#I have ideas I just can’t put em down because brain

[an-albino-pinetree]

From the studio that brought you Kinger, I bring you Longer

[1427]

When the Levee Breaks (pt. 5)

Daryl Dixon x OFC

Story Summary: The one in which a stripper that used to know Merle and Daryl shows up at the Atlanta camp. Daryl’s feelings are complicated but mostly he hates her, right?

Chapt Setting: The Farm/Woods

Chapt Warnings: pretty explicit drug use (meth), season 2 Daryl, degrading/sexist language (he’s starting to get better lol), SOPHIA CHAPTER (I think that deserves a warning)

Word Count: 2.7k

A/N: Daryl’s POV story. Daryl’s starting to be less of a dick, trying really hard to make it feel organic/make it make sense in the story. Idk. This chapter was really rough to write because… it made me sad. Also have no idea if it even makes sense (the hallucination bit, really hope it does) lol ALSO; I looked up some timeline stuff and i just?? Really thought Daryl was out there for days on his own? But apparently he wasn’t? We’re just gonna say that he is in this story. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I can only do so much when the timeline of TWD is fucking stupid sometimes. (I mean it. Come for me. Idc. Rick was in a coma for 59 days without food or water???!?!!!? Bye)

masterlist

17+ mdni (no smut in this one tho sorry)

Like fiberglass in my veins, it tears through me. Mellow, at first, almost think I should rail more before I can feel myself sweatin’. Different kinda sweat, comin’ from my fuckin’ soul. 

Haven’t felt like I was doin’ something ‘wrong’ since I was little. That feeling that ch’ya get when you’re doin’ somethin’ ya know you’re not s’possed to. This ain’t the first time I done spazz, but maybe it’ll be the last. The anxiety about doin’ it goes away the second I feel the devil kick me through my nose to the back of my brain. Even though I know it’s comin’, it always feels like gettin’ skullfucked by satan. 

Been out here for a day. I brought Merle’s shit with me because I decided to finally get rid of it somewhere. But I got somethin’ that needs doin’. And anyway, I got years of experience with ice. Not doin’ it. Sometimes doin’ it. Never let Merle know, he’d’ve made some big whoop ‘bout it. And everytime he’d gone and done more than he remembered, he woulda blamed me. Shit though, sometimes it was. 

M’not like Merle and Beatle. Ain’t an addict. Can do shit and put it down. Always been able to put it down. Figured other people could too, that they just didn’t wanna. ‘m not sure, but still kinda think that. 

Never felt fuckin’ guilty about it before, though. Fuckin’ Beatle. I’unno if it’s cuz I’d be done with her if she did the same shit, or if it’s cuz I know if she knew that I was - she’d be mad at me. Mad I didn’t invite ‘er. 

But this shit ain’t for fuckin’ playtime. Only reason ‘m even doin’ it i’so I can find Sophia. So I can stay awake, focus, and get ‘er back. They use ta use this shit in war. War’s the reason methamphetamines even exist. Nazi’s? Hell, every single one of ‘em in WWII. Kamikazi’s loaded up, totally fuckin’ wasted outta their minds on crystal while they bolted ‘em in. Kept ‘em awake, kept ‘em happy, kept ‘em focused on the mission. Tha’s what I gotta do. 

I can’t stop lookin’ til I find ‘er. Sophia. ‘m the only one that can, only one that knows how. And anymore, ‘m the only one that seems to give a shit. ‘Sides Carol. And Beatle. She wanted ta come. Told her she’d only slow me down. Distract me. Drawn more geeks. She woulda. Told her I didn’t need food either but she packed me some anyway. Knew I wasn’t gonna be hungry. Knew I was gonna use this dumb shit to help. But whatever. 

Doesn’t matter what happens to me, right? My life’s not worth nothin’, not compared to that little girl. Now that her old man’s outta the picture she actually got a chance. Maybe not mucha one, not the way shit is these days. But she got ‘er mom. And ‘er mom can actually be ‘er mom now. Not scared of some piece’a shit prick that finally got what was comin’ to ‘im. 

Man fuck that guy.

The trail I’m followin’ disappears so I backtrack to the mangroves where I found her doll and try to find another one. 

I start to wonder what kinda old man Beatle had. What kinda mom? Startin’ ta realize I don’t know a damn thing about Beatle. I know she likes drinkin’, she likes laughin’, she likes fuckin’ with me. But… 

Beatle keeps surprisin’ me. Not just because she let me hump her face a few days ago, the fact that she liked it, shit I haven’t even had a second to process that. Nah, more cuz she hasn’t brought it up. Hasn’t tried to hold my hand again. Hasn’t been annoyin’ me nearly as much. Not even at all, if ‘m honest. 

My brain’s goin’ a million miles a fuckin’ second over Beatle and what happened between us. Not just the other night, but back then. Got questions that need answerin’ but she ain’t here. Try to keep myself occupied with trackin’ but it ain’t like trackin’ takes much thinkin’. Follow every trail I pick up, but none of ‘em lead me to Sophia. 

I’d prob’ly start gettin’ really frustrated about this, but that’s what crystals good for. All the dopamine I need, and nothin’s annoyin’. Focus.

✨🏹 

Bent branches, wilted leaves, mud impressions, walker guts. Trees and rocks and blood and mud and dirt and greens and browns and reds and blacks. And it’s dark and it’s light and it’s dark. And it smells fuckin’ rotten. Bent branches, wilted leaves, another trail, another dead end, another undead shithead. Bent branches, wilted leaves, mud impressions, Beatle. 

How many times did I go into Merle’s bag and take the devils dick up my nose? Cuz Beatle’s standin’ here right in front of me. ‘Cept she’s all done up in makeup and glitter and her pupils are the size of dimes. Little pink crop top, tiniest pair’a daisy dukes I ever seen. ‘n she’s in my face sayin’ the shit I been thinkin’ about her sayin’ since that day she said it. 

“I like you, Dar.” 

“You like bein’ fucked up more.” I say it like I said it the last time. 

“That’s not true! I mean - I like you, Daryl.” She steps closer, tries to put her hand on my cheek before I brush her off. She slumps back a little, turning away. “You like me, too. You said it.” 

My hearts in my fuckin’ throat and I’m standin’ there, this can’t be fuckin’ happening. I know is’not but doesn’t make it feel any less real. “Tha’ was before I really knew ya, Beatle.” 

Hate that I said that to ‘er. Did I really say that? Cuz maybe that’s how I felt. Hell, maybe that’s how I felt last week. But it ain’t fair. I don’t know her. Still. Now. Don’t know ‘er at all. Thought I did. Thought I understood what kinda girl did those kindsa things. Is that really what I said? Fuck.

She’s still turned away from me, but I walk the half circle around to look at her face. And she’s sobbing. Silently, trying to stay as still as possible. I… I don’t remember this part. Maybe I didn’t see it? Nah, I saw it. Just didn’t care. Didn’t wanna look at ‘er. Didn’t want to hear her lame ass confession. Especially after she’d brought up that I told ‘er I liked ‘er. She sniffles and wipes her face before she pulls a bubble pipe out of the waistband of her shorts and lights the bottom, starts smokin’ it. She asks if I want a hit, like last time. 

I go to say no, but the words don’t come out. Instead my hand reaches for it. I look back up and Beatle’s dressed all different. Baggy jeans and a bikini top. That night. Fuck. Shit. I don’t want to relive that night. 

“I promise, I won’t tell Merle.” She says, handing me her lighter. And I smoke it. Inhaling the vapor slowly like she had. “You gotta sip at it, like it’s a coffee and you’re drinking the air to see if it’s still too hot. Roll the bowl or it will burn.” I do it the way she says. She’s like ten years younger than me, but she looks at me - talks to me like it don’t matter. Like she don’t see it that way. Guess I don’t either, never really did. 

I’d never wanted to smoke it before. But that night I wanted to. With her. Woulda done anything she’d asked that night ‘fore she ruined it. I ruined it. Til it got all fucked up an’ it was never the same again. Not the way I saw her, not the way she looked at me. 

I’m goin’ through memories like they’re happening all over again. Feelin’ fuckin’ sick. I don’t wanna remember this. 

I hand the pipe back to her and she asks, “How do you feel?” 

“Fine.” 

“Just fine?” She smiles. 

“Good.” I clarify. 

“Good.” 

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. “I think I like you, Beatle.” 

She laughs too hard, “you think?” I feel myself getting sicker and angry again all at once. 

I split in half. One half feelin’ those same feelings I felt. That this conceited fuckin’ bitch really acts like everyone likes her. I hear her words and it sounds like she’s sayin’ ‘well obviously’ - but the other halfa me hears it like a real question. Like she wanted ta know what I meant. I don’t remember how I responded then, but I can hear myself say it, “Self-obsessed cunt.” 

Beatle laughs, “Is that what you like about me?” 

My misunderstanding continues; Thought she was pickin’ on me. Makin’ funna me. All these years. All this time. Thought she was fuckin’ laughin’ at me. Never told a girl I liked her. Not that I never did like one, just never told ‘em. Not like some teenage fuckin’ confessional. And I do and what?  she just laughs.  

Shit. 

Cuz inside ‘m screaming. Screamin’ at myself ta say somethin’ different. To jus’ tell her. She’s special, she’s exciting, and when she smiles at the shit I say it makes me feel like I’m the only one in the fuckin’ world to her. Tha’s what she wants ta here. Tha’s why she’s askin’. 

“Nah. Forget it.” She nods, and I thought she did forget it.  She forgot until she brings it up again in the memory I already re-lived. 

Tha’s how I was so damn sure she didn’t give a single shit about if I liked her or not. Didn’t bring it up again for months. Didn’t give a single shit about me at all. Felt stupid for ever thinkin’ she might. Just a dumb crush on a dumb girl, and I forgot everything about it. An’ every little thing she did that made me like ‘er ended up as somethin’ else I hated.  And every time I saw her after that she was fucked up on somethin’. Meth or booze or weed. Usually all three. 

It comes at me like a fuckin’ freight train, her lips crashing into mine, but this time I want it. Don’t wanna stop kissin’ ‘er. Instead my arms move and I push her down to the ground. She’s wearing the crop top again, can tell she’d been cryin’. She’s layin’ there in the rocks lookin’ up at me and I flash back to the living room where this happened, where she’d told me she liked me back. I wanna beat the shit outta myself for makin’ her look like that. 

How didn’t I see it? 

I did see it. I just didn’t care. Thought I knew what kinda girl did those kinds’a things. 

Wonderin’ what kind of old man she had. What kinda boyfriends before she met me. How maybe she’s just as fuckin’ scared’a feelin’ stuff as I am. How maybe it took her months to even get up the courage to tell me after I’d told ‘er never mind and slowly started to hate her. How many’a those drinks were for courage? How many’a those hits were cuz she was nervous?

Shit. 

And she’s runnin’ away like she did then. Away from me an’ outta my life until a few weeks ago. I know it ain’t real but I run after her anyway. Screamin’ her name into the open air like maybe somehow I can change it if I can get her to come back. But she’s gone and ‘m still running tryin’ to find her. Screaming for her ‘til my throats hoarse. 

‘Til the walkers hear me. 

✨🏹

Andrea fuckin’ shot me. What is wrong with this fuckin’ group?

✨🏹

Beatle’s in the bedroom with me but I can’t look at ‘er. Don’t wanna. Feels like she knows what I was doin’ out in them woods without ‘er. Like she can see the dirty shit in my soul and for some reason it makes me ill. Can’t look at ‘er. Knowin’ I hurt ‘er like that all that time ago. Knowin’ it now like I ain’t ever known anything else. 

It’s just me ‘n her and she doesn’t try to talk to me. Just lets me lay there hatin’ myself for all of it. Didn’t even find Sophia. 

Spent a lot of my days in my life hatin’ myself. Thinkin’ I was good for nothin’. Now ‘m sure of it. 

I feel the bed move under the weight of her. She hugs herself around me, and like some pathetic kid I fuckin’ cry. Don’t know if she can tell or not but she tries comforting me anyway. “It’s okay, Dar. You did your best.” Her voice… how could I have ever thought it was annoying? Her bein’ so nice just makes me hate myself more. 

“Lea‘me alone, Beatle.” Shakin’ her arm out from around me. She gets off the bed and sits back in the chair she’d been in. God, I fuckin’ hate myself. Wanna scream No, come back. I didn’t mean it. 

Still got question’s that need answerin’. This time Beatles right here, and I ain’t got nothin’ to lose. “Why were you naked in Merle’s room?” Grateful that she’s sittin’ behind me. Don’t think I could talk to ‘er ‘bout this stuff if she was lookin’ at me. Right now? If I saw her face? Don’t think I could talk at all. 

She laughs. Fuck her stupid fuckin’ laugh. “I still can’t believe you think I fucked around with Merle.” 

“Why not? Y’all hung out every other day.” My voice is sharp, feels like she’s laughin’ at me again. Always feels like everyone’s laughin’ at me. 

“We all hung out every other day, Dar.” 

“Stop callin’ me tha’.” 

“I was carpet surfing. Your dumbass brother spilled all the schkag all over the damn place.” 

Oh…. But, “Ya didn’t have any clothes on.” 

“I never had any clothes on, Daryl. You sure I wasn’t just wearing something ‘slutty’? You know, like you always said I was? Cuz I don’t remember, but I’ve never been naked with Merle. Ever. Sounds fuckin’ gross.”

Oh. 

It made sense. Makes so much sense, ‘specially now. She keeps talkin’ an’ ‘m grateful cuz if I tried to say anything else I’d start fuckin’ cryin’ again. “I liked you, man. I…” she stops herself. Wanna beg her to keep goin’ but I can’t. 

Instead I ask ‘er the only question I got left, “Why’d ya leave, then? Ya left ‘n ya never came back.” 

She’s silent for a long time. “When you and Merle moved, where’d you go?” 

She did come back. 

“Why’d ya leave, Beatle?” Doesn’t matter where Merle and I went. She’s avoidin’ the question. 

“Got sober. After that night… with you. Wanted to get sober. Wanted to…” she don’t say the rest but she don’t need to. I got it. Fuck, my heart can’t take it. 

“Cuz I said ya liked gettin’ fucked up more than ya liked me.” It ain’t a question. I know. 

“Think it was more the other thing you said.” 

Tha’ was before I really knew ya, Beatle. I can still taste the words. “Shouldn’t’a said that to ya.” My voice is barely a whisper. 

She gets back up on the bed and puts her arm around me again, this time I don’t shake her away. Her voice, so close to my ear, “I didn’t want to tell you that I came back. I didn’t want you to know that I got sober for you.” 

What? “Why not?” 

“Wasn’t sure you’d care. And if you did… I didn’t want you to have all the what-ifs in your head that I have in mine.” 

She hugs herself into me so tight it’s hard to breathe, and she tells me, “It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

I feel guilty, can’t take any of that back. Can’t make any of it better. I don’t deserve this. Her. After all the nasty shit I ever thought about her. After what I did to her the other night. I can’t bring myself to tell her to leave cuz I know she wants to be here. Don’t wanna make her cry again. 

So I let her hold me. Even though I don’t fuckin’ deserve it. 

[melancholysway]

TMNT Imagines: S/O being mugged/stalked (2012)

Since this user PMed me about this request, I'm just going to put the message here :)

@miss-andromeda

Thank you so much! Could I actually request one more? 2012 headcanons again because it's my favorite era of the boys 😅 Anyway, we know that the turtles can be real protective when it comes to their family being in danger, including April and Casey. But when their S/O is in some type of danger (for example, they get mugged one night or they're being stalked), how would they respond? I do apologize for the back-to-back requests, but your writing is so good I can't help but ask for another request! (Okay, that sounded a lot better in my head 😅) But my point is, it would mean the world to me ❤️

Okay! I'm finally finished! So sorry for the wait! For some reason along with college, I wasn’t sure how exactly to write for this one! Like I said I write TOO much, so I have so many ideas that I can only squeeze in so much Yk? Anyways. Hope you enjoy!

Leonardo

- Now, 2012 Leo is usually level-headed, he thinks about everything before he does it. He’s a strategizer.

-But, if he sees you in danger, he doesn’t have to think of anything other than getting you out safe. He can deal with whoever is mugging you later.

-You’re his priority.

-Leonardo, much like Raphael, is protective over you. It’s in his nature as a leader to look after the ones he loves.

-You just so happened to be that person for him. He loved you, there was no denying that he did

-He trains you, to have some tricks up your sleeve if you were to ever get caught up by a Purple Dragon or some low-life mugger.

-Because he knows you can handle it. You can handle yourself.

-That’s why he fell in love with you in the first place. You were strong, especially during the times others would be weak.

-He spends his time with you, how to get into your fighting stance, how never to throw the first punch. Let them run out of stamina, and then go in for the finishing blow. It’s a bonding experience for the two of you, and it always ended in a beautiful kiss after every session.

