her legs to see if she was hurt, i went up to her.  From her perspective I was a big brown blob walking up to her and I startled her.  I told her that when she was ready I was willing to help and she desperately reached for my hands.  I helped her up and she grasped a tree until she was ready to stand and walk on her own.  I offered her food.  She did not want it.  She never asked for money.  Never threatened me.  

The next morning I woke up thinking of that episode “Home again” and the point of the episode.  I wondered how many of us X-Files fans might have thought back to that episode that night having experienced these and other moments.  The point - people are not trash.  They are not disposable.  They are not to be discarded.  I can walk away from that neighborhood and I can avoid the similar downtown areas in Albuquerque, but the people and the problem still exist.  From my experience in Albuquerque I know the underlying issues of homelessness - mental health issues, substance abuse, traumatic brain injuries, lack of literacy, lack of job skills, disenfranchisement from society, family and friends having giving up on them.  I know that veterans make up a large percentage of our homeless population in America, I know that senior citizen homeless numbers rose drastically in 2008 and subsequent years when retirement savings were loss and, like Vancouver, native people are a higher percentage in the homeless population than in the general population.  We can look to our educational systems, our prisons systems, our health care services (especially for the mentally ill), our foster care systems and juvenile care systems and to our economy.  The reality is a whole lot of us who go through our lives as hard working, normal citizens are closer to homelessness than we would like to admit.  In the past year I had to borrow money from friends and move into a friends home because of unemployment and I actually consider myself a fairly successful human.  We are all just humans doing the best we can in our life with what we have.  Nothing could remind us more of that than having spent so much time in that area around people who despite their issues were polite and courteous to us. 

I know our fan groups are a socially conscious and caring group of people who donate to all kinds of causes - let David Duchovny issue a post asking people to donate to charities on his birthday and beautiful things happen.  The proceeds from this concert went to hurricane victim.  This is a fan group which organizes volunteer and donation events for charities in honor of Gillian Anderson’s and Scully’s birthday.  The holiday season is ahead of us .  I am especially asking something of every one who attended that concert and interacted that night with a person who lives on the street in the worst neighborhood of North America.  If you fall into this category, than this holiday season in honor of “Home Again” and the X-files they do something in your communities to alleviate the effects of homelessness, reduce the possibility of someone becoming homeless or end some of the underlying causes of homelessness - take blankets or socks to a shelter, donate to a literacy program, call your legislators and demand better services for addiction treatment.   Buy subways cards and pass them out whenever you see someone with a sign saying hungry.  

At the very least, the next time you are in a situation where you are going to interact with homeless individuals (perhaps because of a David Duchovny concert), please treat people with respect and kindness.  People are not trash.  They are not disposable.  I was reminded of this last Saturday.