-“If you ever get into trouble, Donnie made these, here,”

-He gives you a T-phone. It has a little shell as the case, and when you go through it, you see Leo is the only “special” contact. His name has hearts on it, and his contact photo is a selfie of you and him during one of your all-night Space Heroes marathons. It’s Leo holding up the camera and smiling while you sleep on his chest.

-You can’t help but smile. Leo is a very sweet boyfriend, that was the truth.

-Contrary to popular belief, and by popular I mean the fics about Leo mercilessly beating the shit out of anything that is a threat to his s/o because they mug them is…false.

-That’s more Raph’s style. Leonardo doesn’t handle things that way. -He thinks about you.

-Because that’s what matters here. His anger that someone hurt you doesn’t. He’d rather save you first and make sure to get you to safety before handling things his heart wants to.

-He thinks with his brain, not his heart. However, with you, it’s both.

-So when you press the emergency button on your T-phone to notify the guys, you’re hoping they can come and help in time before anything bad happens.

“Do you think it’s a butt dial?” Donnie asks, looking down at his Shell cell while the emergency alarm goes off. Usually, it goes off when April’s in danger, which is often. She’s the target of the Kraang or Shredder, not you. You- now see this as you want- had no value to either party.

This didn’t stop you from falling victim to any local gangs in your area.

Raphael and Michelangelo emerge from their rooms, yawning after a long day of training. They were visibly tired. Donnie was visibly tired as well since he’s been in his lab all day and night. Leonardo was somewhere in the middle, but the thought of you in any danger had woken him up.

“We should treat each one as an emergency, Donnie,” Leonardo says, a wave of nervousness going over him. This was the very first time you dialed them with the emergency button. After glancing at your location on the map, you weren’t in your apartment. In fact, you were a few blocks away, and the heart icon that represents you (which Donnie programmed to be a heart on Leo’s phone ever since you both started dating,) seemed to be between two buildings, and it appeared to mimic an alleyway.

So, yeah, fluke or not, he had to go see if you were okay.

Leonardo could visibly see the tiredness in his brothers’ eyes and decided to do this solo. He can handle it, he always could. He knew how, especially if it was a petty gang.

“You guys stay back, I’ll check it out,” Leo’s blue eyes stare at his brothers. Raph gives him a confused look, “Wait, you don’t think we can handle it?” He asks, now looking annoyed at his older brother.

“No no, it’s not that! It’s just…”

“Mwah mwah mwah!” Mikey teases, making kissy noises. Raphael and Donnie get the hint, and now Leonardo has a trio of kissing noises in his face, only for him to sigh.

“Guys stop! It’s…okay, it’s that. I want to be able to help Y/n out on my own. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I couldn’t do that? Right? Right? Say something, please,” Raph, Donnie, and Mikey exchange look, only for Raphael to do the talking.

“If you need us, just give us a call, bro. Go help Y/n,” That’s all Leonardo needs. He leaves quickly, while Mikey begins making kissy noises at his older brother, just for Raphael to smack him upside the head.

~

“Don’t make it any harder than this shit has to be, just fuckin hand over your bag!” You continue backing up into the alleyway, trying to buy yourself time, until your back hits the cement wall. You look up and realize you’ve hit a dead end. You think back to the defense lessons Splinter has given you, and right now, you wished you could move instead of being frozen in place. You were cornered like a mouse. The cat is holding a knife, hissing threatening words, and flashing its fangs into a sinister smile.

Your breathing becomes heavy, as you see the knife come closer to your neck, soon pressing up against it when you still won’t hand over your bag. There was valuable stuff in there. Your ID, a piece of Leo’s bandana that wrapped around your keys as a good luck cloth. Yeah, very valuable shit. You did not want to lose those.

“Don’t make me cut ya for it, love.” The man in a ski mask says, his beady eyes glaring down at you. The word “love” drips like venom from his covered mouth, and you can’t help but shiver in response.

You’re seriously wondering if the emergency alarm worked. It was late at night, almost midnight, what if the guys were sleeping? What if they were all busy or their t-phones died? These scenarios played in your head as to how you would respond to the situation you’re in but…they don’t end very well. You end up bruised and beaten for protecting your bag.

You don’t say anything, but your eyes say all the words your mouth doesn’t. You’re scared.

That is, until, a dagger that’s shot from God knows where perfectly grabs the knife from the loophole in the blade, taking it from the mugger’s hand as it flies and is stabbed into the brick wall off to the side. Nobody could do something with such precision except for one person. Err, turtle.

You don’t dare look around, because the man in front of you is also capable of using his hands to get what he wants. But. it seems that he’s confused, frantically looking around, yelling curses into the atmosphere. He doesn’t seem to look behind him, as can faintly see your savior emerge from the shadows, creeping up before grabbing the dirty mugger and bringing him into the darkness. You hear muffled protests and screams, only for them to go silent after you hear an angry voice whisper:

“Don’t catch me seeing you hurt them again.”

It’s quiet in the alley now, the only noises being the cars on the street nearby and their honking of them. You look into the darkness, trying to see your knight in the soft blue bandana.

“Leo,” You say softly. You can’t see anything, until Leonardo emerges from the shadows, looking at you with worry. Leonardo’s blue eyes scan your whole body, to see if there were any signs that he had hurt you. He looked panicked as if he had been dreading this scenario for the longest.

He has.

“Did he hurt you? Please tell me he didn’t.” Leo pleads, cupping your cheeks and checking to make sure you don’t have any marks. There is a small dribble of blood coming from where the knife was placed on your neck, and Leo notices, sighing to himself and kissing you on the lips. As you kiss back, you can’t help but cry. Leonardo feels your tears land on his cheeks, and he stops kissing you, looking into your eyes and wiping your tears. His big blue eyes were something that you could get lost in, and they could calm you down all the same. As he continued wiping your tears, your sobs passed, only into sporadic sniffles.

“Hey, love,” You feel better. That’s who you wanted to hear call you “love.” Leo was the only one who got the privilege of calling you that. You’re reassured by his soothing voice.

“I’m here,” He lifts your chin, making you look into his ocean eyes, “as long as I’m here, you won’t get hurt. Not on my watch.”

“L-Leo…I froze, I couldn’t…” “Y/n, you’re safe,” Leo reassures you before you can break down again in front of him, “We’ll work on defensive skills- together.” He takes your shaking hand into his own, and the shaking seems to die down. Slowly, but surely.

Leonardo was grateful he got there when he did, or you would’ve been hurt. Or worse, but he doesn’t wanna think about that happening. He knows he can’t be your bodyguard 24/7, and he knows things like this happen, rarely, but they do. The only thing he can do is train you. Train you like Splinter did April. For shit like this, for you to defend yourself, without freezing up. He hates that he never trained you for the actual beginning part of the fighting. How to not completely forget the training you’ve been through. How to calm your nerves. How to not expect the worst. He didn’t teach you that, Splinter wouldn’t forget to teach something like this, but Leo did.

“Come, I’ll take you home.” The leader says, putting his hand out for you to hold. You take it, as you would any other time he offered his hand. As you interlock your fingers with him, you can’t help but feel a sort of comfort. Like his presence is home for you.

Raphael

-Raph was never one to think as Leo does. He’s passionate, and therefore, he’s the type to think with his heart. If anyone hurt any of his family, they better be ready to feel the wrath of an angry green-eyed turtle.

-He was sure he would always be there to help you out. He wanted to be the one you called on. As usual, Raph is very reliable. That’s one of many amazing traits about him.

-Very cautious of you. He knows his strength, and the last thing he wants to do is hurt you.

-But, he WILL hurt those who hurt you.

-He’s fully devoted to you, so it’s only natural that he does this.

-“Need me to give little miss bitch an ass whooping?”

-Yeah, he was like that. And when you came around to meet Casey, ---Raphael made one thing very clear when he saw how the hockey player stared at you.

-“Back off, man. Y/n’s already taken.”

-“By who!? Casey Jones likes what he likes,”

-“Me.”

-“Oh. Well, I guess Casey Jones can let this slide.” Casey knew he would never dare cross his good friend Raph. Plus, Casey literally falls in love with anything that breathes that isn’t named or looks like Irma, so, there’s that.

now, you were almost sure someone had been following you home.

-You weren’t sure who exactly it was, but you had a feeling all the same.

-So when you told your boyfriend about it, he was on it.

-He freaked, though. Because, who’s the asshole who wanted to watch your every move??

-“When I find them I- they’re getting the ass-kicking of the century!”

-He wasn’t one to plan out anything, so he decided to watch you. Watch you walk home at night, and make sure nobody was following behind you.

-Because, well, he cared. He told you that when he had the courage to spill his feelings out.

-You cared about him, too.

-This went on for a while. He would watch over you from the rooftops while patrolling on his own, making sure you were okay during the day, and making his way to see you at night. He would escort you to the lair (what a gentleturtle,) and take you home after if you didn’t stay the night.

-Raph had not seen anyone following you, up until one evening, when he noticed someone in the weirdest of places.

“What the hell?” Raphael squints his electric green eyes into the distance, trying to figure out just who is watching from above the rooftops down at you. What was their reason? As he got closer, he noticed the familiar face.

Xever.

Now, just what the hell did this Salamander want with you? Why was he so infatuated with you? He looked to be studying you. How agile you were, how aware you were of the world around you.

Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t good. Because this quiet stalking would only turn into something worse. So, before Xever can do anything, Raph calls you.

“Baby, don’t freak, but I found out who’s watching you.” Your body turns cold, unsure of exactly who it could be. You start to look around frantically, wondering if someone is behind you. Feeling an overwhelming sense of anxiety wave over you, you walk faster.

“W-Who is it?” You ask after Raphael told you to walk as normal. There wasn’t anyone behind you, but the idea of someone hiding somewhere made you extremely nervous. As Raphael continued to watch over you and monitor Xever, he realized Xever had seen him.

“Fuck, he saw me. Okay, go straight home, okay? I’ll take care of Fish Face for ya.” That’s how he was, always. Always thinking of you.

“Are you sure? Raph, I-” “Of course I’m sure. I want you safe. I love you.”

“Be careful.”

“Do you know who you’re dating? I’m the most careful turtle I know.”

“Raph.”

“Okay okay, I’ll be careful,” With that, Raphael takes his sai from his belt, preparing his body and mind to take on Fish Face by himself.

Xever walks slowly, not with a need to run. He eventually makes it over to Raphael from a few rooftops away.

“Turtle.” He says as Raphael scrunches his nose from the sudden smell of the walking fish market. What he hated most about being around Xever was that he smelled like…well…fish.

“The talking Unagi Don, what the hell are you doing watching Y/n like that? Lonely much?” Raphael seers, throwing the first punch. Xever dodges and counters it, sweeping Raphael off his feet.

“Foolish mutant, I knew this human meant a lot to one of you, and now I know it’s you, I only want to take them to Shredder even more.” Raphael charges, causing the fish to back up onto the rooftop's edge, only to do a backflip and get back comfortably off the ledge.

“You’re not takin’ them anywhere. Not while I’m still around here to kick your ass like our regularly scheduled programming!”

With that, Raphael and Xever fight on the rooftop. It’s not unusual for Raphael to fight angrily, but right now, he was angry. Because, what exactly would Shredder do to you? Who was he to just pick someone he just happened to care about to use as a pawn? Shredder’s pointless vendetta was negatively affecting his family, and now his significant other. He didn’t want you to become another April. Someone that had to constantly look over their shoulder. You had a whole life to live, not that April didn’t, but, you were less involved with the turtle’s missions or issues than she was. It wasn’t right. And of course, he felt guilty.

He felt guilty, because, well, he got you into this mess when he revealed himself to you the first time you two had met. He should’ve thought it through, he let his personal attraction to you wind up to this point, where now you’re more than friends, yet at a cost.

It wasn’t right. And like Leo says, if you mess up something, it’s your job to fix it.

~

The fight was done. Xever had never experienced this type of Raph before. The “protecting their lover” Raph. Because, if we’re being honest, Raphael fighting for his significant other is a sight to see, yet an experience you wouldn’t want to be a part of. Unfortunately, Xever was.

And when it’s done, for the very first time, Xever feels defeated.

Because Raphael holds back a small part of himself when his brothers fight, but this time, no. There wasn’t Leo there to tell him to calm down, or Donnie to scold him for almost stabbing him on accident. No, right now, it was just Raph.

And as he goes running to your window, he wants to make sure you got there safe.

You hear the frantic knocking on your room window, and you open it, allowing the cold air to rush into your room. You stare at Raph, watching as the cuts and bruises littering his skin, with scratches on his plastron. He looks at you, smiling.

“You okay?” Another beautiful yet detrimental trait of Raph is that he thinks about you over himself. Right now, you were fine. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was Raph.

So you ignore his question and help him inside, sitting him on your bed and just kissing him as gently as you could. He’s a big boy, he can take some hits and scratches. But right now, you were there to doctor him up. He knows not to stop you once you’ve got that look of concern on your face; so instead of protesting, he lets you take care of him.

You clean the cuts and some small gashes, dressing his minor wounds. He doesn’t require any stitches and thank the Lord because that’s more Donnie’s thing.

You give him an ice pack (it’s a frozen pea bag) to put on his head while you retrieve some medicine for his headache when you stop as you see he’s staring at you.

“What?”

“Nothin,’ just like seeing you so…dominant.” He smirks, causing you to smile and roll your eyes in response.

“Hush,” You hand him two capsules of Tylenol, “and take these, you should feel fine, I hope.”

That last part seemed to get Raph. The last thing he wanted was for you to be concerned like that, he was going to be fine and he knew it.

“I’m gonna be more than fine thanks to you, PhD in reviving mutants,” he jokes, bringing you into his arms as he gives you a chaste kiss on the lips.

As long as you were safe, Raphael didn’t mind a few boo-boo’s.

Donatello

-The weakest out of all his brothers so

-Don’t expect him to come alone if you need saving

-Sure, if it’s a few foot ninjas, he can handle. But do NOT get mugged by the Purple Dragons, Donnie kind of can’t handle all of them at once. He’s better when he’s with the team. He fights more confidently.

-He gets overwhelmed if he’s outnumbered. This happens even when he’s fighting with his brothers. He starts to overthink everything and, well, it’s just a mess.

-As your boyfriend, Donnie is pretty protective over you, I mean, look at how he was with april in the show!

-He really wants you safe, because that’s how Donnie is.

-Calls you all the time, especially while walking home, he has to know you’re okay.

-He sees how much you care for him, when he comes back bruised from a mission, you’re there to take care of him.

-Donnie always aids his brothers, but he was so used to helping himself, that it felt foreign to him to have you dress his wounds.

-But anyway, he would freak if you were in danger.

-Like right now, Donnie walked you home after a long day of spending your Sunday with the turtles. They were your therapy, and down in the sewers, there were no worries; just family.

As you’re walking through the alley to climb the fire escape to your apartment window, You both stop as a person appears to peer in the alleyway from the entrance. You and Donnie can’t really see who they are but their figure, but the purple-banded turtle assumes it’s a homeless person. So, you both act normal, standing still for a bit in hopes that they’ll leave, as they probably can’t see either of you.

Oh, but they can. Well, you, at least.

After stumbling a bit in front of the alleyway, you can now see the unknown’s face. It’s a man, an older, greasy-looking guy who doesn’t know what deodorant is. He grins at the darkness engulfing the alleyway, “I see you~” The man’s voice snarls, causing you to scrunch your nose up in disgust. You weren’t sure how he could see you, but one thing’s for sure, there was gonna be a little situation in regard to getting him to leave you and Donnie alone.

You feel a protective arm wrap around you, and you sense Donnie behind you, putting on that protective face of his. Not like Leo’s, where he’s a mama bear looking out for his cubs, no, like a loving boyfriend, looking out for his significant other.

He wouldn’t let anything happen to you. He couldn’t, and this low-life wouldn’t be hard to deal with at all.

“I think you should leave,” You say, feeling a wave of confidence go over you since having Donnie by your side. Usually, you would try and ignore, but right now, you felt confident that he wouldn’t lay a finger on you.

“And I think you…should come with me…back home, sweetie~!” After every stop between his statement, he takes a step closer to you, and now, this is when Donatello intervenes. He’s not one to show himself unless absolutely necessary. And right now, it was absolutely necessary if it meant protecting you.

“Nope. You’re gonna walk away,” Donnie states flatly, hovering his free hand on his bo staff just in case this drunk tries something funny. He steps more toward the man, ultimately revealing himself to him. Honestly, he looks so drunk that he probably won’t remember this shit in the morning.

“Eugh! What the fuck are you!?” After jolting back from the sudden dramatic jumpscare, Donatello sighs. He’s used to that. Although, he always remembers that you didn’t react that way when you first saw him. It was more of a friendly first meet, considering you were being cornered by the local Purple Dragon gang and was saved.

“The one that’ll….put you in a hospital if you keep it up!” Donnie wasn’t the best at clapbacks when he’s in protective mode, maybe while under pressure but, that’s more Raph’s thing. But, he would save all the sarcastic remarks for later, right now, his priority was you.

It’s no surprise that the man laughed at this, and retorted with a comment about Donatello being a…

“I ain’t listenin’ to a fuckin…lizard thing,” Yeah. That. When did lizards get shells is beyond me, dear readers.

As the man steps closer, Donnie tells you to back up and steer away from him, to lessen his chances of a friendly fire.

“Love, let me be the hero for once,” Your boyfriend was so used to being helped by his brothers when it came to saving you or his other 2 human friends, that he never got the chance to be the only one praised. He would love to hear praise from you.

So, you get out the way quickly, to respect Donatello’s request. He smiles gently and kisses your forehead, and he approaches the man head on. He doesn’t want to hurt him per say, just rough him up that he gets the hint.

It all changes when the man takes Donnie’s approach the wrong way, and gets hostile. So, he runs (sloppily, might I add) into the alleyway fully, coming full force at Donnie. It’s nothing crazy, he tries to punch him but, Donnie’s much more smarter and sober than he is, so, it’s not nothing he can’t handle.

So when the drunk pulls out a knife, it’s all a little too cliche. The turtle in purple got shot at, stabbed at, shell, even spat at by a big spider…thing. So, this was nothing. He swore it was nothing.

Donatello ditches the bo staff utilization for a pressure point instead. Yes, it was risky, but, Donnie was sober, he was not. His vision is most likely impaired, and his cognitive ability isn’t so well.

Except sometimes, humans get unknown superhuman strength when drunk. Not in a good way, either. They do dumb things, regretful things.

You watch as Donatello meneuvers around the man, taking notice at how focused your boyfriend was, seeing his rare face covered in self-confidence, up until he got to putting his finger on the pressure point right under the man’s chin. Long story short, he got a little stab in at Donnie’s arm right before he was knocked out. It happened so quick, the ninja didn’t even realize what had happened until after the fact. His body was pumping with adrenaline that he almost didn’t notice. Not until you said something.

“Hey…Donnie! Your arm!” You run toward Donatello, who’s now feeling the pain in his arm as he’s coming down from the adrenaline high. His breath hitches as he notices the new fresh cut on his arm. He wasn’t stabbed, per say, just grazed. He couldn’t believe the man who could barely walk in a straight line managed to get a hit in on Donnie- a highly trained ninja.

He stops to look at the blood trickling down his bicep and onto the concrete, staining the ground with drops of crimson. “Gosh, ouch! Okay okay, ow!” The sudden winces from Donatello break your heart, he’s not usually one to outwardly show when he’s in pain.

“Okay, Donnie? I’m gonna take you back to the lair, okay?” You’re already dialing for Leonardo and pressing the button to let him know it’s an emergency.

You rub circles onto your boyfriend's shell as he struggles with the new massive headache and the world around him spinning slowly, “Leo? Donnie got hurt, can you get the fir-” “Already on it! Do you need any help getting him here? Are you in danger? Is Donnie breathing okay? Is-” Leo’s slew of panicked questions are cut off by you.

“Alrighty mama bear, Donnie’s conscious. I got him-” You take off your sweater, wrapping it around the turtle’s bicep, it seems to relieve him somehow, as the bleeding has slowed, staining your cotton lavender sweater to a deep plum.

“I just, let me be his hero for once.” You say. You can handle getting Donnie back to the Lair. It wasn’t hard. As long as you kept him conscious and moving, you would get back to the lair in no time.

“I…okay. Call me if anything happens, okay?”

“Leo, I got this,”

And you do, you so got this. You get Donatello down to the lair safe and sound, already grabbing an ice pack from the freezer once you set him down on his examination table. Since he doesn’t have the strength to dress his graze, you take charge,

“Just order me around on what to get and what to do, I got it.”

He’s so appreciative. He can’t help but smile at you. How beautiful your face looked when you were concentrated on patting down his graze with peroxide, knowing it’ll burn, so you do it as quickly as possible. How you give him a soft kiss on the forehead when you’re done (he loves forehead kisses by the way,) and tell HIM to rest. You’re the doctor now, and it’s your turn to take care of Donnie. He smiles weakly after it, and his purple-red eyes land on your lips, as you get the hint and dive down to kiss Donnie’s lips, giving him reassurance that you’re okay, and he will be, too.

Michelangelo

-Mikey is very outspoken. He calls it like he sees it. Maybe not in the best way, he’s direct without realizing it.

-So he’s the best person to confront a stalker

-Because he’s not the “rah-rah” kind like Raph is, more like the “go away you’re weird” kind of confrontation.

-If it’s someone he doesn’t know, like a human, he’s not sure how to confront them.

-Like, should I show myself, should i not?

-For the past few weeks, someone on campus had a…weird obsession with you. There was a party coming up in a nearby house known for frat parties, and when you turned down their offer to be your “date,” they were upset. REALLY upset.

-But, they can’t get mad at you! You had a boyfriend.

-When you went down to the lair and complained that Romeo (this was Leo’s nickname for your new stalker) requested to follow you and message you again on Instagram, Mikey could feel a little mad.

-Which never happened, he wasn’t the angry or jealous type

-But when it came to you, he felt the need to be protective over you, and this Romeo guy wasn’t about to get in the way of you both.

-So, he does something kind of dumb?

-He does some FBI searching on the same social media site he found -Bradford, and was able to find Romeo. And trust me, it took a long, -LONG periodically time.

-Luckily, Romeo literally shows ALL of his life, where he’s at, what he’s doing, who he’s with, etc

He's status on facebook is that he's friends with you, which leaves Mikey slightly pressed?

For good reason, you were NOT Romeo's friend.

-When you reject him another time, the stalking gets worse, he begins going to your job, and sitting there, leaving when your shift ends. It’s until today that he tried to follow you home.

-Michelangelo just so happened to catch your emergency call as he was skateboarding on the rooftop, and he was on the job.

-He can handle it, no way he couldn’t. Some desperate guy?? ROMEO?? Yeah, he got this.

“Okay, seriously, stop fricken following me!” You decide to confront Romeo, head on. Although the streets were bare, you were still outside, meaning he seriously couldn’t do you no harm. The blonde haired football player couldn’t do anything but stop in place from a few feet behind you. He stands, slightly upset that you figured it out.

“One date, Y/n! One! Just one! I swear I’ll leave you alone! Or give me your number! Something!” This begging, coming from an soon-to-be adult is frankly very cringeworthy, and you’re catching secondhand embarrassment from the desperation his words hold.

“R-” You catch yourself from saying his code name, Romeo. You’ve been so used to saying it that it’s almost natural. “Steven, no.” You give a simple no once again, yet he persists.

“What could possibly be the reason why, huh?” Steven isn’t giving up, and now he’s just begging to be rejected again with that question.

“I have a boyfriend, that’s why! And honestly, even if I didn’t, I would still say no to you man!” What was so hard to understand?

“That’s harsh Y/n.” Steven’s demeanor had changed, he looked somewhat crazy right now, as he laughed after his statement, “I was being nice, but since you wanna be a fucking bitch to me, I’m gonna be mean.” The blue-eyed Romeo starts to walk over to you, and you back up, both going down the street. You make a turn, but instead of turning the curb, you wind up going into a more secluded area. As you back up even more, you realize the mistake you had made, as you were now in an alleyway.

‘Great,’ you think, ‘How cliché of me.’

You pressed the emergency button on the T-Phone your friend Donnie had given you a while back. This would be the first time you used the emergency feature on it. After pressing it, the signal had been sent to all T-Phones, notifying the turtles. Honestly, you were hoping that it would be quick, but you knew you had to do some serious stalling for the time being.

As Steven circled you like a cat honing in on its prey, you continued to back up, looking all around you for something to use as a weapon. Now, you had some training from Splinter, but you’ve only started to train like he taught April for a few days. So, you had no weapon of your own. But, Splinter always says that a great fighter can use anything around them as a weapon in some way.

After quickly glancing around you, scanning everything in the terribly lit alley, you find a potential weapon- a pole to what looks like an old american flag near the dumpster. Unfortunately, you had to get past Stev- you know what, Leo’s code name is funnier- Romeo, in order to get to the pole. So, you begin to look for ways to get around him. You’re unsure of what his intentions are with you, but you know they aren’t good. Romeo wears a…perverted look in his eyes, and now you realize that you need that pole.

You do something unthinkable, and walk closer to him. It’s a brave act, but you have tricks, dear reader. Romeo is taken back by the sudden change in your aura, as if you’re inviting him to touch you, yet…

When he gets close, you instantly knee him where the sun-don’t-shine. So bad, that he falls to his knees, whining in pain.

“Ow! My…my…my coconuts!” His voice is high-pitch like a school-girl, and you almost felt guilty for doing it so hard.

Almost.

What makes this all so good, is that suddenly, Romeo is hit by what appears to be a balloon, yet as it pops, his hair becomes wet.

As you look around, you can see a two white slits that resemble eyes from atop the rooftop, as it’s dark, you can’t see who it is, but you have a good feeling who it might be.

Suddenly, a large puff of purple smoke appears behind Romeo, and after it fades away, you can see Michelagelo emerge, winking at you as he kicks Romeo back down as he tries to get up, feeling a presence behind him and looking back.

“Eyes straight, Romeo!”

“Romeo?”

“You questioning me?” Mikey challenges, throwing another water balloon on your stalker. It must be some cold water in those balloons, because Mikey has the poor dude shivering in addition to the cold temperatures tonight.

“Uh, no! No! Y/n, you know this freak?”

“The only freak here is you! Following Y/n around like…a stalker!” Mikey exclaims, now pinning Romeo down after his freak comment. Totally unnecessary by the way.

“You’re the freak! What are you!? Some kind of mutant?” Romeo should really learn to shut his mouth if he knows what’s good for him. After the second freak comment, Mikey twists his arms tighter, how Raph does when he wants Mikey to say “Uncle.”

“Yeah, a mutant, and theres 3 others that look just like me so, we better not catch you doing this to our Y/n again!” To finish off the threat, Mikey bonks him on the head with his nunchuck, causing Romeo to whine in pain, and finally agree to leaving you alone after Mikey wouldn’t let go, almost spraining his wrists.

~ “So, our Y/n, huh?” After getting to the window of your apartment, all is fine. You felt a weight being lifted off your shoulders tonight thanks to Mikey. And, thanks to Donatello for being such a genius and making those T-Phones.

“Well, you know,” Mikey rubs the back of his neck, laughing nervously, “You are our friend, but…you know!” He nudges you playfully, wathcing as you giggle and embrace him into a hug.

“Thanks, for getting rid of Romeo.”

“It’s kind of fitting right now, since, you know, we’re on a balcony and such, like a tower,”

“Mikey, that’s Tangled,”

“Oh, well, whatever! I’m just glad you’re safe, cutie,” Mikey always gets excited during loving moments like these, and after breaking the hug, you reach up to kiss him on the lips, it’s no surprise, he tastes like pizza. It’s always like that, but, you’ve come to enjoy it. If pizza lip balm was a thing, it would taste like your boyfriend.

//

Taglist:

@bee-1n-space

Masterlist

[httpknjoon]

(re)starting over again | kth; 10

plot | Your four-year relationship with Taehyung was going well and strong. Until he was involved in a car accident, resulting to him losing some memories. By some, it means everything that happened five years ago. Things he remember? His friends, his bakeshop, and his ex girlfriend from the past. With that, you tried to keep up, restarting over again.

words | 4.3k+

genres | fluff, angst, amnesia au

pairing | taehyung x reader

warning/s | -

note | oh my god. hi, everyone! i'm still alive haha i apologize for the *long* delay. may wasn't my month 🙃 but now, i'm here and I split this chapter, so expect a 10.5. this is A LOT OF ANGST. no fluff for now. just full-on gloomy. also, i'll be replying to everyone who sent their asks soon! tysm for sending 'em. again, i apologize for the delay! enjoy reading :)

main masterlist | series masterlist

Someone’s a little gloomy today.

The sound of echoing thunder woke you up today, along with the rings of your alarm in your phone. 5:15 AM. You groaned as the brightness from your phone’s screen hit your vision. After five more minutes of just staring at the most uninteresting wall in your room, you get up from your bed to prepare for work.

Unsurprisingly, your head feels heavy and so is your chest and eyes. Every step of your bare foot on the ground strangely felt like you were floating into space. The weather is cozy and cold, but you didn’t even flinch when the cold water hits your skin. You stood under the shower, the heater not even on, just staring at your feet.

I mean, he could have told me.

The sentence popped into your head. There is this part of you that is in between the scale of angry and sad after knowing about Lily visiting the bakeshop and talking to Taehyung. You wondered if Taehyung even had planned on telling you or if he don’t think he should have told you. You are starting to think he was only friendlier with you these past few days because he learned what happened between him and Lily.  You’re beginning to think that he is only nicer to you now after bad their relationship went.

But did he even owe me that? I��m basically a stranger to him.

Another idea, opposite the other one, crossed your mind. You always try to be understanding and put yourself in his shoes in this confusing situation. The fact that your boyfriend doesn’t really have any idea who you are always staying in the back of your head. It’s always there as a reminder that Taehyung doesn’t know you. And his not telling you that he met up with his ex-girlfriend days ago confirmed that you are probably someone in the background for him. Someone… who suddenly lives in this house with him.

And thanks to that confirmation, more questions were formed by your brain.

You shut your eyes close and turned your head up, feeling the waterdrops on your face. Sighing, “Who even am I here?”

Taehyung, what am I even to you here?

The question floats in Taehyung’s head over and over again. The pain and confusion in your voice also play on a loop, adding weight to his shoulders and thorns in his throat. He wished he could answer that question easily, but he can’t. Seeing someone who treated him with care and kindness break down in front of him because of him is a slap on his face.

Because Lily is your girlfriend… right?

More guilt built up in him when he learned that you were aware that he still initially saw Lily as his girlfriend after he woke from the accident. It surprised him to hear you say that you cannot be mad with that. When you said that, he almost instantly wanted you to be angry at him, to let out every emotion you were feeling at the time.

Because you are too considerate and kind… and patient with him and this situation you’ve been put into. You didn’t even have to stay; you could’ve just left him the moment the doctor told you about his amnesia and all. But you stayed… and even looked after him for a whole month. Looking back at everything now, he knew. He should have just told you.

He thought you would be mad at him for reaching out to an ex. He didn’t know how you would react if he asked about Lily. He didn’t know you and he admit that was his fault. He has been working on knowing you these past few days, but now after last night, it felt too late. He should have made an effort earlier than this. As much as he hates it, Taehyung’s list of should haves is getting longer.

Now, a tray of chocolate chip cookies bakes in this oven you two have in your kitchen. He decided to make some after having trouble sleeping. He was shifting and turning on his bed for hours, possibly because of two causes: his head injury and you. Earlier, you were talking about how much you’ve been craving cookies. He knows that his cookies cannot resolve what’s going on right now, but he hoped that they will make you feel better. Even a little.

Taehyung managed to sleep for a couple of hours but still woke up later two hours past midnight. He quietly prepares and bakes the ingredients for the cookies. He was quick as it was the easiest pastry he can make. By the time he was putting the tray in the oven, he heard grumbles of thunder.

Should I put it in the jar? Or…

Almost thirty minutes past three, Taehyung yawned as he waited for the cookies to cool down before he stores them. He looked around your kitchen. In these quiet moments, he is finally starting to notice some details in some corners of this place. Particularly, the kitchen.  He wondered if he picked the color of the walls or what to put in it when you two bought the house. His curiosity begins to grow about what you built together throughout your four-year relationship.

He wondered how great everything was before he lost his memories of the last five years.

You were supposed to leave at six o clock. But you didn’t realize how much you took your time with your thoughts that you ended up leaving twenty minutes late than your plan. Rushing to leave, you didn’t bother for breakfast and ran straight to the front door in your scrubs and jacket with backpack and umbrella in hand. If you still have time to spare when you arrive at the hospital, you’ll just buy something in its cafeteria.

As you get off the bus, you speed-walk to the hospital. You were too in a hurry to recognize who greeted you along the way, but you just greeted them back anyway. By the time you reached the locker room, you were catching your breath with less than ten minutes left to prepare for your shift.

Thank God, Jisoo’s not here. You sighed when you looked at yourself in front of the small mirror in your locker. Your eyes… were puffy. It’s not that bad. But everyone who will look directly at your eyes would tell the difference. You hoped no one else would notice.

“Good morning!”

Your eyebrows raised. Julia’s jolly greeting filled the quiet room when she entered. A couple of nurses who were also there greeted her back while you hid behind your locker door, trying to think of a quick remedy or even an explanation for your eyes. Because next to Jisoo, Julia is your closest friend here. She started working here two years ago. Her kind and sociable nature made her a friend to everyone. You three immediately went friends during a mutual graveyard shift schedule.

“Hey, YN. Good morning.” she opened her locker, which was next to yours.

You gulped, “Good morning, Ju.”

After one last look in the mirror, you closed the door. Julia was busy organizing her things in the locker, while she continues speaking.

“Jisoo’s already on break for her wedding, right?” she asked, still not giving you a glance.

“Ah, yes. For only one week though.” You replied, trying to act normal. You don’t know if you should go or wait for her to time in since you two usually do—with Jisoo if your shift schedule match up.

“You know, my dress for the weekend is still in the— Oh, what happened?”

In a quick glance, she immediately spotted a certain emotion on your face. Concern was written all over her face as she stopped and faced you.

“W-What?” you chuckled awkwardly, looking away.

“Why did you cry? What’s going on?” she asked softly, still worried. “Are you okay?”

Oh, that question. You don’t know what the hell that question has, it always breaks you down. You bit your lower lip as you looked back at Julia. You tried to hold on to the strings that were putting you together.

You sighed shakingly, “Yeah.”

A small, sad smile formed on her lips, “You sure?”

You feel like if you try to say anything again, it will just turn into a sob. So, you just nod. Unexpectedly, she reached out her arms and hugged you. Julia knew something was wrong. Well, she can definitely read through your eyes and the simple quirk of your lips that you probably don’t know you do whenever you’re bothered or tired. She can even feel the weight you’ve been carrying in an embrace.

“How about let’s go out together later? After this shift?” she offered.

 

“Sure.” You agreed, washing down any effort to put a useless mask on your emotions.

The cookies that he left on the kitchen counter for you were left untouched. He left it in a Tupperware, something that can fit in your backpack, along with a small post-it, written: cookies u can bring @ your shift today :)

He likes to think that the Tupperware probably went unnoticed by you instead of thinking that you ignored it. But what if you did? The idea of you being mad at him scares him.

“I swear, whoever will eat those cupcakes would choke on rainbow sprinkles.” Jimin entered the kitchen when Taehyung was just spacing out. He hung his coat behind the door and put on his apron. “What’s up?”

“Hmm?”

Jimin went on, “I arrived twenty minutes late and you already made two batches of blueberry cupcakes, one tray of snickerdoodles, and a lot of banana bread. What’s going on?”

Taehyung stared at him for a second, having battles in his head if he should tell his best friend about what happened. Jimin didn’t fail to remind him about telling you about Lily. And if he learns how you reacted last night—Oh, just sucked it up. Taehyung exhaled.

“YN learned about Lily.”

Jimin raised an eyebrow, “You told her?”

“She found through Lily herself,” Taehyung replied and he can read the confusion on his friend’s face.

“Huh?”

Taehyung went on telling how you and Lily introduced yourselves, how you introduced yourself as his friend, how Lily shared that she visited the bakeshop just last week, and how you remained quiet and bottled up with emotions until you two went home.

“She was so upset, she didn’t want to talk about it,” Taehyung recalled. “But she just broke down and she is still so nice in the middle of telling me how she feels. She told me that she cannot be mad at me for meeting up with Lily or for everything else. Because she understands. She always understands and I’m sure she is a wonderful person– but… But I really didn’t just give us a chance. She reminded me that we also happened after asking me who is she in this whole thing.”

He paused, remembering almost every word you said to him last night. He was too busy chasing what happened five years ago that he ignored someone and something important in his present time. 

“Then, who is she to you?” his best friend asked.

“I… I don’t know.” Taehyung sighed, unsure. “But she’s not a stranger. Calling her a stranger would be an insult. I know she’s much more than that.”

There was a few seconds of silence. Taehyung looked down, resting his hands on his working table. Jimin just pats his shoulder for comfort. He knew saying things like I told you so or anything close to that is just useless. Taehyung already knew what he had done, he don’t need more reminders that he probably fucked up. 

“Well, you need to figure that out.” 

“I know.”

“I don’t know anymore, Ju.”

You wiped off the tears on your cheek as you confessed. Finally, after a whole day shift at the hospital, you get to open up to someone. As soon as you two left the hospital and changed into your casual clothes, Julia drove you two to her apartment since you don’t really feel like going anywhere. She ordered pizza and non-alcoholic drinks, which were delivered just minutes after you two arrived there.

No time was wasted. She didn’t even have to ask again for you to open up. For the last forty minutes, you’ve been telling whatever you feel like sharing to your friend. It did take off some weight on your chest as she listened and nods.

“I mean, I know that he’s just trying to know what happened between him and his ex. But I cannot understand why he didn’t tell me… Or maybe ask me about it. I know something about it. He told me how they broke up years ago. He told me what went wrong. Just like how I shared experiences with my past relationships too. And that’s how it used to be.” You reached for another tissue Julia offered. “We used to tell each other everything. Communication and honesty always mattered to him.”

“And it would have been nice if he let me know about his plans on talking with Lily. It’s perfectly fine by me. But he didn’t and now I’m starting to feel that he sees me as nothing. Just a person around him, who lives in the same house as him—or worse, he sees me as someone who just looks after him… like his nurse.”

The last thought squeezed your heart out. Taehyung even had a hard time introducing you yesterday to Lily. You took the initiative to introduce yourself to his ex as his friend. You don’t know what to feel about it. Should you be mad or sad? But can you blame him? You can never blame Taehyung. You always try to understand what he went through with that accident and what he is going through now. But as much as you hate to admit it…

“I feel like I’m burning out. I’m fucking drained.”

Another tear rolled down your cheeks while you shake your head. Saying that sentence felt like a confession of a crime. You don’t know why. You didn’t follow with another sentence again. Julia gave you a glass of water to help you calm down.

“You can take a break too, you know?” she whispered as you gulped in the liquid down your throat. “You can pause…”

Julia was gentle with her tone and choice of words.

“I think, you've already done enough. You took a month's leave to take care of Taehyung, to at least help him adjust to these big changes happen. You waited for him to ask about you or your relationship, which he did– Well, he tried. You are great. You were nothing caring and understanding for him and your relationship.” She paused and held your hand, preparing you for what she is about to say. “But he… he just has his eyes on people he knew before you.”

You almost hissed with the harsh sentiment of your friend. It felt like someone pulled the band-aid off your fresh, unhealed wound. But still, it felt like you needed to hear that. Julia, on the other hand, saw you flinch and held your palm tighter. 

She continued, “The Taehyung you met before the accident is different from the Taehyung you live together now. As you said, five years ago, he went through a breakup with his ex. That breakup may have caused changes in him that made him into the Taehyung you initially met.”

It’s complicated. But you get what she is trying to say. A lot of things happened in Taehyung’s life before you two crossed paths. He broke up with Lily, and his bakery began to hit success and invest in other stuff in his life. A lot of other changes happened. Then, you two met through mutual friends.

“And please, YN, let yourself feel things.” Julia spoke suddenly, making you meet her gaze, “It’s unhealthy. Be sad, be mad, or be happy. Or simply take a break if you feel like it. Don’t deny yourself of feeling anything. You can be mad.” She said it like a reminder. “You have every right to feel so. I know you’re trying to justify Taehyung reaching out to an ex behind your back as part of this knotty situation. But at least, out of respect to you, he should have at least told you before or after he did so.”

“That’s why you’re so burnout right now, hon. You’ve done nothing but give and give. You forgot about your limits too… Are you even still okay working in the same hospital after everything?”

She asked and almost instantly, you remembered the night of the accident. You were waiting for your boyfriend to pick you up in the same spot you always waited in. Then, you received this call. Next thing you know, you’re seeing him getting pulled out of the ambulance. Bloody and bruised. Your stomach twisted with the recollection of his state that night. Thankfully, Julia called your name, snapping you out of your trance.

“Just know that you’re not alone in any of this. You don’t have to carry everything on your own. Jisoo and I are always here for you.  And I really appreciate you opening up to me now.” She smiled softly before pulling you in for another hug.

After that hug, you two moved on to lighter topics. You asked her about her preparation for Jisoo and Namjoon’s special day at the end of the week. She talked about Chanyeol, her plus-one for the wedding. She shared about how things are going and you’re genuinely happy to see her happy. You ended up leaving at seven. Julia offered to drive you home, but you kindly refused, saying you need to be alone for a short while.

“Okay, just let me know when you got home.” She smiled and of course, was enveloped in the warmest hug you’ve ever received recently.

Just like when you left home earlier, the sky was dark and gloomy as you wait at the bus stop. Raindrops began falling just minutes after you got on the bus. You sat on the farthest empty seat your eyes spotted. Watching the raindrop rolling on the glass window, you thought about Julia and everything she said.

Change.

You wondered if change can help your emotional burnout while leaning your head on the cold surface of the vehicle. Truthfully, working in the same hospital after the accident is difficult. The first day you returned after your month-long leave you found yourself stopping in your tracks at every spot your feet took you that night of the accident. You also don’t enjoy the pity glances or smiles you get from your colleagues who knew about the accident. There were times, someone would approach you and say something nice or motivational. You appreciate the effort but it’s making your work more of a reminder than a distraction for what happened.

You get off the bus with a new idea and even more uncertainties in mind. You still felt like a deflating balloon floating your way to get home. After your breakdown, you wonder how Taehyung would react. He seemed pretty quiet last night. The Taehyung you know would prefer talking with you to at least mend these issues. But now, you’re really just tired and would rather organize your thoughts alone.

And when you walked up your front porch, you stopped as you saw the lights on in the kitchen. He’s home early. You turned the knob, preparing yourself with any awkward tension that is always suffocating. Walking in, a delicious smell of flavor filled your nostrils. You’re not planning to say anything but then, he greeted you.

“Oh, hey…”

It was short but soft. His lips formed a small, tight smile. He was indeed cooking as he holds a wooden spatula and you can hear the crinkling sound in the pan. You noticed he is wearing a familiar apron and a headband, exposing his forehead, to avoid his jet-black hair in sticking on the sweaty corners of his forehead.

“Hey.” you greeted back, forcing a polite smile on your lips. “You’re home?”

Taehyung noted the lack of any emotion in your voice or even eyes. You just looked exhausted. But he replied, “Yeah, we kinda closed early.  Sold out.”

He smiled again, hoping that maybe you would smile back at him. You didn’t. Instead, you zipped your lips. And there it is. The awkward silence took over--not only the kitchen—but the whole house. He looked at you and you looked at him. It didn’t even last a couple of seconds. You looked away again, scratching your eyebrow.  

“I should probably go—”

“I’m making dinner. Maybe—"

You two broke off the silence at the same time. You waited for him to continue but his nod asked you to resume.

“Yeah, uhm, I should go to my room.” You mumbled, not meeting his eyes. You just can’t.

It’s Taehyung’s turn to scratch the back of his neck, “Uhm, I made dinner. I was wondering if we can eat together.”

You timidly shake your head, “I’m kinda full… I had pizza with Julia. But thank you for the offer though.”

You were about to leave, wanting to leave this room since you were having the hardest time breathing with the thick tension. But Taehyung called your name,

“I was hoping we can talk… about everything.”

You turned around, finally looking at him. Suddenly, his heartbeat was louder than anything else for him. He can already see the rejection on your face. Like you’re not in the mood for anything that had to do with him. But he wishes his deduction is wrong. On the flip side, you can see his fingers fiddling with the spatula as he said that.

You exhaled, “I can’t, Taehyung. I really had a long day. I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s okay. Don’t apologize. We can talk whenever you’re ready.” He awkwardly raised his hands for thumbs-up. He saw your worried eyes landing on the dish he cooked. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll store it when it cools down. You can microwave it later if you get hungry.”

A simple, worn-out nod was your only reply before leaving him alone. His smile slowly fades as he turned down his chin.

He waited. Patiently. The morning after that, he waited for you to leave for work before he does. He goes home before you do. He prepared breakfasts and dinners for you, but you always seemed to be running late going to work and exhausted when you get home. And the rainy season didn’t stop. Taehyung once offered to walk you at least to the bus stop when you had a graveyard shift. He’s glad you didn’t decline and walked side by side with him under the umbrella.

“You know, you don’t have to do any of this.” You murmured in the middle of that five-minute walk to the bus stop. You were just looking ahead as you resumed, “You’re not obligated to do anything with me.”

“I wanted to do this.” He replied, glancing at you, hoping that he will meet your eyes. But he didn’t.

You didn’t say anything anymore. Even when you got on the bus and he handed you the extra umbrella he brought. But he really did. Even though you two haven’t really done a lot of activities together, he liked doing things with you or for you.

Now it’s been days since you broke down, you two still haven’t talked about it. Jimin told him to be patient and give you time. But the more time he gives you, the more he felt like you were already slowly drifting away from him.

“Are you sure? We still have space for another passenger.”

Taehyung heard you from the living room as he pulled his small luggage out of his room. He wore a white collared button-down, with the sleeves folded before it reached his elbows, tucked in beige suit pants.

“Okay, Ju. See you there. Take care.”

Your smile fades as you ended the call. With every emotion washed out on your face, you glanced up at him. Your eyes simply scanned him from head to toe before you spoke, “Let’s go?”

Jisoo and Namjoon will be having their rehearsal and the following dinner in the same area as their wedding. It’s in the same event place as their wedding venue. The couple already prepared rooms for a few guests, so that you can stay overnight for the wedding tomorrow. You, Taehyung, and Jimin will be carpooling in a rented car, with Jimin taking the wheel for an almost two-hour drive straight to the dinner event.

“Be careful, it’s fragile.”

You teased Jimin as he helped you carry the wedding gift for your soon-to-be-wedded friends. Taehyung carried yours and his luggage to the car.

“I am careful.” Jimin scoffed.

“Oh, I apologize. I’m just worried. You do have small hands.” You jested that made Taehyung choke and laugh.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” His best friend laughed dryly, squinting his eyes at you. “You two are bullies! It’s not that small.”

You chuckled once again before stopping when Taehyung opened the backseat door for you.

“Thanks.” You mumbled.

Taehyung sat on the passenger seat while Jimin took the wheel. In the first quarter of the ride, you still managed to join chit-chat. Jimin was the one who sparked up topics, which you were grateful for as you don’t know what would happen if it’s just you and Taehyung in this car. But as time went on, you yawned and slowly lost yourself to take a nap.

a/n: i'm thinking of updating/resetting the taglist for this series. kindly comment below if you still want to be tagged. thank you so much for your support <3

taglist rules

RESTARTING OVER AGAIN TAGLIST [closed] @halesandy @boohoobabe @hopeonysus  @taffyteffy @pnlpbnl  @arusio @rpkth @cinnamonruts @xyahrinx @betysotelo18 @sugaslittlekookies  @doublebunv @dahliasbouqet @lust-kth @aria-grace-scott  @milkteallday  @hoodalmighty  @kiwuki @http-fayeradise  @daydreamiies @starlight-night0 @chaoticbisous @mageprincess7 @byunniebaekhyunnie @hiimnothing @koreanaestheticc @shin-ie @blancflms​ @jeonkoookiee​ @satorinnie​ @rjsmochii​ @yoonglesdoll​ @somewhereinthestarss​ @turnthepageandbeburnt​ @heyjiminnie​ @bri-mal​ @teddybeartaetae​ @kaal-ee​ @nikkiordonez12​ @motivatedprocastinator​ @butterflieshee @iamkookiesforyou

  PERMANENT TAGLIST

@dunixxd @cixrosie @jksjx @embrace-themagic @buttvi @starbtslove @missseoulite @vanntaesworld @kenqki @miyukihoshi @stopeatread @seolaquotes @greyrain23 @chimchimmarie @petalsofink @jayhope88  @moonchild1

[kindredtarot]

❛❛What you need to balance right now?❜❜

› ♡˖°꒰ Pick a pile

✦; Pile : 1 ˎˊ˗❞

6 of swords, 10 of pentacles, 7 of stones, queen of arrows, 2 of cups.

“I'm just really fuckin' selfish and really fuckin' lost. But someone loved me, someone fucking loved me. Someone fucking loved me and I fuckin' loved them too. Goddamn it, I was worth something, I fuckin' learned something. I had my cake (I ate it, it ate me too and, God, no)” — Feel Better by Penelope Scott

You need to balance your timely actions and patience. It looks like you are transitioning to a new stage in your life because you want to advance and achieve what you want. Are you choosing to leave behind old relationships? Probably a hard decision emotionally, but something you felt you had to do to protect yourself. “Can’t heal in the same environment that wounds me”. You want stability, finally. Maybe you want it before but insisted to try having it with people that wouldn’t give it to you. But now you are making steps towards it, starting with the choice to move on. You want to have a stable foundation financially and/or with your family, a place that you can actually call home and mot having to worry about having to protect yourself and your feelings 24/7. And you can get it, you just need to have patience with your healing journey. 

You are going in the right direction. I know leaving people that you really cared about hurts and it might take some months or a year, but continue to take care of yourself, physically, emotionally, and mentally. It’s okay to let your mind remember and miss past moments sometimes, and to cry your heart out. Blocking those things would just make it harder in the long run, and you might already know that deep down. Resting and not doing nothing doesn’t mean your are giving up, take your time to get ready to continue towards what you want. Taking care of yourself will clear your mind and would help you communicate better and making better decisions towards your relationships with others and your possessions/money. I can see your relationships improving, with yourself and others, actual soul-touching connections. Maybe you always wanted a soul family, a group of friends that were like family or a healthy family life, whatever it was, I can see this area of your life improving and beautifully too. Just take priority and improve your relationship with yourself first and foremost, so you are ready with strong boundaries and understanding of what you truly want to start deep connections with others too.

✦; Pile : 2 ˎˊ˗❞

page of wands, 3 of pentacles, death, the tower, queen of pentacles, 3 of wands in reverse.

“Do you ever see someone and think "Wow, they got lucky", the craftsmanship of their bones, their brain, and their body. When I look into the mirror for too long it hurts, they don't track how many steps it takes to burn off dessert. Do you ever see someone and think "Wow, they got lucky". I'll let 'em take accountability. For everything that's wrong with me. Can't hold myself responsible. So I'll blame the metaphysical. If Jesus died for all our sins. He left one behind, the body I'm in. Same hands that made the moon and the stars. Got carpal tunnel and forgot some parts” — God must hate me by Catie Turner

You need to balance how you view others vs yourself. You might put people in a pedestal and put yourself down unconsciously. You seem to be someone with so many ideas and plans, wild imagination! (You might be an artist). Someone that sees the “impossible” and is sure it could become possible! A really exciting and active person, whether that’s physically or mentally. You might like working in group or just admire people. They seems really interesting, so many new perspective. And they are talented too, in their own way. Maybe your achievements don’t seem as valuable to you just because you are admiring other people that seem to just have everything else you want. You have a lot too, in your life you were resilient. You sometimes might think you are giving up too easily but you are resilient. You are still going, aren’t you? Still trying or planning to get better and get to your goals. Don’t forget to look back to your past to realize how far you’ve come, how much you had learned. Just because all the things you had achieve aren’t as visible to others like what you see outside of yourself, doesn’t mean they don’t exist or are less. 

Others seems so cool to you, and forget you are cool too. Do you have a lot of unfinished projects? So many ideas but maybe don’t fully follow through with them. And others seem to have their shit together already, finishing what they started. Instead of discouraging yourself, try observing the things you admire from those people and take what could help you keep going. Maybe you have problems with planning your projects or stay stuck on just planning instead of actually starting them. This unbalance in your views of others and yourself has to “die” to start building something better that would work for you. It won’t be easy to fix something that got stuck so deep in your subconscious but it is possible! It would make you feel really frustrated or confuse at the start, because a  lot of beliefs that you had would be breaking and making you rethinks them and what you are doing with your actions. And that’s okay! Because you would understand yourself better and see you for who you truly are. A really cool creative person. You would nourishing more your creative mind, projects, and collaborations with people. You would start to work as a team, truly this time, because you would finally see yourself just as valuable as those who you admire are. And you would also go through your projects, because you would commit to them now. I can see you caring so much more about your projects in a practical way, and growing success and financial stability because of it. You might have setbacks after committing with your projects because you don’t really know how to advance with them, but those setbacks are gonna be temporary, so have patience with yourself. Every mistakes teaches a lesson, remember them for any future obstacle. And remember to ask for help when you need it too!

✦; Pile : 3 ˎˊ˗❞

5 of swords, ace of wands, 4 of cups, ace of pentacles, 10 of swords.

“Spider-boy, king of thieves. Weave your little webs of opacity. My pennies made your crown. Trick me once, trick me twice. Don't you know that cash ain't the only price? It's coming back around. And I keep my side of the street clean. You wouldn't know what I mean. 'Cause karma is my boyfriend. Karma is a god. Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend. Karma's a relaxing thought. Aren't you envious that for you it's not? Sweet like honey, karma is a cat. Purring in my lap 'cause it loves me. Flexing like a goddamn acrobat. Me and karma vibe like that” — Karma by Taylor Swift

You need to balance your thoughts, desires, and actions. You have to stop acting with your ego. Stop playing with your luck… I feel like you could have so many things but you might be impulsive and make moves that you know you shouldn’t be doing because they aren’t planned or because it might be tripping someone else and not even getting you nothing valuable at the end of it. You might be a little stubborn about this, maybe prefer not to follow “rules” or are scare of doing so because you think it might not work for you? Instead of making risky decision that barely give you anything or sometimes nothing at all. Try taking your time planning and making decision that even if they succeed or not, they would still level you up. 

You have so much potential and a vision as well. But you can’t just go about it without planning nothing at all! Like trying to make a spark into a fire. You need to blow towards the spark correctly, if you don’t, you lose it and you don’t get the fire. And then your motivation is left on the cold. I understand the frustration, but don’t forget about what you have already. You can try to create a fire in the first place because you have the materials already. And you might receive a lot of opportunities that could help you but you don’t take them seriously because they aren’t up to your expectations or because you rush into them without thinking in what ways they could be helpful to you. Whatever it is, you are self sabotaging. You could help yourself up towards what you wants or you could destroy everything on your way. You actions are part of you, so think them through. You are constantly stabbing yourself with fear. Getting overwhelm and falling from exhaustion. Remember, the only thing that you can control is your actions and reactions. So don’t give power to fear and anxiety. Once you release that, you can hold your own power yourself and utilize it to make the right decisions. On choosing what you want, how you want it and how you are going to get it.

Don’t be scare of your potential and stop unleashing your decisions on others. karma might comeback later on to bite you in the back, but play your cards right and it could be your biggest helper! Just keep going and focus on doing better. 

[ddejavvu]

hybrid steddie with a really soft, shy, intorverted reader!!! she got them both from shelters at different times, and they’re use to harsh hands and tough punishments, but you baby them so bad!! you treat them so well!!! you even take them out so they can choose their own room decor, even if you’re blushy the entire time at the checkout counter with the cashier (who they 100% get protective over, maybe a little posturing or throat growling for warnings to back off)

you pet their ears every time they wanna! they figure out that all they have to do is make sure you know what they want, and you’ll just give it to em cus you love em so much!!! the first night that eddie army crawls into bed with you and attacks you with his scenting ritual, you almost have a heart attack form anxiety and he feels so bad!! steves definitely at your other side, trying to emulate the way you comfort them with their ears but on you.

reader who has a super remote job, to do with writing or something online, so she’s home a lot which they love love love looooovvvve!!!! sometimes steve will sneak into ur room and crawl under your desk and just put his head in your lap, legs over his shoulders, he wishes you had hands free to let him but just feeling u skin to skin is enough rn :) and he likes that you’re blushing and shy cus it makes him feel like u love him so so so much!

reader whose soft and passive so she can’t bring herself to scold over chewed furniture or whatever, but they know they’ve been bad, cus she’ll stand there for a few seconds, visibly upset, before trying to figure out a solution on her own and they feel awful cus they’d rather be blatantly punished than too quickly forgiven especially cus she does so much for them :(((((((

first time they add kisses into the slobby nighttime grooming routine, they’re vibrating with excitement and their tails r going so wild

hybrid au faq

please never stop sending asks like this i swear every ask you send me is perfect i wanna take your brain out of your head and smooch it for the juicy ideas it pumps out <33 kind of a long post so i cut it!!

ohhh maybe you come up to one of them in the shelter and see their poor scared puppy eyes and know you have to save them - eddie's got scratches all over from the other dog hybrids and steve's shying away from touches because all anyone ever does is poke and prod at him :(( but you sit in the corner of their little cell/pen/cage(?) thing and just wait for them to approach you, and when they do you reach up really soft and slow to pet their ears - they're instantly hooked!! your touch is so soft and sweet and gentle that they get addicted to it, they keep nudging their heads into your hands and by the time the shelter's about to close, whoever's in your lap is snoozing away :') you have to bring him home, of course!!

aw yes you prepare a whole room for them, and for the first day since it's kinda late, you just have them sleep in the empty, blank room - you feel so bad :(( but it doesn't last long, 'cause before you're even asleep, there's a sneaky dog hybrid crawling under the covers next to you >:))

yes they're instantly pretty good at reading your body language, if you're stuttery and backing away from the guy at the counter 'cause he's being too forward, they're stepping in front of you and their ears flatten out on their heads - instant intimidation mode.

ohhh to have hybrid steddie laying all over my lap for snuggles :(( eddie's more forward about it, he just plops right down on your legs and butts his head under your chin like :] it's time :] pet me please :] but steve hooks his chin over your shoulder and blinks prettily up at you until you catch on - you pretty much always at least have one hand occupied with scratching one of their ears, but once whoever isn't getting pet realizes that they're not getting pet, your other hand has to go too </3

aw omg no :(( eddie just wants to cuddle!! he thinks it's a crime that you don't smell like him yet, 'cause he has a collar to prove that he's yours, but you've got nothing to prove that you're his!! so he sneaks in, he thinks you're asleep but you're actually just turned over with closed eyes - he wastes no time in crawling up into your bed but you nearly scream!! you're just not prepared for a tongue on your neck or a tail against your thighs. he whines and babbles out apologies while you try to control your breathing, and laps at your cheek soothingly until your eyes aren't so big and wide and panicked </3

steve petting your hair omg :(( he doesn't realize that it probably won't feel as good to you as it does to him 😭 but it does feel nice, so you're not complaining <3 he runs his fingers through your hair and he's got some kinda long nails that he scratches against your scalp and it feels sooooo good <33333

SNUGGLY STEVE :(( omg he just buries his face between your legs and conks out with his nose against your thigh - he always complains about a sore butt afterwards but you bundle him up in blankets and let him sit on cushy pillows until he's not so sore anymore - eddie smacks his ass though he's not as nice as you are </3

why did you have to make me cry </33 (i love it please don't stop) - sometimes their instincts just get the best of them!! they're already trying to figure out if they can make the arm of the chair look better by draping a napkin over it, but you walk into the room riiiight when they readjust it so that you see the teeth marks :/ it's ruined :( you can still use the chair, of course, but the arm looks terrible </3 you just sort of freeze and frown for a second and they feel their hearts drop, they're waiting for you to shout or tell them to spend the rest of the day outside, but you don't do anything. you just huff out a little breath from your nose and walk away :') they're so guilty omgomgomg - they come into your office where you're trying to knock out a report or something and they stand there all guiltily with droopy tails and ears - they apologize softly and tell you it'll never happen again, that they just couldn't help it but they'll be more careful in the future - all you do is nod and say okay and they're almost in tears :(( they kneel by your chair so that you don't have to turn to look at them, and finally catch your attention - they plead with you not to be angry with them, promise you that they're sosososo sorry, that they'll fix it for you, or get jobs to buy you a new one, but you just wave them off - eventually you tell them that you're really upset about your chair but that you know they didn't do it on purpose, but that you'd really just like some alone time to be upset about it without lashing out at them - to them that's the worst punishment. they let you close them out of their office but they sit right outside giving each other the 'we fucked up' eyes and waiting tearily for you to finish with your work so that they can cover you with apology kisses :'(

ohhh you think they're just snuggling up to you like they normally do, but then eddie licks a stripe up your neck and you go... what are you doing?? and you can hear his tail thump against the bed as he goes kissing you :] and steve's like wait no fair!! so you lay there all still and stiff while they get going but then you realize that the feeling of their tongues lapping at your neck/chin/cheeks is honestly really soothing, and you start snoozing while their tails wag at the speed of light 'cause they soothed you to sleep and they're so happy to be able to give back to you 'cause you do so much for them :'))))

[thelittlestspider]

sorry these excerpts are all over the place and random because i don't have a mouse and it wouldn't let me just scan one small part. this is from the guardian devil part of it.

taglist: @fortunatetragedy, @hiitspath

“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with Peter lately,” Karen says. There’s an insinuation in her voice. Something that puts him on the back foot, makes him feel like she’s accusing him of cheating. Which is ludicrous.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“He’s your type,” Karen says, matter of factly. “Sharp, funny, nice voice. He laughs at your jokes. Very your type.”

“Peter?” Matt laughs. “He’s just a friend. I’ve known him since he was a kid.”

“But he’s a young man now,” Karen points out. “He might want things from you.”

The idea of Peter wanting things from him makes a part of him squirm. A part he squashes down ruthlessly, refusing to contemplate it.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I know what it’s like to have a crush on someone older who disappoints you.”

“Are you saying I’m leading him on?” Matt raises his brows in disbelief. “What the fuck, Karen?”

“I’m not saying you’re doing it on purpose.” Karen takes a bite of her food, followed by a sip of wine. “But the way he looks at you...it’s like you hung the moon.”

That feeling comes over him again. Matt blushes. He’s...flattered that someone like Peter can want him. Someone who always tries to do the right thing no matter the cost. A truly good man.

It’s a hell of a thing being wanted by a man made of gold.

“He’s just a friend,” Matt says again.

He expects Karen to push again, but she just says, “Okay,” softly, and reaches for his hand. Matt curls his fingers around hers, content with her touch.

“You’re everything, Karen,” he says, voice barely above a whisper.

….

Matt bounces the baby, lips against the crown of her soft head. She smells like soap, milk, and baby powder. He wonders if his mom ever sang to him or watched him in his crib with a smile.

….

Matt: I can’t have kids.

Peter: MJ and I wanted to have kids, but with me being radioactive...

Peter: Hey, can I hold her?

Matt hands the baby over and Peter plays with the baby.

….

[Matt is in a diner with the baby, waiting for Karen. He hears Bullseye walk in and head straight for him. Bullseye sits across from him.]

Bullseye: Hey gorgeous.

Matt: What the hell do you want?

Bullseye: This is a courtesy call on account of our...time together.

Matt pictures his sleazy grin and wants to punch his face in.

Matt: What do you want?

Bullseye: A guy hired me to kill you and snatch the baby. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask. Not that it really matters. A job’s a job. So get your people out of town, because I’m gonna mow every single one of ‘em down to get to you.

Matt: How dare you? I just got my life back together and I am not letting you ruin it just because you have some sick obsession with me.

Bullseye scoffs.

Bullseye: You gotta be shitting me. Like you literally cannot be fucking serious right now. What are you gonna do? Retire? Adopt the baby and be Mr. Karen fucking Page?

Matt: What’s wrong with that?

Doesn’t he deserve to be happy? To be normal?

Bullseye: Guy like you retires, he might as well put a gun in his mouth. [He mimes shooting himself in the face with a ‘pow.’] It’s a fucking waste.

Matt covers the baby’s ears.

Matt: I hate you. I wish you would die.

Bullseye: Then kill me. Pussy.

Matt whispers furiously, “I should’ve dropped you off a higher building. Let you get crushed by that train. Shot you in your fucking face when I had the chance.”

Bullseye: Baby, we’re in public.

Matt wishes he was like Elektra. She would’ve taken one of the forks off the table and stabbed it through his eye, deep into his brain. Then cut his throat with her sai. Bullseye would choke on the blood gushing from his throat, gurgling as he clutched the wound in his last moments.

But he isn’t Elektra. (Unfortunately. He misses her.)

“I’m going to pull your spine through your mouth,” she would say. “You pathetic waste of human life.”

(He likes her voice better than Stick and his father’s.)

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

'What would your rather find living in your attic? 1000 roaches or one person?' for Sunset Curve because you know they would all have strong opinions. Plz and thank you!

This spiralled completely out of control 😅 i... have no idea who is going to be more surprised at the turn this took. I never saw it coming. though, in hindsight... Maybe I should have.

“Okay, next question: ‘What would you rather find living in your attic? A thousand roaches or one person?’” Reggie asks, reading from the card in his hand.

Alex groans, “I need more information!”

“That’s not how the game works, Alex. Rapid-fire,” Bobby explains. 

“The only rapid-fire my brain does is worst case scenarios.”

“A thousand roaches,” Luke chimes in, more cheerfully than is probably appropriate. 

Alex’s face screws up in disgust. “Why?”

“You just gas ‘em out and clean them up and they’re gone, right?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“I’d rather a person,” Bobby declares.

“Okay, but is it a stranger or a person you know? Are we ALLOWED to remove them or do they have to be there eternally? At least we know they’re alive, I guess.”

Bobby throws his hands into the air, “It doesn’t matter! Just pick one!”

“Maybe I’m in your attic, Alex,” Luke teases, leaning close to get into Alex’s personal space. 

Alex pushes his face away. “Ew, gross. Stay away from my attic.”

Reggie giggles, “That’s what she said.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Alex cries. “This game isn’t any fun, can we do something else? Please?”

“Truth or dare?” Reggie suggests.

Alex rolls his eyes, “We know everything about each other. It’s just dare. And you know I don’t like those.”

“Never have I ever!” Luke proposes.

“Dude, what did I JUST say?”

A nervous laugh escapes Reggie. He quickly claps a hand over his mouth but is too slow. All three of his friends turn to look at him.

“What?” Bobby asks. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing,” he mumbles from behind his hand. 

A teasing grin takes over Luke’s face and he crawls toward Reggie. “You have an idea!”

“No! Nope. Nuh uh,” Reggie says, shaking his head vigorously. 

Luke reaches out to grab Reggie’s wrist. He tries to pull Reggie’s hand away from his mouth but is met with more resistance than he expected.

“C’mon, Reg! What is it?”

Bobby eyes Luke and Reggie intently. “It’s just us, man. It can’t be that bad!” Bobby assures him.

Luke finally manages to wrench Reggie’s hand away from his face.

“Just tell us,” Alex pleads. 

“What, do you want us to kiss you or something?” Luke asks cheekily. 

Reggie’s face turns bright red and the grin on Luke’s face grows. 

“No,” Reggie mumbles, staring at the floor. 

“You do!” 

Alex and Bobby share an apprehensive look. Alex has been out to the band for a while now but nobody else has ever said anything about being anything other than straight. But if there’s something they know with certainty, it’s that Luke will do anything for the bit.

Luke looks at Alex and then back at Reggie, “Do you want Alex to kiss you?”

Reggie raises his eyes to look at Alex, quickly averting his gaze again.

“Or is it Bobby?”

He repeats the motion. 

“Or…” Luke crawls impossibly closer, “me?”

Reggie squeaks. 

“Luke! Stop. Be nice,” Alex chastises him. He reaches out to grab Luke by the arm, pulling him away from Reggie.

Bobby takes Luke’s spot in front of Reggie. Though he maintains a respectful distance. He dips down to catch Reggie’s gaze. 

“Hey,” he says gently. “It’s okay.”

Reggie lifts his head up to acknowledge Bobby. “Yeah?”

Bobby shrugs, “Yeah. I mean, I don’t get it, but you can want to kiss whoever.”

“I want to kiss so many people,” Reggie admits quietly. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that, you know,” Alex chimes in from where he’s sitting. He’s still got a solid grip on Luke’s arm, holding him in place. 

Luke shakes Alex off with a glare. Or at least his best attempt at one. Alex somehow manages not to laugh.

“I’d kiss you if you wanted,” Luke offers. 

Reggie’s eyes widen as he looks up at Luke. “Really?” he asks excitedly. His blush deepens. He puts a hand on each of his cheeks to feel their warmth. “Really?” he asks again, keeping his voice level.

Luke nods, “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Reggie’s voice is small but he maintains eye contact with Luke. Bobby moves out of the way as Luke crawls back to where he’d been before. 

Luke brings his hand up to cradle Reggie’s face. He looks down at Reggie’s lips and then back up at his eyes. “Do you just want like a peck or…” he trails off, suddenly uncertain. 

Reggie doesn’t let the uncertainty linger, leaning forward to press their lips together. 

Luke kisses him back almost immediately. His hand shifts from Reggie’s cheek to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. Reggie’s hands find their way to Luke’s waist, causing Luke to jolt slightly at the skin to skin contact. 

Reggie laughs into their kiss but doesn’t break it until Bobby’s cough startles them both. 

Luke pulls away from Reggie and looks back at Bobby. “What? You want a turn?”

Bobby’s face turns an uncharacteristic shade of red. 

“Well, c’mon then!” Luke reaches out for him and pushes him in front of Reggie. 

Luke looks at Reggie. “I mean, if you wanted it too,” he clarifies.

Reggie simply offers a small nod.

“Well, alright then!” Luke says. “Get to it. Then it’s my turn.”

Bobby chokes slightly but lets Reggie pull him in for a kiss of their own. 

“You next?” Luke whispers exaggeratedly to Alex. 

Alex gapes at him, eyes wide. He stammers for a moment and Luke grins. 

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“You’re not the boss of who Reggie kisses,” Alex hisses at him.

“Yeah, well, maybe I should be. It’s working out great!” Luke directs a pointed look Reggie and Bobby’s way.

They let the pair get lost in their makeout session for a few minutes before Luke lets out an obnoxious cheer. Bobby and Reggie startle apart, both directing glares Luke’s way. 

Luke pushes Alex toward Reggie. “Alex’s turn! And I want to kiss Bobby.”

“Maybe I don’t want to kiss you,” Bobby counters.

Luke scoffs, “As if. I’m an excellent kisser.”  

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

Luke smirks, “I could be.”

Bobby rolls his eyes but switches places with Alex. They watch as Alex gently pulls Reggie in for their kiss. 

“Sexy, right?” Luke whispers. He looks up at Bobby who’s still watching the others. He laughs lightly as he straddles Bobby’s lap. The sudden contact startles Bobby and he stares at Luke. 

“What are you-?”

“Let me kiss you? Please?”

Bobby sighs. He winds his hand through Luke’s cutoff and onto the small of his back, pulling Luke closer to him. “Fine.”

A cocky grin takes over Luke’s face. Bobby rolls his eyes before firmly planting his lips on Luke’s, wiping away the self-assured expression. He kisses Luke deeply, relishing in the moans that escape. 

Both couples pull apart to breathe within moments of each other, gasping for breath. 

“That was…” Reggie starts to say.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees breathlessly. “That is NOT where I expected tonight to go.”

Luke chuckles, “Can’t say I’m mad about it”

“Should have done that ages ago!” Reggie enthuses, looking between his friends. His face crumples up in concern when his gaze reaches Bobby. “Wait! Alex hasn’t kissed you two yet!”

Bobby puts his hands up, “It’s okay, I don’t-”

“Do you WANT to kiss Alex?” Reggie asks. 

“Well, I…”

Luke looks at Alex, “Do you want to kiss Bobby?”

Alex’s face turns pink. 

“Go on then. Or I am.”

Bobby rolls his eyes and pushes Luke off his lap. He settles in front of Alex, pecking him on the lips before pulling away.

Reggie’s face falls. “That’s all?!”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Bobby says.

“So not into it,” Alex agrees. “No offense,” he directs at Bobby.

“None taken.”

Luke’s bouncing on his toes, somehow still balanced in a crouching position.

“Can I kiss Alex now?” he asks impatiently. 

��God, you’re so needy,” Bobby groans. He moves away from Alex and lets Luke take his place. 

Luke hastily pulls Alex into a kiss. As it deepens, Reggie whimpers from behind them. 

“Oh!” Bobby exclaims with realization, “You haven’t gotten to watch yet.” A grin to rival Luke’s spreads across his face. He moves to sit beside Reggie. “What’s better?” he whispers knowingly.

Reggie audibly swallows and Bobby chuckles. “Both. I like both.”

[safety-in-staying-behind]

2 months ago..

“…But to this day, Keith has no sensation in his right foot, and doesn't recognize his own brother Paul no more." Ellis finished with a painful smile, he was set up near the edge with Zoey. The two separated from a gate from the bridge Zoey was on, to where he sat. The reason why Ellis stuck up here was because he was hurt and the little southern boys group let him stay up here and ramble his head off.

Ellis stared down at his overalls as Zoey noticed the shy expression on his face as he ran out of things to say. Francis already went off alongside Louis. Francis, a bit sick and tired of listening to Ellis ramble his ass off. And Louis, because he wanted to check something alongside Francis. A small cough caught Zoey’s attention back down to the male.

“So…why and you n’ yer group stayin’ up there?” He asks, turning his head slightly to the side to stare at Zoey more clearly through his blue trucker cap. Zoey glances down.

“Oh, well Louis is injured, for one. We’re just staying until he gets better. And until we can find a working boat.”

“A boat? What’chu need that for?” Ellis questioned her, sitting up slightly. Zoey gave a small sigh, turning her head towards him. “So we could go to some sort of island, no infected or anything. It’s the only plan we have in mind.”

Ellis stared in a bit of confusion but seemed to understand in a way. Hehe now asks. “Why can’t you come with the military with us? I n’ the others are going there and—“

“No.” Zoey quickly says, gripping her nails into the bars. Ellis’s face turned to a bit of worry like he said the wrong thing. Ellis now quietly says in a soft voice.

“..you- have somethin’ up with the Military?” He asks softly. Zoey gave a softer glance at Ellis after he asked. She felt bad for lashing out suddenly at the mention of any military again.

“Yeah, they..aren’t good at their being a strong, wise military. Not experienced with…the infected going around.” Zoey eyes away from Ellis, to which Ellis looks confused.

“Not experienced? But- they are the military. N’ they don’t know how to deal with em?” Ellis scooted more upwards with a grunt, Zoey looked over and slowly leaned forward. “Yeah..they don’t trust what me and my friends are too, they called us Carriers.”

Zoey now hauled herself over the bar that separated the two, over to Ellis to set him back down to sit on the floor. Ellis froze up as she felt her suddenly so close, his Southerner brain hay-wiring. “Uhm.” He cleared his throat.

“C- Carriers? Whut..Whut does that mean?” He asks Zoey, staring up at her with nervous, blue eyes.

“I haven’t known much, to me and Louis’s knowledge…it’s where we are infected, but don’t mutate as much..and as the name implies,” Zoey says, staring down at the ground slightly as the two made eye contact for a split second.

“Carriers…carrier…they carry..somethin’?”

“The Green Flu.”

“Is that what y’all are? You are Carriers? Am I gonna get infected now? Are my frien-“

Zoey quickly shuts Ellis up by putting a finger to his mouth. To which he quickly does. Zoey now spoke to him. “I’ve seen you and your friends fight hordes of zombies, even if they scratch, explode, or smash you, you haven’t turned to one of them.” She reassured the man, and Ellis lowered his shoulders.

“So you sayin’…me n’ my friends are carriers as well as you guys?” The Southerner asks with a sheepish tone. Sitting more up, Zoey took her finger off of his lips. Zoey responded with a nod.

“Oh geez…oh man. What am I gun’ tell the others?” Ellis says with genuine worry in his eyes. Zoey saw this, he knew this man was visibly very worried for his friends and it made Zoey smile a small bit. It shows how far Ellis would care for his friends.

“We can tell them, me, Louis, and Francis can tell them,” Zoey says her idea, patting Ellis’s shoulder. Ellis looked up and now slowly stood up with a smile.

“Then I’ll go tell my group! Maybe..maybe we can stick together! N’ make our lil group.” Ellis says, wincing a bit before going back with his big, toothy smile.

Zoey couldn’t help but chuckle at the man’s enthusiasm, giving a nod. “Maybe, we can deduce that together. Be safe on the way down, Ellis.” She pats his shoulder. To which Ellis seemed to melt like butter for a second. He quickly nodded and pushed himself up. Zoey gave a nod and smiled at him.

“See you back here?”

“Yep!”

And the two departed back to their groups.

———————-

Welcome to this askblog! This is an AU I thought of where, “what if the l4d2 survivors stuck by with the L4D1 survivors after they told them about the military?”

You can go ahead and send asks already! There will be some OCS/New characters who will appear and be available to be asked questions.

But for now, go ahead and ask!

(P.S. Bill sadly isn’t available for ask, for he is still dead.)

Tags to use -

#SISBask

#SISBfanart (if you want to draw Fanart, you this tag and @ me in it!)

#SISB

[romeoandjulietyouwish]

this is for @waltwhitmansbeard thank you for submitting to my project!

Prompt: Surprise me! (and so I give you an underrated friendship and a fight club au)

Keyleth can’t help but stare at her reflection in the mirror. She looks like herself but…different. Her hair is up in a ponytail, her hands wrapped in protective material around her knuckles and wrists. She’s wearing a dark green tank top and black exercise shorts and a pair of worn tennis shoes. And over it she’s wearing a thin pink sweatshirt that’s half zipped up.

She looks powerful. Maybe for the first time in her entire life.

The door opens behind her and she can see Grog in the mirror, wearing shorts, no shirt, and an open sweatshirt. He grins at her as she turns around to face him, “You look great!”

She laughs self-consciously, “Thanks.” She holds out her hands towards him, “Did I do these right?” 

Grog plops down on the nearest bench and takes her wrists gently, inspecting the wrappings. He undoes part of it, wrapping in a little tighter. Then he squeezes her hands and lets go, “Are you nervous?”

She buzzes her lips as she steps back, running a hand over her hair, “I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being nervous.”

“When I get nervous Pike always tells me to do twenty push ups because apparently it helps me focus on my body or some shit.” 

Keyleth gives Grog a look, though she’s been working on her strength, twenty push ups isn’t quite her idea of calming. “I’m not doing twenty push ups.” 

Grog stands up with a smile, “Put ‘em up then.” He gets into a ready stance, one foot behind the other, his fists raised in front of him. Keyleth sighs and does the same. Before she can ask why, he lunges forward and attempts to punch her in the stomach. 

Keyleth springs back, ducking to the left and punching him gently on his side. Grog is an excellent teacher, he’s been a godsend for Keyleth these past months. Ever since Pike and Grog took her to this club on a night out and she got to watch the two of them fight in the ring. So when Grog offered to train her, she took it up eagerly. 

And now…now she’s minutes away from her first fight and she would not be more nervous. Through the thin walls of the locker room, she can hear the crowd talking and laughing and placing bets. But Grog is right, as his fist taps her jaw gently and she retaliates with a kick to his stomach, she feels her brain start to quiet. 

Grog is right about her. Something he’s been telling her is that she has lots of rage inside her. But she’s been taught to keep it caged and to keep it hidden. He’s taught her how to let it out, to let the anger clear her mind as she fights. 

The door to the locker room opens and Pike appears, she’s dressed like Keyleth and she’s scheduled to fight later tonight. As the Grog and Keyleth stop their spar, Pike nods to Keyleth, “Keep your arms up, even when you’re tired, don’t give them an opportunity to hit you.”

Keyleth sighs and jumps, shaking out her limbs, “I know, I know.” 

Pike smiles, “Good, you're going to do great. Just remember that you’re going to get hurt and I know it’s scary, but I’ll be waiting for you the second you’re done to heal you up, okay?”

Keyleth gives her a look, “You know, that’s not as comforting as you might think.”

Pike laughs, “I know, but it’s the truth. Are you ready?”

“How many people are out there?”

Grog stands behind her, massaging her shoulders as he tells her, “A fuck ton.” 

“Grog!” Pike hisses. She looks at Keyleth, “Grog is right, there’s a lot of people. But you’re not going to focus on them, you’re going to focus on yourself and your fight. I’m going to be honest, people are betting against you-”

“They have my whole life,” Keyleth mutters.

“Exactly,” Pike walks over and takes her hand. “And you’re going to do what you always do and prove them fucking wrong. They’re going to be yelling at you to fail and you are going to take that fuel and turn it into rage.”

Keyleth takes a deep breath, “I can do that.” 

“Fuck yeah you can!” Grog cheers, giving her back a light shove. Keyleth can’t help but laugh as Grog tells her, “Give me your best roar, Minxie!”

“My what?”

“Your roar!” Pike tells her, jumping up onto the bench to be more eye level. “Grog and I have battle cries, give me yours.”

Despite herself, Keyleth does her best impression of a tiger. It sounds kind of shitty and weak, but Pike and Grog don’t judge her. Instead, Grog just shouts, “Yes! Louder!” Pike stamps her feet on the bench, the sound filling the room. 

Keyleth roars louder to the cheering of her friends as Grog slaps her back. “One more time!” Pike cheers. And as she does, Grog pushes her towards the exit, towards where the crowd waits. And Keyleth is fucking ready.

[vivianseda]

Thank you Em from Neurodivergent Wild

“Many of my posts talk about the importance of regulation.

People often want to know how they can help regulation happen.

Here are some ideas.

This is not an exhaustive list.

For my kids, I pay attention to the sorts of things that they naturally do throughout the day. I also look at the impact of those things. My kids naturally move. They don’t ever sit down. They read, watch tv, play Nintendo all while pacing or jumping or climbing. If they’ve had a day where that movement hasn’t happened much, I know that I need to create opportunities for it to happen.

If my kids are dysregulated (which looks like no frustration tolerance, quick to tears, irritated, constant arguing with each other, low capacity to handle disappointment or transitions), my go-to strategy is food put in their hands, time for swings. 15 minutes of that and they are in a much less irritated state.

One of my kids is super sensitive to temperature. He overheats massively after short bursts of activity, and then he is absolutely unable to access any of his usual skills. He simply can’t. It’s like his brain is on fire. A person whose brain is on fire can’t simply ‘make good choices’. He can’t just cool down either, unless I actively help him. That means ice, water, a fan, a cold wet cloth. Once he is cool he can think again.

One of my kids responds well to deep pressure when he’s close to meltdown (or there already). He is pretty tall, so I have him lie on the lounge or floor, then I lie on top of him with most of my adult weight. And I squeeze his fingertips and we stay there for a few minutes. That works very effectively.

If he is super upset but not approaching meltdown, all I do is sit near him and listen to him. He tells me all the issues, the details of the situation, the huge injustice that has befallen him (and he often has misinterpreted the situation in a big way). I listen and I sympathise. It looks like this: yeah… I know… yeah…that’s so bad…dear me…I know…

The details of the situation don’t matter. I don’t disagree. I don’t teach. I don’t fix. I don’t offer any opinion whatsoever. He gets more and more calm as he goes on (which wouldn’t happen if I was disagreeing with him). All I am doing is being a safe place for him. He can say anything to me and it will be ok. 99% of the time, he talks himself all the way back to reason. He eventually identifies the main issue HIMSELF, and a solution. He identifies if he has caused the problem. And the situation and the emotions have been dealt with, and we’re done.

Other regulation things to try:

🌻 Heavy work (stuff that needs some muscle behind it)

🌻 Food, drink, rest, bathroom break (because we often don’t hear those messages from our bodies)

🌻 Connection through comfort activity e.g. reading together, drawing, watching something, collaborative gaming

🌻 Screen time

🌻 Reducing demands

🌻 Offering non judgemental help for getting stuff done

Final things to remember: regulation is not an on/off switch

Nothing works all of the time

Different regulation strategies are required at different times

Trial and error to see what works for each person

And co-regulation will be required for a long, long time. That simply means that we will need to help our kids regulate. It is a collaborative process. But good news- it’s good for you too.

Em ☺️🌈✌️

AuDHD SLP”

[coffee-or-murder]

Olly: Rambling With Bees

Drabble that turned into nearly four pages of Olly ranting about a guy he has a crush on at his bees. He spends most of it either talking about how pretty the guy is, how he shouldn’t make a move because he’s divorced and recovering from all that, OR just mad at himself for not noticing how bad his crush had gotten. He’s a fool and would not let me work on literally any other WIPs until I finished this one. Idea brought about because of some silly fun sandbox play :D

All those years of monk therapy bullshit did kinda pay off. Sorta. At least enough so Olly can notice when he needs to decompress before he seriously spirals out again. He’d let his staff at the bakery know he’d be at home today, and they could handle themselves alone for twenty-four hours without setting a fire. Hopefully. Probably. Fuck it they’ll be fine Lemon’s shift lead.  

After a frankly shit night of sleep, full from a big breakfast and a little stoned, the tiefling was finally steady enough to try to get his shit together. Olly steps out into his back garden, does a quick glance around the perimeter, and takes a deep breath. It’s just early enough that the spring morning still feels a little crisp, the delicate scent of bee balm and lavender from the tidy garden beds drift over on a light breeze, and the sun is already high enough to beam down in shafts through the oaks dotted around the yard. All in all, not the worst morning to have a heart to heart with yourself. Could be worse. Could be raining. Olly fiddles with the little carved wooden ring around his middle finger, flicking the spinning inside ring once and watching as it flashes bright yellow. The glow brightens for a breath before sinking into the tiny carved animal faces on the ring and puts them in stark relief against the dark brown wood, the little bee glowing the brightest of them all. Handy dandy animal friendship spell in place, he heads over to the back of the yard, plucking a handful of blooms as he goes before flopping inelegantly in front of the largest of the hives in the center of the neat little trio of bee houses along the back fence. He sighs loudly, letting all the air push out of his lungs and folding his flower-filled hands on his stomach to settle in for a long stupid emotional talk. 

 “I wanna try askin him out. Fuckin gods above do I wanna try, but I shouldn’t. Don’t wanna make him feel uncomfortable cause I decide ta try flirtin with him like some shit fer brains asshole who can’t take a hint and just be his friend,” he grumbles as he huffs loudly to himself. A small swarm of bees file out of the hive and start buzzing around him, a couple landing on the flowers on his chest and getting to work doing their bee thing. Olly smiles softly at the sight before the image of the previous night pops back into his head and he scowls. He can easily recall how his fingers had wound through long brown hair and braided it away from that stupidly pretty man’s face. All because Olly just couldn’t resist trying to take care of him after the man had backed Olly up in some dumbass bar fight. “I was pushin my fuckin luck tyin his hair back fer him and I knew it. He was kinda tipsy after all, and yeah we’d just wrapped up a bit of a scuffle at the bar so maybe he wasn’t all that tipsy after that, but he…he uh…after I fixed his hair fer ‘em he-shit-well he…he kissed my cheek and had me walk ‘im back ta his room. I bolted before he’d even closed the door all the way. Just wanted it ta be an actual date so bad so I could kiss his stupid fuckin hand goodnight or somethin and didn’t trust it not ta show of my fuckin dumbass glass head,” Olly growled low, his chest rumbling with the sound. There was an answering buzz from the hives around him and he sighed, sinking further into the thick clover below as he focused on breathing again. Another bee landed on his hand. He stopped growling. 

“Yeah if he didn’t wanna give us a go he wouldn’t be a prick about it. Put on the fuckin five-o boss man voice and all, walk me through all the feelings cause he’s good like that, put me down real gentle. Yeah sure. He’d do that. Stay friends after the pity period too. Wouldn’t be the worst outcome,” he says, wincing as he imagines how that talk would go. Might have to bite the bolt and just let that happen anyway. Get it all out in the open. Shit he didn’t wanna have to sit through that. More bees came out of the hives, slowly beginning to dart in the air above him, little yellow and black bodies humming all together. Some broke off to go into the flower beds and others stayed to investigate their prone keeper and the handful of flowers on his chest. 

“I’d feel like a dickhead tryin ta take him out if he wasn’t done processing his divorce. Not like I’m just tryin ta be his friend ta get into his pants or nothing, cause I fuckin ain’t he’s just a good person and I like hangin out with him. Fuck I don’t want him to think that’s the only reason I wanted ta be friends. We were friends before I found out about the divorce yeah but…I didn’t bring him soup or nothin before I knew about it. Fuck even worse what if he figured out he really only thought I was hot enough for a lay? He already told me he didn’t wanna rebound date, that his feelings were all mixed up and he didn’t wanna hurt me or nothin so we should start as friends. I get that. Super. I don’t wanna be a rebound. I like being his friend. I do. Fuck he’s so worth takin a risk though. We could have a seriously good thing brewin,” Olly said softly, recalling the way the man looked when he’d kissed his knuckles on impulse. He’d flushed red, shit he was cute when he got flustered, but still the man was so headstrong and funny. Hells even when he was recovering from his work injury and Olly’d practically broken into his flat he’d starting trying to tidy up. Who does that? If Olly knew more maybe he could've helped with that too, like where he liked to keep his mugs, how he organized his books, how he liked his clothes folded away, what hangs up what doesn’t. Do they do anything fancy with his uniform? He’d always looked put together the handful of times he’d dropped off a surprise lunch basket at the precinct. Would it help if Olly ironed it the night before? It hit him all at once then and he gasped, clutching his hands around the flowers and growling low, tail lashing on the ground as he sucked in another breath to try to keep himself from whining like an injured beast.  

“Fuckin shit I’d move across the fuckin mountains fer this guy! When the fuck did that happen?! When the fuck did I start thinking about this dumb fuckin crush like that? I ain’t even told him about being a fuckin bait dog! Shit on a stick and fuck me sideways I gotta pull back. Hells below he gets so soft sometimes though. Wanna make him feel safe enough to do that and know I won’t be a judgy asshole. Bring him flowers and lunch and help him unpack around his place and cook stupid little date night dinners with him and try ta get him ta dance with me after doing dishes and watch the little cousins together cause once they warm up a bit he’s fuckin good with them and he’s fun ta be around and-fuckin shit I am so lost on this guy how did I not notice!?” Olly rambled, getting louder and more angry at himself as he went, growl rumbling back to full force by the end. He took a deep breath, dropping the flowers onto his chest so he could press the heels of his palms into his eyes hard enough to see swirling colors behind the closed lids. Olly let out a long string of nonsense infernal before sighing again, slowly moving his arms back down onto his chest to avoid hurting any of the bees still darting around him. The swarm had gotten the air around him buzzing, but already bits of them were slowly filtering back into their hives now that the flowers he’d brought over had been worked over. That’s his cue. Gotta bite the bolt. Now or never.  

“I gotta get over this. Dammit I am not gonna fuck up a good thing cause’a my dumbass feelings,” he growled loudly, huffing again and rubbing his cheeks hard to try to pull himself back together. “I’m takin the day off, baking myself silly, and gettin back ta work tomorrow. No random drop in visits for at least a week. Maybe two. I gotta back off. Distract myself or somethin. Hells might be time I do another fuck me show. Always manage ta pull at least one date outta that. Fuck it if it doesn’t work at least I’m tryin somethin.”  

[misslisamiray]

Ran into some delays due to real life + this chapter being long + my brain being my worst enemy, but finally, here's Chapter 7 of Down With the Rickness! It is also up on Ao3 and ff dot net, & those links will be posted soon. Screenshot chosen for this post because at this point in the story, Rick really needs to just go back to bed (and someone should strap him to it, tbh). 😂

New chapter is below the cut!

After some quick, frantic thinking, Morty figured out a way to convince Rick to abandon his newest terrible plan. Or hoped he had, at least.

“Yeah, I guess that would be pretty silly. Oh, no. Wait a minute, Rick. Germs can’t like, communicate or even think the way we do, can they? And making them big won’t change that. So it sounds like it’d be a waste of your time either way. Too bad. Guess you should just go back to bed now, huh?” he said. Rick’s expression instantly turned crestfallen, and Morty was sure that was the end of the subject.

“Right. I was *Achoo!* forgetting all about that. You see what I mean about not being able to think straight with this cold? Thanks, Morty. Y-you really helped Grandpa dodge a bullet there. That could’ve gone really bad really fucking quick.” Rick admitted, slowly getting up from the floor. Noticing that he was a little unsteady, Morty helped him up again.

“Aww geez, you don’t have to thank me for that, Rick. It’s what I’m here for, y’know? Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.” Despite the false modesty, he was clearly proud.

“Yeah, yeah. In a minute, Morty. Help me over to my workbench first.” Rick argued, resisting Morty’s attempt to pull him back towards the house.

“Huh? Oh, sure. You need to sit down for a minute. I guess you did overexert yourself setting up that experiment. I’ve gotta say, even though it wasn’t gonna work, I’m impressed you were able to do all that so quickly when you’re feeling so poorly. I’m surprised you’re even up already – I wasn’t in the attic with Dad for long, and you were out cold when I went look for him.” Morty mused, not noticing that Rick had grabbed two beakers and a Bunsen burner.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Kinda sneezed myself awake. It was gross, but also a good reminder to myself that the sooner I do this, the sooner I’ll be done with this whole ‘being sick’ bs.” Rick replied. Before sitting at his workbench, he grabbed three test tubes of different colored liquids from the shelf above it, then placed them next to the other equipment he’d gathered. He pulled another petri dish from one of his pockets and added it to the newest assortment of things.

“Oof. That sounds unpleasant, alright. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time with this thing, Rick. But you’ll be okay soon. At least colds don’t last long. I think. Wait. The sooner you do what, exactly? Ugh. Rick, what are you doing now?” Morty said, initially sounding sympathetic and concerned, then quickly becoming weary once he processed what Rick had just said.

“I’m doing *Cough!* what you reminded me I need to do in order for this experiment to work, Morty. If I’m gonna have any chance of reasoning with these germs, I need to make ‘em sentient. Th-the most important part of this whole process, and I was forgetting all about it. It’s a good thing you’re here to help me out, Morty.”

“No! I mean, thanks I guess… But this is still an awful idea, Rick. I thought we were done with all this and you were going back to bed!” Morty wailed, watching Rick debate what to do with the liquid-filled tubes. He kept picking them up, staring at them like he’d never seen them before, then putting them back down, sometimes rearranging them. Blue, red, yellow. Yellow, blue, red. Red, yellow, blue. It was, to say the least, not remotely reassuring.

“I will once I’m done! Of course, I won’t need to then, since I’ll be cured. Now get *COUGH!* over here and finish helping me, Morty. Oh, and bring those things with you.” Rick instructed, pointing in the general direction of the experiment on the floor. Thinking he wanted the ray gun or maybe the used tissues, Morty was about to tell him no. Then he realized Rick was actually pointing at two items about a foot from the experiment - his nearly empty tissue box and the trash can from his room. While Morty retrieved the items, Rick finally decided to pour the contents of the blue tube into one of the beakers. After lighting the burner under it, he added the red liquid. It instantly started glowing.

“Here. Umm, is that what’s supposed to be happening, Rick?” Morty asked as he placed the tissue box on the table and the trash can on the floor. He eyed the glowing solution suspiciously.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. That’s fine. It’s just, just doing what it needs to do.” Rick muttered, now visibly struggling to keep his eyes open.

“I’m afraid to ask, but what exactly is the plan for this… stuff you’re making? I’m guessing it’s to add it to either the blood sample you took, or maybe one of those used tissues. And by the way, I’ll help you clean up the rest of the mess, but you’re picking those up yourself.”

Rick sniffled and wiped his runny nose before answering, “Yep. Either that or inject myself with it, then take a new sample to work with. You see, Morty, there’s potential downsides either way. If I give the entire virus sentience by injecting myself with the serum, I run the risk of it you know, trying to take over, like it’s in charge.”

“Uh-huh. Seems like a good reason to not do that. Also, even for you, that stuff doesn't look like anything you should put into your bloodstream. What happens if you only make a small sample of the virus sentient after it’s outside your body?” Morty said wearily, still closely watching the glowing beaker.

“Then I’ll definitely have the advantage of these stupid germs not trying to take me down from the inside. *COUGH!* That is, more than they already are. But there’s also a possibility they’ll attack us once they’re out in the open and several million times their original size. As much as I hate these microscopic assholes, I can’t really blame ‘em – I’d freak the fuck out too under those circumstances.” Rick continued. He grabbed another tube, this one containing a pink liquid.

“Wait, that’s what’s going to happen?! And you’re this calm about it?!” Morty asked. He didn’t know how it was possible, but this just kept getting worse.

“It could happen. It’s not necessarily going to. I mean, before I give them rational thought, the enlarged germs will basically be stupid, panicked wild animals. But so long as we react fast enough and apply the mixture the second they’re big enough to see, we should be able to avoid that. Then everything will be fine, Morty!” Rick argued, pouring the pink liquid into the second beaker.

“Okay, no. Absolutely not. We’re not doing this, Rick. I’m sorry, but none of these are acceptable risks for trying to get rid of a cold! Like I said before, it’d be different if you were seriously ill with some space disease like what you pretended to have. I’d still think your idea sounded crazy, but I’d be willing to go along with it, since, like, that might be the only way to save you. But you’re gonna be fine in a few days, and you aren’t even that sick to begin with! So let’s get all of this put away, and you please just go back to bed.” Morty protested, reaching for Rick’s current project.

“No! Fuck you, Morty! I thought you wanted to help me feel better. *Cough!* *Cough!* Clearly that was a lie.” Rick refused, leaning forward and wrapping his arms protectively around the things on the table.

“Of course I do! But none of this is going to do that, Rick. Best case scenario is you’ll just make yourself sicker. And in case you haven’t noticed, things rarely go best case scenario with you.”

“He has a point, you know. Now’s also as good a time as any to tell you, that’s not even an enlarging ray you set up over there.” the garage AI chimed in.

“Yeah, I thought that didn’t look right.” Morty agreed with a sigh, glancing over at the other part of Rick’s experiment.

“Sh-shut up! Both of you, just shut up! I’ll show you two Doubting Thomas assholes a thing or two. Just you wait.” Rick snapped, hands shaking a little as he added the yellow liquid to the pink. At least this combination didn’t start glowing, which the first mixture was still doing. It had also started flashing every few seconds. Still keeping close to the table, Rick turned his head slightly to glare at Morty smugly.

“I’m supposed to be impressed by this? You clearly don’t know what you’re doing right now, Rick.” Morty sighed.

“Hmmphh. Just you *SNIFF!* wait, Morty. Ha! It should be ready now.” Rick mumbled, watching the second mixture start to bubble. He picked it up and added some to the first concoction, careful not to look at that one for long – he’d never admit it, but the sight of the pulsing, glowing liquid had brought back the dizziness from earlier in full force.

Morty watched apprehensively. He fully expected a huge explosion, and to have to pull Rick away from it. Instead, the new solution bubbled nearly to the top of its beaker, then stopped. The flashing and glowing also finally ceased.

“Yeah! Step 1 accomplished, baby!” Rick bragged… either ignoring or oblivious to the fact that the beaker containing only the combined pink and yellow liquids was still bubbling. He started coughing again, and mumbled through it, “Ugh, and not a moment too soon. *SNIFF!* H-hang on a minute.” He grabbed another handful of tissues and blew his nose loudly. While Rick’s guard was down, Morty boldly pulled away his three blankets. Initially, Rick froze in place, unable to react to the sudden change.

Then, he whirled around furiously, yelling, “You little turd! That’s so mean! You can see I’m fr-fr-freezing, Morty! Give those back!”

“Why? You’re gonna be all better any minute now thanks to your little project there, right? Doesn’t sound like you’ll need these.” Morty taunted, backing up a few steps further from Rick.

“I won’t need them then, but I still do now! Give them back!” Rick argued, lunging towards Morty. He missed, and nearly fell over.

“Uh-uh. You want these back, come get them, bitch!”

Morty was now waving the blankets like a matador’s red cape. And like a bull (albeit a shivering, stumbling bull), Rick charged at him again. This time, he managed to make contact, knocking Morty to the floor. He fell down with him in the process, but wasn’t concerned with that.

“I said give those back!” he ordered again, trying and failing to pull the blankets away from Morty.

“I will once you go back to bed! I’ll get you every blanket in the whole damn house if you’ll just do that!” Morty yelled back, tightening his grip on the blankets. Rick thought it over for a few seconds – that was a tempting offer. Shaking his head, he instead resumed trying to pull the blankets away from Morty.

“This isn’t fair, Morty! A sneak attack, and when you know I’m not at full capacity? *COUGH!* That’s a real dick move!” he complained, swatting at Morty’s left arm and hoping that would make him lose his grip.

“It’s for your own good, Rick! And since when do you give a shit about what’s fair?!” Morty scoffed. He kicked Rick’s right leg in hopes that would knock him down. It almost worked. Rick, barely managing to keep his balance, pinched the side of Morty’s right hand hard enough to loosen his hold on the blankets.

“Ah ha! Yes! I win!” Rick exclaimed, almost entirely pulling the blankets away from Morty.

“No the fuck you don’t! This is so stupid, Rick! And it’s gonna stop now!” Morty shot back, shoving Rick backwards and pulling the blankets as forcefully as he could. Rick almost lost his hold on them, but just managed not to, also pulling with as much strength as he could manage. Refusing to let go, Morty ended up being pulled on top of Rick, who tried unsuccessfully to push him off.

“Really, Rick? How long are you planning to keep this up?! Stop fighting me when I’m only trying to help you!” Morty yelled, growing more exasperated by the second.

“Oh, yeah. Some help you are, interfering with my experiments to get rid of this damn virus, and trying to take away my one source of comfort. Great bedside manner you got there, Morty. *Cough!* *Cough!* You should be a doctor when you grow up.” Rick said sarcastically, kicking Morty off him again. Morty rolled his eyes at Rick’s dramatics for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.

“Well, I couldn’t possibly have a worse patient, now could I? And stop with the guilt tripping, because it isn’t going to work.” he replied crossly. The combination tug of war/wrestling match continued. Sick and clearly losing steam as he was, Rick was as stubborn as ever.

Ending up on top of the tussle again, he started to say, “And another thing, Morty! I, I… *AH-AH-ACHOO!*”

“Gross. Completely expected, but still, gross.” Morty sighed. At least being sneezed all over had brought the fight for the blankets to an end. And Rick, for his part, had the decency to look embarrassed. The two of them slowly sat up, the blanket pile now on the floor between them.

“S-sorry. I uh, didn’t mean to do that. I mean, it was kinda your fault, too… No. Nevermind. I’m sorry. Here you go.” Rick mumbled sheepishly, handing Morty the tissue box as a peace offering.

Morty took it and used the last of the tissues to wipe off his face, saying, “Yeah, well you’d better get used to sharing these things, since any chance of me not getting your cold just went out the window.”

“Yeah, sorry for that, too. You know, Morty, so long as my experiment works, I, I’ll do it for you, too. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to cure myself but just let you suffer. I won’t do that to you.” Rick offered. Morty was about to tell him the experiment wasn’t going to work, but it wasn’t necessary.

As if on cue, the beaker containing the bubbling liquid overflowed, tipping over in the process. It quickly ate a hole through the table, but fortunately didn’t continue through the cement floor.

Looking over his shoulder at the new mess, Rick sighed and admitted, “This isn’t, it isn’t going to work, is it?” Morty just shook his head, annoyed it had taken Rick this long to figure that out, but relieved he finally had.

“Ugh. I feel like shit, Morty.” Rick groaned, slumping forward and starting to shiver again. Morty’s expression softened a little. Yes, Rick was driving him crazy and making what should have been a minor problem into a disaster. But he was also clearly miserable, and Morty felt bad for him.

“I know you do, Rick. But it’ll be okay. You’ll see. Here.” he said gently, getting up from the floor and draping the blankets around Rick’s shoulders again. 

“Yeah, sure. I guess. If you say so.” the mad scientist mumbled, pulling them tighter around himself. Morty quickly realized that, while he’d finally managed to talk his grandfather out of his experiments, Rick was now back to his original plan of wanting to sulk on the garage floor all day. Morty wasn’t about to let him do that, either.

“It will. You just need to get some rest. Hey, if you don’t want to go back to bed, let’s go watch TV. It’ll distract you from feeling sick, and the living room’s a lot warmer, so you’ll be more comfortable. Sound good?” he offered, reaching to help Rick off the floor yet again. Rick nodded weakly. Just then, the previously stable beaker resumed flashing and glowing. This continued for a few seconds before it exploded.

“*SIGH!* Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Rick said defeatedly, grabbing onto Morty to steady himself as he stood up.

“Hey, umm, garage? Do you mind dealing with all…this?” Morty asked, gesturing to the series of messes.

“Sure, Morty. It’s not like I have anything better to do today.” the AI replied sarcastically. Several robotic arms emerged from the walls and ceiling and began to clean things and repair damage. The ones dealing with the used tissues and petri dishes wore gloves.

“I mean, you kind of… don’t? But thanks just the same.” Morty replied.

“Whatever. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. My day is going to be a breeze compared to yours.” the AI scoffed. Morty opened his mouth to argue, but quickly realized she was right. He closed the door, sincerely hoping this was the last time he’d have to drag Rick out of the garage today.

[racingtoaredlight]

How I Break Down Jazz Changes

Here’s a lead sheet for a song that every jazz musician will play thousands of times over their lives.  It’s an intermediate difficulty song featuring key changes that make it ideal to improvize over.  It’s challenging enough to stay somewhat interesting, but easy and open enough to offer virtually endless combinations.  That’s why it’s been a staple in the jazz word forever.

But what exactly are we looking at here?  How does that translate into this?

***

This is what I do in my head when I first look at a piece of new music.

I absolutely, do not, in any way whatsoever, look at this piece of music and start at the beginning.  If you look at jazz from a linear perspective, you’ll get lost before the first A section is done.  Think of this more as crossing a river with step stones...

When you walk on land, you don’t really think too much about your next steps.  You’re not really concerned about falling into a river walking down a sidewalk.  But when you’re walking on step stones, you’re looking around to where your next step is because if you misstep, you’re gonna get drenched.

Same thing in improvizing in jazz.  Improvizing in a jam band, country, blues, rock, etc setting is like walking on land.  Set it and forget it.  You don’t have to worry about getting drenched because there are no hazards.  Key changes are hazards, and jazz is chock full of em.

So what are we looking at above?

Each colored bracket is its own key.  The circle is the tonic, the arrow points to the chord I’m playing off of for the whole section, the slashes indicate where things are technically in the same key but there’s a different treatment (the highlighted portion), and the blue dots are next to chords that I will add alterations to every time.

All of this is done first glance.  The blue dots are for illustrative purposes, because at this point, I automatically add all sorts of shit to every dominant chord as standard practice.  It just sounds more interesting.

So what’s the point of this?

***

All the thought process above does is to simplify and break down a song’s harmony into something far more easily digestible.

What’s easier to improvize over?  32-34 separate chords...not thinking about how they relate to each other...going by anywhere up to 200 beats per minute?  Or thinking about four big tonal centers?

Now this isn’t the entire story...this is just getting you to the ballpark.  Once you’re in the ballpark you can get more granular...but you gotta get there first.  And by taking small bits of data, looking at them from a higher perspective, and grouping them into related categories makes data processing exponentially faster during times when you aren’t afforded the opportunity to stop and think.

***

Why does this work?

Throughout western musical history, the V and I have been linked...doesn’t matter if you’re talking Bach or Buddy Guy, not only are they linked the same, but they operate the exact same way.  The 3rd in the V chord leads chromatically to the tonic...because of that, logically, your mind will always (and I mean always) “resolve” that V to the I.

This relationship is less true of the ii (or IV) chords, which are treated as somewhat ornamental chords that support either the V or the I.  Typically ii-V-I’s cover 4 bars (in this case, AATYA goes to the Dbmaj7, which is the IV of Ab, and diatonically in the same key, being able to be treated identically)...and by condensing the harmony before hand, you can turn four bars of thought into one big one.

***

Obviously there’s more to it than this.

You can’t simply noodle around aimlessly in Ab major and expect something coherent to come of it.  But you can focus on the dominant chord for the whole part knowing that what you’re doing with that chord will naturally resolve to the I, putting you in a very advantageous position.

When I break shit down like this, and see a huge multi-bar chunk of Ab major, my brain taps into my reservoir of melodic ideas and uses whatever it grabs first.  Those ideas might be melodies built off Ab, it might be highlighting every chord in that progression, it might be adding chromatic things...

Point being, I’m not really even thinking about Ab at all at this point.  Because that reservoir isn’t related to keys, rather overarching philosophies.  Those same melodies in Ab are easily and immediately able to be played in Db major...or F...or B major.  They’re able to be transposed to minor keys.  Or the different modes.  Or I could play like three different blues scales off any of them for a different sound.

It gives your mental computer parameters by which to operate.  Much like creating a tree of various subfolders, breaking a sheet down like this makes it easier for your brain to find the shit it’s looking for beforehand.

And while I’ll legit say “from there, it doesn’t really matter what you play,” it still does.  When I say that, what I’m referring to is that it doesn’t matter what melodies you pull out of your “major” or “minor” or “blues” folder, as long as it’s from that folder.

***

This is a tested process.

Last year, I was at an after-hours jam session at a jazz club that had some legit talent show up.  I was on stage with a drummer, bassist, two saxes, a trumpet and a pianist...playing a song that I was somewhat familar with, but didn’t have memorized.

We’re all talking about what we’re going to play, but the pianist is a very nice but kinda weird guy, and his tablet was somehow stuck on this song in C# minor...a key that it might never have been played in outside of a practice room.  The rest of us all looked at each other like “uhhhh...”

But we played it in C# minor.  And I was transposing this song in my head using this exact same process...and my solo was killer.  This method is a really good way for musicians to break down tricky songs quickly, and be able to improvize over them with the least amount of obstacles in their way.  And it holds up under pressure.

It’s not rocket science...they’re really simple concepts that are easy to understand and put into place immediately.  Granted, the rest of the equation...building up that vocabulary of musical ideas to the point they’re second nature...is really fucking hard, but the basics aren’t.  You look at those chords individually and it’s going to be a more difficult time than thinking of 4 overarching tonal centers, period.

And once you understand how to operate inside those tonal centers, then all you have to do is turn your brain off and let it rip.

[oobbbear]

Wait does that mean if sun turned into his natural state he would be 400 times bigger and so definitely win the argument

Or are we saying that the sun is suddenly about the same size as the moon, but can still warm the earth and so is presumably super dense so SOMETHING is going to happen or maybe not

More theoretical, if the moon is next to the sun a lot, that either means the earth is going around both the sun AND moon, or that they are going around the earth and that means

Ok no no no no none of this makes sense I knew that when I signed up assuming y/n exists and is presumably an astronaut they shouldn't exist anyways because moon landing probably wasn't a thing because shooting a bunch of people up to a rock that talked for the purpose of putting a flag on it(him?) Doesn't sound like a good idea. So that wouldn't exist, so maybe the earth doesn't exist but then the moon wouldn't be there so no I think probably

So my conclusion is that earth just accepted that magic space stuff is a thing, and sent people up there to talk with the rock and plasma orbs in the sky and give them a laptop but why why would they do that so just I'm help me

Do sun and moon ever have an existential crisis

Like I am right now

TT

Okok first calm down my pal (;oo) ﾉ Ill try my best to answer the questions-

(This is like a, country human, or planet human kind of situation, so let’s not question why rock and gas speak English)

1- yes if sun turns into his natural state he’ll be a loooooot bigger than moon, but he won’t do that just to win over an argument, that will piss Moon off even more and their relationship might break which is the last thing Sun wants

2- no Sun is not suddenly the same size as moon, let’s throw logic outside of the window for now don’t panic

3- Y/N doesn’t exist in this au! I thought of making em the earth or an astronaut but I can’t come up with a proper way for em to interact without hating one another or worse so I just dumped that idea

4- The laptops or any other stuff doesn’t really exist irl. The two are still seen as a rock and a burning gas ball by the creature on earth. The whole au is more of a ‘if moon/sun has consciousness n’ we stuff em into a magical body and see what would happen’ situation instead of ‘100% scientifically correct’ situation cause that way the room for creativity is kinda limited

Lastly, these two not only have existential crises they also have so many other problems they need therapy-

Thank you for bringing these up, I thought of these questions before while I was brain storming the au, like why the two talk, why doesn’t sun talk to some other planets there’re like so many planets around him, or how sun touch moon and moon does get effected by it so on and so for, but in order to make this au work I have to throw some sense and logic out of the window… sorry this might not be a satisfying answer but just know that I really really appreciate your questions thank you for being curious and being interested

[anxious-art-block]

LU Headcanon’s Part 1: ‘Cause I’m Bored 

Warning: Most of this first part will be Twi centric, because I love him-

To start; Southern/Country Twi “Y’all!” “Aw, bless your heart.” “Goodness Gracious!” “I’ll see ya then if the creek don’t rise.” [Probably meeting Legend for the first time] “Well, aren't you precious?” “Quit bein’ ugly to one another!” “Wild’s back there throwin’ a hissy fit.” “Well, someone’s a bit big for his britches.” “She was just as pretty as a magnolia in May…”

!!Ambidextrous Twi!!

It was agreed upon in the discord that Twi, can indeed, growl in his Hylian form

That motherfucker YOLKED

Twi has yet to fully tell anyone except Four about Midna and the Twili Realm [He felt that he was able to tell Four about it after hearing about Shadow, and how according to Four, the feelings they felt when Shadow died are very similar to those Twi feels about Midna]

It’s canon that he’s an animal whisperer so I’m gonna assume the group has to constantly tell him to put the cute animal he picks up down cause no Twi we can’t take the squirrel with us

Refers to himself as BI-Lingual [he speaks like 3 languages and surprise! He’s bi]

Ok that’s enough Twi for now onto the rest of em’

Time is like, the walking definition of “The Brains and the Brawn’s”

We know he canonically has children, given that Twi is his descendant, ya wanna know my probably very cliche HC for his kid’s name?

Navi

Anytime he cries he calls his tears “Liquid Pride”

Time will crack his knuckles a lot when anxious or irritated 

PRETTY BOI WARRIORS 

Transman Wars! And his very supportive troops!

Most of the soldiers in the games have probably known each other for a long time, which means some of them may have known Warriors since he was a kid- and therefore before he started transitioning 

But there were no supportive people in the world, and they only ever saw him as a man. They would help him bind and scold him when he would during training [It’s bad to bind while exercising unless you have a binder that’s properly sized, but they probably had to use bandages or wraps to bind in LoZ, so it probably wasn’t a good idea to bind much while he was in the military] and when he came out AFTER joining the military to the rest of the knights, they were just as supportive and kind

And the few who weren’t were promptly removed murdered by Artemis 

The gang is also super supportive! Wild will also scold him if he binds for too long and improperly since he can hurt himself

Castle Town’s Most Eligible Bachelor

“I’ll have you that cross stitching is an excellent form of stress relief!” *Stitiching Legend is a wanker in pink*

Wars is def a great motivational speaker, I mean he’s a captain for a reason

!!A Wild Child!!

They/Them ready to cause mayhem

They have a very scratchy and rough voice, since for a while they couldn’t use it, since it went over 100 years without being used, so there will often be a lot of clearing their throat or coughing in between words or sentences

They and Prince Sidon of the Zora’s Domain totally aren’t secretly courting or anything what are u talking about they’re just gAL PALS-

Srsly tho everyone in the group knows. They can somehow hide it from most, if not all of the Domain, but they can’t hide it from these idiots

MtF Wild!

What’s a map?

“I seduced a man for some boots.”

Broke™

Wears dresses for formal events, with Flora and them matching a lot

Their favourite place to be is the Korok Forest. No monsters can get in, it’s not hauntingly silent, but there’s also not excessive or mindless chatter from others, it’s just peaceful. They’ll ask the Great Deku Tree to tell them stories about before the calamity, and long before that. If they could, they’d stay there forever.

Ok I’m done… for now ;]